11/16/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting Minutes 11-16-09 Page ] 4 Council President Buckholtz replied that would be a legal question. He was thinking the same thing when John was giving his report. Mr. Diemert replied that we were told by John earlier in the day about this. We did look into it and the Constitution prohibits retroactive enforcement of laws of this nature. Mrs. Triner asked, even though it has not been drilled yet? Mr. Diemert replied, right. Once the permit is issued, they are vested, protected. We will look at every avenue to possibly get them to follow it anyway as John talked about. We are going to try that. Council President Buckholtz echoed what the Mayor said. He thought the Mayor said it well. He does not know that it will cause any true functional difference in the outcome here, but we have a classic case to send down to Columbus. Again, this is wrong. This should not be happening this way. This is not the way this is supposed to work. If we can tie it to Grendell's Bill, our Ordinance, but we can't rush this and we can't, as the Law Director said, retroactively enforce it. Mrs. Triner asked, is there any chance you can do two readings in December if there's anything else out there lurking that we are not sure of? Council President Buckholtz replied, we can potentially. If we get the Ordinance cleaned up, we can potentially pass it, he thinks. Mr. Diemert replied, sure. Council President Buckholtz added we suspend the rules all the time to pass things. The Ordinance needs us to go over it. It's just brand new and fresh and he knows that Bill requested that it be held at least for the one reading to tweak things. Ken Messin er-Rapport NEOGAP Mr. Rapport is the Law Director for NEOGAP. He was not planning on speaking this evening, so excuse the attire. He thought Council and the Mayor's comments this evening were very supportive of our organization. He just wanted to extend an invitation to Council and Mayor and Law Department and to Mr. Marquardt. Our organization is currently working on legislation with Senator Grendell. We have open communications with them and with the oil and gas industry in Columbus. We are going to be going down every week that they have hearings. We have meetings scheduled this week with the oil and gas industry. They want to open the lines of communication with them to work with us. We appreciate hearing what you have to say and communicating that to them. If you want to have a direct impact on this legislation, we are there. We are available.