Council 8/7 Agenda chock full of big items
- Angie Charles
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
Amphitheater plans, Planning & Zoning Code changes and nine proposed charter amendments on agenda
Stow’s City Council has perhaps the biggest agenda of items on its schedule for the year on Thursday’s committee and council meetings, including the final plans for the amphitheater on Norton Rd., changes to the city’s Planning & Zoning Code, the hiring of a communications specialist for the city, and the final reading and discussion of nine proposed charter amendments.
Do you want to see/hear council’s discussion? Meetings are public, held in council chambers at City Hall, with the order of business starting at 5:30 pm with the Planning Committee. The Finance Committee, which reviews the city’s spending, meets directly after, followed by the Committee of the Whole and the regular City Council meeting. Residents also can follow the meetings online, which are streamed here (video link will display toward the bottom of the page under "Upcoming Events" to the right of the committee name that is in session at that time).
Items reviewed in the various council committees typically are voted on by the members of those committees to advance the legislation to the full council meeting that same evening. Each committee is made up of four council members.
Here are the big items up for discussion this week – by committee:
Planning Committee – 5:30 pm
Updates to Stow’s Planning & Zoning Code, which has been in review since last year. City Council will review changes to nine chapters of the code.
Proposed Taco Bell on Norton Rd. – this proposal was rejected on a 0-5 vote by the city’s Planning Commission, an all-volunteer commission made up of residents who are appointed by the mayor and approved by council. Council can override the Planning Commission’s vote with a supermajority vote.
Development of the former Maplepark swimming pool into four residential lots.
A request for site plan approval for the new amphitheater project on Norton Rd.
Finance Committee (starts when Planning Committee finishes)
Legislation to allow the city to solicit bids for the construction of the amphitheater. If Council approves the legislation, the city expects the amphitheater to be completed in the latter half of 2026.
Legislation to allow the purchase of a drone for the Stow Police Department. Here is a city memo explaining the purchase request.
Four proposals for Tax Increment Financing (TIF) plans for the property of Stow business AMF Bruns of America on Campus Drive, Hudson Reserve, a new independent living facility under development on Hudson Drive, a planned Huntington Bank on Kent Rd., and the new location for Suncrest Gardens on Seasons Rd. The TIFs would enable the city to capture funds that otherwise would be paid to the county as property taxes, based on the increased value of the property once it is re-developed, to use for future public infrastructure improvements in the vicinity of those private investments. The TIFs are written in a way so as to keep the school district or library whole with regard to property tax funding.
Last year, the city administration began proposing TIFs as a way to generate additional income that could be used for public infrastructure projects in the vicinity of where the TIF projects were located.
City Council previously approved TIFs for the Miller’s Landing housing development on N. River Road, the redevelopment of the former Stow-Glen nursing home, the new Dick’s Sporting Goods, and several industrial facilities being built in the city.
For further information about how a TIF works, see this presentation, given to City Council by Law Director Drew Reilly.
Committee of the Whole (meeting starts at the conclusion of the Finance Committee meeting)
Hiring of a part-time Communications Specialist/Public Information Officer, which has been on the administration’s bucket list for some time.
Executive session: City Council also will convene for executive session to discuss the appointment and salary of a city employee and the purchase or sale of property.
Regular City Council Meeting (after the Committee of the Whole)
The main City Council meeting is where legislation is officially passed or rejected, after it’s been forwarded by one of the committees. As such, the agendas for the City Council meetings can be quite extensive, wrapping up the business of what was discussed in committee and taking up items that have to go through the three-reading process before they can be voted on.
Although the stated start time for City Council meetings is 7 pm, one should expect tomorrow’s meeting to start later, possibly by 8 pm, after the aforementioned committee meetings.
And, this week’s agenda is a whopper.
Charter Review Commission Recommendations
The meeting will start with the final reading and discussion of nine proposed changes to the city’s Charter, which were recommended by the Charter Review Commission. A Charter Review Commission is convened every five years to review the city’s charter and to make recommendations for changes or updates.
