sounds good
okay and it looks like we are live
welcome everyone
this is the march 3rd council committee
on
the charter review commission's proposed
amendments
members of that committee are myself
president
fibel and council member klingler and we
have
asked our city attorney bill harvey and
our city attorney mark fishel
to join us at tonight's committee
meeting
this is the second committee meeting you
may recall that our first one occurred
on february 17th
so with that i will call the meeting to
old order
mr harvey could you please do the roll
call ms lamke
here mr kessler
oh i'm here i guess yeah mr klingler
here mr cluster kessler doesn't count
yeah i don't count
i was gonna say i don't think he's a
member
so it's just f uh then i need ms fibel
here i already got mr klingler so that's
just you three right okay
great we are all here great um
if we could all please stand for the
pledge of allegiance
pledge allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america
in the republic for which it stands one
nation
under god indivisible
did everyone have a chance to review the
meeting minutes from the february 17th
meeting yes great
um i had a chance to look those over uh
i would propose
just two quick amendments um the first
was
to change the title from that to council
committee on charter review commission's
proposed amendments
and the second change was to clarify
that the committee members
are myself council member klingler
and president fibel with
attorney fischer and auditor harvey
attending at my invitation
does anyone have any problem with those
two amendments
no okay i so move to amend can i have a
second please
a second right all in favor say aye
aye aye i myself okay and
motion to adopt the amended minutes of
the february 17th
committee meeting i still move i'll
second
this bible is second all in favor
okay we've got through those um at our
first committee meeting we had discussed
um the process the timeline and the
history and
the charge of this committee i know we
delve
into a lot there and i got the sense
from
how i felt after delving into tonight's
work that we still
still may have one or two possibly more
committee meetings
after this we had discussed previously
how many issues or how many
um groups or or lumps that we could put
together on the ballot
um and we also had an opportunity to
hear from
mr harvey mr official regarding
timelines when this needs to be
submitted to the board of elections
previously i think we had talked about
maybe
five to ten being the max but i wanted
to see if we could have a little more
further discussion
about how many issues ideally we feel
comfortable recommending to council to
place on the ballot
any thoughts or suggestions there
yeah i think i think 10 is um
a lot a lot a lot i think
uh five is still a fair amount i mean i
could be wrong and and
i would lean on mr officials help with
that one i think five seems like a lot
and i but i also think that it um
that it could be very dependent on
um the content for example
if one of them is to make
the language in the entire charter uh
less antiquated that's a very simple
if one if if another one is and i will
lean on i will say that those are that's
one that i
am leaning towards um um
an easy fix um something that i think
that is um
our citizens our constituents i mean
it's it's
it's something that i think they could
grab onto easily and i mean it's not
wordy it's not i think that would be
something we could
we could share fairly uh easily on the
ballot
um another another quick simple thing
again that i think
is a is an easy quick fix is
the um staggering of the committees for
example
i think that's um that is um
scattered throughout the document and i
think
um unless um mr official corrects me
because i'm wrong i believe that's
something that we could also bundle and
would be
a another simple fix which would allow
perhaps
um other ones to have a little bit more
content to be
uh have more text be more be
wordier perhaps so
that's my thought i just i would hate
for
um except each ballot
those would be each separate ones
correct am i correct
it's not they're not people are not
voting on
for example all five of them together it
would be
each each one correct okay
you would we would try the council would
have would have to approve them as
as a bundle and they need to be
logically related in some way
right both legally and so we can the
ballot
amend the ballot language could describe
it
properly right or yeah what do you mean
by antiquated
i guess i guess antiquate i guess i
guess
that word's not correct i guess what i'm
looking for
is um general gender neutral
i guess is what i'm i'm thinking
a he she they
right inclusive language thank you okay
lori i'm i'm kind of in the same boat as
you when i was delving through and
trying to
put together my process and and what i
thought would make sense to have areas
of bundling
i was aiming for no more than five um
you know and and within each you could
have small subparts but
i would be leaning closer to five um
at the at the very max
um matter or bill or mark um
what are your thoughts i i was leaning
between
three and five um
yeah i wasn't i was probably more
towards three the less
three to four the less the better is
what i was leaning towards
less is more yeah so you know
so it's on us to really think about it
and and
bundle and then the other thing i
thought it was we just have to be
mark when we list these on the ballot or
if we vote to list
certain things on the ballot do we list
what the charter says now and what
the proposed change would be or because
as i was reading this i'm thinking well
if i'm voting on it that's how i looked
at it i thought
well you know the the average citizen
might not know
what's being changed you know or do we
just tell them it's only an addition or
how does that work so the way it'll work
would work is that first of all
the actual language that's presented to
the voters
is an extremely abbreviated version with
no real act
no real specific changes so for example
the ballot one one issue and i'm
probably picking on one that's
likely to be on there i don't want to
speak for this group
that to add a to add in section and
article one
uh sections one through five addressing
civil rights because that's what and
that and then the ballot
language the actual language would be
available
and that's maybe not the best example
because it's all new but
the belt language a has to be available
so people can read it at the polling
site
it also has to be published in two two
separate weeks
um in a newspaper it also
probably just as a practical matter
would be on
the site with some advertisement you
know in the
blast to say go here and look at it and
uh god i can't remember if there's any
obligation to then
also make electors known no aware
directly all bexley electors of these
um potential change there's a male
requirement
okay that's right yep
so so that's how it would be done so
so for example if there was a section
you're proposing
to change with our council approves to
change with
taking language out and adding language
in that should be
shown in legislative form in some way so
that
it's clear what's proposing to be being
proposed to add
and clear what's being proposed to take
away
so the one that stood out in my mind was
section 14.
um and it's it's not big it's just
you know they deleted they proposed um
they being charter review proposed
adding
you know the mayor with concurrence of
city council may at any time remove
the city attorney they added that and
then the mayor with concurrence of
council may
at any time remove and then that's
what's in the charter but then they
deleted or superintendent or any head of
the any department
and they deleted when concurred in by
council so do they include
like do we say oh they well we're
deleting these phrases
but we're adding these phrases i just
what i'm getting at is i don't want to
make it too hard on the voter to
understand so when i'm thinking about
what
what we really need to put on there
making it as easy as possible
to understand when you're in the when
you're in the booth
yeah well i mean that's certainly an
admirable goal but the
the and and you're not married to any of
this language either of course
yeah but there are going to be some
sections that are very straightforward
they're going to be some
sections perhaps that you choose to put
on the ballot
that maybe may require a little bit more
work
and frankly may may benefit from some
explanation
from the city about why these changes
are on the ballot and what they would
mean
okay don't i'm not sure it's safe to
assume
that the voters are going to
read the letter that they're sent or go
to a website to look for this
right i think many voters are not going
to see this until they get to them
until they look at the ballot and say
gee they want to make this change
right and i think matt and the example
you picked
maybe the right thing to do is just say
change from to this
so it's easy for them to look at
mark one of your examples of change and
add civil rights i think we need to be
much
more detailed than that because to just
add some civil rights language if you
say that to a voter
that means a different thing to you than
it does to me or to
you know richard sharp or anybody else
i think we need to be careful how we
word those things
well i agree with you we need to be
careful but again i mean
we so i mean i i could for an example
come up
right what i said would not be a good
example i would say this
um should should the mexican city of
charter be amended to include
uh provisions in article one relating to
civil rights
including the recognition and intent
pertaining to civil rights citizen
participation and non-discrimination
diversity in hiring and contractor and
establishing the citizen review board
but it wouldn't be more than that if you
start doing more than that
you're going to lose it completely i
also agree with bill that a lot of
people
aren't going to read these things and so
what the city needs to do
as the proponent of these changes is to
be advocating for it
i mean for example 10 years ago now
frankly we had you know
we had a pretty big issue of whether or
not there should be an independent
elected auditor
or finance director but i mean you know
that those
somebody presented on those issues at
candidate nights again i know it's not
getting to everyone
but that gets to some people who then
say oh you should vote
for what it gets it educates people
so that will be done as well and i think
we're probably going to
start maybe like a cone shape a little
broader and then
slightly go down and keep simplifying
keep simplifying
keep simplifying it so that less is more
on what we're going to recommend and
what we
would suggest go on the ballot um what i
was hearing was
three to five is what this group is
going to
do which is a pretty ambitious goal
given given obviously
the amount of time and wordsmithing and
effort that our charter review
commission came into
i had a chance to to make a list of what
some of my
bundles my issues or my areas could be
um and i would love to have a discussion
with you about
uh some of your suggestions for bundles
the first one
obviously would be for me based on
how passionate i felt the charter review
said that they felt about it would be
a diversity equity and inclusion bundle
whether we call that civil rights or we
call it something else but
to me that one was the one that i felt
should should definitely rise to
the top
uh that was that that was um
one of mine as well obvious i mean i
think that's fairly obvious that i think
that um we would be remiss and not
having listened
