mark i love that statue behind you
oh my god it's is this creepy old it's
not creepy
had it and you know when she moved well
she since passed away i'm like i don't
want to throw it away so
it's weird i like that i like it
thank you awesome mayor did you say we
are live and recording you're live
recording
yep awesome great um thank you so much
i'm going to call this meeting to order
tonight
is a council committee meeting regarding
the charter review
commission's proposed amendments the
committee consists of myself president
fibel and council member klingler
and i have also asked our city attorney
mark fishel and city auditor harvey to
attend
mr harvey do we need to do roll call of
the committee members
uh we certainly can miss fibel
i'm here mr klingler here
and ms lamke here would everyone stand
for the pledge of allegiance please
pledge allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation
under god indivisible with liberty and
justice for all
great thank you everyone so much um
we've got some attendees joining us and
we may have some other council members
eventually
hopping on as well this
is the first of several public meetings
whereby the
charter review commission's proposed
amendments are going to be
discussed there will be an opportunity
for public comments
as noted on our agenda later this
evening
and we are planning on ending tonight's
meeting no later than 9 pm
and really depending on where we end up
it's very likely that we're going to
need additional
committee meetings which will also be
public
i thought it might make sense to break
up tonight's meeting into several
parts the first part was just to give a
brief overview
of the history of our charter review
commission
and what has led us up to this point
the second part would consist of a
possible timeline for this committee's
work
and recommendations to council
the third part would be a committee
discussion
on how we are going to make
recommendations to council
and then the fourth of time permitting
to start delving into what some of these
proposed amendments
are does that sound good with everyone
awesome okay as some of you may know and
for those
folks who are listening the purpose of
our charter review commission
was to bring together residents who are
passionate about the city
and our community to see if there were
any changes that should be brought to
our charter as some of you may know on
august 18 2018 city council passed
second amended resolution number 1118
to establish the 2020 charter review
committee
and that resolution specified the
following
that the commission would commence after
october 15
of 2019 but before november 15
of 2019 and that the commission would
report its recommendations
concerning possible amendments to
council no later than february 1st
of this year council received
these recommendations on january 6
of this year and the commission formally
presented
and explained their recommendations to
council in a public meeting
on january 27th of this year
the proposed amendments are the
collective work of 15
amazing selfless bexley residents
who met for over two hours at a time
twice a month
for well over a year public comments
were welcome
at each charter meeting and we're
grateful to all those who served on our
charter review commission
mr official do you have anything to add
regarding the history of our charter
review commission
no i think that covers it awesome
okay moving on to part two
we as a committee need to discuss the
proposed timeline
for the work that we're going to do and
possible recommendations to counsel
prior to today's meeting i asked mr
harvey and mr official
to reach out to the board of elections
and to let
us know by when we would need to have
our work completed and council having
voted to propose things on the
ballot so would you be willing to share
that with us
mark marker bill um
sure i'll be happy go ahead bill yeah i
i talked to the board of elections um
they have to have everything by that the
90-day period before the
before election day which is i forget
exactly but early august
they would like them a little bit sooner
than that but they believe that
unless there's something that they have
strong
exception to they can work through it if
they've got it
as early as uh as early august so
i think if we get through our meetings
as normally scheduled
through june and finalize everything and
submit it to them they'll have the
entire month of july
to get back to us i assume that would be
back to me as clerk of council
uh if there are any objections and then
we can correct them
if they believe we need to have some
major changes before august 1st
we could do that otherwise we could
negotiate with them
if it's merely a wording change from
august 1st to september 1st
and time to print things for the ballot
they did not anticipate
the the impression i got from talking to
the people there was
they did not anticipate any serious
issues with that
okay i told him i didn't think there
would be anything that was
uh significantly controversial
um but obviously wouldn't know until we
finalized everything
okay mark did you have something to add
about uh
the process or timeline no i mean that
that that makes a lot of sense and
obviously then
this committee can um back you know
move backwards from that june uh goal of
having everything done or
probably really a deadline not just a
goal but council
the other thing and i can't remember and
bill thanks for contacting the border
elections i thought you know some of the
information they sent you i don't know
did you send that around to all the
committee members
i only sent it to you and monique okay i
will gladly share it with our committee
members
yeah i mean it's nothing
earth-shattering it just is
uh frankly uh a little bit enlightening
to me about
how little has to be in the
actual working of a ballot uh amendment
uh or proposed amendment to the charter
uh it's certainly
not the entire language although again
