Mahoning Valley Forum

The Youngstown City Council is all in a tizzy over some of the Charter Review Committee recommendations especially those that apply to them directly.

  Most of the disputes center on issues that directly impact city-council members.

They include: reducing their annual pay, making it more difficult for them to receive medical benefits from the city, eliminating president of council as an elected position, changing to nonpartisan elections, and requiring council committee and general meetings to start no earlier than 6 p.m.

"I don't think the whole plan to change council president has been thought out," said Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st.

Councilwoman Janet Tarpley, D-6th, said a proposal to reduce council's annual salary from $27,817.24 to $20,721.60, 80 percent of the average annual income of a city resident, was a bad idea.

Council may ask charter-review committee members for follow-up information and will ask the law director to review the recommendations to determine if they comply with state and federal laws, said Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th, chairman of the legislation committee. Then council will determine what proposals will be on the fall ballot for voters to consider, he said.

THESE HORSE THIEVES COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF YOUNGSTOWN! 

Jay, did you in your wildest dream think that City Council would do anything to the City Charter that would effect them? These folks couldn't care less about the will of the people ...

  Council may ask charter-review committee members for follow-up information and will ask the law director to review the recommendations to determine if they comply with state and federal laws, said Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th, chairman of the legislation committee. Then council will determine what proposals will be on the fall ballot for voters to consider, he said.

How in any way do these changes violate state or federal law? 

 Councilwoman Janet Tarpley, D-6^th:

"You want a city to move forward, but you don't want to pay for it," she said. "This is probably one of the most educated councils we've had. I don't get the logic of this. I really don't get it."

Then, Ms Tarpley, you're blind to past Councils, and don't know what you're talking about!

 >:( Lets make one thing perfectly clear Tarpley, being a Councilchick or dude is not and never was meant to be a full time career type job. You and all the other council members have full time jobs with benefits or are retired with healthy pensions so you're not hurting for cash like many of the residents of your ward, so don't come off with that bs that you couldn't survive on $20,721.60 on top of what you earn at your full time job, because that's a flat out lie!

If the starting wage for policemen and firemen can be greatly reduced (these are full-time jobs and dangerous work) why can't the wage of the next councilmen and councilwomen also be reduced (these are part-time jobs)?

i agree with jay and towntalk. council will soon find out who is the employee and the employer.

You're absolutely right Jay. All these clowns need to get a life, our firemen and women, and our police men and women are worth more than all these bozo's put together, nay, they're worth ten times more in point of fact.

How many total hours per week do these Council-creeps put in at actual council work ... judging from your past reports, precious few. 

THINK ABOUT THIS FOLKS ... MANY OF THE 17 "RECOMMENDATIONS" DIRECTLY AFFECT CITY COUNCIL ... DO YOU IN YOUR WILDEST DREAMS THINK THAT COUNCIL WILL ALLOW THEM TO GO ON THE BALLOT? I SERIOUSLY DOUBT IT!

IF ANY OF THEM DO, I'LL BE SUPRISED, BUT I WON'T HOLD MY BREATH IN THE MEANTIME.

What good will that meeting be if Council is going to ignore their recommendations and do what they please regardless of what we want?

This band of worthless horse thieves seem to think that they own the city and we are their slaves.

NEEDLESS TO SAY THAT I HAVE NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT FOR PEOPLE THAT TOTALLY DISREGARD THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE THAT PUT THEM IN OFFICE.

Assuming that the Vindy article in today's paper was accurate, then the remarks of the council members were very arrogant. I am very saddened that Youngstown's legislators are more politicians than statesmen/women.

You hit the nail square on the head ... "council members were very arrogant" ... which is why I show them no respect whatever.

david skolnick from the vindicator is notorius to take liberty in summarizing one's remark giving the reader a misled version of the individual opinion. the council reps and the current mayor gave this charter review committee the job to update the city's carter and they did their job then the reps and the mayor are digging their heels in opposition to the recommendations. i ask to the council and the mayor, who is your boss?

No offense iwasthere, but none of the council members have refuted the article as of tonight, and I checked all threeTV stations web sites, and nothing ... nada ...not so much as a single word.

