CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 2-28-26

MINUTES OF SPECIAL MEETING

OF IRONTON CITY COUNCIL

February 28, 2026

10:00 a.m.

A Special Meeting of Ironton City Council was held on Saturday, February 28, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Council Chambers.  Mr. Haney called the meeting to order. He said, as with all Special Meeting, there will no audience participation.  Present was Vice Mayor, Chris Haney, who presided, and members:   Brown, Harvey, Hock, Kline, Scott, Simmons – seven.

Mr. Harvey said he would like to move to add Communications that was that in their notification for special media regarding the Planning Commission.  He said the letters to appoint the Planning Commission are on the Mayor’s desk and nobody has a key to his office.  He said they do have something before the Planning Commission, and right now it has two members:  Mr. Haney and the Mayor.  He said the other three were community members and those nominations were for Steve Harvey, Ralph Kline and Jodi Rowe-Collins, who they could find a volunteer for that on Friday.  He said the Mayor has those letters on his desk for the Planning Commission and they are aware that they have to meet prior to the next Council meeting to give recommendation to Ordinance 26-09.  Mr. Hock asked when was the 30-day limit?  Mr. Harvey said March 12^th.  Mr. Haney seconded Mr. Harvey’s motion to add the letters appointing the nominees for the Planning Commission.  Motion passed unanimously.  Mr. Harvey moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to accept the nomination of Jodi Rowe-Collins to the Planning Commission.  Motion passed unanimously.  Mr. Harvey moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to accept the nomination of Ralph Kline to the Planning Commission.  Motion passed unanimously, with Nate Kline abstaining.  Mr. Kline moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to accept the nomination of Steve Harvey to the Planning Commission.  Motion passed unanimously, with Craig Harvey abstaining.

Mr. Brown asked, before reading ordinances, is it possible to motion to open this to audience participation.  Mr. Haney said no.

Mr. Haney said prior to reading these ordinances, he thinks the City has been put in a bad situation due to some personal vendettas about spending and the Mayor’s decisions and personal property gains and things like that, and he personally thinks that our City workers have not been put in a good situation and probably unsafe situations because they cannot get what they need, and this is basically in retrospect almost like a government shut-down and he never thought he would be in a position to say this about our City.  He said as we are, we had to come in to rectify this situation.

ORDINANCE NO. 26-12 –    AMENDING CODIFIED SECTION 234.03 OF THE CODIFIED ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF IRONTON AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given first reading.

