Community Council Reform Proposed
Is it fair for community councils to require people to pay dues? And are Cincinnati's 51 community council's truly representative of what their residents want?
Those are questions being considered by The Community Council Working Group, set up by Laketa Cole in November. The group is working on an ordinance to update a 1989 one that governs allocations from the Neighborhood Support Program, which funds the councils.
One member of the group - Michael Ramundo of Clifton, who is not a member of a community council - is pushing against the requirement that voters at community council meetings be only those who have paid dues. He says that's as unconstitutional as a poll tax.
He also thinks some councils are elitist and discriminatory and that they hold themselves up at City Hall as representative of their neighborhood's wishes without always checking to see what their residents actually want.
Here's where you can agree or disagree: Thursday, 7 p.m., at the Oakley Community Center; July 12, 7:30 p.m., Clifton Recreation Center; or July 19, 7 p.m., Dunham Recreation Center.
9 Comments:
at 2:03 PM, June 26, 2007 
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at 9:13 PM, June 26, 2007 
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at 9:43 PM, June 26, 2007 
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at 11:41 PM, June 26, 2007 
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at 10:19 AM, June 27, 2007 
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at 1:32 PM, June 27, 2007 
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at 10:54 AM, July 10, 2007 
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at 1:54 PM, July 10, 2007 
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at 9:45 PM, July 11, 2007 
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Post a Comment*Good grief, it's about time! In my unnamed neighborhood, it's the elitists vs. the do withouts. Where I reside in the community, it's do without. They've basically re-drawn boundary lines to suit themselves!
I quit paying dues several years ago & stopped attending long-winded meetings that accomplished only things the in-crowd wanted. I'm so much better off now.
There's an entire segment of residents in our communities - homeowners & renters - who do not have equal representation or a voice in these community councils.
Oh, let's don't talk about unrecorded meeting minutes & public access to treasury reports. Believe me, it's happened. Misappropriation of NSP funds is another thorn in the sides of many communities. How about disbursing funds without clearly documented receipts?
No one can forget an unnamed impeached president who cleaned out the community council's funds & recently told a huge bald-faced lie, claiming the cashier's check was a forgery!
Glad to see this business with these crooked neighborhood clique clubs, aka community councils, is finally being put front & center for scrutiny. They'll tell you they're only volunteers & sometimes make mistakes because they don't know parliamentary procedures. Balderdash! Then step down & let someone with skills & business acumen & fairness run the show for everyone, not just a selected few!
I work 2nd shift in a local hospital. When I moved in the neighborhood, I mailed in my dues to community council, thinking I'd have someone to advocate for me. All that jazz changed when I couldn't make the elections & asked if I could cast my votes paper absentee or over the phone.
I was told I had to show up to vote or I was out of luck. I guess I was. They had my dues & I didn't have a say or a vote. Is this taxation without representation or what?
Have other people gone through such dictatorial problems? What about those on 2nd shift? Parents at home with sick children? Elderly & shut ins?
I'm inclined to agree with Anon 2:03. After that 1st year in the neighborhood, the community council didn't get another penny out of me. But don't you know, when it was time for clean ups & other projects, they'd ring my phone looking for my hands to help.
It is those people who wonder why they've got so many problems in their communities. And they walk around scratching their ears attempting to figure out why more people in the community don't turn out for events & volunteer efforts.
Dues should be a requirement. If you are too poor to pay dues, you dont deserve a say in how my neighborhood looks. Who cares, you know, poll taxes did quite a good job of keeping the riff-raff away in the late 19th and early 20th century as well...
It's my observation that many- not all- community council officers have a personal agenda implicit in their volunteering for the position. Many are in sales of one kind or another - real estate, insurance, etc.- and use their position to gain contacts or at least become better known in the community. Others hope to form a base for future political involvement. This is not necessarily wrong in and of itself, but community residents should be aware of these tendencies.
This is T.J. White. I am Chair of the group that is working on the Community Council reforms. What the reforms do, in essence is as follows: Currently, by law, any vote on how NSP funding is appropriated MUST be open to a vote of neighborhood residents who attend the meeting- whether they are members of the Community Council or not. What we are proposing is to expand that proposal to include thing such as votes on whether to endorse a zone change, funding requests to the City, whether to object to liquor licenses, NSP funding (still), and also proposed development plans. The idea is that City Council listens to Community Councils on these issues, and therefore we want to create an environment where the City feels that when a Community Council comes forward and testifies, they are more representative of their neighborhood.
