Below are the proposed amendments from the Charter Review commission.
FINDING 1:
Issue 1 – Shall section 21.08, entitled “Term Limits For Elected Officials”, of Article XXI of the
City of Stow Charter be amended to provide that beginning with the term of January 2, 2012,
Stow City Council shall be subject to a limit of eight consecutive years in the same elected office
with eligibility to hold that same public office again after the expiration of two years?FINDING 2:
Issue 1 – Shall section 21.08, entitled “Term Limits For Elected Officials”, of Article XXI of the
City of Stow Charter be amended to provide that beginning with the term of January 2, 2012,
Director of Finance shall be subject to a limit of eight consecutive years in the same elected
office with eligibility to hold that same public office again after the expiration of two years?FINDING 3:
Shall term limits for the Mayor contained in Section 21.08 which limits his/her term to no more
than eight consecutive years be repealed?FINDING 4:
Shall term limits for the Law Director contained in Section 21.08 which limits his/her term to no
more than eight consecutive years be repealed?FINDING #5:
Shall Section 6.02 Qualifications of the Finance Director, be amended to include that the Finance
Director shall have the knowledge of municipal accounting, taxation, budgets and financial
control, and shall hold a minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree in accounting or finance from an
accredited college or university, and have had at least five years management experience in
accounting or finance from any of the following; corporate, business, municipal, county, or
federal entity prior to his/her election?FINDING #6:
Shall Section 3.06, entitled “Acting Mayor,” and Section 4.04, entitled “President, Vice
President and Council,” be amended to provide that when any council member, including the
president or vice president of council, is performing the duties of Acting Mayor, that council
member relinquishes his or her council voting power on any motion or legislation?FINDING 7:
Shall Section 9.06 of the Charter be amended to include: “The attorney or firm of attorneys shall
present their findings to the Council and the Law Director.”FINDING 8:
“Shall Section 21.07 of the Charter be amended to authorize City Council to create residency
requirements for public employees in a manner as set forth in the Ohio Revised Code?”
As a city council member, my voting obligations are different than yours when you go to the polls on election day. I see my duty as strictly a safeguard against poor wording or needless amendments that will cause ballot fatigue. I don’t see my duty as being one to pick and choose based on my politics.
For that reason, I only see one proposal that I might vote against: Finding 8. The reason? Our charter is currently violating the state constitution. We cannot enforce the current charter provision for residency requirements. So if we put it on the ballot, and it fails, we have a problem. I believe the proper method to fix this is to have the law director simply strike it from the charter, with city council’s unanimous resolution and the mayor’s signature.
No one would have standing to challenge such an action in court. And it would be the most expedient and cheapest way to fix the problem.
I would prefer if the term limits language did not allow re-entry after sitting out two years, but I suppose it was done to maintain consistency between the offices that could have term limits and the ones that already have them. I will vote in favor of all term limit amendments, despite my strong political beliefs in the value of having term limits.
Regardless of that, Charter Review put in a lot of hard work and did a great job. From what I’ve been told, the commission will have the amendments before city council next week.