The Athens County Board of Elections appears to have found a workaround to Nelsonville City Council’s ward problem
By: Joshua Hoerner
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — It now looks like Nelsonville will have at least six City Council members in January when it switches to a new form of government.
The city doesn’t have wards under its current form of government. And the current council doesn’t have the authority to create them.
At its meeting Tuesday, the Athens County Board of Elections solved this problem with a section of the Ohio Revised Code that covers how townships become cities.
Because townships don’t have wards, this section allows all council members to initially be elected as at-large members. The new council would then adopt wards for the next election.
Nelsonville’s city attorney, Jonathan Robe, agreed this is the right approach.
“I think they are correct,” Robe said. “Maybe it’s not a perfect answer, but it’s the best fit.”
Because of ballot initiative Issue 23 passing last November, Nelsonville is abolishing its charter government and switching to a statutory one. The city is currently navigating through the transition between governments, with the charter expiring at the end of this year.
So far, six people are running for a seat on the new council, which will take over Jan. 1. There is still time for other candidates to run, but only as write-in candidates.
There was a seventh candidate for a council seat, current councilmember Cameron Peck. But the elections board found that he did not have enough valid signatures and disqualified his petition.
However, Peck is still eligible to run for the one-month council term beginning and ending in December. This office is necessary to solve the city’s so called “December problem.”
This problem is a result of the fact that the new council members take office Jan. 1, however, all but one of the current council members’ terms end Nov. 30. And the one council member whose term doesn’t end in November, Nancy Sonick, said she plans to resign in November.
This would leave the city without a council for the month of December.
Sonick this week filed a petition to run for mayor as a write-in candidate. Her petition has not yet been certified by the board.
Meanwhile, the board also rejected James Pancake’s petition to run for mayor because he did not have enough valid signatures. Pancake is still eligible to run for City Council on the November ballot.
The deadline for write-in candidates to file for both the full council term starting in January and the December-only term is Aug. 25.