Personnel Advisory & Appeals Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. It's 07:07PM. Sorry for the late start. We have a lot to we had a lot to prepare, and we were working feverishly trying to get it prepared for you. So I'll call to order this meeting of the City of Hudson Charter Review Commission. It's Wednesday, 06/25/2025. We're at City Hall. I'll do a roll call. Mister Hall? Present. Miss Griffith? Present. Mister Hoover? Here. Miss McCoy?

Here. Miss Norman? Here. Miss Pitillary? Here.

Knew in advance mister Ryan had a conflict, couldn't attend, and then a partner let me know today that mister Trainer also had a late, notified conflict. So he's not able to be here as well, but we do have a quorum. We also have mister Pitchford, city solicitor, and mister Bandweg, our council liaison present, as well as, city manager, mister Sheridan. Full call item two. Item three is approval of minutes. We have the draft minutes of our meeting from seven days ago on June 18. Is there a motion to approve? I'll motion. I'll second. Mr. Hall moved and Ms. Griffith seconded. Roll call Ms. Griffith? Yes. Ms. McCoy?

Yes.

Ms. Miller?

Yes.

Mr. Hoover? Yes. Mr. Hall? Yes. Mr. Kagler? Yes. All in favor? Seven in favor? Zero opposed? And zero abstaining? Next is, correspondence and commissioner comments. The only thing I have to say tonight because we have we've gone through everything, and we just have some final things to review that we're seeing three final things that we're reviewing for the first time as well as an ordinance that has been prepared, everything that we have reviewed, have finalized but have not formally approved.

So of the three things that we discussed last week or was it four? It's at least three. It might there might be a fourth. Military and veterans, park board combination and then accountability taxpayers. Two of those three are in here and but we'll review everything.

This is our eleventh meeting and possibly our last, but we will see where we go. Does anybody else have anything to share with the commission? Any commissioners? Before we go to the order? Hearing none, we'll move on to public comments. Item five, first of two opportunities for public comments. If you'd like to address the commission, please identify yourself by name and address and approach the podium, address the chair. Mr. Mustnoth.

Basil Mustnuff, 645 Hudson Park Drive, on behalf of the Hudson Library and its staff and employees. I will just say this is me first seeing this now, this proposed six point o five. It's substantially different than what I was expecting to see, so I'm not I'm not entirely prepared to make a lot of salient points rebut about it, but I do have maybe perhaps a question provided the entity's governing body is one of the following, elected by the voters of the municipality. So do I understand by that that it's the intention that if our voting is open to everyone and not just members of the institution that that would satisfy this requirement?

We'll get to the, discussing the draft section since the commission hasn't even seen it or discussed it. But if you

Okay. Should I reserve my my comments then for after?

Or if you have any other questions or comments beforehand that you'd like us to take into account as part of our discussion, that'd great.

I think it'd be better if I wait. Okay.

I I'd encourage if it's alright, mister chair, I'd encourage you if you have questions to raise them so that we can bring them up in discussion. I I I think I know what the answer is to your first question, but I could be wrong. So if you Yeah. If you know you have questions, even if it's only two, let us know what those are. I'd be happy to hear them.

For for that particularly, voters of the municipality or the local school district, obviously, that would take a lot of cooperation because we don't have those kind of voter rolls and things like that. So there'd be a lot of practical considerations. I don't think that's something we need to solve here, but we can at least discuss what that would entail. Thank you.

Anyone else? No other public comments? Okay. For now, we we will move on to don't have any scheduled presentations tonight, review of charter articles. So, when I worked with Aparna on the agenda last week, for item seven a on the agenda, I thought perhaps that we'd be seeing a separate ordinance for each of the separate ballot issues and then a combined or a sub an additional ordinance for all of the Straight of Yeah. Yeah. Combined. So I thought we'd be seeing at least five different ordinances. When I spoke with, Mr. Pitchford, today, he clarified that, and it's consistent with the way it's been done in the past.

I think there's been a couple of years or a couple of times when the Charter View Commission has had multiple different ordinances. But by and large, they've everything's been combined into one omnibus ordinance that council considers, but then it's clarified in there. These things are to be separate. These things are to be together. So what we have in front of us is a first draft for our review.

I'm sure it's not mister Pitchford's first draft. He's been working on it for quite a bit, of everything that we've discussed to date. So, I think the best thing to do since the new stuff is at the end, the stuff that we haven't seen before, we've only talked about in concept last week. If I can just go through it each thing page by page, not reading it, but to show you what's in front of you. This is basically taking the things that we had in front of us in, proposal format just on a single sheet of paper, and it's taken the the guts of what the proposal was and putting it into ordinance format.

So we'll skip over the government gobbledygook and we'll move into basically the bottom of the first page of this draft ordinance that's been put in front of us. So section one, you'll see, like, after middle of the first page where it says now the therefore be it ordained, that's where what the ordinance is going to do. So section one is the combined, the group of everything. So this will go on for several pages. So the first one starting at the bottom that we've reviewed and finalized last week is the preamble that shows the proposed change.

And the changes themselves are gonna be double spaced in here. And all of these sections you'll see in that section one, it includes preamble plus one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine different sections of the charter. So we're gonna be looking at Just clarifying this. Yep.

The the changes The sections that have been changed are double spaced, and then the specific changes are the bold. Correct?

Correct. You'll see Alright. The actual text of the charter to be changed

Okay.

Would be there'd be like, for preamble, it doesn't have a section number, but the preamble is in all caps. Okay. Section would would have the section number and bold all caps as Okay. Thank you. Text to the section will be in regular face, but double spaced, and then added text is bold, underlined, and, removed text should just be Stricking through. Stricken through. Okay. Perfect.

Stricking me underlined so you could easier to see

it. Okay. Oh, stricken underlined. Okay. I hadn't seen that before, So

that's good. Hopefully, I caught all those.

I see what you're saying. Underscore. There you go. Alright. So preamble as we saw it last week, bottom of page one, I can move on. Yep. Mhmm. K. Section three point o one, this is top of page two. As we reviewed last week, the only changes are in the second paragraph, and it's adding the County Board of Elections certification as we reviewed it.

Can move on? Yep. Section 3.02 starting at the bottom of page two, that is the same change in paragraph one as in the paragraph two of the previous section. Moving on to middle of page three, section three point o eight, the changes are starting towards the bottom of the page to strike everything in paragraph two regarding newspaper notice. And on the top of page four, add the word posted

Mhmm. Yes.

As we discussed. Okay to move on?

Yes.

Section four point o one is term. This is the mayor's section, adding that same, county board of elections language as in the previous sections in article three. Thank you. Okay to move on? Mhmm. Section five point o two, suspension. This one was a single word change in two places, lines one and line five to remove the word just. Okay to move on? Yes. Ish of page five, I'm sorry.

Meeting. Acting finance I'm director in the absence of the finance director. City manager appoints, council revokes, and it can go in a circle. City manager can reappoint another. Okay to move on?

Yes.

Okay. Of page six, section six point o four, while a minor change on line two, changing into on, end of page one, and this is kind of reorganizing some glom together text into some bullets that would make a little more sense and adding some other things regarding sale or lease, all as we kind of discussed before. I'm glossing over it since we did discuss it. Okay to move on?

Yes. Yep.

Okay. Middle of page seven. I I

have one question. Yep. This is just for clarification. Counsel, when at least one of the following applies, there's a, with no sub points and b with six sub points. I'm reading that correctly. Right?

I see.

Okay. Just checking. Thank you. That's

is with the lowest and best best bidder and b are the circumstances with that allow without advertising.

