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Minutes of a Public Hearing On Proposed Charter Review Revisions 8-10-10 Page 3 Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Sandusky, became very populated. The very populated people working the factories were finding themselves working with Codes of the State of Ohio which really didn't help them in the way of planning, building, living, child labor, and in the way of all individual rights that the State of Ohio was trying to protect. As a result, the citizens of Ohio circulated petitions and ended up having a Constitutional Convention in 1912. In 1912, they amended the State of Ohio Constitution to allow individual communities within the State to adopt their own Constitutions which is what we call our Charter. It allowed the individual cities in geographically defined areas to do that for one reason, to try and make living conditions on a local level adaptable on the basis of changes in conditions. So, if you were in an individual area, people lived close together and they were very close to the factories and had children working at 8 or 9 years old, they wanted the individual cities to be able to control the zoning and have their own police powers in order to make life a livable place in the industrial areas of the State. The rural folks felt they would like to control it the way they wanted to control it so they could set up their own individual cities or villages. After that amendment was adopted in 1912, the thing that you hear about most is Home Rule. So all of the individual communities who wanted to have their own individual Constitution and govern themselves exercised their right of Home Rule, put together a Charter Review Commission and adopted a Charter. They defined their geography. They came up with a name. They came up with a form of government. Either a strong Mayor, strong Council, City Manager, several forms that were available to them. Once they did that in the State of Ohio and Home Rule now was being exercised, first in the major cities, you all have seen there are still townships left. Well what are townships? They are leftover from before 1912. They are the leftovers who did not choose to have a charter. Therefore they do not have anything other than Trustees governing them. They don't have a Mayor. They don't have a Council. They may have their own police force but they still have to follow State laws. They have no local codes or ordinances and they do not have a local charter. Therefore, the changes in the Code do not go to the people to vote on when they amend their charter because they don't have a charter. That has worked pretty well. There have been a lot of Court actions on what is a Home Rule right and what is not a Home Rule right. You have recently read in the paper about the residency fight in the State of Ohio - can a community require its employees to live in that city? There was a battle between the cities who want to do that and the State legislature who said that is not fair, we are adopting a law that applies to everyone in this State. That's called a prevailing right, when the government of the State of Ohio says we are exercising a State-wide right that has a general protection involved in it and a general interest in it. What are some other examples of that? Collective bargaining, minimum wage, Workers' Comp, sick leave, other things like those kinds of general things the citizens in the State want to protect. What does the Federal government have that no one can go against? Well, there's age discrimination which the Federal government prohibits, there's religious discrimination, there's race discrimination, there's First Amendment rights. The Federal government has adopted a