it's now streaming live
wonderful one second we're not we're not
yet
okay um
there you go we are good all right
welcome everyone um i want to remind
everyone that we
are here uh for the good of bexley
and i am going to welcome all of you to
this special january 28th
meeting of council and i'm going to ask
our
auditor to please call roll call miss
fibal
here mr sharp here
mr klingler here ms lamke
here mr markham here ms robinson
here miss assad here
just so there's no confusion it's
actually january 27th for anybody
looking at
this video later on
okay uh ben usually takes care of this
for me and i just
found this so we're gonna do the pledge
all right everybody so uh i pledge
allegiance to the flag
my son julius put one of these on his
hockey helmet but they only came in
sixes so if anybody else needs a flag
for their hockey helmet let me know
uh yes lorian okay
all right we'll save it for you i know
you're a hockey mom
all right everyone before we begin our
work of listening
tonight on behalf of my fellow elected
officials
all those who work in bexley and those
who live and love bexley
i want to thank john offenburg and jim
wilson and your entire dedicated team
for all their hard work while we know
that continuity gives us roots
change gives us branches as inhabitants
of an out
of an arboretum we know the branches let
us stretch
and grow and reach new heights so thank
you
charter review for giving your city the
gift of your time
talents and intellect and an effort
to allow bexley to grow let me lay out
the next two hours
so that everyone understands our agenda
in a few minutes i will turn the meeting
over to john offenberg to run
a charter review will take roll call we
know that they have a quorum of their
committee
and um they will then
um we will then have a meeting
within a meeting because charter review
needs to
approve their minutes from the last
scheduled meeting
and they need to actually approve the
changes
and additions um that they have made to
the charter
so um after that the key reason that we
are all gathered tonight
is so that charter review can present
their changes
in order for council to better
understand their work
if time allows council will then have a
chance to ask questions
uh at 8 50 we will allow brief
public comment until adjourning both
meetings promptly at nine charter review
worked in two hour time blocks and john
and i both agreed
that fresh minds were every bit as
important for the continued success of
this work
so um if council has
questions um that we don't get to
tonight we will set aside time at a
later date
to accommodate these the proposed
additions and changes will then be
handed off to monique lamke
who will be heading up a council
committee who will be charged with
making recommendations to
council as to how charter reviews
work should be presented to the
community for a vote in november
these meetings will be open to the
public and public comment
will be welcomed and just to make sure
that i covered all my bases
um i'm gonna rely on my right hand man
mr city attorney did i miss anything
or does anything need to be elaborated
on
or clarified
i'm good i think you're good yep okay
thank you sir
with that then the uh
the man of the hour john offenberg
the man who who orchestrated this and
made all this
uh jive i'm turning it over to you sir
thank you lori um it's 706
on wednesday january 27 2021
we have a quorum rush if you will
make note of who is present i would
appreciate it
i called to order what i think will be
our last
and shortest meeting we have two agenda
items
uh the minutes from november 23rd of
last year
and the final adoption of the red line
copy we sent
to all of the elected officials what we
have titled
final red line proposed amendments to
the bexley charter
to deal with the minutes um they were
distributed it's um our understanding
that eloise has an amendment she would
like to present
always do you have a motion i do
can you hear me i can hear you okay
that's
that's fine yes the amendment
i'm proposing is uh to section five
and i put the sentence that begins ms
bucher
be rewritten to say the following ms
buker says it is important to
distinguish
between the two documents that we will
submit to council
one with only our recommendations and
the one with
dates and working comment i say that
just to be
absolutely clear that we want to share
any documents
with city council that would be useful
to them that we used in our as well as
having them properly dated is there a
second
option i will second dad thank you
larry um is there a discussion
all those in favor please say aye
those same sign hearing um
nothing the uh minutes as amended from
november
23rd of last year um are adopted
and approved which takes us
to approving our final redline
proposed amendments to bexley to the
bexley charter is there a motion
i move their approval thank you jim
second
second um i don't
see our um
i don't see that elizabeth is taking
minutes who was it that seconded
ira ira thank you ira also elizabeth is
in the list of attendees
thank you so she's present great
welcome elizabeth um it has been moved
and seconded is there any discussion
uh hearing none all those in favor
please say
aye all right all right oppose same sign
we have adopted our finished
copy as we close
this our last meeting and complete
our mission please know
the respect for that i have for
all of you on the committee and i
offer my sincere thanks and
wish you all well is there a motion to
adjourn
so moved wait i'm sorry hang on hang on
i don't think you can adjourn
because you're still going to be
discussing and deliberating i think both
meetings go concurrent
and adjourn at the at nine o'clock i
did not understand or appreciate that
thank you mark sure
we will proceed then madam president
members of council mayor kessler auditor
harvey
thank you for the opportunity to present
our final red line proposed amendments
of the bexley charter
this is the product of our 15 months of
work
jim wilson the vice chairman and
i were selected to lead the presentation
as has been our practice in the past we
asked that all questions except for
clarification
be held until the end this is intended
to be
an overview of our work
on the next slide um
rush is it you that are handling the
slides no john i've
got them okay great um
jim and i laid out what we thought were
the important
points to cover and this is an outline
of that
first is diversity equity and inclusion
it was jim that first brought
this idea to discuss to us
and that was prior to we heard from
breyer
or any of the other groups
we will talk about uh changes we are
proposing for
the executive branch for council for
ethics and recall for commitment to the
environment
for elections for future charter
meetings
and general updates um
two tooth items to
take into account um all of the
references
for sections here are our
new um updated sections
um the current charter has um
some um sections
that have been deleted and with
um mark's approval we are suggesting
that they be totally removed and the
number of new
sections have been approved so
not that it will end up this way council
but
we have put them into order
please note the page numbers on
the slide numbers i mean on this
powerpoint
if you have questions that pertain to a
particular slide
if you write that down it will probably
help jim and myself answer
questions more quickly
jim you're going to begin with all of
the diversity equity
inclusion things that we have dealt with
thank you john members of council
mr mayor mr auditor it's a privilege to
present these proposals i will say at
the very beginning that rachel lang who
chaired the subgroup that did yeoman's
work
on these provisions is present and
she is available when we get to the time
for for questions
uh what i'm going to try to do in the
sections that i present
is to briefly give you an overview of
what the substance of the provision
is and a sense of why we are
recommending it to you i'm not going to
uh for the in the interest of time dive
into deep detail
on any of them um but we're more than
happy
uh to answer any questions you have um
uh about the particulars that we don't
cover in the presentation
so within the diversity uh equity and
