Sunday, February 19, 2012
Option to explore charter government for Warren remains on table
By ED RUNYAN
runyan@vindy.com
WARREN
John Brown, one of the Warren City Council members who advocated putting a question before Warren voters that could have led to the writing of a charter form of government for the city, said the proposal could still have a future.
In August 2010, Brown and Councilman Al Novak attended a press conference where they said they were gathering signatures and making plans to place a measure before voters at the May 2011 primary.
If approved, that measure would have caused a committee to be formed to write a charter, which the public would have approved or rejected at the March primary this year.
A charter form of government, advocates say, allows a city to create the type of government it wants instead of the “statutory” form of government like Warren’s. The statutory form of government was designed by the Ohio Legislation about 100 years ago.
Brown says a charter form of government would make Warren’s government more efficient by allowing consolidation of administrative and council positions, for example.
The signature-gathering effort stalled in 2010, Brown said recently, because he discovered there was a problem with the petitions they had circulated, requiring organizers to start the petition campaign over.
Brown said it wouldn’t be hard to get the necessary signatures again if enough people want that to happen. “It was like shooting fish in a barrell,” Brown said of gathering signatures in 2010. State law requires 1,300 valid signatures.
But a more likely first step, Brown said, would be to poll City Council now that it has two new members and see how council feels about putting the charter issue on the ballot.
Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.