there's some details we could talk about
there later
um but that i thought that was very
helpful too and that should actually
i think make city councils work a little
more
simple in terms of what the ballot
language
they want the ballot language to look
like great
great um mark if we talk about
time frame maybe working back from june
i note that according to
our list of meetings we have a june 22nd
meeting
and the one before that is a june 8th
meeting
would this be something that council
would need to
vote on an ordinance to place certain
issues on the ballot
and that is three readings yes exactly
so it almost again if i just a
suggestion and it doesn't have to be
this way
you know it's almost seems to me a lot
like the budget in the sense that
maybe planning for it to be the first
reading to be the first meeting in may
and then you can have a second reading
in may and then a third reading in june
with the uh the option of going you know
tabling it if there are things that come
up
so there'd still be another meeting in
june for council to meet to approve
of course you could always schedule a
special meeting if need be but then you
get into the july resets and things like
that
so i mean just the thought yeah
i i like that idea lori and matt do you
guys like that idea too
yes okay um if we follow that timeline
that mark just outlined
let's uh let's aim
for introduce introducing a first
reading of an ordinance
regarding ballot issues at the may 11th
council meeting
second reading would occur may 25th
third reading and potential vote on june
8th and like mark mentioned
if we need to table it for any reason
then we could still have the june 22nd
meeting to uh to to vote on it and that
would still give
the board of elections time to uh
to to get back to us um marker bill
does the board of elections have final
say on the exact
language on the ballot and can you
explain that a little bit
it is my understanding that they have
final approval and i think it was in
that document he centered
the information he sent i think they
have final approval
on the uh final wording of the of the or
of the
ballot they do that's what the email
said
and uh yeah absolutely great
so if if um if we're thinking this first
ordinance is introduced in early may
that obviously gives this committee um
you know at least another
couple months to to work through each
each item
it's possible that we'll need some
additional
committee meetings to be planned and i
would also be open
if we think as we delve in further if we
need to have
a public forum um to allow additional
comments or input i'm certainly open to
doing that possibly in april
or may if uh if folks need that
um mark you had also mentioned when we
had talked earlier
that we we as a council have several
options
uh regarding what to do with the
recommendations would you mind running
through
um what some of the various
recommendations
or options that we would have to do
sure so city council has the option
to adopt all
or part of the recommendations from
charter review verbatim as they have
recommended the language city council
has the option to modify the language
city council has the option to reject
any and all of the proposals
and frankly city council actually has
the authority
to add things to it not that i'm
advocating for that
because i think charter review did a
really thorough job but city council
still does have the authority
to say okay they didn't touch section
eight
and we wanted to make some changes
section eight or whatever
the number is so those are the options
and of course city council has the
option of doing nothing
if they don't think there's anything
worth recommending i seriously doubt
that's going to be the the result but
that is an option
great thank you monique if i
if i could i think there's also
something
in our charter that requires that we
publish
these changes uh in the newspaper
and i think that's much closer to
election day but that's something we
don't want to forget
uh that we i think we have to do it not
once but twice don't we
i think we have to do it twice and i
think it's got to be
within a two-week period right
before the election in november not
before city council
is is making any decisions on it though
right that's correct
my hope would be too that once once we
have voted on an ordinance
and decided what's going to be on the
ballot that we would make sure that our
public knows in the fall
leading up to election day what is on
there so that they
can review the proposed language in
advance and go into the voting booth
knowing
what what they can expect on the ballot
so
thanks for bringing that up bill um
okay so those were the first two parts
that i wanted to talk about
um the next is monique i'm sorry can i
interrupt you
absolutely bill bill's uh comment about
that
just made me look at section 77 of the
charter
it also required to
it looks like we are also required to
not less than 30 days prior to the
election
uh the uh where the amendments would
appear
to submit to all of the electors
in writing by mail a copy of the
proposed amendment so
that that will be a bigger task um
everybody each elector whose name
appears on the poll
of the last regular municipal or general
election so it would be
the election we just had in november
okay so not only publishing putting it
in public
maybe in newspapers different times but
also mailing it to the electors
at least actually the the language says
if while i'm here that the for the full
text of the proposed amendment shall be
published
once a week for not less than two
consecutive weeks
in a newspaper published in the city
with the first publication
being at least 15 days prior to the
election where the amendments would
appear
awesome thank you for for catching that
mark
no thanks bill thank you bill for for
catching that
um okay the the third part of the
meeting
we are speeding right along is to really
talk about what we
as a committee want to do process-wise
every council member has a printout
