COLUMBUS – Columbus City Hall will have a few new faces next year and voters today will decide who will be the new members of City Council and the inhabitant of the mayor’s office.
Polling places will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m
RELATED: Statewide and local issues on the ballot.
There is no incumbent candidate on the ballot for mayor for the first time since 1999, so the new mayor will be one of two Democrats. City Council President Andrew Ginther had the strongest showing in the nonpartisan primary election in May. Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott garnered enough votes to challenge him.
“My vision for Columbus is for us to become America’s opportunity city with the largest middle class of any city our size in the country and where you’re more likely to go from poverty to the middle class and beyond,” said Ginther, who wants to help neighborhoods where poverty and unemployment have lingered despite economic growth in other areas.
Scott hopes, by the time he leaves office “that we actually get our communities to the way it was back in the day, where we’re actually being communities again. If I can leave with a middle-class, building communities and our education system finally on the right track, I will go to my grave a happy guy.”
The race has been dominated by charges and counter-charges of wrongdoing. Scott has blasted Ginther for his role in a red light camera scandal and for attending an OSU football game paid for by a lobbyist while Ginther’s campaign has tried to link Scott to problems in the county jail and says he plans to take over the Columbus City Schools.
Ginther has served on the council since 2007 and boasts endorsements from the Franklin County Democratic Party and current and former Democratic officials. Among them is Mayor Michael Coleman, who was elected in 1999 and decided not to seek a fifth term.
Scott was appointed sheriff in summer 2011 and was elected to retain that title the following year.
Seats on City Council and the school board are also up for grabs in Columbus while suburbs will hold elections for municipal offices and school board as well and voters will also choose among candidates for county Municipal Courts.