it till it's exactly seven before we get
started
okay looks like it is seven o'clock on
the nose
um i'd like to call our meeting to order
today is
wednesday april 7th this is the council
committee meeting on the proposed
amendments by the charter review
the committee consists of myself and
council member
klingler and president of council
lorienne
fibel we have also asked bill harvey who
is our city auditor
and mark fishel who is our city attorney
to also
attend um given that mr harvey if you
could please do roll call
of the other two committee members ms
lamke
here ms vybel here mr klingler
here thank you if we could all stand and
um i didn't ask the mayor if we have a
picture of a flag
anywhere um if not let's go ahead and
stand
anyway and do our pledge of allegiance
all right moving on to our first
agenda item our last meeting was held on
march 3rd and i circulated the meeting
minutes to
our committee i did have three quick
amendments to
suggest to those meeting minutes the
first was the title to amend it to
council committee meeting on proposed
amendments by charter review
the second amendment is to note that the
meeting started at seven o'clock
and that other members who were present
were bill harvey and mark fishel
those were the only three amendments
that i had
is there anyone else who might have
amendments to the march 3rd meeting
minutes
nope okay i will make a motion to amend
uh based on those three changes can i
have a second please
second by klingler okay all oppo
are all in favor say i i i
anyone opposed nope okay
i then moved to adopt the amended
meeting minutes
of march 3rd i'll snap a second please
a second second by count uh president
fibel
all in favor say aye aye aye
anyone opposed nope okay
all right this is our third meeting
of this council committee to consider
the charter reviews
proposed amendments it is my hope
after tonight that we will have only one
last
committee meeting during which we will
write our recommendations
that ultimately will be proposed to
council i'm actually already working on
a draft
that subject to tonight's discussion and
input and i will circulate that draft
before
our next and final meeting but that is
how
i would like to move forward tonight
ideally i would like us to present our
recommendations to council possibly
at the april 25th council meeting
followed by
a first reading of an ordinance that
would be introduced
at the may 11th council meeting
i know several people have asked about
what the timeline
will be and i thought it was important
to state
that it is our goal that may 11th would
be the first reading
for any sort of ordinance followed then
by a second and third reading
i'm leaving perhaps a little bit of time
if we need to
table it or have further discussion
is everyone in agreement with that
proposed timeline
yes great okay and to recap our
last meeting as well i think we had
collectively decided that
we wanted to consider maybe three
to five issues on the ballot however
bundled
our the majority of our past discussions
has focused on
some of the proposed amendments speaking
to diversity equity
and inclusion um that is what i think
we've spent
a significant amount of time discussing
because it's what
our members of our charter review
commission spent
so much time discussing and taking
careful thought to digest each word
we've also received a quite a bit of
correspondence regarding some of those
proposed initiatives i'd like to revisit
our discussion about whether or not we
want to include sections one through
five
and put that into our recommendations i
believe that mr fishel
uh was able to share um
some thoughts and send us all some
proposed
uh language but is there anyone who
would be opposed to maybe
reopening that discussion
i would hope that we would yes i i would
hope that we would
as well um mr official do you want to
go over the suggestions that you
shared with us regarding uh in
particular i believe
sections two through
four okay i gotta find him here um
unless somebody can put him up i'm not
sure but i'll look for him here i i i
wasn't prepared i should have been
prepared to pull a move here
that's that's okay if you want mark
while you're looking for that i can kind
of recap what i think
you were you were trying to suggest i
don't mean to speak for you
yeah go ahead okay um
obviously section one i think that
our committee felt strongly that that
should be included i have a note here
the only thing that maybe we would
consider
wordsmithing a little bit is the title
of section one
regarding section two um
mr official has looked at that and he
has
suggested that we strike one clause
which begins or for any cause not
reasonably related to the accomplishment
of a
legitimate government purpose um
otherwise
that section would remain and i haven't
i have mine up now monique so
oh okay i mean at any point i i don't
have enough to share though i have it up
on my other computer
oh okay so
go ahead keep talking i'll try to find
it so i can share it okay
um the only other comment i had about
section two is
i think the committee was thinking
perhaps that we might want to tweak
the title of section two um as well
regarding section three um
mr official suggested that we insert the
word
qualified regarding uh individuals that
we eliminate
a few clauses regarding under
underrepresented populations
maybe it might be easier mark if i just
read it yeah go ahead
how you have suggested that it that read
and then
the committee wants further discussion
we can certainly do that sure
okay the proposed section 3
would read the city of bexley shall
commit to actively recruit qualified
individuals
including minority and women candidates
for employment and all levels of city
government
with the goal of reflecting a diverse
workforce
when issuing all contracts the city
shall give due consideration to
individuals and firms owned or
controlled by women and minorities
by establishing and maintaining programs
and policies which promote
fairness and equities
so mark those were the suggested changes
for section three
oh thank you all right laurie anne's got
that up thank you lorianne
hey no problem oh thank you geez oh much
helpful yes
sorry or lacking ridiculously i should
have got it done faster forgive me
lori ann would you be able to scroll
down too so absolutely
sorry oh that makes a big difference can
you see it okay
okay yes thank you so so much for
putting that up
um and then regarding section four
um the committee might recall that i
believe this was a fairly split
um vote from charter review but after
mark looked at it and
i believe uh made a tweak from the word
despair
to discriminatory impact i think he
feels that it
is uh sufficient to achieve the goals
that the charter review commission
wanted to set forth
so that is the change suggested change
for section four
um and then mark i did not see any
changes to
section five which is the citizen
review board is that right i didn't have
any changes there
okay how does the committee feel about
um making these proposed tweaks
to sections one through five and maybe
tweaking the titles of sections one and
two
and to include those in our list of
recommendations to counsel
i agree i agree too i looked over them
right after mark said them and i thought
they were great then i looked them over
again today and i thought
again they were appropriate thank you
mark
yes thank you thank you mark i also had
a chance to go back and listen to
some of the charter review discussion
regarding these
specific sections and after reading
the correspondence that we received and
listening to the thoughtful
consideration
of the charter reviews
pushing for this and why they chose the
words that they did
i too could support having sections one
through five in our list of
recommendations
this is bill i have a as i'm reading
section three
that it
it it's unclear i'm not sure i i think
there's a grammatical error in
sentence one shall commit to actively
recruit qualified individuals from
comma including minority it doesn't make
sense individuals from what
i think he meant to take out the word
from correct
thank you bill all right so actively
recruit qualified individuals
for employment at all levels okay
good catch bill thank you and then
and then in section two is our section
four rather as i'm just reading this
we say we're gonna avoid discriminatory
discriminatory impact on any person on a
basis
blah blah blah of that person's sex i
thought earlier we said
we're going to uh control
or we're going to encourage
actually to send the section above says
we're going to encourage
uh consideration by women-owned firms
how does that shouldn't we take sex out
of the bottom there
i mean you can't not go after them and
go after them
well bill raise is a phil a legal and
philosophical question that
deals a lot with what us lawyers have
come to know and love as
reverse discrimination so um can you
favor a woman
a woman-owned firm or a minority-owned
firm
firm you so legally you can
if you if they meet certain criteria and
that we can at least be able to
establish there's a history of
discrimination um that we're trying to
write not necessarily by the city but
by society in general so again
and so that that's one conundrum the
other one is that there's not
necessarily an
inconsistency between the two
because we're not saying we're going to
give preference to women
and minorities we're saying that it's
are possible
to that it's our policy the city's
policy
in the in section three of the charter
to give due consideration
as opposed to and again we could you
could disagree with this
i'll we can and debate it all day as
opposed to what may have been happening
in the past where women and minorities
haven't even been given due
consideration
so it's not a it's not elevating them
and saying all else being equal we're
going to choose the woman-owned firm or
the black owned firm
or even worst case even in a worst case
