BUCYRUS—A special meeting held Tuesday by the Bucyrus City Council was cut short yet again because of errors in minutes and proposed legislation pointed out by Bucyrus Resident Vicki Dishon.
The intention of the meeting was to approve the new Council Clerk’s wages, and Billet.
During the public participation portion, Dishon addressed council regarding corrected and approved minutes from the September 12th meeting. Dishon made public records request with then-acting clerk Kevin Myers for the corrected minutes. She still has not received those minutes.
Dishon read the Ohio Sunshine Law regarding council’s legal requirement to respond to her public records request within a “reasonable” amount of time. While the law does not define what a “reasonable” amount of time is, Dishon implied that 21 days was more than a reasonable amount of time. She did note that Council President Jenny Vermillion forwarded her minutes, but they were not the corrected minutes.
Dishon explained that according to Ohio Law, she could file an action in Common Pleas Court to demand the minutes and receive compensation for up to $1000.00 or $100.00 per day for council’s failure to provide her with the minutes she first requested 21 days ago.
Dishon gave council until 5 pm on Wednesday to provide her with the minutes she requested. Crawford County Now is awaiting a response from Dishon to see if the deadline was met.
As council moved on to other business, Dishon addressed the resolution they were about to pass regarding county water rate hikes. In the discussion, Councilwoman Sharrock asked why the attachment that identifies current rates, as well as proposed rates, was not in the packet provided to council.
Sharrock’s inquiry was the perfect Segway into Dishon’s next point. She told council that the minutes needed to be corrected and the appropriate documents attached before they could move forward:
“When citizens go to Documents On Demand and pull this up there is no exhibit attached. But more importantly, and I have had this conversation before, council has approved legislation that refers to an attachment when in fact the attachment is not attached.”
When it came to the pending legislation to approve the wages and hiring of the new Council Clerk, Dishon pointed out that there are discrepancies between the actual retroactive date of hire suggested in the original committee meeting, and the proposed retroactive hire date read at the current meeting. She also told council there was no second to the first motion made at the original meeting. “I think the Finance Committee needs to revisit this legislation,” Dishon said.
Council President Vermillion agreed:” With the discrepancies in question this needs to be revisited with the Finance Committee and we will call a special meeting to vote.”
Vermillion then moved to adjourn the meeting.
Crawford County Now will continue to cover this developing story.