There is a procedure, covered by New Philadelphia City Ordinance, on how legislation can be brought to the floor of City Council for consideration. The steps are simple, but not always fully understood.
Anybody may request New Philadelphia City Council to consider the creation, change, amendment, or revocation, of an ordinance by a request to a member of City Council. This right applies to any citizen of the city, and in some cases non-residents. The request may be made through any seated City Councilman, or through the President of City Council. This includes public officials such as the Mayor, Service Director, Police and Fire Chiefs, or any person who who works for the city.
Once the request is made to City Council, the request must be placed in a Council Committee for study. Standing Committees of the Council consist of three members plus an alternate, for a total of four. The alternate member fills in for an absent committeeman, should that be necessary, to assure three members are present at each meeting, assuring a quorum will be present. The Committee considers the question, or request, and by majority vote, two out of the three, decides whether or not to place the question before the full council. If the vote is to place the question before Council, the City Law Director is requested to prepare a numbered ordinance, all ordinances and resolutions are individually numbered for identification, to be presented by the recommendation of the Committee to the full Council at its next regular meeting. If the Committee desires, on the other hand, not to present the question to the full Council it may choose from a number of options. It may: vote to decline presenting the question to Council; it may table the question for further study at a later date; it may table the question indefinitely, which effectively blocks the question from ever being brought up again; or it may do nothing, neither send the question to the floor nor consider it further in Committee, which stops any further action on the question. In the latter cases, the Committee actions prevent any consideration by the full Council on the question.
How does legislation get to a Committee? If the request for action is received by the President of Council, who assigns the request to one of the Standing Committees. It, then has the responsibility of deciding what, if any, legislation is needed. If the request is presented to a sitting member of Council, that member has two choices. He may either refer the question to the President of Council, or he may take the question into his own committee for study and have his committee make the decision as to the advisability of bringing the question to the full Council.
A note of interest. Any Committee Chairman has the ability to bring before his Committee any legislation proposal he desires for his Committee to consider. Unfortunately, this is not frequently done. The Council President, on the other hand, has the ability to assign any legislative request to any of the Standing Committees, regardless of the Committee or the subject matter. For instance, a matter concerning City finances could be assigned to the Parks and Cemetery Committee instead of the Finance Committee should the Council President desire.
Once the legislation gets to the floor of City Council, it must, by law, be publicly read three times on the Council Floor, at three separate Council meetings. The exception to this are emergency measures which, by a minimal vote of six Council Members to wave the standing procedural rules of the Council, will allow Council to pass legislation with less than the three required readings.
Once passed, the question becomes law and is entered onto the permanent file of Codified Ordinances by the Clerk of Council.
Standing Committees, their Chairmen and members, may be found by checking http://www.newphilaoh.com/,the City of New Philadelphia Website at or by calling your City Councilman, The President of City Council, or the Mayor whose numbers are listed in the blog on this site titled "City Officials Phone Numbers."
Anybody may request New Philadelphia City Council to consider the creation, change, amendment, or revocation, of an ordinance by a request to a member of City Council. This right applies to any citizen of the city, and in some cases non-residents. The request may be made through any seated City Councilman, or through the President of City Council. This includes public officials such as the Mayor, Service Director, Police and Fire Chiefs, or any person who who works for the city.
Once the request is made to City Council, the request must be placed in a Council Committee for study. Standing Committees of the Council consist of three members plus an alternate, for a total of four. The alternate member fills in for an absent committeeman, should that be necessary, to assure three members are present at each meeting, assuring a quorum will be present. The Committee considers the question, or request, and by majority vote, two out of the three, decides whether or not to place the question before the full council. If the vote is to place the question before Council, the City Law Director is requested to prepare a numbered ordinance, all ordinances and resolutions are individually numbered for identification, to be presented by the recommendation of the Committee to the full Council at its next regular meeting. If the Committee desires, on the other hand, not to present the question to the full Council it may choose from a number of options. It may: vote to decline presenting the question to Council; it may table the question for further study at a later date; it may table the question indefinitely, which effectively blocks the question from ever being brought up again; or it may do nothing, neither send the question to the floor nor consider it further in Committee, which stops any further action on the question. In the latter cases, the Committee actions prevent any consideration by the full Council on the question.
How does legislation get to a Committee? If the request for action is received by the President of Council, who assigns the request to one of the Standing Committees. It, then has the responsibility of deciding what, if any, legislation is needed. If the request is presented to a sitting member of Council, that member has two choices. He may either refer the question to the President of Council, or he may take the question into his own committee for study and have his committee make the decision as to the advisability of bringing the question to the full Council.
A note of interest. Any Committee Chairman has the ability to bring before his Committee any legislation proposal he desires for his Committee to consider. Unfortunately, this is not frequently done. The Council President, on the other hand, has the ability to assign any legislative request to any of the Standing Committees, regardless of the Committee or the subject matter. For instance, a matter concerning City finances could be assigned to the Parks and Cemetery Committee instead of the Finance Committee should the Council President desire.
Once the legislation gets to the floor of City Council, it must, by law, be publicly read three times on the Council Floor, at three separate Council meetings. The exception to this are emergency measures which, by a minimal vote of six Council Members to wave the standing procedural rules of the Council, will allow Council to pass legislation with less than the three required readings.
Once passed, the question becomes law and is entered onto the permanent file of Codified Ordinances by the Clerk of Council.
Standing Committees, their Chairmen and members, may be found by checking http://www.newphilaoh.com/,the City of New Philadelphia Website at or by calling your City Councilman, The President of City Council, or the Mayor whose numbers are listed in the blog on this site titled "City Officials Phone Numbers."
Bob,
ReplyDeleteHow do you justify your "City Officials Phone Numbers"?
You do not have the home phone numbers for most of our full-time city employees, yet you have decided to "publish" the work numbers for most of those who serve our community on a part-time basis. Certainly a citizen should be able to directly contact their Council representative, but I don't think it's appropriate to be encouraging your readers to contact them at work ( I am sure their employers do not appreciate it either)...it's no more appropriate than encouraging them to call Ricklic or Neff at home!
Do the right thing and remove the "work" numbers of part-time employees.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteThank you for doing this. It is a great idea.
I hope you and your wife are recovered from your
accident now and are doing well.