POLITICAL FIELD SHAKING OUT?

COUNCIL… NEW POLITICAL BLOOD IN THE OFFING

It’s terrible how diminished the Sun Messenger has become at the hands of its most recent owner, Advance Ohio. 

What once was a true community asset---providing focused coverage of local events, politics and controversies, as well as a forum for local opinion and discourse---it is now, well, not that.

Thank heavens for freelance writer Jeff Piokowski, who continues to cover a large handful of eastside communities for Advance.

It was Jeff who reported that Councilwoman Cathy Murphy has decided not only not to run for mayor this fall, but to throw in the towel on her Ward 1 seat as well.
https://www.cleveland.com/community/2019/04/highland-heights-ward-1-councilwoman-cathy-murphy-will-not-run-for-mayor-or-seek-council-re-election.html

I hear Murphy is not the only longtime Council rep thinking about stepping away once their term ends in December.  
One or two other Council members may join her in retirement.

The city’s political leadership has been static for quite some time.
Maybe disgraced former mayor Scott Coleman’s resignation has shaken things up a bit, opening the door to some new blood.
That could be a good thing….. as long as the new politicos are committed to preserving the high quality of residential life that Highland Heights residents currently enjoy.

PROCEDURE VERSUS PRACTICALITY: COUNCIL MEMBERS’ ARM WRESTLING

Last Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole and Council meetings were pretty straightforward… until an arm wrestling match among Council members broke out.

That was highly unusual.

Council members talk privately to each other before meetings and usually avoid airing disagreements in public, and Council presidents normally do their best to dissuade members from pursuing actions that cause dissention, bad feelings and are doomed to failure.

For whatever reason, those things didn’t happen. 

Council harmony was shattered, quite publicly, last Tuesday.

The issue: whether Council should commit to following Charter-imposed procedures for enacting legislation or shortcut that procedure when authorizing police and service department spending.

The City Charter requires that, except for emergencies, proposed legislation should be read (and considered) at 3 Council meetings before being acted upon. Charter Section 4.09 reads in part:

“….no ordinance or resolution of a general or permanent nature….involving the expenditure of money or …for the purchase, lease, sale or transfer of property shall be passed unless it has been read in full (or by title) on three (3) different days unless the requirement for such three (3) readings be dispensed with by the affirmative vote of five (5) of the members of Council in accordance with Section 4.10.”

Section 4.10 refers to emergency measures and states, in part:

“Each emergency measure shall contain a statement of the necessity for such emergency action, a precise statement describing the emergency, and shall require the affirmative vote of five (5) of the members of Council for its enactment.”

The arm wrestling concerned whether to fast-track two resolutions authorizing the purchase of a new police vehicle and a service department truck body/chassis, the money for which was budgeted this year.

Councilwoman Cathy Murphy and Councilman Bob Mastrangelo saw no compelling reason to abandon the 3 reading requirement. They embraced Council’s duty to comply with the legislative procedure set out in the Charter.

Councilman Ed Hargate, however, felt differently. He said:

“I am asking for a suspension of the 3 readings because these have to do with public safety. …I don’t think that there should ever be a delay involved in obtaining this type of equipment.”

Hargate didn’t identify any particular emergency or exigent circumstances involving the police car or truck chassis/body.

In making his fast-tracking request, Hargate was expressing his personal view about how such matters should be handled. It also stuck me as a crafty political move, communicating his support for the city's first responders. It's also possible that the police chief and/or service director privately reached out to Hargate (as the head of Council’s Legislative & Finance Committee) prior to the Council meeting, asking for the accommodation.

On Tuesday night, Police Chief Jim Cook told Council that he didn’t specifically request fast-track approval of the police vehicle purchase. He explained that he was anxious to close the deal, as the vendor had been holding the police vehicle for the city, but Cook also conceded that the situation was not likely to change if there was a slight delay caused by giving the legislation the normally-required 3 readings. Cook also made clear, however, that he didn’t oppose Council’s fast-tracking the purchase:

 “If you have the votes tonight (to approve it) that would be great.”

Service Director Thom Evans seemed more anxious to have Council bypass the normal legislative procedure, but questioning by council members revealed that a purchase order for the truck that the chassis was going to be installed upon had itself just been issued. According to Evans it was going to take:

“…120 to 150 days (4 to 5 months) for the truck to be delivered. I wouldn’t make a promise that this truck will be ready for this snow season.”

Evans failed to make a case for rushing to obtain a chassis for the truck, which was months away from being delivered to the city and might not be put in service until 2020.
He certainly didn’t establish the kind of emergency necessary to bypass the normal legislative process.

Pursuant to the city Charter, fast-tracking legislation requires 5 votes.

On Tuesday Hargate’s motion to suspend the required 3 readings received only 3 votes (in addition to Hargate, Ann D’Amico and Lisa Stickan voted yes). It, therefore, failed.

Which simply means that the Police Chief and Service Director will have to wait a couple more weeks for Council’s purchase authorization.

Although Mastrangelo voted against bypassing normal legislative procedure this time, he also expressed frustration with the whole process.  He told me that once Council approved the budget, he thought supervisors should be able to simply go ahead and purchase budgeted items without having to return to Council to receive purchase authorizations.

Such an approach, while simpler, would undermine the tight control over the budget (and spending) that Council currently exercises and would undermine Council’s ability to enact cut-backs if economic times got tough as the budget year progressed.

Pursuant to the Charter legislative slowness has it purpose.

That’s especially true when it comes to spending taxpayer money.