Rasor for Stow

I can’t believe it happened, but it did. Stow City Council approved illegal language. Ironically, the effect will likely be that the very changes that the Good Ole Boy Network protest (adding term limits for finance director and council) will be on the ballot, and the changes they champion (removing term limits for mayor and law director) will not.

Mike Lesko’s article does a good job breaking it down, but I’ll reiterate my position. First, let me clarify that I’m only really concerned about the mayor and law director language. The language for council and finance director is OK, but I’ll explain that later.

I feel that the language is illegal for two reasons:

1) It seeks to change our charter with a “no” vote. Law director Brian Reali told council that he has never seen ballot language that achieves a change with a majority “no” vote. These issues always ask “Should XYZ be adopted?” or “Should XYZ be repealed?” Either way, a majority of voters must say “yes” to effect change. That was Charter Review’s initial recommendation. Yet the commission allowed itself to be swayed by council members who have no idea how this process works and who blatantly disregarded the law director’s advice.

2) It does not permit the voters to maintain the status quo — to keep things the way they are. A “yes” vote changes the charter because it will result in resetting the clock on mayor and law director term limits. A “no” vote changes the charter (or purports to) by removing term limits altogether. The only way that Stow retains the status quo is if the vote results in a tie. Therefore, if this language is permitted, Mayor Fritschel has paved the way for her to run for two more terms — whether the issue fails or passes. This language was endorsed by the very commission that she appointed.

The council and finance director language is normal. To simply, it asks: “Do you want term limits?” A “yes” changes the charter. A “no” does not. It’s simple. The GOBN wants voters to be able to vote four times in all the same way, without confusion — or at least that’s their public justification. I proposed an alternative for the GOBN that allowed for the “yes for term limits, no against term limits,” but they didn’t take it seriously. It makes you wonder what the true motive is — to give Karen Fritschel more time?

I would like to say I’m flabbergasted, but I’m not. These politicians in Stow have made so many boneheaded decisions (even during my term) that nothing surprises me. I have talked to several intelligent, experienced people who are interested in running. I am more than happy to help duplicate the blueprint that helped me win: educate the voters on the issues, and meet as many of them as you humanly can.

In the next couple weeks, council is on recess. I am working to put together a multi-part plan for curing Stow’s addiction to spending. I have a lot of ideas that I believe will work. Others need fine-tuning. But I’m not taking a “recess.” I think it’s time for Stow’s government to do more than pay lip service to our fiscal crisis.

Thanks for everyone’s well wishes before I took the bar exam this week.

I studied as much as humanly possible over a three-month period. I’m pretty confident that I passed.

Anyhow, council will put final approval on the charter amendment approvals. There are some serious problems with the mayor and law director proposals. I will be out of the country for six days. I’ll write about it when I get back.

Below are my notes from tonight’s meetings…

Committee-of-the-Whole

Matt Riehl proposed an amendment to fix our initiative process, whereby Stow requires 20 percent of the electorate and state law allows for a maximum of 10 percent. I think a lot of us would prefer not to clog up the ballot with an issue that can be solved if my amendment passes. So after mine passed, this one failed 4-3.

When we discussed my amendment (see below), Jim Costello attempted to amend it to require only a supermajority in the resolution, not unanimity, like I requested. I could have voted for it either way, but Jim’s amendment failed 4-3.

Shall the proposed Enactment of Article XIX Section 19.03, entitled “Changes to Charter”, which Enactment reads as follows:

“SECTION 19.03 CHANGES TO CHARTER The Law Director may amend the Charter without ballot approval, for the purpose of striking provisions that are unconstitutional. The Law Director shall make such an amendment only upon: unanimous resolution of the City Council, written approval by the Mayor and written concurrence by at least one outside legal counsel.

be adopted?

Janet proposed and we moved forward a proposal that clarifies Charter Review’s role — to propose amendments, which council must approve. It also provides a deadline by which Charter Review is to present its suggestions.

Law Director Brian Reali’s position is that council MUST approve all of Charter Review’s proposals. Rather than test his theory, Janet and Sara Drew wisely decided to send proposals to Charter Review, who will decide on Monday whether they wish to incorporate them as their own. One is to change the term limit language. The other is for the qualifications of Finance Director (adding degrees in business, management, and public administration). Further, I asked that Charter Review reconsider its proposal for employee residency, because it is an unconstitutional provision that my amendment could cure, if passed.

Council meeting

Two residents spoke out against Wal-Mart to start the meeting.

We gave an accommodation to retired officer Doug Dawes. He’s a great guy. A lot of people made heartfelt remarks.

