First adopted in 1961, the North Ridgeville Charter provides the legal framework to govern the city.
On Nov. 8, voters in one of the fastest-growing cities in Northeast Ohio will have the opportunity to cast ballots on eight changes to the charter.
Nine city residents selected to the Charter Committee began meeting earlier in 2022.
They reviewed the current charter and came up with a list of recommended alterations and revisions that will now go to the voters.
On the ballot, they’ll appear as Issue 29 through Issue 36.
Issue 29, if passed, would create a Department of Finance by essentially combining the office of the city’s auditor and treasurer, Mayor Kevin Corcoran said.
“There have just been a lot of overlaps in those departments,” Corcoran said.
And the current set-up also has caused some legal concerns, said Corcoran, who was a practicing lawyer before becoming mayor.
Under the current setup, and in simplified terms, the city’s auditor handles the outgoing funds while the treasurer handles incoming, Corcoran explained.
But when the city undergoes a state audit, it is only the city’s auditor who is held culpable if something is amiss with the books, he said.
“They hold the auditor responsible for everything, and in our city, the auditor is not responsible for everything,” Corcoran said. “There’s a whole department that that person does not oversee.
“From a legal standpoint, I was always bothered by the fact you can have someone held responsible for the mistakes of a whole (different) department.”
Issue 30 deals with the charter’s mandatory referral of rezoning to the electors.
The proposed changes will eliminate a clunky and confusing mathematical formula used to determine when land can be used to rezone the property for multi-family use.
The revised amendment would strip out the formula and put the issue to a vote of the public.
“We are still saying it would go to the vote of the public,” Corcoran said.
Additional changes would give the City Council the right to approve projects for mixed-use zoning.
Corcoran said mixed-use projects are ones like Westlake’s Crocker Park, which feature a mix of housing, retail and office space.
“We are asking for a change to allow the Council to have the role of rezoning for mixed-use projects,” he said.
Corcoran said it’s really not that big a change.
“Any kind of business re-zoning goes to the Council,” he said. “If it is re-zoned from residential to business, it goes to the Council for approval.”
“We are asking for that same process in the case.”
The change could aid the redevelopment of the area where the former middle school stood at the corner of Center Ridge and Avon Belden roads, Corcoran said.
There has been some interest in the land from developers who would like to do a mixed-used project on the site — a Crocker Park-type area — but are leery that under the current charter, the project could be challenged by citizens’ group who might oppose it, he said.
“They don’t want to propose a project and do all the work planning only for it to be shut down in a citywide campaign and not have it go forward,” Corcoran said.
Changing the charter amendment in this way “would allow the City to pursue the creation of a ‘town center’ concept with a mix of retail, restaurants, offices and apartments,” at that old middle school site, according to information on the city’s website.
Issue 31, would allow the city to create its own rules for the sale, lease disposal and improvement of municipal property.
Passing Issue 31 would give the city more control over the future development of city-owned land, the Charter Commission said.
Issue 32 would alter the chain of command in the city in the event the city’s auditor becomes incapacitated.
Currently, the clerk of council takes over in the auditor’s absence.
Issue 33 would clarify which city employees are classified and unclassified and bring the city into compliance with state law.
Issue 34 would allow an appointed member of City Council to take over as Council president.
Currently, the Council president must have been elected by the people to be eligible to be in that post.
Issues 35 and 36 would allow the city to post city publications, such as resolutions, ordinances, meeting notices, etc., electronically and end the requirement that such notices be physically posted on a bulletin board in the city hall lobby.
Corcoran said the proposed changes to the charter “give us improvements on how we can run the city.”
The charter allows the city to make its own rules instead of following the Ohio Revised Code, which might not be as beneficial to the city as the charter allows it to be, he said.