inclusion provisions
we're suggesting the addition of a new
section and then some
other provisions that
fall in various parts of the charter
they include a statement of intent some
various provisions
that are specific anti-racism or
non-discrimination provisions
a provision related to the citizens
review board
a limitation on cash bonds some language
regarding review
of the police department and then some
expansion of the inclusive language
within the charter
the new section one in the charter which
follows the
the preamble of the charter is
intended to um broadly state
um the intention of the city to
recognize
um that racism has been part of our past
as a community as a country
and to express our intent to make
ourselves
a welcoming community we thought that
this provision was useful
to set the context for the provisions in
this section
of our proposals that follow but the
sections that follow are really what
give the meet and the bones to
this provision the categories we've
included we think are consistent with
the categories the city has already
recognized as
those that merit protection and increa
increase welcome and inclusiveness in
our
community second section within this
is a combination really of two different
streams of thought but we thought that
they belong together
there's a non-discrimination provision
and then there's a citizen
participation provision the
non-discrimination
provision states that in
the city government's work it will avoid
discriminating against individuals
on the basis of the various categories
the city's
previously recognized as
what lawyers would call a protected
class what we might call
underrepresented people in the history
of our country and our city
we've combined that with something that
we think reflects
a part of the tradition of our city
which is the encouragement
of citizens to attend meetings and to
offer their insights and suggestions
john will talk later on about a
particular provision to make it clear
that the council
sets the rules for how that occurs but
we did
want to raise up that the participation
of
all of our citizen is a part and part of
bexley's
values we then go to section three
uh which is very specific in
um in committing the city um as
aspirationally to uh recruit individuals
from
underrepresented populations and the
what i would highlight here is
we're not only looking to have the
employees and the contractors of the
city
reflect the diversity of our city itself
but a franklin county and that was
something we very specifically discussed
recognizing that our employees don't
have to live in bexley
and our aspiration ought to to be as
inclusive in our employment as
the county that surrounds us
section four i will say up front is the
one section within
um these provisions that engendered
significant debate
and was not unanimously recommended to
you
um this is a provision that deals with
the interpretation of
ordinances and calls upon those
ordinances to be
interpreted to avoid disparate impact on
any of the individuals that belong to
the
underrepresented groups that we've been
talking about
disparate impact is a legalese term and
i'm sure you'll get very sound
advice from mark official about
the implications of this i would say
respectfully and mark was invaluable to
our work we have a slight difference
of opinion as to the impact of this
we believe this only applies to how our
ordinances are interpreted we don't
believe that this creates any
right to sue the city and we would urge
you to read that carefully as you
consider it
and if you have that concern to address
our language but not to lose the crucial
fact
that we want our ordinances to be
interpreted in a way that welcomes
all including folks that haven't
historically been welcomed
into our community now
i'll turn to citizen review board we
were
aware as we did our work that you were
doing
parallel work and um as in
other diversity provisions i would
describe our proposals
as seeking to be foundational rather
than at the level of
ordinances and so one of our goals in
proposing this
was to state as a value
and a structure for our city that there
would be a citizen review board
but not to be prescriptive uh
how that review board would be
established
how it what exact power given
that it needed subpoena powers in order
to conduct its work
in some circumstances we're also
suggesting a
report at least annually regarding its
work
and in that respect um that wasn't to
take away
any provision that would have the review
board
report on particular matters but
actually to create a structure where it
gave a more global report to the city
as to concerns or recommendations it
might have
so that we can improve um how
the city interacts with visitors and its
citizens
within the scope of the the authority of
the review board
we then um throughout our uh
our discussions i would say the the
committee
thought the strategic planning was a
very important part of what bexley
uh does and we spent a lot of time
before we ever got to the issues of
racism and diversity wanting to make
certain that the
um that the city's strategic plan
had every opportunity to be taken as
seriously as possible
when we were when we circled back to
that strategic plan in the context of
diversity
and equity we thought including a
specific provision
requiring strategies to eliminate
institutional racism and discrimination
and to increase the diversity of
our community was entirely consistent
with who bexley is
how we use our strategic plan and we
simply want to raise that up as a value
within the charter
now i'm going to shift maybe from sort
of the grand
to the more esoteric um
some of you may be aware that a number
of individuals within our country in
particular
underrepresented communities have raised
concerns very broadly
about the use of cash bail or bond
to keep people incarcerated as they wait
for trial
we had some discussion about that and
we had the the fortune to have on our
committee
several lawyers that are actively
involved in the criminal justice system
and they pointed out to us that the ohio
rules of criminal procedure
actually have already um suggested
moving to the
least restrictive means to
ensure people appear for court
appearance
and so we thought that the appropriate
proposal so that bexley recognized this
value was simply
to reference the ohio rules of criminal
procedure
it also allows as those rules evolve for
the city
to almost automatically stay up with
best practices
in that area then moving on
to a section that um
we wrestled with i would say on several
occasions
um that is within the section on the
duties
of the chief of police we had originally
um adopted or suggested a proposal to
have a public performance review of
the chief we heard concerns
that that would make the review itself
less
useful because a public review doesn't
allow
candor in the way that a review
in a typical employment situation might
allow
we wrestled with that and made the
decision to
have have the mayor be required to
conduct a review of the department
um to share with council and make it
available to the public
so that it doesn't personalize this as
an issue with the chief
but rather does assure the community
that um
that we have a process in place for the
review
of our police department um and um
and i guess i would say in this context
our committee was not a fact-finding
committee we didn't make any findings
that there was a problem with the police
nor did we find that there weren't what
we believed was that this provision
reflects the values
of the city and therefore shouldn't be
interpreted as a criticism of the police
but should reflect the kind of community
that we want
hopefully all want where there's
transparency as to how we see the police
doing
their work we did in connection with
that then decide that that perhaps the
provisions
um related to dismissal of the chief
were a little bit narrow and so we added
some language that
allows the chief to just be dismissed
for
other cause but we wanted that not to be
overly expansive so the mayor
and council would have to concur on
whether
that other cause was sufficient to
remove the chief
from office um and then lastly
um in three sections of