um or that we're going to choose a less
qualified
woman or minority-owned firm so so they
can
and should be read consistently and i
also think too given that sex has
already been
determined to be a protected class i
think it would be important to leave
that in section four
but that's a good point bill thank you
for raising it
okay um any further discussion
on sections one through five before we
move on to
a number of other sections that we have
not had a chance to really do a deep
dive into
no i'm i'm super comfortable with those
and really happy that we've
listened to our citizens who are
you know really wanting to put these
things in so
thank you lori ann uh one one thing i
want to maybe
propose for a discussion is we had also
discussed having
a um general neutral
section on our ballot and i believe lori
ann i think you were going to
look into that when you have time
depending on what you have found
or you will find by maybe our next and
last meeting
might it make sense to have a general
neutral
section included with some of these
provisions
please forgive me for not having having
done my
due diligence on on that one as of yet
um
but i think that um
i think that we need to update
our charter as much as we possibly can i
think we find this
everywhere and i think if our community
is
is one that
that believes in being inclusive
um i i think that our most important
piece of you know law should
should reflect that
okay um with respect to sections one
through five um you might recall that at
our very first meeting one
of our charter review members
mentioned obviously bundling is very
important but we want to make sure that
what we do recommend goes on the ballot
hopefully would get passed is there any
section on here that the committee feels
should be separate from other sections
i can take a shot at trying to bundle
them as i think it makes sense but
is there one section that anyone
believes should be its own standalone
i'm curious to hear what mark has to say
about that one
well i think that's more of a policy
question than it is a legal question
the only thing that comes to mind when
monique asked that question is
whether or not you want to make section
5 a standalone to make sure
that it's clear there has to be a
citizen's review board
now having said that
you know i i find it hard to
envision a scenario where somebody would
say
i really like a citizen's review board
but that stuff crap in one two three and
four is bs and i'm not going to vote for
it
so again i think it's more of a policy
strategy
question and i appreciate you know i
could i'm certainly happy to weigh in
but
i mean my reaction is you just all five
of these
should be and can easily be um
you know one issue dealing with
discrimination and civil rights if you
will or whatever we call it
and actually and again this is this is
just an initial
thinking off the top of my head it's
also
maybe this might not be a good idea but
i'm going to say it anyway
maybe gender neutral language also is
combined with one through five
so that way i don't know i don't know
okay let me
okay so so i hear that there's not a
legal problem
i guess i would love for um
so you're suggesting it's you say it's
policy
do you really mean that it's politics
no i really mean that from a policy
standpoint
um i i guess i guess
no i'm i'm more if if this
commission this committee i'm sorry
wants
this
this committee thinks that there's
something in one through five that is
exceedingly important
to pass that by the voters that will
that may not pass if it's combined with
the other four things
then i think from a policy standpoint
you should take that out
um i don't think i personally don't
think that that's
an issue with these five things but i
could be wrong
i mean it seems to me that somebody oh
go ahead i'm sorry
no in all fairness though mark
i think it i i i guess what i'm asking
are there sections that are
that politically people would be
okay with but will not be okay with
i i don't know how to i can't really
answer that question
um i mean i don't know the answer is the
bottom line again i don't see
anything in one through five that stands
out to me
where somebody would say i like this
other stuff but because you got this
sentence in there
about women and minorities i'm voting
against all of the other
non-discrimination stuff i think people
are either gonna
think this is a good thing from a policy
standpoint
or they're gonna think we don't need a
citizen's review board and everything
else is already in the law
in state and federal law anyway i mean i
i think
you know i i think that's a good
question if i
may to ask bill harvey because i think i
know that's what that was going to be
next
that's how it's going to be next yeah
actually i could i could see people
saying
i agree with all the diversity stuff i
think
i think putting a citizens review board
in our charter
is a bad idea i mean i so
in that case we should do one one
through four
and five as two separate items
that's a valid consideration okay i'll
chime in i agree with
bill on that one i was going to say uh
one through four
are a lot of it it talks about a lot of
um you know against discrimination but
citizen review forward seems more of a
from it's a separate policy item
then one through four uh one section
five i should
say so i agree with bill on that i think
it should be separate
i'm really comfortable with that yeah i
could definitely separate out
section five but certainly included on
the ballot
i guess and to go back to mark's point
um i think i
would like to suggest that we have a
general neutral
tweak or language and add it to maybe
sections one
one through three my question was really
more for section
four i do recall that
i think it was kind of a tight vote by
the charter review when they were
deciding on whether or not to include it
in their recommendations to us uh and
mark maybe now that
your suggestion is we've we've exchanged
despair with discriminatory maybe that
would have changed it
or the other thing is we put this all on
our recommendation to council
and we invite the collective wisdom of
the other four council members at the
right time
to see if they see some that should be
stand-alones
and and not well the the tight the tight
vote for a charter review was
between the word discrimination or just
a discriminatory impact or disparate
impact
and i advocated discriminatory impact
for the reasons i explained earlier
and eight of the charter review members
voted to include disparate and seven
voted to say he's a damn city attorney
so
you know he may be wrong but we'll go
along with him or whatever but it was an
eight to seven vote
on that one one word okay okay
but it's not the whole section in terms
of the spirit of what section four was
trying to achieve you felt like that was
uh fairly consistent and supported by
charter review
yes absolutely okay well that's that's
good to know
and that kind of will be ap it's my
concerns
okay it sounds like we want to keep then
sections one through four
as shown up on the screen and then maybe
do a standalone for section
five so that
sounds great i will make sure that that
is included in
the draft for our next meeting
there was one other part before we leave
these diversity initiatives that i just
wanted to raise
section eight
had i don't know if you're able to
you know the document laurie i don't
have the whole document
i just had what you sent me i'm sorry
that's okay
um section somebody has access to it i i
don't know where i i don't know where
mine
is to be honest here i'm gonna i
you can keep talking i'm gonna have to
stop and do something
there was one sentence that was added in
section 8
that just read the strategic plan shall
incorporate and maintain strategies to
eliminate institutional racism and
discrimination
increase the diversity of the community
and to create a welcoming
and inclusive environment within the
city
i would really like when when we
consider the draft if we might be able
to pull that one sentence
and add that perhaps to sections one
through four
if it's a good fit does anyone oppose
that
no damn it okay i will
i will do that no sorry i couldn't thank
you no
okay um
all right moving on um we have a number
of
issues that we haven't quite delved into
um i thought maybe we could start
on section 40 which is
the recall i think it's an entirely new
section recall
of elected officials if everyone could
look at that
and i guess mark before we dive in too
much to the weeds
i'm wondering uh what your thoughts are
on possibly
considering this for inclusion on the
charter
or possibly
by possibly addressing by ordinance
so i think we have to probably include
it in the charter if you want to deviate
from state law
um so and i i just remembered i was
supposed to send get to you
the provisions of the revised code so
you can see the current differences
i failed to do that sorry um
so um you know i i guess the the thing
that comes to my mind on this
is and this is a question it's not
meant to be a statement is how
is it that you know how how important
does this
rank if we're gonna try to limit it to
the maybe five
different items on the ballot um
and again there's already things in the
revised code dealing with this
um so that's the question i will say
that
the language here does um
does make this i'm sorry i'm hesitating
here
am i a lot i'm trying to figure out can
i share screen
i think you should be able to yes no
it's disabled it says
by the way i don't know how to be i
don't know how to able
unless you're a host lorienne well if
you can walk me through how you do it
are you a monique you know i might be a
host
lori would be a better share screener
than myself
and if you say if you put share screen
yeah hit share screen it might allow you
to change
multiple participants could share
simultaneously
hot dog now try
all right yay we are amazing
we are amazing technologically advanced
so i'll go down to section 40.