Got it. Okay. Just just

Describe it's correct.

Okay. The way yeah. Mister McAdwig.

Yeah. That's fine. I I was just wanting to make sure that I wasn't losing something one one page to the other that we shifted from a's to numbers from letters to numbers. That's all.

One a is just for the lowest and best best b is not with that, but under only those circumstances can you go without the lowest investment.

Okay. She's asking formatting. A is a paragraph, b is six bullet points.

Number is a header with six

header with six bullet points. That's all. Thank you for clarifying.

Alright. Okay. To move on to 12 o one?

Yes.

12 o one is in the middle of page seven, goes on to page eight. It is in one, two, three, and four places to change finance director to clerk of counsel. Okay to move on? Yes. Middle of page eight, section 12 o two, referendum. Similar. One, two, three places changing well, four places.

Five. One, two, three.

Five. Changing finance director to clerk of council. And then at the very end of that, under the how the ballot issue is supposed to be done, we've added or no, is that the way it is currently? That's not our bolding and underline. That's the way it is currently in the charter rate.

Where are you?

Oh, no. This is a suggested ballot issue. Correct. This is the so Okay.

After each section, right, we propose a whole grouping. And then after each one, we we call the one the preceding grouping ballot issue one. So we've got eight separate groupings and this was, all through one. And this was really just the administrative changes. Right? We categorize them towards topics. These were all the administrative ones that we kind of glommed together and then the rest of these are all more specific on topic.

So just in summary, what we got up to on the top of page nine, that's all of the changes to the charter. And then the second section two that starts on the top of page nine, that's a suggestion for how the ballot issue would look. That's where the general administrative changes that Mr. Bandwagon suggested that we talked about last week. That's how and we'll you'll see this repeated as we go through. Each each group will have a a number of text changes and then a suggested ballot issue language.

The the ballot language trails the the proposed changes. Because that's I think that's how it would read on the ballot.

Okay. Okay. So is everybody okay since you haven't seen that on Yeah. That's page nine perfectly fine.

Mister Pitchford, I'm an editor by trade, so I apologize in advance. So stupid things pop out at me. Let me know if you want me to ignore that. And on the validation of one city of Hudson, it does have a quotation mark before the c and city.

Not after.

Or does it ends in no? Is it is it a quote?

After no.

And that's how you wanted On

the quote. Okay. I just wanna make sure that's how you wanted it.

That's literally what you would see on the ballot as

I I see. I'm glad you pointed that out. That's good. On that? Yeah.

Alright. So then we move to section three of the or section three of the ordinance, which is middle of page nine. And that is the we're now getting into the separate things that would be voted on separately. So this would be this would be the term limits for elected officials, which includes striking a sentence from the end of section four point o one, where it just blankly says the mayor can run for reelection unimpeded. And then, adding a new section seven point o five on the top of page 10, which we discussed regarding three full terms of twelve years total, whichever is greater as an elected officer.

And I just want to point out, I didn't forget that we had talked about, hey, can we not restate the whole thing? Can we just say we're deleting the last sentence? And going back and looking at the format that we've done over the years, they literally put everything in and put it out. So I I thought it better to to put it all in and let the Board of Elections take it out as opposed to getting our hands slapped. I support that. Yep.

Okay. So that would take us down to middle of Page 10. And then Section four of the ordinance is the suggested ballot issue language for this ballot issue too, which would be the description would be in the little paragraph before the yes or no, establishing term limits for elected officials, city elected officials, elected city officials. That's of the comes from the title of our proposals that we were looking at. Just to give you an idea of how we got from there to here.

Mhmm.

So is everybody alright with that?

Yes. Okay.

Bottom of page 10. This is, the term limits. This is the group of six or seven different, identical changes or substantially identical changes to the different boards and commissions regarding term limits for appointed boards and commissions. So they start on sure sure to eight point o seven tree commission. And all of be these say make on the blankity blank border commission.

Delete the word consecutive and add or twelve years, whichever is greater. Middle of page 12, section 9.01. Middle of Page 13, Section 9.04, Portazonia Building Appeals and towards the bottom of Page 13, Section 9.06, Architectural and Historic Board of Review we COVID-nineteen twenty And of strong of Directors Board of recommended suggested valid language for ballot issue number three. And the description in here, a little paragraph is establishing term well, actually, this should be clarifying, right? Establishing for elective issuers.

That should be clarifying. Term limits for appointing. Everybody see where I'm referencing.

What are you changing it to?

Clarifying. Clarifying. Since there already are term words. Yep.

Oh, okay. Clarifying.

So the tweaking, making more clear. Mhmm. Alright. Is the single section change to change the the threshold for, for recalls of petitions, and it's the change or change gubernatorial to municipal section two and or paragraph two and then add reference to Ohio law in paragraph three. Is everybody okay with the tax changes as we discussed?

K. Then if you go to the bottom of page 16 on the 17, that's where section eight of the ordinance starts, and that's the suggested ballot issue language for this would be ballot issue four. And the description paragraph is, changing the threshold number of signatures needed to initiate a recall. Is

that accurate? It's changing not the percentage, but it's changing the metric by which we determine that from gubernatorial to municipal is not a change of numbers. It is functionally, but that's not how it reads. We know from having discussed the math in here that it's 25% is staying the same. And we know that functionally, it will be a different number of signatures. But it that feels like that's not accurate in the description. You know? Does this make sense? Yes. It does.

It could be

changing the manner of calculating the threshold.

It could be the calculation of the number of signatures needed to initiate. I think changing the threshold is definitively true in that by going to a different calculation, it's changing it, not saying up or down, And they're never exactly the same.

I I like amending the method to calculate the threshold number of signatures. Is that a better as a voter, that's

that would lose me. Okay. But I see where you're going with I think maybe we're onto something here. I just would wanna keep it very concise is all I'm saying.

The method of When first saw it last week, I asked Mr. Pitchford after the meeting, well, should it be reducing the threshold because we're changing it from gubernatorial That's that it's reducing it under the assumption that more people vote in this election than that. But as Mr. Pitchford pointed out to me afterwards, we can't guarantee that. Right.

So it would be misrepresenting to guarantee that it's going to be reducing threshold. That's why he had put changing. It's the effect is changing the threshold and if I mean, the threshold is basically a it's a fraction and we're changing the denominator of fraction, but we're not changing the 25%. We're just changing the denominator. So it's But it's

The two places you get to communicate this. One is here that will show on the ballot. The other is the city communication explaining effectively what it means for anyone who wants all the background. I think you could dive into this will likely result in a lower historical evidence which show blah, blah, blah. But Sarah, to your point in this language, is changing any of this language in the brief piece going to convey a different message? That's why I was saying changing threshold. Yeah, we are. We're amending the method of calculating just seems like a lot of words in a short word.

I like words. No, I I understand what you're saying. And and your points will take it, mister Hall. I I and that was just, you know, spewing off the top of my head.

Voters don't like words.

I I understand that. I understand that. I I don't really have a problem with changing. Changing is not the word. Right. It's the threshold that just first, I'm not sure that it's all that greatly clear to a voter who's never initiated a recall petition before. Changing minimum number

of signatures needed to initiate a recall.

What about changing the number of signatures needed? What if we just said changing the number?

Would be great. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. He is.

Well, it's not really a number either. Right?

Right. It's a concept.

What what word are we chasing a

calculation. Right.

Why I use the word threshold because it's not Well, how about removing number changing

the threshold needed to recall. Yeah. Delete the words, number of signatures. I mean, you're changing the the fraction is the threshold.

