Pictured are Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (top right), who won a third term as mayor Tuesday night, and opponent Ken Lanci, a Cleveland businessman and multimillionaire who garnered 34 percent of the vote to Jackson's 66 percent.

(The Cleveland Urban News.Com article on Cleveland City Council races Tuesday night is coming. Stay tuned and please read the below article on Tuesday's mayoral election in Cleveland)

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson will keep his $137,000 a-year job as mayor of the largely Black major American city of some 400,000 people, easily winning a third term Tuesday night over millionaire businessman Ken Lanci.

Jackson won with 66 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan general election for Cleveland mayor and got 37, 488 votes to Lanci's 19, 336 votes, unofficial results from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections reveal.

Voter turnout was low at 21 percent, the worst turnout in 40 years, the Plain Dealer Newspaper reports.

Flanked by his wife Edwina and other family members at a victory party at Sterle's Country House Restaurant on the city's east side, Jackson, 67, was poised and diplomatic in victory. He thanked political strategist Arnold Pinkney, campaign manager Blaine Griffin and his family and supporters during his 8 minute victory speech. He was articulate in his delivery and sounded more like a visionary mayor for the first time since his election for a first four-year term in 2005.

"I want to thank the people who actually ran the campaign," the two term Black mayor said to cheers and applause. "I want to thank the people of the city of Cleveland for having confidence in me."

The mayor said that improving Cleveland requires an across-the board approach involving community stakeholders at all levels to deal with core problems that most urban centers across America like Cleveland face regularly, and he asked  "how do we institutionalize and create that infrastructure?"

He said that he fails as mayor if the city regresses under his leadership.

Jackson's message of improving the city with one of its own, himself as the leader at the helm, resonated with voters, most Black, many poor, and some still fighting a recovering national recession. And he was convincing with his political platform of a balanced budget, a successful schools levy last year to help the failing public schools that he controls under state law, more jobs, and better neighborhood safety.

"Mayor Jackson is a good mayor and the voters agreed," said Bishop Eugene Ward, an influential Black minister and pastor at Greater Love Missionary Church in Cleveland who was among about 150 supporters that joined Jackson Tuesday night at Sterle's for his acceptance speech.

An Independent turned Democrat who lost a bid for Cuyahoga County Executive in 2010 who says he prefers Italian- American to being called White, Lanci, 63, thanked his supporters, mainly community activists, at the Masonic Temple Auditorium on East 36th Street and Euclid Avenue, and he told Cleveland Urban News.Com before giving his concession speech that he quits politics. By his side Tuesday night  was his wife Linda, his adult children, and many of those with his campaign that went the long haul hoping for what they say is needed change. He was polite, but still agitated as a neophyte politician getting both the glory and the dirt that come with politicking.

"I'm not running for mayor, county executive, I'm not doing nothing," Lanci said, still upset by what he said previously was media bias in coverage leading up to the election that his campaign said favored the Jackson campaign.

Lanci said that the local mainstream media television stations, the Plain Dealer, which is Ohio's largest newspaper, and the Call and Post, a Black Cleveland  print weekly published by international boxing promoter Don King, were among the media outlets partial to Jackson.

Community Activist Michael Nelson, a Lanci supporter who owns a restaurant and party center at East 69th Street and Superior in Ward 7, said Tuesday at what Lanci supporters hoped would be a victory party, that Jackson won a third term because of community complacency.

"They don't want change," said Nelson.

Regardless of the reason for loving him, voters of a city nearly 59 percent Black gave Jackson, a Black mayor,  a re-election mandate with 66 percent of the vote.

Cleveland Attorney Michael Nelson Sr., no relation to the other Nelson and who lost a nonpartisan primary election to Jackson in 2005, getting less that 3 percent of the vote, said last night that Lanci's finish with 34 percent of the vote was not bad.

Given that Lanci has never held public office and his message was more anti-Frank Jackson than what he could really do to improve the city, Lanci made a decent showing, Attorney Nelson said.

Lanci did tout high unemployment, the failing public schools, and increasing crime. But voters wanted four more years of the popular Frank Jackson, a former assistant city prosecutor who worked his way through law school and was city council president before ousting Jane Campbell in 2005 to become mayor.

Jackson and Lanci grew up in the Cleveland ghettos on the city's eastside, Lanci, near East 55th St in Woodland, and  Jackson, near E. 39th and Carnegie Avenue near where he lives now in a moderate home with his wife and family.

Lanci is a poor boy turned multimillionaire, and though he gives millions to the city schools, tax breaks included, he could not convince voters that moving to the suburbs and then back into Cleveland just last year makes him a homie for purposes of becoming mayor in the territorial Black city.

