Posted by Media Release

The Cincinnati NAACP does not support Council Member Jeff Berding’s plan to create 4 districts and 5 at large seats for the City of Cincinnati.  This plan will bring no greater representation to city council but will maintain the same power structure.  The Cincinnati NAACP does endorse its own ballot initiative and has put forth its own solution to redistribute power fairly within Cincinnati City Council elections. 

Smitherman says, “ The status quo is still in shock and awe that the Cincinnati NAACP and its partners collected 15,000 signatures this summer to place Proportional Representation (PR) on the ballot.” The Cincinnati NAACP for 93 years has understood that we’ve always had elected officials like Council Member Jeff Berding that stood in the doorway of progress.  Our former President of the Cincinnati NAACP Theodore Berry was undermined by the same status quo in 1956.

The Cincinnati NAACP remains concerned with Council Member Berding’s overall public policy direction.  Berding supported building a new jail in 2007and supported cutting our health clinics by $3 million dollars.  Also, Berding just rejected a grant that could help lower infant mortality rates in the African American Community.  Council Member Berding put together the sales tax for the Paul Brown Stadium that has placed Hamilton County in financial crisis. 

Now Councilmember Berding after the Cincinnati NAACP has given voters a choice from a “winner-take-all” system to a system called Proportional Representation (PR) that elected Senator Barack Obama to nominee for President of the United States Berding says, “He has a plan.”

Smitherman says, “ The Cincinnati Branch does not support Council Member Berding’s plan and it looks like the same tactic used in 1956 when African Americans began to gain political power in Cincinnati.”

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