CANFIELD — Though voters rejected a charter amendment to ban city managerial employees from using city money or time to engage in political activity, the prohibition remains in place because of state law, supporters and opponents of the proposal say.

“There’s already a state law that forbids public funds or employees to do political work so the failure to pass this doesn’t mean it permits us to do that now,” said city Manager Wade Calhoun. “It was to codify language into our city charter. But we’re already under the state statute.”

Section 9.03 of the Ohio Revised Code prohibits, among numerous things, the compensation of “any employee of the political subdivision for time spent on any activity to influence the outcome of an election.”

Calhoun serves as campaign treasurer for the Committee to Protect Canfield’s Charter, which opposed this proposed charter amendment and two others rejected in the Nov. 2 election by city voters. The other two charter amendment proposals would have changed terms for council members and the mayor from four years to two years, and allowed the recall of the city manager.

Bill Padisak, campaign treasurer for Citizens for a Better Canfield Committee, which backed the three failed charter amendments, said management employees on city time or using city money for political purposes still can’t be done regardless of the vote’s outcome.

“The point was to draw attention to it,” said Padisak, who is also president of the Mahoning-Trumbull AFL-CIO Labor Council.

While city voters turned down all three charter amendment proposals, the one to ban management employees from political activity on city time was the closest, defeated 54.6 percent to 45.4 percent, according to unofficial results. The Mahoning County Board of Elections will certify the results later this month.

The three proposals originated, Padisak said, after six public works employees were unable to ratify a union contract with Canfield. The six voted to join the Utility Workers Union of America Local 425, AFL-CIO, in September 2019 and have been working without a contract.

“The city manager was fighting them and he’s not accountable so they decided they should get charter amendments to make the city manager and city council more accountable,” Padisak said.

The Citizens for a Better Canfield Committee raised no money as of Oct. 13, according to its pre-general election campaign finance report. But it received $26,349.96 in in-kind contributions from the UWUA, the international union for the six city workers.

Of that amount, $21,000 was paid in consultant fees with only $2,953.19 used for printing and postage expenses. Mark Brooks, the international union’s special counsel to the president and based in Nashville, Tenn., was the campaign’s consultant.

As of Oct. 13, the Committee to Protect Canfield’s Charter raised $2,533 and spent $1,890 with all of the expenses paid to Piper’s Printing, a Canfield company, for campaign literature and yard signs, according to its pre-general finance report.

The management political ban proposal came about because during work hours, Calhoun threatened to fire the six union members for supporting the other charter amendments, Padisak said.

That supposedly happened June 29.

Calhoun responded: “That was the claim, but that did not have any merit. That never happened.”

The six public works employees supported the charter amendments in an effort to get a contract with the city and that has apparently succeeded, Padisak said.

The day after the Nov. 2 election, the union and the city came to a tentative agreement on a contract, Calhoun and Padisak said.

Ratification of the contract will be in front of city council Wednessday for a vote, Calhoun said.

dskolnick@vindy.com