PHOTO BY JESSE DAVIS / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
REWRITING THE RULES … The Swanton Village Council gathers at Swanton Middle School for a special meeting to revise its operational rules. The meeting was held at the school due to fire damage at the village offices.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
The Swanton Village Council made several major changes to its rules in a tempestuous special meeting Wednesday evening.
During the meeting, which was held at Swanton Middle School due to a recent fire at the village offices, council members debated changes to everything from voting practices to emergency sessions, the reinstitution of standing committees, and explaining inside legislation why it is requested to be passed on an emergency basis.
The changes were proposed by Councilman Deacon Dzierzewski with support from fellow council members David Pilliod, Patricia Pilliod, and Diane Westhoven, a voting block that drove many of the approvals despite opposition, sometimes strong, from council members John Schmidt and Noah Kreuz.
Council members first voted down a recommended change allowing special meetings to be called without public notice when it involves “to address issues affecting the health and safety of the village and its operation.”
Village Solicitor Kent Murphree informed the council that failing to give notice would violate the law, and they chose to unanimously vote it down.
Council members then voted to change from five to four the number of votes required to add items to the agenda of a special meeting.
The council split down the middle on adding a section explaining the decision making process of the council.
Murphree called adding the section “redundant” and said the council could simply continue making decisions the way they have been without delineating it in the rules.
Council members Kreuz, Schmidt, and David Pilliod voted against adding the language, with Patricia Pilliod, Westhoven, and Dzierzawski voting in favor.
Mayor Neil Toeppe split the tie, casting the fourth vote in opposition and keeping the language out of the rules.
Council members next voted down a proposal to give council committees the authority to and job of providing approval for proposed ordinances and resolutions prior to being moved on to council for passage.
Murphree said committees are intended only to be advisory in nature under state law, not a gatekeeper to the full council.
“I don’t think you can give a committee the legislative authority to approve,” Murphree said.
Council members then got into the first contentious item, requiring all resolutions or ordinances with passage requested by emergency rather than three readings as is normal being required to include – in the legislation – a statement explaining why emergency passage is needed.
“When things get passed by emergency with no committee, you end up with a 45-minute council meeting with no discussion, no opportunity for public feedback, no opportunity to go back and forth the way we should be doing … it becomes an autocracy and this is not an autocracy,” Dzierzawski said.
Dzierzawski claimed that 80 percent of items were passed by emergency.
Kreuz said he believed it just added unnecessary verbiage to legislation. Schmidt added that, while not everything needed to be passed by emergency, council members could just use their common sense to determine when it was appropriate to do so to save time.
Schmidt and Dzierzewski got into a heated debate over their positions, and Dzierzawski continually pushed back against Murphree for providing examples of how other jurisdictions that he works with handle the issue.
Dzierzawski repeatedly told Murphree he didn’t care how anyone else did anything, only how things were done in Swanton.
Toeppe recommended eliminating the emergency necessity statement in favor of requiring the explanation of the need in “plain language” prior to such items being introduced at the actual council meeting.
Village Administrator Shannon Shulters said she feared requiring the necessity statement and telling contractors bidding on village projects that bid approval was more likely to go three full readings rather than being passed at a single council meeting could deter them from bidding in the first place or cause them to withdraw their bid.
She said the village already has a hard time getting contractors to bid on some projects.
Dzierzawski pushed back against both, saying it doesn’t give the public enough opportunity to weigh in.
He also pushed back when Shulters asked for a specific example of when the council had passed something by emergency that did not turn out to be beneficial for the village.
The changes also included a prohibition on passing on an emergency basis any legislation that would “grant, renew, or extend a public utility franchise,” “regulate the rate charged by a public utility,” “pertain to the zoning code or the building code,” or “change the salary or compensation for elected or appointed officers.”
In the end, the council voted 4-2 to include the necessity statements in future legislation, and to publish emergency ordinances on the village website and not in newspapers. Kreuz and Schmidt cast the dissenting votes.
Council members then voted after only brief discussion to add rules that no sitting council member can serve more than one year as president during their term of service and to prohibit the president pro tempore from nominating a successor.
Up next was the implementation of a business casual dress code, which did not sit well with Schmidt.
“As a people’s representative, I’m going to dress like the people,” he said, pointing out that business casual doesn’t work on a motorcycle.
Schmidt said it sends the wrong signal, that in order to have a voice on the council, you have to wear a uniform.
Dzierzawski said the lack of a dress code made council members “look like expletive,” to which Kreuz responded they “look like citizens.”
They eventually changed the dress code requirement from business casual to “appropriate attire” before passing it 5-1, with Schmidt casting the sole dissenting vote.
After taking a brief break, council members debated at length the necessity of committees, with Dzierzewski, David Pilliod, Patricia Pilliod, and Westhoven arguing in favor and Kreuz and Schmidt arguing in opposition.
Kreuz and Schmidt were both in favor of bringing back the committee of the whole but did not see the benefit of splitting up council members among the committees, with certain council members only hearing from certain departments.
Up to that point (since committees were eliminated several years ago), department reports were delivered in the full council meetings in front of all members and attendees.
As each committee only allows and includes two council members, that knowledge would be split among council members, per the argument.
Concerns were also raised and never clearly addressed as to what would happen if three or more council members all wanted to be on the same committee.
The issue of committee powers also came back up, with the rule changes initially including that each committee review and approve related departmental budgets and expenditures.
Murphree again stated that was not legal, that the council could not delegate its legislative authority, and committees can only review issues and advise the council.
Kreuz continued to question why the way the council had been operating was wrong, and why the format change was necessary, while David Pilliod repeatedly stated the committee format was how they did it for 50 years.
Schmidt repeatedly stated the changes were adding an unnecessary, ineffective layer of government to slow down the process.
Dzierzawski eventually called for the vote to be taken, and the changes passed 4-2 with Kreuz and Schmidt casting the dissenting votes.
Following up on the recreation of the committees, council members voted to hold the finance and public safety meetings immediately prior to the first council meeting of each month, and the finance and water/sewer meetings prior to the second, with the committee of the whole to meet no less than twice per year.
They then voted to set committee meeting times to 6 p.m. and 6:15 p.m., followed by the full council meeting at 6:30.
After limited discussion, council members voted unanimously against adding a section explaining exactly when executive sessions may be held, as it was directly quoted from state law.
Instead, they advised Shulters to add a link on the village website to an online guide to Ohio’s open meeting laws posted by the state government.
Another proposal considered by council was to require a unanimous vote in order to go into executive session. Murphree called the recommendation “incredibly imprudent” and “very dangerous,” pointing out that it gave veto power to any single council member – opening the door to individuals blocking economic development projects or personnel matters. The proposal was unanimously voted down.
The council wrapped up the final changes by voting to add committee reports and committee of the whole reports to the regular council agenda and to remove division reports from the same.
They also voted to add personnel to the agenda in order to allow votes on hiring, resignations, pay changes and the like for department employees.
Now that the changes to the rules have all been recommended and voted on, council members will vote to accept the slate of rules at the next regular meeting of the council at 6 p.m. on Monday, February 9, at the Swanton Middle School, 101 Elton’s Parkway.