the charter we found
after some discussion that we could
broaden the inclusive
language here and we actually had a
speaker come in and talk to us about
what is inclusive as we
as people evolve we're pretty good about
he or she but there are some
individuals that don't identify as male
or female and so we are suggesting in
three provisions
modifying that language to he she or
they
or in i think one instance um
is her or their um for the possessive
sense
so i think that that covers um
the provisions and as i said rachel will
be available and i'm available when we
get to question time but i hopefully
that gives you a useful
overview and john i'll return it to you
to discuss the executive branch
thank you jim you as usual
are so articulate i always
appreciate it um we
are suggesting um several things
for the executive branch extending the
mayor
service removal of the city attorney
disability of the otter and auditor in
insurance instead of
bonds it was
we did think or it was suggested that
limiting the mayor to only outside of
the
of working for the city to be a notary
public
or a member of the state militia or the
federal
military reserves were too
limiting we wanted to make it so
that a mayor any mayor could
represent the city to further the
intergovernmental cooperation
so long as this service does not
interfere with the ability to perform
the duties of mayor i happened to get an
email from one of the councilmen
today asking and i didn't see it till
just before we began
but it um asked for an example of what
this might be
i don't remember a discussion of it but
the first thing that comes to mind
um is something like the holding a
position
with uh mid-ohio regional planning but
um i think that might take more
discussion
um moving on to the city attorney
um it was mark who
strongly encouraged us
to include language where
uh the mayor with concurrence of council
could remove a city attorney
um obviously this is not a reflection
on mark at all he
um as i say strongly promoted it
so um in
um section 14 we give
the mayor and council the ability
to do that in section 44
we remove of the one-year term
for city attorney
moving on to
the disability of an auditor
in one or one of our earliest meetings
bill harvey came with a
list of ideas and suggestions
that he and the mayor had accumulated
over several years um
one was that the charter does
not provide for um if the auditor
is incapacitated temporarily
so we tried to deal with that in section
39.
then dealing with council we addressed
the rules of procedure executive session
the time of swearing in of
council people and notice for special
meetings
we
we thought consistently
as we dealt with issues
that the
charter should really be
a format for
how the city should be run and that
it should be aspirational if
possible
that um the the nitty-gritty
should be left up to council
so um we had been requested
uh by some to uh provide
rules for council and we thought that
was
only appropriate for council to do for
themselves
and that's what we've stated in section
25.
um executive session
was discussed at length and
it was and is proposed
that um council
um with um
mark fishel's insistence that council
members
um all council members are always
allowed into executive session
but we are proposing that the mayor the
auditor and the city attorney
could be excluded from executive session
um if compensation or the investigation
investigation of any of the officials or
in the case of the city attorney
potential remover removal from office
was going to be discussed uh
then in section 25 we're saying that
uh council by motion
um shall decide who is
able other than council to attend an
executive session
when terms begin in section 24
there was concern that we discussed many
times
about what if there's an emergency
between december
31st and the first monday
not following the holiday when
council was sworn in um
who was on council at that point so
um with mark's help we
made it simple the four-year term of
office for city council members will
begin on january 1st
following their election and shall go
until december 31
in the fourth year of their term and
service
um again the email we got today
raised a question that we never
dealt with and that is who is president
of council during that period
but i think council could hopefully work
that
out
notice of special meetings um
we felt that um
times have changed notice has
changed over the years when i first went
on council they were still hanging
proposed
ordinances on utility polls in the city
um that the duration of my time on
council
everything was delivered by the police
you all have moved on since then but we
thought we should reflect that and make
a
provision for dealing
with whatever might
happen electronically in the future so
we just said provided at least six hours
in advance of the special meeting
written notice may be provided
electronically
via email or similar electronic means
commonly used for council notifications
or delivered personally to the member or
left of the members places
business jim
back to you for um ethics and recall
thanks john um as we began our work we
we received some comments um that caused
us to
look with care at the ethics and uh
provisions in the
council and some of the charter and and
also some suggestion that
that there should be a recall provision
and after
a fair amount of study by members of our
group we were
suggesting a couple revisions in this
regard
here in the uh ethics provision
which would be section 62 as things are
renumbered we looked at a variety of
options and ultimately decided
that um reference to the laws of the
state of ohio
was the clearest way to approach this
that those laws seemed sufficient and to
have language
that had the same intent but wasn't
identical to those laws might
create confusion and so um we're simply
here in
in the ethics provision um suggesting
that laws that already apply should be
made
um part of the charter rather than um
language that might be interpreted
differently
we are proposing a recall provision
that was an idea that came to us near
the beginning of our work
this is the one place in the
presentation that i haven't tried to
cut and paste the whole thing because
it's quite long and so i think it's
better here to try to summarize what the
provisions would provide
the provisions apply to all elected
officials that is
the members of council the mayor and the
auditor
a recall can't occur until that
individual
has a year in their term
has been into their term for a year for
the process to be
initiated it would require signatures
of at least 25 of the number
of electors voting in the last preceding
regular municipal election um
just to note that's a higher threshold
we think than
for other items to be brought to the
electors but we thought that was
appropriate
here um the individual would be given
um seven days to decide whether they
wanted to
resign ready to go through this process
and if they don't
resign after the petition is certified
as containing the appropriate
number of signatures then council would
fix
a day for holding a special recall
election um i think not less than 60
days
than more more than 120 days from the
date of the certification
if a majority votes to
remove that individual the council would
replace that individual with the various
charter provisions that already specify
how a vacancy is filled
and that individual who would have been
removed
for clarity's sake would not be eligible
for the vacant
position um
john thank you um
the next two were kind of hot buttons
for um
jim and myself i will take the first one
we had a
resident who was recommending
that we make a commitment to the
environment
and had written an entire
section for us that was very extensive
as we discussed it we thought that
something that was that specific
might cause um a
liability problem for the city if they
were
unable or it happened to not have dealt
with it
so we came up with the simplest
section that we have and that was
strictly the city of bexley
shall preserve and protect our
environment
and jim it's back to you
yeah in section 64 dealing with public
utilities
um we thought that the charter should
include a provision that requires that