uh to the way that um
um jim wilson answered
your question uh monique and i certainly
didn't hear
any of the other charter review um
members uh disagree with him so
um so if if if we want to start with
maybe a diversity equity and inclusion
sort of bundle uh maybe we can go
through
i know that uh the the commission felt
that
at least sections one through five were
included in that but they did have
a few other areas that fell under that
um
when i looked at section
one i
i do feel strongly that at least some
version of this
should go into our recommendations
um how much of it or how little that
this this this group could decide
um regarding section two
um i felt that
there were some comments and some
phrases in there
that i know our city attorney would
probably suggest that we
not include um but maybe
a version of that could also be included
in that bundle
um section three i struggled with
because i feel like
counsel um adopted this in its strategic
plan amendments
um as i believe part of goal four
so um i would if folks feel differently
i'd love to hear that but i
was thinking that section three i
thought
uh was pretty well addressed in our
strategic plan amendments
um oh i'm sorry go ahead no i just i i'm
afraid i'm afraid that if i
if i go on a tangent it's a dei thing
go ahead you finished finish i was just
gonna go through my five and then open
up the floor to hear
comments um section four i i believe
was kind of a close uh a close vote
from the charter review commission i
think it was uh
maybe an eight seven vote i know that
our city attorney had
some concerns about some of that
as do i especially as to how it would be
applied and then section
five our citizen review board
recently council did pass an ordinance
kind of find the citizen review board
that's probably the one that i would
love to to
hear if folks feel strongly that we
should consider
including section 5 and a dei
bundle as well i did have some concerns
and questions about
some of the the language in the last
sentence on the section five
but those were just my brief comments
about
sections one through five
one question monique on that you said
the last sentence the citizen review
board shall report to city council at
least annually regarding its work and
making your
recommendations for action by the city
that's um when i when i looked at that
i thought i guess my concerns were over
a couple
is one what if does this change the
scope
of the current ordinance that council
has already adopted
and if we include it in the charter
does if the language is different in the
charter is then that ordinance
in conflict with what we have here
suppose in five years city council
decided you know what a citizen review
board
either doesn't make sense or we want to
take away subpoena powers or we want to
change the scope and direction of that
board um
that was i guess that was my my bigger
concern
um i also feel like we haven't really
had a chance to
see the citizen review board play out
because it has been so new
um i know that at our last meeting we
talked about
there are some things that should be on
the ballot but other things could be
addressed via ordinance
and this might be one that i think
possibly uh would be better served
remaining an
ordinance so that the next city council
whoever is on that
if they wanted to change or amend it
they could do it simply via ordinance
can i make a comment about that so a
couple things first of all
in my and this was a topic that was
discussed
among the charter review commission and
with me participating
is to make sure that there's nothing in
section proposed section 5 that would
is inconsistent with what is
um in the ordinance um and that would be
inconsistent in any way with the
collective bargaining agreement so i'm
very comfortable
that that that section would not change
what the city
um is currently doing or moving towards
doing obviously it's
in place but there hasn't thankfully or
maybe i don't know
there hasn't been a lot of work for that
group yet um
i wouldn't use that i don't think that's
the reason not to do it
i would also say to you and again maybe
this is
politically insensitive but i think that
there is
a lot of there are a lot of people
looking for this to be
in the in the charter and
my concern is that if this doesn't get
included in the charter
that we see an initiative petition
that would create many more
potential issues for the city to deal
with because it would be
potentially be a lot more detailed like
columbus and then we'd have collective
bargaining issues and a whole host of
other
potential problems so those are just a
couple things to consider
but i'm i am very comfortable that what
has been
put in place by council that the is
consistent with
section five and obviously has more
detail which ordinances should compare
to charters
and mark do you see anything in that um
section that
that troubles you at all um 10 years
down the road or us wanting to be able
to change it or
other than other than if if everybody
decides down the road that no way
we hate citizen review board because the
that you would have to have one that's
the only thing but that's not
you don't obviously we don't envision
that yeah
yeah that that for me to envision it
certainly i certainly can envision
the nature of a citizen's review board
changing over time
and you know once we have robots instead
of
employees and things like that obvious
you know but
it's a joke it's a joke i got it it's
fine
no i think i i don't i don't i don't
have any concerns with that language
a legal standpoint okay one
one thing oh i'm sorry
one thing to think about is
if we think the citizens review board
section
might not have all the support
from the voters we might not want to
we might want to separate that so that
the whole thing doesn't go down
because of that section make it kind of
a standalone issue for them
yeah because if that and i don't know
that it will i've you know
i haven't heard a lot of noise about it
but if people say gee we don't want that
that could be a reason to vote down all
of the all of these changes
and there's something to think about
what if at some point say in five years
um
after the citizen review board has been
in play for
a while and the
council decides that they want to
change or eliminate uh some of the
powers
of that board i mean not that they would
but suppose they decide that
um they're gonna change the subpoena
powers or possibly eliminate it
how would you see that working with with
what's on here
well they have to you couldn't change
their right to have subpoena power if
it's in the charter
but you would still if you if you passed
an one if council wanted to pass an
ordinance five years from now it says
we'd like the citizen review board but
they should not have subpoena authority
then that would violate the charter and
you couldn't do it it's that simple
now that doesn't mean you can't modify
what their subpoena power might look
like
or for example and i don't remember if
if ours says this but i know some
versions i've read over time said
that subpoena power and they have the
issue to
have the power to issue subpoenas with
the approval of the city attorney for
example
i think can i i don't remember if ours
says that or not but
so there are ways to modify you just
couldn't totally eliminate
uh subpoena powers
when you set in on the charter reviewer
jim wilson i hate to
to maybe put you on the spot but uh
could could
either one of you share with us maybe
some of the collective input
from the charter review on on this
particular section
i'm happy to if you would like me to if
that's okay i think that would be very
helpful um
there was a significant uh discussion of
this particular
section both in the subcommittee that
drafted it
and in the larger charter review
committee um i i would say that um
we we started with proposals from the
community that we didn't think were
we thought were too granular and so our
objective in this
was to include what was essential and
not
burden the city with something that was
overly specific
to goes to some of the concerns you've
raised
we did have a lot of discussion about
the necessity
of subpoena power and frankly
i don't think there would be objection
to putting parameters around the
exercise of the subpoena power but for
to be meaningful i think
members of our group did some study of
other similar panels
and felt like for that panel to
have a meaningful ability to investigate
they needed the ability to compel um
records um and other information
because otherwise they would rely on um
um voluntary cooperation and
um not you know i think that the um
our group made no judgment about the the
whether accusations that we heard before
us were
true or not we weren't in a position to
do that but we didn't think that the
group would be credible
if all it could do was rely on
information voluntarily obtained
to make recommendations to the city
based on such accusations
is that have i covered what you were
asking
you did thank you thank you and i'm so
sorry i didn't mean to to put you on the
spot i guess it's the law professor
me calling on mr wilson no i was
actually hoping i'd be anonymous until
the very end tonight but
no such luck awesome well thank you
um matt what do you what do you think it
sounds like uh based on what the city
attorney
is is maybe um stating that
and what bill harvey is stating that
this should
be one one of the three to five
um on the ballot what it looks like in
form or if it's short enough
to uh to stand on its own but what are
your thoughts
yeah i'm not a legal mind um
so i don't you know i hear subpoena
power and then i hear
conflict with collective bargaining
agreements and issues with it
and that's what i hear in the news and
that's what i've read but if
legally if we're it's okay and it
doesn't
you know go against what we've already
collected collectively bargained and
um and any other statute then i'm i'm
i'm okay with that that was literally
the only subpoena power i just
i just clouded it and said check with
mark
so that was my note on it we always just
checked with mark
yeah that was my note so okay
all right if you guys are okay with that
maybe we'll we'll we'll say that this
would be a standalone
and we uh are there any thoughts on
whether or not we need to maybe
change some of the language it's
certainly short enough where it could
be word for word but would there be any
suggestions on wordsmithing this
i don't know that i guess i did i did
have one question what
what is the difference between us
putting it
is the only difference i should say
between us amending the ordinance we
already passed
and putting subpoena power in there
versus having our charter
is the fact that it can't be changed for
another 10 years until
it's possibly voted on again is that the
only difference
that is the only difference that i see
okay
and again there are different there are
a bunch of nuances that i won't bother
you with
um about subpoena powers and you know
there's still some
potential issues with the fop if we try
to
enforce a subpoena against one of their
members but we don't have to get into
those details
i'm sorry monique are you suggesting
that that section five would be
one it one of the three to five ballot
initiatives
or bill yeah kind of what bill was
saying um
i i know that you know we were talking
about maybe bundling some of the other
stuff but given i think how important
this
is and based on what jim wilson was
indicating
how the commission felt i think that
this would actually be
a great one to have as a standalone
on the ballot well certainly it's more
it seems and i don't mean this in any
pejorative way
