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Newly appointed Cuyahoga County Councilman Anthony Hairston.

(Andrew J. Tobias, Northeast Ohio Media Group)

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cuyahoga County Council has a new member.

Anthony T. Hairston, a 27-year-old Cleveland resident, was chosen Thursday night by committee members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. He will replace former Councilman Julian Rogers, who resigned last month to take a job with Cleveland State University.

Hairston, the leader of Cleveland's Democratic 10th Ward Club, collected 35 of 59 possible votes. He needed at least 30 to win. Carol Roe, a Cleveland Heights nurse and attorney came in second with 11 votes, and former Cleveland Heights Mayor Ed Kelley came in third with eight votes.

Hairston will represent County Council's District 10, which includes Bratenahl, East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and University Heights, plus Cleveland's 8th Ward and part of Cleveland's 10th Ward. (Scroll down to read Hairston's responses to a Democratic Party candidate questionnaire.)



He works as a liaison for Cleveland Councilman Jeff Johnson; Hairston helped manage Johnson's successful campaign against former Councilman Eugene Miller last year. Johnson attended Thursday night's meeting, wearing a Hairston campaign T-shirt.



Hairston said he owns a telecommunications company called Northeast Exclusive, and is pursuing his master's degree at Cleveland State University in labor relations and human resources. He received his undergraduate degree in business administration from Cleveland State.

"I’m ready to work," he said shortly after the votes were tallied. "I’m ready to help to continue to transform our county government and work with the people in the district to make that happen."

During a speech before voting began, Hairston said he would help leverage county resources for the cities in his district and work to restore faith in the new county government.

Hairston will face an as of yet unchosen Republican challenger in the November election, but will likely end up serving the remainder of the term, which runs through 2016, given the district’s heavily Democratic makeup.

County council is a part-time job which pays $45,000 a year. Now that Hairston has been appointed, council returns to having 11 members, eight of whom are Democrats, three of whom are Republicans.