utilities who do work in the
right-of-way or on our streets
restore that street or right-of-way
as fully as possible to the condition
that it was in before they began the
work
our committee is fully aware that
council last fall spent
a lot of time and did a lot of work on
an ordinance
in the exactly this area and
we think that that work is or at least
those of us that are
nerdy enough to have studied it
carefully think that that was excellent
work
but you know as the president suggested
at the beginning we are an arboretum we
take great pride in the appearance of
our community and we felt
that our foundational document should
make it clear
that when folks by necessity have to do
work within the community we expect them
to return
the appearance um to
the pristine state which we hope they
found it in so we are suggesting
making this part of the charter
jim are you uh do you want me to con yes
sure john
um john and i are going to split this up
i i'm going to talk a little bit
about um a couple provisions that we are
suggesting
related to the timing for bringing
ballot initiatives and then
the notice that's required to be given
to our citizen when there is a ballot
initiative and then john's going to talk
about
one of the issues that we spent a fair
amount of time on which is
the process for future charter review
um this was actually not an issue that
anyone raised with us but the one that
we actually just
tried to figure it out for ourselves
this summer when we were in the midst
of discussing our diversity
and anti-racism initiatives
some members of the community who felt
passionately about this
wanted to and council i think is
probably well aware of this
wanted to put some initiatives
on the ballot last fall and i think
everyone that was involved in that
process would agree that
trying to figure out what the timeliness
requirement was
was about as clear as mud and so
out of that experience we decided that
clarifying when things could be
or how much before a ballot or a vote
date
an issue had to be brought and certified
would be useful to everyone as we
dove a little deeper into that we
discovered that the current
language of the charter doesn't appear
to permit
an initiative to be put on the ballot
in the year of a state election that is
in even year
elections but only on
municipal election years that is odd
year elections and so
we thought that in addition to
clarifying this
there was no good reason and state law
doesn't prevent
although it changes the timeliness it
doesn't prevent
a ballot initiative to be put on the
ballot in the year of a state election
and we thought rather than risk the
possibility
that we would have to call a special
election
if a requisite number of signatures were
obtained for a ballot initiative
which would cost the city a significant
amount of money
it would be appropriate to change the
current
um requirements so that an initiative or
referendum could be put on the ballot in
a state year
as well as in a municipal year
election we also
apropos i think to some degree of the
notice of special counsel meetings
thought we are now in the 21st century
and we needed to update the provision
for publication
of ballot initiatives and so instead of
putting notice in a newspaper of general
circulation
which we recognize is decreasingly the
way
our citizens are receiving their news
and expensive to the city
um that we could um allow publication by
putting on the website
publishing it by the emails um such as
the
the blasts that are regularly sent out
um
and using other platforms to put this
information
out there we think that's cheaper for
the city and frankly we'll get the
information to more people
than putting it in the daily reporter or
the classified section
of the dispatch um and john i'll turn it
back to you
thank you jim um when we looked at the
section on charter review it was our
consensus
that there should be
a charter review every 10 years so we
changed it to xiao rather than may
we originally were going to say it
should be done
in 12 months but since we're in our 15th
month we opted for 18 months to work
could be extended by council approval
and we thought that the way the members
were
selected this year was appropriate
10 from council and 5
from the mayor and we thought that the
composition should strive to reflect the
diversity of the city of bexley
next we're going to talk about
insurance in lieu of bonds
revising or updating current practice
of strategic planning for payment of
funds to county
treasury and adding uh committees
um it came to our attention
that um the state law had been
changed and now in addition to
using a bond it was um
appropriate to give council the choice
about
whether they would allow
or use a insurance policy for dishonesty
and faithful performance of duty
or a bond and it's just expanding
the opportunity um and hopefully
will make it a way to save some money
um currently um
the um
the current use of planning and zoning
has strayed a little bit from
what is in the current uh charter
and so um we are suggesting
that council may create
boards or committees or commissions to
administer the zoning code
and to perform other planning and zoning
duties as determined
by ordinance of the council
we also realized that the state law
had changed and we were no
longer to required to
return money to the county treasury in
the same way
and we thought it was appropriate to
have
consistent language so um
in a number of sections we are asking
that it read committees commissions and
boards not necessarily in that order
and i think the mayor has
been doing this but we are suggesting
that new boards and commissions and
committees
be allowed to have staggered terms
there are um several
ideas that we considered but did not
recommend
um the the next four
uh come up i think with each
um committee
but we clearly wanted to stay with the
strong fair
the strong mayor form of government and
rejected going to a city manager
we rejected the um
idea of term limits for any of our
elected people or our committees or
um we rejected the idea
of eliminating an elected
auditor and we wanted to stay with an
appointed
city attorney there were some
other considerations they're what i've
referred to as footnotes
and council may have already dealt with
this and
and we are um not aware of it but
the current charter says that uh if a
council member has
uh four uh non-excused
absences they can be removed
it's not been clear
how a council member is excused for any
absence uh who does it uh
how and when um the
the second consideration is there was
um a request by uh several
that we have something in the charter
about how elected officials are
compensated
um it was our feeling that
this should be left up to council that
it was their
responsibility the third consideration
was that in the past
we think that there have been council
members that
attended regularly school board meetings
but we are suggesting that you create
the
position of blaisson to the school board
by some council person um
not on um our powerpoint
was something that i thought i should
share
first of all a great deal of research
was done by our group
but a lot of time was spent in the
beginning
working on the process we would follow
and what our goals and our mission
were to be we actually have a two-page
document
on process we have a full
page document on goals and mission
uh i will admit in those early days
this went slowly and and
i thought sometimes too slowly
but um in the end i
think um that the time spent
and uh what we created has been a great
value to us um
over our 15 months um
this takes us to the thank yous and
as you see we want to thank all of the
public officials you've considered
great time and help to us we've had
representatives i believe from all of
the commission's committees and boards
who
have shared their thoughts and current
and concerns
and suggestions citizens have
come forward and that is what we
wanted worked hard to uh have happen
and which i think um
was difficult for citizens when
we went to zoom um i'd like to thank
capitol
university for the use of the room they
provided 10 years ago
and this time at um trinity
lutheran seminary um
not every i'm not speaking of our group
