Cleveland City Council introduced and approved legislation Monday night to redraw city ward boundaries and eliminate two of its 17 seats.
“Was it perfect? No,” said council President Blaine Griffin. “We gave our best effort. We did the best that we could. And we believe that we had a process that was transparent, that was fair and a process that we can all be proud of.”
The legislation passed with opposition from only two council members: Ward 12's Rebecca Maurer and Brian Kazy, who represents Ward 16, which includes the Bellaire-Puritas and West Park neighborhoods.
Voters approved a charter amendment in 2008 that requires the number of wards to be reassessed every decade based on census data. This time, city council was required to ax two seats due to population loss.
The newly approved maps have drawn accusations of gerrymandering, particularly from Maurer, whose ward, which currently includes parts of Old Brooklyn, Slavic Village, Brooklyn Centre and Tremont, will be diced into six pieces.
After the vote on Monday night, Maurer explained her opposition as acting in the interests of her constituents, particularly in Slavic Village, and against passage of the maps without any hearings in council committees.
“I have seen that happen when we are ordering new parts for a helicopter,” Maurer said, referring to less substantial legislation that still gets at least one committee hearing. “And, God help me, one day I want Slavic Village to only be in one ward and have one advocate who can come down here and push for changes on Fleet Avenue, at East 55th, in Warner Turney.”
Griffin had previously said he wanted new wards to keep neighborhoods together and use natural boundaries. He said during the press conference on Dec. 10 unveiling the new maps that that goal was imperfectly achieved and was not entirely possible because of continually changing neighborhood boundaries and ward population requirements outlined in the charter.
Each ward had to have more than 23,600 residents and less than 26,084, according to Griffin. The average map-makers aimed for was 24,800, however, there is an inequitable split between the city's East and West Side: Most of the population loss between 2010 and 2020 occurred on the city's northeast and southeast sides, while neighborhoods on the more densely populated West Side remained stable or grew.
Maurer, who ousted long-time Cleveland Councilmember Anthony Brancatelli in 2021, has periodically butted heads with city council leadership in her first term: something she said may have made her ward a target for elimination in the redistricting process.
Griffin said any ward changes were out of necessity, not animus.
“It was strictly about numbers,” he said. “This is not about advocating for any individual council member.”
Maurer isn't the only person displeased with the new maps.
On Monday, about a dozen protesters gathered for a rally opposing the new maps ahead of the council meeting. Citizens for a Better Cleveland organized the protest and criticized the new maps as gerrymandered arguing they split apart neighborhoods and targeted political rivals.
In December, dozens of Cleveland residents gathered on Shaker Square to demand that city council "fix" the proposed maps.
Those residents took issue with the community feedback process and the speed with which council moved to approve the maps ahead of the November 2025 election.
Outside City Hall, before the vote, about a dozen opponents of the map called on council to delay passage. Several were from Wards 15 and 11 on Cleveland’s West Side. They expressed concern over how the West Boulevard neighborhood was split and questioned why railroad tracks weren’t used as a natural border.
Several raised concerns about how quickly the maps were going from release to passage, with most of the time coming over the holidays, and there’s been little time to organize.
“One of the difficulties with this process is that different parts of the city are impacted and people have not had time to figure out that different parts of the city are impacted,” said Paula Furst from the Cudell neighborhood.
Several protesters called for an independent redistricting panel to draw about the next map.
The newly passed boundaries were presented to the public on Dec. 10, and were since slightly altered.
Despite the controversy and in-fighting, Griffin maintains the process was above board. Council worked with an independent consultant team on the maps, and Griffin hosted multiple public input sessions in October ahead of the maps' release.
The maps will be used in the May primary. Elections for the new wards will be held in 2025, and the new council will be seated in January 2026.
