After a month-long wait, the winner of the Ward 1 City Council Race has finally been determined. Jessica Fenos, 40, has been named as the next Council Representative of Ward 1. The official tally showed that she beat 20-year-old Anton Krieger by two votes.
The unofficial count released by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on the November 5 elections showed Fenos at 617 and Krieger at 615. At that point, the Board processes the initial votes and adds provisional ballots and other mail-in ballots, which then become the official count. At that point, the Ward 1 race showed Fenos with 625, 50.12 percent of the votes, and Krieger at 622, or 49.88 percent of the votes. On November 26, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections reported that an automatic recount of the November 5 election would take place for the Ward 1 race. By law, if the difference between votes is one half of one percent, an automatic recount then takes place. Since the Ward 1 City Council race count fell into that category, the winner of that seat was still in question.
The recount was then scheduled to begin on Monday, December 2, at 9:30 a.m. The recount confirmed that the count was correct and Fenos won the Ward 1 seat with 625 votes over Krieger at 622 votes.
Fenos is happy that the results are in and that it was her desired result. “It was a very long month, I will tell you that. It was like living election night every single day, especially when it got to the point where they certified the result. It was a very long, exhausting process.”
When asked about her direction for Ward 1, she noted that “there are a lot of things I would like to pursue: the stormwater management issues and trying to improve the appearance of certain parts of Ward 1 – not just Ward 1, but the city as a whole. There’s going to be the focus on a lot of the obvious things that were talked about during the election and even before that. There’s not a shortage of things to focus on.”
Fenos is a Planner for the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, where she has served since 2008. She is a 2007 graduate of Cleveland State University, where she holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Studies. Fenos is currently a member of the city’s Planning Commission since 2017. At this point, it is not known if she will remain in that position.
I think both roles are important. I think that being council rep would allow me to expand on my ability to help the residents in our ward with the things that they need, as well as the city as a whole. The Planning Commission is a very important job. I feel I could do more for the ward and the city in this new role. I’m confident that if I’m not on Planning, that whoever fills that spot will do the job.”
By GLORIA PLEVA KACIK
Contributing Writer