Chardon City Council voted Thursday night to oppose Issue 14, which, if passed on Nov. 6, would rewrite the city charter to allow a popularly-elected mayor.
Councilwoman and former Mayor Nancy McArthur was the lone no-vote.
The fight over Chardon’s mayoral role has been an ongoing saga since McArthur was ousted in January and replaced by Mayor Jeff Smock, who has been vocal in opposing the initiative because of the issues outlined at the meeting.
“If this was a perfect written legislation, with no problems, would you still be against it?” McArthur asked Smock.
“I would have no objections to it being on the ballot if it had been properly drafted without all the issues,” he replied, adding, however, he would not personally vote for it.
The resolution points out the problems with Issue 14’s proposed changes to the city, including language that could lead to council seating eight members instead of the seven required by the charter.
Hannah Sekas, a Chardon resident who wrote the charter language, argued those conflicts can be resolved.
“You indicated … that your intent was for this to be a change that only will allow the public to vote on the mayor, as opposed to council voting on the mayor. Your intent was that was all you would change, correct?” Smock asked Sekas.
“That was the intent, and that was why I sought an outside attorney to review it,” she replied.
Sekas said the city has only the opinions of City Law Director Jim Gillette and attorney Todd Hunt of Walter & Haverfield LLP, who was sought as outside council to review the charter amendment language when Gillette was out of town earlier this year.
Smock asked Sekas why the language allows eight elected members. Her reply that the language must be read in the context of the whole charter that allows for seven members was met with frustration.
“If you can add — if you can add, four and three and one becomes eight,” Smock said. “It’s pretty simple.”
Earlier in the meeting, Sekas read from a prepared statement that described the charter review committee she served on earlier this year. She said many members raised concerns about how the mayor/president of council and vice mayor positions are stated in the charter.
“Some members felt they could not speak about (those concerns) because Mr. Smock and Mr. (Vice Mayor Dave) Lelko were constantly at the meetings,” Sekas said. “Other members felt they could not speak freely about it because Mr. Gillette appeared to have his own agenda, which was to keep a change to the mayor position off the ballot.”
McArthur added Gillette told the committee they did not have the authority to discuss the subject of an elected mayor.
“I didn’t say that,” Gillette replied. “My recollection is that I suggested that this is a much too complicated issue for the charter committee to consider.”
“I do think you could have worked with the committee better, Jim,” McArthur said. “I think you were there to thwart some discussion and that was very obvious.”
Sekas later clarified while she recalls Gillette saying the charter committee did not have the authority, he clarified those comments at a later committee meeting.
Gillette said his only agenda is to prepare documents and legislation for the city that are “bulletproof,” and this legislation is not. Some of the issues with the amendment language laid out in Thursday’s resolution include:
- The initiative charter amendment as written will result in seven council members, four incumbents serving from 2018 thru 2021, three members of council elected for four years serving from 2020 thru 2023, and a mayor elected for two years serving in 2020 and 2021, resulting in a total of eight elected positions during the years 2020 and 2021; and
- the petition as written requires that the mayor shall perform all duties prescribed for him/her in the charter and those given to the mayor by general law, the Ohio Revised Code; and
- the initiative charter amendment changes the practice of the mayor presiding only over council meetings and will require the mayor to preside over all municipal meetings; and
- if Issue No. 14 passes, the city will be required to pay for the interpretation and revision thereof, either by time consuming and expensive litigation or proposal of a new charter amendment to correct the inconsistent and incompatible charter sections at a special election in 2019, which would cost the City of Chardon approximately $6,000; and
- If Issue No. 14 passes the eighth elected member of council will cost the city an additional $13,680 in Council salary including retirement during the period of 2020 and 2021.
Sekas took issue with the claim the city would have to spend $6,000 for a special election to fix issues raised in the case of the passage of issue 14, telling Smock the city could be in legal trouble for misinforming citizens that the city would incur those costs.
Smock remained adamant that, without a special election in spring 2019 to fix these conflicts, a mayoral candidate could run in fall 2019 with the issues still unresolved.
“No, we don’t need a special election and I tried to tell you that and you argued with me,” McArthur said. “And I know what I’m talking about because I understand election law and I understand elections. So this could be fixed in a November election, and we could fix, if there is any legal problems, we could fix it in the sense there’s eight before anybody has to file to run next year.”
Lelko summed up the concerns of other council members.
“I see one basic principle here,” Lelko said. “Charter amendments should not be subject to interpretation or questions of intent. I don’t agree with the philosophy of let’s pass something and then we’ll figure out what it says.”
