CLEVELAND, OH – Ward 14 Councilwoman Jasmin Santana appears to have rushed members of Cleveland city council into becoming the second city in the United States of America behind Ann Arbor, Michigan to enact a “fad” ordinance that provides free tampons and sanitary pads to females using public buildings. Santana was mentioned in an Akron Beacon Journal story as the author of the Cleveland emergency menstrual ordinance Akron city councilwoman Tara Moseley copied and sponsored.
In Cleveland Ordinance Number 925-2021 was enacted as an “emergency” in violation of Section 731.30 of the Ohio Revised Code the city’s councilors continue not to read, master and obey. Emergency ordinances cannot be “tautological” and the emergency must be “specifically set forth” in the preamble of the legislation. There’s also the requirement of Section 731.19 of the Ohio Revised Code that only one subject be contained within an ordinance; and Santana’s has two subjects. One authorizes the establishment of a program and another authorizes the purchase of tampons for the “program.”
“An emergency ordinance establishing a program to make feminine hygiene products free and accessible in all restrooms in City Hall and Neighborhood Youth and Adult Education Resource and Recreation Centers; and authorizing the purchase by one or more standard purchase and requirement contracts of feminine hygiene products for the Division of Recreation and the Division of Property Management, Department of Public Works.”
The “specific powers” of municipal corporations is found in Section 717.01 of the Ohio Revised Code. None authorize the legislative authority of a municipal corporation to provide feminine hygiene products to the menstruating users of public buildings; and well-paid employees and female politicians looking to save a few dollars on the rising cost of tampons and sanitary pads. Santana’s menstrual ordinance doesn’t read that she wants municipal custodians to stock public restrooms with tampons like they do toilet paper, towels and soap. It would be the simplest way to achieve the goal if it was lawful.

The ordinance reads that Santana is instructing the mayor to “establish a program” to make feminine products free and accessible in all public restrooms. The concept of a program suggests Santana’s got someone in mind for a newly-created city hall job as a tampon and sanitary pads administrator. To do so would require council to amend its salary ordinance to set forth the qualifications for the new public job Santana’s tampon and sanitary napkin ordinance implies.
In Ann Arbor the tampon ordinance its mayor asked for covers more than just city properties. Businesses with restrooms are now required to supply tampons or sanitary napkins or face a $100 fine. Is Santana’s tampon ordinance a first step towards making Cleveland’s small business pay for a woman’s menstrual needs? A 45 count box of Kotex unscented tampons costs $9.36 according to Walmart’s website. The lifetime costs of menstruation products are $6000 and Moseley thinks like Santana it’s a cost that should be covered by taxpayers.
In reading the ordinance above there is no emergency “specifically set forth” in the preamble that explains why the need is so urgent. The legislation is illegal on its face and it’s something she should now know along with her colleagues not to attempt after the past four years on council. Section 731.30 of the Ohio Revised Code is where the statutory instructions for enacting emergency ordinances are found and it reads as follows:
“Whenever the legislative authority of a municipal corporation is required to pass more than one ordinance or other measure to complete the legislation necessary to make and pay for any public improvement, sections 731.28 to 731.41, inclusive, of the Revised Code shall apply only to the first ordinance or other measure required to be passed and not to any subsequent ordinances and other measures relating thereto. Ordinances or other measures providing for appropriations for the current expenses of any municipal corporation, or for street improvements petitioned for by the owners of a majority of the feet front of the property benefited and to be especially assessed for the cost thereof, and emergency ordinances or measures necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety in such municipal corporation, shall go into immediate effect. Such emergency ordinances or measures must, upon a yea and nay vote, receive a two-thirds vote of all the members elected to the legislative authority, and the reasons for such necessity shall be set forth in one section of the ordinance or other measure.”
The word “shall” in Section 731.30’s final sentence was highlighted in blue for emphasis on the “mandatory duty” imposed on all of the members of council who both sponsored and voted for Santana’s ordinance. The use of the word “shall” in a law gives the official or person compelled by it no other duty but to obey it as written. To be lawful Santana’s ordinance had no other choice but to set forth the reason supplying tampons for users of public buildings was needed “for the immediate preservation of public peace, health or safety of the municipal corporation.”
The Ohio Auditor of State in prior audits under Martin Sweeney has ripped council for enacting every ordinance as an emergency when they’re not. Kevin Kelley simply repeated the practice; and over the past four years considered every ordinance to be “for the immediate preservation of public peace, health or safety of the municipal corporation.” This he and the council did “tautologically” without setting forth reasons.