but
there were critics of our having
left city hall but i think the symbolism
of our being independent
and being away from the the political
setting
of city hall the layout
of there being square tables
where we could all see each other and
no one sat above anybody else
and the parking passes
were very helpful
um stacy grossman and elizabeth
ellman have taken minutes for us
uh it was um long hard
work for them our discussions were
unique we dealt with
thoughts and situations that did not
come
naturally to the people taking minutes
and i applaud the work that they did
my long-term friend debbie maynard
i thank you for the many many things you
do
and what you provided for us you were
invaluable um mark
official you were indispensable for
us i
appreciate your leadership
your experience your guidance and
i know you will be very helpful to city
councillors to continue
to work with this
next listed our members
they i think are all exhausted by this
point
jim if you have a closing comment um
i think it's appropriate now
sure just very briefly first of all i'd
like to thank um
council for the opportunity to have
served in this way
um i'd like to thank john
in particular because no one else is
going to thank john and he deserves this
city's thanks he has
been beyond diligent i've known john for
about as long as i've lived in bexley
but we've never gotten to work this
closely on something
and and john has served this committee
and the city
um as diligently as any human being
could
and in the midst of it all is council's
experience for itself
we switched from live meetings to zoom
meetings and john
never missed a step in that process and
so
um i think i speak for the rest of the
committee
in um in in thanking john for just
an incredibly well done job uh
jim that wasn't what i had in mind when
i suggested you make
a comment that's why you rarely gave me
the floor
so i i appreciate that i appreciate you
and i appreciate what council has done
for us
um what i do want to express to the
members of
our committee i i really thank you all
for your hard work
uh your collegial and amicable
attitude and for your ability to listen
this was a group that really did listen
to each other
and listen to our community
um i thank you all
and um madam president
if it's um okay um
for questions to be addressed to me
um that is up to you
i would then um
either jim or i
would answer uh and or we would
probably have the best idea of which one
of our
members or which of
multiple of our members that could best
help answer this
[Music]
with your permission we can
move on i
would like rush if you would to
let us know who has raised their hands
but
if madam president
has her hand up i think we should start
with her
i
think that in
the end if there is time
when the questions have been addressed
for
all of the elected officials that
we may be able to open it to the press
if they are available or to members of
the community
that may be with us my sincere thanks
to all of you
um lori ann is it okay if we continue
i would love for us to continue i think
because i like
rush um and i i believe that i am slated
as
a host so i don't believe that i have
the hand
raise option um so
maybe i do but i don't see you you have
the ability to ask
questions though i do so my point is i
think i'm going to go ahead and
my initial questions are just one is
actually a request
i would love to have a copy of those
slides i think um
i will send them to you as as a council
i think we would appreciate that
i think the way you guys lumped them you
know collected things together will be
helpful for
um the smaller committee so if that
we just wanted to surprise you with it
it's beautiful
we loved it so then i have just two
other things
i'm i'm i just want clarification um on
executive session does that mean every
time
we go into executive session and this
may be also a marked question
does that mean every time we have to
vote
as a council to allow
the mayor the auditor and
anyone else in no we don't have
uh laurie let me unders let my
offer your my um
thought on it i believe that's the way
it reads but i think
there was always a standard
motion or resolution or whatever you do
now to go to executive sessions so
that could just be part of it mark do
you
have thoughts on this yeah well i i do
have some thoughts on one of them
one thought is based on my experience
with other communities that i represent
um it is extraordinarily common that an
executive session will
be called and then city council will
either the president him or herself just
says it
or it's in the motion to say who they
want included beyond just the council
members
um bexley has some
different there's nothing wrong with it
it's just different charter language
that explicitly says the mayor
i'm i'm not quoting at verbatim but the
mayor the auditor
and the um city attorney have a seated
council
um that has been interpreted to mean
that those three people are in
all executive sessions which would be
normal anyway
um because so i think that it would be
fine if if that ends up becoming part of
the charter it would be perfectly fine
for city council to just note when they
want to expo
to exclude one of those three people um
but i would say that beyond those three
people i think
anybody else who might be brought in
like special counsel or you know
fill in the blank um that those should
be those
currently and going forward should be in
the motion
uh that's made and approved by council
even without the changed language
okay great um my second my
my second question is kind of it it may
seem
silly but um on that for if
if if before council is sworn in
and they have to serve in their capacity
after january 1st do they have to be
sworn in
do you have to have a swearing-in before
you
before they do business i see mark
taking his head now
but that was the change we were making
was to allow council uh
to perform business beginning january
1st if necessary
what we did not address is
who would be president of council at
that point
yeah the the swearing-in process is
formality only
council member all elected officials uh
well council in particular
they they the old ones who didn't run or
didn't get reelected
are have no power after 12 midnight on
january 1st and the new ones do even if
they haven't been sworn in
got it all right thank you that's all
the
questions i have for now and i want to
um
thank everyone again but and i also know
that you all aren't going anywhere
and if we continue to have questions
that we
we are going to beg your forgiveness as
we will continue to ask them
rush do you see somebody with their hand
up
uh yes richard sharp
yeah are the um charter review minutes
available online i
only saw the agendas in the video if
council wants to review
them as we review your comments
in the minutes as we review the
applicable
sections
they have been submitted to be
on the website i cannot answer that
rush or somebody else
we can check again to make sure that
they're available there the
bexley city web page just went through a
complete kind of upgrade so it's changed
some of
where some things are and so we'll make
sure that that's there
and available online or at least have
copies
sent to you
max monique lamke
hi thank you so much first and foremost
a huge thank you to
all of you for your many many hours of
work
um i just had a brief list of questions
here
um the first was john for you you had
mentioned that there's a
roughly a two-page document that
you put together regarding at the outset
the
commission's processes goals and
missions
would you be able to forward that to to
me yes
i'd be happy to and i didn't create it
we created it great well thank you all
for
for creating that um my second question
is
um there's obviously quite a few uh
proposed amendments but i'm curious
and i don't know if other folks want to
speak to this too but if i had to say
which are the three that the commission
was most
passionate about and thinking that
needed to be
on the ballot which three would you say
that those were
i don't have uh
a sense of that for our group and
i would like to
ask if there is any member of our group
president
present that would like to give their
thoughts on this
um i see out there