The threshold, which doesn't even talk about the number. It talks about the method, the number, and

every concern, I think

method of calculating the threshold.

Is that what you're No. Just changing Changing the threshold.

What you've drafted here, remove the words number of signatures. So it says changing the threshold needed to initiate.

Yeah. Like that? Yeah. Yeah. Would agree.

I like that. Simple. Yep. And we have less words.

Yeah.

Yep. Not too many words.

I get it. Alright.

Good. Good suggestion. Yeah.

Alright.

So then we're to middle of page 17, which is section nine. This is one section, and this is the council salary section. I believe we discussed this. We saw it in writing last week, and we talked didn't we?

Mhmm. Yeah.

Okay. Mhmm.

So this is as we had talked about it last week. I don't think we tweaked it at all. Mhmm. Everybody okay with the way the text is worded there?

Yes. Yeah. Middle

of page 18, section 10 of the ordinance. This is a suggested ballot ballot language and the description common language description in the little intro paragraph is changing city council members salary to meet. That makes sense?

Mhmm.

Okay. Moving on a little further down on page 18, section 17 or section 11 is this is a new one that we talked about last week. We have not seen this. This is the military and veterans commission. This would be a new section seven point or excuse me, 8.09.

So since we haven't seen it before, I'm gonna read this out loud. Section 8.09, middle Military and Veterans Commission. The Military and Veterans Commission shall consist of five or seven qualified electors of the municipality appointed by council and not holding other public office to serve without compensation for staggered four year terms. The commission shall advise the council on such issues as the council shall deem relevant. Each member shall have been a resident of the municipality or territory annexed thereto for two years preceding the appointment and shall continue to remain a resident during the member's term.

In the event of a vacancy, counsel shall appoint a qualified elector to fill the unexpired term. No member shall serve more than three full four year terms or twelve years, whichever is greater. Meeting shall be open to the public except as may be provided by state law. And though you might when I worked with, mister, Pitchford on this, it was using the current either cemetery board or tree commission section as the model for it. It's all as it's done pretty self explanatory. Doesn't include all the guts of what the military and veterans commission does nor do some of the other boards and commissions. That's gonna be up to counsel to dictate by ordinance. The council can also put qualifications or whatever as they already have by ordinance.

And this specifically calls out reference to the council and they can change it. And as you may already know, already exists under the codified ordinances under chapter two ninety six, I believe. This has been so this still works with our current code. We won't

have to change anything. Which one exists under our code? This? The veterans and

exist under the code. Right? Council created it. We put it in the codified.

Oh, okay.

And I and I took some of the concepts from there Okay. And we we merged them together into the new language for this section.

And this does include the tweaked term limit language that was in the other section, there's no need to change that again later. Is everybody okay with the way it's been drafted? Top ish of Page 19 is Section 12. This would be the ballot language for that ballot issue number six. The common language for it is in the intro paragraph and it simply says, establishing the Military and Veterans Commission.

Everybody okay? Alright. A little further down on page 19 is section 13 of the ordinance. This is the we'll call it the merger of the three other boards into the new, it's park, cemetery and tree, park board, cemetery board, tree commission into the new park and natural resource board. The way this was drafted, and we looked at a couple of different ways to do it, is literally to take the park board section and, tweak the name of it, clarify what it is, and modify that section, and then repeal the others.

But we'll see where we go, with it. The it starts, I'll read it as section eight point o four as it's been drafted. So section eight point o four would be modified to be called the park and natural resource board composition and terms. We'd added a new first sentence. The Park and Natural Resource Board shall replace the former Park Board, Cemetery Board, and Tree Commission.

And then I'll read the the next sentence as modified. The Park and Natural Resource Board shall consist of an odd number of members not less than seven, but not more than 11, electors of the municipality appointed, not holding other city office, and then it repeats all the same language that is currently there, incorporates the term limit language. So we've asked the question before, what happens if two different competing charter amendments are approved? Either this is approved with the term limit change or the other part board change is approved with the term limit change, whichever one, passes, passes. Then, the next section, 8.05, which is now the park board, it actually is a section that is titled municipal parks, and it deals with, what's in there now is the stricken language that stops on the start of page, 20 or bottom of page 20 and goes on to the middle of page 21.

The bold and underline language at the beginning is eight point o five. That's the six bullet points that I had written, rattled off last week. So I'll read those real quick. So Section eight point o five would say, Park and Natural Resource Board powers and duties. Section starts, the Park and Natural Resource Board shall have the following powers and duties: a, advocate for the acquisition, conservation, preservation, and where possible, sensitive development of land for public use and enjoyment b, educate the public about the value and importance of natural resources, trees, landscape, sustainable development, and environmental technology.

C, promote the establishment and operation of public facilities. Programs, activities and services that further the above purposes, d, advise upon request of the council and, where applicable, the Planning Commission, the Board of Zoning Appeals and the Architectural and Historic Board of Review regarding questions and concerns relative to the above functions e, study upon request of the council, any issue that the council deems relevant to the above duties, f, recommend upon request of the council actions concerning, capital and operating budgets, revenues, and or expenditures and furtherance of the above powers. And I brought six last week, but I can't remember who had suggested the seventh, whether it was miss McCoy or or mister Hall. Maybe miss Griffith. F was added or sorry.

G was added. Alert the council to any issue, question, or concern that the park and natural resource born names deems relevant to these powers and duties. So just in a in a nutshell, a is advocate, b is educate, c is promote, d is advise, e is study, f is recommend, and g is alert. Gives them a full range of of duties. Then all of the stuff about parks that's in there now, which is all covered under other parts of the charter or in the above language, would be stricken down to the point where, there's section in the charter now, which requires that land any land that's acquired for park purposes cannot be sold by without a vote of the people.

That's an important thing to keep. And the only change there towards the end of the balance of Page 21 is to add a natural resource to the name of the board. Questions, discussion since it's the first time you're seeing it drafted?

Yeah. Just just to refresh my recollection. The paragraph on tax levies is being removed because we have the additional section coming in on six point o five.

No. The way my thought here was is under powers and duties above under f Mhmm. It deals with the way I drafted that was the to deals everything and anything financial. So capital and operating budgets, revenues, which include tax levies, expenditures, and further into the above powers.

I am I crazy to feel uncomfortable that that's not that clear? I mean, legally, mister Pittsford, is this are those equivalents?

Which was the straight is it that paragraph

It's the paragraph that begins on page 21 that begins with tax levies designated. Right.

Should should you just add tax levies in Like revenues, comma, tax levies and or expenditures.

There's a fundamental change in the power. That's the thing. And I'm not necessarily advocating. I'm just questioning what's going on. It says in 21, tax levies designated for operation of the park shall be shall be, that's mandatory language, recommended by the park board.

Now, that implies the council could do it on their own, but the park board is going to be the one who has the obligation to have done the research and do the information searching and present that to counsel for the next thing that they're going to do for placement on the ballot. And the funds are maintained in a special fund. And if I'm wrong, tell me. But I don't feel like that's really captured through the item number f. It's close. It's close. But there's a different power that we've just stripped away. And is that what we meant to do?

Well, it is currently, it's not the power rests with counsel to put anything on the ballot. Yes. So the only power that the Park Board currently has regarding the tax levies is to recommend.

Mean, didn't we discuss last week the majority of the commissions that we currently are lumping into one are basically advisory

Yes.

And that the council sets the budget based on recommendations from the different commissions.

Yes.

So I I don't really have a problem with that that change in the language.

