KENT — There will now be one more step taken before appointments are made to city boards and commissions.

Kent City Council has approved a new policy that "reserves the right" to perform background checks on applicants for its boards and commissions.

Council’s Committee of the Whole on Wednesday approved doing background checks on applicants "whatever way the law director sees fit to do them," according to a motion made by Councilman John Kuhar.

"I think we have a responsibility to put people who are safe on our boards and commissions," Kuhar said.

Council also changed its standing rules to have those discussions behind closed doors, something Councilman Roger Sidoti said he has been advocating for years.

"We have a responsibility to do our due diligence, but we don’t have to make that due diligence public," he said.

Assistant Law Director Eric Fink said state law forbids the city from putting a self-disclosure box on its applications which would ask applicants to check a box indicating if they have been convicted of a felony. The law, Fink said, doesn’t prevent the city from doing background checks.

Because of the cost involved, some council members discussed the possibility of doing the checks only in certain cases, such as council members hearing information about a candidate with a criminal past. Some members also acknowledged that they might weigh certain kinds of convictions more heavily than others.

Councilwoman Heidi Shaffer asked if it was legal to do checks on some candidates and not others, and whether such checks must be disclosed to the public. Fink pointed out that if there is paperwork involved, it is a public record. Shaffer also raised concerns that some candidates may be deterred because of a discretion many years ago.

But Sidoti said that will only be a problem if the discussions are not held in executive session.

"No one will know it was part of the discussion, unless you violate your oath of office and blab about it," he said. "No one knows now why we choose who we choose."

And Kuhar said he doesn’t think a background check would discourage someone from serving. "Why would they be afraid if they didn’t have anything to hide?" he said.

Councilwoman Tracy Wallach, who cast the committee’s only "no" vote on the issue, said the city is talking about background checks because of an issue at the county level, but the city’s boards and commissions are "a completely different situation."

"The boards and commissions we have aren’t dealing with kids, and they don’t have big financial stuff to consider," she said.

Sidoti said for many people, background checks are routine, especially if they are employed in fields such as education.

"For some people, the whole process of getting fingerprinted can be daunting," he said. "But for some of us, it’s not a big deal."