it is more substantive than sections one
through four and what i mean by that is
one through four
are important don't get me wrong very
important but they are more
aspirational whereas section five is you
shall do
this one thing for sure
well i think that's great i guess i have
a question if
you if anyone thinks that there should
be some sort of parameters
around the subpoena power
looking into the future and how that
might
play out
i think that's a that would probably be
my concern too i would be
happy to maybe after this meeting and
before our next meeting to
take a look and at our ordinance
currently for the citizens review board
and then talk to mark based on his
expertise
and see if we need to wordsmith what's
on here now
i okay okay so so the progress we've
made so far if i'm just understanding it
one of our one of the ones we are going
to do is try to review standalone
with monique checking in with mark about
um subpoena power citizens review
standalone you said charter review
i do that oh no me too i just want to be
clear because there is a chart
there's a charter review thing i know
i know so i just would have to circle
back if i could
on what monique had to say about the
rest of article
article one um just to maybe
see if we can with a few of my questions
just progress
further um
i would love to hear discussion about
not
putting uh section four in
i would like to hear uh
so then four and five would be i mean
so four four would be a potential you
know to i
i called i'm calling those on my in my
notes
back burners something that we're
putting on the back burner perhaps to
discuss
at a later charter review or at
um another opportunity for perhaps or
an ordinance at some point um so section
so that would leave us a section one two
and three
and i heard monique's words say
that diversity and
hiring and contracting which would then
also go along
if i may with article
on four and the mayor's court
um it those seemed i heard monique say
that
she believes those are included
in our amended strategic plan
so i'm wondering about the necessity
of section 3 being
included and potentially
section 18 of article
article 4. so i'm thinking that leaves
us
with wordsmithing potentially section
one
and section two as a
bundled
potentially
another something for the
to be put put on the ballot i don't that
that that's i'm gonna
let that hang like that and let you guys
think about that yeah i think you
summarized it lori
uh really well at least for section
three um
when i look at our strategic plan
amendments i look specifically at
goal four um
and the caption of goal 4 in our
strategic plan
speaks to hiring training and city
operations
it has several sub
goals but the first is working to
increase the diversity of city staff
and the composition of individuals
serving
on our city boards commissions and
committees
it also includes the sub-goal
of performing a purchasing audit and
creating policies and procedures to
expand the scope of purchasing from
minority-owned businesses
it also provides for
um
implicit bias and training for city
staff and elected appointed officials
so at least i think the spirit of that
does caption
what section 3 was proposing
as for section or article 4
section 18 the mayor's court
regarding the least restrictive means
i'm not sure that that one falls under
our strategic plan but i thought that
that one could be easily cleaned up
maybe
by it by an ordinance yeah that's what i
was wondering i was wondering
maybe we could even could that even be
is there room in your amendment for the
you know on the strategic plan to put
that on there
i mean i don't know yeah that's a good
question
mark what are your thoughts on maybe
having that uh
part about mayor's court um
that uh to ensure defendant's
appearances by the least restrictive
means
in accordance with the rules of criminal
procedure
i mean more sense to i'm sorry or
would you even need an ordinance if it's
governed by
the rules of criminal procedure so a
couple thoughts i have in that first of
all
um i i want to be
in no particular order i think i want to
be really respectful i know everybody
does
but all the work that was put in by the
charter review commission
so i do think there are a list of things
and this may be one of them and i i
think it is one of them i'll explain why
in a minute
with that maybe this group goes back to
council and says here's our
recommendations for
um charter review and here's our
recommendations
to modify to potentially modify
ordinances
and then have the appropriate committee
be responsible
for or committee chair be responsible
for vetting that
and talking to the right people i think
this is one that would is best
suited to be putting in i don't think
just saying it's
in the criminal rules of procedure is
enough because the idea behind this as i
understand it
is that you know the whole
move towards and frankly one that i'm
very supportive of is you know stop
relying on bail so much if we if we can
avoid it now again mayor's court doesn't
have to
often doesn't have to get into that kind
of in-depth
criminal criminal procedure analysis
but i do think it's a good idea to have
an ordinance
that that is the expectation
for the magistrate that to consider that
again it doesn't bind the magistrate as
you know
so that would be an example of something
i put on a list
perhaps to have you know make make a
legislative change through ordinances
rather than the charter
okay i can definitely see why it was
included it certainly fits in with the
new direction that our mayor's court
with our public defender and the move
towards a fine free system
definitely can see why that was included
lori i didn't mean to interrupt you um
you didn't
you didn't i wanted those were my
thoughts that's where i was going with
my thoughts and i just wanted to hear
you know if any of those thoughts
resonated with anyone else
that's all yeah
i i very much agree i think section four
um
could could be on the back burner i like
the suggestion that
uh we fix or suggest via
a a remedy versus uh by way of ordinance
for
the mayor's court um if
this committee is in agreement that
section 3
does seem to be fairly well addressed in
our strategic plan that would just leave
us with section 1
and 2 for possible inclusion or uh
uh consideration for the ballot so it
could be
another one of our three to five
matt what do you think yeah so i had the
notes
um same kind of thing section three
addressing the strategic plan
but then in the charter reviews
recommendation
they addressed the strategic plan and
the sentence after the strategic plan
said something i was trying to find it
said something the effect of um
oh uh it was addressing diversity equity
and inclusion
this um about you know the strategic
plan shall be developed every 10 years
and then there was a sentence there and
i said oh
i thought to myself you know with our
strategic plan amendment
and then also that sentence it kind of
covers
um section three
so i was i'm in agreement basically okay
in the short of it and i will share too
that goal four
um was a whole new amendment um to the
strategic plan i think previously
it didn't have a goal for it all so to
add it
and um to expand hiring and training and
city operations
i think was was a really good thing that
we did
um if biller or mark did you have
any other thoughts before we maybe try
to figure out how to make sense of
section one and two
and how that could possibly look um on
the ballot
only that i think on matt's point you
know
maybe that that might make you know i
understand where you guys are coming
from for sure on
you know the fact that some of this is
already in the strategic plan
but that section that again that you're
right matt it's in here someplace i
can't remember
i can't find it where where the the
charter review
suggested language that mandates the
strategic plan
include um diversity and equity or
whatever they called it
section eight section eight so maybe
maybe that gets bundled with sections
one and two as well
yeah the thought there i agree mark
that's a great that's a great suggestion
okay
all right i'm done then if i had one
great suggestion
okay so as i understood bill did you
want anything before we
uh try to do a deeper dive into sections
one two
and eight nope i'm fine
okay all right
what an effective group um i love it
um i have to tell you that when i
looked at section one i liked every word
of it
i really did and i i um
i listened to the charter review
commission's discussion
and they took great care and carefully
chose
each and every word i think that they
were definitely trying to make
a very strong statement uh beyond the
preamble
um mark is this is this one that you
think
um it's it's it is too long
no i like it a lot i'm with you yeah
lorianne and and and matt section one
do we like i you like it as is do you
think we should try
to uh to cut it down before we talk
about section two
or mesh the two together
i don't have any problems with section
one at all i know that they
they uh they try to review took great
effort to watch every word that they
used and they were very careful about it
i think it's very clear i think it's
easy to understand
so i'm i'm happy i'm happy with it i
mean last week
not last week our last meeting um when
we talked about paring it down
i mean i i i understand better now the
need to do that
but i have to admit that when we first
talked about paring things down
i thought i mean how how can you
you know what words of the words that
they
carefully carefully carefully you know
strung together do we get rid of
so it makes me very anxious to do that
in general um
i do understand the need to do that um
because of the ballot
and i um i'm not sure that i
uh it makes sense but i'm not sure at
first i put two and two together that
that
these words would all be there in their
entirety
when we advertise when we communicate it
it's not all going to be on the ballot
which
i understand that not everybody's going
to take make the effort to look
at the exact wording of things
nonetheless
well mark i had a question for you um in
section one the hate-based conduct
um do you see any legal issues with with
that
i thought maybe at some point you had
you mentioned that
that did not mention that although i was
just looking at it
you know i i think it's fine because
again it's
it's aspirational it's not requiring the
city to pass an ordinance that says
if i hate my neighbor because i don't
like their trees
that's automatically actionable so i'm
okay with it
okay bill so this
to lori ann's point this could be
the the ballot issue could be add
section one which says
these five lines and that's just the
issue people could read it
it's not a big deal that whole thing
could be part of the ballot
we don't have to explain anything we
just say we want to add this
right this could be our second
standalone
okay um thing on the ballot it could be
but it could also be
oh i'm sorry bill that's right
the only issue i have is a title
recognition and intent
does that really that that doesn't
sound like if somebody would look at
that they say what's that mean
i i i don't know i just you're right oh
i think you're absolutely right
i think that's a good point bill yeah i
think um
we could probably pull out some words
that are
in that um or come up with something
um that's a good point for harvey i
agree
but i'd have no problem just saying add
section one to the charter and section
one says
and here it's here's what it says
matt you're smiling what do you think
yeah no i i agree with bill i'm smiling
because i word smith this and i looked
at it um
and i i had a suggestion i don't know
the difference between hate-based
