02/17/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 2/17/2004 „~~ going to address that question at this point. Councilman Nashar asked the Law Director if the Mayor and directors are able to review records in the Police Department. Law Director Dubelko answered that he had issued a formal legal opinion, 2003-8, on the subject of the authority of directors to access records in other departments and divisions, including the Police Department. After consulting a previous legal opinion of former Law Director Gareau and researching the issue, he concluded, if directors need a record to do their job as a member of governmerrt, generally speaking they have good access to it. There are still some limitations. When this particular investigation was ongoing, his opinion would have been that nobody outside of the Police Department could access it because of the need for confidentiality in a police investigation. Now that the investigation is closed, it still remains anon-public record-at least those portions of the file that are classified as confidential law enforcement investigatory records because under the Ohio public records law, if there has never been a suspect arrested or charged, they don't lose their non-public records status. He is not going to treat the Mayor or any member of the public differently from another person. Councilman Nashar asked the Mayor why he didn't just ask the Police Department or the people in question for the records since he has the authority to do that. Mayor Musial answered, "The reasoning is that, if I get the records according to my position, I cannot use those records in any potential lawsuit against anybody." Councilman Miller asked the Mayor if he knew that this lawsuit was filed in his capacity as Mayor. Mayor Musial responded that he did. He said it was signed by Gary Ebert. (His attorney.) Mr. Miller asked the Mayor if any of this was done on city time. The Mayor replied, "Absolutely not." Mr. Miller then asked if any city equipment (copy machines, telephones, fax machines), were used with regard to filing the lawsuit, and Mayor Musial said no. Finance Director Copfer: 1) There is legislation before Council this evening to request proposals for the financial accounting system software and hardware. She is very excited about moving forward on that project so that it can be up and running by the end of this year. 2) The new money capital improvement bond anticipation notes are before Council this evening. The renewal notes will be ready at the next Council meeting. ~) The 2004 appropriations ordinance was completed and is before Council this evening. She looks forward to spending many hours of quality committee time with Council over these next few weeks. President O'Grady: 1) The Committee-of--the-Whole met at 7:17 p.m. on Tuesday, February 17. Present were the President of Council and all members of Council, along with the directors of Law, Planning and other guests. Up for discussion was Council's appointments to the Charter Review Commission. City Council can make four appointments. The seven candidates were: Jim Bums, Diane Feigi, Michael Gareau Sr., Nicole Dailey Jones, Dennis Lambert, Ron Tallon .and Bob Wendt. After consideration through the committee process of those seven candidates, voting was held in the Committee-of-the-Whole. The recommendation of the committee was that the following four people would be appointed to the Charter Review Commission: Diane Feigi, Michael Gareau, Nicole Dailey Jones and Ron Tallon. 4