What Does City Council Do?

     One of the most common questions I get asked is "What exactly does city council do?" This is something I myself was unsure of as most of my government classes in high school had focused on the national level with the President, the Supreme Court, and Congress. So I have done some investigating and I believe I have a brief explanation of what city council is responsible for. To begin though I would like to include a short review of my high school government class. As many people know the U.S. federal government is split into 3 branches of government.

     The first is called the Executive Branch, more commonly known as the President and his cabinet, which include the Attorney General, the Vice-President, the Secretaries of State, the Treasury, and Homeland Security just to name a few. The Executive Branch is responsible for the enforcement of the law, example the most powerful Law enforcement agency in the world is our own FBI whose director is selected my none other than the President of the U.S.A. The President corresponds most closely to our Mayor in local government, like the President our Mayor is responsible for the appointment of local officials such as the Chief of Police, the Director of parks and recreation, and the city engineer.

     Second comes the Judicial Branch which is made up of all federal courts most famously is the Supreme Court in Washington D.C., the job of the Judicial Branch is to interpret the law for example if 2 laws appear to be in conflict the courts can decide which law supersedes the other. In the case of Gideon verses wainwright 3 separate laws came into effect, 1st was the 6th amendment to the constitution, 2nd was the Florida law guaranteeing citizens facing a capital offence a lawyer and finally 3rd the supremacy clause of the united states constitution. For more information simply search Gideon vs. Wainwright on Google or You-tube.

      Of course here in Chillicothe we have our own local judicial side of things from Judges Eddy and Street our elected Municipal Court Judges, to Sherri Rutherford newly reelected City Law Director. Their jobs as you may have guessed is to ensure fair trials and legal interpretation of the law, not unlike our national Supreme Court.

     Third is called the Legislative Branch, this Branch is made up of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate, together they make up what is often referred to as the U.S. Congress. The Legislative Branch is responsible for the making of laws, examples include drug policies, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and the approval or ratification of treaties with foreign nations. Now we come to it and City Council is most like to the Legislative branch of government. City Council decides the laws here in Chillicothe recent changes to the Codified Ordinances(the List of laws here in Chillicothe) include the inability to park cars in one front or side yards, the changing of parking in Chillicothe's downtown to angle parking.

      One last thing that I would be remiss if I forgot to mention is that both Congress and City Council both hold something called the power of the purse, meaning that just like your spouse at home they decide when and where money is spent, example here in Chillicothe there was a major leak in the water system beneath Water St. funds to perform the repair had to be set aside by the Council in order to afford parts and labor for the much needed fix. the power of the purse is likely the most important thing exercised by Chillicothe's City Council every year millions of dollars are divided up and voted on, despite the budget being suggested by the Mayor of Chillicothe Council always has the power(though its use is becoming a rare thing) to vote no.