rachel and bethany and larry and mark
and
stephanie and eloise and sam jim
um is there anybody that has
thoughts on that most important well
john this gym
you know i always have thoughts they may
not reflect everyone else's
and i think it's probably likely that
different members
of the group might have different
priorities here
i would say the the diversity provisions
as a group
we at least i feel are are very
important
um i would say that um
the um i my own sense is that that the
ethics
and recall provisions address some of
the questions that we got
early in our process um
beyond that um you know
a third one is hard hard to pick i would
characterize a lot of the rest of them
as perhaps not dramatic improvements
but improvements in how the city works
that
represent what we heard over the last 15
months so
hard to pick among those for me um
when you asked the question the
diversity and inclusion
came easily but i couldn't think beyond
that
of any um
what was more important than any other
i think the recall is important because
it's a new provision that hasn't been
there yet
and while there is currently
the ability to recall city council
members and the mayor and the clerk
embedded in state documents and the
state provides for that
i think our recall gives the city a
better
stable working government
and is more suited to our smaller city
so i think that's one that probably
should appear that citizens have not
been familiar with before
all right thank you was there anyone
else who wanted to maybe
um chime in on that i just have two more
quick questions after that
hearing none let's move on okay great
my next question was um given the recall
provision that's being proposed is that
to provide an additional way for removal
of an elected official and how does that
comport with
the other provisions that specify under
what circumstances a council member can
be removed
by other council members uh
jim or larry no
that that is there there's a state law
that already says
that council members can be removed by
recall so we have just
made it a little bit more restrictive
than that state law
and we also specified that anyone who
signs that petition
for recall would have to be a bexley
resident
but you couldn't sign the petition if
you were a columbus resident
the state doesn't provide for that um
more narrow
restriction and if i could if i could
chime in a little too
there you know i think part of your
question monique might go to
the the there's provisions in the
current charter that allows city council
to remove a member for certain
misconduct
um after a process this is
a process that is would be available to
voters only electors
of the city and they wouldn't have i
mean while they're supposed they would
have to give a reason they're not
limited to any particular reasons
and that's true under both state law and
the
um proposed charter amendments that
you you saw tonight okay great thank you
that's a
good way to kind of explain the
difference i would just
comment too if i could on the recall
mark maybe you could provide
the members of council with a copy of
the state law and then they'd have the
ability to compare those side by side
because this was meant to be an
alternative to what's provided for
under state law which you may not be
aware of and frankly i
i doubt if any of the citizens are aware
of
yeah absolutely you know it will make
sense for city council
to take a look and look and state love
compared to
what is uh being suggested here and i'll
make sure you get a
getting hold of that okay great thank
you mark um then my last question is on
section four
um the proposal regarding interpretation
of ordinances
the first line reads the ordinances of
the city shall be interpreted
consistent with the city's values and
set forth into section
is that different than how it's um
rachel applied you like to take that
well i think of disparate impact it's
more
the the discrimination occurs through
the actual
application rather than the
interpretation but
i'm just wondering if someone can shed
some light on that for me
so this is um i would describe
first the way we got here was to take a
variety of ideas that were
within our committee and then from our
citizens
and i think some of the citizens
wanted the broadly urged that the city
interpret the ordinance
is consistent with the values that were
expressed in the previous couple
sections
the the sentence then about a disparate
impact
really at least in my mind and i don't
speak for everyone because i
we have everyone has a variety of
reasons for recommending
this but we heard um
from a variety of speakers including um
a bexley high school teacher on the
history of racism and bexley
and this provision was really intended
to
um ensure that our ordinances didn't
perpetuate
ingrained biases within our community
so that when they are interpreted
are you know just to pull out an example
our zoning folks ask themselves am i
when i have leeway in interpreting this
am i interpreting this
so that i perpetuate an exclusion of
people or i'm
interpreting this a way that still
protects the values of the city but
welcomes people that under a stricter
interpretation might not be able to do
what they wanted to do in terms of
acquiring property or
or that sort of thing does that answer
your question money
yes it gives me a couple of things to
think about thank you all again so much
ross markham
troy good evening everybody i'd
like to also offer my thanks to uh mr
hoffenberg and charter review commission
this is uh
some really hard work and some really
valuable work that you've done
uh and i would like to also especially
thank you for addressing the
uh issue of updating notices for
special counsel meetings which uh sort
of seems like
maybe kind of a a a petty thing but i
can tell you i've served for five years
now and at least half a dozen times
i've had to be served notice to come to
a special meeting by a police officer
coming to my door which is a
a huge waste of resources or else being
asked to waive that right
through email so i think this uh patches
up something
uh that is really really probably
inefficient and annoying
i have one very quick question it's very
brief
uh and it's probably a silly question
but i skipped law school and went to
study biology instead
so when we see section 25 you already
covered
uh when council meets an executive
session it shouted
by motion who should attend such
executive session
in addition to members of council
provided a council member
may never be excluded from an executive
session
that wording seems a little odd to me
does that mean that a council member may
never be excluded from an executive
session
yes okay thank you
jess saad please forgive me if i
mispronounced your name
you you're so good rash good
nailed it thank you that is rare
um i wanted to thank uh john and jim and
all of uh everyone here for your time
and um everything you've put into this
we know um
the hours that it takes and the service
you've done for
the city and it's much appreciated
monique you did a nice job
of getting the discussion going on
section four so that
i feel good about um just a quick
question
to the group on section five
if you don't mind just elaborating a
little bit more with um the citizens
review board
how you came up with the number of it
being annually versus like bi-annually
or
quarterly how we came up with annually
rachel do you want me to take a stab at
that or do you want to answer that
sure i can address that um i don't
actually remember that that was a point
of contention at all
um the goal when we originally proposed
this the
what was in place was mayor kessler's
executive order so over the course of
our meetings of course this evolved
um now to the ordinances in place so the
goal was
this was something that we heard
multiple times for members of the
community and community groups and that
we all felt um was a strong proposal
and then um it was the goal was just to
have a framework to create a framework
and put it in the charter but to allow
council to flesh out all
of the details and so um
for the report though the it does have
the mandatory
shell but i think if you changed the
first of all if you like that great
