There’s nothing like an old-fashioned murder conviction to win national press for Cleveland. As we told you last month, the race to fill an open City Council seat in Ward 6 is a fascinating contest between a) John Boyd, a man who spent many years in prison for murder, theft, forgery and drug trafficking, and b) Mamie Mitchell, a former county prosecutor who also happens to be a supporter of Council President Martin Sweeney, everyone’s favorite sexual harasser. Voters head to the polls today, and we know it must be a tough choice.
But no matter who wins the election, Cleveland got some great PR out of it. On Monday, The Christian Science Monitor ran a long, sympathetic article about how Boyd represents the city’s former felons who struggle to reform themselves and find honest work…
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2008.