And also, since this was originally put into the charter and it was put in after merger because the Park Board prior to merger was a separate entity, and which put its own things on the ballot or went through the township. Since then, with the income tax increase, I know that a piece of the 1% income tax increase was for parks. And I think that after that was approved, some of the I think the land legacy thing rolled off the ballots at some point. I don't even know if there's a I think that I don't know if there's a separate property tax levy for our purposes right now.

Think I don't think there is. I think the

objective was to switch it to the income tax.

Correct.

So it was and when I see tax levy, we'll see the word here later when we're talking about other stuff too. But it's the the main source of funding for the Park Board used to be used to be solely Okay. Property taxes. Now it's a piece of the income tax Okay. So and I think

I would

have no problem. I think it makes sense if you if you want them to still have the recommending the the power to recommend regarding tax levies, income tax or otherwise, to to stick that in after

I

mean, maybe after the word concerning and before capital capital operating budgets. I mean or or revenues, including tax levies, including but not limited to tax levies. We could add that, like, in parentheses after that.

But but you're already talking about actions concerning capital, operating budgets, revenues, and or expenditures. So you basically are covering the recommendations as you're going to give to the city council.

I was trying revenues is like an all encompassing word that includes everything including

taxes. Taxes.

So it doesn't specifically call it out. I thought that the language included more. Okay. But

I I do understand the sensitivity to it because of the Hudson nature around it. And I just to highlight, what we've just discussed is the income tax is still in place, and it's not covered within this, but it is covered. I don't know where that is documented. Six. Thank you.

Yep.

So it's still in there. It's just not here

to

call out

a specific tax levy.

Okay. That's that's helpful. Thank you for explaining that.

No. I I think it's a very important issue because the people at Hudson voted for that to fund parks in a robust way. And they wanna be certain I would wanna be certain that that's maintained and not undermined by a

want this to become a they're gonna strip away all of our money.

That's that's exactly

Kocking point. Because that's not Absolutely not. Be further from the truth. Right. Right. Okay.

Further broadening the ability to figure out ways to Right. Find. Right.

Okay.

Necessary, but I

was I

have one question as well. And it it's on it's entirely possible that the answer is already in section d here. I'm wondering if in the new format for this board that that board should also have responsibility to work with and advise city manager and city staff. I'm thinking if a park board happens to know of an upcoming project and the city is gonna be doing some work, they could advise, hey. You're gonna be digging up a line.

We're gonna be putting a sidewalk in here or something's coming along. Or if in a cemetery setting or in a park setting, there's a a protected piece of land, wetland or tree, you would want this board to be able to work with the city staff to let them know, hey. There's something unique in this area. But I do see that it's advised upon request where applicable. It may be without saying that this board would help with that.

I'm just wondering in in the in the spirit of constantly, you know, bettering the community where this new board and much more bandwidth may be able to assist in some of the ongoing city level work just from a knowledge standpoint.

Part of the way it's written today says, you know, at the request of council or upon request, and I think that that's it's appropriate in my perspective in that if the city says, hey. We'd like to work with the park board to get more details. Yes. It's a discussion in council in a transparent, open way, like that decision is made in the sunshine, right? As opposed to empowering a board to directly advise staff without the consent or direction of Perfect, perfectly fine.

That's all I was hoping for was there was some sort

of collaboration. Yeah.

Yep. And just a a word of also a word of clarification about that d. It's not saying who the park board is advising. Mhmm. It's it's saying who's requesting.

Okay. The Perfectly fine.

Of and it was the council would request and or the the specifically the other three boards that relate to could relate to park type issues that are in the charter that they could request. But it just says, advise, if you take away all everything between the commas, advise regarding questions or issues relative or to the above functions. Perfect. Okay.

We've seen that in practice.

Okay. Yeah.

The hope is you don't end up creating a larger side more more larger silos in it. So that's totally fine.

If And

the language represents that, then I'm totally good with it.

I just wanted to Thank you. Yeah. So eight point o four and eight point o five, that's the creation of the new board. We'll get to the what's the consequences of that on the next couple pages. But is everybody okay with eight point o four and eight point o five? Yes. Okay. Let's move I was

just curious. We're I thought we were potentially folding EAC end with this too or is it just because they're not currently in the charter? It doesn't

because it's not a charter. It's not something that is is like relevant. Although the effect of it could be that council follows up and approve charter amendment by evaluating what other boards or commissions that it appoints that it could do it. But we can't do it through well, we could do it through the the only way we could do it through the charter is to say, council needs to abolish its its such and such. And it's it's really that's council created it, so council would need to amend it or fold it in.

Further, what I'm seeing, mister Hoover, is as I went through, you can see, like, where is EAC? The EAC responsibilities are embedded Gotcha. Which to me says, yes, if we pass this, we do it, and then council has the ability or responsibility to say, look, we embedded it. It's not specifically called out because it's not chartered. But then to say we have essentially put those responsibilities into the Parks and Natural Resources Board, and we can now, I don't know what to do with it, retire the EAC and look to transition members.

Even though environmental resource, environmental awareness committee is not mentioned in here, was, I tried to be really careful in this in the purpose bullets to pull in absolutely everything that the that the environmental duties and powers into the charter as part of this new larger board.

Good. Okay.

On to top of Page 22, this is where we get into and you know, I'm well, so pages twenty two and twenty three deal with section eight point o six and eight point o seven and eight point o eight. Eight point o six is cemeteries. Eight point o seven and eight is the, tree commission, which has two sections for whatever reason. But the first sentence of eight point o six would remain, which say say public cemeteries within the municipality or owned by the municipality shall be owned and operated by the municipality. We'd add a new sentence that says the Park and Natural Resource Board shall advise the council on cemetery matters and is included among the Park and Natural Resource Board's power and duties powers and duties enumerated in section 8.05 above in case there's any questions.

Remainder of the section would be stricken. Sex section, eight point o seven, rather than having a section related to the tree commission, I took some cues from the section eight point o six, which related to cemeteries and still thought it was relevant to have a section related to trees. And so the section here says the Park and Natural Resource Board shall advise the council on any matters under the purview of a tree commission and relevant to the municipality's designation as a Tree City USA. And I think there's a missing word there. And is between after USA, the word and is missing.

And is included just the way you have it up above. And is included among the Park and Natural Resource Board's powers and duties enumerated in Section 8.05 above. I'm not sure if that add the and, but you have it above. That's why I said it. Like you have that and there in 8.06, but there's no end after USA.

Yeah. Yeah.

Balance of that section would be stricken and then all of Section 8.08 would be stricken. The only thing that I am not seeing here that I had in I remember having in my notes for mister Pitchford was an effective date.

I thought we were going talk about how we want to handle that. I think I My notes to bring up as well.

For the year.

That's right. We talked about six months and

So we could say that whole idea is is, we talked about having a phase in for this, but it it would end up being, we just have to give some thought to it. So we have all these board and commission members that have all these terms that expire. Well, that same thing happened during merger, but the merger conditions into the charter said, you know, basically, the jig is up in six months and we're appointing new members. So that's that's essentially what would be happening here. The question would be, if this is approved in late twenty five after being on the ballot, do you want it effective beginning in in '26?

Do you want it effective in 07/01/2026 to give counsel six months to do appointments? Or do you wanna have it effective 01/01/2027? Or what would be your

I would propose, like, 01/01/2027, and I just say that from the counsel seat of it gives time to retire turnover, but also the number of interviews that I imagine will have to happen and evolve into the interview process. Scheduling those interviews can take a while.

