CHARTER REVIEW COMMITTEE
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Minutes for Charter Members Meeting
Thursday, March 22, 2007
7:30 a.m.
Charter Member Meeting started at 7:30 am
Purpose: To Review Charter every 7 years.
Session:
Council Chambers Conference Room
Roll Call: Sign –In sheet was sufficient.
1)Bernard Sargent
2)Anna Tomasek
3)Darcie Loreno
4)Howard Scanlan
5)Dorothy Stratton
6)Everett DeVaul
7)Ron Baker
8)Ken Seidner
9)Dennis VanScoy
10)Elizabeth Hipp
11)Kay Conrad
12)William Benz
13)Richard P. Wolfe, II, Law Director
Ken Seidner: 4 Items to Review
1. Make the Charter Gender-Neutral
2. Changing the Charter to allow outsiders to apply
for Police and Fire Chiefs,
3. Changing the Finance Director, Law Director,
appointed vs elected.
4. Assessments, possibly changing the Charter and go
by State Law.
Kay Conrad: Made correction to the 8th page of previous Minutes
from Thursday, March 8, 2007. Replace her name instead of
Elizabeth Hipp.
Howard Scanlan:
· On the Assessments, Charter mostly worded
for ORC. When you start removing whole sections from the Charter,
we are starting to slide down that slope saying, we’re just going
to give in and lose our Charter, that sets a precedence for other
committees, to say well we don’t like this. What I am
saying is ; If you start removing things in its entirety, you are
giving everything up. I would be against taking anything
out.
Kay Conrad: Speaking of gender-neutral, are we not destroying a
little bit of history here when we are completely taking it out? As
opposed of putting in an addendum?
Ken Seidner: Yes, Whatever we do is going to be a recommendation
to Council.
William Benz: We did talk about revisiting the last
recommendations.
Dorothy Stratton: I believe that Ruth Detrow mentioned the idea
of exploring a City Manager form of Government.
Ken Seidner: That was one of the things brought up in the last
meeting; we spent a lot of time on that. Maybe get more opinions
on that.
Howard Scanlan: I would go with the Finance and Law Director
appointed. I would recommend that.
Ken Seidner: Anna Tomasek, we will turn the floor over to you.
Anna Tomasek: For an Elected Finance Director, it depends on your
form of Government. Like City of Barberton, City of Medina, City
of Ashland, City of Shelby. If you have a strong Mayor type of
Government, then it is the type of Government that you would want and
elected Finance Director and Law Director because you have to make sure
you have your Checks and Balances. With a strong Mayor, that is
why other offices are elected typically. When you do have a City
Manager type of government, like (for example), the City of Berea; that
is an appointed Finance Director but with approval of Mayor and that
usually if you have an appointed Finance Director and Law Director you
should have some Civil Service protection just because you don’t
want one person or conflict, or personal conflict to disrupt the level
of Government. If you are going to go with an appointed level
position for these offices, there just needs to be some protection so
that 1 or 2 people to begin with have legal ramifications that the
overall status quo of Government is efficient. If you choose a
strong Mayor, usually you have an elected Finance Director and elected
Law Director in the State of Ohio and the reason being is for Checks
and Balances.
Currently you have a strong Mayor Government, so therefore everyone is
elected and it is up to the citizens of Ashland to choose their
candidates, and should have basic qualifications.
Howard Scanlan: In the Charter, there are no qualifications for
Finance Director.
Anna Tomasek: You could make the qualifications for Law Director;
you have to have a Law degree and be in good standing with the Bar
Association. With the Finance Director, there are certifications, CPA
you could probably definitely get the job, but Government finances
differ from the private sector accounting. There are licenses
through Ohio Association of Public Treasurers and the Government
Finance Officers Association. You could require, (for example),
Certified Public Financial Administrator. Those are the basic
qualifications, a City Auditor has. And the other thing is some
Cities, we are Charter, and you have some Cities that are
statutory. Some Statutory Cities also have an Auditor and a
Treasurer, some are appointed and some are elected. I would not
recommend splitting our positions up into 2 different sectors. I
would keep it Finance Director. Some cities have 2 people to do
currently what I am doing.
Ron Baker: My feelings are that I am a strong believer in the
Electorate and I think the Electorate is smart enough to know if
someone is qualified for a job regardless of what it says in the
Charter.
Ken Seidner: If they become appointed positions, you almost have to
have these people under some Civil Service protection.
Anna Tomasek: You can get into an ethical dilemma with Finance
saying, okay you have to pay this bill, It is the Mayor’s
appropriations, I gave my opinion, but it is his ultimate authority and
that is where the Checks and Balances come with an electorate.
Ken Seidner: The current system, in my opinion, is doing quite
well.
