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NILES -- The city's council president emphasized the value of change in local and federal government as to why he's pushing for a citizen's initiative on next year's ballot.
As part of his remarks at last week's city council meeting, Council President Doug Sollitto noted past discussions in 2022 about council members going from a two-year to a four-year term, adding that they need to consider that "strongly."
Sollitto said it's because he's received legal counsel involved, and he's looking at ways of imposing term limits on both council and the mayoral positions -- whether it be through the statutory or charter processes.
Sollitto elaborated further on the citizen initiative Tuesday, explaining that term limits exist with the state's governor and the president of the United States, and no one should go into positions and "camp out forever."
"It slows the progress of developing more leaders, and it also stops for potential corruption and complacency. We can have excellent leaders," Sollitto said. "We've had excellent presidents of the United States, et cetera -- but after their terms (are) up, they had to move on as well, so as everyone else."
Sollitto said he considers being in one place for one or two decades to not be "healthy government."
Sollitto said the limits would be active moving forward, meaning Councilman at-Large Michael Lastic, who has served on council since 1999, would have their two-term limit active after their next election.
With some communities having one or no candidates run for certain local government positions, Sollitto said he feels it's because of name recognition and candidates fearing their inability to beat the incumbent.
"Now, if you had somebody termed out, you probably would have a bunch of people putting in for it," Sollitto said. "But it's hard to beat an incumbent, so people don't want to challenge the incumbent because they've been there and they're hard to remove -- it'll allow more candidates."
"Certainly, you'll always have somebody run for mayor. You'll have somebody run for those positions. The reason they haven't is because they don't believe they can beat the people that are in there, and that's not good government."
Sollitto said Niles is presently structured as a statutory city, and the rules are silent when it comes to term limits for public officials.
"Speaking with a few attorneys -- I talked to two different ones -- and when it's silent, that's where the petition would be the ideal situation; it does not forbid, the statutory part does not forbid a people's petition, which is nothing greater," Sollitto said. "It would probably not be a good look for any politician to go say, 'Hey, I'm opposed to this. We should be able to stay in forever.'"
Sollitto said it could also lead to a petition for a charter government if that's what needed to be done, but he didn't want to get into it, reiterating his opinion about politicians expressing the desire to stay forever.
Sollitto said any ballot initiative would be on the November 2027 ballot, as he needs to wait until the gubernatorial race concludes to grasp how many signatures will be needed.
Law Director Phil Zuzulo said Thursday that he hasn't done a lot of research on the matter, but because Niles is a statutory city, it follows the Ohio Revised Code with respect to procedural matters, like qualifications for being a public official, adding that it's silent regarding term limits.
"In my viewpoint on it, it would not be able to be something council could do; I think Mr. Sollitto's plan is to see if an initiative can be done," Zuzulo said. "I think we would have to be a charter, if we were to really do it -- or the ORC would need to be amended."
Zuzulo said he knows there are other viewpoints on it, adding that he thinks it'll be up to the Trumbull County Board of Elections and the county prosecutor's office as to whether they believe the initiative is proper to go forward, then possibly challenged later on.