- The most discussed item on Thursday was the introduction of legislation by Ms. Shaw to create a law mandating the wearing of masks in Stow that would be enforced by Summit County Health Department. In Ohio, Governor DeWine placed a statewide mask mandate that took effect at 6 PM on Thursday the 23rd. This statewide mask mandate does not currently have an expiration date and will already be enforced by the health department. I do not support the creation of legislation that creates an indefinitely law on our books when the issue is already being addressed and managed at a higher level that gets their advice from medical doctors and has access to the testing trends and numbers. Ms. Shaw actually had the audacity to accuse several council members, even though she wouldn’t name which ones, as hypocrites for taking masks made by her but being unwilling to support this legislation. First, this is the first divide caused about mask wearing… just because someone doesn’t support a mask mandate or even more aggressively, a mask law, does not mean they do not support mask wearing or that they don’t wear a mask. Second, if you are going to give masks away to protect people and then later use such against someone is in bad taste. For clarity, I did not ask Ms. Shaw for any masks nor did she give me any. Council members all expressed similar apprehension to creating such law when there is already a health mandate protecting our state and our citizens of Stow, the legislation failed by a 6-1 with vote, only Ms. Shaw voted yes.
- City Council also approved the plan for the Stow-Munroe Falls School District to install a mobile classroom unit behind Indian Trail Elementary. Mr. Gress from the school district stated that this will be used for the delivery of some of the special services delivered at Indian Trail and that with the spacing and requirements with COVID-19 this makes it even more necessary. This was approved 7-0.
- Council also had discussion regarding public comments at Council Meetings and also on the YouTube Live Chat comments that are part of the YouTube live streaming feature. When the COVID 19 pandemic hit and rules came out from the State and Summit County that prohibited from Council from in person meeting we had to determine the method by which Council would meet. It was determined that using Zoom for our meetings and having the video livestreamed to YouTube was the best method to allow the public to view our meetings. We also had to determine how Council would handle and allow public comments. Initially, Council allowed for people to submit written public comment to be read to the Clerk of Council, written comments have to include the name and address of the commenter and be emailed to the Clerk by 3 PM the day of the meeting. I continued to work with our IS department and our Law department to allow live comment during our virtual council Meetings, which we worked out and put a method in place for our May 28th meeting, if a live public comment is requested people may submit their request to speak with their name and address by 12 PM the day of the council meeting and the Clerk of Council will later email the Zoom link to them. They will be then allowed into the meeting to speak when we are at that section of our Council agenda. These are the ways that Council hears public comments, this information is provided on the City of Stow website calendar for each of our Council Meetings and also is provided on each Council and Committee agenda published.
This past several weeks we had 2 issues arise related to public comment, the first was the public comments that occur on YouTube, it was requested as a public record from our Law Department. This then raised the flag that these items do not meet the public comment requirements of Council, these comments now have created an additional public records we need to keep track of, comments can later be deleted, YouTube may filter some of the comments based on their standards, Council was at no point reading or replying to these comments, and lastly that some of the comments in past meetings have been vulgar comments that would not be allowed at a public meeting. I personally think the comments in the last class are very unprofessional and are not something that should be playing alongside the public meeting of a professional body. This is a feature I put this out to Council for discussion once they had a chance to review the public comments and the nature of them, and it was the decision of Council by a 6-1 vote (Ms. Shaw voted no) to turn off the YouTube live chat feature.
The second issue arose when a member of the public created a Survey Monkey form for the submission of public comments to Council. The Law Department reviewed this issue and stated that the submission of these comments did not follow the two methods spelled out by Council as the methods for public comment. They notified Council that there were issues with another collecting comments in a method not controlled by the City for submission to the City, including that there is no guarantee that the comments would get submitted to Council or that the comments weren’t modified before they were submitted to Council. The Law Department took the time on Thursday before our meeting to notify each member of the public that submitted a comment through this Survey Monkey link and let them know that their comment would not be read because it was not submitted through an approved method and let them know if they wanted their comment read, they could re-submit via email to the Clerk of Council.
Neither of these items are meant to limit any type of comment, instead is necessary under public records laws for us to be able to maintain control over the method in which we receive comments. I also encourage anyone who wishes to speak to their council member to reach out to them directly, all council members are available by phone or email as well.
- We also received the recommendations from Charter Review Commission at this meeting. The Charter Review Commission began meeting weekly starting on May 27th, in that time the came up with 9 recommendations for Council to review. Their recommendations and proposed ballot language is rather lengthy and several Council members expressed the need to have more time to review these items, how the proposed changed langue would affect the current Charter and whether such proposed language is clear for the voters. Charter Review specifically stated in their meetings that some of the issues with our charter were due to Council rushing through such charter amendments in the past and I believe that our charter is an integral part of our city operations and any changes suggested to it should not be taken lightly or rushed through.
- The City of Stow has also received CARES Act Money from Summit County, $961,227.69 from the Summit County Coronavirus Relief Fund and $992,524.41 for the Summit County COVID-19 Payroll Support Grant Program (PSGP). The current issue is, even though we have received these funds, have amended our annual appropriations to create accounts for them, there is still not clarity from the County, State or Federal Government on exactly on what these funds can be spent. If these funds can ONLY be used to cover an increase costs from COVID-19 related expenses that were not already budgeted, it is very unlikely we will come anywhere close to spending the appoint appropriated to us. If the funds can be used for other costs such as general payroll for our first responders, then this will allow us to likely use all the funds provided. The current information provided states that the funds have to be encumbered (planned to be used) by October 2020 and must be spent by December 31, 2020. Of course, with all things COVID-19 related, these dates and usage of funds could be updated any time. We as a City just want to make sure we fully understand how they can be used before spending of any so it does not cause any issue with future audits.
Our next regularly scheduled committee and Council meeting will take place on August 6, 2020. This will be our last meeting before a summer recess and we will then reconvene on September 10, 2020.