The Dayton Charter review committee

Not that anyone cares, but the Dayton City Commission appointed a charter review committee to clean up the City Charter. which is an old and tired document.

I’ve been calling for changes to the recall and charter change requirements for years. ^[1] Of course, I wasn’t invited to work on the committee.

Here is who the commission appointed:

• Richard Clay Dixon – Chairperson
• Jason Antonick
• Jimmy Calhoun
• Mike Galbreath
• Gaye Jordan
• Marcia Knox
• John Lumpkin
• Pat Rickman
• Greg Scott
• Manicka Thomas
• Dave Williamson
  

They’ve already completed most of their meetings, and a Freedom of Information Act request got me the following minutes: 2014 Charter review committee minutes ^[2] from which I culled the following:

Meetings are held in the City Manager’s Large Conference Room, Second Floor, City Hall on Thursdays:

• June 12, 3:30-5:00
• June 26, 3:30-5:00
• July 10, 3:30-5:00
• July 24, 3:30-5:00

and if needed- an additional one Thursday, July 31, 3:30-5:00

I’ll be attempting to visit the final scheduled meeting tomorrow to clarify the following:

4. Change special elections to require 50% of voting.
Members directed that no additional action be taken on this tiem (sic).

Mr. Gray explained that the commission did not expect to put each item up for a separate vote or to put all the items in one package for a single vote. He explained that the commission would welcome suggestions from the committee on how to organize the items into a few ballot issues.

While this is a great start to make changes to the former rules that were based on number of total registered voters, which could exceed the number of residents over the age of 18 due to rules of the Board of Elections- nothing is mentioned about the petitions, their language and the obsolete requirement of having a notary sign off on petitions. I hope to bring this up tomorrow.

They are still planning to discuss language for the following:

• Ensuring that the City has the power to levy service charges, fees and taxes granted by the state to local governments
• Permitting the City to levy special assessments using the standard provisions of state law that may change from time to time.
• Permitting the City to enter into arrangements and contracts with other governments. The absence of this provision in our Charter could be used against us since it is in most city charters.

Considering they just popped the street light assessment on residents without a vote, I would think more people would be upset about additional ways to levy taxes without votes by the public.

Please consider joining me at the meeting on the 24th.