If you can answer the following questions I would appreciate it:

1.) What year do the city do away with the Wards systems?

2.) are all of the Wards going to be for election at the same time?

3.) Will the Mayor be elected by the Citizens or appointed by the Council?

4.) Will the Mayor's position be in addition to the 5 council members?

5.) How will they do away with 2 of the 7 positions they currently have?

6.) Are any Citizens (other than current Council members) willing to run for election?

Pacman

I doubt that my memory is better than yours, but I will do my best to answer your questions.

 

1.) What year do the city do away with the Wards systems?

 

A:  All four ward seats expire at midnight on December 31, 2013.  At that time, Middletown will no longer have ward representation on City Council.  I think (although I am not sure) that precincts will still be designated by wards (such as Ward1 Precinct1, or Ward 3 Precinct 5, etc.) to describe voting precincts, but this will have nothing to do with representation on city council.  All city council seats will be elected "at large" and anyone living in any area of the city will be eligible to run for any vacant seat.

2.) are all of the Wards going to be for election at the same time?

 

3.) Will the Mayor be elected by the Citizens or appointed by the Council?

 

A:  The mayor will be elected at-large by the citizens every four years, with the next mayoral election occuring in November of 2015.

4.) Will the Mayor's position be in addition to the 5 council members?

 

A:  NO!!!  Two at-large council members will be elected in 2013 (and every four years thereafter), and the mayor and two more at-large members will be elected in 2015, and every four years thereafter.  Of course, this could change if MMF would allow us mere citizens to amend the city charter. 

5.) How will they do away with 2 of the 7 positions they currently have?

 

A:  Two positions will be eliminated by attrition at the end of calendar year 2013.  (See the answer to Question #2 above.)

6.) Are any Citizens (other than current Council members) willing to run for election?

 

From the lack of post on this topic, it doesn't seem like change is a top priority on this blog.

Pacman

For this City to become more aware of the issues it will take a group of Citizens to form some type of association and raise funds to make the citizens who can make a difference more aware of the issues. 

Just a few issues that need to address are streets, City Leadership giving away blgds for art centers, City Leadership spending city funds on midfest which loses money year after year according to the Journal articles, put pressure on the council to work for the citizens of middletown rather th the Unions which AJ seems to specialize in and the rest of the Council which seems to only specialize in the downtown area.

We would need to form a group who could attack these issues.  It would be up to the group to inform the citizens of Middletown of the issues that effect them rather than to wait to have the currect City Council do what is best for the majority of citizens in Middletown.

If anyone wants to get together and tackle this problem, send me or Mike a private message.

The way the new council election is going to be operated is our best chance as Middle Income citizens of Middletown to make a difference and have a say in our future.

Pacman

KTF,

1) Improve Roads - Yes!,
2) Reduce City Income Taxes to 1.5% - Unlikely due to last election in August
3) Stop all new Section 8 housing - This has pretty much been done, it is now a matter of reducing Section 8 in Middletown which has become an issue
4) Either Do away with the Middletown Busing System, or redo the routes that make sense - The Current busing system is set up to hit a major needed area. such as Meijer and Kroger and generally does not run through the neighborhoods. Even though I live on a major road way in Middletown it does not come my way either.
5) Invest in fixing neighborhoods first not Downtown - I agree with you 100% on this.
6) Enforce the regulations on keeping Middletown clean, and maintained by it's residence and businesses. And fine them heavily if they don't. I also agree this issue.
7) Invest in sidewalks along 122 and Grand Ave. to improve safety for people that walk to work. I agree with this also, but the issue here is that in order to have sidewalk along 122 & Grand I believe you have to have the businesses and residents along these roads agree to pay for these sidewalks. I have never lived in a state where the residents are required to pay for and repair the sidewalks when it comes time to upgrade the roads.
8) Promote new housing development for Middle to Upper income houses, and business. - This should have started long ago and we would probably be better off going with middle income housing. But Counsil is more interested in playing around with $10m renovations of bldgs downtown which I don't care if the bldgs are renovated as long as the money does not come out of the taxpayers pockets or fed funds funneled to Middletown just to be funneled back to the SORG.
9) Continue to tear down blighted houses, and empty strip malls and businesses.- I agree with this one wholeheartedly.
10) Reduce the size of City Government - This would have to be investigated further as the current positions would have to be analyzed and their need decided upon.
11) Tear down or re-develop the Towne Mall - Towne Mall should be redevelop into a retail outlet/mall

I do not think we should be going into too much detail on this site and think we should have a meeting of like minded Citizens and discuss a platform. We should require people to identify themselves (in a private message) before coming to a meeting.  Identities will be kept confidential.