of the existing charter with the
proposed amendments
and there's quite a bit to to digest in
there
i'm open to suggestions on how this
committee wants to go about
um looking at the suggestions i
i will tell you that i thought it was
helpful when the charter review
presented everything to council
they broke it up into different
categories
that's certainly one option um they gave
us
i believe eight different categories
ranging from diversity equity and
inclusion all the way through
future charter review other options is
we can start with the bigger
issues first we can also look at
what we think could is more of ordinance
appropriate so that we're not
uh pursuing that as a potential ballot
issue
or we could try to group things together
uh what are your thoughts
well i the first thing that i noticed
about
a lot of of their changes were that um
the bulk of them are in um
are in article one i mean am i incorrect
in saying that
they did um five sections
um they also shared with us
that um or at least i heard um
i think especially from i believe it was
um
jim wilson that um
information regarding um diversity
ethics and the recall were the things
that
they um
they really all rallied around it it
felt like it was uh
and mark you might be able to share you
know more about that one
but those seem to be the ones that were
really important and i know that the
diversity
um is really highlighted
in that first article
um the diversity and hiring
and also um the whole uh the preamble
um so i don't know i would i don't
understand and again i think mark needs
to help me with this
also is how this stuff gets bundled i
mean could you
bundle an entire like would it be easy
to say
we're gonna bundle article the preamble
in article one
um can we bundle a lot of times every
they said continuously throughout the
document
they have tried to um
oh the term limits to stagger them and
they put that in different sections
i mean can we somehow bundle that even
though it's in lots of different
sections
i don't know i'm just curious how we
even go about
doing that and then do we need to go
do we need to organize it that way in
bundles
um so
yeah so that actually is one other thing
i i
neglected to mention when monique asked
you know what your options are
that's part of it once you decide what
you want you also need to make or
recommend you also need to recommend
to city council i believe how to combine
these under different issues
you can have multiple issues that's or
multiple
ballot amendments or or ballot
ballot uh questions um but i do think it
does make sense
to look at some things together and you
you're right lorianne that
all the civil rights stuff makes sense
to look at it together
depending you know and then to answer
your other question
yes this you can for purposes
of the ballot language say
something and this is not going to be
exactly right but
that you know a proposed the proposed
amendment is to
allow in various sections
staggered terms for committee and boards
commissions and
boards and commission appointments as an
example
so yes you don't have to have you can
you can bundle that all as one question
another thing you could bundle all is
one question
is that a proposal to uh
use more gender neutral language which
is in here
throughout you know things like that
that you can propose
that that could be a proposal and then
you
the folks would vote yes or no on it and
if they vote yes
all the changes where that are in the
language that would be passed by council
where there's he has changed from heavy
then you know whatever that
whatever the language is would then be
modified that's a great
great suggestion lori the other question
then
related to that is um
i just feel like charter review did did
an amazing job and really spent a long
time with
this and really put their heads together
and there's a
we had a major think tank there of
people who not only
had uh who were veteran council members
um but we had lawyers and we had you
know just
lovers of bexley and we just had some
really amazing people put a lot of time
into this
and um
and it would be my hope to value as much
of what they had to say
as many things as they want to change as
we possibly can
so that leads to my question
how many can we put on this
there is no technical limit i think is a
practical matter
you need to be careful i don't want to
give you a number
of the but i i think that clearly it
should be in the single digits
of how many proposed amendments again
that doesn't mean they're you know for
example
one one proposed amendment can be all of
new article one so you know that doesn't
mean
five separate things as an example but
but yeah i mean
too much you know there there's no hard
and fast rule but
uh i don't know that i think less is
better less is more i i figured
that you would say that i mean i
anticipated you saying that and and and
i would have agreed right away anyway
and um
do and then the other question and
forgive my ignorance when it comes to
this
when we put it as amendments we put it
in the ordinance but we put it as
potential items can
let's say let's say that the um
staggered terms is is it going to be
voted on separately than like
the gentle gender neutral um pronouns
etc
yeah i mean it probably should you know
something like that
i mean i think it i think it makes sense
to and this is getting down the road a
little bit
but to think about as you're talking
about bundling it
i think it makes most sense to keep
things together
that makes sense to be together in other
words
obviously you know that's a stupid
statement because who's gonna
what i mean by that is that that
you should try as best as possible
to keep subject matters together
as one proposed change now having said
that
there are some things that i'm thinking
about where there are some suggested
changes
that we can define subject matter
broadly
ordinarily depending on the
circumstances
so for example one thing that comes to
mind
