Council Pulls Legislation to Use Public Funds to Fight Participatory Budgeting Initiative

A proposed ordinance sponsored by Cleveland city council President Blaine Griffin, added to council’s Monday agenda over the weekend, would have authorized, if passed, the council president or designee to use public funds to “provide the public information about, and to support or oppose passage of, proposed tax levies, bond issues, and other ballot issues.”

While not explicitly about the impending vote in Cleveland on a participatory budgeting charter amendment, it was clearly the target.

But the legislation was pulled from consideration yesterday.

“People’s Budget Cleveland is dismayed by City Council’s latest efforts to subvert the democratic process in Cleveland. This weekend, City Council introduced last-minute legislation to retroactively authorize the President of City Council to spend public money to defeat resident-led ballot initiatives,” said PB CLE campaign manager Molly Martin in a statement. “This broad overreach sets a dangerous precedent, and is another example of this status quo institution choosing to expand their power rather than respect the will of the people. Our city deserves better.”

Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer, who co-sponsored legislation for a participatory budgeting pilot program earlier this year and tried to coordinate a compromise between PB CLE and Council leadership this month (but who ultimately came out against the charter amendment), blasted the proposed ordinance.

“What we are talking about here is spending taxpayer dollars to run a campaign to tell residents how to vote,” Maurer wrote in an Instagram story. “The city never needed this statutory authority before for city tax levies or school board levies. Now, 7 weeks before a citizen-led election on the very question of budgeting, we want the ‘clear authority’ to spend money to oppose it? That’s a power grab.”

By Monday afternoon, council appeared to reverse course, removing the legislation from the Monday night meeting agenda and letting the Bibb administration take the fall.

“It was suggested by the administration that council move forward with this ordinance,” council director of communications Darryle Torbert told Scene. “After internal conversation, council leadership decided that they were not going to move forward with it.”

“I just wanted to make sure that we were compliant and that we did everything above board,” Blaine Griffin told Signal, referencing the conversations with the law department. “This does not mean and this has never meant that we are trying to run a campaign out of City Hall.”

Meanwhile, a Bibb spokesperson told Signal the law department offered advice but that City Hall did not advocate for the measure.

But it seems that council might still proceed with the same plan, just relying on legal avenues other than city legislation.

“They felt it was unnecessary…because it was something that was proposed by the mayor’s law team to council and there’s already information at the State House and information from the State House, from the Supreme Court, that says that local governments have the right and the ability to use resources to inform and to advocate for or against issues that might be of importance to residents,” said Torbert.

Maurer, in comments on social media, disagreed.

“They are arguing that Ohio law doesn’t explicitly forbid it. And without it being explicitly forbidden apparently our Law Department looked to other sources,” Maurer wrote over a picture of the “Ohio Auditor of State’s FAQs related to Section 9.03 of the Ohio Revised Code’s prohibition against using public funds to support the passage of a political subdivision’s levy or bond issues”.

Over a picture of the court case “Kidwell v. City of Union,” Maurer wrote:

“The First Amendment case does not address what’s obviously a long-standing Ohio state law question about spending public dollars for campaigns. And it’s far from clear that this statutory authority is something the city can grant to itself rather than through the charter or by virtue of state law.”

Maurer went on to clarify that, even if using public funds to campaign against the charter amendment is technically legal, she doesn’t think it’s right.

But PB CLE isn’t just facing trouble from council. Republican State Senator Jerry Cirino (Kirtland) has announced plans to introduce a bill Tuesday to prevent the passage of the charter amendment in November by mandating that only city councils can make decisions about a city’s budget, effectively pre-empting the issue. (Council and Bibb have previously decried state preemption laws, most recently when it came to local gun laws and proposed legislation to ban flavored tobacco products in a city with the highest smoking rate in the state.

“I think this is a situation where the Statehouse needs to step in, lest other cities think they can do this as well,” cleveland.com reports Cirino said. “So it’s not just about Cleveland. If this were to happen in Cleveland, I think it’s such a bad idea, I wouldn’t want to see it come up anywhere else.”

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