I voted FOR the Wal-Mart variance. It came down to this: We aren’t in the position to be choosy about who does business here. If we screw around with a business owner, we are liable to have more and more areas like Stow-Kent Shopping Center. Wal-Mart is a nice magnet store, and it will remain one for years.

I voted against paying the lobbyist $20,000. Every indication I’ve heard is that we have basically no chance of getting our proposal through in this term. I don’t want to go into specifics, but the internal politics are making the outlook bleak. I’m not going to spend $20,000 on such a long shot. It passed 4-2-1, with Hickin and me as “no” votes, and Riehl abstaining.

I made an amendment to a resolution in support of the program to eliminate Emerald Ash Borer in trees. I wanted to ensure that the resolution did not back us into a corner financially — that it didn’t commit us to spending money. My amendment was that annual expenditures would have to be approved by council. Predictably, John Pribonic and Sara Drew voted “no” (it would limit government spending, after all). The amendment was passed 5-2. The ordinance as a whole passed 6-1 (Hickin).

We unanimously passed $50,000 in funding for the law firm of Kastner, Westman & Wilkins to negotiate for us. I sincerely doubt we’ll spend anywhere near $50,000, because the mayor rightfully is going to keep the attorneys in the background until it appears we really need them.

We have 11 charter proposals pending. We only gave them one reading tonight. They will get another reading next Thursday at a special meeting. They will get a final reading the week after, when council will vote to pass them onto the ballot, or not. After that, council will be on recess for the rest of August. During that time, I plan to brainstorm with other members of council on ways to save money. At some point, we have to stop having emergency meetings to discuss how bad things are — and DO SOMETHING!

I’m taking the bar exam next week (so I probably won’t attend the special meeting). And yes, I’ve been studying nonstop since May. Thanks to Jim Costello for wishing me luck at the end of the meeting. I’ll let you everyone how the test goes.

The Tomci Foundation is having a golf outing on Saturday, Aug. 21 at Roses Run Country Club. There will be prizes, food (Diamond Deli for lunch, mmmm), and beer. Click below for a link. We’d love to have as many hole sponsors as possible!

Golf Outing

Also … We have a committee and council meeting tonight. I forgot to mention that we are discussing funding for a lobbyist, the Wal-Mart variance, and funding for attorneys for union negotiations. Those are three topics that should see some debate. And then we have the charter amendments, which should be interesting, particularly based on what I’m hearing today.

Here are the notes from our mid-year budget review…

– In March, four members of council voted for a budget that included a $214K deficit and took $1.1M out of capital fund. The ratio of operating expenses to capital expenses should be 60-40, but it’s really 80-20. Janet D’Antonio called that “horrible” tonight, but she still voted for the budget in March.

– The Mayor said she doesn’t agree with service director Dano Koehler’s unflattering assessment of the road program, which consists of only $650K this year, and most of that is tied up in Kenneth/Samira. Another $200K is going to Maplewood Park. Quoth the mayor: “No matter how much money we put out there, there is always somebody who didn’t get his road done. It’s never enough.”

– Unemployment in Stow is at 9 percent, up from 8.5 percent last month. In 2007 and 2008, it was around 5 percent.

– The Finance Department suggests cutting non-core services and reducing employment. We won’t see many more voluntary departures in the next couple years, they say, because if employees planned to leave, they probably would have taken the cash payout in the voluntary separation plan last fall.

– Now to the important information… How does the revenue look so far?

Income taxes are below our projected budget, but not by much. We are short of that projection by about $14K — less than 1/4th of 1 percent. When compared to 2009 figures, here is how the four components of income tax are faring:

1) Employer withholding tax: up by $95K. This means employees in Stow made more money in the first half of 2010 than the first half of 2009.
2) Income taxes paid by individuals: down by $95K. This is money paid directly to the city by residents or sole proprietors. The figure is impacted by tax rates of other communities, which are sometimes raised to 2 percent. So when the rates were 1.5 percent, Stow would get the balance. But when the rates go up to 2 percent, there is no balance for Stow.
3) Taxes on net profits of businesses, down by $170K. That’s probably the purest sign of the recession.
4) Utility payments from the state, down by $39K.

– On expenditures, overtime is up. Expenses total will have increased by between 1 and 2 percent. In the past, those differences are made up for by taking money out of the capital fund. It looks like we’re heading that direction again. Even less money for roads.

– We have a committee-of-the-whole meeting at 6 p.m. tomorrow, followed by a council meeting at 7 p.m. The committee meeting is to discuss amendments to the charter amendment proposals from Charter Review. Based on conversations I have had, it should be very interesting. Below is the amendment I’m proposing:

Shall the proposed Enactment of Article XIX Section 19.03, entitled “Changes to Charter”, which Enactment reads as follows:

“SECTION 19.03 CHANGES TO CHARTER The Law Director may amend the Charter without ballot approval, for the purpose of striking provisions that are unconstitutional. The Law Director shall make such an amendment only upon: unanimous resolution of the City Council, written approval by the Mayor and written concurrence by at least one outside legal counsel.

be adopted?

