At least two petitions to change the Cincinnati charter are circulating for signatures to get on the November ballot. City Council Member Liz Keating hopes to have a charter amendment on the ballot, too — one that would change the process for residents to propose an amendment.
Cincinnati doesn’t have any specific rules for proposing a charter amendment, and the lack of clarity has caused some recent headaches.
Readers might remember a heated council meeting about two years ago, when then-State Representative Tom Brinkman accused city officials of sabotage and corruption.
"We weren’t messed up!" Brinkman yelled. "You guys were messed up! This building is what's messed up!"
At issue was an error in the ballot summary of his proposed charter amendment. All evidence points to a simple mistake, one Keating says could be avoided under her proposed changes.
"Experiences of the past really made us look at what we can do and what changes are in our jurisdiction," she said.
For one, full ballot language would have to be filed with the city before any signatures are collected.
"This gives the law department the time to be able to check everything, cross the t's, dot the i's, make sure everything is perfect and is clear to the voters what they're voting on."
State law has the same requirement for statewide ballot initiatives, but it doesn't apply to city-level ballot measures.
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Keating’s proposal would also limit charter amendments to one topic, and would require a clear title on all the signature pages. She says the rules are based on an ordinance passed by Columbus city officials in 2014, without going as far as they did.
"If there is public interest in addressing more of the provisions that Columbus did, we would do more extensive community engagement," Keating said. "I do think some of those might be a little bit more controversial, like requiring a public filing of anybody you're paying to work on your referendum before they start working."
Keating's proposal is itself an amendment to the city charter. She filed a motion last week asking the law department to draft an ordinance with the amendment. She says Council will debate the measure at its next meeting in early August, then decide in September whether to put the idea on the November ballot for voters to have final say.
