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Youngstown voters will consider 6 charter amendments on fall ballot
YOUNGSTOWN
City voters will consider six charter amendments – including the anti-fracking Community Bill of Rights for the sixth time – when they cast ballots in this election.
In addition to the Community Bill of Rights, there’s another citizen-initiative proposal for a “Part-Time Workers Bill of Rights,” and four charter amendments approved by city council based on recommendations from a charter review commission.
The Community Bill of Rights failed five times: twice in 2013, twice in 2014 and in the Nov. 4, 2015, election. The results for last year’s issue were the closest, losing by 2.5 percentage points.
“It’s time for people to learn the science about fracking and cut through the propaganda,” said Susie Beiersdorfer, a member of the Youngstown Community Bill of Rights committee and Frackfree Mahoning Valley, which backs the issue. “With global climate change, we can’t put all our eggs in one basket, that being the oil and gas industry.”
“The impact of the language is so much more than oil and gas,” said Jackie Stewart, Ohio state director of Energy in Depth, the education and research arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “It would make numerous construction projects illegal. It will impact a heck of a lot more industries than oil and natural gas. It’s why voters have rejected it five times.”
In addition to banning fracking – none of which exists in the city – the proposal makes it illegal for any government or corporation to engage in the “depositing, disposal, storage and transportation of water or chemicals to be used in the extraction of oil and gas, and the disposal or processing of waste products from the extraction of oil and gas,” according to ballot language.
The proposal doesn’t prohibit the manufacturing, production, sale or distribution of materials and components used in fracking as long as the materials and components aren’t used in Youngstown.
“Voters have already spoken up five times against this proposal because they know it is terrible for the city, its small businesses and its taxpayers,” said Thomas Humphries, the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber’s president and chief executive officer and member of the Mahoning Valley Coalition for Job Growth and Investment, which opposes the proposal.
If the measure fails, it will be back on the ballot again until it passes, Beiersdorfer said.
Fracking in the state is regulated, not by cities, but by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
Meanwhile, a Grand Rapids, Mich., businessman is spearheading a proposal to give part-time workers in Youngstown increased rights such as health care benefits and equal hourly wages as full-timers.
Bob Goodrich, executive director of the Part-Timers Rights and a movie theater owner, put the proposal on the ballot in an Ohio city to not only increase the rights of part-time workers but to encourage women – particularly unmarried lower- to middle-class – to vote in a key swing state.
The proposal would require part-timers to receive the same benefits, such as paid personal days and vacation time, as full-time workers in the same job classification, but in proportion to the amount of hours they work, Goodrich said.
The proposal also would require employers to publicly post part-timers’ shift schedules two weeks in advance if requested, he said.
Mayor John A. McNally said, “I question if it interferes with collective-bargaining agreements we have in the city, and that could happen with other employers, public and private, in the city. It’s unnecessary. I haven’t heard from any group pro or con on this issue.”
Also on the ballot are four charter-amendment proposals approved by city council. A charter review commission had proposed seven amendments.
Council approved three of the commission’s recommendations for policies that currently aren’t enforced by the city. They are: deleting a $12 meeting penalty for council members, eliminating outdated references to disbursing public money by check only and removing a reference to appointing a member of the abolished park and recreation commission to serve on the planning committee.
The commission also wanted the city to redistrict its seven wards no later than 90 days after a decennial census if it shows at least a 7 percent difference in population between the largest and smallest wards.
However, council agreed to have voters consider a proposal to redistrict no more than 180 days after a census if it shows at least a 10 percent difference between its least- and most-populous wards.
The three rejected recommendations were to delete outdated language requiring city employees to live in Youngstown, allow the mayor to appoint nonresidents to city commissions with the approval of council, and to require council candidates to live in the ward in which they run for at least a year before the general election.