Athens City Council tackled several legislative measures during Fall Semester that drummed up controversy, with ordinances enacted to regulate reckless partying, trash disposal and tobacco usage in city parks.
“There have been some really high-profile ordinances on council, which has led to a lot more debate,” Councilman Steve Patterson, D-at large, said. “A lot more involvement, a lot more fact finding.”
The legislative body reconvened Sept. 2 — a week after Fall Semester began at Ohio University — following its summer hiatus. Patterson soon began work on amending the Nuisance Party Ordinance.
The amendment, which was designed to increase fines for rambunctious partying while reducing punishment to a civil offense, passed later in the fall.
It was written in cooperation with the Athens-OU Joint Police Advisory Council, an organization that includes city officials, law enforcement officers and university students, and would have increased the fine for those hosting wild parties from $150 to $250.
In the end, city Law Director Pat Lang determined that raising the fine to $250 for a civil offense would go against the Ohio Revised Code, so the fine was kept at $150.
Council also received backlash from both city administration and residents in its attempt to amend the city’s trash ordinance.
The amendment, which saw several revisions, increased fines for trash code violators from $20 to $50 and would have required residents to construct screens in front of their trash cans if their trash was not already entirely hidden from the street.
The final draft of the ordinance, which passed Dec. 1, simply required trash cans to be out of view from the street of the residence's address. It also included a provision allowing for a waiver exempting disabled citizens from enforcement.
Councilman Kent Butler, D-1st Ward, was the only dissenting vote on the measure.
At the same meeting, council passed a measure prohibiting the use of tobacco in city parks. The measure also set a $50 fine for people discarding their cigarette butts on streets or sidewalks.
City officials also passed some measures that had been in the works since late summer, including the purchase of a new fire pumper truck for the Athens Fire Department and the adoption of an ordinance that would better allow law enforcement officers to deal with complaints of noisy pets in late October.
The body also faced the possibility of several administrative changes in December. Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl announced Dec. 1 he would not be running for reelection, prompting Patterson to announce his bid for the position on his personal Facebook page later that night.
Council President Jim Sands also announced his resignation last week due to health complications, which had already kept him from council meetings for about a month.
Butler said the past few months on council haven’t been easy but have nonetheless been rewarding.
“On one level it’s business as usual,” he said. “But it’s also been very emotionally riddled with crests and troughs. It’s part of the community. It’s part of the lives we live here.”
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