A controversial ordinance that would have increased the salary of City Manager Pam Priddy has been rejected in the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas on Thursday.
According to court documents, the rejection of the ordinance was due in part to the circumstances it was introduced in.
Back in September of 2023, a regularly-scheduled council meeting was abruptly adjourned before council could address all items on the agenda.
One of those items included Ordinance 2023-36, which would have increased Priddy's salary by $30,000 a year with six weeks of paid vacation time.
The following week, on September 11, Council held a special meeting with the exact same items on the agenda as the regularly scheduled meeting. An act that former Mayor Kenneth Kline declared illegal before announcing his resignation as mayor.
"A special meeting is not a duplicate and it does not redo the legislation on it. It has legislation on its own. If you look at the agenda here, it's a carbon copy of last week's meeting. It's definitely illegal and if they go through with it they will get in a lot of trouble," Kline said.
In November, Village Councilwoman Julie Stimpert filed a temporary restraining order against the ordinance with the court ruling in Stimpert's favor on Thursday.
According to court documents, because the ordinance was initially discussed in a meeting found to be illegal, it and any other new business discussed at the meeting would be null and void.
Newton Falls Codified Ordinance 125.01 states the following:
"'Special meeting' means a meeting which is neither a regular meeting nor an adjournment of a regular (or special) meeting to another time or day to consider items specifically stated on the original agenda of such regular (or special) meeting."
"It was incumbent of the Village of Newton Falls to follow its own Charter and Ordinances in order to vote on proposed ordinances. This it failed to do, and the five ordinances considered on September 11, 2023 are invalidated by this action in contravention of its own requirements," the document reads.
As a result of this ruling, the village is permanently prohibited from enacting this ordinance.
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