Twenty-seven people have applied to fill vacant seat on Columbus City Council

Sheridan Hendrix, The Columbus Dispatch
·4 min read
Columbus City Hall
Columbus City Hall

Columbus City Council has released the names of 27 individuals who have applied to fill the vacant seat created by Council President Pro Tempore Elizabeth Brown's resignation, including a former City Council member and the head of the city's largest LGBTQ+ organization.

Brown announced in November that she will soon step down from her elected position to lead YWCA Columbus as the nonprofit organization's next president and CEO. She will officially begin her new role on Jan. 2.

City Council President Shannon G. Hardin laid out in a November memo that council will choose Brown's successor by early January.

As of council's noon Friday deadline for applications, 27 people had submitted resumes to the Columbus City Clerk for consideration.

“We appreciate the interest of residents and will follow the City Charter and Code to ensure a continuation of governance by Columbus City Council,” Hardin said. “Since 2023 is also an election year for Council members as we prepare to go into a new district system, I believe we should appoint an experienced caretaker to the seat who will not be a candidate in 2023.”

Who applied to fill Brown's vacancy on Columbus City Council?

One of the most notable candidates is Mitchell J. Brown, former Columbus City Council member and former head of the city and Ohio departments of public safety. Brown last year chose not to seek reelection and announced he was retiring from his council seat on Dec. 31, 2021.

"It's time for me to pass stewardship on to my colleagues," Brown told The Dispatch.

Brown was appointed to city council in January 2016 to fill the remaining two years of the term of former council member Eileen Y. Paley after she was elected to be a Franklin County Municipal Court judge. He was then elected in 2017.

Densil Porteous, executive director/CEO at Stonewall Columbus, central Ohio's largest LGBTQ+ community support organization, has also applied to the seat.

One of the candidates who might be best known from seeing his works around the Columbus area is Rick Shuster, LEGO builder and destination specialist & certified tourism ambassador with Experience Columbus, the nonprofit city tourism and visitor information center.

The other two dozen applicants include:

  • Christina Pelletier, music operations and program coordinator at Otterbein University

  • Olubunmi Adekanbi, public relations officer at NiDOA Ohio, a nonprofit Nigeria support organization

  • Patricia Duckworth, program director at Brightside Academy Ohio

  • Eli Bohnert, a commissioner on the West Scioto Area Commission

  • Kelly Lombardo-Matthews, digital marketing manager at LifeCare Alliance

  • Josh Leach

  • Larry Druggan, founder of DTV Real Estate LLC, home and commercial renovation, design and construction management

  • William Dodson

  • Kurt Looper

  • Martin Alvarado

  • Tom Price

  • Chelssy Alvarez, case manager and care coordinator at Huckleberry House

  • Hugh Butler, III

  • Charity Martin-King, director of social change at Ohio State University's Office of Student Life

  • Forrest Neuswanger, a Realtor in Upper Arlington

  • Aaron Neumann, president of the Far Northwest Coalition of Columbus

  • Lucy Gettman, principal at G&S Consulting

  • Charles Nabrit, associate consultant at PN&A, Inc.

  • Kristen Hosni, a member of the Hilliard Environmental Sustainability Commission

  • Ilhan Dahir, global governance and civilian protection expert at Stimson Center

  • Eric Duffy, director of access technology at the National Federation of the Blind Ohio

  • Angela Meddock

  • Sean Ruffin, CEO of Divinely Restored Citizens

  • Stephanie Matthews

What is city council's process for replacing Brown?

In his memo, Hardin outlined the process and timeline city council will use to appoint a new council member.

Over the next two weeks, council members will review the resumes of applicants and set up interviews with them. Each council member will submit a list of up to three finalists to the City Clerk by Dec. 21.

Council will meet on Jan. 3 to host a public hearing and hear testimony from the public about the finalists being considered. Members of the public who wish to provide testimony, either in-person or written, must be submitted by noon on Jan. 3. Council will go into an executive session after the hearing to discuss the candidates and public testimony.

At their Jan. 9 meeting, council members will officially nominate applicants for the vacancy and vote to appoint a new member. If a majority of council members vote to appoint a nominee, they will then be eligible to be sworn in under oath and take office.

Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for her Mobile Newsroom newsletter here and Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here.

shendrix@dispatch.com

@sheridan120

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: A total of 27 people applied to fill the Columbus City Council vacancy