Tautological emergencies are used by malicious legislative authorities like Cleveland’s to avoid voter referendums on the ordinances they’re voting for and are therefore unlawful. Pursuant to Section 731.29 of the Ohio Revised Code residents have 30 days after an ordinance’s enactment to produce signatures totalling in number to 10 percent of the voters casting ballots in the most recent election for governor if they want the final word on its passage instead of the council.
What the Communist-influenced Democrats on Cleveland city council have done for over the past decade has been to enact emergency ordinances to obstruct the Democratic process authorized by law. Santana was backed for the council job in 2017 by the head of the Ohio Communist Party who has infiltrated the Democratic Party as a ward leader.
Communism is outlawed in the United States America as a violation of the National Security Act of 1950; and the Communist Control Act of 1954. Communists are known for infiltrating our elected and appointed public offices to violate our constitutions and laws. Nagin’s “Wiki” page demonstrates how he’s been infiltrating Cleveland’s immigrant communities and spreading Communism to illegal aliens who have never pledged allegiance to our nation and renounced their homelands.
Santana’s tampon and sanitary napkin ordinance is ripe for litigation to overturn it based on an existing ruling of the Supreme Court of Ohio in State ex rel. Webb v. Bliss, 99 Ohio St.3d 166, 2003-Ohio-3049.
Nevertheless, the statutory duty to set forth reasons for an emergency in an ordinance is mandatory. Hence, the failure to do so, for example, by including purely conclusory, tautological, or illusory language in the emergency measure fails to meet the R.C. 731.30 requirements for a valid emergency ordinance. State ex rel. Waldick v. Williams (1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 192, 195, 658 N.E.2d 241; Moore, 62 Ohio St.3d at 132-133, 580 N.E.2d 11.
Aside from the obvious “emergency” problems associated with the Santana ordinance there’s also the “one subject” state law violation of Section 731.19 of the Ohio Revised Code; and all of this should have been in a veto signed by Mayor Frank Jackson. I’m not sure if Kevin Kelley realizes that his misleading council to violate so many laws reflects on his competence, knowledge and ethics as an attorney. A client hiring him to represent a municipal corporation with shit like this in his government background will not be well-served. Ohio’s laws are so simple and easy to read even an American 8th grader can understand them.

The heading for Section 731.19 is as “Dick and Jane-simple” as the heading of every other unsuspended Ohio municipal statute every municipal official in our state is administered an oath of office to know and obey. “Subject and amendment of bylaws, ordinances, and resolutions.”
No ordinance, resolution, or bylaw shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title. No bylaw or ordinance, or section thereof, shall be revived or amended, unless the new bylaw or ordinance contains the entire bylaw, ordinance, or section revived or amended, and the bylaw, ordinance, or section so amended shall be repealed. Each such bylaw, resolution, and ordinance shall be adopted or passed by a separate vote of the legislative authority of a municipal corporation and the yeas and nays shall be entered upon the journal.
Whether the mayor agreed with Santana’s tampon ordinance or not its statutory flaws prevents its lawful passage by the council. Section 717.01 of the Ohio Revised Code gives councils the authority to create free municipal hospitals using the instructions found in Section 749.01 of our state’s general laws. $50 a year on a $50,000 home is the cost. The tampon and sanitary napkin thing is over the top. It also exposes the city’s taxpayers to an unnecessary liability.
In 2020 the law firm of Bursor & Fisher settled a class action complaint against Kimberly-Clark as the manufacturers of U by Kotex tampon products. $7 million is being paid in claims to customers who bought the products between March 8, 2013 and November 19, 2019. The irony of this story is that Santana’s tampon and sanitary napkin ordinance was enacted and passed on November 19, 2021.

There were no legal reviews and public hearings to see if the city’s taxpayers wanted to take on the liability for being distributors of sanitary napkins and tampons known to cause “toxic shock” in the women and girls using them. I didn’t see any “council investigation” attached to the ordinance that justified Cleveland taxpayers picking up a female’s monthly (every 28 day) menstruation expenses. Do men not know how to tell a fellow legislator “no” even if she is a woman? Equal rights means no special considerations. The women on council get paid the same as the men and have the same duties to obey constitutions and laws.
Every member of council voting for Santana’s menstrual supply ordinance could be criminally charged with dereliction of duty for exceeding the authority of their public offices, obstruction of official business and theft in office. If Cleveland residents get pissed off enough, and use Section 2935.09 and 2935.10 of the Ohio Revised Code to file “complaints on knowledge” against them, they don’t have to wait for terms of office to expire to have the city’s “officers” prosecuted and removed from office.
Every vote for Santana’s statutorily deficient “emergency ordinance” demonstrates how little “current” officers of the municipal corporation collectively have learned about the statutory ordinance enactment process. For the nearly $90,000 they’re being paid to work part-time in exchange for full benefits, an expense account and a pension contribution; councilmembers have more enough time to study and master the constitutions and laws they’re required to obey and enforce. This curve-graded bullshit is far beyond ridiculous and Cleveland voters should have no .

If the mayor had supervised the conduct of the city’s municipal officers with council’s “first” violation of laws under his administration 16 years ago, Cleveland would operate as the most statutorily-efficient government in the United States of America. The duty of the mayor is to obey and enforce constitutions and laws. No college degree is needed for anyone to read, master and obey instructions that are free and online.
“The mayor shall supervise the conduct of all the officers of the municipal corporation, inquire into and examine the grounds of all reasonable complaints against any of such officers, and cause their violations or neglect of duty to be promptly punished or reported to the proper authority for correction.”
Pursuant to Chapter 18 of the United States Code, Section 4, the heading “Misprision of felony” exists as a federal law mayors must obey and enforce to avoid the Federal Bureau of Investigation and HUD Inspector General city hall raids that Jackson and council experienced in 2017. It’s when law enforcement officers ignore their duties to enforce the laws they know or have a duty to know are being violated that earns them a night time city hall raid.
“Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
FBI agents know the “misprision of felony” law Cleveland’s elected officials don’t. There are nuances to every ordinance council enacted in November, including Santana’s, which violates a statutory duty that can get them prosecuted individually and then collectively as a “racketeering influenced corrupt organization.
This “identity” ignorance is degrading Cleveland’s quality of public service. Taxpayers have no business picking up the costs and liabilities of a female’s menstruation expenses.