Grove City Council spent its early session revisiting a draft charter and outlining the remaining decisions that will shape whether changes require a voter-approved charter amendment or can be handled by ordinance. Council President Cindy Hauck led the discussion and asked the city solicitor and drafting team to retain language on several topics for future review.

The council returned repeatedly to the question of whether provisions — including term limits, the council’s role in appointing or confirming department heads, and removal thresholds for the city manager — could be implemented by ordinance rather than by changing the charter. City Solicitor Bill Smith told council that the current charter limits what council may achieve by ordinance and that some changes would require a charter amendment.

Councilmembers discussed several specific items. There was no councilwide consensus on term limits; some members said they supported including term-limit language in the draft for a future council’s consideration. Members debated whether the appointment or confirmation of the law director and finance director should be a council power or delegated to the city manager with council confirmation. Councilmembers reviewed Westerville’s model, in which the director of law is appointed and removable by a majority of council, and the director of finance is appointed by the city manager subject to council confirmation.

Council also discussed the mechanics of removal. Much of the draft charter uses a two-thirds threshold for removals; several members said they want that consistency preserved for positions that directly affect council. Members asked for explicit transitional language so that critical services (payroll, public safety and other operations) continue during any personnel transitions.

On a separate, related point, the city solicitor and finance director were asked to review Section 608 (Transfer of Funds) language. Council member Chuck Bozzo recommended removing phraseology that tied transfers explicitly to the city manager’s recommendation so the text would read that Council may by resolution transfer unencumbered balances.

The council agreed to direct the solicitor to keep a reference to the term-limits discussion in the working draft so a future seated council can act on it. Councilmembers asked staff to research other municipalities’ language for appointing and removing the law and finance directors, and to draft transition and implementation language for inclusion in the next charter draft.