Kent council hopes for voter support on charter amendment

Kent voters will decide Tuesday whether they want to amend the Kent City Charter to make it more difficult for citizens to force a recall election.

The proposed amendment, on the ballot as Issue 16, would require citizens to collect signatures from 25 percent of Kent residents who voted in the previous presidential election and provide a “verified statement as to why the recall is being sought” to initiate the process. A recall is a process that allows citizens to remove elected officials from office.

Currently, the Kent City Charter only requires petition signatures from 20 percent of voters in the previous municipal election, which often see lower turnout than presidential elections. Also, it does not specify that residents must provide a reason for seeking the recall.

Kent councilwoman Heidi Shaffer, who represents much of downtown and part of the Kent State University campus, said the amendment was made necessary by a series of events in 2008, when a group of Kent residents became upset with council’s proposal to change reciprocity laws.

“In 2008, we had a budget problem that had been festering for a long time,” she said. “There were three new people on council, and we were determined to be a courageous council.”

Council’s idea to solve the budget problem was a reduction in reciprocity — a term referring to the tax people pay in the town where they work versus where they live. Shaffer said the city depends on income taxes much more than property taxes, and the proposed reciprocity reduction would allow the city to bring in more funds.

“Many people on council, the majority, thought it was a good idea to… pass a reduction in reciprocity,” she said. “It wasn’t a large reduction, but it was a reduction.”

That decision didn’t sit well with a group of Kent residents, who vocally objected to the reduction. Around that time, some residents sought to remove five of the council members through a recall, a number so high Shaffer said she’d never heard of anything like it before.

Council ended up rescinding the reciprocity reduction, but at that point, the group of Kent residents had already begun the recall process. Because the voter turnout in the previous municipal election had been low, not many signatures were needed to reach 20 percent of those voters. In one ward, only 13 signatures were needed.

Unhappy with the recall, another group of Kent residents formed a political action committee, Citizens for a Better Kent, to advocate for the council members targeted for removal. Renee Ruchotzke, former treasurer of that group (which has since dissolved), is an active proponent of Issue 16.

“We elect leaders to lead, and we need to have checks and balances if we have poor leaders or corrupt leaders,” she said, “but leaders can’t lead if every single little decision they make, a few disgruntled citizens could pass a petition around and… put them through this expense and time.”

She said corruption or mismanagement of city funds are two valid reasons she could see someone using on a recall petition, but not disagreement on policy.

Ruchotzke wrote a letter to the editor of the Record-Courier in October supporting Issue 16. She argued that the amendment would prevent “disruptions to our city government” like the 2008 recall, and prevent spending she views as unnecessary, such as the “$15,000 to $20,000” the city paid for the election.

In addition to that money, the council members had to put time and money into campaigning to keep their jobs.

In the end, all five of the targeted council members kept their seats by a comfortable margin, and Shaffer said the experience only brought them closer together.

“We were just like, ‘okay, we’re all in’,” she said. “I think it did serve to unite us even more.”

Hear councilwoman Heidi Shaffer explain her belief that Kent’s current recall rules could intimidate council members below.

There have not been any issues with attempted recalls since 2008, but council decided to address the issue earlier this year in case it does happen again. Issue 16 was sent to the ballot in July when councilwoman Tracy Wallach initiated the proposal and council voted 8-1 to place it before the voters November 6.

The only dissenting vote came from councilman Robin Turner, who told the Record-Courier that he is in favor of Issue 16, but wished the proposal would have been recommended by the charter review commission before going to the ballot.

The amendment would put Kent’s recall rules on par with some local cities. Streetsboro, for example, requires 25 percent of voters from the previous general election to sign the petition. Aurora also requires 25 percent of voters, but they use the previous municipal election. Other cities, including Akron, have similar rules to Kent’s current policy, where just 20 percent of voters must sign the petition.

Shaffer said her belief is that Issue 16’s stricter recall rules would enable council to perform its job without members fearing removal for how they vote.

“Why should there be such a low test for council-people who are trying their best to make the right decision for the city right now and into the future?” she said. “If people are afraid to vote their conscience, we are not going to have the city that we all want.”

 

UPDATE: Issue 16 was defeated 3,531 votes to 3,298 votes.

Voting in Kent today? Read up on Issue 16 before heading to the polls!https://t.co/Jp5T9J0V0d

— Dylan Reynolds (@_DylanReynolds) November 6, 2018