and again this may be a bad example but
it's off the top of my head
there are proposed changes about the
city attorney
if there are proposed changes about
other
elected officials or other appointed
officials
you can perhaps include those all
together as one
subject again you don't have to look at
it in the in detail
um but but yeah so with the cree you
know
we could be as creative as we want to be
to the extent that it makes sense
for voters to understand what you're
trying to accomplish
but if i could one
we have to remember that the ultimate
goal is that everything that we get on
the ballot to be passed
has to be understood
in a in a way that the voters will
understand it and be willing to vote on
it so
while it might make sense to put
everything about elected officials
together
it might not because some voters might
say
i don't want to change anything about
the mayor i want to change
everything about the city attorney
and putting them together might get
voters to vote
for or against something that
maybe we don't want him to vote for or
against just something to think about as
we go forward
no absolutely that's a really good point
no question
yeah i'd want to keep it as as simple as
we can but to the extent that we could
bundle
i think that's a great idea i did a
little bit of
research and um if my research is
correct it looks like
the 2011 ballot
uh which contained the last charter
reviews recommendations
if i'm reading this right there were
only four measures
on the ballot three of which passed
and i'll be happy to send these to the
committee but
they from what i see they were very
simple very straightforward and i
thought i
saw bill in your email that
um the actual ballot language itself
it can summarize something as long as
the actual language and the percentage
needed to pass
is posted um uh at the election site
was that right about that mark that's my
understanding of what he wrote yes
okay sorry mark go ahead
awesome hey matt did you have any
suggestions on
uh maybe how to how to um break some of
this down
um my only suggestion and it's already
been
discussed is i'm in favor of less
less is more in this instance i feel
like if you stick 20 things on a ballot
or you know all of
you know like lorian said bundling and
mark said keeping it
keeping it brief so really selecting
what what we believe should go on the
ballot
um i think you know if you get too many
people might rush through
and then you're not getting accurate you
know a really good accurate opinion of a
vote
or you know how people feel about things
so let's let's pick you know maybe the
five to eight most important ones or
four to six or whatever keep it in that
range and um and then and then talk
about the the rest of them ourselves
as how of what we want to do as a
council so that that was my only thought
really i certainly don't want um
voters to get overwhelmed and right and
you know have have too much information
on there um
do we want to maybe as a committee give
some thought between now and potentially
our next meeting
uh if there's common subjects or lumping
that we see when we're going through the
amendments that we think we could
uh you know present at our next
committee meeting and
and possibly put some of these proposed
amendments into
some of these subjects does that make
sense i think that sounds like great
homework
we are going to have a lot of homework
yes
[Laughter]
another thing that i thought would be
would be really helpful
if if if you don't already have it
i will gladly circulate it but i
you might remember that when the charter
review presented this to council
they did a power point and i believe
that
they sent that to um
they sent that to lori ann so i will
share it with all of you as well but
in there they had certain categories at
the beginning
if you want to look at that for
potential subjects
and see if we can break that down but i
will gladly share
the powerpoint and some of the other
documents that they gave um
they gave as well so that we have that
going forward yeah that would be really
helpful
thank you and i think if we each look at
that independently i think that would be
a healthy thing to do and then
you know come back to see you know what
we all
you know what commonalities we have okay
sounds good and lori i echo what you
said i remember when charter
presented their recommendations to
council
i asked them you know what are the
things you're most passionate about
that meeting obviously was videotaped
and recorded
i'll gladly send everybody the link to
that meeting
but if there's an opportunity for
everyone to
if you want to to hear the rationale for
why something
was changed or words that were picked or
why they felt it was important i think
revisiting that recorded meeting would
be really helpful
i plan on doing it because it'll it'll
help me so i'm happy to share that
um as well okay
we also have access to the recorded
uh charter review don't we
somehow i think yes thank you yeah i
think those videos are on there
and i think mark they also had meeting
minutes right in case
we're not able to very extensive meeting
minutes they're great
i don't think they have too many videos
they don't have any videos it's all
audio only but you can still listen to
it
okay and is there anything videos
from the time we started doing zoom
pre-zoom it would just be audio
mark is there anything wrong with um
council members um
asking uh other charter review uh
individuals um for further explanation
if we wanted
if we wanted that or is that you need to
come to a meeting
or individually or if i let's say i
wanted to call up
i don't know becky guzman and i wanted
to ask her a question
there's no problem with that as long as
you aren't calling a majority of them
which i know you wouldn't i don't have
the time to do that if you want to just
call a particular person or two on
an issue um you know then you know that
that would be funny okay hey mark i know
that charter review had some
subcommittees i remember uh rachel lang
