Stow City Council opposes Issue One
Stow City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing State Issue No. One at the city council meeting Thursday night. Issue 1 would make the possession, obtainment and use of drugs a misdemeanor crime in Ohio, an issue Ohio residents will vote on the Nov. 6 ballot.
“I don’t think we can reiterate enough what a disaster Issue 1 will be for our cities, our states, our counties,” said Councilman Brian Lowdermilk. “This is just a horrible concept. Somebody that has enough fentanyl, carfentanil, drugs of any kind could kill thousands of people and have the equivalent of a ticket. It’s misguided.”
Stow City Council opposes Issue 1 from Mitchell F Felan on Vimeo.
According to ballotpedia.org, the goal of Issue 1 is to “reduce the number of people in state prisons for low-level, nonviolent crimes, such as drug possession and non-criminal probation violations” and “would require that state funds saved due to a reduction of inmates, resulting from the initiative’s implementation, be spent on substance abuse treatment programs, crime victim programs, probation programs, graduated responses programs, and rehabilitation programs.”
Amber Zibritosky, Stow City Council’s Law Director and a prosecutor in Stow, said Issue 1 does more harm than good, both at the meeting and in her statement opposing the issue.
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“My office as a prosecutor along with the Ohio prosecuting district attorney’s association, the Ohio bar association and just about every judge I’ve talked to … were all pretty much against Issue 1,” Zibritosky said. Along with F4 and F5 drug abuse charges being misdemeanors, Zibritosky sad the justice system would “also have a whole host of other issues preventing us from ever sentencing anybody to jail … to also shifting the costs to local governments, who are already stretched pretty thin in response to the opioid epidemic.”
Other members of the council echoed Zibritosky’s reasoning.
“We, as a state, not only a city, are in terrible, terrible shape as far as drugs are concerned,” said John Pribonic, Council at Large. “I hope that this message reaches many of the Stow voters and around the surrounding areas to go ahead and vote no on this because this is very dangerous not only to our fellow residents, people seeking help that are addicted to drugs but also to our law enforcement.”
Lowdermilk also said the people who proposed Issue 1 “either didn’t think through it very well” or “didn’t consider the consequences when it comes to not only the people that are addicted to drugs but law enforcement.”
Earlier this month, East Liverpool mayor Ryan Stovall asked his city council to consider openly opposing Issue 1. Other critics include Governor John Kasich, Republican governor candidate Mike DeWine, Democratic Ohio Attorney General candidate Steve Dettelbach and Ohio Speaker of the House Ryan Smith. Multiple judges around the state, including Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, have also been vocal about problems with the proposal.
The leading campaign behind Issue 1 is the Ohio Safe and Healthy Communities Campaign, or Yes on 1. The Issue 1 initiative was filed as The Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment, and Rehabilitation Amendment.
Stow City Council met tonight and voted to make Sept. 17-23 “Constiution Week” #stow #stowcitycouncil #stowohio #constitution #constitutionweek
— Megan Ayscue (@megan_ayscue) September 28, 2018
John Baranek, Finance Director of the Stow City Council and member of the Stow historical society, talks about the 40th annual Harvest Festival on Sept. 29th and 30th. Apple butter is being homemade on Saturday and sold Sunday! #harvestfestival #applebutter
— Megan Ayscue (@megan_ayscue) September 28, 2018
Stow City Council unanimously opposes Issue One and urges voters to vote “No” on November 6 #issueone #issue1 #voteno #votenoonissueone #stowohio
— Megan Ayscue (@megan_ayscue) September 28, 2018
The City of Stow will vote tonight on a resolution condemning Issue 1, which many say would undermine the power of judges and be a burden on local governments. #reportingpublicpolicy
— Mitch Felan (@mitchfelan) September 28, 2018
Prior the voting session, council members, residents and experts came in to talk about the impact Issue 1 could have on Stow. Most in the room seemed immediately opposed to the measure. #reportingpublicpolicy
— Mitch Felan (@mitchfelan) September 28, 2018
Councilman Lowdermilk, who claims to have proposed the idea, compares drug dealers who would get lenient sentences under Issue 1 to a gunman who kills 1,000 people. #reportingpublicpolicy
— Mitch Felan (@mitchfelan) September 28, 2018
Other docket items include the process behind the proposed downtown project and some permits. #reportingpublicpolicy
— Mitch Felan (@mitchfelan) September 28, 2018
Stow City Council unanimously approves the resolution, with several council members speaking out about it. #reportingpublicpolicy
— Mitch Felan (@mitchfelan) September 28, 2018
Who did what?
Megan: put everything online, wrote story, created map (couldn’t figure out where to put the source so here https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus16.pdf), took feature photo
Mitch: took all video, edited video, wrote “earlier this month” paragraph