I think we put that same language in another section that I don't think is necessarily popping out to me now, I just wanted to make it align with all the other term changes that we were gonna be doing. I think it was in line with that 27. Didn't

just wanna

to read a date on something?

I think we just only with the board of elections certifying the results. Yeah. That was the only date. Everything else I believe was based on

I thought last week we talked about '27. We talked about it. Yeah.

I As long as there's just consistency. If Yeah.

You're talking about effective, it would be at the beginning of most likely at the beginning of 08/2004.

That's exactly where I was gonna put it. Yeah.

You put, like, effective 01/01/2027 Yeah. Comma, the park and natural resource board shall replace. And I don't know if if you'd want an extra sentence in there that says the council shall I guess that's that's up to counsel.

The spirit of January 27 would be Time. At the same moment in that year that the new electors would be Broadway. So that wouldn't be in conflict as somebody's coming aboard and all of sudden this board's changing.

I think we would have to do the interviews. Whoever is in council would have to be doing the interviews and completing the appointments before that time period. And it wouldn't be like a snap line, right? It would be happening for thirteen months. It just has to be done by then.

Get into a situation where you may have some lame duck folks voting in people onto a board and then all of a

sudden Yeah. Right now, I could be appointing somebody and be gone Yeah.

In November. That's fair. That's fair.

No, because the '26 would not be an election year. So you'd be midway you'd be midway through Okay.

This counts if the timing works then.

Yeah. Right? Okay. Perfect. Nobody takes off. Okay.

Council members, your current That's right. Whatever council is elected this year would be have been in place for, you know, up to a year. Yeah.

Which is why I like the 2027 date because if there is a change in council, gives those council members a couple months. So they're not coming on board and then having to make this big Yeah.

Couple months before the interviews will

actually be in first meeting in December and bang. That that would be a lot.

Yeah. That's not yeah. That's what

I saw.

And the effect of starting this is that once council decides on the number of members to have on the board, seven, nine, or 11, then basically what they would have to do is starting in for their 27, they would have to decide, okay, for these 11 or nine term members, we're gonna have three one year terms, two two year terms, three three year terms and a four year, know, so that you have one, two, or, you know, it's a couple people every year. So the effect is staggered.

And we don't have to write that in? They can do it themselves?

If we say staggered, it's it's the same way. We've taken away any it used to say, beginning in this election, council shall appoint this many to a two year term, but it's I think council's able to figure that out. Yeah.

Council and the board itself too, some of those things. Like, we had previously talked about, you know, have two people be cemetery, two people be tree and environment, five people be parks, and potentially, you know,

the flexibility. Just operationally, when when a position's open on a board, it would be clearly listed what specific area of focus, or would it be just based on the skill set of whoever you're interviewing?

So I think it's TBD to that board, like how they're

That's fair.

Okay.

What's happening? I'd like to see, like as a council person, should this pass, And we talk to the park board about, you know, how do you want to go forward with this? This is what we see. This is what we're required to do. This was the suggestion, but you'll have to look at internal management. Like, do you want to appoint, like have two tree, two cemetery, have some discussion? Okay. Great. This is what we'd like to do. Alright. Do we need to put in an ordinance supplemental of how we're gonna run right now as a park board?

I think the effect would be just as you're saying and suggesting, but we wouldn't be handcuffing counselors

Yeah. To do it

As long

as it's way. Taken care of one way

or another.

Okay. Think there's a process to do it, and it allows more flexibility that way.

That's clear. So the clarification is that we would make this effective January 2027, but the council would have a year basically to conduct interviews and get the process ready for them to take their positions

January 2020 If this passes, then at some point in time starting in 2026, council would or the clerk of council would notify all members of the three boards that their terms all expire 12/31/2026 and invite them to apply for the new board that will be in effect and invite the public as well. And then that could have its ability to play itself out.

If if I understand, it provides a window. So if, you know, miracle of miracles, 11 people said, I wanna do it, and everybody else said, I don't wanna do it, and you said, okay. We'll interview you. You're still the same people. There's 11. We were done in a month, look at that. I don't anticipate that, right? That's why that's thirteen months, but it gives you the ability to, okay, let's have the meetings, let's get it done, let's do it in a meaningful way so that people understand and people are respected too in the transition process if they want to or don't want to be there

this gives counsel also the maximum flexibility for number of members, depending if a lot of people are interested or not, to not have them be forced to winnow it down to seven or and the only other the only other board that has the ability of being up to 11 in size is this one, and council has rarely had it be that large.

It and and with it goes without saying that there's no need to put any verbiage in here to prevent any grandfathering from one term into this new it's it's just by the way it's written, it's cut and dry.

I have a suggestion.

Sure.

On that similar that point. Sure. I wouldn't suggest a sentence that comes after the, without compensation for staggered four year terms. My new sentence that would be added here would be the first three members shall be appointed for two year terms. So you've got so you're giving them the mechanism and you're telling them how many have to be appointed and it's the first three.

So it's easy because they have to point up to at least seven. So you're you're gonna always have a majority of people that are gonna be four years, but the first three whoever council elects just saying this out loud, the those folks would get a two extra years on that commission given this term limit because the the the cap is four year full three, four year full terms. If right? Or twelve years. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's if it's Whichever is greater. Right.

Correct. They're gonna get three year

It can still come back.

Terms plus two years. Mhmm.

If if you're I mean, I would suggest that that number be two, not three because if it's a seven member board, it's stagger is gonna be two two two and one. It's not gonna be three one one one and two or something.

I was thinking it would be two years and then four years, and then you're gonna right here to be staggered

from there after. To to max out staggering, they always try and do it where you would have

Two two and two. But you if

it's an odd number, you're always gonna have, like, you you know, something something something in a different number.

That's like a Likert scale.

You don't have no. All I think is if you say three and it's only a seven member board, then you're gonna have this balloon year when three members of the board expire going forward. You know, I mean, council can change the the term durations at any time. I just

Do we do we have to be that detailed when it says staggered already? We're not changing staggered.

Say that for any other boards other than no. Put it into practice.

We took out all rough verbiage.

It's fair.

We could do that. Could I could argue with you. And, I'm not right. That it says they have to be appointed to four year terms. That's what it says.

So Staggered. Right. But how do you Stagger

it from the beginning.

But you can't stagger it if they're all four year terms. Right.

I have I have

an idea. You would

you would instead of operationalizing this in '27, you would bring two of the you could say, we're bringing two of those positions into '26 that would then create the stagger. I don't know how you would say it.

You could say that Yeah. The initial board when appointed shall include members with a with a variety of terms.

There you go. Or something like that.

There you go.

Yeah. Just like yeah.

Because The initial appointees, like, right, the first

Terms for initial appointees shall be of various sizes so that's that's great.

Did this well with the military and veterans commission, the staggering language. We did not with the economic growth board where they all started at the same time and all. Like, so as reference, we could go back to that, I think.

Counsel would have the method for preventing it again. Okay.

Mr. Vanda, given the January '27 start term, looking from the perspective of the current boards and commissions that we're merging, are we putting them in a poor position where people's terms are going to be expiring and now there's not enough or not a quorum to continue through the year?

I I don't think so in that year. Just in that it could be worked through in the year. Okay. It's my

Yeah.

My understanding. I I can see

They can be reappointed, but let let know that

we're not can't appoint you for term ending. Got it. Okay. I think part

of this is

gonna depend on the individual boards too. Like, cemetery has five people. Mhmm. They alternate three two three two. Mhmm. Well, don't know where they are right now. If it's three who are leaving Right. Problem solved. Yeah. Yep. Reapply and come on in and have another

But I'm saying if they leave in if they leave at the '25, now do we only have two operating the cemetery board throughout '26?

