Speedy Legislation

There seems to be a pattern among Minerva Park legislation practice. Issues, regardless of importance for our purposes here, are treated in a less than up-front manner.

Ohio law allows for legislative authorities to move issues through without presenting them to the public in three separate readings. One would assume this was established with the interest of time sensitive, unpredicted matters. There are indeed times when legislation is "necessary for the public health, safety, and welfare of the residents" and must "take effect and shall be in force upon its passage."

However, I sincerely doubt that the Ohio Revised Code intended for this "declaration of emergency" or dispensation of the three separate readings was intended to speed along topics such as installing vending machines, increasing pay ranges, or widening road construction (a project that has yet to be presented, four months after being declared an emergency to be effected upon its passage in October). At least not for the instances which Minerva Park has implemented it.

Regardless of the importance of legislative measures, right or wrong issues, truly emergency or not, Minerva Park has a record of both declaring a large percent of issues an emergency, and waiving readings -OR- holding readings on dates other than the "Council Meetings" held the second Monday of each month.

I will save the questioning of "emergency" merit for another post, for now, let's look at the numbers.

The legislative documents where this data originates can be found at http://www.minervapark.org/legislation/index.htm. I will begin here with just data from 2010, to get an example of what last year held in our community's behind-closed-doors politics.

There are 43 Resolutions and 6 Ordinances listed for 2010. As of today, there were two Resolutions that were inaccessible via the internet, but listed on the Village website. For this data, these two are excluded.

Of the 43 Resolutions, 3 of them are pertaining to the same issue and list the same dates, so for these purposes, they are counted as one.

This leaves us with a total of 39 pieces of legislation for the 2010 year in Minerva Park, per the Village website.

Out of 39 legislative documents:

Labeled Emergency:
22   (56%)

All three readings waived:
14   (36%)

Two readings waived:
1    (2%)- this particular resolution was read the same date of passage, technically I'm not sure the difference between this and waiving all three readings, Council, would you like to explain?

One reading waived:
3   (7%)

Dates read include non-routine, non-public Council Meetings:
6   (15%)

Labeled "Take effect upon passage":
3   (7%)

Presented as "typical" legislation: 
(Read three times at the scheduled, public Council Meetings, not declared emergency nor to take effect upon passage)
17   (43%)


Out of 39 legislative documents, over the course of 12 months.


The 2005-2009 Census Estimate puts 1,389 people in our community. With a population of roughly 1,400, is a 56% reliance on "emergency" declaration and practice of waiving all three readings 36% of the time necessary? Isn't our government prepared with routine renewals and proposals? Shouldn't the government present issues for the people, with a reasonable duration to allow for people to be aware, without having to babysit their elected officials?

As of now, I feel as though Minerva Park politics is held in a way that almost covers up its goings on and presents the community with a one-sided, this-is-what-you-want-to-hear answer for everything. Unless citizens are truly pro-active, and think critically, they won't know what is going on with their tax dollars, their police force, or their community itself.

Part of this stems from the legislative body's tendency to rush items through the legislation process. If community members don't watch over the Village website, attend each Council Meeting, or have coffee with their representatives, they have NO say in the way their tax dollars are spent, and typically no awareness of it either.

It is a shame to live in a community with such history, such beauty, and feel as though our government is abusing its power, much like a "high school hierarchy".