conduct and
all hate-based conduct is that like
degrees of perfect to me
hate-based conduct is hate-based conduct
i don't
do you need the word all only that's the
only thing i've
said it's a degree of to me it is a
degree of perfect
hate is hate
okay all right so it sounds like maybe
well the exception
of the title this committee
would recommend all of section one maybe
with or without the word all in front of
hate
should be its own standalone issue on
the ballot
i'm fine with i i think that sounds
great yeah
okay all right so we will work on our
title um i think probably for our next
meeting depending on how far we get
tonight what i'd like to do
is to prepare a working draft for all of
you
and we can then
uh come up with some thoughts for the
title of section one
and um and
and go from there section two um i know
that there was
um there was a phrase in there that uh
concerned mark it also did concern
uh me based on uh some of the
the legal impact but uh if you look at
the phrase or for any cause not
reasonably related to the accomplishment
of a legitimate
government purpose um
i think mark mark you had some concerns
about that right
yeah i did i mean that that that is
extraordinarily broad and
obviously everything should be done with
a legitimate governmental purpose in
mind
but that phraseology has sort of its
origins
in the case law that was that's been
developed over hundreds of years or
150 years whatever the case whatever it
is um
where certain depending upon what action
is being taken by the government there's
a
higher or lower level of scrutiny about
what the legitimate government purpose
is
or whether but so so i think i i would
just be much more comfortable if it just
stopped at military status
um because i don't want somebody to
argue
and we can all hear of a five-minute
presentation at the beginning
in public session that the
the manner in which we're cutting the
grass and i'm just making this up
is not reasonably related to a
legitimate government purpose
or something like that so i would rather
have it
tied to all of the basis of unlawful
discrimination and not go beyond that
as a lawyer let me ask you this mark
since
we have a non-discrimination ordinance
right now
what if um protected classes get added
over
the next between the next here and the
next charter review
well that wouldn't be encompassed in
section two but it doesn't matter we
just have to complete
it for us to consider
like a a general and any other
federally protected classes or am i
overthinking that
i think you're overthinking it because
again we'd still have to comply with
that it's not like it'll negate this
it's not it's not like it'll allow us to
discriminate based on that new category
that none of us are envisioning right
now it's just
it won't be in the charter until the
next time we fix the charter if we
choose to fix it that way
but it's still going to be in the law so
we still have to follow it
okay
other thoughts what what happens if
there are issues where
there are different
groups affected in other words
um
i don't know religion and age
and i read and i'm not sure it's in this
section there were a couple places where
we said things like you can't
you have to have a an accurate mix or
a fair mix and i and i think the intent
was
by race but when you add all these
topics in here
you could have a diversity
by religion which would be different
than a diversity by age
and i want to make sure we don't get
ourselves caught in something there
for example if we say
um let's say the population is
uh of the city changes so
so 50 of its jewish and 50
is christian let's just say but the age
and but the age diversity is
you know 70 over 60 and the rest was
under 60.
how do you mix those two things
well it's it's certainly a conundrum
you're right bill
this is not the section that we're
concerned but there is a section
later on that that it's the charter
review section where it says it's
supposed to be okay
yeah okay then i guess i should read
this one
so mark what i hear you saying is if we
if we just take out that or for any
cause take out the rest of that sentence
you wouldn't have any concerns about the
rest of section two
from a legal standpoint it's perfectly
fine okay
um i did feel that this one is also very
purposeful
um i like the first half of the sentence
i think i could probably um
maybe take a few words out of the second
part um just so that
it's not as long but that would be
my suggestion it's to leave in uh word
for word
the first sentence beginning in the
exercise of its powers
and then um i have a couple things that
i would tweak
just for the part regarding
a citizen participation that sounds
it sounds like something that i would
have told my kids in middle school this
is you really
need to participate
and uh and i i do think that it could be
um a little i think we could make it
more simple or at least
on the ballot it could be presented
in in a simplified way for sure
yep i had a period in the second
sentence
i had a period after ideas and then just
the word and removed and then bexley
urges so you change it up into two
sentences
um and then i made a note um again
i'm not a legal mind
like monique or mark so mark had pause
for it so i
i for that for that phrase
uh or for any cause etc
um i put a cloud around that and thought
we should
think about that a little more so that's
all i had
on that one okay
all right bill harvey
it says we want you to participate but
not too much
um you know encourages citizens to
attend meetings
but then it says be mindful of the need
of the officials to regulate
conversation and discussion
that i don't know
it well sounds like you're trying to do
two things
with one sentence so i believe
the genesis of this language was look
you know after the comment i made last
night about the at cic i guess i'll be
blunt here
the genesis of this language is some
people thinking
that the current city council has been
putting too much of a kibosh on public
speaking
and then the and then the charter review
recognized that wait a second
obviously the city also has to be mined
the council has to be mindful of getting
its work done so it can't be both
extremes so this is their
effort to balance it um
you know i i i just i just want well
i just wonder how necessary that is to
put
i mean yes
it makes it makes a nice statement
and i don't know you know i i gotta sit
here saying all these things with jim
wilson staring at me
you know politely of course but i don't
want to offend either because again they
put a lot of work into it
stop yelling at me jim i can tell you
his eyes i i i listen
to the charter review when they discuss
this and i
actually think that they very much were
trying to strike a balance between
recognizing that the city council
meetings are a time to get city business
done
but also affording the public an
opportunity to participate so i thought
they were coming up with a very good
sort of balance
and respecting some of the challenges
that get presented sometimes
it's so funny because ages and ages ago
when i first read this
i have an arrow pointed there and i said
exactly
nice balance is what i put
so what if we what if we took out the
citizen participation part
of the title and
prop that whole sentence and just say
we're not going to discriminate and make
us a non-discrimination thing
citizens know they can participate today
we can encourage that
through our you know all the other ways
we encourage
it
jim is there i'm sorry to call on you
again but but i see you on the screen
and i so appreciate you um maybe
adding your expertise but with their
additional
thought or input from the commission
on the importance of making sure that
the language of participation was
included
um well i guess i would just
say that i'm probably shifting more to
advocacy at this point just to be
clear i think um
respectfully i disagree with bill harvey
that everyone in bexley feels invited to
participate
i think there are some people who um
feel like they participate in on in
steroids or
we perceive that they over participated
but we heard a lot of voices in the
community saying our voices aren't
welcome here
and so if we're you know
i think in some ways the title civil
rights of this section
which was sort of added the end is is
not
fully capture what was intended by the
charter review commission
the sections intended to state
fundamental values of the community
about inclusion and diversity and
there are people rightly or wrongly that
say our voices haven't been heard we
wanted to balance that
against what we seemed as perceived of
as an abuse in the council meetings of
some people having their voices heard
constantly
um and so the idea was to
make it clear in our foundational
document that
everyone was welcome but also to make it
clear the council had to get its
business done and had
was perfectly entitled to set forth the
rules and i think there's another
provision
in another section that makes that even
clearer as to
um how it does its business while
listening to members of the community
great thank you so much um
i i actually i think i could still
i would still like to have that second
sentence paired down
but i would i would be okay including
this in our list of recommendations to
counsel
um given that i do think it strikes a
balance
i do too i i i would be a proponent of
including it i
i just
i i what jim just said really resonates
and i and i
and i can imagine who believes that they
their voices aren't welcome and aren't
heard and
and um there needs to be an effort to
make sure that that happens
well at the same time if you look up you
know
the purpose of a council meeting i mean
if you just
simply google it it's really interesting
that what comes up
and it is to get the business of council
completed and then it and then it goes
on to
discuss the fact that by
limiting the amount of time that a
person's allowed to speak
does not limit their first amendment
right it's really it's just
very clear and i think um
i think it's important
but um so
so am i understanding then if we're
looking
at these things we're talking about
charter review as a standalone
again with a review of the subpoena
section one
citizen review board no
yes you did did i you said charter again
i did again i even wrote it i even wrote
it down that way
um so citizen review um
as a standalone with subpoena uh power
discussed
section one um with a title change
um as a as a second one a third then
would be section
two minus
the sentence or the end of the second
sentence
and potentially with a paired down
version of
um the second sentence
that's that's what i was understanding
and and to further maybe complicate
maybe taking
the sentence from article 3 section 8
regarding our strategic plan what matt
highlighted earlier right um
maybe finding a way to work some of that
language in
to that section too
okay and and we might look at it maybe
at the next meeting and think you know
what
maybe it's too long maybe it's too
convoluted but
that's that's what i was thinking we we
would
consider doing well and again you can
always keep
if you want to and i'm not saying you
have to do it this way you can always
just go ahead and and incorporate the
change as
written in section eight and it could be
just part of
the package part you know all of one
issue
because it all relates to diversity and
inclusion or non-discrimination however
you want to phrase it
okay just an option
yeah matt were you able to hear what we
were
just kind of recapping yeah sorry i just
had to say goodnight real quick
[Laughter]
we were just saying that uh um section
two we're gonna
uh recommend taking out that one
sentence that concerned
