Refresher for Vacancies on Council

The following is the procedure to be taken for filling vacancies on council, as found in the 2011 Rules of Council.

Filling Vacancies on Council
When a vacancy arises on council either through a council member vacating an unexpired term or because no one ran to fill a 4-year term, there will be an immediate call for citizens to indicate their interest in filling the unexpired or vacant term. Such call will be made through announcements in the village newsletter, phone calls from council members and others knowing of the vacancy, and announcements placed at appropriate
places in the village. Such announcements will include the deadline for citizens to indicate their interest. The deadline will be within 30 days of the first date the vacancy was announced to the public.

To indicate interest, a citizen must submit a resume and letter of intent to the mayor or any of the council members. Once the mayor or council member receives the resume and letter, he/she will immediately see that all members of council receive copies. If no regular meeting is scheduled, a special meeting will be scheduled immediately after the deadline in order for the interested citizens to appear in person before the mayor and
council to both ask and answer questions.

Every effort should be made to have all council members present to interview and select a new member. At least four members* of council must be present in order to call the meeting to order and select and vote to fill a vacancy. Filling the vacancy will be the first order of business on the agenda.

All candidates would be interviewed and a vote taken. Voting is to be done by secret ballot one position at a time with the vacancy of shortest duration filled first. Because there might be multiple vacancies (one, two or even three vacancies) on council at one time, there must be at least three council members present to proceed with the voting.

Whether there are three, four, or five members of council present to select a new member, at least three votes must be cast in favor of any one individual for that person to be selected. In no instance would a person be voted to council with fewer than three votes.

Once the vote is taken and an applicant has received three or more votes, that person can be placed on council by resolution and sworn in by the mayor and can begin his/her duties immediately. If there are still vacancies and still interested applicants for the positions, the voting can continue until all positions are filled. All members of council are required to vote unless there is a conflict of interest (see section on Voting), and , if a member feels there are no qualified candidates among those interested, that council member can cast a blank ballot that indicates "NO VOTE.”

If council is unable to select a replacement within the 30 day period, the mayor shall appoint a replacement or the mayor can decide that the position will be re-advertised and there will be another 30 days to fill the position.

Unless otherwise decided by the mayor and council, the person filling the vacancy will serve on all the committees as the person being replaced until the end of the year, however, if the person being replaced was chair of the committee, the mayor and council may appoint one of the existing committee members to serve as chair for the remainder of the year.

*In the unlikely event that there are three vacancies on council at one time, a meeting can be called to order with only three members with appointing a new council member being the first and only item to be acted upon with three members. In the case of three vacancies, if any one person receives all three votes of the council members present, that person is immediately placed on council by resolution and sworn in by the mayor. At
that point there are now four on council, the new member may vote, and there is a quorum to conduct business.

I should expect to see notification of this vacancy immediately. Even if the legal requirement of notification is met, I doubt it will be in an effective manner, considering very few people I have spoken with are aware of the previous resignation of the Clerk-Treasurer that occurred last week, though that position is not covered under Rules of Council.

Update: The resignation this was in reference to has been rescinded. The council member still holds this position.

Special Meeting - Clerk-Treasurer Position

Special Meeting

Addressing the Vacancy of Clerk-Treasurer Position 

Monday, May 16

7:30 pm

Due to a presumably unexpected vacancy in the position of Clerk-Treasurer, a meeting is planned to be held at the Minerva Park Community Building on Monday, May 16th at 7:30 p.m..

In the Council Meeting held Monday May 9th, Council discussed the pending ordinance to eliminate the elected position of Clerk-Treasurer and create a Fiscal Officer position.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides of this debate. Before the vacancy arrived, council was going to keep discussing this ordinance (although in a rushed manner, somewhat less than it is at present) until the July 11th meeting. Due to this vacancy, and presumably a lack of criteria for this situation, there will now be a need to make a decision in a faster manner. Without residents' involvement, decisions will be made that present the desires of a certain few. I urge you to be present at this meeting, or if nothing else voice your opinion on it. Share your ideas, and let them know you're paying attention.

Some of the following has been discussed with regards to the creation of a Fiscal Officer Position:
Pros: 

• Credibility of candidate (presumably- this depends on the hiring process, and who makes the final decision)
• May be removed from position if necessary
• Broadens candidate base
• Know what to expect, as opposed to an unknown elect
• Experience requirement (again, presumably, this all depends on the hiring process)

Cons:

• Potential cost*: mention of salary range towards $45k/year plus $10k-15k benefits (at present C/T position is in the neighborhood of $22k ) (these conservative values are negotiable- not included in ordinance, could increase or decrease)
• Removes choice from residents' vote
• Candidate could be out of the park, taking the opportunity from residents, and removing civic responsibility aspect
• Workload is still very large (other options have been brought up but need explored, such as splitting positions)
• Fiscal Officer's pay may increase with negotiation, at present the C/T position would not increase unless voted on by council
• Invested in one person: if they are absent, many responsibilities are as well
• Creation of Fiscal Officer assumes no residents want to run for position by election
• Burdens the Village with a search for a qualified applicant

*Some discussions to balance cost included limiting trash collection or charging for it, income tax revenues, levies, and the idea that a person qualified enough for the position will advise the park as to how to afford their services--after they have been hired.


