Photo By Natalie Hager

Mitch Painter plants a sign.

Hey -- don't forget to check out www.citybeat.com. CityBeat will have reactions from the winning and losing candidates, supporters and opponents of ballot initiatives and interested observers -- plus lots of photos.

Photo By Natalie Hager

On Election Day, together at last (L-R) Melissa McVay, backing Democratic Councilman Jeff Berding; Republican Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz; Charterite Councilman Chris Bortz; and Charter Committee President Michael Goldman.

The 2007 election campaign has been one of the strangest Greater Cincinnati has seen in recent years.

Photo By Natalie Hager

Pat Fischer and his wife after voting.

Usually dominated by the race for Cincinnati City Council, this time the odd-year race included a controversial county issue -- a sales tax for a new jail -- that also attracted lots of attention. If, as many observers often claim, voters want cooperation between partisan foes, they got the opportunity to make it official Nov. 6.

On the jail tax (Issue 27), voters had to pick between two sides that featured unusual political alliances. In favor of the tax was ultraconservative icon Sheriff Simon Leis Jr., working in close collaboration with the local progressive standard-bearer, County Commissioner Todd Portune. Working against them was an ad hoc coalition of progressives who favor treatment programs over incarceration as a crime-reduction strategy, joining forces with anti-tax conservatives.

Photo By Natalie Hager

On a cold Election Day morning, city council candidate Melanie Bates hands out literature.

In the race for city council, a liberal Democrat, Greg Harris, similarly made common cause with a Republican conservative, John Eby. But that was just one of the anomalies in the biennial council campaign:

Photo By Joe Lamb

Chris Nealms, candidate for the Cincinnati Board of Education, prepares to cast his ballot. Nealms was one of four candidates for three seats on the school board. With only one incumbent seeking re-election, the board was guaranteed to have at least two new members.

· Four former council members were among the 25 candidates vying for nine seats on council: Sam Malone, ousted by voters two years ago after being arrested for domestic violence (he was later acquitted), and three officeholders displaced by council term limits -- the Rev. Charlie Winburn, a Republican; Minette Cooper, a Democrat; and former Mayor Roxanne Qualls, formerly one of the Democrats' strongest vote-getters who ran this time as a member of the Charter Committee.

Photo By Joe Lamb

Former Hamilton county Recorder Eve Bolton (center, above) waits at a polling station to cast her vote. Bolton ran for Cincinnati School Board.

· Following a record-setting year for homicides in Cincinnati, one well-known survivor made a big splash early in the season only to recede as the campaign reached its end. After her husband was gunned down in front of his own home -- a crime that shocked the city -- Melanie Bates, a member of the Cincinnati Board of Education, decided to run for city council. Backed by the Charter Committee, Bates' campaign was unable to sustain the interest it generated at the start.

Photo By Natalie Hager

Ghiz, George Zamary, Goldman, Bortz and Jonathan Colasurd work the polls.

· Brian Garry, who made his mark in demonstrations and civil disobedience in the manner of his mentor, the late Rev. Maurice McCrackin, surprised many by winning the Democratic Party's endorsement, with support from prominent party leaders. But the mainstream has a way of washing away the very characteristics that give a candidate name recognition to begin with. Garry thus succeeded in the curious exercise of expunging his arrest for assaulting a police horse -- a charge for which he'd already been acquitted.

Photo By Joe Lamb

Michael Flannery seemed somber as he waited to vote.

Cincinnati Public Schools faced a vexing combination of a large tax levy, the loss of two incumbent board members who chose not to seek re-election and the need to hire a new superintendent. Winners of the three open seats -- at least two of whom will be newcomers -- are certain to have a busy term.

For a full report on the Nov. 6 election results, check out www.citybeat.com. CityBeat will have reactions from the winning and losing candidates, supporters and opponents of ballot initiatives and interested observers -- plus lots of photos. ©