only uh we're only 25 minutes into the
meeting and i finally figured
it's all good it's great i love it
oh this is so so much more helpful thank
you
sure about time i got it um all right so
there we are i'm
sorry i'm trying to be dainty with my
cursor so we can see most of it so again
um there are some things in here that um
that make it clear i'm sorry
that make it a little more streamlined
in in the event
somebody wants to um start a recall
petition
um there and that you know so again
there is more detail than this
than in the ohio revised code
okay mark maybe for our next meeting if
you're able to have that
i'm scary no that's not that's okay i i
just didn't think that we had done a
deep dive into whether or not like you
said in terms of
um if we are going to have only selected
sections on the ballot if this one
ranks as important as the other ones
that we have considered
um
yeah i think that that is a good
question and i'm wondering too mark
is it that obviously the recall the
removal
provisions in the charter are ready are
removable actions that
council can take but as i understand
this this is the ability
by the electors to remove an elected
official
which would be a higher burden well
in some ways it's a lower burden because
you really don't have
you don't i mean city council has there
are only some specific things that you
can
that a councilman can member can do that
would
would result in if proven would result
in
the removal by the other six members of
council
here you really don't need a reason
other
i mean again it can't be because i don't
want any women on council of course
but reason doesn't have to be a
violation of the law the reason could be
policy that you know in upper arlington
they had recall
recall elections i think for the seven
members because people were unhappy with
the way they changed a park um so
it could be something like that and
again
so it could be that simple so it's
you know you need 25 of the electorate
to get um this on the ballot but
you don't have to have as nearly as
specific of a reason
so if we think of the removal by council
as being
for cause this essentially is removable
without cause
yeah it's removal because i'm tired of
having uh
joe schmoe as a city councilman um
because
they ignored the the my needs of
plowing the streets it could be that
simple it's not usually
but again beauty is in the eye of the
beholder too so
i'm wondering if does this conflict at
all with any of the removal
procedures that council already has in
place in the charter
no it does not okay
it really it really does more to clarify
or
enhance what citizens currently can do
in addition to what council can do so
again
i've got mixed feelings about whether or
not we want to include this one
um in our list of recommendations it's
not to say that
that i wouldn't support it um but i
think i'd like to see how the rest of
our discussion goes tonight
to see if this is one that we want to
consider elevating
lorien or matt what are your thoughts
yeah i think this is one that we had on
that that i that i believed
belonged i personally believed belonged
on the back
what i say back burner
okay matt what do you think
oh you know what he may have stepped
away for a moment
okay yeah i'm sorry i i stuck with you
for a quick second
um no i i heard it all i just had to
take care of a child um
yeah i had it i i feel like section 40
um could could be done via ordinance or
spoken with council i don't know we
necessarily need to put it on the ballot
okay
again it's already in the revised code
so you have that i don't think i don't
think city council
apps and a charter can modify the
revised code
provisions regarding recall
so if you wanted to deviate from state
law which is what i stopped to get to
you
um it would it should be in a charter
if you want a decade from state law
okay all right thanks mark okay that was
section 40 then
um the next general bundling or
potential issue that i had on my
short list was the staggered terms
it looks like these appear in a few
different places in the proposed
amendments by our charter review
commission
i wrote down here section 13
section 51 section 52 and section
58 i'm wondering if it makes sense
if we like the idea of
trying to address this in on the ballot
if we came up with language
not under each section but just its own
standalone section
indicating how stagger terms could could
be
affected what are everyone's thoughts
this was something that i had one of the
three things that i think that i had
that
should should go on it i guess um my
question
is um there's no other way to resolve
this correct mark
that's correct once it's in the charter
and you know guys like bill
harvey who read the charter and actually
expect us to follow it
you're right there is no other way to
resolve it
unless we kept it off the ballot and
then we just
had an ordinance maybe based on
appointments or commissions we can't do
it that way
you can't because the charter says three
year terms right
okay normally undo it
and it messes all kinds of things up
bill do you have anything to say about
that one i'm curious
uh no i don't have a problem changing
and i think it probably makes sense to
change
it change our current policy and as mark
said the only way to fix it is by
yeah going through it this process
and and i i guess i mean i know we've
done this
as you all know we've at times appointed
people for less than three years
the risk you run as i see it is
if somebody then complains and you say
wait a minute
monique lemke was on that committee and
she was appointed for two years
so she's not a valid member she violated
the charter and therefore
that whole process you have to throw out
so i think it needs to be changed
yeah it does it it does create some
potential procedural risk
um in a worst-case scenario i think it
has to be changed
if if we want it to be from a legal
standpoint
if you want the mayor to have the
authority to make staggered appointments
um
again to make standard appointments
again one of the interesting
questions that comes to mind that sort
of complicates us a little
is what the language should actually
look like and i just thought of this
sorry um
because you know the idea is that if you
create the new charter review
i'm sorry the civilian review board so
that's brand new so
that's normally the way these things
work is it says
that members shall serve three years
however
the initial appointment one member shall
serve three two shall serve two
and two shall serve one so that way you
have the staggered thing
the question now becomes does it need to
be worded does the language need to be
worded in a particular way
to make sure that we can employ
staggered terms
at the next appointment after
this would pass to ensure that we're not
just taking advantage of staggered terms
only when there's a brand new commission
or or board that's created so do you
remember what section
it is that we're talking about or
sections oh yeah
i pulled out four sections lorianne you
might have some other ones but
oh look i'm not sure if i have i pulled
out
section 13
um section 51
section 52
and then i believe section
58 um were the the four that i
that i saw sorry you said 13 was the
first one
13 i
i see
and and mark while we're looking at this
you raised a question
if we don't pass this
and we establish the charter the uh
review commission the and it's just
it has staggered terms does that mean
that of that
commission is in violation of our
charter
no it doesn't have staggered terms oh
because they're all set up for three
years now okay all right ben
we did it that way because we had to
okay all right
that's a good point bill all right so
there
is section 13 um
see so in section 13 it probably
shouldn't say in case
we probably need some language that says
something more than just in case of
newly appointed boards or commissions
um oh no it says it right there or
are cases in which the staggering
appointments needs to be restored so
we're okay
okay so section that language in section
13 would be
okay yes
now well it would be okay in terms of
the issue i just
indicated i had a concern with it's no
longer it's addressed in here
okay i'm wondering mark if that general
language in section 13
um if like i was thinking if we wanted
to
um kind of similar to our gender neutral
provision that we're going to hopefully
put in
if we're coming up with language
regarding the
uh the terms if we could use something
similar to
section 13 and tweak it
if we need to fit the other scenarios in
these three other sections that i was
talking about
well yeah i think i think we can either
do that or we can it could still be one
issue
and just four different sections um or
whatever
would you say 51 is another one um i've
got
fifth yep 51 was the next one
okay
let's see i'm ready to 41.