While the issue at hand now must be addressed due to this vacancy, I am personally disappointed by the lack of effort on our representatives to inform citizens of this issue. During the Council Meeting, it was brought up that the topic "had been discussed" for a period of time, however neither I nor some of council had heard of the discussion until it became an "emergency" because of the July deadline with the Board of Elections.

There is a procedure for filling vacancies in Council (pg 3) that includes as follows:

"immediate call for citizens to indicate their interest in filling the unexpired or vacant term. Such call will be made through announcements in the village newsletter, phone calls from council members and others knowing of the vacancy, and announcements placed at appropriate places in the village. Such announcements will include the deadline for citizens to indicate their interest. The deadline will be within 30 days of the first date the vacancy was announced to the public."

So far, there seems to be no immediate call for citizens to indicate interest in the Clerk-Treasurer position, which is not included under Rules of Council, however a similar approach might be appropriate. Either way, personally I have not seen much effort to inform citizens of either this present need, nor the ordinance as discussed in the May 9th Council Meeting. Perhaps that's because it's not desired that we know? Or maybe it is thought that we're just better off not knowing.

Minutes Posted on Minerva Park Website

As described in the May issue of The Villager, "the official minutes of the Council, as prepared and certified by the Clerk-Treasurer" are available for viewing on the village website.

Perhaps this is an effort for less public records requests? Or maybe an effort to provide a more open account of what goes on in the Community Building?   Either way, the issue still stands that the minutes, as prepared and certified by the Clerk-Treasurer, are less than "full and accurate. The following is as appears in the Ohio Sunshine Laws Manual in regards to minutes:

C. Minutes
1. Content of Minutes
A public body must keep full and accurate 

minutes of its meetings. 

Those minutes are not required to be a verbatim transcript 

of the proceedings, but must include enough facts and 

information to permit the public to understand and 

appreciate the rationale behind the public body’s decisions.
Because executive sessions are not open to the public, 

the meeting minutes need to reflect only the general 

subject matter of the executive session via the motion 

to convene the session for a permissible purpose or purposes.
2. Making Minutes Available
A public body must promptly prepare, file, and make 

available its minutes for public inspection.

The final version of the official minutes approved by members 

of the public body is a public record.

Note that a draft version of the meeting minutes that is being 

circulated for approval is also a public record.
3. Medium on Which Minutes are Kept
The medium on which the official meeting minutes are kept 

is not addressed in either the Ohio Open Meetings Act or 

the Ohio Public Records Act, and may thus be 

determined by the public body itself.
Some public bodies document that choice by 

adopting a formal rule or by passing a resolution or 

motion at a meeting that is reflected in the minutes. 

Many public bodies make a contemporaneous audio recording of the 

meeting to use as back-up in preparing written official minutes. 

The Ohio Attorney General has opined that such 

a recording constitutes a public record that must be made
available for inspection upon request.

Having attended these meetings, I can personally say that the minutes published do not reflect the meeting in a full and accurate way. The minutes could possibly still be said to "permit the public to understand and appreciate the rationale behind the public body's decisions" in that the minutes include support of the public body's decisions; the issue is what they exclude. The reasoning against the public body's decisions. The discrepancies. The details in citizen comments. And when it comes down to it, the honest, unbiased representation of the meeting, all of these things are missing from the minutes as certified by the Clerk-Treasurer.

Repeatedly, there have been discrepancies about the content of the minutes which are brought up before the motion to approve. These don't usually appear in the "full and accurate" minutes. Also missing are the discussions as to why some members vote differently than others. Now, this isn't necessarily discussed, a council member doesn't have to comment on their vote, however in every meeting I've been to, there is discussion. A wonderful example of my issue with this is seen in the November 2010 Minutes, under Resolution 2010-30 and also Ordinance 04-2010 "discussion" is listed, as though that is sufficient to display the rationale behind decisions of the public body.

Hopefully the minutes will improve, as there is pressure from a select few to increase the accuracy and hopefully play down the bias. Although according to the Clerk-Treasurer these minutes are a reflection of whomever writes them, paraphrased from a statement she made in the March 2011 Council Meeting. That, I believe, will not be found in "the official minutes of the Council, as prepared and certified by the Clerk-Treasurer".