Meanwhile, Cleveland votes in 5 weeks

Seems like all the political action's been at the county this year, thanks to the corruption investigation, Medical Mart, and dueling reform plans. But Cleveland's primary election is only 35 days away, and it's just starting to attract attention.

City voters will narrow down the mayor's race to two candidates on Sept. 8, and eight of the city's 19 wards will have city council primaries.

That day, we'll find out which challenger will survive to take on Frank Jackson in November, and the size of the Jackson and anti-Jackson vote totals. (I simply cannot imagine a late-breaking scandal so ruinous that it could knock the mayor out of finishing first or second.)

Here are the websites of the candidates running against Jackson: Bill Patmon, Laverne Jones Gore, Kimberly Brown, and Robert Kilo. My money is on Patmon to make it through the primary. His 12 years on city council give him some name recognition and the best credentials in the race. (He's also tweeting.)

For the city council races, the best source is Plain Dealer reporter Henry Gomez's Inside Cleveland City Hall blog. Though little of his reporting has made the paper's print edition, Gomez is working hard covering those eight primaries. Here's a complete set of links to his coverage so far. (And here's a ward map, if it helps you follow along. The wards with a primary are 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 14 and 18.)

The most intense race is in Ward 14, where councilmen Joe Santiago and Brian Cummins are running against each other thanks to redistricting, and a former councilman, Nelson Cintron, is trying to make a comeback. The near West Side ward includes Clark-Fulton, a neighborhood with a lot of Hispanic residents. Cummins hopes Santiago is weakened by the controversies during his term on council: he supported bars that people living nearby wanted shut down. Cintron, whom Santiago unseated in 2005, joined in the recall effort against his archrival two years ago.

The strangest race is in Ward 6, a weirdly gerrymandered East Side ward that includes the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood. Incumbent Mamie Mitchell is trying to fend off four challengers, a couple of whom have rap sheets. Her feistiest challenger is John Boyd, who murdered a man while robbing a gambling house in 1973, when he was 16. She defeated him in a special election last year. Another challenger, Alvin Thompson, was convicted of gross sexual imposition involving his ex-wife in 1999. He says he didn't do it, and showed Plain Dealer reporters a doctor's note suggesting he was impotent and thus incapable of the crime.

The most dramatic comeback attempt is in Glenville's Ward 8, where former state senator and city councilman Jeff Johnson is trying to return to politics 10 years after going to prison on an extortion conviction. He's one of three candidates challenging Shari Cloud, who was appointed to the council seat a few months ago, when Sabra Pierce Scott resigned. She'll have support from council president Martin Sweeney. Roldo Bartimole recently wrote about his memories of Johnson and suggested he could add "sparkle" and "vision" to city council.

Speaking of big personalities, Zack Reed is running in a new ward -- Ward 2 in the city's southeast -- trying to stay on council even though his old ward got sliced up in redistricting. Six others want the job too. It's an open seat, because former councilman Robert White was convicted of bribery, and the guy appointed to replace him, Nathaniel Wilkes, isn't running. Wilkes won't endorse Reed, which will help keep the race competitive.

Lots of people want to represent South Collinwood's Ward 10. Former state Rep. Eugene Miller, who was appointed when Roosevelt Coats resigned this year, faces six challengers. Longtime councilman Ken Johnson and council president Martin Sweeney each face two opponents, and one-term incumbent Phyllis Cleveland has three.

Two Cleveland council members resign -- why?

Sabra Pierce Scott and Roosevelt Coats resigned from Cleveland city council yesterday, surprising their colleagues -- and the press. "WTF?" a journalist-friend wrote me this morning.

Coats' move makes the most sense. He's represented South Collinwood for 21 years, and now he's going to run for the Ohio House. It's a seat-switch with state Rep. Eugene Miller, whom Coats will recommend to replace him on council. Coats has tried to move up before -- he ran for county recorder in 1998 and lost to Pat O'Malley -- so this is a good chance for him to advance.

Pierce Scott's decision is the surprise. Not so much the timing, because by leaving at the end of April, she can recommend a successor who'll be the incumbent in the fall council elections. (She's tapping Shari Cloud, executive director of Sankofa Fine Art Plus, the Glenville-based arts organization.) Pierce Scott, a former aide to two city council presidents, was elected in 2001 (here's my article about that race), represented Glenville for two terms, and became council's majority leader, president Martin Sweeney's second-in-command. I interviewed her a few times, and she seemed pretty sharp.

I wonder if this article by Dan Harkins of Scene might help explain. Former state Sen. Jeff Johnson is thinking of running for Pierce Scott's seat this fall. It would've made for a tough campaign -- and with her out of the race, Johnson could be the front-runner, despite his 1998 felony conviction for extorting campaign contributions. (Click here to read Ian Hoffman's Dec. 2007 Cleveland Magazine article on Johnson.)