Lancaster City Council members looked within and beyond the city's 7.4-square miles on Monday.

Beyond, the city's seven-member legislative panel prepared to wade into the national issue of "corporate personhood."

At a committee meeting, council members aired a draft of a resolution denouncing the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the case of Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission and calling for a constitutional amendment barring corporations from having the rights guaranteed to the individual.

The resolution is slated to be voted upon at City Council's next regular meeting, on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

"I know we usually don't take a position on federal issues, but I think that somebody has to start standing up, because this is completely unreasonable," council member Todd Smith said.

Kip Adams, a supporter of the Occupy Lancaster movement, told council members a constitutional amendment is being pursued because even though the Citizens United ruling came from a 5-4 divided court, the high court rarely reverses itself.

"This is a start to reclaim democracy," said Adams, speaking against unrestrained corporate campaign donations.

The Lancaster resolution maintains "the great wealth of large corporations allows them to wield coercive force of law to overpower human beings and communities, thus denying citizens the right to exercise our constitutional rights."

Working from the grassroots up, Adams said the "Move to Amend" campaign hopes to gather similar resolutions from other cities and borough councils then approach county-level legislators, state legislators and ultimately those at the federal level.

Looking within the city, council members also heard from representatives of Lancaster General Hospital who are requesting the rezoning of a 2.77-acre tract from residential to hospital campus. The tract is the former Lancaster Family YMCA building and parking lot at North Queen, West Frederick and North Prince streets.

The hospital plans to build a five-story, 74-foot-tall administrative office building where the vacant YMCA building now stands. A six-level, 68-foot-tall parking garage would be built on the existing parking lot. No cost estimate for the project was cited during the meeting.

Once it is completed, LGH would bring 500 employees now working at the Burle Business Park into the new building.

A public hearing on the rezoning is planned at council's Feb. 28 meeting. If the rezoning is approved, the building plans must then undergo review by the city's Planning, Historical, Traffic and Shade Tree commissions.

Council members also held their first discussion of a proposal by Mayor Rick Gray to revise the city's residential parking ordinance.

Under Gray's proposal:

• Contractors who regularly work in the city would be allowed to seek annual parking permits, rather than receive a permit for each work site with residential parking restrictions.

• Residents who receive the required number of signatures for permit parking in their neighborhood may opt to have parking restricted to nighttime hours. Now, nighttime restrictions, popular for areas where parking is taken by bar or restaurant patrons, can only be sought six months after daytime restrictions have been in place.

• Temporary residents, such as college students, would be allowed to receive a residential parking permit without having their cars registered at their Lancaster city address.

• And many of the restrictions now in the ordinance would be deleted and rewritten as rules or regulations. As rules, they can be changed with a vote of the city Traffic Commission.

The first reading of the parking proposal is expected by council on Feb. 14. A vote could occur on Feb. 28.

bharris@lnpnews.com