ASHLAND CITY COUNCIL
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Minutes for Charter Members Meeting
Economic Development Conference Room
Thursday, February 8, 2007
7:30 a.m.
Charter Member Meeting started at 7:30 am
Purpose: To
Review Charter every 7 years.
Session:
Meeting was called to order at 7:30 am by Ken Seidner, Chair
Roll Call.
Ron Baker, Dorothy Stratton, Bernard Sargent, Dennis VanScoy, Howard
Scanlan, Kay Conrad, William Benz-not present, Ken Seidner, Ev DeVaul,
Elizabeth Hipp, Nevin Bowers-not present.
Ken Seidner- I believe everyone received their copies of the
Charter. Any suggestions or recommendations?
The letter I read and we put together the last time, to me I think it
makes sense to go down that same road again, to contact all the Dept.
Heads in the City and ask them for their ideas, there is something
there is still not working, we will go from there and come up with our
own suggestions and ideas and obviously if you have any along that
line, set up a priority list and we will go from there. At least
that is my thoughts. Ron, what do you think?
Ron Baker- I agree, I think from my own part I am ready to discuss some
changes. I have been through the Charter, but may need more time
to look things over, but I do agree that we should start probably with
those that actually were recommended the last time to see if there is
still interest there.
All In agreement, I would expand that to all City Employees. I
think those people have just as much right to come in and say something
and it is not going to cost anything, and in fact, it can probably go
through interoffice mail so it shows we are asking all City employees
that work with us every day, as well as City Council and Dept. Chairs
and Employees. Have a Public announcement in the paper saying
anybody else within the City can do the same thing and have two
separate ones.
Dennis VanScoy- I agree with that also.
Kay Conrad- Absolutely. I also agree.
Dorothy Stratton- I apologize. What is everyone agreeing to?
Ken Seidner- Well, You got your copy of the last Charter Review
Committee, Well the format that we used the last time identified may be
concerns or ideas that we should change that we started with City
officials, all department heads, we said public at large and we should
talk to anyone that works in the City. But I think rather than
just talking to them, I think the one thing we did come up with, we
started out the last time, we had a couple of meetings and we started
throwing out some ideas. The next time we refined a little bit
and said, “Look, Bring your ideas in writing so that we have
something concrete to work with”, and so that is kind of how we
went about it the last time. And that is what we are pretty much
in agreement with and that is a pretty good format to work with and we
will do the same thing.
Dorothy Stratton- I really think some continuity is important and if
these reviews have taken place, and there is no record of them.
Ken Seidner- Well there is on the last one.
Dorothy Stratton- Right, but the fact that we have this last one, just
makes me sad that we don’t have all of before. We would
want to review it all but at least each committee could review what had
happened the time before.
Ken Seidner - In going through the Charter the thing that I noticed,
the last one, there were 3 out of 10 recommendations actually that
council had put on the ballot and were approved. There were 3
changes here, if you go back and look at the Charter there. Those
guys in 1989, there were a lot of changes made in 1989 and before that,
you can go by this current Charter, there wasn’t much done other
than before that. In 1963, there were 2 or 3 in there but you
don’t really know though, this is what we have to work
with. My though too is overall, I think this thing must be
working pretty well. I have not heard. The last time even,
we got some ideas and suggestions and things came up and then committee
came up with some things that we looked at rather extensively, but as a
whole, there were only 3 changes were made the last time around.
Anna Tomasek- I received a phone call from Ron Baker, and he asked if
the Charter was on an Electronic Format. I called the Law Director, we
have the Charter Code and Ordinances on disc from 2004 and I am going
to make this available to the Committee, some are just in Word, and
some are in Word Perfect. The other thing is, talking to our
Technical Services Department, We are going to put the Charter on the
City Website for the Citizens to review. And if you need anything
else from my office in reference to this, please let me know.
Will this be on the City Web Site soon?
Anna – Yes. It is probably going to be up on the Web Site
by Friday or Monday 2/9/07 or 2/12/07. We are working on it right
now.
Ken Seidner - Thank you, that is a good idea.
Howard Scanlan- After we get these ideas in writing, are we going to be
able to call these people and let them put it verbally.
Ken Seidner- We will get their suggestions and ideas in writing and we
can call them and invite them in to a certain meeting and I know the
last time, one night we had the Police Chief, Fire Chief here. We went
over what they had in various departments. Some people did not
come, but the ones that did gave us their suggestions and ideas.