Mr. Kline mentioned that Ordinance 26-12 was given a favorable recommendation by the Finance Committee.  Mr. Kline moved, seconded by Mr. Hock, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance 26-12 second and third reading by title only.  Discussion:  Mr. Brown said that he thinks that personal vendetta was directed at him and he has no personal vendettas against anyone in our City government.  He said the reason he presented Ordinance 26-13 is because he thinks this ensures fiscal responsibility and ensures transparency, and if he was sitting in any position in the City government, this is something that he would endorse himself.  He said he thinks that these are perfectly reasonable limits.  He said $25,000 is five times the amount of the $5,000 limit that is currently in legislation.  He said he wanted to emphasize that we have another ordinance, Ordinance 26-13 that would prevent the so-called government shut-down because it would still increase that amount by 5 and there is an amendment that we will propose to that ordinance that will allow emergency spending, so in the event of an unlikely emergency where there’s expenditure more than that, that would be taken care of.  Mr. Kline said he understands what Mr. Brown and Ms. Simmons are saying.  He personally would be willing to revisit these spending limits, especially what you proposed as emergency language in the future when they have time for committee discussion, department head feedback and Mayor feedback and can go through that process.  He said he thinks we need to make it retroactive to where we have been and where we need to be right now and make sure our City is functioning.  He said he  strongly supports this going forward.  Mr. Harvey said he appreciates Ms. Simmons’ attempt because he thinks this is probably the right path forward in the future.  He said he feels like he  hasn’t had time to digest this fully, and he wants to make sure we get back to business as a day-to-day operation in the City and then visit how we put up our guardrails.  He said right now we do still have guardrails in the fact that we set the budget so if there are expenditures that exceed our line items in the budget, they have to be presented as a budget amendment anyway.  So those guardrails that we have are our budget and the spending amounts in the budget.  He said also appreciates Mr. Brown’s efforts on this because he hears you when it comes to municipalities our size versus Portsmouth and Cleveland and all the things he set out, but what Mark Dickess said in our last council meeting kind of rings in his ear about the New Boston situation and what Jim Tordiff brought up about a flood pump to get that water out when we’re not meeting until next Thursday or we call a special meeting and we have 48 hours and in 48 hours there is a lot of water and we can’t get a pump here—and a pump in Ironton costs the same as it does in Cleveland or Cincinnati.  He said he really needs to think about this but he doesn’t want to do it in the way of getting back to the day-to-day of the City business.  He said he rides the fence on both of these because he thinks this is probably the right thing to do, but the immediate right thing to do is get back to the day-to-day operations of the City and for us not to get “caught with our pants down” and have something happen with flooding or something unforeseen, a utility bill and we can’t remove sludge from our sanitation.  So those are things he worries about with not moving forward.  Mr. Hock said that he wants to refresh the Roberts Rules—we need to get six votes in order to suspend the rules and give it second and third reading, and we would need six votes for it to go into effect immediately.  So if there are less than six votes, it will take 30 days to go into effect, so if there are expenditures in between now and 30 days, that would cause a significant problem, is that right, John?  Mr. Elam said yes, it is six members to suspend it and six members to vote in favor of it for it to pass, then it goes into effect immediately upon passage.  He said if 6 suspend it and 5 vote in favor of it, it’s 30 days before it goes into effect.  He said if it is 5 members voting to suspend it, there will probably need to be two more immediate council meetings called.  Mr. Kline said, again he appreciates them trying to come to a compromise.  He said his compromise to them is if they would like to put together an actual ordinance that would amend the language like this and invite the Mayor, Finance Director, department heads, etc. to give their input in a Finance Committee meeting and discuss it and how to move forward, he would be happy to do that.  Mr. Haney said they received an opinion about this on Thursday prior to the meeting, and he has zero confidence that a well-written ordinance can be put in place from Thursday when we got this until today, which we didn’t even know we were going to have a Special Meeting.  He said what we had in 2020 he believes was sufficient.  There were some other things that had been brought up from 2001 and 2011.  He said we didn’t have any finance meetings about this, we didn’t have any Strategic Planning meetings.  The last time we met with supervisors was in a budget workshop, and like Craig said, the budget workshops are where we set the budget limits.  He said you can always vote against a budget amendment—if John proposes a budget amendment for spending that we have within the City, we put it on the agenda.  He said if you don’t want to vote for that, if it goes above and beyond our budget, then don’t vote for it.  But right now what we are doing, if 26-12 does not pass, we are in effect shutting down the City government and shutting down the ability for our workers to be provided a safe and secure working environment.  He said they have motion on the floor by Mr. Kline and a second by Mr. Hock, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance 26-12 second and third reading by title only.  Ayes:  Haney, Harvey, Hock, Kline, Scott.  Discussion:  Ms. Simmons asked if it was possible to have 26-12 pass for a period of time?  Mr. Haney said, as Nate said, if you can put that in a full ordinance and have it ready, and they are probably going to have to have a Strategic Planning meeting and definitely a Finance meeting . . . he said he also would like to include some of our supervisors in order to think this through correctly.  He said he doesn’t want to start passing things on a whim because of a certain situation.  Ms. Simmons said she agrees with him, which is why I am concerned about this.  She asked, is it possible to pass this and say, until an ordinance . . . ?  Mr. Kline said there would certainly be a motion to amend 26-12 with a time line, and it would also have to go back to Finance for a recommendation, and then we would have to go back through the meeting.  He said right now they are on suspending the rules and giving it second and third reading, and Ms. Simmons is the last vote.  Mr. Haney said whatever ordinance they want to create, you can also within that ordinance repeal Ordinance 26-12, provided that your ordinance passes, to get this moving forward.  He said he just thinks that this needs a lot more input.  He said we have things set but if there needs to be a significant change to this, he thinks they need more heads of departments coming in and probably the Mayor, and John and Mark, in order to have a holistic approach of what we are trying to do.  Right now, he thinks with public safety and employee safety, something has to be decided today.  Mr. Brown said he would like to reiterate that this is not saying that more than $25,000 can be spent.  The opposing legislation is suggesting that anything above $25,000 would come through Council.  He said he would also argue, Mr. Haney mentioned that within two days he doubts that a successful ordinance could be crafted.  He said either way they are proposing a new ordinance—either way this is an ordinance that has been crafted in two days.  He said 26-13 would achieve the same goal by keeping the government open by getting it open to a $25,000 threshold.  He said they have a proposal with emergency language in it.  And he also wants to reiterate that the shut-down mentioned does not affect payroll, does not affect benefits or anything like that—it benefits single-item purchases, so he wouldn’t consider that a government shut-down by any means.  Mr. Haney said it 100% affects employees’ ability to work in a safe environment.  He said, that being said, Ordinance 26-12 clearly states that the only changes that we made to anything was to add ORC language to it, so if you have a problem with ORC, you’re going to have to lobby State reps and everything.  Ms. Simmons said because she is concerned about the City being able to function, she is going to vote yes, reluctantly.  Ayes:  Haney, Harvey, Hock, Kline, Scott, Simmons—six .  Nays:  Brown—one.  Motion passed and Ordinance 26-12 was given second and third readings.  Mr. Kline moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to adopt Ordinance 26-12.  Discussion:  Mr. Harvey wanted to say that he hears the concern Ms. Simmons has and he is committed to making this what we want it to be and he just wants to get back to the day-to-day now and make sure we have the appropriate guardrails, even though right now he thinks our budget is our guardrails and this is additional guardrails.  Mr. Kline said again, his willingness to revisit that with more heads in the room with more experience and actual boots on the ground.  He said this is probably the first tough vote Ms. Simmons has had here.  He said he has sat in that chair, too, and they are not all easy, but the fact that she is here serving is a big part of it.  He said again, he is willing to work with her on that going forward.  Mr. Haney said whatever we need to do to get the right people in here, just let him know and he will make it work because when we do things like this, his stance has always been that he doesn’t want to do bits and pieces, he wants to have it holistic so they don’t have to visit it again.  He doesn’t want to piece it out and he doesn’t want to sit here and have 19 different meetings on 19 different ordinances.  He said it isn’t going to be easy, they are going to have to have multiple meetings but that’s what you have to have to have a holistic legislation in place, and he will support whatever meeting they want to have and whoever they need to bring in, we’ll make it happen and then they will have a holistic version in place.  Motion to adopt:

