Black Democrats chosen as Cuyahoga County Council's president and vice president respectively....The county executive and 11-member county council are a form of county governance approved by county voters in 2009 that replaced elected county commissioners, the elected sheriff, etc. that Black leaders like Congresswoman Fudge and then Cleveland NAACP president George Forbes opposed as allegedly anti-Black....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest,

                                     


                  Cuyahoga County President Pernel Jones, and Vice President Cheryl Stephens

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.comthe most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news sites in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Two Blacks will lead the 11-member, bipartisan Cuyahoga County Council as president and vice president respectively, County Councilman Pernel Jones chosen at council's meeting on Monday as president and Cheryl Stephens as vice president.

They are both Democrats in a 29 percent Black county that includes the majority Black major American city of Cleveland and is a Democratic stronghold.

All 11 county council seats are paid part time positions.

Jones, who owns and operates Pernel Jones and Sons Funeral Home on Cleveland's largely Black east side, replaces former president Dan Brady, who retired last year.

He was nominated by County Councilwoman Shontel Brown and was selected unanimously for the post which pays $56,000 annually compared to the $53,000 that all other county council members are paid.

Jones, Stephens and Brown, along with County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell of Cleveland and the wife of Cleveland Ward 9 city councilman Kevin Conwell, are the only Blacks on the largely Democratic county council.

Brown also chairs the county Democratic party.

Jones represents Council District 8, which includes portions of the city of Cleveland, along with Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Cuyahoga Heights and Newburgh Heights and Stephens represents Council District 10, which includes portions of Cleveland, along with East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, University Heights and Bratenahl.

Stephens is a former Cleveland Heights mayor and city council member. 

The Cuyahoga County Council is the legislative branch of the government of Cuyahoga County in Ohio. Cuyahoga, along with Summit, is one of only two of Ohio's 88 counties not governed by a three-member commission. The council and county executive position that is currently held by Democrat Armond Budish were created by means of a charter approved by the county's electorate on Nov 3, 2009, and became effective Jan 1, 2011 following an ongoing county corruption and FBI probe

That extensive public corruption probe has seen two former common pleas judges, former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora , and former county auditor Frank Russo imprisoned, among others, Russo and Dimora among more than 100 county affiliates, mainly Democratic businessmen, who have either been convicted, or have pleaded guilty to public corruption related crimes in the last decade
Cuyahoga County Executive
Armond Budish
A controversial change in county governance  replaced three county commissioners and the county elected offices, all but the still-elected common please judges and county prosecutor, with a county executive and 11-member county council.

Those appointed county offices include the sheriff, county auditor, clerk of courts, fiscal officer, and county treasurer
Black leaders and the Cleveland NAACP, led by former county commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, Congresswoman Marcia L Fudge and then Cleveland NAACP president George Forbes, a former Cleveland City Council president,  opposed the change in county governance before it was approved by voters in 2009 by a two-to-one margin. At the time they worried  that the current county governance set up disenfranchises voters and Black people,  and puts too much power in the hands of one official, a county executive, now Budish, whose office was raided by the FBI twice last year following questionable deaths of inmates in the troubled county jail. 
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.comthe most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news sites in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

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