uh mark we're going to look to see if we
can uh maybe trim a little bit of
the second sentence
and then i had suggested maybe bringing
in some of the language from
article 3 section 8 as it pertains to
our strategic plan to see if some of
that
made sense to add to section 2 i'd be
happy to come back to our
committee and see if if that makes sense
or
mark's suggestion is we could just
leave article 3 section 8 as is and have
that proposed language on the ballot
yeah i i don't know i
in the interest of um
shortening things on the ballot i had a
note that section 8
you know we could talk about his counsel
and potentially just pass it as an
ordinance
um or or add that you know and
i don't know that was the note i had
because i knew
i kind of had a feeling section one we
would all or
article one we would all say this needs
to be on the ballot and that's you know
it's gonna be a page of stuff to read um
and i i was i was being mindful of
i don't know reading too much and and
people
just you know i don't know just trying
to keep it
succinct and clear and so i had
the article 3 section 8 i said my note
was
council pass as an ordinance okay
yeah we definitely want to keep it
simple um we could also see kind of what
it looks like
and and discuss that part further but it
sounds like we'd at least like to keep
the the majority of that yes
okay agreed um if we're staying with the
uh bundle of diversity equity
and inclusion were there other parts or
sections
that folks felt strongly should be
included on the ballot
as of now we've got three
three standalones already did we skip
over four
uh i think we had decided that maybe
four uh might make sense to
have more on the back burner at least
for now
yeah okay okay that's okay i remember
that yep
okay
other dei um issues that we would want
to
consider bundling or having be
standalones
i'm looking here at what
when the charter review commission did
its powerpoint to us
they had six items
under the dei topic the first was the
statement of intent
which is section one the second is
the non-discrimination article which was
section two
there was also section five citizen
review board
um limiting cash bonds um that's the
mark that's the one i think we just
talked about right with the least
restricted needs for mayor's court
okay they also included two other
uh issues under dei was one was
inclusive language
and laura you had kind of brought that
up at the beginning of the meeting
um would it not be maybe to have
um just uh
uh i guess what were you thinking on uh
on what that would possibly look like i
i don't know if that i i
i don't know if we can somehow um
verbalize um you know or
put it into writing um
a general statement of a throughout i
mean
are things like that i would assume
things like those that can be done
mark it can be done it could we could we
we can either as a standalone or as one
of the issues that uh
that the language throughout will uh
uh be uh gender neutral or gender
specific or
some verbage that we can come up with
now keep in mind if we do that
then every one of those sections we're
changing needs to be sent
to needs to be sent to all the citizens
put in the newspaper
post it um post on the website um
all those things so and there's a
logistical question there
uh just to consider i'm not saying it
shouldn't be done
lori i wonder too if um one of us might
be able to find
a similar ballot issue that's got great
language
and and seeing maybe how other another
jurisdiction has done it
i'd be happy to do some research on that
that would be great
thank you um and then the last
the sixth issue that the commission had
under dei
was the police department um
let me look through and see what section
that was oh i can find that i have it
down somewhere
okay uh i thought i did anyway
i thought i put it in my notes but i
might not have
i'm flipping through as well
i may have passed it hang on
i'm looking to it's not
it's not 48 and 49 isn't it by chance
you know what it might be
i think
yeah i think it was i think it was 48
and 49 48
49 yeah
once talks about the fire is it is it is
it the
getting rid of the chief
okay yeah i mean i think 49 talks about
removal of chief
right again it's um it
it seems to me to be a um
clarification although interestingly
enough there you know the language about
saying
and any other cause deemed appropriate
with concurrence of counsel
is kind of
and the other one just makes the mayor
48 makes the mayor have to do an
annual performance review of the police
department
right which he does already doesn't he
you may want to talk to him about that i
i think
the concern he's expressed previously
and i know this was
actually initially it was a performance
review of the
chief that he expressed some concerns
about
doing that in a more formal way than he
does i'm not exactly sure about what he
does with the police department i don't
know what
i shouldn't try to speak for i'm sorry
okay
i i will uh i want to give these two
sections a little more thought i guess i
would
i know that obviously i think the
intended goal is more transparency
i would have a concern that if if there
was a public review that somehow that
would lead to actually less candor
less transparency because it is public
so i'd like to
to just kind of give give 48 and 49
a little more thought and and input
at least for me
mark right right now for um the part
and any other cause deemed appropriate
with comprehensive counsel
is that what do we already have that
power now
yes it says including but not limited to
so i think it's i i think we do do we
have to have cause
to vote yeah yeah okay yeah yes the way
that it's set up here you have to have
cause
for the police chief the police chief
treated differently than other
department heads in our charter and by
practice
okay other other thoughts on 48 and 49
i'm happy with us taking a break to look
at that a little further
me as well all right monique did you get
through all of the other dei stuff
that you that that was on that list
um i when i looked at the powerpoint
um i just saw the six categories
um but i think they didn't at least i
didn't write down what sections numbers
so it's possible that
when they talked about say inclusive
language that maybe they referenced
specific sections were there some other
were there some other ones that you
thought had uh right now
i i don't think so other than yeah no
just
just just the mayor's court one
yeah those were the ones that kind of
jumped out to me
based on uh when uh uh the commission
presented it to council okay
all right so moving on to
non-dei items uh what were some of the
other
bundle issues that um that
you uh you thought we as a committee
should consider
i i i wasn't creative with bundling
with bundling other ones i think a lot
of these i
i don't know i'll be really curious to
hear
what other people had to say about it
the only thing i
you know i looked at was i was thinking
really hard about
some of the items that um i remember
um jim saying were important
you know one you know top ones on his
list and i do remember
the recall of elected officials was one
that i
i think um and jim can correct me if i'm
wrong
was one of one of the top ones when
when you posed that question monique
yeah um just if anyone kind of needs um
needs me to run down the list i did
actually look at
the the powerpoint again from the
commission and the way that they broke
it down
the first was dei which was clearly at
the top of the list
the second category was executive branch
mayor auditor and city attorney third
was counsel
fourth with was ethics and recall the
fifth
was commitment to the environment next
was
elections and then future
charter review and then general updates
and some clarifications um
if it helps we could take those maybe um
a little bit out of order with regard to
the commitment to the environment
i believe towards the end of the
proposed amendments there is
a sentence that's fairly straightforward
indicating that the city of bexley
is dedicated to protecting in
committed to the environment i can find
that specific
section um if
you like actually monique i have it here
it says
the city of bexley shall preserve and
protect our environment
and actually i think
to me we either need to expand on that
or take it out because
i would argue and i made this comment to
i don't know somebody recently
almost everything the city does does not
preserve and protect the environment we
put salt down on the streets that ends
up in alum creek
and we destroy green space because a
resident wants a house
to you know an expansion of their
property or their house so we let them
destroy green space
trees get old and ready to fall and we
cut them down
and that doesn't protect the environment
so i think we need to
think real hard about what we say about
that
i i understand the intent obviously
but it needs to be changed from this
in my opinion or we won't be able to do
our job
yeah i'm i i am such you know an
advocate of learning how to become more
green
and our community becoming more green
but i look at that and i do appreciate
it and i get it and i
and i and i love that and i love because
i think that we
all are making such a great effort to
become
more environmentally aware but i look at
that sentence and i say what does that
mean
what what where are we going with that
what exactly does that
what does it mean yeah i
i'm on the same wavelength a little
different i think it's a rabbit hole
um you could go down depending on what
protecting the environment means to
any individual um
i mean it it could be a lot of things
um how particular do you want to get
about protecting our environment
kind of thing so i think it's too broad
in general um
i think i think protecting our
environment
is more of a specific strategic thing
that should be in a strategic plan
possibly if you want to if you want to
make certain definitive
things that you want to do or you want
your strategic plan
to have certain things but a broad
statement
um i don't i don't think is right
i think too maybe just in the interest
of efficiency
and knowing that we do have to
um carefully pick the three to five
issues that we think are going to be on
the ballot and also knowing what a great
strong program we have in greenbexley
and we have our zero waste plan
and multiple other plans i do actually
think it would be a better fit to not
include this
in our list of recommendations um and
like you said matt maybe either we
expanded our strategic plan or
an other existing plan um
but just because i know we've got a
gotta pick and choose
um so that what's on the ballot can be
advocated for strongly
yeah and i'll say that um troy markham
and and mayor kessler and and the
leaders and elizabeth
they're doing a great job pushing it and
and getting us in the right direction
but uh
i agree monique okay
all right bill and mark you
okay with that okay
um a few other ones i'm sorry go ahead
sorry i wanted to chime in uh you asked
what we talked about or what we thought
about bundling and i had 24 and 25
section 24 25 it was um
the council items so it was where we
talked about the four-year term of
office
for city council members will begin on
january 1st etc
and then it also talks about providing
at least
six hours in advance the special meeting
written no notice maybe electronically
um electronically given
and then 25 was more about council
quorum and rules
so i thought i don't know i thought that
was all in the same kind of vein
we could we could bundle all of that
together
if we wanted to put that on the ballot i
also had
a note that um
we could talk about that as council and
maybe pass maybe
write an ordinance or you know