Dorothy Stratton: What would be the typical Education for someone
in your position now?
Anna Tomasek: A typical education is usually a Bachelor’s
degree and typically we are required by the State of Ohio under Chapter
1305 to have 9 hours of State training of investments. That is
for every Treasurer, Finance Director across the State of Ohio, in
ORC. Under investments. A Bachelors degree in Public
administration, Political Science, Accounting, or a Business Degree of
some sort. It is not required, but my colleagues have a Bachelors
degree. Some don’t because government and nonprofit
accounting is an elective, so when you get accounting degree, you could
not even take that course. Some of my colleagues got on the job
training.
Dorothy Stratton: So what beyond education allows you to get the
type of certification you were talking about?
Anna Tomasek: It takes 3 years to get the License through Kent
State University, a 3 year program and it is based on work experience,
your education and you are required to attend conferences, on a
point system. 100 points to get your license after 3
years. You have to maintain CEU’s to keep that
license.
They call it a certification.
Dorothy Stratton: What would you say would be the ideal educational
background for someone in your position?
Anna Tomasek: I would say at least a Bachelor’s Degree and
a certification.
Accounting/ Financial background. To give you an idea
of my background. My degree is from the University of Akron,
Local Science of Public Employees Management. It is a Hybrid
degree. It is accounting, finance, it is HR, Political Science
and Economics and I have a Masters Degree in Financial
management. Most of my colleagues do not have a Masters,
some do and some don’t.
William Benz: Do you know any communities that have the opposite,
that is a strong Mayor and appointed?
Anna Tomasek: No.
William Benz: So we are a real exception?
Ken Seidner: Any Comments or Questions for Anna Tomasek?
Howard Scanlan: Just reflecting on what Anna said that she has a
Bachelors in a Science, would that be worth looking at qualifications
to be changed for the Director of Finance?
Ken Seidner: Yes that could be something we would look at.
Anna Tomasek: I would recommend it be someone with a Bachelors Degree
because it is a position of trust and educational qualifications.
Ken Seidner: Last meeting we talked about the City and a 5 year
Spending Plan or 10 year Capital Plan for the City.
Anna Tomasek: We are actually doing that, and we have done it
since 2002 and it is part of the tax budget and the appropriations and
in 2006, May of 2006, we actually came up with the financial forecast
for 5 years and that is for all revenues and expenditures
for the City. City Schools are required in the State of Ohio to
come with a financial forecast. No township or municipal governments
are required by law to do that. But we are doing it.
Dorothy Stratton: Would it be important then that the Charter reflect
what their doing. If they are doing it and it is working well so
it continues?
Anna Tomasek: There is no policy on it, it is just something I
initiated in 2006. The Forecast is part of the Tax Budget. I
decided to make it a part of the planning process.
Ken Seidner: You are the Law in here Rick, anything you would like to
say? Anything to address?
Richard P. Wolfe, II: Previously, a discussion on Charter being
Gender-neutral and Mr. Baker suggested perhaps there may be 30 places
in the Charter that would be affected, it turned out to be about 99
places. I took the liberty of going through and showing you
what all the changes would be if we made those changes and I put them
in the proper form that it would be if Council adopts it and he puts it
on the Ballot, so this will serve two purposes. An example of
what a suggestion that you would make to Council and what it would look
like on the Ballot.
One of the rules of construction or drafting is (at least in a
Legislative area) when you are changing something and something is
being removed, it is shown with a line through it and the something
that is new is Capitalized so you can look at the one document and see
what it was, what it is and how it is changed. It is necessary to
list every section that has a change and list the change, that is the
only way we can do this. The Preamble, the first part and
introductory part to section 1, any changes that are adopted, they will
all look pretty much like that. At the beginning and then on the last
page starting with section 2, 3, and 4 that will all be the same.
Then whatever changes are to be adopted would come under where proposed
amendment, then it would be whatever the changes are. It will
have to be published, there will be an expense involved. When you
make a Charter change, notice to the voters is one of the things that
has to be done and there are a couple of ways of doing that; you can
mail to everyone rather than publish it. So those are the things
needing to be done with any proposed change to be made.
Thank you very much Rick for all of your hard work.
If we feel that strongly about it, an amendment doesn’t serve
what we want to accomplish, so I think an amendment is not the answer
to this solution. If we feel strongly, this is what we should
recommend and have.
Bernard Sargent: I think though you need to accept the
position that if you publish something as big as this, there is going
to be a lot of people vote no to not do this because it is too big and
too cumbersome.
I think you have to accept that going in because I will tell you right
now, I don’t know that I would read something that big.
William Benz: Explain in a few sentences of what it is about and
put it at the top, it would probably mean that no one would read it
even if it were in the paper.
