Council members and members of the city's Charter Review Commission met Jan. 25 to review proposed charter changes addressing the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches, focusing on council's investigatory tools and how council should obtain information from city administration.

The conversation centered on three related issues: whether to repeat in the charter subpoena power the Ohio Revised Code already grants council; how the charter should treat emergency ordinances that take immediate effect; and what level of access council should have to city directors and other senior administrators for legislative or oversight purposes.

Why it matters: these changes affect how the council can oversee the mayor's administration, compel attendance or documents from city staff, and how quickly legislation can take effect. Restating or redefining powers in the charter could change expectations about transparency and the practical steps needed to pursue oversight.

Discussion points and context

- Subpoena authority: Participants noted that Ohio law provides some subpoena and compulsory-process authority to local legislative bodies. Several council members and the law director said the question was not whether the city had authority, but whether and how the charter should restate that authority and add implementing detail (for example, whether subpoenas may be issued by motion, resolution or ordinance and what vote threshold is required).

- Implementation and majority vote: The law director and other participants emphasized that council acts as a body. They said subpoenas and similar investigatory steps generally require a majority vote of council to be effective in practice, and asked staff to look at the statute and practices used by peer cities to draft clear language that balances prompt oversight with procedural safeguards.

- Emergency measures: Council discussed whether the charter should keep the existing two-thirds requirement for emergency ordinances and whether the charter should explicitly require a statement of the emergency rationale (the commission's draft tracks Ohio Supreme Court guidance). Participants agreed it was preferable to align the charter with existing state case law language so councils cannot broadly bypass referendum requirements without articulating an emergency rationale.

- Council access to administration: Members debated whether council should be able to require attendance by city directors, chiefs or their designees to answer questions at council or committee meetings. Views diverged over whether the charter should explicitly allow council to require attendance of employees below director level, or whether that deeper access should remain limited (for example) to subpoena power. Several members favored limiting mandatory attendance to department heads and their designees to avoid putting lower-level employees in difficult positions and to respect the mayor's supervision of staff.

Direction and next steps

Council asked the law director to provide drafting options and examples from other Ohio cities that show: (a) how subpoena authority has been treated in charter or ordinances; (b) how emergency ordinance language has been implemented in practice; and (c) model language that limits required attendance to directors/chiefs or their designees while preserving council's ability to pursue oversight through subpoenas when appropriate. Several members also suggested council could adopt an ordinance to flesh out operational details if the charter restated the underlying authority.

Ending

Council members agreed to hold the question open so the law department can return with concrete wording and comparative examples. The body did not adopt final text at the Jan. 25 meeting.