The question of a nearly century-long change is the name of the game.

Many houses in Cleveland Heights, which is home to more than 32,000 voters, have signs on lawns urging people to vote yes or vote no on having an elected official govern the city. For 98 years, the city has had no elected official to govern it.

Instead, Cleveland Heights has a council-manager form of government. Seven part-time members have all been elected at large for four-year terms. Those council members will hire a full-time administrator (like a city manager) to carry out their policies and run the city on a daily basis. The mayor is one of the seven council members who will also be elected as president of the council.

Those who want to keep it this way say the city manager will be insulated from partisan politics.

“Our form of government according to a North Carolina study that came out this year showed us to be 57 percent less likely to suffer from any type of corruption and that’s a 20-year study,” said one city official.

However, opponents say the insulation of the city manager will ultimately lead to no accountability for the people, and only to council. They want a “strong mayor” form of government where a full-time elected mayor would serve in that chief executive role.

“We’ve had 98 years of voting for no leadership, and people are hungry for leadership here and they want accountability. That’s what they want – they want to vote for their leadership,” said another city official.

The strong mayor role is also considered a “hybrid” because it allows the mayor to hire a full-time city administrator.

“We’ll have a city administrator who runs day-to-day operations with the same qualifications as our current city manager, so really it’s the best of both worlds,” said the official.

However, other members don’t believe this to be the case and say the administrator will have a much more diminished role.

“That person would be paid much lower, most likely would come from somebody connected to the elected mayor, and would not be answerable to the city council, just solely to the elected mayor,” said a city official.

The answer to this will ultimately reside in the voters’ hands, which will be decided on Tuesday.