by Bruce Checefsky

                  (Plain Press December 2023) Cleveland voters defeated an amendment to create a participatory budgeting process called the People’s Budget (PB CLE), allowing residents to propose and vote on city-wide and neighborhood-specific projects using money allocated to the People’s Budget Fund. Issue 38 would have allowed Cleveland residents aged 13 and over to help decide how to spend 2% of the city’s budget. This year, that amount would have been about $14 million.

                  The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections reported that 33,387 residents voted no, while 31,999 voted in favor of the issue, narrowly defeating Issue 38 at 51.06% to 49.94%. Voter turnout in Cleveland was roughly 29%.

                  Election results show PB CLE winning a majority of city wards, nine in total, compared to eight won by opponents of the charter amendment. The City Council, Mayor Justin Bibb, and labor unions did not support the proposal. A campaign to get the vote out was clouded in controversy when City Council President Blaine Griffin eventually dropped plans for a new City law that would have given him taxpayer money to oppose ballot issues like the proposed People’s Budget charter amendment.

                  Mayor Justin Bibb later issued a statement saying he opposed using taxpayer money to fund opposition to the People’s Budget.

                  Ward 17, represented by Councilman Charles Slife, serving West Park, Kamm’s Corners, and part of the Puritas neighborhoods, had the highest voter turnout, with 65% voting against the measure. Councilman Slife was elected to a four-year term in November 2021 after being appointed in 2019.

                  PB CLE Campaign Manager Molly Martin said that while the coalition lost the election, they won the campaign.

                  “I feel like the organizing community has learned a lot. We did something important by exposing the establishment of political power in Cleveland, which has held power for a very long time. They are not as untouchable as they would like to think they are,” said Martin.

                  Martin was referring to the threats used by the City Council in their opposing campaign to make budget cuts to fund Issue 38, resulting in the loss of City services like garbage collectors, firefighters, snowplow drivers, and lifeguards.

                  Councilman Slife published an editorial on the City of Cleveland webpage in September calling for voters to join him and vote no.

                  “A 2% cut to departmental budgets sounds modest. But, for example, a 2% cut to EMS would take an ambulance out of service. Are PB proponents prepared to suggest which neighborhood should lose an ambulance for yet-to-be-determined projects?”

                  Powerful corporate interests in Cleveland are the ruling class, Martin explained in a phone interview. Political leaders listen to them and often align their interests with the power structure rather than listen to citizens.

                  “People do not trust government because of politicians’ interest in power structures,” said Martin. “The People’s Budget would have amounted to what we pay annually as a city to subsidize the profits for a wealthy group of people.”

                  A narrative change is taking place in Cleveland. People’s Budget is just one part of it, she added. The momentum from Issue 38 can bring people together and forge new alignments and partnerships with other communities, groups, and organizations interested in building more popular power and calling out the corporate control of democracy.

                  “Corporate control might be a dramatic way to say it, but the backlash we experienced from people trying to gain and keep control says it all,” said Martin.

                  Cleveland artist and longtime Tremont property owner Jeffery Chiplas, who voted in favor of Issue 38, said, “Any time the people are allowed to get their hands on even a little bit of public money, it’s a good thing. Granted, people may need to be educated, supervised, and advised by their friends and neighbors, but for the public to have a voice in how their money is spent is true democracy.”

                  Carol Prusak voted against the measure, calling the proposed amendment confusing and hard to understand. Prusak lives in a home on the West side of Cleveland that has been in her family for over one hundred years.

                  “We have Council people that know what to do with the money. We elected them,” she said. “Why hand a sixteen-year-old my hard-earned tax money? I trust City Councilmen Kerry McCormack and Michael Polensek to do the right thing and support our neighborhoods.”

                  Ward 13 Councilman Kris Harsh was an early opponent of Issue 38 and, as election day grew closer, called for a public debate that took place at the Little Theatre inside the Public Auditorium. The event was live-streamed, and the auditorium was packed. Harsh said passing the amendment could force cuts to critical City services like first responders and take officers off the streets amid an ongoing labor shortage. Jonathan Welle, Executive Director of Cleveland Owns and on the debate team for PB CLE, countered that giving limited budgetary control to citizens will make the government more responsive to the needs of the people, foster civic engagement, and boost voter turnout, which has lagged in the city.

                  Issue 38 was defeated by about 2%, or 1,387 votes, with Ward 13 having the highest voter turnout and the highest margin of defeat for the PB CLE. Undervotes were at 6,121, which, if cast, could have turned the election results either way. An undervote occurs when there is no vote cast for a single-choice election. Voters have the right to undervote if they choose to do so. Unlike an overvote, a ballot will not be canceled or disqualified. An undervote can be an intentional vote, tactical voting, or unintentional because of a confusing issue.

                  “The people made a decision not to try the PB CLE proposal. They looked at what was being promised by the Issue 38 supporters and decided not to tamper with the City of Cleveland budget,” said Harsh. “There is always going to be a persistent or consistent group of anti-government people that want to point fingers and lay blame for the world existing the way it does. Local government will always bear a certain amount of that blame and finger-pointing.”

Harsh is working with Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) on a model for a civic engagement fair similar to a science fair, financed with resources from philanthropic partners, to talk to students about government spending and target voter registration for the younger generation of voters.

                  “I said from day one that this would not fly in my ward,” he said about voter turnout and the margin of defeat for PB CLE in Ward 13. “I have talked to thousands of my neighbors. I have represented them very well throughout this process.”

                  Harsh indicated a movement outside of City Council, unrelated to Council President Blaine Griffin’s attempts to persuade voters to support his position against the measure, which wanted the City to muddy the waters by proposing several different but related measures to confuse the voters. He vehemently opposed the idea.

                  “We always have a lot of work to do in this city, with social and structural inequities, but Cleveland will always succeed most when we work together,” said Harsh. “I hope people can find ways to work with their communities and local government rather than working against each other.”

                  Neither City Council President Blaine Griffin nor Ward 17 Councilman Charles Slife responded to a request for comment.