BROADVIEW HEIGHTS — “To the rejoice of dozens of residents in attendance at City Council’s Sept. 4 meeting, council voted unanimously place a charter amendment on the Nov. 6 ballot to create a Community Bill of Rights declaring that no more gas or oil wells could be drilled in the city.
This decision blatantly contradicts the legal advice given by Law Director Vince Ruffa during council’s Aug. 27 meeting when he advised the city to vote against the ordinance because it is, in his opinion, not in the city’s best interest because it makes it vulnerable to potential lawsuits.
‘We defied our law director tonight because we believe it is more important to put this on the ballot,’ said Councilman-at-large James Giomini after the meeting. He went on to say that he personally believes that the city and Mothers Against Drilling in our Neighborhoods missed an opportunity to get something done that could have a much greater impact than the proposed bill of rights.
‘If we brought 10,000 signed petitions to our state representative saying ‘we want home rule back,’ it would be huge,’ Giomini said. ‘But, we didn’t partner. We took sides.’”
— Robert Rozboril, Sun News
