Crimewood: Quality of Life Issues in Lakewood, Ohio

Getting on the ballot is easier than you may think.

You need to collect a minimum of 50 valid signatures from registered Lakewood voters and pay a $45 filing fee.

Petitions must be submitted by June 25, 2009. The primary election is September 8, 2009. Three at-large (city-wide) council seats are up for re-election.

You can get a petition packet from the Cuyahoga Board of Elections located at 2925 Euclid Ave., just past Cleveland State University. There is free parking in the rear of the building. The Candidate & Voter Services Department is on the second floor. They are very helpful.

Here is what the petition packet contains:

• Declaration of candidacy petition – See sample .PDF
• Standard rules governing petitions – See sample .PDF
• Lakewood election details – See sample .PDF
• Petition pre-check notice – See sample .PDF
• Application for petition – See sample .PDF
• 2009 Ohio candidate requirement guide – See sample .PDF
• Designation of treasurer form – See sample .PDF
• Candidate/petition services sheet – See sample .PDF
• Voter registration transmission form – See sample .PDF

After you meet the ballot requirements, you need to figure how you want to campaign for votes. It doesn’t need to cost a fortune, although most current city council members have happily accepted thousands of dollars in contributions.

• Master list of the names and addresses of campaign contributors PDF | EXCEL
• Master list of campaign expenditures PDF | EXCEL

Campaign Finance Reports

Mayor Edward FitzGerald – Post primary | Post general election

Mary Louise Madigan (Ward 4) – Post primary | Post general election (Unopposed)

Michael Summers (Ward 3) – Post primary | Post general election

Thomas Bullock (Ward 2) – Post primary | Post general election

Kevin Butler (Ward 1) – Post primary | Post general election

Nickie Antonio (At-Large) – Post primary | Post general election

Michael Dever (At- Large) – Post primary | Post general election

Brian Powers (At-Large) – Appointed to finish FitzGerald’s term

Here’s what Lakewood’s last at-large primary election looked like:

LAKEWOOD CITY – MEMBER OF COUNCIL-AT-LARGE

OCTOBER 4, 2005

*Top 6 candidates move to the general election

EDWARD FITZGERALD.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,722   20.87%*

MICHAEL DEVER .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,628   19.73%*

NICKIE J. ANTONIO.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,425   17.27%*

DANIEL THOMAS BRENNAN  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,244   15.08%*

TIMOTHY CARROLL  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,115   13.51%*

SUZANNE KENNEDY HORRIGAN  .  .  .  .  .       580    7.03%*

DANIEL E. SHIELDS.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       422    5.11%

RANDY WOLTERS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       116    1.41%

Here’s what Lakewood’s last at-large general election looked like:

LAKEWOOD CITY – MEMBER OF COUNCIL-AT-LARGE

November 8, 2005

*Top 3 candidates win

EDWARD FITZGERALD.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     5,788   24.09%*

MICHAEL DEVER .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     5,262   21.90%*

NICKIE J. ANTONIO.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     4,340   18.07%*

DANIEL THOMAS BRENNAN  .  .  .  .  .  .     3,579   14.90%

TIMOTHY CARROLL  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     3,233   13.46%

SUZANNE KENNEDY HORRIGAN  .  .  .  .  .     1,821   7.58%

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This is my final post on Crimewood.com. Although it has been two months since I stopped updating the crime blotter, I still periodically check out the police incident log. It is a shame the Mayor Edward FitzGerald administration is not progressive enough to realize the value to be gained by sharing that information with the public via the Internet.

Politicians will be politicians. There are a handful of them and over 50,000 of us — tax-paying law-abiding citizens. We need to demand better service. We are not doing nearly enough to make this a first-rate suburb. We’re too lazy! At the end of the day, it’s our fault that certain aspects of Lakewood are virtually indistinguishable from Cleveland.

It’s time to turn off Dancing with the Stars and tune into city council meetings. It’s time to stop anonymously posting vitriol on Internet message boards and time to drop in on a city council committee meeting and get informed. It’s time to be a better citizen. An active citizen!

Thank you for visiting this site. I expect to resume blogging somewhere else soon.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.