Council approved an expansion of Omni Senior living to expand their assisted living property on Hudson Drive to add 33 additional units and a club house. This expansion will back up to their existing property and development on Allen Road. This had previously been approved in 2019, however they have made a few updates to the design and are now coming back to move forward with this stage of the project. These will be independent living units with a monthly fee to live in these units.
Council also approved tax assessments for 4 properties that were recently demolished based on the condition of the property. I appreciate our Planning and Law department’s more proactive approach on these types of properties and having them removed to reduce the impact to other residents. The properties torn down were on Hile, Hiwood and two on Genevieve. The City pays for the cost associated with the demolition and then recovers the money through an assessment the current or future property owner pays when they pay their property taxes.
Council and State Senator Kristina Roegner came in to recognize retiring Fire Captain Richard Hohenadel. Captain Hohenadel served the City of Stow for 32 years and was also a member of the Summit County Special Operations Team. Our City is lucky to have such dedicated first responders in our City and the support they show each other is admirable as was seen by the number of colleagues who came out to see Captain Hohenadel recognized. I wish Captain Hohenadel all the best in his retirement!
Council approved 3 Charter amendments that will appear on the November Ballot, two are related to term limit language and a third is related to a capital budgeting process. I summarized the 3 amendments in my meeting notes from our July 14th meeting, you can find that here: https://sindiharrison.com/blog/council-meeting-7-14-2022/
All 3 proposed amendments passed, the two amendments related to term limits both passed by a 6-0 vote, Mr. Feldman was absent, and the Capital Budgeting amendment passed 5-1 (Mr. Licate was a no vote).
Council also received back the requested legal opinion from Roetzel and Andress related to the term limit charter amendments. The legal opinion looked at the language currently in our charter and how it applies to an elected official serving partial terms, reviews the language of both proposed amendments to ensure they are both prospective and constitutional, the effective date for both amendments, and the differences between the two proposed changes. Council did vote to waive any attorney client privilege and include the full legal opinion in our meeting minutes from this meeting. My thoughts on the legal opinion points below:
- There has been a discussion about the current language in our Charter and it had become clear to me that varying opinions exist as it relates to someone wanting to run for a term that they would not be able to complete because of term limits. It was even stated on my previous post about the term limit proposed changes that Council didn’t want to support a change because it wanted to have another 3-year Mayor and have the authority to appoint a temporary Mayor. I have disagreed with this theory from day one and have always believed that if you are not eligible to complete the term then you are not eligible to run for the term at all. The outside legal opinion cited case law that stated this line of thinking is inaccurate and that an elected official is not eligible to file petitions to run for a term that they are unable to finish.
- The legal opinion also stated that both proposed amendments are written prospectively and therefore constitutional. This idea is a technical legal doctrine that states change to a charter or law can not apply backwards or have a negative effect on rights that already exist under a law. For example, a charter amendment that created term limits but then counted terms served prior to the amendment passing would be considered “retroactive” and would not be constitutional. This means the language in both amendments would be applicable for municipal elections taking place after January 1, 2023.
- The legal opinion also provided a comparison of the two amendments. One clear difference is that the proposed Council amendment that I proposed applies equally to all elected officials in the City while the citizen amendment is only to benefit the Mayor, Finance Director, and Law Director. This means that if the Citizen issue would pass it still fails to resolve how partial terms apply to council members and again requiring yet another ballot issue to fully resolve the issue of partial terms.
- Another difference is that the citizen petition amendment strikes language from the existing Charter instead of just adding to the language to clarify the intention. This striking of language specifically removes language approved by the citizens in 2018 that was put into the Chater to close a loophole that would allow an elected official to step down before they served 8 consecutive years and then immediately run again without stepping away from the 2 years as required in the Charter. As I stated in our meeting Thursday, I do not believe this was the purpose of the citizen’s language, however, with the intent so narrowly focused on change the rules for one person, it failed to realize that there could be unintended consequences from striking the language currently in the Charter.
As I have stated in previous meetings and in my prior notes, my intention with my proposal is to create clear policy that applies uniformly to all our elected officials in the City and not just to be focused on fixing the language for the benefit of one individual. I also will reiterate that I do not believe rules should be changed for individual parties currently in office and I personally have never advocated for the rules to be changed to benefit myself, the rules were clear when I took office. Regardless of whether my proposed amendment would pass, I would not run for a 4th term in office because of the one year I served when I was appointed to my current position.
Both proposed charter amendments for term limits will be on the November 8th ballot and it will be up to the voters to decide which language, if any, they would like to see in our Charter going forward. Ultimately, if both items would pass then, according to our charter, the proposed change with the highest number of votes would be implemented.
Council is on recess for the remainder of August and will meet for our next regular meeting on September 8, 2022 at 5:30 PM for committee meetings with our Council meeting to follow.