Potentially. Then you could appoint a temporary

You could appoint someone here and say,

by the way, this is ending Mhmm. You know, in the year. If you're if you're

interested Interested, reapply for the next. Okay.

Typically, though, members serve until their successors are appointed. So if there are no successors those members are

just Got stuck it.

Okay. New sentence is notwithstanding, terms for the initial appointees shall be of varying lengths in order to achieve the staggering of terms.

Perfect. That's

why you

have that job.

All right. We through eight point zero four and eight point zero five?

I think so. Yeah.

And then the other two sections that we did discuss Mhmm. Eight point o well, three sections six, seven, and eight. Yes.

Yes.

So then we move if we're okay with moving on. Yes. Section 14 is starts at the bottom of of the ordinances on the bottom of page 23. This is the ballot language for what would be ballot issue seven. You go to the top of page 24. The common language for this would be establishing the park and natural race park and natural resource board. How do feel about that?

Do we know why it's a board and not a commission in this instance?

Because we were just mining the title of, park board. So we were we like park. So we were putting it in with that park. There was no magic to it otherwise. Okay. Not to my

Yeah. They're kind of interchangeable in the charter.

Okay. I agree.

You like the generic vanilla descriptions?

Yes.

Continuing on Page 24, does this language you have in here, is this what's on the separate sheet or Yes. It is. Okay. So

I certainly hope it is.

This would be supposed to be. Alright.

This one all be in bold because it's all added. Is that correct?

I didn't add that language. We can do that.

It could all be bold.

Did that understand what you're saying?

I thought about that when I I the the clauses where I added a section.

Okay. You just yeah. You just didn't because it wasn't

I guess the whole

edited. It was all new. Okay. That's fine. That's fine. I just wanna be sure.

And for clarification, we also didn't do it for the Military and Veterans Commission.

That was

a new section too.

I was asleep during that part, I guess.

No. No. But fairness, in there's one other new section which is a term limits and I did bold it there now that you say that. So what do we wanna do? Bold it all.

Bold all. Yes.

Calling out.

Yeah. I like it.

Yes. You have it underlined and bolded I just on page 10

for there were three sections. Yeah.

That's going to be on page 18 k. And page 24. And so you're gonna change the intro paragraph reference as well. Alright. So this section, this was after my long winded whatever last time last week.

And there was if you recall, I didn't have a name for it, but if you recall, miss Norman actually mentioned the term taxation without representation when she was speaking. And I thought about it afterwards, and I said during the meeting, I thought the way that miss Norman was describing it was really we're dealing with expenditures here. And this is about putting qualifications for expenditures without representation. The Charter is really good about very clear about the authority for the money in, raising money in, voters get to approve it. But there are the two loopholes that I that I found that I brought to you were about how expenditures go out and making sure that the voters have the authority, not just when the money's coming in, but also when the money's coming out.

Charter has a very detailed all of section six, all of article six, sections six point o one, two, three, and four, deal with not only how you raise the money, but how money is spent. And money spent, the authority rests with the council. Then there's an ability that where that's some of that authority is delegated to the city manager, and it's all very clearly laid out. And I pointed out the two loopholes for that where, the two separate entities where the the funds happened to be going to, one was the school district and the other was the the library, which were separate entities, which each received chunks of income tax and, property income tax for the schools and property tax that goes to the library that our city funds raised approved by the city voters raised, brought into the city treasury, and our check is cut to the two different organizations. So the intent of this was to put a section in here and I actually use that.

That's just the name that I thought of it after our discussion last week, and it came was inspired by, what, miss Norman had said. I titled it, no expenditures without representation. And the first sentence, all of this would be new. The first sentence is basically a summary of the intent, and it basically, says, all funds received by the municipality shall be expended in accordance with the provisions outlined in this article six, which is intended to ensure complete accountability to the taxpayers and voters of the municipality. So that's just a kind of that's our, you know, financial mission, financial bottom line here.

Second sentence, additionally, funds received by the municipality as a result of a tax levy. And to clarify, a tax levy could be a property tax levy or it could be an income tax levy. It's not it's not spelled out here, but that's what it refers to. As a result of a tax levy approved by the voters and under state law and, the charter, tax levy's income or property must be approved by the voters. No questions.

So funds received by the municipality as a result of a tax levy approved by the voters of municipality may be paid to or transferred to another public entity or to a private entity. And in the two examples that we currently have, there could be others going forward. School district is a public entity. The library happens to be a private entity as a library board set up as an as an association library. Provided that maybe you've transferred to one of those entities, provided that such entities governing body is one of the following.

Now last week, I had suggested three different things, but I heard discussion afterwards that led me to add a d in addition to a, and c. But, basically, provided that the entity's governing body is one of the following. A, that the governing body would be elected by the voters of

the

municipality b, that the, voting body the governing body would be elected by the voters of the local school district. C, that the governing body would be appointed by the council. And then the d that I added, because I heard, both from comments during and after the meeting that, council members had raised concerns. Some council members and probably others as well had raised concerns to the library about the manner in which their their, board members are selected and the way elections are conducted and all those sorts of things, that I thought, well, maybe counsel could come to some understanding of what's to them. So the d, as it drafted here, would be otherwise selected in a manner approved by an affirmative vote of at least six members of council.

So so what does that mean? That means if if council, aside from and just so you know, we don't there's there's not another entity that's elected by the voters of the municipality. There could be someday, but there's not currently. B, the school district fits under b. So this is meant to basically eliminate the loophole that the school district funds, how this covers, how the school district funds are being spent, it's fine.

If it's elect as long as the body that is controlling the outgoing finances of that where that money is going, as long as that body is tied back to the voters of this municipality, then, school district falls under b. C would be appointed by council, and then d is, otherwise selected in a manner approved by the council. So let's just say that the in the case of the library, the council sat down with the library and said, you know, we want you to do this. We want you to do that. We want the members to be selected in this way and so that it ties back to the voters.

Or mister Taylor, in that perspective, could the library come and say, hey. Here's what we wanna do. And they could

say Yeah. They could present a proposal and they could

Mhmm. Six members of council. Sure. Super majority. And I thought

a, b, c are really clear.

Yes.

C puts it in the in the hands of, gives it an gives the council the ability to solve it. It it does include another sentence that says the council would have the ability to revoke that for any reason, any time by a majority. But the reason for the super, super, super majority, and we only have that in two other places in the charter, but they're for really important reasons. One is for emergency legislation. The others was approved five years ago for density change, zoning changes in the in the land development code because of great concerns that were brought to Charter Review Commission at the time.

But the idea would be that if six members can be convinced that some that the that the purposes and intents of this article six, that finances are going to be outgoing finances, expenditures are going to controlled in a way that, satisfies the accountability and transparency requirements of the charter, but not done by the city itself, then the council could make that determination. So we didn't talk about that last week, but it was was mentioned and it was part of the discussion. And so I thought, well, if I didn't put that in there and and bring it to you for discussion, then it's gonna really handcuff and and require some dramatic changes. So And then the last sentence

then would just be the release of the supermajority after the first full year.

Yeah. So the last sentence after the if council selects that, it says after the full first tax year, the effective date of any voter approved tax levy. So if council makes that, determination or actually if probably to move the pursuant to section d to the end of the first clause there. So it'd be like after the first full tax year following the effective date of any voter approved, I don't

know. Authorized

Any any council any action by the council, pursuant to section d above shall be subsequent to the subsequent shall be subject to the subsequent revocation by a majority of the council. So if council said, you know what? After a year, give it give it a chance to operate. But if after a year, the council that, was was convinced that this is this is gonna work, we'll we'll give you a shot after a year. If council is not satisfied, council would have the ability to revoke that, authorization. We'll we'll get to questions in a minute. We have to get

How the about we use the same language of any manner approved? Like, you're using the same language from subpart d.

