Shelby City Council advances key ordinances, resolutions
In its final session for the month, the Shelby City Council approved several critical pieces of legislation, including two ordinances and three resolutions to enhance city management and services.
The council convened on April 15 to address, among other items, Amended Ordinance No. 4-2024, which enacts Chapter 217 concerning impermissible expenditures within the city’s codified ordinances.
“Mayor, we had postponed this because we had asked to make sure that our Section 5 met the intent of what we were trying to do,” Councilman Nathan Martin explained, highlighting efforts to refine the legal language of the ordinance to ensure it aligns with council intentions.
“Sometimes there’s always a difference between what you are meaning to do and the legalese to get it done,” he said.
“I just want to let everyone know that we are going to keep the final clause ‘with the approval of City Council’ as well, which shouldn’t be an issue because all those contracts go before us anyways,” Martin announced.
During the discussion, Martin took steps to further amend Section 5 of the ordinance to clarify the matter:
“I move to amend that Section 5 be amended to say, ‘Subsections 3 and 4 of this ordinance do not prohibit programs, policies, trainings, or activities required for compliance with local, state, or federal laws or regulations, contract compliance or for obtaining or retaining institutional or discipline-specific accreditation by the city, its council or its employees with the approval of city council.’”
Following this amendment and others ensuring council oversight on certain provisions, the ordinance passed its third reading unanimously. “This is word for word from the email that was sent,” Martin noted during the session, emphasizing the thorough review process the
ordinance underwent.
The ordinance, aimed at codifying anti-discrimination measures
similar to the Civil Rights Act for the city of Shelby, had previously sparked a discussion among council members and legal advisers over its potential impact on contracts and legal standing.
Martin had introduced the legislation March 4. Ahead of its third reading and its potential passage April 1, Martin moved to postpone the vote to the next meeting to clarify language concerning federal contract compliance.
The ordinance sought to ensure “impermissible expenditures” related to discriminatory activities would not be sanctioned within Shelby, sparking a debate earlier this year among council members and legal advisers.
Despite Martin’s assurance that the ordinance’s language, derived from various think tanks, would stand legal scrutiny, the city’s legal advisers had previously cautioned against its adoption.
At the April 15 meeting, Councilman Derrin Roberts asked whether all the concerns raised by
the outside legal counsel had been cleared up.
Shelby Mayor Steve Schag indicated that was the case. “According to my phone conversation,” Schag said.
Councilman Eric Cutlip, who voted no on the ordinance’s second reading, asked if the amended legislation was looked at by Shelby law director Gordon Eyster.
Eyster was not at the meeting.
“Yeah, we had a phone conversation this morning, as well,” Schag responded.
Martin added: “I initially requested from the law director the specific legalese for the section, and he passed that on to the outside legal counsel.”
The motion to amend legislation and the ordinance itself both passed 5-0.
The council also addressed Ordinance No. 7-2024, which amends the annual appropriations ordinance and includes an emergency declaration to expedite the process.
“I had a bit of a typo in our appropriations ordinance,” Shelby finance director Brian Crum said in speaking about the need for a correction in
the financial documentation.
“This is just to change a line item. It doesn’t change any numbers or anything,” Crum said.
Martin, Finance Committee chairman, requested certification.
“... I would feel more comfortable anytime numbers are involved, that just to cover our bases, we get a certification,” he said.
Crum said: “I will certify that the funds for all of these line items have been appropriated and are available for use. And I’ll put a paper in with this as well to the file.”
The ordinance successfully passed after suspension of the rule requiring three readings, reflecting the council’s urgency in maintaining fiscal operations without delay.
Additionally, the council approved three resolutions, two of which involve significant purchases for the city’s service department.
Resolution No. 12-2024 authorizes the purchase of a 2025 Freightliner cab and chassis truck through a state cooperative purchasing program, while Resolution No. 13-2024 allows for
the acquisition of a dump body and equipment package for the same vehicle type.
Both resolutions were adopted unanimously, underscoring the council’s commitment to updating and maintaining the city’s service fleet.
The evening’s legislation concluded with the passage of Resolution No. 14-2024, which authorizes participation in the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) road salt contracts awarded for 2024.
This resolution also carries an emergency declaration due to the timely nature of the application process required by the state.
“This is our annual application to the state for salt,” said Joe Gies, city project coordinator, who clarified the urgency with a May 3 deadline approaching.
In his closing remarks at the meeting, Councilman Martin touched on future legislative efforts and council cohesion.
“I’ve been looking through the council rules to see if there’s additional stuff we can clean up,” he said. “Probably in the next couple months,
we’ll be seeing some of that legislation come to bear.”
The five-member council could also meet more often as a group in a committee format.
“A lot of times as a council, we get together for the appropriations, but we really don’t get together to talk about kind of the legislative priorities we would like to set as council as well,” said Martin, the most senior member of council.
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“I’m looking at the potential of doing either a semi-annual or quarterly committee of the whole (meetings) to where we can actually discuss those things in open about what kind of legislative priorities and stuff like that we would like to tackle.”
This would help ensure that “we’re all kind of singing on the same page of music,” Martin added.