and then if you changed it to make it
more often that could be helpful
um that wasn't something that we
discussed and then of course
we had the permissive may make
recommendations um because
again as jim said we all felt i think i
can say all of us felt that we
were pre like creating some scaffolding
our framework but didn't want to
overreach on
what we were requiring to have happen in
some instances does that seem fair jim
yeah i agree completely with what rachel
said
thank you guys and then i just wanted to
touch upon i think it's a great idea
when you came up with some
um ideas for council to consider i love
the idea of a liaison of um
council to school board i think that
um during a very transparent year in
time
um i think that's a great idea so that's
all i've got thanks guys
thank you richard sharp um i'll refer
to jen since she hasn't spoken yet
thanks richard i'm having trouble and
muting myself um actually
i really appreciate that because mine
follows up on what jess was asking and
it's that last statement in section five
and this the
um the citizen review board um
and not to nitpick and i'm sure what
is meant is that we have a lot of leeway
as council but are these things that you
would
um envision us doing publicly um
you know that report should be made
publicly or is that at the discretion
of council what what were your uh
thoughts as you put as you
guys constructed that last portion of
this review board
off hand and i don't have i printed off
a lot of stuff in preparation for this
but i don't
remember offhand that we one of our
goals was transparency
so i guess speaking from that basis i
would say that my
um reaction would be that it would be
available to the public
um jim sam yeah i guess i would
assume that the report itself would be
made
publicly to council now how council
dealt with it would probably
depend on what was in the report and any
recommendations so
if it could very well require council to
go into executive session
to um to discuss if it involved
employees or
other issues like that or required legal
advice
but the goal i think in terms of the
report itself
was to have the citizen review board
give and at least as i conceived of this
this isn't like a report about a
particular complaint
but more a report based on its
observations
as to um uh how
you know the policies um or conduct
on an overarching level are reflecting
the values that the rest of the charter
encourages us to respect
great thank you jim and thank you to all
of you guys for for the work
that you've done i will um tell you that
reading over this charter has made for
some great dinner time conversation and
i think my 17 almost 18 year old may
actually
want to be a politician now so i don't
know whether to thank you
or uh we'll see how it turns out so
thank you guys so much
i really appreciate it
rush uh richard sharp
you um and i want i'd like to apologize
to the uh
charter review for not previously
thanking you
um i sometimes say i'm a little bit
focused on issues and forget the
pleasantries so i
i do apologize that because i i know you
the number of hours just makes my eyes
glaze over just thinking about how much
time you spent
on this um i'd like to follow up on the
recall
question i noticed that um the
the city clerk was involved with
signature verification
and i was wondering why
the clerk would be involved in that as
opposed to the
board of elections who normally has that
process for doing that
and then the second thing was relating
to the organizational
issue of counsel whether the
idea of the uh of a
president pro tem was discussed
in reviewing that paragraph
jim you want to take the first one or
suggest somebody
i would love for eloise or larry to take
that question
let me let me try on that i think the
the role of the board of elections is
pretty is limited
to verifying the number of signatures
and that they're valid signatures
there's other provisions for that are in
the proposed amendment
that really are outside of the realm of
the board of elections are solely
unique to the city under the proposed
amendment and
and i believe that even in richard if
you when you compare it with the state
statute i'm going to
i think you're going to see that the
clerk of consul even under the state
statute
is involved so it's a bifurcated uh
approach whereby the board of elections
is looking at
the validity of the signatures
and uh and then the rest of it sort of
falls on the clerk of console
uh at times it would be the city
attorney
if indeed uh if indeed the uh
recall provision was against the city
audit auditor
i i think of it as this the clerk
is kind of the manager but the um
board of elections certified signatures
because they do that for
all elections
uh it just specifically stated uh the
clerk
shall verify the signatures so but
if that's just if well i think
i think when you read this read the
recall
it it's a little bit different when you
read the actual
statute that we're proposing
well but thank you i don't mean to be um
too detailed or that's okay oh it's good
it's good richard your second question
were you
were you dealing with the swearing in
the time between january first and the
swearing in
or not in the past we've had various
uh interpretations of the
how the president pro tem would be
elected whether it could be
um elected at the same time that the
president was
to to serve for the entire year or
whether
the actual wording um as the current
charter states
that it has to be elected each time
at an issue arise where the president
can't attend
we did discuss that and discussed it at
length
and um i need
probably jim's help here i thought the
current
charter allowed it to be done
either way but by custom
it was done at each meeting
mark do you i think it's at
each meeting and we left it alone
it stays at each meeting and so the pro
tem
would have to be elected for each uh
absent of the chair
yeah i think the discussion was along
the lines of
that might be you know that happens so
rarely
um and i mean i want to speak for the
commission members but i think that was
the ultimate conclusion that it just
wasn't
um it didn't it didn't merit changing
um at this point yeah this is jim i
would concur
that we ultimately concluded that it
didn't merit changing but that does not
indicate that there wasn't
a significant amount of time spent
discussing it
rush matt klingler
thank you rush and thank you all members
who
worked so hard and spent so much time
um doing this duty i appreciate
everything you guys have done
my only question um and it has to do
with
uh how the charter review members are
appointed
was there any thought to um
the process in which council
shall search or shall bring the 10
members of the committee
that they're responsible for appointing
um and and how those people are selected
i do not recall any discussion
about that specifically other than
we added the portion about the the group
should be
represented by all parts of the city i
didn't express
that well but um anybody rachel
thanks john yes matt we did discuss that
i'm not sure if it's coming to mind john
or if that was in one of our um
in some of our meetings but i definitely
remember a robust discussion around this
we heard from different people on the
better way to do this
mark master i know we heard from on
historical ways that they were chosen um
mayor kessler
brought in um we considered he brought
in some ideas of how other cities do
this and then
we considered different ways and
specifying we even
threw in talking a little bit um
troy in your i feel like it's in your
civilian review board you spell out very
specifically some of the things you're
looking at
i think that's true um to
to reflect the diversity of bexley and
then at the end of the day
kind of reflecting what we had um said
before we scaled it back
and we said strive to reflect the
diversity of buxley
we are going to leave that up to council
on how best to do that
and um i know that mark
mark are you ons where's mark master um
we yes i'm here i'm here with
you do you remember this discussion oh
yeah
very well we spent a lot of time on this
mat
and i want to put you back on something
that goes back to
mrs lanky's comment uh two or three
things