Ayes:  Haney, Harvey, Hock, Kline, Scott, Simmons—six.  Nays:  Brown—one.  ADOPTED

ORDINANCE NO. 26-13 –    AMENDING CODIFIED SECTION 234.03 OF THE CODIFIED ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF IRONTON AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given first reading.

Mr. Hock stated that this ordinance was given an unfavorable recommendation by the Finance Committee.  Discussion:  Mr. Brown said he would like to move to receive, file and make a part of the minutes, the Example Cities with Mayoral Spending and also the Proposed Amendment to Ordinance 26-13, as well as the legal opinion that they received from the Andersons on February 25, 2026.  He said all of this is part of a public file.  Mr. Harvey seconded Mr. Brown’s motion.  Motion passed unanimously.  Mr. Brown said he would also like to highlight a few of these cities as we are discussing this legislation.  He said these are other cities with examples of the mayoral spending.  Portsmouth, $36,000.  Beachwood with a population of 13,500, $25,000.  Richmond Heights, population 10,500, with a spending limit of $15,000.  University Heights with a population of 13,500 with a spending limit of $15,000.  And Cleveland, one of the biggest cities in the State with a population of 365,000 has a spending limit of $50,000.  He said he doesn’t think that $25,000 is an unreasonable guardrail for mayoral purchases in a city our size.  Mr. Haney said Cleveland’s budget is probably 100x more than ours, and as it’s been stated, our budget is a major guardrail.  So when something is spent that is outside of what we, as a whole, vote on for a yearly annual budget, if it exceeds that, that is when these situations arise; and in order to protect it, that is when you have to vote.  He asked, are we going to stray from our budget for this reason and this reason only, John will have the numbers for us and then we as a whole vote on it.  Mr. Brown said he completely understand what he is saying.  He said he wants to make it clear, these cities all have city budgets as well—it’s a both and it’s not an either or type of situation.  He said obviously the belief of these cities is that even with a budget, there should be a lower limit than the budgeted limit for the whole year.  He said we make a budget for a year, and yes, we amend it when things need changed, but this allows more oversight, more transparency and more input from an elected body on those single-item purchases that exceed a certain threshold.  He said we have budgets and budgets are important, but he also believes that it shouldn’t be an “or” situation but should be an “and” situation with a mayoral spending limit that is a reasonable amount that there’s more oversight from Council.  Mr. Haney said he doesn’t disagree with that, but he would refer to John for this because their buffer is probably a lot more than ours.  He respects John’s qualities of being very conservative within the budget.  He thinks their buffer is a lot larger than ours is.  He thinks that is one situation where . . . we have a good Finance Director and he is on top of things and we, as a Council, meet to have these budget workshops.  He asked Mr. Kline how budget workshops they have had.  Mr. Kline said three.  Mr. Haney said that is their chance to go over what they are comfortable spending in each department, and we vote on that.  Typically, budgets are unanimous and very few times will they have any opposition to the budget because they work together to set that, and that is a major guardrail.  He is not saying to just spend whatever, but he thinks we need more time for a holistic approach.  Mr. Brown moved, seconded by Ms. Simmons, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance 26-13 second and third reading by title only.  Mr. Brown said he wants to retract that motion and first make a motion to amend Ordinance 26-13 to include the proposed Section 6 document which they have on their tables from Councilmember Simmons.  Mr. Hock said again, like Roberts Rules, he thinks we can make a motion, but if it was amended, it would still need recommendation from Finance, the amended version, though the recommendation for the ordinance in Finance was unfavorable.  Mr. Haney said that is correct, and they would have to set another meeting.  Mr. Brown said he will go back to his original motion and move to suspend the rules and give Ordinance 26-13 second and third reading.  Ms. Simmons seconded that motion.  Ayes:  Brown, Simmons – two.  Nays:  Haney, Harvey, Hock, Kline, Scott – five.

 

            Mr. Harvey moved, seconded by Mr. Kline, to adjourn.  Motion passed unanimously.

Minutes were taken by Marta Leach, Clerk.

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CLERK                                                           VICE MAYOR

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MAYOR