[Music]
similar to similar to 13.
maybe a little less i said
41 51 51 51 i have 51 also yeah okay i
mentioned 41 as i was passing
by i mean i i don't even know that we
need this
language um well
again you know it could say their terms
should be for
three years subject to the provisions of
section whatever we just had what we
were just looking at
instead of saying a whole sentence to
create staggered terms the mayor with
the consent council blah blah blah
i think we can we don't even need that
language and we can just simply
uh we can just simply say their terms
shall be
for three years subject to the
provisions of
what was the section we were just
looking at 13 13.
i like that so it's a little more
uniform and it uses the same language
throughout um
51 52 and 58 all are the exact same
right and for some reason 51 52 and 58
have are well not for some the all these
three
sections have specific
about 50 energy yeah so
look the answer to your question uh
monique is yes we can combine
all four of these so that if section
13 is approved it would all apply to 51
57 56 and 58 without
all this rigmarole with all this
additional
language um again now that we're looking
at it all together as a package
i like that me too
matt are you good with that yes
okay so this would be another standalone
um issue on the ballot and i'll what
i'll do is i will wordsmith this and get
something to you
soon um since the idea is to have only
one more meeting of this committee
so that we can look at that whatever i
send and you know
play around with it at the next meeting
and then you guys can approve it
hopefully whatever we end up with
okay yeah mark if you're able to send
that to me i would love to include it
in the draft that i am working on to
share
yeah okay okay so far we have for sure
article one
and we're separating out
section what what's session five
section five okay i have a section four
four so that's two
we're putting in one of them the
updation
updating of the language so that's still
two right correct
and then we're and then we're doing
staggering of terms so we're up to three
correct or do we have
another one that's right that's right
yes
i haven't decided on any more than that
correct
correct except for i would like to add
maybe
the general neutral sentence and
attach that to sections one through four
that's what i meant by like yeah
language right yeah and maybe the one
sentence from section eight to see
where it would fit but you're right lori
okay
make sure that i was with with with you
and and counting how many we have
yeah so we're up to so you haven't
decided on an on a
recall no okay that one's still
um i guess under consideration and that
one cannot be decided based on ordinance
correct
there's nothing we can do so folks i
just
sent you the ohio revised code section
705.92
which is uh statutory recall provisions
and just looking at it quickly
sorry monique i didn't mean to go
backwards on you that's okay
um so there's a discus so for example
the statute requires
15 of the electorate to sign uh recall
petition
the charter proposal you have in front
of you requires 25
that's one thing that stands out
initially but you guys take a look at
that um take a look at it and see
i think there well take a look at it and
see if a
of 705.9 is you think is enough
without changing the charter and b if
not you know then we can
if it's not enough then you can talk
about the actual
language that's being that's in front of
you
great thank you mark for for sending
that yeah
sorry it took so long okay
um the next issue i had
was
um section
62. i'm just kind of running
quickly along the lines that i saw this
was regarding
conflicts of interest ethics and
campaign financing
i'd imagine some of this is already
addressed in state law but
mark do you see any reason that this
needs to be
on the ballot or address via ordinance
or is it already sufficiently addressed
through
through the legislature i'm just
re-reading it real quickly here
yeah i mean the first paragraphs clearly
already cover is covered by
ohio law um and the ethics commission
those kinds of things for the purposes
of this section
yeah i i think it's kind of my current
law
okay that was my conclusion as well but
at least wanted to
see what folks thought uh lori or matt
are we
are you both good to not include this in
our list of recommendations
of items to go on the ballot i'm
comfortable i'm gonna
i'm gonna say continuously i appreciate
what the charter review
has done and i certainly think that we
need to make sure that we archive their
work
um but
if we are trying really hard to
um to to
um to understand that less is more
then i think this is something that that
we could we could forego
and keep in mind too and again i'm not
saying i'm not advocating this
but um there's nothing that prohibits
the city council from revisiting this
issue
a year two years from now or whatever
and say you know what
try to review raise some things that we
should revisit and
having putting it on the ballot sometime
between
november of 2021 and november of
2031 or whatever i i never really
thought of that didn't even i mean i'm
not saying you have to or should
i understand but that's that's that's
certainly something that
that that's good to know yeah and i want
to make it clear to to anyone who
is joining us you know from the public
today that even if
as we're discussing putting together a
list of recommendations
um all of this will be discussed with
all of counsel
um and and could be changed it could be
added could be tweaked
further um so just because perhaps that
this committee
is thinking that at this time section 62
may not make it on our list of
recommendations
it's possible that once um count all of
council discusses it
things could change so i just want to
make sure that that is clear
okay the next one i had was
section 66
regarding timing of elections
mark were you able to scroll down well
i'm sorry
um you know what this is such a good
lesson for mark and appreciating the
fact that ben
is not so good at scrolling down or or
or scrolling down too fast
forget to do it i scroll all the time
i so appreciate the screen share from
from both
um i i know mark that obviously we had
had some previous discussions
about this um but
um i'm wondering if this is one that
could be addressed by way of ordinance
or
is there not another way i don't
think it can be addressed by way of
ordinance
um but it's possible i guess i'd like to
look at that
question um but i i do
think you know the idea behind this was
to allow
citizens to have more
opportunities to um
to put things on the ballot for purposes
of um you know initiative
or initiative and referendum and because
i think it arose
specifically because of the issue that
you guys will recall
where um some members of the public
were interested in putting some things
about diversity and equity
and the citizens review board on the
november
the ballot last november and it turned
out that they couldn't because of the
way the ohio revised code is written
and again i think this is this is
intended to
open up that opportunity i guess i
really do need to give it a little more
thought about whether council could do
that
solely by ordinance
as opposed to having it in the charter
i'm not prepared to answer that right
now
okay i guess my other thought too is
obviously
anytime that things are being considered
for the ballot
and for uh a vote by our electors
i never want to feel like anything is
rushed or done half hazard
or done at the last minute and my
assumption is
the cycle that we're on right now is set
up for that very purpose to make sure
that
ballot initiatives are given due
consideration
um i would have felt if we had tried to
do something this past fall
like it was really rushed and not being
done
as carefully as i would have liked
and i would and and listening to
what some of the folks were discussing
at charter review
i i that is a valid concern but i don't
i feel it's also
um a valid also important to keep in
mind
and again you know there's some charter
review members here so later on they
could
add to this or correct if i'm wrong but
that one of the thoughts was
this makes things for one of a better
term my words more democratic
that more that that people don't have to
wait
and they should be able to get things on
the ballot
sooner rather than artificially waiting
until
the municipal election and eat in the
odd-numbered years