i think headed up uh a dei subcommittee
would would would those meetings have
been recorded or record
uh memorialized somehow or i know she
then eventually presented to charter
review what had happened in that
subcommittee those were more
working groups than they were so they
were not
you'd have to ask them they certainly
weren't there weren't any wouldn't be
any minutes or recordings of those
okay what kind of notes they took
throughout
their their own process okay
okay sounds good well having having said
all that
um obviously we've got some homework to
do we've gone through
a timeline we have some things that
we're going to keep in mind
for subject issues and seeing if there's
ways for us to lump together
do folks want to take that as homework
potentially for a next meeting
or do we want to start talking about
some of the issues based on the
charter's past presentation to us
it's a lot to digest i i know and i know
that our charter took
um a significant
effort and they were smith very very
carefully and were
they're very diligent at their work so
it is a lot to
digest but lori and matt would you want
to
um to start delving into some of this
tonight or
start working on homework and looking at
all the information that i'm going to
send to you via email
and then come prepared to our next
committee meeting
with with the process to start dipping
up
how we see things
i'm happy to to forge forward
tonight if individuals want to do that
so i'm
i'm not against that it seems like it
might be a more efficient
way to handle things if we know what
we're doing and we
come back you know with more of uh
you know so with some more work done um
that's just my my thoughts
so yeah
i i can forge ahead tonight if we wanted
to but you know if
if if you know we want to get the
procedures down and
you know i i now have a better
understanding you know this is our first
committee meeting so i now have a better
understanding of how we want to
navigate this and and what we want to
bundle and try to figure out what
what different things you want to do so
i'm you know i'm prepared to dive into
the specifics but if not if we want to
you know maybe reconvene in a week you
know a week or two i can
i can do that as well i also have a few
i also have a few questions
for some just legal you know like
explanations for things that i would
love to to mark
to have you for like i i'm sure a
five-minute phone call would take care
of it
um so that i can understand
there's just three different things that
i wanted to make sure that i understood
before i
said yeah i love that kind of thing so i
mean that's perfectly fine
um there actually are a couple of things
i would like to point out this evening
not for any decisions to be made at all
um but just a couple of things that um
that and and and they you know and it
doesn't have to be right now
but um that are actually in the civil
rights the new civil rights article
proposed article because hey i pres well
primarily because i presume what charter
review is recommending or something darn
close to it is going to be
one of the lead recommendations um to
city council and i assume
uh prove approved by city council
um is so you know at some appropriate
time just to have you people
you people just to have you folks think
about
about those things as you're looking at
the language so
mark do you want to go ahead and do that
now
yeah um actually i'm gonna can i answer
um i i actually uh i there's a
a point that i want to try to address
that was
suggested to me by another council
member and that's the question
for council members who are not on the
committee what can be
discussed with the committee if they
have a specific question
outside of these meetings and so this
committee
uh the of monique laurie ann
and matt um you know if two
two two of them are a majority of this
committee
so clearly to any two of you three
can't confer with each other um offline
about substantive stuff if a council
member wants to contact
one of you with a question or something
offline
that is fine as long as it's only one of
you
about that issue and not more than one
because then that would be a
problem i just want to address that
mark for clarification any of those
council members could talk
or actually all of those council members
could talk to you about a specific
issue or talk to me about a specific or
the mayor
is that 100 correct okay absolutely
correct
since bill since the auditor the mayor
and i
are not members of the committee we can
that's all fair game
oh it's a a great point to bring up
thank you for the clarification
we always want to keep you know be smart
about this
awesome mark if you want to go ahead and
uh
highlight some of the um some of the
concerns or issues that you might have
had from uh from legal point of view um
i've got
my notebook i sounds like matt and lori
are comfortable with at least trying to
to go ahead as well
why don't we go ahead and do that sure
and again i don't want you to think this
is written
in stone but there are just two things
one of them is in the proposed
new article one section two and one of
them
is in the proposed articles section
oh four so in section two
there's a the proposed new sentence and
i'm not going to read the whole thing
because it's really long
but it basically says that in the
exercise of power the city and
departments boards commissions etc
employees shall strive to ensure that
nobody who is working with the city is
discriminated against based on race
sexual orientation and it lists out all
the things which are perfectly
appropriate
and should be in there and then it has
another phrase that is
seems to me might have some unintended
consequences
so what i'm just going to read the
phrase part
in the exercise of the its powers the
city of bexley
shall ensure that anybody any no person
or group engaging conduct of official
business or seeking to do businesses
with the city is discriminated against
for all these reasons
