The largest item discussed last evening was the recommendations provided to City Council from the Charter Review Commission. Charter Review presented 9 recommendations to City Council at our July 23rd meeting, with the number of items received there was not time for Council to fully review them and consider them until our meeting this week. This topic has been an underlying source of contention over the years as based on our Charter language, it has been interpreted different ways over the years as to whether Council had the right to amend or vote down Charter Review Commission recommendations. Last year Council proposed an amendment to end the different interpretation issue by adding language that stated “After approval of 2/3 of City Council” at the beginning of the Charter section regarding Charter Review Recommendations. This new language clarifying the right of Council to approve these recommendations was passed in the March 2020 primary by 83% of the voters in Stow. Regardless of prior Council’s actions to vote down amendments, and the clear affirmation of that right by the voters in March, the Law Department still did not agree that Council had the right to amend or recommend Charter Review recommendations. At the end of the day Council and the Law Department are separately elected offices and majority of Council members felt that we did appropriately have the right to amend and pass or fail recommendations. Council did amend some of the ballot language recommended by Charter Review, but several items were amended only to the legislative form which did not include the language that stated the legislation required two-thirds approval of Council. All of the Charter Amendments failed to passed as 3 Council members, Feldman, Hailer, and Shaw abstained on almost all of the amendments. I voted to pass 5 of the 9 on to the ballot and voted that 4 should not go on to the ballot. A summary of the Charter Review items:
- Removal of Council’s Authority to propose Charter Amendments going forward
- I voted no on this as Council has a right to propose amendments to our Charter as a right under the Ohio Constitution.
- Filling of a vacancy in the Law Director Position to have any vacancy appointed for the remainder of the term instead of having an election
- I made a motion to amend this recommendation that the appointment would require a two-thirds approval of Council and that the appointee would have to meet all the requirements of the Charter of Law Director, including the residency requirement. These amendments passed and at Council I voted to move this on to the ballot.
- Repeal of Section 8.05 about asking the voters if we should enter a regional dispatch vs. having our own dispatch
- I voted no on this since the voters just stated in November 2019 that they wanted to have a say in this and Council had voted on July 9, 2020 to go ahead and put this on the ballot in November 2020 for the voters to provide feedback. Having a ballot issue already on the ballot and then having a charter amendment of the same issue would likely cause some confusion as to why we are asking the question at the same time as repealing the right to ask a question.
- Filling of a vacancy in the Finance Director Position to have any vacancy appointed for the remainder of the term instead of having an election
- I made a motion to amend this recommendation that the appointment would require a two-thirds approval of Council and that the appointee would have to meet all the requirements of the Charter of Finance Director, including the residency requirement. These amendments passed and at Council I voted to move this on to the ballot.
- Language amending term limits for elected officials that would result in any partial appointed or elected terms will no longer count to the 8 year term limit.
- I voted no on this item for two reasons. First, this term limit would benefit me and I do not feel I should vote for anything that would benefit any elected official, especially one that would benefit me. Also, this amendment taken in conjunction with the recommend to appoint any vacancies in the Mayor, Finance Director, or Law Director, also would make it possible that someone filling a vacancy could run for two terms on top of any appointed term, potentially serving up to almost 12 years which would well exceed the current term limits of 8 years.
- Filling of a vacancy for Mayor to have any vacancy appointed for the remainder of the term instead of having an election
- I made a motion to amend this recommendation that the appointment would require a two-thirds approval of Council. This amendment passed and at Council I voted to move this on to the ballot.
- Increasing of Council term limits from 2 years to 4 years and creating staggering of Council Terms.
- I made a motion to amend this amendment to change the years in which this would take affect as how it was proposed by the Charter Review Commission it would have a negative impact on current At-Large Council Members and actually would also have a negative impact on myself. I do not feel any members of Council should be impacted by any charter amendments regardless of how proposed. I did not vote to put this on the ballot
- Update Council Regular meeting language to allow for meetings to occur outside council chambers
- Charter Review initially recommended changing some additional language in this section that talked about our first meeting of the year that really wouldn’t have much impact to the public but just logistically would not work easily for Council as without a set date and time. I recommended to change the initial meeting to 7 PM as it is in line with all our regular Council meeting times. In addition, Charter Review recommended removing the section about Council being required to meet in Council Chambers. In this time of dealing with a pandemic, the whole world has learned to be more flexible, including governments. This removal of a limitation on “where” Council can meet allows flexibility in this unique circumstances and will ensure continuity of government even in the case that a prescribed meeting space could not be available to us. I voted to move this item on to the ballot.
- Removal of the limit of six (6) special Council meetings allowed in a year.
- This is one of the few charter amendments recommended by Charter Review that was not simply a pro-politician amendment and actually would actually provide some value to our residents. As the world has had to find ways to be more flexible in dealing with COVID-19, it also has made it that sometimes more urgent issues come up that do not allow us to have time until our next Council Meeting to address. This like the previous item just creates some flexibility for Council. I did vote to move this on to the ballot.
As a result of the opinion of the Law Department and Charter Review Scheduling a meeting to discuss pending legal action, I proposed we amend the legislation from our special meeting last week to get an outside legal opinion to extend the legislation to cover outside legal counsel to represent Council if legal action would arise about the dispute of how our charter is interpreted. The amendment to this legislation passed and this legislation was also passed. Charter Review did meet on Friday August 7, 2020 and asked the Administration to seek legal action against Council to try and force the recommendations of Charter Review onto November ballot. We will see if Administration wants to take up this issue and take it to the courts.
It is my opinion that what Charter Review provides to Council are recommendations, and that Council has the right, and has always had the right, to make amendments and either approve or disapprove the recommendations. Council’s job is to represent the citizens of Stow and there may be times where it is necessary for Council to make changes or disapprove recommendations to ensure that the items going on to the ballot are clear, legal, and not questions that have repeatedly been asked and answered. Another consideration is just the sheer volume of issues going to be on the ballot. I believe we have a duty to be respectful of the time it takes a voter to review the ballot, consider the cost of putting forward this many items on the ballot, and in balancing those two considerations, put forward the most pressing issues that need answered. The recommendations from this Charter Review as 9 ballot issues, on top of the ballot issue already proposed by Council, the Zoo Levy, and I believe several School Levies have also been approved to be on the ballot. Of the 9 Charter Review recommended I did vote to pass 5 forward to the voters in November, but previously stated, these items did not receive enough votes to move forward. As mentioned earlier this has been an ongoing source of contention so maybe if the Administration does decide they want a court action over this we can finally get a solid answer from the court on how our Charter should be interpreted and define the relationship of Council as it relates to Charter Review recommendations.
Chief Stone also informed us that the Fire Department was awarded roughly a $200,000 grant to purchase new radios for our fire department. This grant requires only a 10% match by the City for us to receive the funds to help pay for these new radios. Stow is not only lucky to have such amazing safety forces and one of the few ISO rated fire stations in the country, we are also lucky to have Lt. Cochran in our fire department whose hard work in apply for these grants that has saved our city an amazing amount of money.
We also had a wonderful presentation from the Akron Zoo on their programs, improvements, and on their request from an upcoming levy. The Akron Zoo is a great asset to our community and provides many educational opportunities, learning experiences, and also gives back to our local communities as well. I will share additional information on my Facebook about upcoming Community Days for Stow and how residents can get free tickets for the Zoo!
Council will be on a break during the rest of August, our next regular meeting will be September 10, 2020, with committee times to be announced closer to the date of the meeting.