COMMENTARY

Cleveland's New 15-ward Maps

A mistake and a missed opportunity

At its monthly meeting on Monday evening January 6, 2025, Cleveland City Council president Blaine Griffin rushed his proposed 15-ward map to passage with only two dissenting votes. Some say the new map has fixed some redistricting errors of 10 years ago, others say it was better than the maps of 10 and 20 years ago. But for this long-time friend of Shaker Square the new map was a mistake and a missed opportunity.

Above: an enlarged segment of the final redistricting map. Ward 3 streets are shown in light blue. Source: City Council's Redistricting page

The Mistake

Shaker Square was split. The west and east sides of North and South Moreland Boulevards, in the same ward for 80 years, will be in different wards (6 and 3). These pages and others, such as Cleveland's League of Women Voters, reported the problem. Sadly, this simple "fix" wasn't made.

The Missed Opportunity

The above map shows in pink a thumb-like area that is now the northeast limit of Ward 3. It includes Shaker Square and an area that has always supported the Square: the homes and townhouses on the CHALK streets and the condominium apartment buildings on Shaker Boulevard. Its more than a thousand residents know Council President Blaine Griffin as a supporter of Shaker Square who saved it from foreclosure in 2022.

Griffin's Ward 6, which includes the Cleveland side of Larchmere, could have expanded east to the city limits to include those residents. Larchmere and Shaker Square would, at last, be in the same ward. To restore the population Ward 3 would lose by this change, shift some streets south of Buckeye Road from Ward 6 to Ward 3. That would make ward boundaries less jagged and Ward 3 more compact. In my view, that's a "win" for everyone.

Arnie Berger
January 16, 2025

Below:

Weeks after watching the January 6 City Council meeting online I sent a letter to the Plain Dealer which published it on February 12, 2025.