Saturday, September 18, 2010 at the River Front entertainment area in Cuyahoga Falls.  The rally begins at 4:00PM and will end around 6:00PM.  At 2:00PM live at the rally and simulcast on WHLO 640AM radio,  a group of State, Federal candidates in a live broadcast.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE

The Stow city Charter Commission meets every Thursday at 7:00PM in city hall. Resident presence is sorely needed to help with their ideas and information to adequately review the charter and suggest changes where necessary. Consider attending at least one meeting and supporting the charter commission.

Along with other Cities across the United States, Stow too has reduced revenue. The income level of most families has gone down thereby reducing the amount of income taxes the City is collecting. The latest figure puts the City’s revenue from income taxes down about a million dollars. Couple this with the current deficit being paid to operate the new court house and golf course and this really creates some financial problems for the City. There has been some talk of raising the income tax or property tax level to offset the decline in revenues. So far the City has been reluctant to go to these extreme measures but that is because they still have some money in their reserve accounts. That might all change in the beginning of 2011. Now is the time to encourage the Council and Mayor to continue to reduce their spending. Large projects such as the improvement of the Seasons Road area as well as the widening of Hudson Drive should be suspended until the economy improves. Available funds should be focused on the minimal operations of the City and existing infrastructure. The City should discourage unnecessary travel expenses for the Mayor and her staff.   Consideration should be given to possibly halting the Community Improvement Corporation. Their loan program to help recover and expand private businesses out of the City’s treasury has got to stop.

            Some difficult choices have to be made now. This idea of pouring more and more money into economic development and less and less into our city streets, water lines and sewers has got to change. Look around your neighborhoods; have you seen any new improvements?  Two major streets have never even seen city water services while the Mayor and Council continues to dump millions of our tax dollars into a project on Seasons Road that will, at least in the short term, benefit only a few investors.

            If we don’t act today to get the City’s spending under control, you probably will see increased taxes next year. Please try to attend these important budget meetings next week. Let’s show the Mayor and Council that we are concerned about how our tax dollars are being spent.

1/30/10

(Sigh…..) We sure get tired of reporting this type of stuff.  But it does give our city officials every opportunity to prove that our website is aptly named.

As if you hadn’t heard enough about the Wyoga Lake meeting in previous posts (found here), now we have even more to add to the mess.  We are still wondering why the city legal deartment is ignoring this whole affair.

Audio clip of Mary Bednar at Wyoga Lake Meeting

The solution to this whole problem is for Council to admit that it made a mistake and held a meeting that was outside of Council chambers and was not open to the public as the city charter requires.

In summary: 

1.  Hold all meetings in Council chambers and make sure the entire citizenry is notified, or don’t drag enough Council members together in one place to constiture a quorum.

2.  Make sure the meetings are transparent.

In a previous post we notified you of the picnic/meeting held by City Council person Council Member Mary Bednar for the residents of Wyoga Lake.  Storm water drainage was the principle subject.  We let you know that a resident of the city (from a different area of the city) was threatened with arrest if  he remained at the meeting. 

We felt that his removal was a violation of the “sunshine law” (the Ohio Open Records Act).  We also felt that this meeting was in violation of the law that states that City Council meetings must be held in Council Chambers in City Hall.  We also noted that since four members of Council were present at the meeting (Mary Bednar, Ron Alexander, Janet D’Antonio and Sara Drew)  this constituted a legal Council meeting.  Why hasn’t our city Law Director addressed this blatant violation of the Ohio Open Records Act.  Why hasn’t he enforced the law of the city dictating where meetings must be held?

You can see the invitation that started the whole mess right here.

That previous post noting these violations can be found here. 

It’s a Matter of Trust…

At tomorrow’s (1/14/10) council meeting city council will propose an emergency legislation that will allow the city’s Community Improvement Corporation (CIC) to own, or partly own, a business or businesses in Stow.  This organization will also be able to offer loans and insure them.

We have no heartburn with Council’s plan to move ahead with this legislation however we do demand that the Mayor and Council proceed legally.  A few items are bothersome:

 Does this mean we will be paying city employees to attend a “voluntary” meeting?  Does Mr. Earle, the city’s Budget Director, get paid for attending this “voluntary citizens board”?

In addition to all the above, how about charter provision 4.14 that states that council cannot pass an emergency measure that will delegate part of its power to a sub-organization.  This must be done with the usual three readings of the proposal.  Is this whole thing legal?

Here is the section of the city charter dealing with emergency resolutions:

Each emergency resolution and ordinance shall contain a statement of the necessity for such emergency action, and its enactment shall require the affirmative vote of at least six members of Council if all members are present, or the affirmative vote of at least five members if one or more members are absent.

No action of Council authorizing the surrender or joint exercise of any of its powers, or in granting any franchise, or in the enactment, amendment, or repeal of any zoning or building resolution or ordinance, or in the changing of any ward boundaries, or in authorizing any change in the boundaries of the Municipality, shall be enacted as an emergency measure.

How about some of you new members of council sitting back and taking a look at this issue.  We urge you to do the job the people of Stow elected you to do.  Is some of this proposal smelling like politics as usual?  Please make sure it’s done the way it’s supposed to be done!

In short, this means that people who pay rent will be paying more rent.  

Click here to read the entire mess in all its glory.  

UPDATE:  1/16/10 – The invitation that started this whole mess can be seen by clicking here. 

A MEETING HELD ON 10/26/09 supposedly to give the residents of the Wyoga Lake neighborhood the “real” information about their storm water run-off problems, Council Person Mary Bednar invited a few other council members and few members of the Planning Commission along with the City Engineer to a small get-together with the residents of the area.   The attending council members were:  Janet D’Antonio, Ron Alexander, Mary Bednar and Sara Drew.

The meeting addressed some “false and misleading” information circulating in the area.  We are not concerned so much with the content of the meeting as with HOW it was held. 

At taxpayers expense two employees were invited to this meeting held after their regular work hours (can you say “overtime”?).   In addition, it should be pointed out that the four council members who were there constituted a quorum.   Under Ohio law the quorum constitutes a council meeting. 

In the mean time,  the three members of the planning commission who attended also constituted a quorum. 

So, you might ask, exactly what kind of a meeting was this?

Was it a City Council Meeting?

Was it a Planning Commission Meeting?

No, it was A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN MEETING to promote Mary Bednar’s campaign for election to city council.   

Her campaign re-election  committee  paid for the goodies and other amenities.  Did they pay for the information to try to heal over the irate residents too?   Cider and muffins will excuse a whole lot of governmental misdeeds.  Even when one of the city’s residents tried to attend the meeting and was told that it was a “private” gathering and was escorted off the premises under the threat of having the Police called by a member of the  council.   Councilman Ron Alexander tried to convince the resident to stay (because he probably recognized the illegality of the meeting) but the poor guy left because he didn’t want to violate the law. 

Isn’t this the same group of council members that authorized the purchase of a house for $250,00 to save the residents from the catastrophic costs of repeated flooding?  Now we even have to pay for the maintenance of a vacant lot forever.  Have they offered to buy your house?