Howard Scanlan: A short explanation changing He to They.
Here is where you rely on our News Agency to do their editorials,
because this entire thing would be published in the Times Gazette.
Dorothy Stratton: I think we have to trust that we can give an
explanation.
Howard Scanlan: A brief explanation because, not too many people
will read the entire Charter.
Dorothy Stratton: I feel that we should consider some kind of a
qualification added to the Finance Director position, I am not sure
exactly what it should be, but the requirements of the position.
(Section 36)
William Benz: The same way it is done for the Director of Law,
should be an Attorney of Law,
Ken Seidner: How does everyone feel regarding election or appointing
Finance Director and Law Director?
Howard Scanlan: Well it is approximately 50% of the electors
hitting the polls and no ballots really being filled. I would try to
avoid this myself. Right now, there are no qualifications.
For this election, it is too late. You have to look down the
road. I would go with appointed, if not, you have the Mayor who
will make the decision and then would have to go through the rest
of the Legislative branch.
When it comes to the electors, you have to choose your Council person
and the Mayor and let them make the decision. You have to go back
and look at the percentage of voters that actually hit the polls
anymore and it is not very good here in Ashland, Ohio.
William Benz: I was impressed with the fact that no community has
a mixture of the two that Anna knows of, it is either the strong Mayor
model, being an appointed, or the elected.
Everett DeVaul: Why don’t we ask that Mayor Strine be
present at a meeting.
Bernard Sargent: I think we should ask him about the City Manager
position also. I obviously am out of step with this committee on
many things. I am very much in favor of this Civil Service
position and Financial Director because you are dealing with things
down the road constantly and if you want to get continuity, you need
the same person in there with an oversight, and we do not have
it. Has anyone diagramed out these City positions? It is a
strange diagram that you end up with. You have 3 elected
positions and the Mayor is strong, it is almost iron made. This
Charter is the kind you would expect in a 10,000 person community,
which we are not, we are moving to 30,000 people. Even the Mayor
will tell you he has too much to do and it is going to get worse
rapidly. Excuse my language, but that is it. I think we
should have the Mayor in here, and we should listen carefully to what
he has to say. The Finance Director is very strong, very
independent position as it is now. There is no continuity,
qualifications, you’re right, we need some STRONG qualifications.
I do not think just a Bachelors degree does it. A lot of
experience and you better have the experience in the right area and I
am in favor of the Civil Service position. I think that is almost
going to be a necessity. Because right now the elected, the
Director, it is not under the Mayor, not under anyone the way it is set
up right now and if you start changing every 4 years, which could
happen, you are going to be messing up what is coming up in the next 10
years because there will not be the follow through that you need, or
get caught unprepared. It is true they are working on a 5-year
plan. I think we need to look down the road. The community
is not 10,000 it is going to be 30,000. It is over 22,000 people
now. That is a lot of headaches coming. A lot of our
departments are overloaded at the present time and I think everyone
knows that. So we have problems coming ahead that we need to look
down the road and I like to look down the road.
Ken Seidner: In my opinion, I do not see anything wrong with
keeping the Law Director elected. I do not have a problem with
having the Finance Director being elected every 4 years. You have
the same when you have a new State Treasure, State Auditor, every 4
years in the State of Ohio. The State is still functioning, not
too well sometimes, but the bigger the entity the tougher it gets to
be. I think an elected position give them the independence. If
somebody is in there and they are doing a reasonable job, they will get
re-elected. Some people do not want that position. It does
not pay what private Attorneys can make. That is one of the
reasons a lot of people would not want that job of Law Director.
William Benz: What has been the experience here for Finance
Director? Do we have qualified people always on the ballot?
Ken Seidner: As far as I know, there has not been a big turnover.
Bernard Sargent: That could change overnight. What we have
had before has been re-elected, and re-elected. That’s
fine, but you know with the growth of the population, you are going to
have a political change situation as well. I just see a lot of things
happening.
Qualifications plus political questions.
Elected or Appointed, 111111 for elected, with qualifications and a
Bachelors degree. A CPA.
William Benz: May be a minor point, if you elect them, the odds
of them staying to term are pretty high, appointed they could be moving
on rather quickly and not feel it is beholding to their office.
Ron Baker: Regarding the Mayors Duties. I would like to ask
Bill what his thinking would be about the establishment of the Director
of Public service. As well as being the Mayor, he is also the
Director of Public Safety and Service by splitting that off, I would
like to hear his comments.
Ken Seidner: We would like to ask Mayor Strine to be at our next
meeting on Thursday April 5, 2007 at 7:30 am.
Meeting Adjournment at 8:20 am.
Submitted
by
Valarie
Bishoff
Clerk of City Council