– Also this … It’s too early to discuss the 2011 election cycle, but one candidate for mayor in Stow is already knocking on doors. Brian Burgess is going strong. Nice work. I can almost guarantee there will be a primary for mayor, and if Burgess keep this up for 16 months, I’ll wager that at least one council member loses his/her seat as a result.

Many Stow residents will be happy to learn that a drilling permit for Beck Energy near Pilgrim Drive has been rejected.

Read this Akron Beacon Journal article for more details.

Congrats to the city officials and nearby residents who put so much work into fighting the plan for an oil well in a nice, quiet residential area.

The Finance Committee is meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at 6:45 p.m.

My notes from tonight:

Finance committee

The committee moved forward an ordinance allowing for sidewalk assessments and another assessing a lien on property on which a house was demolished.

The committee passed through approval for up to $50,000 in outside legal counsel fees to Kastner, Williams & Wilkins. A group of us met with three different firms. Each had its positives. I think we all came to a conclusion that Kastner had most experience in the field and its partners were extremely prepared. Another important question is: How will we use them? I’d prefer to keep the attorneys involved in the background, and to bring them into negotiations only after we reach an impasse. I think that’s the mayor’s preference, too. Any money we spend on lawyers is less we can offer to the unions.

Planning committee

We voted to move the JEDZ agreement out of committee. It will get a first reading on Thursday. It can be moved back into committee if necessary. It is sort of complicated how all of this will work with two other city councils also needing to approve it.

Our economic development team told us that Pneumatic Scale is still evaluating its options on where it will open its new plant.

Committee-of-the-whole

We had eight proposed charter amendments before us.

The most-heavily debated ones regarded term limits. We passed the first two provisions without debate. Several members of council were unsatisfied with the provisions that removed term limits for mayor and law director, however. The reason: The amendments require a “yes” vote to eliminate term limits. The others require a “yes” vote to adopt term limits. So it might be confusing to someone who wants to walk into the ballot box and cast four “yes” votes or four “no” votes. I give the voters a little more credit than that. It’s also my hunch that you cannot amend the charter with a “no” vote. Thus, you cannot ask, “Should we keep term limits?,” because that would be a charter change through a “no” vote. Assistant law director Kelley Bryan is researching the issue, so that will help clarify the debate.

We discussed the qualifications for finance director. I don’t have too much of a problem with the proposed charter language, which adds a finance degree to the acceptable educational backgrounds. Sara Drew sought to amend that to add “or any directly related field,” in order to expand potential qualifications.

The next amendment regarded the council president’s ability to vote as a councilperson when she is “called up” as acting mayor. Currently, it’s unclear. The proposal says the acting mayor forfeits her council powers during that time. Janet brought up a good point. This could be a detriment to the acting mayor. Consider the situation where there is a critical, time-sensitive vote on a piece of legislation, in which the council president was predicted to vote with the 4-3 majority. The mayor, who disagrees with the legislation but wouldn’t want to veto it, conveniently leaves town and appoints council president as the acting mayor for a week. The legislation would die 3-3, with the mayor skipping the political ramifications. It’s a little far-fetched, but it is feasible. Perhaps we can narrow the times when an acting mayor is appointed to solve that problem.

The last amendment was to strike the unconstitutional provision regarding residency. As I have stated, this is the only amendment that I might vote against. I think, at the least, it should be accompanied by an amendment that allows city officials – under very limited circumstances – to purge unconstitutional (and thus, unenforceable) language from the charter. I am in the process of writing the language, and I’ll present it as a separate charter amendment on Thursday. Here is a preliminary draft:

Shall Charter Section XX.XX be amended to include: “The city may amend the Charter without ballot approval solely for the purpose of striking provisions that are wholly unconstitutional, as determined by clear interpretations of state or federal law. This procedure requires: 1) concurrence of 2/3rds majority of City Council, 2) signature by the Mayor, 3) signature by the Law Director, and 4) affirmation by at least one outside legal counsel.”?

There are likely to be other charter proposals from council. Janet outlined an amendment that clarified the Charter Review Commission’s duties as being solely a recommending body, not legislative, and that it must submit proposals by June 1. Matt Riehl also has something up his sleeve regarding another unconstitutional part of our charter.

These amendments must all be submitted in their final form by August 4. Riehl wisely asked for a special meeting set for August 4 so, in case the rules are not suspended, we can still get the amendments on the ballot after three readings.

