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Mayor Cranley Selects New Vice Mayor And Budget Chair

Jay Hanselman
/
WVXU
Cincinnati Council Member David Mann, Mayor John Cranley and Council Member Christopher Smitherman.

Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley has begun announcing leadership changes for the upcoming Cincinnati City Council.

David Mann, the city's current vice mayor, will serve as chairman of the important Budget and Finance Committee. Mann says he wanted a change.
"After four years serving as vice mayor, added to at least two in previous times, I said to myself and I said to John, 'You know, I would appreciate your considering me for the challenge of chair of the Budget and Finance Committee,'" Mann says. "With some of our budget projections, it will be truly a time of great challenge."

Mann currently chairs the Neighborhoods Committee.

Cranley has selected Christopher Smitherman to be the city's next vice mayor.

Smitherman says he looks forward to serving.

"Both men have very big agendas over the next four years and we've been talking about that," Smitherman says. "I'm very confident that the agenda that both of them are putting forward... is something that I can support."

Smitherman will continue to chair council's Law and Public Safety Committee.

Cranley is still selecting the remaining committee chairs.

"I have had initial conversations with all nine of the new council, and I'm still formulating and working with council on those issues, hopefully, in a collaborative way that we all feel pretty good about," Cranley says.

The mayor and the new city council will be sworn in Jan. 2.

Council Member Young Returns

Cincinnati Council Member Wendell Young returned to City Hall Wednesday after being absent for an extended time for a medical issue.  

Young had surgery in September for acute aortic dissection, a condition where the large blood vessel branching off the heart tears.   

He's been recovering ever since.

"It's been a long road back. I'm not 100 percent, but I'm way ahead of where I was," Young says. "I do believe that God answers prayer, and I believe that your prayers were absolutely instrumental in me making tremendous progress from where I was."

Young won re-election in November. He has served on city council since being appointed in 2010.

Jay Hanselman brings more than 10 years experience as a news anchor and reporter to 91.7 WVXU. He came to WVXU from WNKU, where he hosted the local broadcast of All Things Considered. Hanselman has been recognized for his reporting by the Kentucky AP Broadcasters Association, the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, and the Ohio AP Broadcasters.