I think we can throw a letter together for all the Department Heads and
Employees and get it out before the meeting of February 22, 2007.
We do not want to cut it off in the two weeks. Next week is the
22nd and if you can have your ideas put together by then, please submit
them to us. I think that is too soon to have anyone to come in to
talk to us. I would like to be able to gather those ideas and
then we can go from there. At least that is my opinion.
We ought to put some kind of deadline on that.
Yes. Maybe give them 1 month. Do you think that is too
long? Yes. May be a couple of weeks and tell them of our
next meeting and not to make that a deadline. Just so they know
we are going to begin looking at that for comments.
We will put in the letter: Our next meeting is in 2 weeks, if you
can have your stuff put together by then we would appreciate it, but
certainly no longer than 30 days and we will go from there. We
will also get a hold of the Times Gazette; I don’t know what the
format is to get a hold of them,
Valarie- I have four places to send it out. WMAN, Times Gazette,
Mansfield News Journal and Al Lawrence, Mansfield News Journal.
Ken Seidner- put it kind of like a news release, and this is what we
are suggesting. And the floor is open.
Ron Baker -In going through the Charter, I found about 30 different
sections. This might sound, well, I don’t think so, where
the term him, his and he is used exclusively and I think it is time now
to make it “ Gender inclusive”. I Know that is
one of the reasons I think that why Anna got this information here
because I had asked is that going to require re-typing the whole
Charter or do you have it on Electronic disc. That is why she
checked it out. I do not know if this, if we do need to check it
out, I don’t think this would have to be passed by the
electorate, I think we can just recommend that they can go into the
Charter and make those changes and recommendations to the Board, but I
think we need to get some clarification, legal clarification to make
sure that that would be all right. There are about 30 different
sections that have that terminology in there and I asked Anna, I said
has that been in there? She said it has been in there since
1916. So it is time to change.
Why don’t we just make that a recommendation now that Rick Wolfe
can give us a ruling on?
Absolutely. So we want to know if it can be changed and legally
what would be the responsibilities to get it changed? All we can
do is make recommendations. We can recommend anything we want but
it is up to Council either to move on it or not to move on it.
Again the last time we basically came up with 10 things and they agreed
to put 3 of them on the ballot.
Valarie: Did you elect and Chair person and Co-Chair person?
Yes. Ken Seidner is Chair and Ev DeVaul is Co-Chair.
Do you have an E-mail address Bernard?
Bernard Sargent- yes. I will give you my card.
Any more to add?
Dorothy Stratton- I know that when I had visited City Council, one of
the things I noticed is that I know that they are supposed to consider
things at 3 meetings before voting on them but they almost always do
this extra step of suspending some rule and noting that the situation
is an “Emergency” and then they vote on it right
away. That was bothersome to me because it is usually not an
Emergency and it is a matter of expediting routine business and I guess
I do not like the word Emergency applied to things that are
non-emergencies because then you do not know what is then an Emergency
and what is expedient. And so I was most eager to find here in
the Charter that process but I did not see it and I do not
know. I would like to see where that is.
Valarie- I have that and it is 113.1 and I will make a copy of that.
Dorothy Stratton- I have suggested that perhaps another term, if the
term “Emergency” has to be used then perhaps the term
“Expedited” could be added like Emergency: Expedited so we
would know the difference between a true Emergency and something that
was just going through because it was actually 3 meetings. I
don’t know if that ends up being anything here but I would at
least like to know you know the basis for it and you know whether a
modification on a local level is possible. I do not have any
problems with expediting business but I would just like it called
expedited business.
Ken Seidner-And again, that is what this format is all about.
Figuring out what is going on and I agree with you and I think a lot of
times we are just doing this to get it done.
Dorothy Stratton- In my concern, you know from a citizens point of
view, is that something that seems important to the citizens is then
kind of just rushed through and becomes a habit I think, and if it is
expedited I think that is fine. Not everything should take up
time at 3 separate meetings, but I think it should be clear to the
Council people and to the citizens what the situation is. And I
know when I was there on a controversial matter, a lot of the people
that were there with me were thinking; you know this is so important to
us, why do they say it is an emergency and just handle it at one
meeting, so I think if we can clarify this then I think the citizens
wouldn’t get upset about something like that.
