YOUNGSTOWN — John White has ended his effort to get on the Nov. 4 ballot as an independent candidate for Youngstown mayor.

White said Tuesday he decided not to take the Mahoning County Board of Elections to court over its July 14 refusal to certify his candidacy.

White said Tuesday: “Running for mayor of Youngstown has been a burden on my family, financial health and my life. The desire to make the changes that need to be made in city government has not lessened, but at this point I’m not going to pursue it further. We desperately need new leadership, but at this time, I’m stepping away from the battle and hope to see you in four years.”

A campaign finance report White filed April 26 with the board of elections shows he loaned $9,062 to his election committee, with his largest expenditure being $8,669 to the Youngstown Letter Shop for campaign literature. On a separate finance report for 2024, White listed $5,300 in loans he gave his campaign, with $800 of it paid back.

After the elections board voted 4-0 on July 14 against White’s candidacy, Kenneth Myers, his attorney, said he would talk with his client and decide quickly whether the matter would go to the courts for an appeal.

The eligibility of White as a mayoral candidate has been in question for months – even before he filed in May as a candidate.

Asked by the board of elections for a legal opinion, Youngstown Law Director Lori Shells Simmons ruled June 27 that White wasn’t eligible because of a city charter violation.

The city charter reads: “The mayor shall be an elector and resident of the city for the five years immediately preceding the mayor’s election, and not less than 30 years of age.”

White registered to vote Feb. 5, 2021, and first voted May 4, 2021.

The board ruled the 2021 registration means White hasn’t been an elector of Youngstown for the five years immediately before this year’s election.

The board voted on July 6, 2021, that White wasn’t eligible to be a Youngstown mayoral candidate in that election based on a June 12, 2021, legal opinion from Jeff Limbian, then the city’s law director, based on his interpretation of the charter provision.

At the time, Myers objected and threatened legal action. But the matter was dropped when it was discovered White had voted in the Democratic primary after filing as an independent for mayor. Voting in a partisan primary after filing as an independent in Ohio disqualifies a candidate from running.

Instead, White’s wife, Amber, ran as a write-in candidate for mayor in 2021 and finished in third place. Running as an independent in 2023, Amber White won the 7th-Ward city council race by nine votes.

The Youngstown mayoral race on Nov. 4 will be between incumbent Democrat Jamael Tito Brown, seeking his third four-year term, and independent Derrick McDowell, founder of the Youngstown Flea.

After a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge agreed to White’s request to seal a 1989 probation violation and a 2012 case in which two felonies filed against him were subsequently dismissed, White said through James Vitullo, his attorney on those matters, that if he wasn’t allowed to run for Youngstown mayor, he planned to run next year for county commissioner.

Asked about that Tuesday, White said: “I have a few months to make that decision.”