Well, that's all I said.

We don't have one real close as we just start with.

Calling to order the special meeting of the South Summit Council of Governments this Friday, April 17, 2026.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

Which it stands under God.

Secretary, please call the roll.

Mayor Jurgen.

I am here.

Mayor Rector.

I am also here.

So today's a special meeting.

Um we're focusing on the topic of updating our bylaws for the South Summit Council Council of Governments.

What brought this about largely was some changes that we have made recently with personnel and role definitions with new treasurer and secretary.

And the existing rules in the bylaws simply are outdated as we have redefined those new roles and terms.

And that's of course caused us to look at the whole uh by-law system and ask is there anything else that we should update?

Um folks have individually looked at these.

Um myself, Mr.

Rector, um, the finance directors from both of the member cities and as well as our law enforcement personnel and sent thoughts to um Vicky, the secretary, who has given us a copy and color coded to show everyone's comments.

So I think probably the best thing to do is just do what I can to run through this.

I'll tell you in advance, I have one hour.

I've got another meeting after this.

So I'm gonna try to be very efficient.

Uh I'm gonna go through the paragraphs, look at Mr.

Rector, Mayor Rector, see if he has thoughts, and if he doesn't, we'll assume that the change will be made.

If any either of our finance directors have thoughts as we go through, and I haven't already invited you, simply just raise your hand or come to the microphone.

Um we want to hear you anytime you have thoughts, but I might necessarily not necessarily ask at every um every recommendation.

So many of these, I think, are kind of housekeeping in nature and uh very simple.

Uh same thing with anybody else.

Uh I'm gonna zip through.

If you want me to stop me at any point, let me just let me do that.

Um the South Summit of uh Council of Governments is a cog, a council of governments, and that's a statutory creature that's defined by if memory um serves me, 167 of the Ohio Revised Code.

And basically what that provision uh does is it allows municipalities and other forms of government to come together and form a kind of partnership uh to join forces and for efficiency's sake work together to serve our uh joint constituents.

Um and that can take a lot of forms.

Our focus has been uh dispatch, so we are two entities that are working together, forming this separate entity that um is uh governing a joint dispatch center for efficiencies, money savings, and also uh frankly to preserve a high degree of local control uh so that we can kind of ensure our own quality and meant ensure that our own residents are uh served as well as possible through emergency services.

So our um our bylaws are uh required by statute.

They are essentially the governing document of the organization under the revised code.

Uh and we want to make sure they're up to date and accurately reflect what we're doing.

So let's just go through this.

Article one.

Um Dan would suggest removing newly created.

I I see the merit in that.

We're not so new anymore, so um I'm gonna suggest we remove that.

You good with that?

I'm good with that.

All right.

Moving to Article 2.

Um Shelley made the suggestion instead of membership on, we say membership of.

Again, I have no objection to that.

Um I would probably insert after executive board of the word the before council in the middle of 2.1, executive board of the council.

Um and let me say, first of all, you have any issue with me.

I uh statutorily, we are called as an entity a council, right?

That's our name, the council of governments, and that has a statutory implication, uh, a legal meaning.

Um just as we're a city, New Franklin's a city, a council is this type of partnership of two cities working together uh to serve our joint uh residents.

Um it makes sense to me that any time we refer to the entity, we call it the council, but within the council, um we have a couple of boards, and again, these are statutorily authorized.

There is an executive board that is the chief executive of each city, myself and Mayor Mayor uh Rector.

Um that is the primary decision-making body.

And so any time I think it any time that the article refers to the decision-making body, I think it's cleaner if we say the executive board, as opposed to the council, because the council refers to the entity, the executive board is making decisions for the council, right?

There is another board that's mentioned here, and that is a dispatch board that oversees the dispatch center, and they make recommendations up to the executive board.

So any time their authority is implicated, I think we want to be clear to say dispatch board, right?