City Council; Ward vs. At-large members

     Okay so I know I'm a couple weeks behind on this one but we all know how crazy this time of year can be. Good news however is this post is one I've been want to write since a conversation I had with local pastor Mike Jones of Chillicothe's Agape Fellowship. Mike asked many good questions regarding Chillicothe's local government, but there was one that stood out for me. "What is the difference between a council-at-large and what you did in the 4th ward?" Many in local politics take this very important difference for granted, some cities only have one or the other we in Chillicothe are fortunate to have both.

     I have included here a picture taken from the Chillicothe website which shows the divisions of the City's Ward system. With the new council taking effect in January many of the names of council members will soon be out of date the divisions however will remain the same for several years to come. Here's the important things, each the 6 wards have their very own representative, every citizen can call on their representative when they have an issue pertaining to city ordinances operations within city government as well as any questions or requests you can think of. Now the entire City can if need be contact one of our city's three Council-at-Large representative.

     Much like the Mayor, Law director, and City Auditor, Council-at-Large positions are voted on by the entire city where as Ward positions are only voted on by their respective wards. Example I ran for election in the fourth ward against incumbent Dave Tatman. This meant that I only asked for votes in that ward, I had many friends say they would vote for me but they lived in other wards and so could not vote for or even against me. My friend Bill Betson however ran for an At-Large position, he needed votes from the entire city of Chillicothe from the first ward to the sixth ward.

     Now I mentioned how fortunate we are to have both forms of Council representative, and I will tell you why. Take a look at cities like Columbus which have only At-Large positions for City council members. That means that you could possibly have all your council representatives from the same neighborhood, when that happens council will work very hard for their own area of the city but not the rest of the city. Say though that you find a city with only representatives and now they each want what's best for their own neighborhoods but no one watches out for the city as a whole.

     Since Chillicothe has two types of council members we can balance both extremes, in an ideal setting each ward representative would work to better his ward and each At-Large member would work for the city as a whole.