yes i was i was wondering if uh
ordinance if
that would be appropriate i know
obviously we there i i know that the
commission had a very thoughtful
discussion
about timing and being sworn in and
sometimes there's conflicts
but um i think mark official said that
the swearing-in
is only a formality and that january 1st
all the council members their their new
term starts
um so just because of knowing we do have
to make cuts
um this could be one that i would i
would probably consider
um changing via ordinance
uh monique
one of the changes that i think should
be made right now
i think the charter says if you're going
to have a special meeting you have to
notify people
in person and i think mark has expanded
that to say
if you acknowledge that you've gotten it
you don't have to do this
but one of the changes was that the
written communication
could be provided electronically
uh um just need to think about that i
guess mark are you comfortable that the
current process
where we say i think what we do now is
if there's a special meeting
you say please wave this now that means
if somebody says no i'm not going to
wave it
you can't you have to then provide
written documentation right what's
happened in the bri
in the past couple years is that you
know the council president or
who calls the special meeting um has
said i'm going to call a special meeting
it's usually way more than six hours
notice a day or two or three
say okay um and i'll make sure i'll get
you
i get you the uh the notice delivered to
your
hand delivered to you unless you wave it
in writing uh or waive it
you know by responding to me this email
and everybody
waves it and that's fine um you know so
i don't think
you know i i i mean i guess going back
to the comment monique just mentioned
i don't think anything needs to be
changed regarding that process
in particular and as you mentioned to me
previously bill outside this meeting the
providing for it electronically possibly
raises
some opportunities for people to be a
little duplicitous
with people what is it
one of the things that i said to mark
was
if we make this change and it can be
done by email somebody could call a
meeting at
four four members could call a meeting
at you know
midnight for have the meeting at 7 00
a.m and not
and nobody read their email but if you
don't make that change
um now we're covered there i mean it's
not
it's really not that big of a deal it's
a it's it's
you know it is simply the president of
council saying
will you please read please wave
personal notice i mean we
as as a president of of council i want
it confirmed that my members
have received my email anyway
so for them to simply say i
confirm i'll be there and i wave my
notice is not
it's not that big of a deal i mean it's
a pain but it's not that big of a deal
understand that suppose it was four
council members who didn't want you to
know they were going to have a meeting
and they just sent out a notification
that was my point
right i understand okay
matt you mentioned section were you
lumping together section 25
as well or did you have some separate
thoughts on section 25
i am muted okay there you go sorry
it wasn't it wasn't me no it was it was
me uh
typing and i don't want you guys to hear
my typing so i'm sorry
uh 24-25 it just seemed kind of all in
the same it all talked about city
council members
or city council kind of the
it just made adjustments to how we do
things so i just thought it made sense
to bundle
but the other thing that that wasn't a
suggestion that i
i thought i you know it was suggested
that i
you know maybe we talk about is the
president pro
10 as i was reading the whole entire
thing
it was um it just
it didn't make sense i don't understand
why we
select a president pro tem um
at at the council meeting if laurie ann
couldn't be there or if the president
couldn't be there
that's like mark do you want to once on
the spot i
i would think we would select it when
the president is selected and say okay
this is going to be
our backup and city some many city
councils do just that
so the only right so i mean i think yeah
changing that would be certainly is
lawful
yes but i think when we talked about
doing that i think we said
you know well what if lori ann and let's
say richard is
chosen as president pro tem
you know maybe i've got coveted he's got
coven too then you gotta
you gotta you gotta vote a different
person in any way
so why you know what i mean we talked
about it that way
yeah i i if i'm recalling correctly i
think we had decided that we would have
to maybe elect a president pro tem
at each meeting where maybe the
president wasn't there in case
instead of staying with one person
i mean you can always if you if it's
really that important you cannot
change it to just simply say the
president pro tem
is the most senior serving council
member in attendance
if you want to change it i mean again
it's just something just on facebook
that i thought yeah it just seemed odd
that you would
select it on the spur of the moment so i
mean it's a little odd you're right
yeah i like that idea mark i actually
love it i
i i just thought of it i don't know
where i came from
your second great suggestion
8 30 i should be go to bed go go buy a
lottery ticket go to bed
hey matt one one other point going back
to to section
25 um you know i know that the the first
part of the suggestions were regarding
the rules but there is some new language
in green um regarding executive session
um and i think that uh the commission
felt very strongly that a council member
can never be excluded if i recall
correctly i think they said that a
council member could excuse
him or herself or could could opt to
excuse themselves but it couldn't be
something that other council could do
to um to exclude them uh
and i'm not sure if that belongs in the
charter or whatnot but
um that is a one other addition that
we should probably discuss okay so can i
tell you the kind of the what i think
the history of that is
so first of all you don't need the
phrase provided a
council you don't need anything in the
charter says a council member can never
be excluded
that's by law i've researched that issue
in other circumstances
the reason that phrase is in there is
because of the first part of that
sentence
so in my experience and i wanted full
disclosure up front
ben kessler very feels very adamant
about
this issue and i think bill has some
thoughts too in my
overwhelming experience executive
session is called by council a cop
by city council and city council then
says
who they want into that executive
session
almost always it's their the city
attorney or whatever
you know but our the way it works here
and the way our current charter has been
interpreted is
essentially that the the
because because the chart or some other
place says the mayor city council
i'm sorry mayor auditor and city
attorney have a seated council
that's always been interpreted and again
mr kessler is very adamant about
this that he has the right as the mayor
to be in all executive sessions
now um i don't necessarily agree with
with that conclusion again i don't think
it's the
biggest issue in the world but there's
so i think this language emanated from
may have emanated from my sharing my
me sharing my experience but also
there's language
other in another section that suggests a
change that says that
that you can exclude the mayor city
attorney or
city auditor if you're investigating
them or talking about their pay or
talking about whether the city attorney
should be booted
i'm comfortable that if that language
isn't in the charter you still could
probably do it to city council
what can mark about section 17 okay
that's the other section um
yeah when i when i looked at this um
i wasn't sure if it belonged in the
charter i probably want to think
a little bit more but um
maybe read it in conjunction with
section 25.
lori you have any thoughts well i i just
have
um when i was looking at section 24 i
said the first sentence
is already law so that was something i
put
um and then i talked about a
notification of special readings
and and i'm you know i don't think
that's that big of a deal
and then when i looked at section 25 um
council rules i thought you know can
this be an
ordinance form and then executive
session
i guess i thought um i think i
potentially knew from
from um the attorney that that you know
is already also law i mean we can all
see the attorney
who who's the attorney uh the city who's
not talking about oh oh
me yeah a real a real attorney
you need a real
you already have you already have an
ordinance that says council adopts their
own rules
that i can't be inconsistent with the
charter i mean
even if it doesn't say that part it
can't be right
i am keeping track of things that we are
maybe thinking could be better
suited via ordnance or on the back
burner so i will
i will add that one is on my back burner
okay we got it all of those
24 and 25 are back burning great
um matt was there other
other bundles that you wanted to touch
upon
um
just that one for now but i know i had
another one
i'll i'll find it
a lot of these
the charter did a really good job of
just clarifying stuff
and making stuff seem um uh better
well read i i guess i'd say i mean
that's a phrase
um so i i don't know a lot of it i just
thought it seems
obvious i was kind of okay yeah let's do
that i don't you know what i mean i
you know but i don't necessarily think
needs to go on a ballot um
but i didn't have a whole lot more i
didn't have a whole lot more bundles
i had one bundle that that might be
something we
we could quickly decide on but was
um the future charter review
um i think it was section 79
yes way at the end
um and then i had a couple of other
bundles which we
we might not get to it it's already 8 33
and i want to make sure we're respectful
of
everyone's time um
but if you look at
79 it provides
it basically mandates that there will be
a charter review every
10 years it gives specific deadlines
it also puts in place a mechanism
i believe similar to what occurred this
year
whereby council appointed 10 members the
mayor
appointed five and then they added a
sentence indicating that the composition
of the committee shall strive to reflect
the diversity of the city of bexley
matt you weren't on council then but i
think you may have been
at one or two of these meetings um
i believe that there were actually four
or five different proposals from
various council members myself included
and we all kind of threw in our two
cents on how to
um come up with members of the charter
review
and then unanimously uh we ended up
going which one markham's suggestion
and that's how we ended up appointing
the 15
folks that sat on this year's charter uh
nice guy nice guy
um so i guess the discussion is do we
is this one that we consider a
standalone or um do we think
um needs further consideration and we
revisit it
or we do by ordinance i think i think
there's
i think that i mean if we're allowed to
do it by ordinance i think that it's
i think that would be good i think that
um i know that bill harvey and i have
had conversations
about this one the timing of it makes me
a little
uh makes me made it made us a little
you know i admit it's forced the
question
if it's every 10 years
and it and the process takes 18 months
when does that 10 years start
and stop how do the 18 months fit in
and i think that um
bill harvey brought up that the other
the other
um quandary and that is
um the makeup of our community
does that mean we're gonna have you know
if if if we have a
a super young community if we have a
super old community and it's everybody
and getting everybody represented
