Dennis Wilcox will not seek a fifth term on Cleveland Heights City Council

CH Mayor Dennis Wilcox

Cleveland Heights Mayor Dennis Wilcox has announced that he will not run for reelection in the Nov. 3 general election. Wilcox, 62, is a principal with Climaco, Wilcox, Peca, Tarantino & Garofoli Co., L.P.A., specializing in business and corporate law. He has served four consecutive four-year terms on council, and was elected president of council—mayor of Cleveland Heights—in 2014. In Cleveland Heights, city council president is elected by city council members.

Wilcox cited the need to run his law firm and the desire to spend more time with his family as the reason for his decision not to run.

“Cleveland Heights is a great city, and I have enjoyed working with our excellent city staff and my hard working colleagues on council,” he said in a press release. “I will dedicate myself to achieving goals in the next five months that council and the city have made a priority, including working to pass our additional 0.25 percent income tax in November.”

Every four years, three or four of the seven-member Cleveland Heights City Council seats are up for election. This year, in addition to Wilcox’s seat, the seats of Council Member Mary Dunbar, who has served on council since 2011, and Kahlil Seren, who was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Janine Boyd in January 2015, are up for election. Both Dunbar and Seren are running in the Nov. 3 election.

So far, three additional residents have declared their candidacy: Julie Love, a CPA and freelance writer; Keba Sylla, a Baldwin Wallace University professor; and T. Nadas, a senior project manager at the Cleveland Clinic. The filing deadline for Cleveland Heights candidates is Sept. 4.

FutureHeights and the CH-UH Chapter of the Greater Cleveland League of Women Voters (LWV) will host two forums to introduce candidates for local elections. A forum on Sept. 29 will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at John Carroll University’s Dolan Hall, and will feature candidates for University Heights City Council and the CH-UH Board of Education (BOE). An Oct. 14 forum will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Cleveland Heights Community Center and will feature candidates for BOE and Cleveland Heights City Council.

FutureHeights and the LWV will publish a Voters Guide in the October print issue of the Heights Observer, which will be available at CH and UH city halls, schools, libraries, religious institutions and local businesses, and online at www.heightsobserver.org.