Council endorses stronger ethics and training language; asks staff to reconcile with state rules

Cleveland Heights council and the Charter Review Commission reviewed proposed Article 10 language that would require ethics training for elected officials and city employees and reference Ohio's state ethics law as the baseline for local standards.

What the draft says and council's concerns

- The commission proposed that city officials must participate in ethics and public-meetings training and that the charter should reference the Ohio statutory framework as the primary standard for conflicts of interest and enforcement.

- Council members supported the linkage to state law and asked staff to confirm whether any locally required training could be stricter than state law (for example, mandating personal attendance rather than allowing a designee for some Sunshine Law training programs). Several members expressed a preference for requiring officials to attend training personally rather than delegating it.

- The body discussed whether any enforcement or reporting mechanisms should be included in the charter or whether an ordinance, together with existing state enforcement systems (Ohio Ethics Commission), would be a better place to set procedures.

Next steps

Council asked the law director and staff to prepare drafting options that: (a) explicitly reference state ethics law while confirming which additional local training requirements are legally permissible; (b) clarify whether training certificates may be satisfied by a designee or must be completed personally; and (c) propose an implementation approach (charter language for principle-level requirements, ordinance for operational rules).

Ending

No policy was finalized at the meeting; staff were asked to return with specific drafting options that ensure the charter's language complements Ohio statutes and administrative practice.