Cuyahoga County Council will welcome at least one new member this year as candidates vie for an open seat in the eastern suburbs currently held by Sunny Simon.
Simon isn’t seeking reelection in District 11 because she is running for judge on the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court. Three Democrats are competing in the May 5 primary for the nomination to take her place: Christine McIntosh, Shirley Smith and Ebony Spano.
Representing every corner of Cuyahoga County, the 11-member council makes decisions about county services and major projects — such as the nearly $900 million new jail — that affect Cleveland and beyond.
No candidate received enough votes from local Cuyahoga County Democratic Party executive committee members to secure the party’s endorsement, which can be influential in primaries.
Whichever Democrat wins in May will be heavily favored against Republican candidate William McLaughlin in the November general election. In 2024, Kamala Harris carried District 11 with 73% of the vote.
The district covers Euclid, Richmond Heights, Highland Heights, South Euclid, Lyndhurst and Beachwood.
Christine McIntosh
A former member of Euclid City Council, McIntosh now works as a city planner for the Cleveland suburb. She said she now aims to expand her local work countywide.
“I’m trying to increase people’s incomes by bringing programs and resources or opportunities to them,” she said. “How do we build connection amongst individuals, families, institutions to try to grow our region and uplift everybody and increase economic mobility?”
Fiscal responsibility is one of her priorities, she said. The county made budget cuts late last year and is projecting a deficit this year.
On the county’s plans to build a new $894 million jail in Garfield Heights, she said it was important to improve operations and offer resources to those leaving incarceration, too. From what she reads, the current jail’s conditions sound “pretty inhumane and deplorable,” she said.
She has support from the Plain Dealer and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne, among others.
McIntosh’s job has become an issue for her opponents. She said she hopes to continue working as a Euclid planner. (County Council is technically a part-time job.) That would mean she would have to recuse herself from council votes on contracts with that city.
“I’m hopeful that I can maintain my position,” she said. “I understand that it gets very complicated when it comes to, you know, what you’re able to work on if elected.”
McIntosh said that if she does have to give up her day job, she would find another way to stay involved in Euclid.
Shirley Smith
Smith spent 15 years in the Ohio General Assembly, serving as both a state representative and a state senator. She ran for Cuyahoga County executive in the 2014 Democratic primary, finishing behind winner Armond Budish.
Smith ran again for county executive in 2022 before dropping out. Now she is trying again to join county government.
“I just think that there’s a lot of things that people need, a lot of resources that they need that are not being provided,” she said. “And I don’t think that they have a voice speaking for them.”
Smith served for several years on the state parole board. She quit in 2019, saying the board was too favorable to prosecutors.
Asked about the proposed new jail, she said she expects that project will go forward. Her focus was on making sure the county offered the right reentry programming, helping people leaving jail obtain drivers licenses, for instance.
Rising property taxes are a top issue for her. She suggested one idea for relief: calculating tax payments based on what homeowners actually paid for their houses rather than on the appraised values.
Upending the property tax system would take time, and it might cause fiscal losses at first, she cautioned.
“If there’s a will to do it…it can be done,” she said. “I refuse to believe that it cannot be done when in this county they find money to do other things that they want to do.”
Ebony Spano
As a U.S. Navy veteran and mother of two school-age children, including one with special needs, Spano said she would bring a unique perspective to County Council.
Spano said she wants to see the completion of the proposed mental health crisis center at the former St. Vincent hospital site.
“We have a lot of projects that get started and not finished, like that wellness center and that jail,” she said. “We need to be a little bit more proactive instead of reactive.”
The jail ought to have remained in downtown Cleveland, although there is no going back from the Garfield site now, she said. Spano said she agreed with Prosecutor Michael O’Malley, who has argued that Ronayne didn’t follow the right process for moving forward with the jail.
Spano founded a nonprofit, Growing Right Over Wealth, that received $15,000 from council last year to help with background checks and CPR training so that families can become paid caregivers.
She has also run into obstacles in seeking county help. Spano has been trying to get a waiver from the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities that would allow her to receive more services for her son, Cleveland.com reported last year.
Spano touts endorsements from Richmond Heights Mayor Kim Thomas, the Cuyahoga Democratic Women’s Caucus and others. She said she has been working to get her name out in the three-person race.
“I think this is going to be a grassroots, footwork game, and luckily for me I’ve been doing the work for years,” she said.