we sort of left certain issues to you
guys and what i mean by you guys is to
counsel
in other words we'll give you we did the
grunt work let's say
and now you as our elected officials are
going to have to sit down
and have some good discussions on which
issues you want to go forward with and
how you want to do certain things
so again on this issue and again
speaking these are all words from just
me
on this issue again matt you're going to
have to spend some time thinking
we spent a lot of time on just debating
how we were going to you know
10 members from council 5 from the mayor
some people wanted to do it differently
so again the short answer is some issues
you now as council members will have to
make decisions on
i hope that helps you and and mrs lanky
was a it was a wonderful question
it's hard if you ask 10 people which
three items they want
you'll probably get 10 different answers
and i think jim
discussed that very well uh but it was a
it's a good question
thank you so much and before we because
i haven't said much and i usually
talk too much when i was on council that
it was a
real pleasure working with this group of
people
and i think and those that contributed i
think you have some real
good people sitting there tonight on
this
zoom that will someday sit on city
council
and i could name it if not all of them i
think uh
they're wonderful people to work with
and again jim and john
thank you that's the end of my
speech um thanks mark i don't want to um
derail us too badly but eloise i
remember you had a couple really
thoughtful
um contributions to this specific
question
about council do you remember or am i
digging too far back in the past
no uh one of the suggestions i have is i
think there should be
as there was in the last time and i
think troy you
you outlined a really nice protocol
um there should be a general call to
everyone
that they apply and that they write a
letter of application
because i think that allows people to
step forward and then to suggest
some of their expertise and what kind of
background they have
because we have many people with so many
different kinds of backgrounds
ethnicity and professional expertise and
certain types of experiences
and no one can know what those are
but that person might know and then they
could write that letter
so asking for uh volunteers
and asking for an application letter
i think is really a good way to get
started on
finding out those people that maybe
don't always come to mind
and i think part of your thought on that
eloise was the person might be able to
volunteer some information about
themselves that
could be very useful in getting a
diverse group but might not be something
that could be inquired about
that's right so people who are gay
lesbian or have gender identities that
we're not real familiar with
could step forward and say this is my
gender identity
and i would like to be a representative
of that group and kind of
bring to the group some insights we
could never ask that question because
that wouldn't be
inappropriate and so that allows the
person
to say this is an area of expertise for
me
and i will say that i mean i've seen
that in other applications
thank you so much gives me a lot of good
bill harvey hi while i have this entire
group here first i want to say thanks as
everybody else did
um i didn't see any changes to the
drive-in restaurants did you guys talk
about that and
think about that at all we're sort of
changing things there and i didn't know
if you'd discuss that at all
i think we had a very short discussion
um and it was mentioned
and i don't recall anybody suggesting a
change
anybody else want to chime in on our
group
that's my recollection thanks john
that's all i had rush
no other hands are raised right now
ben kessler has raised his hand
sorry go ahead eloise i i think um
we talked a little bit about main street
and the traffic seemed to be so heavy
there that we weren't willing
to open that up livingston has drive-ins
um but we didn't see one in the future
of either mean street or broad street
um hearing no additional questions
mayor kessler has this hand raised okay
thank you
um this really isn't a question uh it's
more just
i want to add on the thanks to all of
you for your
for very hard work over a long process
uh so much diligence and thought went
into it i think you need to know that um
john authenberg won a special award at
the mayors and solicitors party last
month
he won a bottle of maple syrup which
means that every one of you is entitled
to at least a tablespoon of that maple
syrup
so i just want to specifically i mean i
i i risk uh messing this up if i call
out every name but i'm going to do it
i'm going to try it i want to thank you
eloise you rush
becky bethany ed ira
jim larry mark
mick rachel and sam and stephanie
you guys uh you have been so open to
hearing from every member of the public
from every segment of our of our
community our dear community and
i really appreciate the time you put
into it so
thank you that's all
um i was in the end going to mention
mark beat me to it but
10 years ago steve kais
was a member of the committee and it's
my expectation that one or two of this
group will eventually serve on
city council i will
turn the meeting if there's nobody else
that wants to speak
i will turn it back to madam president
sorry i believe you're muted i am muted
thank you thank you so much all of you i
i know how well you all have worked
um together and i know that it is proof
that
you know small groups can do so many
fabulous things i
have treasured the opportunity to get to
know john aufenberg
better we've always had a good rapport
but
we've really become friends um and he
really um cheered all of you
on and really expressed a great pride
in what he had done and and a great joy
in working with all of you
um jim i know you helped do a lot of the
leading and jim and i have worked
together on all kinds of different
volunteer
um opportunities throughout my
my career as a parent so it's nice to
work with you
as well and i've i've um met a lot of
really
neat people um who i didn't know
that are in our community that have that
have done this process
before we end the evening i do need to
ask of those who are in attendance
and there are four of them two of which
i recognize their names but the other
two
i don't and um i just want to ask if
anyone in
attendance would like to speak
before we adjourn
i don't see any hands um rush do you see
any hands of the attendees
no i don't okay i always want to have a
second set of eyes just in case
well those of you who were with us
tonight we thank you so much
i know one of them is our uh reporter
who always makes um bexley look and
sound great
thanks chris and i know that uh the
bexley fox is
uh connie uh louis so thanks louis
for being with us tonight the other two
people thank you so much as well
lots of thank yous um really important
for me
always that people feel appreciated that
is always a goal
that i have especially for those of you
who are volunteers
i started doing everything that i have
ever done as a volunteer and it has led
me to this spot
um and i am grateful always
for the talents and the special
intellect that you have brought to our
community
and as i said before it is truly a gift
so thank you so much for the gift that
you have just given
patti markham just told me she's on one
of those people was patty markham
shout out to you patty all right
with that i'm gonna ask john for you
to adjourn your meeting and then i will
adjourn
mine
is there a motion of our group to
adjourn
so move is there a second second
um with my great thanks
um is everybody
in favor of retiring in a journey
yes
thank you sweet charter review we are so
grateful
so so grateful i will
i will send you the requested documents
um if you would forward them on if
that's okay
i will for sure and i'm going to have
lots of excuses to have to call you
okay okay
okay um is my team ready to adjourn do i
have a motion
i'll make a motion thank you mr klingler
mr sharp second thank you mr sharp with
miss
with matthew and richard saying one and
two are all those of you in favor and if
so say
aye aye that was a pose same sign
thanks everyone thank you be healthy be
well
taken care of