Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Council eyes possible changes to administrative the code
Legislation's path to council, meeting dates and councilmen abstaining from voting are under review.
By DAVID S. OWEN
In a meeting July 17, Pickerington City Council ran through the first reading of an ordinance on proposed changes to the city's administrative code only to table it pending another work session to discuss it further.
Council is considering possible changes to the code because it has not been reviewed for several years. The next work session to discuss changing the administrative code is set for 6 p.m. Aug. 7.
During the work session held July 17, City Council was only able to get through discussing a third of the document before needing to stop and schedule another work session.
Councilman Jeff Fix said the objective is to clean it up and to look at ways to make some council processes run more effectively and efficiently.
Some of the areas being reviewed include procedures and the way legislation is processed so it is not held up by committee before it goes to council.
''For example one proposed change is a committee will vote on legislation to go to council and either recommend it or not recommend it, but it still will go to council and not get held up in the committees,'' Fix said.
Another change considered is making meeting times more flexible.
Instead of having the code read: ''... council will meet the first and third Tuesday of every month at 7:30 p.m.,''
Council is considering changing it to read council will meet on the first Tuesday of every month and then at some other time during the month.
''All we're trying to do is loosen up the language so that if there is say a holiday, or if we want to have a meeting scheduled for a Wednesday night, then we can do it,'' Fix said.
He said he believes council will continue to meet on the first and third Tuesday's of each month, but said with the change to the code, if something comes up, they then have the flexibility to schedule around it.
Another proposed change to the administrative code involves the voting process during a council meeting.
Currently when a vote is called on a piece of legislation sometimes someone may abstain from a vote without having to explain why they are doing so.
As a result, the new proposed change to the code, which Fix anticipates will cause some debate, will require a council member to state a reason for abstaining and have it cleared by the city's legal council before the meeting.
''We're all elected officials, and we're all elected to make difficult decisions, and it's been disappointing to me over the past several years that some of our council members have chosen to, rather than make a vote in favor or against, they have chosen to ride the fence and abstain on an item,'' Fix said.
''That's not what they are elected to do in my opinion,'' he said.
''An abstention, in the way our charter is structured, is a quiet no vote, and I think if you're going to vote no you've got to come out and vote no,'' Fix said.

Suggestions

Another boatload of cr@p from 100 Lockville.

So to summarize this article, Fix want to cut the council meetings back to once a month and if he deems a second necessary, we can work around his ?“Let?’s go to breakfast/lunch/dinner/out for a beer?” schedule? If this summary is vaguely true how can it speed up the government? If you are now meeting twice a month, it takes up to 6 weeks or so to get three readings on an ordinance. If you only meet once a month, it would then take three MONTHS to get three readings. How does this speed up or streamline the government?

I have the answer!! If you only have one reading on every ordinance, why then you could speed up the process. However, you deny citizens their rights to hear and comment on an ordinance if their schedule doesn?’t mesh with Fix?’s. You take their three chances to comment and reduce it to one.

Next on the committee recommendation thing. So to expedite things, if a committee cannot agree on legislation and cannot agree on revisions to make to come to some sort of consensus, then they just send it to council stating they don?’t recommend it? Then why in the hell have committees? I mean if you all are too lazy to roll up your sleeves and take the time necessary to do the job, why not just abolish the committees and let council handle everything during their once a month get together?

Lastly on abstentions, please review the procedures of the US Senate and House of Representatives. Why should Fix set this council above the legislators of the country? Do the Ohio Senate and House have the same rules? Come on, quit wasting time with these petty issues and deal with real issues. You have two to three candidates to support Fix. Are these the issues you have chosen for them to campaign on? I thought you were slicker than that.

Let me add one suggestion if you are reading this Fix. How about setting time limits on the meetings? How about an hour? I mean wouldn?’t that really stream line the government?

One meeting a month?…..
One hour long?…..
One reading per ordinance?…?…

There, I have just created your puppets?’ platform:

1 / 1 / 1

New Charter soon

I see another referendum coming. I think if you recall a few years back when there was concern about the citizens requiring more votes to pass legislation by emergency and the big fuss everyone on council was putting up because it would allow a minority to control the votes of council. Those in power at the time passed 72% of the ordinances in 2000 as emergency. After the voters took back the council in 2002 I don't see any problem with how they are getting things done. I know there was claims of efficient government but is government really suppose to be efficient? Don't you want the time to read over the ordinances maybe between the second and third readings and maybe you want to come to council and comment? The problems we had back in 2000 was they we were reading about the emergency legislation and the crap they did months afterward when the real effect of ordinance took effect. I believe if you look hard enough you will find the city taxpayers are still paying for the bad decisions made back then and the voters were barred from circulating a referendum.

I will warn everyone of you right now that Jeff Fix is up to no good. The idea about going after the abstention voting is the set up. Please read carefully the sentence about the councilman that abstains is a silent NO vote in our Charter. Mr. Fix is about to try to completely overhaul the City Charter WITHOUT a charter commission set up and staffed by citizens.