Both campaigns spent in excess of half a million dollars, some saying that Lanci, a local graphics and printing company guru who funded over 90 percent of his campaign with his own money, should have saved his money.

Newly elected Cleveland Municipal Court Judge

Ed Wade and Cleveland Judge Marilyn Cassidy.

Wade won election to the bench Tuesday night in a crowded field and Cassidy retained her seat against Attorney Anthony Jordan, a former Cleveland chief city prosecutor

By Kathy Wray Coleman(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Reach us by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com

CLEVELAND and EAST CLEVELAND, OHIO- In the two Cleveland Municipal Court races relative to Tuesday's election incumbent Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Marilyn Cassidy retained her seat against Attorney Anthony Jordan, a former chief city prosecutor, and Ed Wade won the other Cleveland judgeship up for grabs in a crowded field of six that also include former common pleas judge Annette Garner Butler, former Cleveland judge Jazmine Torres-Lugo, Scott Roger Hurley, Ruben Pope and Michael Winston.

In East Cleveland, a neighboring majority Black impoverished suburb of Cleveland, Councilman Nate Martin kept his seat and Brandon King won election Tuesday night to the other at large seat.

Thomas Wheeler beat out community activists Ernie Smith and Vidah Saeed to take East Cleveland's Ward 3 seat left vacant after Councilwoman Chantell Lewis opted not to seek reelection.

King and Wheeler were endorsed by East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton

From the Metro Desk of 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- The nonpartisan election for Cleveland mayor is down to the wire with voters set to make a choice at the ballot box on Tuesday, Nov. 5 on whether to retain two term incumbent Mayor Frank Jackson, 67, or to replace him with millionaire businessman Ken Lanci, 63.

Also up for grabs are 17 Cleveland City Council seats, each for four-year terms and an annual salary of $74,000.

The polls open at 6:30 am and close promptly at 7:30 pm, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections officials said earlier today. Cleveland, which is about 58 percent Black,  is one of many municipalities in Cuyahoga County with elections on Tuesday, and is probably the most watched because of its high profile mayoral race, and the city council races.

"We are going to keep moving the city forward," said Jackson at a get-out-the-vote campaign rally outside of the the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Saturday afternoon in downtown Cleveland.

A former city council president who ousted one-term Democratic mayor Jane Campbell in 2005 to gain the powerful mayoral seat, Jackson is  paid roughly $137,000 annually, the fourth highest paid mayor in Ohio next to Michael Coleman in Columbus,  Donald Plusquellic in Akron, and Dennis Clough of Westlake.

Clough is a Republican and Coleman, Plusquellic and Jackson are all Democrats, though wannabe mayor Ken Lanci is an Independent turned Democrat who lost a race for Cuyahoga County executive in 2010, a campaign he funded primarily with a million dollars he put up himself.

A boy poor who grew up in the ghetto on Cleveland's east side just as Jackson did Lanci, who owns and operates a prosperous printing and graphics corporation on the city's east side, says the city is losing ground under Jackson.

"The city is moving backwards," Lanci said as a special guest hosting the 2-hour-long Art McKoy University Show of Common Sense  Show Sunday night, a weekly radio talk radio program on Cleveland radio WERE 1490 produced by community activist and Black on Black Crime founder Art McKoy, a Lanci supporter.

Jackson, who is Black and part of the old Black Guard of political power brokers, has the support of Black clergy and seasoned greater Cleveland Black leaders like political strategist Arnold Pinkney, who is among those nearly 80 year-old or better who are still around from electing Carl Stokes the first Black mayor of the largely Black major metropolitan city in 1967. Among others, he also enjoys support from Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, the Call and Post and Plain Dealer newspapers, and city council, which will next year shrink from 19 members to 17 members after Tuesday's election outcome per a voter adopted charter amendment.

Jackson paints Lanci as a carpetbagger who left Cleveland years ago and moved  back to the city just this year to run for mayor.

Lanci has community activists staunchly in his corner, and those tired of Jackson and drained by his laid back style of leadership. And he is endorsed by the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, the union that represents the rank and file of Cleveland police that can't get along with Jackson and the city lawyers that union leaders say have no respect for the collective bargaining agreement .

The enthusiasm around the mayoral race is noticeable, Black elected officials said.

"You're going to have an exciting race with an incumbent mayor and a millionaire," said Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell at a rally for the mayor Saturday.

A former assistant county prosecutor, Mitchell faces precinct committeemen and social worker John Boyd on Tuesday, though the closely watched Cleveland City Council races on the city's east side of town are incumbent Ward 7 Councilman TJ  Dow and Basheer Jones, and the showdown between Councilmen Jeff Johnson and Eugene Miller on who will lead the new Ward 10, a ward carved by Council President Martin Sweeney from a controversial redistricting plan that reduced city council by two seats and pits Jeff Johnson and Miller against each other.

