Presumptive school board member making 3^rd recall attempt against councilman who defeated her

Richard Trojanski, Maple Heights District 6 councilman

 “An ugly, ugly, ugly situation” is how Maple Heights Mayor Annette Blackwell described the electoral machinations apparently being orchestrated by Tina Stafford-Marbury, a member of the city’s planning and zoning commission.

Stafford-Marbury apparently wants to be a major player in Maple Hts. politics. She challenged long-time District 6 councilman Richard Trojanski in 2019, losing by a margin of 54-46%. Despite the substantial margin of defeat, she paid for a recount at the Board of Elections, which confirmed her loss.

2019 was the first year a charter amendment extending council terms from two-year terms to four years went into effect for District 6. Rather than wait four years to challenge Trojanski again, Stafford-Marbury decided to try and recall him. She filed the requisite number of signatures, but the Board of Elections found less than the required number were valid, and the effort failed. She followed up with a second set of recall petitions; that attempt fizzled when she accumulated only about half as many signatures as the first time.

This year, Stafford-Marbury’s third attempt to get recall on the ballot succeeded when she was able to muster one more valid signature than required. She has filed the paperwork to succeed Trojanski if a majority of the district’s roughly 2,400 voters who show up for the special recall election vote to oust him.

That vote will take place on Tuesday, November 23, 2021.

Trojanski has won election to the District 6 council seat four times, first in 2009 and then again in 2011 and 2013. In 2015 he chose to run city-wide for council president and won, the same year Blackwell became mayor. The city was in fiscal emergency at the time and Trojanski worked in support of the mayor’s successful efforts to restore the city to financial solvency. But Maple Heights’ unique political system, under which a district councilperson has more political power than the council president, persuaded him to seek his former council seat in 2019.  

Tina Stafford-Marbury wants to be elected to the Maple Heights Board of Education. She also wants to have District 6 councilman Richard Trojanski recalled, in which case she would quit the Board [if elected] without having served a single day and replace Trojanski on City Council. 

Stafford-Marbury does not appear to have articulated any reasons for the recall, other than her apparent lust for higher office. When we called the two telephone numbers she listed as hers in public records, the woman who answered the phone declined to confirm her identity, told us we had the wrong number, and asked that we “remove this number from your files”. The other number went straight to voicemail, as did a third number, 216.800.9990, listed as the District 6 Recall Hotline. Both mailboxes were full, so we were unable to leave a message. An email request for a return call produced no response.

Trojanski called Stafford-Marbury “a sore loser” in a phone interview with The Real Deal, referencing her filing for a recount 30 days after he defeated her handily in 2019. He went on to accuse her and her husband of spreading nonsense about him. He found the allegation that he had “been in office since 1996 and done nothing while there” especially ludicrous, given that he was in high school in 1996.

Trojanski seems comfortable that the recall will fail, given his diligence as a public servant, and his near total support by the party establishment. He listed an array of elected officials who have urged voters to defeat the recall, including Blackwell, council president Ron Jackson, state Senator Kenny Yuko, state Representative Juanita Brent, newly-minted Congresswoman Shontel Brown, and former state Senator Nina Turner. Several public officials have walked the district with him, Trojanski said, as he knocked on doors and spoke with voters.

RELATED:

Trojanski beats back recall effort decisively

In an unusual twist, Tuesday’s vote will be the second time Stafford-Marbury’s name has been on District 6 ballots this month. She ran for a seat on the five-member Maple Heights Board of Education as part of a slate with two incumbents in an attempt to establish a board majority. That plan may have backfired when businessman Alonzo Blackwell, who happens to be the mayor’s husband, was recruited to run for the board. Unofficial results show that Blackwell came in second with 1,132 behind incumbent Rosalind Moore. Election night results show  1,132 votes to 1,234 votes for Stafford-Marbury garnered 1,234 votes for third place while incumbent Connie Rosemond came in fourth with 1,117 votes.

If these results hold up, Alonzo Blackwell and Stafford-Marbury will be the school board’s new members, with the latter teaming up with Moore as a minority faction. Trojanski told us there are 120 mail in ballots not included in the foregoing numbers, so it is theoretically possible that either Blackwell, Stafford-Marbury or Rosemond will be in fourth place and out of luck when the Board of Elections meets tomorrow, Monday, November 22, to certify the results. And of course, the loser could ask for a recount for which, which given the tightness of the race, they would not have to pay.

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