Vote Yes on Issue 43

[Mark Kindt]

Amending The Charter

If I was asked to pose a single change to the Third Amended Charter, it would be this.

1. The Charter should be amended to prohibit any elected official from serving on the board of a for-profit corporation, like a bank. It makes no sense to me that a mayor should be able to hold office and sit on the board of a local bank.

Additionally, I would propose this change:

1. The position of Law Director would be a full-time position; all part-time legal practice prohibited.

2. The Charter would also prohibit the Law Director from serving as a Law Director in another municipality on a part-time or simultaneous basis.

3. No point in amending the Charter, until Lakewood passes reform legislation like that proposed by Council-Member Tristan Rader.

While I understand the "tidiness" of the Issue 43 proposal; we've all just witnessed massive failures in governance and competence in the management of the City by its current leadership team, entirely unrelated to the judicial branch.

[stephen davis]

There will be many qualified and talented candidates from both parties who will be interested in this race. I intend to vote against Issue 43.

Mark,

You have missed the point.

Our elections, as defined by our city charter, are designed to have the winner of any election receive a majority of the votes cast. Mayoral and Council elections are mechanically similar in that regard. The current and unique exception in voting mechanics is for the Municipal Judge position. This charter amendment will make ALL Lakewood elections mechanically similar, and consistent with the goals of the most recent Charter Commission.

For background, you might like to know that in all of my 20-plus year history of my involvement with our city charter, I did not know that we could have a primary for judge in Lakewood until I had a conversation last year with our current judge, Pat Carroll, who will retire at the end of his term.

The Lakewood judge plays an important role in our community, one who a majority of voters should support. It is my understanding that there may be a significant number of candidates who seek that position. I think a winner with a plurality that is of a low percentage of votes, as is possible with the current charter, may not best represent the will of a majority of voters.

By Ohio law, Lakewood can make this charter decision about a primary preceding the election of our judge. Not all cities can. Any city that has a judge shared by other communities cannot. Rocky River is just one example of that. That judge is shared by some adjacent cities. Ohio law does not allow a primary in that case.

Yes, “… many qualified and talented candidates from both parties … will be interested in this race.” This amendment will not stop any candidate from participating. It will ultimately elect the candidate with the broadest support regardless of party.

I’m obviously in favor of Issue 43. You, as a good government advocate should be too.

I commend Councilaman Dan O'Malley for promoting this amendment.

The last Amended Charter has proven something of a disaster for us. --No hospital. --No enforceable ethics requirements.

Wrong. The hospital was gone before the current charter became effective. You may remember that the charter previous to this one used the word “may” in reference to what the city could do with the hospital. That word, in my opinion, was exploited in a way to go against the historic precedence and community support of the hospital. I’m not going to argue about the hospital, but this example shows how important language is in a document that defines our form of government.

The current charter has an ethics provision. There had never been an ethics provision in the Lakewood charter. This is obviously something new, and yes, it lacks teeth. It is mostly hortatory in nature. Adding enforcement will be up to Council, citizens, or the next Charter Commission to address. I encourage it.

Our city charter is a dynamic document. It is under regular/irregular review. Charter Commissions only serves six months every ten years. Citizens and Council may propose amendments at any time to go on subsequent ballots for voter approval. It is optimistic to think this document is of interest to the general public, but I would encourage everyone to take a little time to understand the form of government defined by our charter and their relationship to it.

Just FYI, until 1999, the Lakewood charter still prescribed how to vote. It required a penciled “X” in a printed box. This was well past the actual use of punch and other types of ballots. There was a long time when people voted contrary to the charter's legal requirements. The charter always referred to the mayor as “he”. Those are just a couple of historic examples of why the document must be systematically reviewed for amendment.

This is not a problem for me. One of Lakewood's biggest problem is that it is a single party polity -- Democrats only.

One of Lakewood's biggest problems is that it has a non-partisan ballot. Invariably, the primary match-up will only be is Democrat v. Democrat.

Your “problem” has a long history. Stan Austin addressed part of it earlier in this thread. He is right that we had non-partisan elections until the 1950’s. Lakewood was a Republican city. When Frank Celeste was elected mayor, the charter was amended to provide for partisan elections. That would expose people like Celeste as the Democrats they were. Celeste was popular anyway.

Stan was right about Republican Ryan Demro’s efforts to change the charter back to non-partisan elections. He considered that an asset to his party; something to bring back the good old days. What Stan may or may not know is that there were five original petitioners for the citizen initiative charter amendment that made our elections non-partisan. Two of the originals were Republicans, two were Democrats, and one was Independent. I was one of them. It was a rough go. We shared a goal, but not motives.

My first involvement with the charter was in 1999. That predated non-partisan elections by years. I learned a lot. I was interested in our elections. I talked with a couple of the decision-makers who helped change the charter around 40 years before. One called it their biggest mistake.

In 1999, I was interested in the mix of our voters. I don’t recall the numbers exactly, so don’t quote me on what I use to further the discussion. Also, the numbers may be quite different today. I invite anybody to provide new data on this. Anyway, I was not really surprised that registered Democrats at that time outnumbered registered Republicans by almost two to one. More surprising was the fact that Independent voters outnumbered the total numbers of Democrats and Republicans put together by nearly two to one. It occurred to me that Independent voters may be under-represented by a partisan primary system. Non-partisan elections offer more participation opportunities to more voters. Of course, I understand that not every voter will use those opportunities, but that is a good goal.

To my knowledge, we only have one vestige of party politics in our charter. That is in the provision for the Civil Service Commission. The three appointed members must be of mixed parties. I have tried to change that with no success. I could never get any traction for it, and that is fair in a democracy. It just seems inconsistent and weird relative to the rest of our charter. Alas.


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[Dan Alaimo]

Now it makes sense to me. Thanks!

[Mark Kindt]

I appreciate the fact that Mr. Davis took the time to provide these written clarifications.

If you have read my posts over the past three years, you will understand that I am deeply concerned about governmental process.

If you have read my posts over the past three years, you will understand that I am deeply concerned about the constant abuses in these governmental processes -- that I and other public interest lawyers have documented in writing and in lawsuits.

I appreciate your civic commitment and your role on the Charter review commission.

Let's keep in mind that while the "hospital" provisions of the Second Charter were being revised, those same provisions were being used by the Law Department to justify the public conflicts- of-interest on the LHA Board to the Ohio Ethics Commission. -- As the mayor, and Mr. Bullock, and Ms. Madigan hid the single largest development in the recent history of the city. Should I send you the 2012 blueprints? Or the demolitions photos.

If I was comfortable with the city's ability to govern itself in an ethical and legal manner, I would not write what I write.

In what universe do Democrat officeholders demolish their public hospital to construct townhouses for the affluent? Ours, I guess.

So nice that we've tidied-up the Charter!

Who has gone without access to charity-care since February 2016? How should we measure their misery? Did the new hospital Avon do anything for them?

So nice that we've tidied-up the Charter!

Bravo, Democrats! Bring on your developers!