correctly i think it's i think it's
i think it's hard to do that um
i forget i forget what they say that how
the
the mayor picks he appoints the last
five well it doesn't say it says his
council shall appoint ten members of the
committee and the mayor shall appoint
five members
the composition of the charter review
committee shall strive to reflect the
diversity of the city of bexley
okay so so this so so bill you might
wanna
you might want to give what you shared
with me on that one you
you talked about go ahead you do it
a couple of visits you made the comment
about the
timing but if if we assume
whatever the makeup of the count of the
community is
and let's say it's and the and council
picks
10 people
and let's
let's say we have two uh
racial breaks and and 66
of the people are are
one and 33 or the other the council
picks 10 people
and they're all whatever the majority
the mayor then has to pick five out of
the other one is that fair to the mayor
to do that
or do we say well he strives to do it
but he didn't have to
where do you put the age issue in there
that it was it was a it was um
it was an attempt i think the intent
here is is good i'm not sure it's
as easy to
when you put it in operation it's that
easy i'm also not sure
that the solution that we use
this time we you counsel used this time
a couple years ago will necessarily be
the right way to pick the charter review
committee
in 10 years there might be other options
and this locks them into
this particular method
yeah i think that to piggyback on that
point i mean
just think about this as council members
you haven't obviously
had we have a very active involved
mayor um who said
i'll help you vet you the candidates and
then you guys get to pick 10
and up lp5 which he is right he is
represented to me
was a compromise to get the thing moving
because some people had some more
some other ideas um
you have a think about this question how
will city council
figure out how to vet and pick its 10
people
if it has to do it on its own and
actually you know we we did talk about
that
quite a bit at the council meetings i
think we had talked
you know whether we wanted applicants to
come in person or or not
um so i remember we we did think about
that
um i do want to point out from our
strategic plan
amendments that goal 4 that i referenced
earlier
it does obviously provide in there that
we will work to increase the diversity
of the composition of individuals
serving on our city boards commissions
and committee and charter review would
obviously be
be one of them um that's good wording
though that that's that's
much safer wording than what's here and
again
bill's right this is totally an
admirable goal
that that charter review had but when
you look at it um
you know again i think a lot of it is
was probably intended towards racial
diversity but that's not what it says
nor should it say
it's just based on race um and um
you know i would hate to have somebody
this and again this could happen i'd
hate to have somebody
come and try to challenge the validity
of the charter review process
based on a violation of section 79 if it
gets
changed to reflect that language
if if this go around
the selection process works so well
could we put language in it
that um specifies what you guys did
this go around to select
well this is what they did ten and five
and then five yeah but you said the
mayor
where your point was you said the mayor
helped vet
you i think your point was what if
council has to do it on their own this
says council appoints
10 members is there some sort of
language we can put in there that says
a point somebody or the mayor had the
mayor helps vet
to help the process along because i
don't want to get in a situation where
you just said
what if council has to do on their own
and then all of a sudden your three
years
passed when you're supposed to have a
charter commission review because
council
you don't have you could do it on your
own you could set up a committee and do
it on your own
one of the issues i think we we
the city was lucky this time
because the mayor had a bunch of good
candidates
because he'd been collecting candidates
for
other committees and other commissions
and was able to say i've got a pretty
good group of people here
and he also asked for input from the
community
so we were able to do that had he not
had that
or had we not gotten a good group of
people who applied
it would have been a lot tougher right
nice it also
it also worked out because ben um
picked after council picked 10 people
ben was then able to say okay i still
need two attorneys
and i need somebody from south bexley
and i need somebody from whatever so he
was able to kind of fill in with people
who
you know helped make a good group for us
if
it was somewhat luck as much as
skill that we got the good group that we
got we got good applicants
i don't know i i think putting something
like that that defined
in the charter that says this is
absolutely the way you have to do it
i get nervous about that what you know
who what's it going to be like in 10
years
i don't know and i recall because we had
the benefit
of the applicant sending in not only a
resume or cv
but they also sent in a cover letter i
mean these were
applicants who were very much
wanting to uh to to give us as much
information as possible they took the
time to do that
but i tend to agree with bill i think
that
if we are going to have to trim it down
but also leave some flexibility
for future councils and future charter
reviews
um this actually might be too specific
i agree
well well and and and the other thing
that
you know this issue the the whole
charter review
section 79 was addressed initially
because there were
members of the public and i'm not saying
charter review members didn't agree so
they agreed
um is that the members of the public
were very concerned of the word
may versus
or a few members of the public
matt were you going to say something
else to speak to lori ann's point
about when do we start the only
thought or the only note uh that i had
was
um you could put every year ending in a
nine
so as opposed to every 10 years so you
know 2019
2029 every year ending in a nine
you start your charter review process
so there's no when is the ten years
even if it takes if it takes two years
it takes two years if it takes one year
it takes one year if it takes whatever
but it would start
you start in 2029
yeah i mean basically you could say
no later than by the 15th day of
february 2029
and every 10 years thereafter but what
do you start
do do they start the meeting do you
start selecting them do you start the
the entire process who cares
okay i mean i do care i don't mean to be
flipped i know i
understand whatever you want it says
every you would say every year that ends
ending in a nine city council shall
appoint a committee
by the 15th day of february so in by
february of 2029
city council has to appoint a committee
right and they have 18 months to do it
they have 18 months to do
and they have 18 months so by the middle
of 2030
just like we'll be in the middle of 2021
oh my god bill harvey's going to be
almost 2013 by then
matt am i understanding that um you
you would like the timing of the charter
to maybe be
included in our three to five
issues for the ballot or are you
thinking that
we have some other issues that uh maybe
uh are on the front burners no no i
don't think it should be included on the
ballot
i think that's something we should work
out i think um
you know you've got things in here like
recall of elected officials
uh the you know the stuff to do with the
city attorney and the mayor's powers i
think there's other things that
kind of outweigh if you will
that issue i think because
in all reality only one city council
will have to deal with this
if they hate the way it went or if they
or if it went
horribly then they can
the charter review would see that or
they could talk to the charter reviewer
they could change it in 10 years
right they could they could change how
it's done
what about changing shell to will or
made a shall
do we want to make this mandatory
changing shall so they they put shall
and changed it for me
every 10 years there will be one um
which
i obviously i think was was very
purposeful i didn't listen to that
particular meeting but
i think that uh it's poignant
oh you see the first show yeah
well
everybody
okay i will um i will keep this on my
list of back burner possible ordinance
we need to revisit it um possibly in the
future
um so i will keep track of that
um i do see that the time is 8 47
and believe it or not we actually have
gone through quite a bit
of of of these i do feel like we
have been very purposeful and thoughtful
and
in giving
meaning and thought to what the charter
review commission has done
and i will at our next meeting
um see if i can come up with some
wordsmithing
for your consideration could i ask you
all to please look at your calendars for
our next
committee meeting
before you go there monique one of the
things i'm going to do and this might be
a good thing to start
a meeting with the re recall because
that's kind of involved i'd hate to
start you know
but i need to get to you folks the
provision of the revised code that
already exists so you know what
the fallback is currently so i will do
that
also not to step on get ahead of us but
were you gonna ask if any
of the attendees wanted to speak oh
absolutely yeah i just wanted to get our
next
okay i'm sorry um meeting date picked
yes we are definitely definitely gonna
anyone who would like to speak can
certainly do that
we've got spring break coming up um
i'm not in favor of doing it on spring
break um
no that's i'm not even going to offer
that
i'm not even going to offer that i love
all of you so much
i don't get any spring break so it
doesn't matter
i was going to suggest um wednesday
april 7th
i think i know spring breaks kind of
differ by dates depending on the schools
is that too far out um for our next
committee meeting
well i guess if we work backwards if i
can interject
how many do we just spitball in here how
many do we think we
more do we need and at what point do we
want to have a public forum and then
like strategically planning
you know at what point do we want to
wrap up the subcommittee meetings and
then
you said something about may 11th didn't
you not the first reading
yes i think um based on our conversation
at the last meeting i think may 11th was
gonna uh
gonna be hopefully the first reading of
the ordinance with
regarding charter review my thought is
hopefully by
late april i would we would have all of
our recommendations in place
if you wanted matt if maybe the timing
concerns you a little bit we could do
the 31st we can move it up a week
whatever yeah whatever works for you
guys i'm always flexible um besides
spring break
um but i just was thinking about
you ideas you mentioned open up the
public forum
how much notice do we want to get to
that and then i think we need to have
one more maybe subcommitting after the
public forum or two
so i was just trying to figure out so i
would think the sooner we do it
our next one the better and then maybe
pick a
in the next couple weeks pick a time for
public input
and just be clear the public forum
wouldn't necessarily have to
occur before we make recommendations to
council it could occur
as council's also considering it that
we'd get input
okay based on the three readings which
would be may early june
okay yeah i didn't okay no if we did it
on the 7th of april i mean gosh if we
had to do another meeting
the next week or if we had to do another
meeting the next week we could i mean i
don't