and i'm not advocating that position i'm
just sharing what
i heard great maybe if um
if they join us for public comment in a
little bit if they would like to speak
to that i know that we would all be
interested in
in their thoughts um lori
or matt any thoughts on
section 66 and whether we want to
consider
including this in our list of
recommendations to go on the ballot
or bill or bill i would like to hear
what mark has to say about
um the legalese of it
okay what whether we could legally do it
through ordnance
correct yeah okay
and then i would think it might be at
the top of the list you know if we get
to
if we don't get to five total um
then we can talk about putting this one
up up there on the ballot
i agree
this potentially could be fourth
depending on what mark finds
yeah because my thought is if we have
you know if we have three to five or
five to six and we're waffling and we
can do it by ordinance then
um we could get more on the ballot or
you know
other things on the ballot and do this
by ordinance that's just my thought
okay i am good
with that
and then the last specific one that i
had that
was on my short list was
two sections together
48 and 49
i know we had discussed it i believe
some previously
but i would be really interested in
mark's input as relates to powers and
duties of
the chief as well as term and removal of
the chief
so um
48 i i think the idea
so i i believe section 48 just to
give you a little bit of background
started off as an expect
a requirement that the mayor would
conduct an annual performance review of
the police chief
to make that performance review public
the mayor was resistant and again i
don't mean
i'm not trying to sound judge pejorative
there the mayor was not
on completely on board with that and i
believe charter review then modified it
to say the language in front of you
um the you know so that's one thing
um the um
section 49 again it's really seems to me
to be
a little bit of the um
a little bit more of a clarification
than anything else
i mean i don't think i certainly let me
say this this is important
section 49 language while again
i think it makes sense from a
clarification standpoint will not
do anything to either protect the chief
more than he's already protected
or make him susceptible to termination
or other discipline more so than he
already is
um so you know although i i will say
that
you know because well never mind i i
don't need to add i'm going to be
redundant i'm sorry
i had some additional questions um that
i need to probably focus on for 48
and then mark i understand for 49 what
you're saying is
even if we did include this and if it
passed
it wouldn't necessarily change
the term or removal provisions regarding
the chief even if explicitly it was
passed
correct
let me hear this one more time if we put
it on the ballot it's not going to do
anything
49 okay
that's what i'm saying about 49 is that
keeping it the way currently changing
this will not make it easier to fire the
chief
or more difficult to the fire to the
chief to be
okay because really when you're talking
about discipline that gets to this level
of the chief
the chief it would be termination it's
unlikely that anybody's going to look at
a suspension or reduction in rank
and can let him stick around and be a
sergeant or whatever
but it could happen but but to be clear
when you said fire you mean
fire or discipline i do mean fire
discipline that's true
right and and as far as 48 is concerned
that could be handled via ordinance yes
100
you know just so you on i mean i think
you folks understand it but i feel
since i attended virtually all of the uh
commission
uh charter review commission meetings i
do feel it's important to make it clear
what might be obvious that this is
another effort
to make sure that the police city and
more importantly the police department
and police chief
are accountable to the public and so
things like that could be accomplished
through ordinance you are correct
well with that i would be comfortable um
seeing if
council wants to maybe at the right time
consider an ordinance or other
action if need be on on 48 rather than
putting that in our list of
recommendations
and obviously the rest of council could
decide
if they had a different view
they get would be really imp i think
it's really important for us
to um you know and i and i'm i'm trying
to keep
a a list of of this kind of information
i think it would be very um
important for council uh to
see because i you know i don't see a
council you know any of the other
council members
and i'm not and that's not to be
judgmental at all because i didn't
expect them to be here
at all you know and i know that they
have come
but i think that it would be very
beneficial for us to
have um you know maybe when we
print this whole thing out to to them
that
could be changed by ordinance you know
high in bold next to it so that when
they go to review this again
they understand our our choices
i mean you know so i think that's
a great idea not only um at our next
meeting
the draft that i have been working on is
keeping a running tally
of what this committee has said we would
like to put on the ballot
but then there's two other categories
the next is could be accomplished by
ordinance
and then the third category is
do we wait for now do we need to take
any action
so i think lori that that's a really
good point
and it will make it easier for our other
council colleagues to know what
what is possible it's sort of like an
annotated you know um
discussion you know they could just they
could just see why we did what we did
kind of thing yeah that's a great idea
monique if i may yes
even though these things can be
changed or can be corrected by ordinance
um
if they're in the charter they're going
to happen
if they're changed if they're if they're
an ordinance
today's council might say yep we want to
do this
and in five years that council can
whatever council is in place at that
time
has the right to change that and and and
go back to this so
you just need to keep that in mind once
it's in the charter it's
it's the citizens can change it as
opposed to just the council member
that's not a judgment that's just
something we need to think about
yeah you're absolutely right bill
thank you for for stating that again
um those were the the bigger picture
items that
that were on my short list um
do others have things that
they wanted to uh consider
for maybe putting on the ballot or for
just discussion
i had one for discussion
i'm sorry lorien do you want to oh no no
please please please please
go ahead um it's more of a question for
mark
or monique um the lawyers of the group
section 64 under public utilities
and i was thinking about this because of
our current
uh situation with 5g
coming and different things we have on
the agenda regarding
public utilities
does to the to the fullest extent
possible
et cetera et cetera does that
does current law not require that
to be done to restore
the right-of-way to the current
condition prior to improvement
so i believe it does require that
but i will i am 100
deferring to jim wilson he is passionate
about this i know he had a detailed
discussion
with the mayor about this so i
strongly urge you to let him answer this
question whether now
or sometime during this meeting
well if he's if he's prepared and
monique would allow i would
love that because i i'm i'm all i love
the
i love the language i love the idea i
just would like to know if it would
would it help us in any way with our 5g
or hurt us or
the pros and cons kind of if i see jim's
on the call if he'd be willing to speak
and monique if you would allow him that
would be great
absolutely i do see that he's on i've
just unmuted him
um jim if you are listening and willing
to
share with us your thoughts on section
64 we would certainly love to hear from
uh i'm you happy too with the caveat
that this
is possibly one of the areas where my
irrationality has gotten ahead of
my my concerns for the interest of facts
and i'll be the first to say this was
precipitated
in our for me in our discussions when
the trees
were taken down on clifton um yeah
in late summer or fall
or i can't remember exactly what it was
last year
and bill harvey may not remember this
but when i was a young member of the
tree commission he and i
sat in a meeting with the utility
and i remember bill distinctly saying to
them if you have a concern about one of