Where? Mhmm.

In a manner approved. Just to any manner

yep. So you have it. Oh, there you go.

In a manner approved.

In a manner approved. So then any action, say any manner approved.

Oh, in a manner approved. Right. Any manner.

I was gonna track the the word manner because it's the same thing that's in subpart d.

So before we get into wordsmithing Mhmm. Let me ask anything about just had a general discussion last week. We didn't have any text in front of us. I was yakking at you the whole time. So what do you think?

I just wanna ask one or add one piece is when it says to another public entity, and this isn't a wordsmith, or to a private entity as allowed by Ohio revised code, not just a generic private entity. And I say that only because I know we've talked a lot about the library, but the origin of this was anything that the tax levy is going to that's not the government, and we're not making things up. Right? But, like, if Ohio revised code gets revised to allow something, I mean, to the language Mr. Moseneff has brought, like, Ohio revised code has these carve outs, these exceptions, these opportunities as it evolves. This is intended to cover that.

I'll ask mister Pitchford. So, like, I'm in the middle where it says or to a private entity, could could we add or would you recommend adding as permitted by a high law?

Mhmm. I like that.

I don't want people to

misread any of consequences. Sure.

Private entities.

I think that's very important to have

in there.

As permitted by

Ohio law. It wouldn't just be any private entity.

That's my thing is if you get enough people on council who wanna fund a private group in city and then you're like, wait a minute. I don't Mhmm.

That's my fear is that And

we and we have flirted with that before. Yes. Very truly.

Yep. So that was my it's hard to put in there.

Alright. So absent the wordsmithing, what do you think about where this is what you what you're seeing in front

of you for the first

time? Mhmm.

You know, one of my favorite topics is super majorities, if you remember from five years ago.

Yep.

And so the one thing I I would challenge on this is why we picked the number six when for and I I don't have the supermajorities all marked in this little booklet we have, but there are very few supermajorities required. And this is not just a supermajority of five of seven. It's a super, super six of seven. If you have one ill council member, now you have to have unanimity. And I'm not sure when I saw that last on council. It might be ten years ago or closing in on that.

That what people wanted with the zoning change. People wanted the voters to be able to vote on zoning changes. Exactly. The accommodation at the Charter View Commission came to was, well, we don't necessarily wanna dip our feet that far. What's the closest you can get to having all the voters approve of something is to make nearly all of the council

members

of

some Majority.

And there's really Right. It's the right now, it's it's to I don't know if it's to just increase the density Mhmm. Of any resident because density, density, density was the big Yeah. Big issue. One of the big issues five years ago. Mhmm. How things are getting slipped through and

Right.

Perceived as being slipped through and people wanted to shut that down and they thought they could, should do it by voting and the commission recommended

something I'm not necessarily opposed to a supermajority per se. I as it's a good way to be sure that this is really what the governing body really wants to do. But it seems there's there's a disconnect for me that we would require six members of council to pass it, and we would only require a bare majority, which means when you had a five five people show up at one meeting, you can get a vote of three to two and undo all of this, which that seems completely haphazard. If it's that weighty to require six, then it should be pretty weighty to undo it as well.

You never council can't ever do anything with three no matter how many people are there. They always need

Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. Well, no. Wait a minute. Oh, they have to have four to pass.

You're saying the disconnect is the six members who approve it, but four

effectively four to undo it.

Okay.

Think in the spirit of your comment, I would support, like, the super super majority for the initial and then the majority, like, where a super super majority.

I don't know, twist my word. A super majority.

I ain't been to that one. Super super

Well, I'm just saying

instead of four, require that it still carries five after the first full tax That way you need the extra support in the first year, but then afterwards it still has some sort of structure for any potential changes.

I'm trying to think of the number of times or issues. I'm trying to go through scenarios on the uber supermajority and how that could get in the way of doing. Obviously, it's intended to be a really restrictive process, right? But I'm trying to think of

places in the Charter is emergency, so adding the rules, and Yeah. Residential, density changes.

But this was elements of

And until I started drafting this, I I I didn't even have a d or yeah. I didn't even have a d. Great. So I I I don't wanna get bogged down on d because that's that's what we're talking about so far. Okay. And that's that's fine. We should talk about it. Absolutely. But absent d, what are we what do you think about the just the general

comments anything other than d

provides that entity an opportunity that maybe a, b, and c, they don't. Right? I think d provides that opportunity. It might be just grasped more nicely by the voters. Again, because our job here isn't to determine what what we're gonna do. Our job is to decide do we want the voters to make this decision. I don't know. I I like d. I don't know. I the numbers in the Uber super. Yeah. Clarifying. I I it's I don't I don't

The reason I've the reason

I put it

in there was a was as a a kind of a rational

Yeah.

Ramp Mhmm.

From transformational change.

Great. Miserum raises a really good point though as to so six of us decide, yes, we wanna do this, but then four of us were like, we're gonna take it back in a year. I I I yeah.

That's I I think in practice that's tough. And I I I think you're getting these comments because I'm assuming or presuming at this point that everyone's comfortable with the gist or the verbiage in the general direction, so they're getting into that point. If six people agree to a process or a system, six out of seven council members, and there's always diversity of opinion and experience, right? If six say this is working, and then you you have it in practice or in experience, right? It's going and you go, oh, man, a year has gone by, that was pretty disastrous.

Disastrous. Like, we came up, we wanna give them more freedom. We wanna, you know, like, wanna talk about this again. But there's, you know, two people that are like, oh, no. I got what I wanted. Is that where you wanna be, where you can't revise the process? Process? Because I'm trying to think, too, from even the discussions we've had here. If there's a place in time, like, yeah, there's a new process, and I know Mr. Mustnuff has talked about the new process, the library election. Yeah. Say, yes. That's great. Let's do it. And then a year later, go, well, you know, was impractical.

Didn't work. We wanna pull it back, but then two people can hold it because you know?

And it should be easier to

The revision process.

To stop spending money than to start spending money.

Fair enough.

Yeah. Really stop spending money. I think it's the mechanism because the tax levy's in place. Mhmm. The money is coming.

And I right?

The is the mechanism agreed to for To your point,

I do appreciate that the first you know, with the first passage, it does take, you know, quite a bit of work. I like that. I do. And then the second year, let's just call it the second year, because I can already imagine the level of discussion and debating that would go on that may only at best result in four people kinda landing on some sort of result. I I really think you would struggle in that second year to get another five or six aligned.

Well, the idea is not to use not to require six a vote of six again to reaffirm. The idea is what would it take to take take the grant away. Oh. That's it. Yeah. Well

When we talked about recall, is effectively this is a recall, didn't we land on it needed to be easier to recall?

Well, yeah, that with when you're talking about an elected official.

Right.

But but not so not so easy that it's perfunctory. You know? It it it has to have weight Mhmm. To it, and I I'm convincible on this point. I just I'm I'm sometimes uncomfortable. I I we don't we don't ask you to pass your budget with a super majority. Right? You can have a four to three vote on the budget and you can spend all the money how the four people want

to. What d would allow. Right. D allows money to be spent in a way that does not comply or that does not conform to the charter.

Right. Right. It is a Right.

It is a departure.

Yeah. You're right. Yeah.