envision i'm okay with that then i was
more concerned about the public forum
and the timing with the may 11th i
thought we wanted
i'm okay with that no i'm glad that you
locked us through that though mark
matt said that we could we could think
about it um
and and uh i like the idea of the
seventh rather than the 30th
i mean the 31st rather because we do
have our council meeting our next
council meeting
is the 30th okay um
[Music]
april april 7. okay um
april 7th at 7 00 pm will be our next
committee meeting uh regarding this
thank you folks i do have obviously um
some things that i promise that i will
get to everybody but thank you for kind
of bearing with us
i do know that there are some folks who
are on the line who may
wish to address the committee
um is there anyone who would like to
speak at this time
jim wilson has his hand raised jim thank
you
um if you could go ahead i know we've
already got your name but if you could
please share your address that would be
much appreciated
and i appreciate um you're taking the
time to hear from me and i appreciate
the
the work that you're putting into
reviewing these recommendations
um i thought um carefully about
whether to speak again because i feel
you've probably already heard enough so
sorry
um i mean previously not tonight
um but um i uh initially i
initially um showed up because i did
want to respond to
mark master's comments at your last
meeting but before i get there
just two quick points with respect to
the section on future charter review i
would say the really important thing
that
i heard in our discussions was making it
mandatory rather than
um optional every 10 years or so
the rest i think was mostly in there
because at the beginning of our process
when the selection
was fresh we heard from a lot of council
members that they wanted something in
the charter
about how it was done i will say
personally i think you need to find a
better solution
than voting on people in public the way
that you did
last time i'm not sure i'd apply again
if i'd known
that i was gonna it was gonna be sort of
a pure
publicly to be a popularity contest how
many votes i could get in a council
meeting
just i would keep that in mind as to
whether you're gonna get the best people
by by doing it that
way again um but i going back to my
original
reason for speaking and i will try to
keep this really brief
um but i want to tie it into the
conversation i heard tonight about i'm
possibly not presenting
section three as well i do think section
three and four
um are profoundly important to what
the charter review committee brought to
you
um i would say i would characterize
sections one and two as
aspirational i would characterize
sections
three or four as showing uh commitment
by this community
to undo a legacy of racism uh and i'm
not and i don't use
racism pejoratively um some of that
racism
was federal statutes that created
redlining that created
housing segregation our community some
of it was
um covenants in um in um
you know the deeds within this community
but
we're burying our heads in the sand to
suggest that bexley
uh has its current character and
demographic composition
um in isolation and um and so i
i do feel strongly um that
doing more than putting in our strategic
plan but making it a community value
that we would encourage diversity in our
hiring and in our contracting
uh is important and with respect to
section four
um hopefully everyone knows that i have
the greatest respect for
mark fishel i think he was invaluable to
our process and i'm thinking this might
be the only place that he and i
disagreed in any significant way through
the process
um the pro and again i think it's really
the second
sentence of section four that mark has
the concern about
and i think it's the phrase disparate
impact
and that's meant to recognize that we're
not starting today with the level of
playing field that people of color
don't start at the same place in our
community that others do and it's
limited
as i've said before to interpreting our
ordinances
and i would encourage you to think hard
if you don't like the term
disparate impact to replace it with
something else
that suggests to our staff and our
commissions
that when they are called upon to
interpret our own
ordinances they should take care
to do it in a way that doesn't impact
those that have been disadvantaged in
the past in a way that
perpetuates that disadvantage um i think
there are a number of ways to
to do that but to lose that um i think
loses something that's essential in the
work that we were proposing which is
um bexley being honest and honest in a
way that
invites ourselves and others to make our
ourselves a more diverse community in
the future i chose
i'm the culprit with respect to the term
uh disparate impact and i actually
thought uh it was a safe term because
there is a lot of interpretation about
disparate impact
in different contexts not in
interpreting a
ordinance but in the context of
employment practices and there it's a
fairly high threshold to show
disparate impact you actually have to
show statistically
that the impact does when you control
for other factors
adversely affect people in the protected
class so
my view was actually that the term
protected bexley because there is
law out there as to the burden that
would be required if someone for
instance
um wanted to challenge a decision made
by
someone in the zoning office and say
wait that desperately impacts me
they would have to show that in the way
that
the case law suggests you have to show
disparate impact but i do think that
and and then i want to be totally clear
we have great city staff
and i've been had nothing but positive
experiences with
people in all of our departments but to
to back them up that if they are going
if they do interpret things to to be
inclusive they are going to have the
weight of the charter behind them i
think is important
um so i would urge you to think with
care i
i am not suggesting that mark is doing
anything but his job
um and you know some of my now retired
partners were in his chair and they
would have probably given exactly the
same
advice but i do think that this is an
opportunity that bexley has right now
in a time that's not just important to
this community but
important in the broader uh communities
around us to show
that the things that people say about
bexley aren't true and we
stand as a community to be something
different than
the way people have accused us to be so
i would just
urge that that you take that into
account um as you consider these items
thank you so much jim appreciate your
comments and appreciate you
uh speaking with us earlier as well and
for sticking around
is there anyone else who is in
attendance at tonight's meeting that
would like to
speak by raising their hand
nope okay having said that our next
meeting will be
stacey gross grossman i'm so sorry stacy
i did not see
uh did not see that earlier um if you
could please
share your name and address with us um
thank you for joining us and for staying
with us
oh i think you're muted oh sorry
um i just wanted to kind of piggyback
off of what jim said
um for those of you my name is stacy
grossman and i'm actually um
here tonight as a member of the public
and also as a
uh the chair of the dei um i sat through
could you give me your address please
2745
allegheny avenue all right thank you
sure um
and so uh you know i was fortunate
enough to be able to sit in
on the discussions with uh charter
review commission
and um they really did a knockout job
of consolidating a significant amount of
information and input from a lot of
local advocacy organizations
and they strived really hard to be
equitable and look for ways to
be to have a lot of efficacy while still
providing the opportunity for us as a
city to be stewards
of positive change and it was tough
so what they presented to all of you
they did a fantastic job
listening tonight um it really means a
lot to hear all of you talking about
these things
in depth and giving it um a lot of
weight
i have to agree with quite a few of the
things that jim said this evening
about striving that importance to
to promote in fact i was actually in a
zoom earlier today talking to somebody
about affordable housing
and they said that other top tier cities
are looking to bexley
to lead the way because those particular
particular cities are not doing it
themselves
so they're watching us and they're
trying to follow our lead
um so there's you know not to add to the
pressure
but um you know there are some people
out there who are watching what we're
doing
whether it's um you know environmental
or
social justice or anything along those
lines
um you know as far as um
the only other thing that i can really
think of is um
maybe following the census timeline for
uh charter review timeline um you know
it's a very similar track
and um so you know you could even kind
of copy cat
or twist a little bit and tweak a little
bit to follow the charter review
um but the other thing is is that
um you know in terms of how to appoint
you're hoping you know we're fortunate
enough to have had david madison
be our mayor for as long as he was the
short amount of time that mayor brennan
was here and then now with mayor kessler
um the whole point of us especially
during charter review there was a lot of
discussion about whether to remain
mayor city council or city manager
and council and the general consensus of
charter review and the public was mayor
council form of government um
so you know that says a lot about
placing a lot of um
respect and um
you know putting a lot onto the mayor to
know
their their community so they would have
a really good
knowledge of the people in the community
to see who would fit
the the five slots that they would be
enabled to appoint
um and the same thing with city council
members even if they're new to city
council
while they're going through their
campaigning they would get to know
members of the community
and so especially with us we're so small
that um
we all know each other in some way shape
or form we all bump into each other at
the store
or we're all familiar with each other so
and we know our strengths
and um i just think that the way that
it's i'm sorry
my cat just zoom bombed um
anyway so uh
always every single time never fails
um but anyway it's just you know we're
very fortunate we're a tight-knit
community we all know one another
and um you know
it so i think it's not too much of a
responsibility personally to
put onto the mayor i think it's a great
shared responsibility
and for the community to sit there and
want to maintain the mayor
council form of government to place that
five appointee onto the mayor i don't
think is asking too much um
but you know i don't want to take up the
rest of your time because i was in the
seven hour and 50 minute meeting the
other night so i completely understand
and then it was a seven hour and 44
minute meeting before that one so
um i don't want to do that too all this
evening so uh
thank you all so much and i i really do
appreciate everything that you all are
doing for this
so thank you thank you stacy and i
should mention that you were
instrumental
in working with us to amend our
strategic plan so i appreciate you uh
putting in so much effort then
thanks for joining us tonight thank you
um
is there anyone else um that is in
attendance that would like to
speak okay
seeing none could i please have a motion
to adjourn
moved mr klingler was that a second
that's a second
that's a second all in favor aye
aye all right folks thank you so much
i'm thank you for a productive
thanksgiving
thank you thank you for leaving that
bye everybody bye-bye yes
thank you