or for any cause not reasonably related
to the accomplishment
of a legitimate government government
purpose
so in other and this is in fairness this
is something i thought of
when charter review is making its
presentation a council so it's not
something i ever
talked to charter review about so my bad
um but that phrase or any cause not
reasonably related
to the accomplishment of a legitimate
government purpose
to me it takes us
well beyond potentially takes us
well beyond the traditional and even
well now they're all traditional and
specific
non-discrimination reasons and now says
and anything else we can't we
we also have to make sure that we can't
discriminate
against anybody for any reason that's
not reasonably related to the
accomplishment of a legitimate
government purpose
over and above all of the unlawful
discrimination
categories so my question and it's not
i don't have the answer the question is
does that
now state either explicitly or
implicitly that
we can't that the city can no longer i
mean that the city
might be on the hook for violating the
charter
if and i have a stupid example if
the some future mayor says i'm
not appointing bill harvey to a
commission because he's bald
he wouldn't say that out loud in other
words some characteristic that's
not a protected class
but it and and frankly shouldn't be part
of a consideration
but it's not unlawful to be part of that
consideration
and maybe i'm getting too technical
there but again
i see that phrase and i can see some
lawyer trying to latch onto that
potentially
and it may or may not you know the
charter may not create a cause of action
for somebody
or down the road for a potential lawsuit
but that's one thing that at least comes
to mind
hey mark let me ask you if that one
phrase is taken out
um the rest of the sentence after or
military status
does that alleviate your concerns well i
have no concerns about the rest of it at
all
and again it might not even be a huge
concern about that phrase i just want to
think about it
and have you folks think about it as
well well
mark might this also be you know if it's
putting a red flag up in
your legal mind and and while i know uh
monique can look through it too because
she too has a legal mind
but would it be you know worth
consulting potentially someone
who is an expert at something like
you know at diversity type um issues i
mean i don't know i'm just asking
i'm not sure i'm guessing and he's on
here that at some point jim wilson may
have some input
and while he may not be an expert in
this area he certainly has a very good
legal mind
um
but having said that mark we
as we present this to the voters need to
understand that
if it's a concern for you it could be a
concern for other voters
and if it's enough of a concern for
enough voters they might say
i'm voting against the whole thing
because of that phrase which is unclear
right it's possible i mean
we love a lot of lawyers in bexley
yeah now that thank you for pointing
that out that was um
under section two section two the last
phrase in the first sentence
the first really long sentence
should be um then the other one which i
know
jim wilson has an opinion on um is in
section four
and not just jim wilson i mean just pick
on him but
so this one the the concern i have in
section four
i did raise with charter review and they
actually took a vote
you know most everything was consensus
is everyone okay
they actually took a vote and voted
eight
to seven in favor of including the
phrase that
i'm not comfortable with um
so and and again i'm not criticizing i
don't mean to make that sound like
those are very smart people it's in the
second sentence
um well the first sentence says the
ordinance of the city shall be
interpreted consistent with the city's
values
specifically the ordinance of the city
shall be interpreted to avoid
disparate impact that's the phrase that
concerns me
on any person on the basis of that
individual's race sex sexual orientation
etc etc etc um
how is that measured well it could be
so so disparate impact is this really
funky idea
funky's not the right word it was a
bigger idea
maybe a couple decades ago in
discrimination law
that even where there are unintended
kinds of
unintended discrimination that having
disparate
impact on a on a particular group
such as women etc is
would could constitute unlawful
discrimination
um so um
so for example and again this may not be
the best example
but if the city says we are
looking for clergy
we are looking for clergy to teach a
religion class that
the parks and recs are going to do
a program on and it's going to be on
saturday mornings
um that is that is that will have a
disparate impact on certain
people certain clergy who are jewish
again that's not a great example you
know
but but my concern is that this idea of
disparate
impact possibly not for sure but
possibly gives people the idea that
that we are going beyond and of course
in some ways we want to go beyond
traditional discriminatory
protections um to say
we aren't going to have any laws or any
policies
or um actually it's just the laws it's
just ordinances we're not gonna have any
laws
that discriminate against anyone even if
it's
totally by accident and unintended and
that can have unintended consequences
i think so that's the other concern that
i expressed and that's one
that like i said the charter review did
approve
the language in section four as you see
it uh by an eight to seven vote
mark we not
one of the concerns i have about putting
all this stuff in the charter is that
you can't change it easily i mean you
know the process you have to go through
could we not say some of those things
in ordinance fashion and if they we find
out later that because of
uh legal interpretations or actions on
that we haven't even thought about we
can then change them much easier
if they are in an ordinance as opposed
to something on our charter
well that's certainly true anything in
anything in the charter can only be
