By Ed Richter, Staff Writer Updated 3:46 PM Tuesday, August 25, 2009

MIDDLETOWN — Middletown voters won’t have to worry about making a decision about the ward system or reducing the size of City Council this fall because the petition did not have enough valid signatures.

The petition that was submitted by the city of Middletown that was presented by a group of citizens seeking to reduce the size of council and elect its members at-large rather than wards did not get certified by the Butler County Board of Elections when it met Tuesday, Aug. 25.

According to elections director Betty McGary, the petition was 119 valid signatures short of the 1,137 signatures that were required.

The petition for a candidate for the 4th Ward council seat, Robert Thoroughman, was also not certified by the elections board. According to McGary, he also had insufficient signatures with only 20 signatures valid of the 50 that were required.

Thoroughman will not be able to run as a write-in candidate this fall as he did not withdraw from the race before the elections board met to certify candidate petitions.

Better get 2000 signatures next time to be on the safe side.

Actually it doesn't make much sense to maintain a ward system. With the system only one council member is held responsible for his/her ward then all the other members escape wrath,without the system ALL council members can be held responsible and ALL the people will have a voice if they happen to elect a silent member.  

Hermes- It won't happen now as the required number of signatures were not achieved, however, knowing how the folks in Ward 2 are passionate and interact with their ward rep more than the other wards do, it would have been an interesting scenario to see mostly Ward 1 or 3 residents dominate Council and then see how much attention they would have paid to Ward 2 and 4. Bet the Ward 2 and 4 folks would not have been happy campers with the lack of attention given to them by the Ward 1/3 people.

Glad to see the number reduction of Council shot down also. Fewer numbers would have made control easier for the MMF and their sponsored candidates. Now, looks like they'll have to work a little harder to gain that control with the larger number to cover.

You live in Ward 1 and you mention that absolutely nothing has been done. Ditto for Ward 3 where I live. To his credit, Marconi will answer your E-Mails and return your phone calls. He is good at that. I just question some of his decisions(or lack of decisions at times) and direction he sees for the town. He seems caught up with the rest of Council in that he tends to over analyze everything and is afraid to make a decision, resulting in nothing getting done. If what we see from Armbruster at the Council meetings is any indication of how he handles the 1st Ward, you have your answer as to why you see nothing happening. He is a non contributor as to major problems/solutions for this town and is actually wasting a seat by his inactivity. Vote out all incumbants in November. Repeat next election until totally purged. Evaluate the new regime and vote them out if no improvement is made from the current council/school board. Purge the deadwood from city hall starting with the city manager on down.    Change the leadership of the city or watch it die. It's our choice at the polls.

VietVet...I am in Ward 3 also...over by Highview school.  I have looked at the questions & answers from the candidates, and have been able to figure out who I would vote for in the other wards, but not ours...I think Marconi was the only one who answered...I have not lived here long, so any info you can give me on the others would be benificial in my decision.

Pacman