Howard Scanlan- Her language would have to be changed.
Dorothy Stratton- But now are you referring to something else?
Howard Scanlan – Section 21 Charter- Emergency Ordinances and it
just basically states that preservation, immediate preservation with
public, property, health or safety. I mean a sidewalk waiver is
not an Emergency to me.
Dorothy Stratton- Yes. I do have this marked and was wondering if this
was the only place that it was referred to. Earlier where they
were talking about the passing of Ordinances, there is nothing about 3
readings.
Howard Scanlan – That is in the Ohio Revised Code also.
What is not in here, you will find in the Ohio Revised Code.
Foreign, but it is there.
Ken Seidner- Do you have that available?
Valarie – Yes. It is in our book of Codes and
Ordinances. I will make copies for everyone.
Ev DeVaul- Would it be possible Valarie to take the last year and
see how many times that has happened that Emergency is used?
Valarie -. The term Emergency is used pretty much in all of Ordinances.
If you could look that up and see how many times that is used in the
last year.
It becomes the norm and of course the problem I think is if majority of
Council agrees to that, you know it is 2/3 it is there .
I do not have any objection to expedited business, I just think it
should be clear that is why it is moving through quickly and then when
it is really an emergency, use the word.
You almost have to constitute what is an emergency because some one is
going out of town?
I think it speaks to that and in my past experiences, lets say you have
a piece of equipment that breaks down and requires repair but the cost
of it is going to be to the point where you have to have an Ordinance
to get it done and that needs to go through some Emergency.
Because I remember the time we had our ladder truck messed up, that one
should have been an Emergency because we had to get it repaired and had
to go to Pittsburgh to get it repaired and it cost in excess of
what I was permitted to spend so we had to act as an Emergency in
order to get it done. That is just an example, but that is
not always the case, a lot of other things go through as an emergency.
It is just to get it off of the docket.
Dorothy Stratton - I also have marked that I don’t have
this to review the assessment section and I did not mark anything in
particular other than I just felt that assessment stuff is really
important now and that would make, it starts with section 76 and 83.
If you would look at that letter from the last review, clearly that was
the one we had touched on then. There was an attachment that went
with that that we did not get copies to. That was one of our
recommendations of assessment procedures. We did have that
attorney Barry Keith that represents the city and a lot of things, he
came down and talked with us one evening and we went over that and it
was actually his stuff that he brought down was our recommendations
because they want to see that change too. That is something
we can look at again.
The same thing with strategic planning, there is a recommendation.
Valarie- May I see the letter that you have?
Who is the attorney? Barry Keith. He is representing the
City, whether it is outside of his expertise but this guy came down and
brought the attachment A3. (Made copies of the attachments for
everyone. A2 and A3). Maybe he ought to be notified again that we
are doing this. We do not want to leave him out.
I recommend that Rick Wolfe attend the next meeting and give us his
recommendation to whether we should have his input as well as anyone
else’s in put on the language of the special assessments.
It just seems to me that was a lot of stuff that just kind of went by
the wayside. I think we can question Rick on the Ohio Revised
Codes and the things that are in here he can have input also.
Like these are things that should be considered. And a lot of things in
the Charter are not really telling us anything. Make Rick a Copy
of the Charter to update him. He could help us on things maybe
considering. It is here but what is it telling you. Unless
you are looking through the law books it is not really clear, it is
just stating “referred to”. (Made a copy of Charter
for Rick Wolfe, Law Director). You can find all of these codes if
you surf the internet and go right to the Ohio Web page and download it
if you really want to but all you are going to get is referred to and
you can get a stack of books just looking at one thing and go back and
forth. It is crazy. So if we can have him here on Thursday
February 22, at 7:30 am in the Economic Development Conference Room.
I also recommend that the illustrious Chair person review with Valarie
the letter going out to the Employees.
Valarie – I will send you my E-mail.
Meeting dates were set up for Thursday morning March 8, 2007 at 7:30 am
on 3rd floor in Council Chambers Conference Room (Economic Development
Conference Room was unavailable) and Thursday March 22, 2007 at
7:30 am in the Economic Development Conference Room.
Adjournment:
Move to be adjourned at 8:30 p.m.
Submitted by
Valarie Bishoff
Clerk of City Council