Clyde City Manager: We know better than AG Petro and other cities' officials

3:07pm Wednesday, August 04, 2004

August 4, 2004
Fremont News Messenger

by Jack Buehrer

Clyde firm on gun ban in city parks

CLYDE -- While an Ohio Second Amendment advocacy group continues to threaten legal action, city officials are refusing to budge on their decision to ban weapons in public parks.

City Manager Dan Weaver said Ohioans for Concealed Carry, who last month wrote a strongly-worded letter urging city council to rescind an ordinance it enacted in June that prohibits concealed handguns in Clyde's six public parks, have contacted the city to make an official request for all public records pertaining to the ordinance. So far, OFCC has been successful in persuading several other municipalities in Ohio to revoke similar ordinances -- most recently the Village of Arcanum about 35 miles northwest of Dayton -- but Weaver said Clyde has no intentions of changing anything.

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"I think we all feel we're on firm ground with (Ohio law) and with our powers as a home-rule government," he said. "I don't see us making any moves at this point. Let a judge make the decision if that's what it comes to."

Representatives from OFCC could not be reached Tuesday night, but Ken Hanson, legal council for the organization, told The News-Messenger on July 13 that he was planning to file lawsuits in the first week of August.

Weaver said he has been working the phones talking to local legislators in hopes of persuading them to provide a legislative fix to what he calls a loophole in the concealed-carry law that went into effect in Ohio this spring.

"I think our hope is that there is a legislative fix before this would even get to court," he said.

"I think it will be fixed, but we've been contacting our local representatives trying to move it forward as quick as possible."

Commentary:
This reporter states that "representatives from OFCC could not be reached Tuesday night", but not one of OFCC's steering committee members or attorneys received so much as an email or voicemail message from him.

Clyde City Manager Dan Weaver says he is staking his hopes (and the city's tax dollars) on legislative attempts to abolish Section 9 of House Bill 12.

But House and Senate legislators representing the City of Clyde unanimously voted for House Bill 12 with Section 9, and only a tiny minority of anti-gun lawmakers (none from the Clyde area) have signed on as co-sponsors of a bill which would repeal it.

As was pointed out in a letter from OFCC attorney Ken Hanson to the City of Clyde, Kim Norris, a spokesperson for Attorney General Jim Petro has repeatedly said, "If you are a licensed conceal-carry holder, you should be allowed to carry in a park." Norris says Petro's office would not issue an official opinion on the matter, reiterating that, as the law is written now, guns should be allowed in city parks.

OFCC's letter went on to explain that Clyde's "reliance" on home rule is "misplaced," stating that the ordinance is "in conflict with general laws of the state."

Click here to donate to OFCC's Ohio Concealed Carry Law Defense Fund.

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