our trees and it needs trim
come to me and talk about it we'll take
care of it and then when
the trees got taken about down on
clifton what i heard the
utility said was no one in bexley was
willing to talk to us about
taking these trees down so there's a
little bit of irrationality
and anger that some nice trees had to be
taken down rather than
maintained appropriately over the years
um but that being said i will say that
you
all council uh i think did terrific work
um i i don't know if it passed early
this year or last fall but you put a lot
of work into
revising the ordinance on restoring the
right-of-way in the streets
to the previous condition so
as long as that ordinance remains in
place i think this provision
probably doesn't add
a lot that being said this is a strange
area of the law and i know that because
i run with a
an individual who's a staff member of
the public utilities commission so he
has to
list answer my questions um while he's
helpless on a run
and you know the public utilities
commission
can consent tariffs that actually as you
all
probably know disrupt what the city can
do with the utilities and so
what underlie this was the notion that
that
if the city had or had to litigate with
utility it would be helpful if our
foundational document
expressed this as a value that we want
that you know our trees
and our streets should be fully restored
to the right of way i think there are
limits on what we can require the
utilities to do
but my passion around this you know was
the trees on clifton
i also remember some of you may remember
that we we did major renovation on
uh on drexel years ago and within
a year the utilities decided to dig up
the sewer and did they repave the whole
street no they just did the strip that
they dug up
um sort of in my mind i'm doing a lot of
that work but
there's limits here in state law this is
probably probably giving you a longer
answer than you want demonstrating my
irrationality around the whole subject
i think it's useful but given your
concerns about
flooding the people of bexley
with too many issues uh
i could easily see that this might get
refer you know it might get put back for
further discussion perhaps if
if in a couple years you decide the
city's ready for further
uh round of charter revisions this would
i think could fall into that category um
you all know my passion around the
the anti-racism provisions and i
wouldn't say this ranks anywhere close
to the importance of those provisions um
but i at the end of the day i do think
it's important
and we you know we're a mark we're an
arboretum
we we i worked on the street levy
campaign and it's just
disturbing to see utilities come in and
treat our city
um like it's less valuable than it is
and that's what underlies this
thank you so much jim for your honest
insight for your legal opinion and for
your
your passion certainly certainly
appreciate that
monique if i may sure um
jim uh one of the concerns that i had
when i read this
was um
i know there are times when we have an
intention to do something to our streets
for example we want to uh
maybe even turn a street into um
or an alley into something where we're
going to turn it over to the community
or something and
not make it a paved street after that
i'm concerned that this would require
them to put it back the way it was even
if that wasn't the intent
even if that isn't what the city would
have wanted
and that's my hang up with this
you understand what i'm saying was i
clear with that
um yeah i mean um
i would welcome mark's view on that i
mean i think this is limited to actions
by a public utility and
and i don't think that the city itself
is defined as a public utility i know
um from tree commission discussions for
instance
there was discussion that i don't think
got traction but
in terms of the re the changes to
commonwealth park perhaps
you know changing the the uh what is it
columbia that goes through the middle of
commonwealth park
and i think you're concerned you know if
that had broad public support would this
prevent the city from sort of changing
um the uh columbia's
pathway through the park i guess i don't
read it that way but certainly if
there's any
desire to put this on the ballot i'm
sure you would want to make sure
with mark that that it would not be an
impact
of the language here that isn't that's
not
the issue i was raising if we have a
street today
or an alley today that is paved
and the utility has to go underneath it
and they tear it up
if the city's intent was at some point
in the future to make that
not a paved alley for example or we
wanted to do something different to it
like
briquette would this
require the utility to pave that alley
which meant we would then have to tear
it up to brick it and
and rather than only do it halfway and
we could work out a deal with them to
let them brick it for example
that that was my question that
that i mean i think that's a a fair
concern um if there's any thought that
the city
probably more likely to turn
an existing street that maybe has a
brick underlayment back to brick than
to create more asphalt streets but yeah
this could
in effect i think require as written
right now could
uh require that the the utility repave
over the bricks and then you
take the asphalt back up so um i don't
know how much of a concern that is but i
think that's a fair reading
of what's here well harvey
i love your attention to detail no he's
awesome
he is awesome thanks thanks so much
again jim i appreciate that
that was that was a great discussion
matt thanks for bringing it up
yeah matt did you have any other
kind of um pressing sections that
you wanted to raise for um discussion
maybe before
um before laurie chimes in if she has
any as well
no not right now that was the one that
stood out to me uh
most at this time thank you okay
lori how about you you know i really
i really took into consideration the
ones that
jim highlighted as being really
important um
and and then i totally had um
and which which which we're dealing with
all but the um the recall of the elected
officials we've you know
um but i had uh
what is that that's article four section
18 with the mayor's court
and i thought could this be bundled with
the dei
in article one i mean we're starting to
get really heavy
uh with the article one stuff and i
don't even know if that's
you know possible um we already
dealt with time for holding elections
which was
which was something that that i had you
know that wasn't quite on the back
burner but
um we really did talk about
um
i think section 77
uh
[Music]
was one that i had but i haven't
looked at it again um
but most of these i think that are
definitely back burner things i i just
feel like we've already hit on the ones
that are really important
um and and i had obviously i had 48 and
49 and
um listed and and you know 48 can be
changed by ordinance and 49
um uh mark suggesting won't change
anything
so um
i i don't feel compelled to i mean i
think that if we are really
um trying to you know say less is more i
i don't feel compelled to put any of the
other ones that i was looking at
as sort of my second tier on
i think you just passed it mark section
18
mayor's court least restrictive means
there it is yeah and lori i think you're
right i recall when charter review did
its presentation to council they did
list
this one section under the dei
group
i wonder if maybe for our next meeting
once
we've we have a couple of other
sentences that we were going to try to
put with sections one through four maybe
we can then look to see if they are so
bundled or if they could still
take on that one additional sentence
i recently visited mayor's mayor's court
and we are doing some amazing fantastic
things especially with our new
prosecutor and clerk of courts
um and our new uh magistrate
um but i'm open to seeing if we can
borrow this one sentence given what i
think it stands for and what it would
mean
to um to ensure fairness in our mayor's
court
that would be great if we could
highlight that um if you could put that
in your notes and i will put that in
mind so that we can
we can think um hard about that one um
there's one there's one i'd like to
address um
and that is uh
sect dealing with the city attorney and
again i'm not going to tell you it's the
most important thing
i'm trying to see if it's in a section
other than
just i'm just looking sorry
it's second it's sec it's article 3
section 14.