changed by another charter amendment
or or can be negated by a court ruling
that something's unconstitutional
or otherwise illegal um again i i
so the answer to your question is yes
that could be done i'd still have the
same concerns if it was in an
ordinance in fact i might even have
greater concerns if
council is affirmatively voting that
this is the way we're going to do it
i think i would have the same concerns
but but we could council could do things
that they could then change later on um
so anyway i just wanted to point those
two things out i'm not saying i'm right
i'm just saying these are two concerns
that i think
folks need to think about this group and
ultimately city council
and since since you know you're going to
be looking at things and delving into it
more deeply
i thought maybe i should bring it up now
even if it seemed a little out of
context of where we are so you guys
could think about it
i do remember you mark bringing up
section 4 when this was presented to
counsel
um i think i too had concerns about
the words shall be interpreted and i
asked you know is that different from
how it's
applied um but i'm positive that the
three of us
are going to be reaching out to you
often
with legal questions but that too caught
my eye
um and i do remember you indicating that
it was a close vote by charter
and again to be fair and obviously like
i said charter
folks who are supporting this from the
charter review can obviously speak up at
any of these meetings
but to be fair i think the idea behind
it is
to make it clear that in the city of
bexley we all really want to do what we
can to go above and beyond
what might be the minimal requirements
to make sure
there is no discrimination so it
certainly has
a laudable purpose um both of those sex
provisions do that i mentioned
good points um was there anything else
that kind of jumped
jumped out at you before we maybe talk
about a few other sections
no okay
um i had the the main one that i wanted
to maybe delve into and this is going to
be something that i want to
take a closer more in-depth look at was
um
you know first and foremost charter
review told us pretty unequivocally that
diversity equity and inclusion were one
of the things that they were most
passionate about
and by that i took it to mean um
the section section
one um i guess you could probably lump
in
one two and three but if we were just
talking about section one
it's different from the preamble but it
really
speaks to a new vision for for bexley
um they i i think i heard the recording
in which they discussed that and they
chose
every word very carefully um i i
there could be a way to maybe trim it
down a little bit
but if i had to pick one that i think i
felt
strongly about further discussion and
considering
it would be something like like section
one
if we are talking about different
subject areas in the future
maybe maybe sticking with the charter
reviews
subject of diversity equity inclusion
could be one of those
subjects
yeah i i agree monique um
100 i i also agree with it it could be
trimmed it seems when i read it it's
very
powerful and specific in in in
i love it but it kind of reads like a
run-on sentence
when you read it maybe maybe just some
word smithing
on um you know make make it a little
more concise or separate into two
sentences or multiple
thoughts um but yeah when when i read
that
um it's very it's a powerful statement
and
i love it i just um i think it could be
more
more concise yeah yeah
i agree i have the same note on that
we can we can certainly do that um
do do laurie or matt want to
kind of go if we are going to forge
ahead with some of these other ones
tonight
do do either one of you have kind of
um a few in particular that you want to
to discuss with the committee tonight
i'm not sure that i'm prepared to
dive in and change words and wordsmith
if that's what you're suggesting we do
tonight um
i'm not i'm not sure i'm ready to do
that
um i and i also think that it
might be a better idea for us to do our
homework kind of seeing what we
can bundle and then take the things that
we're
bundling and tweak those
i mean i don't know i i'm just i i don't
i don't
i don't know i mean this is this is kind
of a
i mean it's a very big task and
you know i the only way to eat an
elephant is one bite at a time but
you know i just think that it's it's i
just don't
i don't know um i i
i agree that uh
gosh i agree that the um
diversity thing needs to be included
i unlike the two of you and really
anxious about
cutting even one word out of something
that they
spent so much time
working on and deliberating about
and i don't know so so for me to sit
here and
and and i feel like i would be doing a
little bit too much on the fly i would
think i'd like to
sit and think about it a little bit
harder if that makes sense
yeah that that's fine with me matt are
you good with that too if maybe we
uh um
we we obviously embrace the the timeline
that we've talked about
we have our homework ahead of us between
now
and our next committee meeting and we
look at some of the things that i'm
going to send out to our group and then
at our next meeting try to break some of
these up into different subject areas or
grouping grouping them together does
that work for you
yeah yeah that works for me awesome
um does if any if no one else has
any other comments um i'd be happy to
move on to
public comments and hear input from
some folks who are on does anyone else
have anything before we
uh have our public speak
no but thank you monique no problem
thank you so much for watching before
before we do that should we
set um um and i can reach out to each of
you
separately or do we want to uh go ahead
and pick
our next date for our committee meeting
i find that it's a it seems to be a lot
easier to wrangle
all the cats when all the cats are in
the same
okay no no problem um
how does
march 3rd work for
for for this committee that's in two
weeks
uh stays away from spring break but