Ward 14 Councilman Brian Cummins, a member of the Green Party,  is probably the only one of the majority White west side city council incumbents that has anything to worry about, and he will likely win, political pundits have said. He faces Brian Kazy.

Harriet Applegate executive director of the North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor Federation told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper, that Jackson has been a good mayor who will lift the city out of poverty and that Lanci is  a "union buster."

Lanci said that unemployment has increased under Jackson and that the city's public schools that he leads per state law are worse now that when he won his first term for mayor nearly eight years ago.

Not everyone agrees that Jackson should lose his job, and whether they do or not, Lanci is loved by local community activists wanting a change who usually back the underdog for Cleveland mayor, and he is the preferred candidate of some voters that favor term limits, something not applicable to either the mayor or city council offices because the Cleveland city charter has no term limits.

"We are pleased that the establishment knows that we have supported a candidate with credibility who is waging an effective campaign against the establishment," said Black on Black Crime Vice President Al Porter, who is among a host of greater Cleveland community activists waging a grassroots campaign against Jackson and his campaign manager Blaine Griffin.

Griffin is on leave from his $87,000-a-year job as director of the city's  Community Relations Board to lead the mayor's well-funded campaign for reelection.

While Jackson has corporate and big business support, Lanci has his corporate money too.

Both campaigns  reported spending in excess of $500,000 last reporting period, though Jackson got heavy donation from banks, and medical facilities like Medical Mutual of Ohio and Lanci got small donations of less that $8,000 combined from private donors and has primarily funded his campaign with his own money.

The mayoral election, some say, pits a popular and stable Black incumbent mayor against a charming multimillionaire with fresh ideas for leading the largely Black city of some 400,000 people.

Lanci, who says he prefers to say he is Italian- American rather than White, said Sunday that race is a factor in the election and that some voters are backing Jackson because Jackson is Black and he is White.

He said that if he wins as mayor he will oust all of Jackson's cabinet members, including chief of staff Ken Silliman, and safety director Martin Flask.

"Ken Silliman will be the first to go," Lanci said.

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio- In her first highly publicized appearance since rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro hanged himself with a bed sheet from his prison cell at a southern Ohio prison Michelle Knight, 32, whom Castro held captive for a decade along with Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry at his since demolished home on  Seymour Avenue on Cleveland's predominantly White west side, will sit down for an interview with psychologist Phil McGraw (pictured) on the popular syndicated NBC television show "Dr. Phil." The highly anticipated episodes will air at 5 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 5-6, on WKYC Channel 3.

Knight canceled a previously schedule appearance to speak Tuesday night with a cadre of some 15 other speakers at a 4th anniversary rally and vigil to remember the 11 Black women slain by since convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell at the site of his since demolished home on the city's largely Black east side. Sowell sits on death row as his convictions on 82 counts, including rape, aggravated murder and kidnapping, are on appeal before the Ohio Supreme Court.

In an email to community activist Kathy Wray Coleman, a key organizer of Tuesday's rally and vigil who leads the the Imperial Women Activist Group, a women's advocacy organization in Cleveland, Ohio, Knight's attorney, Peggy Foley- Jones, told Coleman that Knight had to cancel at the last minute but that she hopes to reschedule a meeting with Knight at another community activist forum in Cleveland around the unprecedented issue of violence against women.

Coleman said that her group supports Knight and commends her for rising above the throngs of serial rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro to become a spokesperson for young women across America victimized by violence.

"We could not compete obviously with Dr. Phil, but we applaud both Dr. Phil and Ms. Knight in highlighting the epidemic of violence against women in greater Cleveland and across the nation," said Coleman. "We invite Dr. Phil to Cleveland and look forward to a potential town hall forum here with Michelle since her attorney said that she would likely reschedule with us.  We are glad that Michelle is exposing some of what happened on Seymour Avenue and we urge Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry to speak out too, if at all possible."

Castro,53 , was found lifeless in his prison cell just over a month after Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Joe Russo, on August 1, sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In exchange for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty lifting the death penalty from consideration, he pleaded guilty to 937 counts, including the rape and kidnapping  of Knight, DeJesus, and Berry, and the murder of Knight's unborn fetus.

A fired Cleveland schools bus driver and abusive widower with two grown children, Castro, allegedly hanged himself at the Correctional Reception Center in  Orient, Ohio. He was reportedly found hanged in his cell at about 9:20 pm when correction officers' staff were making rounds and  was pronounced dead an hour and a half after he was transported to a nearby hospital.