Last week’s council meeting

Sorry for the delay, but here are my notes from Thursday’s city council meeting:

911 Dispatch Charter Amendment – Councilman Lowdermilk proposed an amendment to Stow’s charter, which would require the 911 dispatch center to be located on city grounds. The purpose is to give voters an opportunity to decide if they want to have their 911 dispatch operations to be city-operated, or operated by a third party that the city does not entirely control. As it stands today, council and the mayor could outsource dispatching to a council of governments (i.e., a “COG”)–without the voters’ approval. The pros/cons of a COG are for a later day. The question now is whether voters should get a say in such a significant decision. The proposed amendment will need 5 votes from council to be presented to the voters in November. It received 5 votes to make it out of committee last week (Harrison and Costello voted “no”).

Planning Commission Term Limits – Planning Commission, in my opinion, is the most thankless job in city government. You make tough decisions and receive no compensation, while performing the important gate-keeping function for zoning decisions. With that said, we should be constantly cycling in new blood and new perspectives. Council voted by a 7-0 count to present a charter amendment to the voters this November, to decide whether Planning Commission members should be subject to the same 8-year term limits as all of the city’s elected officials. This was a proposal Matt Riehl and I worked on together.

Graham Road – Beginning this morning, we will undertake a massive project to repave Graham Road, basically from 91 to Silver Lake Country Club. It will last 5 weeks. The good news is, there will always be at least one lane open in both directions.

Next Meeting – Council will meet next on June 13.