This year, the Charter Review Commission, made up of seven Stow residents, began review of the charter in February and concluded their work in June. City Council will decide whether any of the recommendations should be put on the ballot for residents to vote on this November.
Among the items recommended are:
Appointment of an Acting Finance Director or Acting Law Director in the case where the Finance Director or Law Director would be temporarily incapacitated.
Changing the term limits of the Law Director and Finance Director from eight years to 12 years to enable both positions to participate in the state's pension program and to encourage more qualified candidates for these specialized positions.
Changing City Council terms to four years from two years and staggering the elections so that there is continuity from one council to the next.
Increasing the number of wards from four to six, which would also increase the size of council from seven to nine.
Adoption of Ranked Choice Voting for city elections.
In the past two charter review cycles, 2015 and 2020, City Council refused to advance any of the recommendations of the commission. The only charter amendments that have appeared on the ballot in the last 10 years were ones initiated by the City Council itself or by groups of residents who procured a substantial number of petition signatures to get those proposals on the ballot.
The 2020 process ended up in court all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, when City Council tried to amend the Charter Review Commission’s recommendations and ultimately did not advance them to the ballot. John Baranek was the chair of the Charter Review Commission at that time and expressed his disappointment in the council’s actions.
“We were pretty disappointed when council decided to amend our legislation and put their stamp on the amendments,” Baranek told the Akron Beacon Journal in 2020.
The Ohio Supreme Court voted against an effort by the city administration and Charter Review Commission to force Council to move the charter recommendations as written to the ballot.
Efforts by then City Council President Sindi Harrison and Vice President Jeremy McIntire to rewrite the Charter Review Commission’s recommendations were ultimately thwarted by three council members at the time, Cyle Feldman, Christina Shaw and Steve Hailer, who abstained from voting or dissented on the amended proposals. Council was required to secure six out of seven affirmative votes to advance their revised proposals to the ballot.
“Pursuant to Article XX of the Charter, the Charter Review Commission reviews the municipal charter every 5 years, and submits those amendments to the electors of the City of Stow. I support the right of our citizens to vote on these amendments as submitted to council with council only having the authority to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as to the text or form of the language,” Feldman told the Beacon Journal in 2020.
Feldman is currently City Council president, Baranek is now the Ward 3 councilman and McIntire continues as an at-large councilman.
Items Getting a Second Reading
The normal course of business for City Council is to give legislation three readings before it votes to approve or reject legislation. Council can bypass that process and vote on the first reading with an appropriate number of votes, and it does so frequently for standard, uncontroversial business items.
This week’s agenda includes several items that will get their second reading, which means that council will likely vote on these items when they have their third reading at their next meeting:
Ward sizes and Ranked Choice Voting: Among the nine recommendations that the Charter Review Commission sent to City Council were two proposals for special commissions to further study ward sizes and Ranked Choice Voting, if council rejected the commission’s recommendations to increase the number of voting wards (and hence the size of City Council) and to adopt Ranked Choice Voting in the city. The two proposals will get a second reading on Thursday.
Megan’s Way Out: Also getting a second reading is legislation to require drive-thru businesses to include a “bypass” lane that customers can use to quickly get out of the drive-thru line in an emergency. There will be a public hearing on this proposal on Sept. 11 at 5:30 p.m. The city’s Planning Commission approved the proposal 4-0 on June 24. The ordinance, dubbed as Megan’s Way Out, was written as a result of the shooting of Megan Keleman at the Graham Rd. Taco Bell.
Hiring of two permanent, part-time School Resource Officers (SROs), the contracts of which would be paid 60% by the school district and 40% by the city.
Items Getting a First Reading
Any of the aforementioned committee items that get passed out of committee ends up on council’s agenda for a first reading. Some of those items may be voted on that evening, while others may stay on council’s agenda for future second and third readings.