It takes It is

It's an exception.

And this is a idea of if It's true. Who should have the authority Essentially, it's taking the authority the taking the authority away from the voters to allow funds to be spent by another entity. And if council's gonna come come to that conclusion, that's where I think they ought to be really convinced of that. That's where Yeah. I agree. Aside from setting aside the revocation, but allowing it to be approved in the first place, I think it's an accommodation. But if it's an accommodation, it ought to be seriously I agree. Council ought to be, you know, almost unanimous on that.

Mhmm. Okay.

Yep. That was my thought anyway. Okay. Yep.

I agree with that.

I guess I'm sure.

Yep.

It would have been nice to be able to review this more than like an hour ago because I like to kind of sit with stump and then really dig through it. But from my perspective, seems like the city's role in the process of the library and their funds is ultimately sort of like a clearinghouse. By that I mean like an intermediary that kind of facilitates a smooth exchange of payments between two parties. These aren't municipal funds.

They actually are.

But I mean they weren't not intended like they're paying it to the county.

No, they're not. They they flow into the city's treasury. They're raised from the taxpayers and the voters of the city. When it's represented to us that they're not city funds, are city funds, they are revenues. There's a there's a funds flow into the treasury and then the finance director cuts a check or sends a wire or sends an ACH to another

So the county has nothing to do with this?

No. Haven't Other than other than the county collects the taxes. They collect

the taxes.

Yeah. But they they don't distribute the taxes to they don't distribute these. Rita doesn't send the income tax to the school district. The county doesn't send the property tax to the library. All that money flows to the city, into the city's treasury, and then the city spends the money. The city is sending the income tax proceeds to the library, which is spending them in in in its way.

I guess it just seems like these aren't discretionary funds that the city can just decide, like, see, like, the voters approve the levy. Would the city then be like, okay, got this money. We're not gonna get it to the library though. We think we are gonna use it for something else. They're not gonna return the money back to the taxpayers. And it just seems exceedingly odd that a middleman, which is kinda like what the city is in my mind to this, would kinda try to put conditions on this transfer. It's kinda like

This is not on the transfer. This is on allowing the funds to be raised in the first place and collected from the taxpayer.

That's what I was gonna say is I think I think it's the process you might have slightly out of order because in order to even ask for the tax levy. So before we get to the point of collecting, the organization has to meet a b c or d. And if that if they have done that, then we will put it on the ballot which mean means the city would collect money. But there won't be a collection of money and then we figure it out. Is that did I clarify that?

Like I still need to say whether Okay. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it. To me, it is almost seems like it would be like, you know, I pay Rita through, like, my income tax deductions. It almost seems like if Rita were then to tell Hudson, you know, you need to meet conditions a, and c before we're gonna give you this money.

No. This becomes a condition before a levy goes on the ballot. So is is an entity that seeks to gain and spend funds that are approved by the voters, is that entity eligible? This is placing eligibility requirements on an entity, the governing the governing body of an entity that receives funds. So if an entity does not meet a, b, c, or d, then that entity cannot receive the funds, and the cannot be put on the ballot or the income tax cannot be collected or whatever for that entity.

But I think what may answer your question is if mister Pitchford has the Ohio revised code reference or or perhaps Mr. Kagler, you still have it, where it went through when raising money specifically for a library. Ohio revised code says it's a city. It could be a city library, a county library, and the expenditure of funds from a municipal entity has certain requirements. Like we just said with the budget, I can't spend that money on whatever I want. There's whole books of things that tell me how to spend it. The other aspect was a private entity, and there's no book. Well, there's not the same book. There's not the same public requirements. So in the Ohio revised code, it says that the city can put a contract in place, and that's what this is.

Like, what is the amount of oversight, or what are the stipulations that the city will put on a private entity that wants to raise funds.

We probably need to make sure that that clarification is in the new section because as I read it here, it doesn't if you look at at article six section one, six point o one, in the last sentence, it's basically saying that the council shall by ordinance provide for the collection and enforcement of tax such as exceptions and deductions as council may determine. So that says to me, a private entity based on Ohio revised revised code can come to city council and say, hey. I need you to put this request for, tax levy on the ballot for the public to consider. But if you don't if if you don't clarify that as in this proposed change, people will say, well, how do they get it on the ballot in the first place? Because they're not gonna they're not gonna understand that, yes, a private entity can approach the city council and request that they can put something on the ballot.

So I think that you need based on the request made to city council to place, you know, a tax levy on the ballot, something needs to go in

Just reference six point o one. Yes. I think that's all you do

in this is just reference and Ohio revised code. And Ohio.

Yeah. Because then you cover your piece and also the yeah.

Go ahead.

More than just article six at the front says outlined in article. Yeah. Says as outlined in article six. You want more than just that one?

Well, you know, based just based on the discussion now, I think I just need the

more complete than reference six point o one. Yeah.

The whole of six. Yeah.

I like I like it. I think this

is pretty complete,

to be honest. I think it

I I do solves the why. Mhmm.

I I think the comments that I'm hearing go to the legal language of reference and where it's referee to reference to Ohio revised code reference within.

Mr. Pitchford has some legal comments for us.

So I would propose a couple of changes here, and I'm don't I can't share them with you, but I'm gonna read these to you. So we're gonna go to the second sentence that starts additionally. So additionally, funds received by the municipality as the result of a voter approved tax levy intended to specifically benefit another public entity or a private entity as permitted under Ohio law may be paid to or transferred to such entity, comma, provided that such entity's governing body is one of the following. So what I've done, I'll read happy to read it again. But what we've done is we've called the tax levy.

It's a voter approved. Right? Because we wanna be making sure that we're talking about one that's voter approved for that specific entity. Right? Because that's that's the way this works. Yeah.

Correct. Really

Yeah. We we struggled with this and that was one of my large I'm trying to avoid unintended consequences. Yeah. Want this to be so large and we're we're we're trying to solve this problem. Right?

So the problem we're solving is that it's the result of a voter approved tax levy intended to benefit either a public and another public entity, not the city, or a private entity which is as permitted under Ohio law. And then when you go on with the sentences, says may be paid or transferred to that entity and then you're provided meets one of those following. Then I would also hear me out, I would add a sentence after the end of after subpart d and I think it's what everybody's saying and this is the part no one's it hasn't been said out loud yet, so let's say it out loud. Council shall not place a tax levy on the ballot if the who should say applying entity or if the requesting entity if the requesting entity has not satisfied one of the foregoing requirements, has or does not satisfy one of the foregoing requirements. How do we state does not?

Does not. Has those with the the part d. Right? Does or has not. Does not or has not. Just to be very crystal clear on it. And then my last part is I don't know that we need the last sentence. Know we're doing a lot of hand wringing on that. Maybe we don't need that sentence at all and for legal reasons and also as practical reason. You've made some good points. You've raised some good points. I think it's a practical reason. I think it would be astounding if you get a majority of counsel to revoke a voter approved tax levy. Yeah. Like, that's What?

I mean, as a political matter, I would be astounded if that were to happen. So I don't I don't know that that's

thing. How would you and that that's where I couldn't wrap my head around how I

think there are legal concerns that I don't necessarily, you know, wanna get into, but I I like, that's I don't like the last sentence as much as I did when I worked on it the first time.

How about sunsetting counsel's action under section d then? Council's action under the the foregoing section d shall serve for the duration of the tax levy approved.

Before you write that down, you're right I'm following right on that idea that approval by this supermajority of council does not carry forward, and any subsequent levies renewals or otherwise would be subject to meeting the terms. Okay.