09/17/2002 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Council Minutes of 9/17/2002 meeting. However, she will pursue what the Mayor has decided not to pursue and will contact the other cities who have mayor's court and ask them to provide their information to Council. She sees no harm in Council educating themselves on this subject before proceeding with it. Law Director Dubelko: 1) With regazd to the issue of the mayor's court, at the last Council meeting he advised Council that he would be contacting both of the judges in Rocky River Municipal Court and the interested parties in the city government regazding the mayor's court issue. On September 8, he sent a letter to both judges in response to their proposals to revise some of their court procedures which would address some of the city's concerns. One of those concerns was having police officers being required to attend every trial that was scheduled in Rocky River Municipal Court as there aze few pre-trials held. The judges had proposed allowing our Prosecutor to be present at arraignments, with the hope that some plea bargaining could take place at the arraignments and a number of cases would not be set .for trial and our police officers would not have to attend. He did indicate to the judges that the Law Department would cooperate fully with them in establishing such a procedure, and it is his understanding that Rocky River Court will be attempting to implement that sometime in October. 2) On September 8, he sent a memo to the Mayor, Councilwoman Kesler and Finance Director Copfer in an attempt to sort out these mayor's court issues. The memo indicated that before introduction of any legislation, the Finance Director should be brought into it to address cost concerns. Also, there should be afollow-through with respect to bringing people before City Council or the Mayor's office to educate the city on haw a mayor's court operates best. 3) On September 9, he issued legal opinion No. 16 to Councilman Gareau regarding questions relating to the subject of assigning duties to the Clerk of Council. 4) On September 9 and 16, the Boazd of Control met. After each meeting, the directors and the Mayor began looking at budget 2003 issues. 5) On September 11, he attended the memorial ceremony at Fire Station No. 1. It was a very moving ceremony. He particulazly wanted to commend Safety Director Thomas on her comments at that ceremony. She emphasized that 9/11, for America's safety forces, was not just a tragedy involving the loss of so many lives to many safety force members, but it also should be viewed as a wake-up call for better training for our safety forces so that we can, as government officials, insure that we give them the tools they require in order to perform their dangerous jobs to the best of their ability. 6) On September 12, he sent a letter to a number of residents in Wazds I, II and IV who were affected by the default of Ohio Trenching. There has been a problem there with tree lawns being restored to a number of the residents' properties. The city had declared the contractor in default, and we were looking to the surety of the performance bond for relief. We have received some action as the surety has hired Zergott Landscapers. The work has been scheduled, and they should be out beginning to repair tree lawns this week. 7) On September 12, he attended a meeting of the Cuyahoga County Law Directors Association at which the speaker was the executive director of the Ohio Ethics Commission. He gave a good presentation on ethics issues confronting local government officials, particularly in the areas of attending golf outings put on by public agency 3