What Happened at Thursday's Council Meeting

Below are some notes from tonight's council meeting:

PRAYER -- It was my turn to say the prayer. I always take it as an honor to pray before the meeting. During my prayer, I asked that we follow God's plan to treat people how you'd like to be treated and that we take time to give a cold cup of water to a stranger.

HILE ROAD ISSUE -- Before the meeting, in the 11th hour, we solved the problem with the Hunter's ditch. The city will install a pipe for the 12 feet closest to their driveway. Behind the scenes, the city's law director Brian Reali (whom I greatly respect) and I had a debate of whether council could approve an expenditure less than $15,000. I argued that the answer is "yes," and Brian said "no."

The bottom line was, it was going to be messy if council approved the legislation tonight. The mayor would continue to fight against the Hunters and the property owners on Hile.

Fortunately, Matt Riehl facilitated an agreement between the city and Mr. and Mrs. Hunter that everyone can be happy with. Matt has done a lot of these sorts of things behind the scenes, and through his Roads & Safety Committee. He has solved several problems and blocked some bad legislation during his term.

I had to laugh when the administration tried to credit John Pribonic for the compromise. Pribonic was silent during the meetings and not involved in any of the negotiations, but the administration had to save face in some way, I guess.

This ditch issue was just another example of how the city of Stow government is backwards. It's unfortunate that you have to be friends with the clique to get a square deal.

CEMETERY VOTE -- I voted "no" on the proposal to raise cemetery rates on residents. We heard on Monday that other cities put a greater cost on non-residents. Now the administration wants to raise rates on our residents by several hundred percent in some cases. That's just another back-door tax -- a fee increase that the Good Ole Boy Network doesn't think you'll notice. I won't stand for that. This city has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. The fee increase passed by a 5-2 count.

City council won't meet against until July 11 with committee meetings.