right i just didn't know it was in
another sec so
right now right now the way it's written
in sex one of the other sections the
city attorney
can only be removed for cause
essentially
um that's ridiculous um the city
the city of bexley should only have a
city attorney that it wants to have
um and that the mayor should be able to
come to council and say that
we need to move on from the city
attorney for whatever reason
as long as it's not because he the race
sex age kind of stuff of course
and city council again should be able to
go to the mayor and say this isn't
working
and if the two groups concur the mayor
and council
the city attorney should go just like
anybody else has the right to
hire or fire a lawyer of their choosing
the city of bexley shouldn't be any
different
since the city attorney is appointed and
not elected so
um again i'm not saying it's the most
important but if that could
if that's number four or five or
whatever i think it should be on the
ballot to avoid any potential issues
when i refuse to leave
nice mark okay let's ask a question
though that we've been asking is this
something that could be handled
by ordinance i know no
because the way it really was in the
charter earlier oh okay
and a fine i haven't read that section
recently so
what did i say what where where is that
section it's uh
section 13 here the mayor shout out the
power to appoint and then it lists all
these people he can appoint
and then it later on talks about how you
get rid of these people
and again the language um or maybe it's
in
yeah the the language is basically
when you read 13 and 14 together says
that you can only get rid of
the um city attorney for cause and again
really it's more in 14 the current
language of 14 says
the mayor with the concurrence of
council met at any time remove any
officer member board
or commission so appointed under the
authority of paragraphs a
which is city attorney c-d-e-n-f
for inefficiency neglected duty or
malfeasance in office
first doing charges and being held
having a hearing
now so it's very specific
the city's lawyer if if folks want to
get rid of the city's lawyer because
it's just not
working out then any client should be
able to get rid of their lawyer if it's
just not working out
got it you know um
monique if i may sure i i know
i think i might have been the one who
raised the comments made some comments
earlier about
we don't want to put too much stuff on
here so people just throw up their hands
but mark raised a very valid point about
this
there might well be one or two other
things in here and i
can't recall because it's been a little
while since i've read this
that probably need to be changed
and maybe we take this opportunity to
change them even if it means we put on
you know six items or seven items
instead of the five we think we need
because
as i said mark this is a valid point if
there are other things in here that we
need to get rid of
or we need to correct um
well that one's stupid you got to do it
now's the chance unless you
absolutely are comfortable that council
will make a commitment
to do this again in two years and i
i just find it hard to believe they will
do that i just i
agree they they look at charter review
like it's a ten-year process
and it takes forever and i can't imagine
in two years they'll put the they'll
think about putting these three things
back on the ballot
yeah that's a fair point though
that one's also a su i would think that
would be a
super quick one to be able to
articulate don't you think to to
i think i agree lauren straightforward i
guess is what i'm trying to say
so this one do you have anything on this
one yeah this one potentially could be
our fifth if i'm keeping track is that
right
yeah i think so again this one
potentially
could be our fifth what was our fourth
i only i don't know but i haven't
written down that
alien
i feel like monique you were gonna put
but you were looking at mayor's court
being bundled is that
with yeah just that one sentence um but
we did
that wasn't the fourth was it oh there
was a
there was a separate fourth um okay
and if that's the case then this would
be um
the the fifth okay okay
good good thing i'm keeping notes so
when i go back and
write the draft it's all going to make
sense okay
we're counting on you marker marker bill
was there anything else that um
either one of you would suggest we
consider discussing a little more in
depth tonight
that we haven't already
bill you have anything else i i don't
think so monique
i i'll go through this but i don't i
think we've hit all the stuff that's
critical i guess then my my next
question was
this is something that mark had
mentioned at our first meeting you know
we are not limited to only
the proposed amendments that charter
review um
came up with is there anything that any
of the other
committee members would like to
recommend to be on the ballot
that wasn't proposed by charter review
i don't have anything i don't like city
manager oh just kidding
term limits biller
biller mark same question for you
i don't think so okay
okay does anyone else have anything that
they would like to
add for tonight's discussion uh before
i open it up to any comments from the
public
i do real quick if i could if i could
mark and we don't have to talk about it
a lot tonight but if if you could look
at section 24 and 77
it has to do 24 has to do with um
notifying
counsel and how it's done and then 77
is charter amendments being published in
a newspaper verse
electronic mailing or on a city web page
yeah i didn't know those two items could
be done
via ordnance uh but i think it would
help
to bring us um up to
the 21st century with communication
uh for those two items
go ahead bill go ahead no no go ahead no
no you
uh i i think the
issue with the notification in the
newspaper
can't be done by ordinance i think
that's one of the issues that's in here
and we did talk about changing that to
making it electronic
so we don't have to publish it for two
consecutive weeks or whatever the words
are
i missed that okay bill that's exactly
right
um and so again it's 77
would alleviate that issue the issue
that i know the mayor raised uh
regarding what was the other section i'm
drowning blank now
24 24 yeah um is that here let me get to
the language
i also had that i also ironically uh
ma i had those two could those both be
bundled
yeah so 24 here here's the issue with 24
potentially and it could be a real issue
is that
um you know right now
you have to have it served personally
or leave it at their business blah blah
blah six hours in advance
and what was a practical matter what
happens is the
person calling usually the council
president calling special meetings says
will you wave it and people say yes
now people can be a pr be a pain and not
say yes
to try to manipulate it but the concern
and the mayor mentioned this and
i think he's right again in a worst case
scenario
if you only have to notify somebody
electronically
i can get together with three other
city council members who are like-minded
and kind of freeze out everyone else by
saying
here is a special here's a notice i sent
out at
midnight on saturday for a 6
15 a.m meeting on sunday morning oh i
guess they won't find out about it
and again is it likely to occur no but
it's certainly not
out of the realm of possibilities if
people are not getting along in the
right way so that that's
it's subject to manipulation unlike 77
which really isn't subject to
manipulation
okay just a thought
yep i see
that's all i had monique okay thank you
i appreciate it okay um as i mentioned
at the beginning of our meeting
um i have been taking copious notes
thank goodness these are recorded uh i
will put together
a draft of our
recommendations and breaking them out
into three categories the first
is things that our committee thinks
should be considered for inclusion on
the ballot
the second would be things for
discussion on possibly
addressing the ordinance and then the
third would be
possibly addressing in the future or
putting on the back burner for a bit
as appropriate i would like to have
one last and final meeting to review
that draft which will go out
