Saturday, May 25, 2013

Local group proposes charter form of Ashtabula County government

From:  Star Beacon 

By STACY MILLBERG - smillberg@starbeacon.com Star Beacon

JEFFERSON — County government could see a big change if a local group is successful in getting a proposed charter form of government on the November ballot.

The group, known as the Committee for a New Ashtabula, is made up of former Ashtabula County Coroner Dr. Robert Malinowski, Andover Village Mayor Bernard Baranowski, Vince Gildone of Conneaut, Monique Kawalek of Rock Creek and Dave Glotzbecker of Sheffield Township.

Essentially, the proposed charter government would be non-partisan and replace the three current commissioners with seven part-time district council persons, who will each represent a different area of the county.

The charter would cut the elected officials’ salaries and combine some of the county offices to potentially save the taxpayers more than $500,000 a year.

Additionally, the charter proposes no sales tax increases without a vote of the people first; off-year elections to allow for local candidates to be the focus of electors; county meetings to be held in the evenings so more people can take an active roll in local government; a law director to handle all civl matters for the county and townships; an economic development department to centralize efforts to grow the county’s workforce; and term limits of three years for elected officials.

“It’s about time we do something to get out little county government back into the hands of the people,” Malinowski said.


2 comments:

  1. Dave Glotzbecker wrote to the Star Beacon and denied he was a member of this committee or went to any of their meetings. Might want to check with the Editor of the Star Beacon as they ran the item in June or July.

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    1. This was a repost so they should have published a correction.

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