still gives us each a healthy amount of
time to digest
uh the the proposed amendments i cannot
even believe that we are only three
weeks away from
two weeks away from a good thing it's
gonna go love it
right yeah that works that works for me
mark's turn march 3rd at 7 pm yep
sounds good park and build
i'm good bill you're muted
you're still yourself i can i can do
that wednesdays aren't a great day for
me but i can do that
okay if you're able to make it that that
would be great we can plan our
next committee meeting being march 3rd
at 7 00 pm
um and i appreciate everyone
chiming in with input we're going to get
through this together
and i appreciate uh mark and bill's
input on how the process and timeline
are going to work
all right let's turn it over to our
attendees
if you are able to hit the raised hand
icon
on on the screen if you would like to
speak we can unmute you any of our
attendees want to speak at this time
okay uh does anyone i do not see any
hand raised is anybody else
nope nope okay
all right thank you folks for for doing
this and for
taking this job so seriously obviously
our charter review took it extremely
seriously and i know that we want to be
diligent and methodical and uh be very
purposeful
going forward thank you for your thank
you for your leadership
in this monique it was i'm grateful that
you were willing to take it on
so thank you absolutely thank you and
for anyone listening please be assured
that there will be
uh many subsequent public meetings where
public comments will be
um taken and with that can i get a
motion
hang on a second we do have a hand
raised we have one just now
we do um we have sunny eight
and uh looks like a phone number let me
uh
mute her um sonny
can you hear me guess what
is this mark master yes it is
mr master if you can please give us your
address
yes 2479 fair avenue
great thank you sir all right i'll be as
briefly as i can and i know
for some of you i'll try to be brief uh
first of all i'd like to say monique i
think you're doing a wonderful job
and i think i have all the confidence in
the world after listening to you guys
tonight that you'll do a fantastic job
especially having mark there to help you
and bill harvey with his expertise who's
gone through this
and let me just give you a couple things
to think about real fast
i think bill hit a couple things on the
nail on the head
when he says put yourself in the place
of the voter going into the voting booth
he doesn't want to go through 12 or 15
or 20 different things to think about he
goes in with the idea
of having read because we all know we
have educated voters in bexley
they have their thoughts on what they're
going to do prior to getting into that
voting booth
so you have to be precise all right and
you
can do with very few things a lot
because i've said if i had a dollar for
every time i said it every meeting i
attended
bundling is the key to your work what
you'll be doing
in other words you don't want to go in
there with the idea of bundling five
things where you know
you don't want to put a controversial
issue with one of those five because the
voter will vote no and then you've lost
you've lost the other four that are so
obvious all right
so bundling becomes the key uh
and i think and bill's pointed it out
and and mark knows it too
so that'll be the key in your jobs now
on the issue the two things that mark
official brought up
i was trying not to say anything so i
waited obviously until
one minute before his second point i
think it was section four it was an
eight to seven vote and i want you to
think not specifically
that one but when when you're sitting on
a commission
any commission and the lawyer from the
city says
well i've got a mixed feeling about
something
to me that brings a red flag because
like lorianne says
i'm not an attorney i i look to the
attorneys to help me make decisions
so to me i was one of the seven no votes
for that reason
so the point in my conversation is use
and
pick mark fishel's brain on any
questions you have and don't be afraid
monique's a lawyer you have other
lawyers i think on the commission
don't be afraid to ask questions because
again
you get a bite of the apple once every
10 years
and the last point and i'm going to be
very brief is sam who was on our
committee said
you look we're looking not so much of
the past
but of the future all right and you use
the present and the past to make the
decisions but you're being asked to
consider
what's in the best interest of the city
going forward
all right and i've always said and i've
done this this is my third time on
charter review
that there's usually a theme every 10
years years ago one of the main themes
and some of you are new to this city
some of you aren't
was the mayor versus uh
city manager approach well this year the
theme seems to be
diversity and inclusion that's where
you're going to spend your most time in
my opinion
and everything i say tonight is just my
opinion all right
so again that's where i would be
spending the bulk of my time
but i have the utmost faith after
listening to you guys and there aren't
many people that are going to watch
these
that you'll do the right thing and
that's what's important to me
so again thank you thank you for taking
on the responsibility
and don't be afraid to ask questions
thank you and have a good evening and
i'm sorry i waited until one minute
before time
for you all to go to go do what you want
but again thank you
and thank you so much mark for for
serving on our charter and for serving
our city
in the past much much much appreciated
well thank you thank you okay
um does anyone else from the public uh
have their hand raised before we adjourn
i do not see anyone else okay
so um our next committee meeting will be
march 3rd at 7 00 pm
with that can i please get a motion to
adjourn
i'll make a motion that we adjourn and i
will second
all in favor aye aye aye all right
thanks everyone appreciate it thank you
thank you thank you bye
you