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Board recommends 7 revisions to Youngstown charter
YOUNGSTOWN
Seven recommendations of the Youngstown Charter Review Commission for revisions to the Youngstown City Charter are in the hands of city council, which has the final word on what will be placed on the Nov. 8 general-election ballot.
Council is scheduled to meet in special session Aug. 17 when it is expected to act on the commission’s recommendations. The measure has to be submitted to the Mahoning County Board of Elections no later than 60 days before the election.
Six of the proposed revisions were adopted without comment at Tuesday’s final commission meeting.
However, language changes to Charter Section 83, which has to do with the division of the city into wards and redistricting, raised some questions.
The commission’s amendment to Charter Section 83 would maintain the seven wards now in existence, but proffers more specific language for redistricting than the existing “reasonable population change” language.
In its place, the commission recommends that when a U.S. Census shows a 7 percent difference in population between the largest and the smallest ward, redistricting is mandated.
Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th, said he prefers more flexibility in the language, noting that a 10 percent difference between the largest and smallest wards has been successfully tested in court.
“Why re-invent the wheel. Let’s take what works,” Ray said.
A subject that was not raised at Tuesday’s meeting, chaired by Chris Travers, was term limitations for the mayor’s office, which was heatedly debated at the June 28 commission meeting.
At that meeting, Nikki Posterli, a commission member, said the proposal for term limits for the mayor was rejected because the removal of a term limit was approved by voters just four years ago.
Other commission recommendations are:
Language change to make convening of the Charter Review Committee by the mayor mandatory every four years.
Requires that a councilman be a resident and elector of the ward from which he or she is elected for at least one year before the date of the general election in which the person is a candidate. But it also provides that no candidate be disqualified on account of redistricting during an election year which results in a change in the ward in which the candidate resides.
Deletes the $12 meeting absence penalty for council members and suggests that any fine or penalty be includes in the rules of council and that the monetary penalty be significantly more than $12.
Deletes out-of-date references to disbursements of public money by checks since disbursements are now made electronically.
Deletes the outdated requirement for city employees to live in the city, as state law bans such requirements; and allows for the resident provision for appointments to commissions and boards to be waived by the mayor with the approval of council if the mayor demonstrates a need for the waiver.
Eliminates a reference to the abolished Park and Recreation Commission and the gender reference related to the appointment; and brings the city into the current practice of having the mayor appoint four citizens to the commission as long as none are from the same ward.