OP/ED – Tuesday, May 29, 2012 – Vindicator

Youngstown council must let voters decide charter changes

http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/may/29/youngstown-council-must-let-voters-decid/

KEY QUOTE:
   The mayor and council would be directly affected by several of the amendments, which is why the legislative branch should not pick and choose the ones it finds acceptable. The charter-review committee's deliberations are designed to take politics out of the process. The mayor and lawmakers are politicians, first and foremost, and that raises questions about their objectivity. It is human nature to hold on to what you have, but a couple of the key amendments are designed to change the status quo.
 

Quote from: Towntalk on May 30, 2012, 11:31:18 PM
No offense iwasthere, but none of the council members have refuted the article as of tonight, and I checked all threeTV stations web sites, and nothing ... nada ...not so much as a single word.

past articles written by skolnick concerning council matters had reps complain about him by misquoting the reps in the past. the charter committee took issue with him about an article that did not identified the ind(s) who responded to his questions. towntalk, can it be that the reps are tired of skolnick's misquotes that they choose not to respond?

In all the 50 odd years that I've followed politics, I've known only a very small handful of politicians that didn't rush to the nearest megaphone to defend themselves. It's not the nature of the beast. I will concede this though that the TV news chaps didn't pick up on the story, or at least its not on their web sites, but that in and of itself proves little since if you compare the content of WKBN and WYTV news you'll see that aside from site layout the content is identical.

Until the council members do speak up in their defense, I'll have to go with what Skolnick reported since he would have shown his bosses the actual quotes.

By the way, it's typical and par for the course for politicians to scream "I've been misquoted" at the top of their lungs only to later have to pull their size 14 clodhoppers out of their mouths.

The fact remains that I trust politicians as far as I can throw the Central Tower building. They're all without exception to party connections born liars.

Phil Kidd posted the following comment to the article in question on the Vindicator web site:

  "I am a Charter Review Committee member. Last night, we presented each Charter recommendation to City Council. There was opposition to and/or questioning of most of the recommendations. It's highly unlikely that many - if not all - of the more sensitive issues (particularly the ones that effect Council) are going to make the ballot for voters to weigh in on. In my opinion, this is because Council fears the recommendations could actually be approved. As a result, the spin of rationale for the eventual voting down of the recommendations began last night. This is how the game is played. Unfortunately.
The 17(+) recommendations came from 5 months of intensive input gathering, research and debate among a very representative committee of resident (volunteer) appointees. The process was fair and the 17(+) recommendations we presented were boiled down from nearly 50, originally.
Truth be told, I don't like every single recommendation that was made. Nor do other members of the Committee or even individual members of the public. But that speaks to the validity of the 17(+) recommendations that made the cut.
I hope this process has allowed all of us to see just how ugly and difficult change can sometimes be. This is our government, folks. It's not City Council's government and, in the end, self-interest of the few should not be allowed to trump the resident's say on how they should be governed. The Committee did their job. Now let the people vote. Otherwise, don't waste citizen's time with such a process."
   

my opinion is that of council, they asked for it due to their silly games that they played with the ytown residents since the charter was established in 1920.

Quote from: Towntalk on May 31, 2012, 09:52:58 AM

Quote from: Towntalk on May 31, 2012, 09:52:58 AM
Phil Kidd posted the following comment to the article in question on the Vindicator web site:

  "The 17(+) recommendations came from 5 months of intensive input gathering, research and debate among a very representative committee of resident (volunteer) appointees. The process was fair and the 17(+) recommendations we presented were boiled down from nearly 50, originally...This is our government, folks. It's not City Council's government and, in the end, self-interest of the few should not be allowed to trump the residents' say on how they should be governed. The Committee did their job. Now let the people vote. Otherwise, don't waste citizens' time with such a process."
   

Phil's comments here are exactly what need to be said. Remember, most of the people on the committee were appointed by the Council!  Whether I like who they were or not, and most of them I don't even know, I have to give them big credit for their volunteerism. Folks, we are talking 4 months of meeting every week plus subcommittee meetings plus 4 to 7 public meetings plus research. This is DEDICATION and this is citizenship. All of this hard work had better not have been wasted!