Stow City Council overrides mayor's veto on meeting requirements for board and commissions
Stow City Council voted this week to override the mayor's veto of a measure requiring all city boards and commissions to hold their meetings in council chambers and to record and broadcast those meetings with equipment in the room.
The legislation was initially passed during a Nov. 10 meeting but was vetoed by Mayor John Pribonic on the grounds that the ordinance fell outside council's purview under the city charter.
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On Wednesday, council overrode the veto with a vote of 5-2 in favor of passing the ordinance. The boards and commissions must follow the new meeting requirements by Feb. 23.
In a six-page letter sent to council on Nov. 16, Pribonic wrote that the ordinance removed the ability of the city's boards and commissions to determine their own administrative methods and meeting procedures. He cites section 3.04 of the city charter that reads, "The Mayor shall supervise the administration of all the affairs of the Municipality and the conduct and administration of all departments except Council, Clerk of Council, Department of Finance and Department of Law."
According to the letter, the city's Law Department, via email, advised the legislation's sponsor, Council President Jeremy McIntire (At-Large), against introducing the ordinance as it's written, even providing an amended version that it said would work with the city charter.
"To my knowledge," Pribonic wrote, "the email from the Law Department was ignored and the Law Department's amended version was never introduced."
In an interview Friday, McIntire said the legislation is meant to increase transparency by providing a verbatim record of a given meeting's proceedings instead of a parsed down version in meeting minutes.
McIntire asserted council is within its bounds to legislate the matter. He pointed to section 4.18 of the city charter, which reads in-part, "Where organization, powers, and duties of departments, boards and commissions are not expressly provided herein they shall be as provided by resolution or ordinance of Council."
"The Law Department's position was to advise the mayor to veto this," he said. "If you look at the meeting minutes....from when this was introduced on the 10th, I specifically asked the mayor if it was his intentions to veto it under the advisement of the Law Department, at which time the mayor...indicated he didn't know what it was, that he would have to look into it and talk with the Law Department."
Both the mayor and McIntire were copied on an email containing the Law Department's advice to veto the ordinance, McIntire said.
"I find it kind of ironic that you provide a six-page letter for vetoing a piece of legislation, and the law director provided their comments, but neither one of them even showed up to the special meeting of council to even defend the veto they provided to the council," McIntire said.
A message left with the mayor's office seeking comment Friday was not immediately returned.
Contact reporter Derek Kreider at DKreider@Gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Stow council overrides mayor's veto on meeting requirement measure
