Your November 3 Ballot: The Ward 2A Report (Issue 2026-003)

Your November 3 ballot. When you open your ballot on November 3, you will find eight questions. One is statewide. One is our schools. Five are countywide. One is the City of Garfield Heights. Three ask you for money, and the word in front of the number decides what it costs: a renewal keeps what you already pay; an additional levy is new money.

Every figure below is from the Board of Elections’ certified list, for the owner of a $100,000 home.

Issue	What it is	Cost per $100,000
3	State — amend the Ohio Constitution to require photo ID to vote	—
6	Garfield Heights Schools — renewal, $4.1 million a year, five years	$271 (already paying)
10	County developmental disabilities — additional, 2.25 mills, ten years	$79 (new)
11	County health & human services — renewal of 4.7 mills plus an increase of 2.5, ten years	$196 (about a third new)
12	County charter — require Council to confirm the Executive’s removal of board and commission members	—
13	County charter — duties of the county Law Director and the Prosecuting Attorney	—
14	County charter — how Charter Review Commission members are appointed	—
40	Garfield Heights — four-year terms for City Council	—

Read the word before the number

Issue 6 is a renewal for our schools. Issue 10 is additional — new money. Issue 11 renews 4.7 mills for county health and human services and adds 2.5 on top. I am not telling you how to vote on any of the three; I am telling you which word is on each.

And about last November: voters in our school district approved Issue 48 on November 4, 2025 — a ten-year renewal of an existing levy, $5.35 million a year, $337 per $100,000 — after that same renewal had failed three times. Issue 6 is not that levy back again. It renews a different, older one: the $4.1 million levy the district says was first passed in 2012 and last renewed in 2016.

Asked this month: if Issue 6 is not renewed, do taxes go down? Yes — if it is never renewed, its cost (the county estimates $271 per $100,000) comes off bills starting in 2028. The school board may try again in 2027.

Dates to keep

Early in-person voting and vote-by-mail began Tuesday, October 6. Ask for a mail ballot by Tuesday, October 27, 8:30 p.m. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026 — polls are open 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. For your polling place, a sample ballot, or more information, visit the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections at boe.cuyahogacounty.gov or call 216-443-VOTE (8683).

Issue 40: I am voting No

Issue 40 asks whether all seven members of Council should serve four-year terms instead of two, starting with the November 2029 election. I served seven terms on this Council.

In 2016, Council put four-year terms on the ballot. I cast the only vote against it, and you, the voters, turned it down, 58 to 42 percent.

Here is why I would still vote No. If you get a council member who does nothing for the ward, two-year terms let you replace that member within two years. Under Issue 40, short of a recall election, that member can sit there for four.

Our kids need somewhere to go

About 6,500 children under 18 live in Garfield Heights. The city’s recreation center is an ice rink and an outdoor pool — no gym, no youth center — and both charge admission. During the June 30–July 3 Extreme Heat Warning, with the heat index up to 107°F, the county’s map listed no cooling center here. By ordinance, 6% of city income-tax proceeds go to recreation. I believe the lack of organized, affordable recreation is one factor behind the youth fights and “takeovers” we have seen this year.

What the reappraisal did to your bill

You have heard the county’s number: home values up 32 percent in the 2024 reappraisal. That is the county average. Garfield Heights was not average — our home values rose significantly more, among the largest jumps in the county. Our residential tax rate fell only from 3.55 to 3.31 percent of market value — for bills paid in 2025, the highest of the county’s 81 tax districts. By my arithmetic, a home that rose by the city average saw that bill go up roughly 40 percent.

That caused extreme hardship. I have sat at kitchen tables in this ward where families were choosing between medication, food and household necessities. In my view, a bill like that is not sustainable for families on fixed incomes, and it is costing us good neighbors and homeowners. Eviction filings in the Garfield Heights Municipal Court hit 1,289 in 2023, the most of any year since at least 2005.

The jail and our schools

The county jail campus off Transportation Boulevard sits on roughly 72 acres inside the Garfield Heights City School District. The county chose the site; County Council voted 8–3 in September 2023 to buy it for up to $38.7 million.

Ohio law exempts publicly owned property used exclusively for a public purpose from property tax.

Before the county bought it, this land paid its taxes: about $283,000 for 2023, every dollar paid, about half to our schools. Once the exemption applies, that stops. By my arithmetic, our schools’ share alone comes to more than $1 million over ten years. The Mayor has called the jail “probably the next biggest accomplishment we got.” None of the revenue he points to goes to our schools, and no payment in lieu of taxes or host-community agreement sends them a dollar.

Sources

Every figure here comes from public records — the Board of Elections, the County Fiscal Officer, the Census Bureau, the National Weather Service, the Supreme Court of Ohio, or the City’s own records. If a figure here is wrong, tell me and I will correct it in the next issue.

Download the printed issue (PDF)