sooner than later so that all of you
have a chance to
look at it well in advance of our
meeting and as mentioned earlier too
i would love to possibly have
that last meeting before april 25th
so that we could present council with
our recommendations at the april 25th
meeting
if at all possible when
one would work for folks for our last
and final
meeting sometimes it's better to do them
as quicker as possible so that we don't
forget uh what what we just talked about
how's two weeks from today the 21st
sound
that works for that works for me
and i do see i'm sorry i said that our
april 27
25th was our council meeting i'm sorry
it's april 27th so
matt i like your idea if that works for
for others to maybe have our last
meeting be on the 21st
7pm work good for me i can do that
i'm available yay yay
one of us is wrong on our calendar but
we'll figure it out later
what do you mean we're wrong that one of
us has something scheduled we just don't
know it
oh just kidding you're probably right
it's all good all right so our last and
final council
committee meeting will be april 21st 7
pm
um and assuming that that goes as
smoothly as i think it will
we will then be prepared to present to
council
our recommendations at the april 27
meeting and then followed hopefully by a
first
reading of an ordinance at the may 11th
meeting so that is what we will consider
doing i know that there are some folks
who
may still be on with us who wish to make
a public comment at this time we will
take public comments is there anyone who
would like to
speak feel free to oh i do see a hand
raised
if you'd like to speak please raise your
hand just like jim wilson has done
jim i'm going to unmute you
and if you can please go ahead and share
with us your thoughts
thank you um just to do it the official
way i'm jim wilson and i live at 2404
bexley park road i wanted to start by
thanking
all of you for for your thoughtfulness
and diligence in looking at the
um anti-racism provisions and
and i'm grateful for your actions here
tonight
i did just want to give you um sort of
at least my
own perception on a couple of the other
items that you
had discussed tonight on section 62
the conflict of interest
provisions as i recall our discussion
what was as important as what was added
was what was being taken out
which i think members of the charter
review felt
was potentially confusing and overly
restrictive i may be wrong about that
but if mark
advises you you might look back and see
whether some of the
language about an indirect interest in
things might actually
be read very expansively as to what
employees
and officials of the city could actually
do that's my recollection
as to why we were going more towards the
statutory language
and away from what it was in the charter
but i i just offer that recollection
for for what it's worth um
on um on
on provision on section 66 i did want to
clarify
uh that that was actually not intended
to expand
access to the ballot what it's intended
to do
is to clarify language that was
confusing to a lot of people
back last fall or
late summer when some folks were
interested in putting something on the
ballot
and more importantly allow issues to go
on the ballot
in what are called state election years
because right now the charter prohibits
that
and that could have the effect of if
folks get enough signatures on a
petition to put something on the ballot
it has to be put on within 120 days so
if it can't go on the state
election ballot under the current
charter
you could be required to call a special
election
which i think we were told would cost
somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty
thousand dollars to the city so
that was that that was the primary
purpose of
just clarifying the timing here was
to actually prevent a situation where
the city had to hold a special election
because
a valid um initiative had been presented
and the timing it couldn't go on a state
election year
um required a special election so
hopefully that's a useful clarification
and then um i just lastly and i
apologize for going on but i did want to
reiterate
much of what mark said about the city
attorney provision
right now um and um i hope you all know
that i have
the most respect for mark and this is
not in any way
an effort to make it easier to get rid
of mark i hope we never get rid of marco
marx ready to retire and enjoy
retirement but right now i think mark is
in a position where he has one
obligation under the ohio code of
professional responsibility
to withdraw whenever his client wants
him to withdraw
and a cons a different charter provision
that says
he shouldn't withdraw because he can't
be fired and i think that
creates an unfortunate situation for any
city attorney
i think it will have to be put on the
ballot with care so it doesn't that
doesn't appear on the ballot
as a provision to make it easier to to
remove a city attorney it should be
described as to revise
the uh charter to be consistent with the
ohio rules of professional
responsibility
for the city of attorney in my view so
thank you for listening and again thank
you
for your work tonight and throughout
this process
thank you so much jim for for that
insight um and for sticking with us
uh this far much appreciated thanks jim
yes i hope you know how appreciated you
are we are
so so lucky to have some of these
brainiacs like you
in in our community and people who are
feel so comfortable
sharing their thoughts and we are i'm
always grateful
for you so please know that
any anyone else that would like to offer
any public comments
yes this is john huffinberg and i don't
know how to raise my hand in zone
right ahead go right ahead john first of
all i want to thank all of you i
i think you are doing an excellent job
a very very difficult process
for council i also would like to thank
jim he just
was so helpful
uh consistently uh in our process
and we could not have come up with this
broad
product without him um
i had three thoughts and they're not on
whether it should be
done or not done and
jim addressed um two of them
i agree um with what he said in section
66 about putting things on the ballot
jim i would add the fact that when
a group tried to do it um the board of
elections gave them
the wrong information because they did
not know
what was on our charter in our charter
if i've stated that correctly you might
address it
the other you addressed but
um mark suggested the wording
be changed on removing the city attorney
and i had not heard um jim's language
before but i wanted to
see that she made every effort that this
is not a reflection
on mark he has been
a a super help to our process
and to charter i mean to civil service
um the third thing is you were talking
about
gender neutrality and speaking for the
group
we were all in favor of that we did have
really significant discussion about
what terms to use currently
to identify gender neutrality
or um we didn't state it in that way we
stated
we discussed what words could be used
um appropriately um
again my significant thanks to
all of you and you've put a lot of time
into this and tonight
take care thank you so much john for not
only chairing
this times charter review but i believe
you chaired it
last time so thank you for all of your
service and time and effort
in making our city what it is we so
appreciate you
amen amen thank you make sure you carve
out some time in late 2030 early 20
times the charm john officer
i will be uh 87 or 89 at that time
oh oh big deal
you're on
any more comments from the public before
we adjourn
okay seeing none um we've got our action
plan we will be meeting again
um on april 21st at 7 00 pm
keep an eye on your email for my
upcoming uh
draft and with that can i please have a
motion to adjourn
i'll make a motion that we adjourn and i
will second that
that motion i was gonna say emotion
all in favor say i i i
anyone opposed nope thanks everyone
we so appreciate you your time and
effort um and for sticking with us
uh for so long so we'll see you soon
thanks john thank you
good night everybody good work thank you
everyone bye
bye bye hi debbie thanks bye thanks guys
good night
night john get out of that attic
you