Northwood City Council last month was reluctant to place on the November ballot a recommendation by a citizens’ panel to reduce the number of council seats to five from seven.
 
As a result, the issue will not meet the deadline with the Wood County Board of Elections to be on the fall ballot.
 
It was one of two recommendations made by the City Charter Review Committee to revise the current city charter. The other recommendation is to remove from the charter a section that limits military duty for council members to 45 days before they would lose their seats. Another section in the charter that deals with vacancies has more flexibility when a member of council is called up by the military.
 
“The committee felt there is a provision already in the charter that deals with vacancies for council members,” Councilman Dave Gallaher, who chairs the committee, said at a June 26 council meeting. “They felt the 45 day limit on council members serving in the military was almost a penalty. There is no wriggle room at all. Basically, our charter says if you’re gone for 45 days, you’re done. Your seat is vacant. So if someone was called to active duty for two months, they would not be on council any longer.”

Council is required to approve placing any revisions of the city charter on the ballot so the public can vote on the matter.
 
Gallaher asked council at a June 26 meeting for a motion to do just that. But no one on council would make the motion for both recommendations. 
 
Councilman Ed Schimmel said military legal law prohibits firing someone who is called to active duty. He believed it would extend to members of council.
 
“I would have to look up the statute. I’m at the position where I just don’t have enough information,” said Schimmel.
 
“I can’t see this becoming an issue,” said Councilman Connie Hughes. “Council would be the ones to enforce the charter,” she said.
 
“I can only tell you what the charter says. If everyone is okay with what it says, that’s fine. I’m not,” said Gallaher.
 
Some on council, such as Councilmen Jim Barton and Hughes, seemed to support eliminating part of the charter that limits military duty for council members, but not limiting the number of seats on council.
 
“I guess I don’t understand the reasoning behind cutting council down to five, Dave,” said Hughes. “There was a good example two weeks ago when four of us were not here. If the voters would vote to bring it down to five, I think whoever is sitting in these seats are going to be hard pressed to have council meetings and vote on things. There are issues with people even running for council. What’s going to happen when it comes to the point when we don’t even have enough people running for the seats if kept to five?”
 
Gallaher said it didn’t matter how many people would be running for council seats.
 
“If someone is going to take time to circulate a petition and run for office, you want to make sure they’re willing to go to meetings. It doesn’t matter if you have 13, five or 23. The bottom line is, if you’re on council, you’re expected to make meetings. It doesn’t matter how many people are on council,” said Gallaher. “There would be changes in how many votes are required for a majority, and what a quorum is. But other than that, I guess the feeling of the committee was that five people would be able to do it in a city our size.”
 
Barton wanted to hold a public hearing or meeting before considering whether to place the reduction of council seats on the ballot for voters to decide.
 
“Do we want to draw up legislation until we have a public meeting to find out what the input is?” asked Barton.
 
“What are we going to talk about if we don’t have the legislation?” asked Gallaher.
 
“We already have your recommendations,” said Barton.
 
“Sure, but if we have legislation, it’s not going to hurt anything one way or the other,” said Gallaher.
 
“I’d like to see the public meeting, and I want three readings,” Councilman Randy Kozina said about both recommendations. “I don’t know whether we’re trying to rush this a little too much or what. It’s my two cents worth.”
 
Schimmel said he needed more time to look into changing the number of seats on council. He said was unable to attend any of the city charter review committee meetings.
 
“I didn’t get a chance to go to a meeting. I was hoping to go to one because there were some ideas I want to see on there, like maybe districts – having two districts with two council persons in each one, and maybe some people at large. There are a lot of ideas that I want to throw out there. I don’t know if any of that was discussed or not,” said Schimmel.
 
“Actually, we did discuss the idea of districts and the pros and cons,” said Gallaher. “I will tell you that I organized the meetings, I did not vote on anything or make a motion. I thought I’d have my chance here.”
 
Council voted 4-2 to place on the ballot the removal of the section of the city charter concerning military leave for council members.
 
In favor were Councilmen Mike Myers, Hughes, Gallaher, and Barton. Schimmel and Kozina were opposed.

Council scheduled a public hearing to discuss the recommendations of the charter review committee on July 14 at 7:30 p.m. in council chambers.
 
The city charter review committee, comprised of seven residents, voted overwhelmingly on both recommendations.
 
The committee also reviewed other issues to update the charter, including: term limits of council and the mayor; the way vacancies are filled on council; publication of ordinances; residency requirement for the city administrator; and civil service terms.
 
Members of the committee are Louis Fahrbach, Deborah Hornstein, Craig Kohring, John Melnyk, Laura Perkins, Gary Weatherholt, and Kelly Willis. Kohring and Melnyk are former members of council.
 

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed