Nelsonville gets a transition plan for a new government, but its fate now rests with the Supreme Court
< < Back to ?p=345531ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) –– A committee tasked with guiding Nelsonville through its transition to a new form of government presented its plan to the City Council this week, at the same time the city is trying to halt that transition in court.
The committee’s plan included recommendations for the statutory council to implement once new council members took office Jan. 1, which included passing ordinances to reauthorize the city’s police and fire departments and establish a ward map.
However, that plan is now in limbo.
Last month, the council voted to repeal Issue 23, saying it had the power under the charter to abolish a citizen initiative.
The council then asked the Ohio Supreme Court to remove all candidates running under Issue 23 from the November ballot.
All parties in the case filed their briefs Friday. Nelsonville City Law Director Jonathan Robe said he expects the Supreme Court will make a decision before overseas ballots go out Sept. 19.
Ad Hoc Committee Chair Reid Courtney acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation but said he hopes the plan will still be useful as the city waits for the court’s ruling.
“No matter what the Supreme Court decides, no matter what we look like in a couple months’ time, we just hope they can be of some value to the city,” he said.
Coming up short on the council
Several council members said they repealed Issue 23 because of the December problem: the one-month period between Nov. 30 when all current council members’ terms end and Jan. 1 when new council members elected under Issue 23 would take office under statutory government.
The council tried to address this problem by adding a one-month, December-only council term to the November ballot. Only two candidates are running for these seats.
Following the repeal, the Athens County Board of Elections decided to continue allowing candidates to run under both the charter and Issue 23 until a court could provide more guidance.
Current council members Cameron Peck and Cory Taylor are running for the one-month December term, while Councilmember Nic Joseph Saul and Treasurer McCray Powell are running for seats on the council under the charter for a full term, also starting Dec. 1.
This means that come December, there would be enough people on the City Council to fulfill quorum requirements and pass legislation, such as the budget. Joseph Saul said her concerns over the council’s ability to pass necessary legislation during the transition period between the charter and statutory governments were part of the reason she voted to repeal Issue 23.
Before the council repealed Issue 23, Peck was the only candidate running for the December-only term and would have been the only person on the council come Dec. 1. In that situation, he would have had to appoint three other people to meet quorum and six people total to fill the remaining seats.
Joseph Saul said the council has had issues finding people who want to serve on the council as appointees and cited her own experience when she was appointed to the council in April.
Now, with the repeal of Issue 23, there would be four people on the council in December: Peck and Taylor serving a one-month term and Joseph Saul and Powell serving a full term. While they would meet quorum requirements, they would still need to appoint a fifth member to pass emergency legislation.
If those four were unable to find a fifth person to appoint, Robe said this could leave the city in exactly the same position it would have been in under the original December problem: with the city unable to pass emergency legislation because it did not have five people on council, as Section 4.10 of the city’s charter requires.
“Unless there are five members of council in December, no emergency legislation can be passed on an emergency basis,” Robe said.
However, Robe said this may not be an issue because emergency legislation often involves construction projects, and December is not a busy month for construction.
“There may well not be an emergency that comes up in December, but if you don’t have five members and an emergency does come up, you don’t have an ability to deal with anything on an emergency basis,” he said.
Most Nelsonville council members would be appointed
For Taylor, Issue 23’s lack of a long-term transition plan was the main reason why he voted to repeal it.
“Just automatically thinking that … turning the lights off Dec. 31 and then turning the lights back on on Jan. 1 was going to solve the problem and everything’s different … isn’t how it needs to work,” he said. “There’s a lot of logistical work that needs to be done.”
Repealing Issue 23 also reveals another problem. Once Peck and Taylor’s terms expire Dec. 31, Powell and Saul would need to appoint two more members to fill these vacancies in January, assuming the council was able to find three people to fill the empty seats on the council in December. This would mean that in January, five of the seven council members will have been appointed, not elected by voters.
Joseph Saul said this was not intentional on the council’s part.
“It’s not a matter of design, this is just how it happened. This is the best that we can do under the circumstances,” she said.
However, if the Supreme Court rejects the city’s request and instead overturns the repeal of Issue 23, there are enough candidates running under the initiative to fill all council seats.
Taylor said he thinks certain members of the public will not be bothered by the number of appointees, versus elected members, on council if the Issue 23 repeal is upheld by the court.
“I think most of them are less concerned about who’s going to be there versus what it is they’re going to do,” Taylor said.