Special prosecutor asks Ohio Supreme Court to suspend Cincinnati City Councilman Wendell Young
A special prosecutor asked the Ohio Supreme Court earlier this week to initiate suspension proceedings against Cincinnati City Councilman Wendell Young following his felony indictment. By Jennifer Edwards Baker | May 12, 2021 at 2:22 PM EDT - Updated May 12 at 5:15 PM
CINCINNATI (FOX19) - A special prosecutor tells FOX19 NOW he has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to initiate suspension proceedings against Cincinnati City Councilman Wendell Young following his felony indictment.
âYou have an elected official who committed a felony. Itâs just appropriate he be suspended,â Patrick Hanley told FOX19 NOW last month when he first told us he planned to seek the suspension.
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Cincinnati Council Member Betsy Sundermann is seeking a suspension for fellow member Wendell Young. The process is possible under a charter amendment voters approved Tuesday, which Sundermann had proposed be put on the ballot.
The measure gives council the authority to suspend a member indicted on felony charges related to their job on council.
Last month, a special prosecutor charged Young, a Democrat, with tampering with records related to the Gang of Five text messaging case from 2018. Sundermann says it s exactly the kind of situation her charter amendment is for. How could we not do this right after people voted for it yesterday? Sundermann said. If we don t do it, I think we would have to explain to 77% of the voters why we re not following through with what they wanted.
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Cincinnati City Council on Wednesday started spending the $309 million in stimulus money coming to the city – even though the city doesn t actually get the money until next week, and the federal government hasn t yet issued final guidelines for how it s allowed to be spent.
Who ll get the money? Restaurants, arts groups, social service agencies. By far the biggest chunk will go to the city government itself to help make up for tax revenues lost during the pandemic.
The stimulus amount was initially projected to be about $291 million, but the city is set to get another $18 million on top of that to divide equally between housing and health care.
Cincinnati is getting more in federal stimulus than initially expected, but estimated budget deficits have also increased. The Budget and Finance Committee