Pictured from top are East Cleveland City Council President Dr. Joy Jordan, George L. Forbes, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and East Cleveland City Councilman Mansell Baker

"The members of East Cleveland City Council are against any proposed merger, the citizens of East Cleveland need an East Cleveland City Council to represent them, and we intend to keep the autonomy or independence of our city to protect the best interests of our community," ....Quote by East Cleveland City Council President Dr. Joy Jordan in the article below

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio-All five members of East Cleveland City council, including outgoing council president Dr. Joy Jordan

, are voicing opposition to a controversial proposal by former Cleveland NAACP  President George Forbes, also general counsel for the Call and Post Newspaper, and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to merge the city of East Cleveland with neighboring Cleveland. (Editor's Note: A meeting on the proposed annexation will be held today, November 24, at 6 pm at Community Temple Lord and Christ Church, 1740 Hayden Avenue in East Cleveland, Tel: 216-249-5949)

The first suburb of Cleveland with a per capita income of roughly 15,000, East Cleveland is city of some 18,000 mainly Black people, and Cleveland is a majority Black major American city of nearly 400,000 people. Both cities have colorful politicians with a passion for the city they love, and any merger will not become a reality without a fight, say Black leaders of East Cleveland, aside from East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton, who supports a merger.

In order to materialize voters in both municipalities must approve the annexation proposal, if and when it becomes an official measure placed on the ballot.

"The members of East Cleveland City Council are against any proposed merger, the citizens of East Cleveland need an East Cleveland City Council to represent them, and we intend to keep the autonomy or independence of our city to protect the best interests of our community," said Jordan, a Cleveland area dentist who chose to forgo reelection to her at large city council seat and  lost an election this year to  Norton, a former East Cleveland city councilman who won a second four-year mayoral term in November.

Jordan said that Cleveland officials have less respect for unions and the collective bargaining agreements they want compliance with. And she said the Cleveland Municipal School District is worse than East Cleveland schools in terms of educational outcomes.

"Some of the things they do to unions in Cleveland, we do not want to happen in East Cleveland, like undermining workers rights," Jordan told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leading digital Black newspaper. "And as a former 14-year school board member I certainly do not want our school system merged with Cleveland schools because we are ranked higher on the report cards, standardized tests, and other assessment measures by the Ohio State Department of Education."

Both largely Black and impoverished school districts rank in the bottom quartile on state mandated standardized testing, partly because of a state devised unconstitutional public school funding formula.

East Cleveland usually ranks second to last, and Cleveland, dead last, public records show.

Forbes and Jackson argue that East Cleveland is in debt and a merger will heighten the population in Cleveland while rescuing East Cleveland from poverty, though Cleveland ranks 10th by Forbes Magazine among cities nationwide on crime.

How much debt the city of East Cleveland has is debatable, some officials claiming a $6 million shortfall, and  other public figures in between $2 million and $4 million.

"The East Cleveland City Council is against the merger, all five of us," said Councilman Baker at a Black on Black Crime meeting Wednesday night.

Though Forbes, a former Cleveland City Council president who lost a race for Cleveland mayor against Michael R. White more than two decades ago, is no longer an elected official, and neither does he lead the local NAACP, he still has influence, and he owns several homes and other real estate in East Cleveland, data show.

East Cleveland Community Activist Art McKoy, a founding member of Black on Black Crime Inc., said that it does not matter what he thinks about the proposal because it is a done deal.

"They sold out on this issue long ago," said McKoy, though voters must still approve any annexation measure if and when it is brought before them.

Activist Al Porter, a Clevelander and the vice president of Black on Black Crime, said that he is against the proposed merger and that community activists will fight to save East Cleveland.

"I'm against any merger and we will fight it," Porter told Cleveland Urban News.Com. www.clevelandurbannews.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Community activists and family members of Davida Burns (pictured), 42, whose murdered body was found in a home on Cleveland's east side after a 911 call brought firefighters there late last week, will hold a vigil tonight, Nov 22, 2013, at 7:30 pm, at 3970 East 121st Street in Cleveland.(Contacts are Art McKoy at 216-253-4070, Judy Martin at 216-990-0679, and Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-659-0473)

The Cuyahoga County coroner has determined her death a homicide and said she died of blunt force injuries to the head and brain. Cleveland police responded to a fire in the upstairs bedroom at the home where tonight's  vigil will be held and said they found Burn's body in the basement. Her assailant is still at large and police have no suspects to date.

She leaves behind seven children, some of them grown.

"There is an epidemic of rape and murder of women in Cleveland and we call for additional resources and more police and detectives on the streets to address this community problem," said Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Imperial Women Activists Group. "Something has got to give and Black women are disproportionately raped and murdered in Cleveland in large numbers and nothing of significance is being done about it."

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black news venues (www.clevelandurbannews.com)Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper, remembers the late United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy as the 50th anniversary of his unprecedented assassination approaches.

A year after his death, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Often referred to as "Jack," JFK was the 35th president of the United States of America and served from January 1961 until his untimely death. He died from a gunshot wound to the head while riding in a motorcade during a parade in Dallas, Texas, and at the hands of infamous assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, who was later killed himself.

A Democrat and former Massachusetts senator, he defeated then Vice President Richard Nixon to take the presidency in 1960. He was the last Democrat to lose Ohio and go on to win the presidency.

JFK was a brother of former U.S. senators Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, both deceased, with Robert Kennedy assassinated too.

His presidential successor was Lyndon B. Johnson, his vice president at his death.

Among a grieving America and international mourners across the world , JFK left to cherish his legacy, his wife Jacqueline, who later remarried,  and two children,  Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, now an ambassador to Japan, is the only surviving  immediate family member.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in 1994  at the age of 64 and JFK Jr. died when the private airplane that he was piloting, his plane in fact, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 1999. They were in route to a family wedding at Martha's Vinyard. His wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were passengers on the airplane and died too.

A champion of Civil Rights,  Black leaders at the time of his death called his assassination, "a dark day in the history of America."

CLEVELAND,Ohio- Cleveland Urban News.Com News Brief www.clevelandurbannews.com, and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com By Kathy Wray Coleman, publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND,Ohio-Greater Cleveland community activists groups will meet  on three separate occasions this week beginning today with Bill of Rights Defense Committee Field Organizer George Friday (pictured) for pointers on community organizing in the wake of abandoned homes where women have been found raped and murdered in large numbers,  rampant foreclosure impropriety,  and violence against women and nothing being done about it. Also at issue are police murders of unarmed people, inequities in the legal system and discrimination against minority contractors.