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‘A furor in the city of Warren’
Councilman decries rebuff of charter vote
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
Councilman Al Novak says he thinks the public may not soon forget that six council members voted against giving them the opportunity to vote on whether they want to change the city’s form of government.
Councilman Bob Dean says that is unlikely since only three people — one of them from Liberty Township — cared enough about the idea to come to a Warren council meeting in the past two months to talk about it.
“My phone has been ringing off the hook,” Novak said Thursday, the day after council voted 6 to 3 against putting a measure on the November ballot to form a charter committee to draft a charter.
“There is a furor in the city of Warren. They feel that only shallow and inadequate excuses were given to turn this down,” Novak said.
Novak joined Councilmen John Brown and Fiore Dippolito in voting for the charter legislation.
Dean, Helen Rucker, Marti Morn, Vincent Flask, Eddie Colbert and Cheryl Saffold voted against the legislation. Councilman Dan Sferra, who supported a charter during his campaign for councilman, did not attend the meeting.
“A lot of people said they want to vote on this,” Novak said, adding that he has provided roughly 500 pamphlets to people who have been interested in learning about a charter form of government.
Novak said his primary reason for seeking a charter is he thinks it will enable the city to run more efficiently.
“We can’t afford the government structure we have,” Novak said, adding that the current form of government, called “statutory” because it is proscribed in Ohio law, requires a number of jobs he thinks are unnecessary.
“The city of Warren is broke. It [consolidation of jobs] has to happen. Our roads are deplorable, but we have department heads making $100,000,” he said.
Dean said the city endured some challenging times recently without a major problem — such as digging out from record snowfalls in February.
Additionally, when he asked his East Side neighbors recently whether they were aware that a charter form of government was being discussed, they “didn’t know, didn’t care, weren’t mad about our current form of government.”
He said council has a great deal of power to bring about change where needed, and a group carrying out recommendations from the city’s strategic plan also will bring about positive changes.
Dean said he and other council members also were concerned that the cost to prepare the charter — an estimated $43,000 — was being pledged by private sources that didn’t want to be identified.
Dan Crouse, chairman of the citizens committee that studied the charter issue, said a well-known restaurant owner is planning to organize a petition drive to get the charter question on the ballot in the spring.
“It’s going to happen,” Crouse said.