We have a finance committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday at 6:45 p.m. to discuss income tax receipts. I don’t expect the news to be good. We will continue the discussion on the charter with a committee-of-the-whole meeting at 6 p.m. on Thursday, to be followed by our regular council meeting.

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.

It’s hard to think about council business tonight after LeBron James ripped out Northeast Ohio’s heart, but I’ll proceed with posting my notes about tonight…

We had some serious questions about the Wal-Mart variances. I asked about the possibility of amending the variances. Normally, it’s pretty simple, but amending a variance is only worth doing if we can make it work with Wal-Mart, too. I’m going to find out more before the next council meeting and decide whether an amendment is feasible.

Regarding the lobbyist hiring, we gave it a second reading. In the last few days, there have been some new developments, such as Mayor Robart in Cuyahoga Falls possibly hiring a lobbyist to counter our efforts. I want Mayor Fritschel to be successful, but I will need some assurance that paying the lobbyists has a reasonable chance to succeed. Based upon that, we might choose to throw it back into the Finance Committee for more discussion.

We unanimously passed legislation that will pave the way for Pneumatic Scale to enter Stow with its about 100 jobs, if it chooses to.

I voted not to suspend the rules on Emerald Ash Borer program. The legislation is a resolution in support of the program. I want to ask someone who is out of town what the financial ramifications of passing that ordinance would be. If this obligates us to pay for it, I won’t support it. I refuse to pass discretionary spending measures while our roads are in such disrepair.

Also, rumblings within the city are that income tax receipts are going to be a lot worse than originally anticipated. Maybe as much as half a million. We will learn more about that either on the July 17 or July 19 Finance Committee meeting.

Notes from tonight’s meetings…

Planning committee

– We began the meeting by hearing about a company called Pnuematic Scale, which is in the packaging manufacturing business, founded in 1895. They make the machines that package a lot of household goods for other manufacturers. Pneumatic is looking to expand, and Stow is a finalist. The new plant promises $5 million in payroll within five years and 100 jobs. We are one of four alternative sites: Stow, Akron, California, Florida.

We will give them a 25 percent break on payroll taxes over a 10-year span. We moved forward two pieces of legislation. First, we extended the maximum allowable timespan on this sort of deal to 10 years. Second, we extended that offer to Pneumatic Scale. Sara Drew took the initiative to see that we are getting this done timely to make sure we can capitalize on this opportunity.

– Next, we discussed the Joint Economic Development Zone (JEDZ). The purpose is to foster cooperation among Stow, Cuyahoga Falls and Hudson in establishing an economic corridor. In 2008, the three communities competed for a hospital, before Dr. Kent suggested that they work together in order to locate the hospital nearby Seasons Road. The hospital would like to break ground before the end of the year.

Highlights of the agreement:

- It is a 50-year agreement.
- Each city contributes an equal amount of equally valuable land, consisting of a total of 99 acres.
- The cities equally split income tax dollars from the zone.
- They will work together for zoning. Cuyahoga Falls and Hudson will adopt Stow’s storm water management regulations.

My thoughts:
- Hammering out the deal required a lot of work. So I applaud Ken Trenner and his counterparts. Economic collaboration really is a good thing. Northeast Ohio has enough problems, without Cuyahoga Falls competing with Stow, and vice versa. These agreements neutralize the market power of some of these businesses who can get basically whatever they want from cities starved for good jobs.

- With that said, I don’t like the provision that penalizes cities for not following or not adopting the Master Plan for zoning. The penalty is forfeiting one-half of your share of taxes from the agreement for 12 years, which is far too harsh.

- I also think we need to come up with a preliminary agreement on contribution for city services if one city’s portion of the zone is bearing the brunt of the services, such as fire, police, and snow removal.

- We did not vote on it tonight. It’s likely to come back before the Planning Committee before the end of the month.

Finance Committee

The committee approved expenditures for truck tires and a public defender for indigent defendants charged with city ordinances.

Public Improvements Committee

– We discussed application of our zoning laws to gas wells. As Brian Reali said at the meeting, the state has pre-empted most (if not all) of the gas well field of law.

Still, I’m in favor of applying our generally applicable rules to gas wells. This is our town. We make the rules to protect our community’s health and beauty. But I don’t want to pass any new laws to discourage, hinder or harass gas well drillers, because that, I feel, would be crossing the line of pre-emption.

– City Arborist Sue Mottl told us about the impending problem of Emerald Ash Borer. To prevent the bug from spreading to Stow trees, we will need to replace many trees over the next 10 years. The plan will cost $9,000 to $12,000 per year. We forwarded it to Thursday’s council meeting.