Charter Commission
February 28, 2008
Vice Chairperson Robert Triozzi called the meeting to order at 8:47 AM. Richard Horvath from the City Law Department reviewed the election discussion from last week’s meeting. Mr. Horvath covered the proposed charter section changes by the County elections Board. Richard Horvath distributed information on the amendments suggested by the Board of Elections to Charter Review Commission members.
Judge Jasper not present, and Chairperson Phyllis Cleveland reported in Ill.
Election recall process was also discussed by Richard Horvath. Amendment – file affidavit by no later than 4:00 PM next business day, Clerk would provide the petitions to the interested parties.
It was mentioned that you can presently file for a recall of any elected public official without having any valid reason. Richard Horvath wanted to examine the possibility of there being a legitimate reason for filing a recall petition against an elected official. It was further mentioned that the reasoning for a recall should be directly related to the duties that the elected official is elected to do. There was a problem identified with the current process, which leaves it up to the clerk to make the determination if the reasons given for the recall are directly related to public official’s duties.
Colleen Gilson expressed her concern that the clerk could be put into a very delicate position since she serves at the pleasure of the Council.
Ken Johnson mentioned that the Council would make that determination, this decision should not rest with the Council Clerk, it should rest with the legislative body of City Council.
Roosevelt Coats mentioned that it may have been the intention of the original authors for public to decide whether or not there should be a recall.
Kevin Kelley mentioned that maybe the recall policy should remain as is, in the past 200 years there has been only one recall in the city of Cleveland. Kelley mentioned that we are going where we don’t want to go.
Richard Horvath mentioned that the period of time after recall election should be extended before the next election. It was also stated that very few recall petitions have been filed should we try to fix something that does not need to be fixed?
Anton Farmsby commented that there needs to be rules and parameters in regards to having a recall, Farmsby raised the question if the Council should form some kind of ethics committee to determine if the Council member in question is not doing their job.
Ken Johnson mentioned that recall elections often serve to gridlock the city because nothing gets accomplished, perhaps you should extend the time that a person is in office before they are subject to any kind of recall election.
Bill Callahan raised the question as to why is there gridlock during a recall election?
Roosevelt Coats explained that it often becomes political, as a Council we have to support our Council colleague and political gridlock can result. There is also a cost for having a recall election and we may need to look at the economics of it, maybe we should look at this more closely.
Kevin Kelley commented that we should all agree that unwarranted recalls are bad, it is also difficult to get 20% of those voters who voted in last election to sign a recall petition, let’s leave it as it is, if anything needs to be amended it should be the timeline. (12 months)
Vicky Johnson expressed concern that we are not respecting people’s rights as citizens to express their opinion in the recall process. They have a right to make their feelings known and should be allowed to make that choice to have a recall if needed.
Silverstein commented that 20% of the voter population is warranted but if there is no agreement on this then these numbers could be increased to higher than 20% if needed.
Ken Johnson agreed and mentioned that a third of the people who voted in the previous election might be the way to go.
Richard Horvath mentioned that he will conduct further research on what other cities are doing in regards obtaining a certain percentage of voters on the recall petitions.
There was a comment made that the effort to get 30% of the signature from those voters who voted in the last election would be very difficult.
Mangan supports the increase in the percentage of voter signatures on the petitions because you now have four year terms and the limit should be increased.
Ken Johnson also mentioned that if the most recent recall effort had succeeded several other council members could have been targeted for recall as well.
Bill Callahan mentioned that it is fair to say that there should be fair representation of the voters.
Robert Triozzi mentioned that there is much interest in this specific topic that we could assign this to a sub-committee to further work on this with Rick Horvath from the Law Department.
Roosevelt Coats suggested that there should be no recall elections in 2 years once someone has taken elected office. There was some discussion regarding what timeline should a recall be if there are efforts to remove someone from elected office.
Robert Triozzi – it would be helpful to see how we would compare with other communities in regards to recall elections and the procedure for doing this. Roosevelt Coats express interest in assisting along Ken Johnson and Anton Farnsby is also interested.
Campaign Finance
Richard Horvath provided an overview on campaign finance and briefly spoke about the mandatory campaign contribution and mentioned that government cannot limit how candidates spend their campaign money.
