MANSFIELD: Trying to Destroy Ward 7

Basheer Jones

 

Not long after T.J. Dow won reelection back in 2013, a recall was initiated against him and I was asked to be part of the effort. While I was disappointed with the outcome of the election and certainly didn’t want Dow representing the ward for another four years due to the horrible job he had been doing, I nonetheless declined to join the effort. I felt that mounting a recall would be so divisive that, no matter the outcome, it would do more damage to the ward than good. I also felt the ward could survive being represented by Dow for another four years and the right thing to do was to wait for the next election, which I did, and it indeed turned out to be the right call.

However, there are evidently some folks who don’t love Ward 7 as much I do, and they don’t care if they tear it apart by acting like a bunch of spoiled brats throwing temper tantrums because they didn’t get their way in the last election. And why should they love the ward when many of the disgruntled whiners don’t even reside in it?

Nonetheless, they are taking part in an effort to recall our councilman Basheer Jones without good cause, and they don’t care how much damage their childish effort — which will ultimately fail — does to the ward. That’s not their concern; for them, it’s all about personality, not performance.

A method of removing someone from office via recall was included in the city charter back in 1931, and it has rarely been used and never used successfully. The measure was enacted as a means of getting rid of an elected official whom the majority of the voters felt wasn’t properly performing the duties of the office. But that’s not what’s going on with this effort.

Fair-minded people would give the present councilman a chance before launching such an effort, but these people started their efforts to recall him the day after Jones was elected. This has nothing to do with how well or how badly he does the job; it has everything to do with their anger over the outcome of the election. These folks wanted Dow to win and now are attempting to subvert the will of the people by attempting to recall Jones.

It matters little to them — or not at all — that Basheer Jones is doing a great job as councilman. These petty people arrayed against him don’t care. They simply want the outcome they want, and what they want is for T.J. Dow to be the councilman once again. But that would be a disaster which is simply not going to happen.

Even if the clowns backing the recall effort manage to get the 676 valid signatures required to bring the issue to a vote (something which is very doubtful), Jones will be able to run in the new election which will then be held, and he’ll beat Dow by a wider margin than he did in the last election.

But will that stop this group of haters? No. The city charter allows for them to immediately mount another recall effort, which in all likelihood they will do. Why? Because they exist in an echo chamber on this issue. All they can hear are the voices and opinions of each other, the people they agree with bouncing back to them. It’s like being involved in a circle jerk.

Is Basheer Jones the perfect councilman? No, he, like anyone else, has his flaws and he is learning as he goes. But the fact is, he’s a fast learner, and on his worst day he’ll still be ten times better than Dow.

I’ve got one piece of advice for this group of losers that would destroy Ward 7: Get a life and stay out of Ward 7 business.

From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.

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