Reporting Public Policy

A Reporting Project of the Kent State University School of Media and Journalism

Fall 2022 StoriesUncategorized

Stow Citizen Calls Out Hypocrisy, Major Program Codification in the Works For Stow’s Waterlines and other Projects

Mason Jones
Stow city council members discuss projects, ordinances that will benefit the city

The Stow City Council held a meeting on Thursday, where they discussed and voted on ordinances and legislations affecting the city.

Mayor John Pribonic was motioning for Kyle Herman, who had previous experience working in city planning and being an assistant to the Mayor of Alexandria in Virginia, to be appointed to the city of Stow’s planning commission after one previous member resigned. 

“I think he’ll be an excellent addition to our planning committee,” Mayor Pribonic said.

The council, however, decided not to allow this motion to pass as the vote to move the appointment to the planning commission resulted in a tie from the council members because they were unsure about the qualifications of the applicant and there was no clear transparency about this applicant. 

Stow citizen Mike Daniels was shocked about this ruling, and took to the podium during the time where the audience members were allowed to voice their concerns. 

“I hadn’t planned to say anything,” Daniels said, “but surely all of you can see the hypocrisy with talking about transparency since most of you were appointed with no transparency at all.”

Daniels talked about how he understands there was an application process and a pool of applicants to choose from, but there was no transparency. He says that several members were appointed by friends and that the people are tired of this type of management.

“Three-to-three for that? For no transparency? It’s more than disappointing, that’s angering,” Daniels said.

One other big thing that came from the meeting was the proposed amendment by Deputy Law Director Drew Reiley to Ordinance 22-179, which by definition states “A resolution repealing ordinance number 2016-33 establishing the ‘opt-in program for waterline installation or is it in residential areas,’ and declaring an emergency.” 

“The amendment keeps the program in place for projects that have already occurred, with language in there for the next year where it caps out at $5,000 for the benefits assessment and allows those who haven’t tapped in to take part when they decide to,” Reiley said.

Reiley also said that he is planning to codify this program as he wants to continue to develop and “tweak” it over the course of next year. Councilwoman Sindi Harrison pointed out a benefit to this program with having those who opt-in whether now or in the future will pay a flat payment of $5000 rather than having everyone come in and everyone pay the fee.

Several council members questioned his amendment, with questions regarding the contractors’ thoughts on this amendment and contractors rights on the project, but Reiley answers by saying that all those things have already been looked at and they are in the process of codifying them to make them official.

There were 15 Ordinances that were called to be adopted but only 10 were approved as some ordinances were removed or still up for discussion among the committees. The next city council meeting is scheduled for November 24th at 7pm.

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