Comprehensive disclosure rules, penalties, and appeals were mentioned in regards to campaign finance law
Voluntary limits were also discussed where candidates sign affidavit that they agree to voluntarily comply to the campaign limit spending, if they should exceed that limit they can be held liable.
Commission mainly has job to do every 4 years and is never fully staffed and the charter also says that if you don’t return the affidavit you cannot be a candidate for office
1994 when the affidavit was enacted the candidate who refused to sign the expenditure limitation clause was former city of Cleveland Mayor Michael White, majority of candidates refused to sign the affidavit. There is no consequence for saying no.
Richard Horvath mentioned that reports that are filed are the same as those reports at the state level – disclosure form.
Most meaningful portion is the contribution limitation according to Horvath. City has control over the $1000 and $100 contribution limit. Recommendation keep fixing council limitation and rid limitation form expenditure limitation form, can get rid of this.
Silberstein raised the question as to why do this have to be in the charter? Richard Horvath raised the question as to whether the Council does it.
Roosevelt Coats mentioned that the Council did do this in 1994. Former Mayor White had proposed it and Council had tweaked it.
Silverstein says that the rules do not require Council to do anything. If people want a campaign finance law then the people should make this known.
This does not do very much, Council has to do something, this forces Council to create something.
Do we feel that this is an important issue that Council should be mandated to do something or let the political process run its course? What can we do as Council with this law, could we put this before the voters to appeal or amend? You can raise the limits, campaign finance law according to Ken Johnson are still unworkable.
Roosevelt Coats mentioned that during 1994, finance campaign reform was the hottest topic being looked at across the country.
There has to be penalty provision included in the campaign limitation section.
Robert Triozzi raised the question, do we keep it as it is or amend it? Triozzi identified this as a fundamental issue.
Council
Rachel Nigro Scalish and Richard Horvath have written proposals, however the Council has not reviewed these proposals.
Silverstein raised the question do we want someone from Council to speak about the issue? Gilson also raised question about Council discussing this in caucus on how to approach this in regards to speaking to charter commission about Council topics.
Roosevelt Coats commented that we need to speak to the Council President about this specific issue,
Silverstein suggested that the Council topic be deferred until next week after the Council makes decision in regards to how it wishes to approach the commission.
Richard Horvath mentioned Section 28 in the Charter regarding public meetings. According to Horvath any meeting of a majority of council members must be open to the public. The public meeting requirement is present in our charter. State law mentions that those meetings must be public, but there is an executive session clause that the state has, and the city of Cleveland does not have this.
Richard Horvath is proposing that we follow the state law by allowing executive session and there is a common law right to meeting in executive sessions for attorney client privileges. Rick Horvath is proposing that the law be amended that would allow council to do this
Topics such as personnel matter, security matters, property issues, court action, collective bargaining strategy, confidential matters, could be discussed in an executive session.
Any committee of the council would have to make meetings open to the public. If they represent the majority of the committee then the meeting would be open to the public.
Supreme Court decision – Plain Dealer sued meeting between Mayor and Council 1986. The city lost the lawsuit, and the court ruled that meeting must be open to public whenever city business is being discussed. Other cities do have this executive privilege whereas Cleveland does not.
If the voters of Cleveland were to amend the charter, then the Council could be allowed to go into executive sessions.
Callahan mentioned that it would be interesting to have the Plain Dealer come in and provide their reasoning as to what they think the limitations should be.
Resume Council issue at the meeting of the Charter Review Commission - Robert Triozzi.
Katherine Buluva provided cards to charter commission members that contain information on duties of its members.
Another issue raised pertained to advertisement through public notice and how much is to be advertised, which is often expensive. How much public notice do we want to provide and how much information should be put out there. It was suggested that a bi-weekly approach be used where you could stagger information to such news media as the Plain Dealer, Call and Post and Sun news, Sun Press.
Kevin Kelley would prefer to spend dollars for public meetings. Greg Huth also mentioned could the card be placed inside of city water bills or other utility bills?
Meeting adjourned at 10:06 AM by Vice-chairperson Robert Triozzi.