For some personal observations though, if I had to break down what a Community Council does, I would say probably 75% of the time Community Council members are working on some sort of volunteer project, be it a streetscape, Citizens on Patrol or CPOP, etc. Of the remaining 25%, they probably spend half of that time lobbying on behalf of things the neighborhood wants, such as speed humps, increased litter patrols or other public services requests; and half of that time they are endorsing or not endorsing things the City or a private developer wants to do. However, that is also the most high profile activity, and the one where the most often listens to the Community Council. Therefore, that was the focus of our reforms.
For anyone who wants to see the full report, please go to www.cincinnati-oh.gov. Click on the "City Council" homepage. In the lower left hand corner you will see a link called "Council Online." Click that and then when it asks you for an item number, type in 200700647. It contains an overview of the ordinance, as well as various perspectives on the proposed reforms.
Having served on my community council, I can say that many of the above comments are not reflective of our particular community.
Each of our meeting minutes are approved at the next meeting and all of our financial records are reported to the community at-large.
Our board has no political aspirations, axes to grind, treat each resident whether renter or owner or business the same.
While we do not require dues payments, we do require that residents wishing to vote on non-NSP issues attend at least three meetings in the same year or have performed equal time volunteering in the community.
The reason is to discourage a number of residents who don't regularly participate, show up to vote for one particular issue and not be heard from again.
While most of us understand that participation is determined by interest and some issues affect can possibly adversely affect residents, it can be neither fair nor reflective of the community's true assessment of the situation when the ballot box is stuffed.
The expansion of the non-discrimination clause is unnecessary since it was incumbent as part of the NSP funding provisions adopted two or three years ago.
Furthermore, after reviewing a number of the provisions stated in 220-1989, many current Councils are not adhering to these laws. See minimum 10 meetings per year.
What effort has been made on behalf of the City to communicate these to the respective Community Councils?
In my five years I never saw anything of the sort.
Contrary to belief, if the bylaws already incorporate means by which a non-resident can participate, it should supersede proposed ordinance.
You want to help fix the problems?
Have the City formally establish boundaries, make minimum requirements for funding, ensure enough flexibility for those organizations that already go above and beyond these sometimes limiting recommendations.
Also, City Council Legislative Aides should be precluded from serving on their Community Council.
Somehow this changed with the arrival of Rita McNeil, but Fay frowned upon this and certain Councilmembers agreed with this.
First the basics. I think it is a great idea to have the city formally establish the boundaries for the community councils. I live in a neighborhood that was considered to be part of Oakley for many, many years and suddenly we were all living in Madisonville! I appreciate what we are all doing together to improve the great community of Madisonville, but for property value reasons would have preferred to remain part of Oakley.
I don't think a resident should have to pay dues to vote, similar to not having to pay money to cast a vote for President of the U.S.
After reading the proposed Ordinance 220 about the requirements for community councils, I have to object to Section 1-D regarding Voting Privileges. I believe that only neighborhood residents should be allowed membership in the community councils! It is a mistake to think that institutions and developers who own property but do not live in the neighborhood will have the same interests as residents. Many times, for zoning and license issues residents have the complete opposite interests from the institutions/developers. Membership in the community councils must be granted only to residents so that the voice of the community council reflects the interests of the residents. Institutions and developers have the money to lobby the city for their interests; we residents should have an organization that purely reflects our interests only, because there is no other organization but the community councils where we will have the power to voice our interests and concerns. An institution isn't a resident.
This is Michael Ramundo. Cincinnati residents volunteer for their schools, churches, soup kitchens and for many other worthwhile causes. Some also volunteer for their community councils. This is fine too. Community Council volunteers, however, do not necessarily care more about their community than any other resident.
Our City Council has nine members voted into office at large. They must represent all of us and cannot possibly understand every detail going on in fifty-two diverse neighborhoods. City Council must depend upon the community councils to be the residents’ voice. The Planning Commission and other sections of the City’s bureaucracy have the same dependency. The community councils, funded with our tax dollars, are the only organized and recognized residential voice.
Democracy is the only system we know of that has the potential of creating a true perspective of what the majority feels on any issue. Every community resident must have an unhindered vote on all issues impacting his/her community.
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