CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio — Judges in the Ohio Fourth District Court of Appeals on Oct. 31 largely upheld a local judge’s prior decisions ordering the city of Nelsonville to place a citizen initiative abolishing the city charter on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The issue passed in a landslide, with 70% of voters in favor of abolishing the charter and returning to a statutory form of government. The city will hold new elections in 2025, with new officials taking office on Jan. 1, 2026.
The appellate court’s opinion affirmed Athens County Court of Common Pleas Judge George McCarthy’s order to prohibit Nelsonville from not passing an ordinance in order for the Athens County Board of Elections to place the issue upon the ballot.
However, the court rejected McCarthy’s decision that the Ohio Constitution governed the number of signatures required for a ballot petition. The judges said that the city charter takes precedence.
The city is now “evaluating its option regarding filing an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court,” Nelsonville City Law Director Jonathan Robe told the Independent. “We have 45 days to decide that.”
Former city council president Greg Smith, one of two Nelsonville residents who sued to place the issue on the ballot, told the Independent that “the appellate court shows, to me, that there really wasn’t any legal basis to challenge.”
“They were arguing, well, we had to do it the constitutional way,” Smith said.
Smith said that he and Vicki McDonald, the other plaintiff in the lawsuit, sought to follow city charter procedures by presenting their signed petitions to the clerk of city council. But when they tried to file their petitions with the Athens County Board of Elections, the board told them that Nelsonville CIty Council had to pass an ordinance placing the initiative on the ballot.
“I’m 70 and Vicky, 73, and we’re out in 100-degree heat in the middle of June, getting signatures going up and down steps, whatever,” Smith said. “And we turned it into the clerk — the council clerk — and she says, ‘Well, you got enough signatures. You got 180 ballots.’ … And then we have this long court battle.”
Nelsonville timeline: Charter initiative by Corinne Colbert, Jen Bartlett and Keri Johnson.Smith thanked Daniel Klos, the plaintiffs’ attorney, “for the fine job he did for the citizens of Nelsonville.” Klos has represented Smith in previous cases that also dealt with interpreting the charter, he said.
Klos told the Independent he took on this case “because I thought people deserve a choice.”
”Having dealt with the language of the charter, and seeing the interpretations that were being made on an ad hoc basis, individual nature of the language, I can understand why people might have concerns that returning to a statutory form of government would allow more predictability to the rule of law by prior case, precedent and consensus than an ad hoc, or basically unprecedented, ruling on a individual charter,” Klos said.
Klos said he feels that it was important for the residents of Nelsonville to have the ability to engage in their right to determine their form of government.
Nelsonville City Council meets every other Monday of each month, at Nelsonville City Council Chambers, 211 Lake Hope Dr. Its next regular meeting will be Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. Meetings are livestreamed on YouTube. Find more at cityofnelsonville.com.
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