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Youngstown neighborhood leaders endorse charter-review ideas
YOUNGSTOWN
A group of neighborhood association and block-watch leaders strongly endorse several of the sweeping recommendations the city charter- review committee supports to significantly change how government operates.
About 35 members of the Youngstown Neighborhood Leadership Council discussed 10 of the major recommendations the committee supports.
“These are the key issues,” said Chris Travers, a member of the council who helped run Thursday’s meeting at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County’s main branch.
Those in attendance were asked to rate the importance of the issues recommended by the charter-review committee for passage.
Those issues must be approved by city council before they can be placed on the ballot for a public vote in November.
The members strongly support language to change the charter to require the council wards be redistricted every decade after a federal census, nonpartisan elections to be held, cut the pay of council members, require council committee and general meetings be held no earlier than 6 p.m., make it easier to recall officeholders, eliminate an elected council president (members of council would choose among themselves), and create a new position of vice or deputy mayor to replace the chief of staff/secretary to the mayor job.
The neighborhood council members also said it’s important to have the charter-review committee convene annually.
The current city charter language calls for the committee to meet every four years though there’s only been one other charter- review committee in the past 15 years.
“We want the committee and city council to know there are people in the city who care about” how the city government functions, said Patti Dougan, a neighborhood council member who’s attended nearly every charter-review committee meeting.
The neighborhood council also said it’s very important for city council to consolidate property inspection, code enforcement, property registration and housing appeals into one department.
The group was mixed on term limits.
The charter-review committee wants to remove term limits for mayor, but keep them for city council.
“I was a little bit surprised about the term-limits vote,” Travers said.
“The discussion on council president and vice mayor seemed to hit a nerve. It’s thought-provoking and out-of-the-box thinking.”
The charter-review committee will have a public meeting May 22 to get additional input from residents from the 30 or so proposed amendments its members support. A location hasn’t been finalized.