City Council

July 15, 2024 The Fredericktown Village Council met in regular session on July 15, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at the Fredericktown Municipal Building. PRESENT: Council Members de Rojas, Brewer, Hobson, Lanuzza, McKnight and Shoemaker; Administrator Snell; Chief Myers; Solicitor Landon; Fiscal Officer Graves. Mayor Day called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. INVOCATION: Richard Prater, First Church of God. MINUTES: • Hobson made a motion to approve the June 17, 2024 budget hearing minutes. Seconded by de Rojas. All Yea. • Lanuzza made a motion to approve the June 17, 2024 council meeting minutes. Seconded by Brewer. All Yea. VISITOR COMMENTS: • Michael Wheeler, new patrol officer, was sworn in by Mayor Day. He will begin working for the Village on July 29, 2024. LEGISLATION (Emergency) RESOLUTION NO. 2024-17 - A RESOLUTION TO PROCEED WITH SUBMISSION OF THE QUESTION OF LEVYING A RENEWAL TAX IN EXCESS OF THE TEN-MILL LIMITATION FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONTINUING CURRENT OPERATIONS (Replaces 2024-09) Lanuzza made a motion to waive the 3 readings of Resolution 2024-17. Seconded by Shoemaker. All Yea. Lanuzza made a motion to pass Resolution 2024-17. Seconded by Brewer. All Yea. (Emergency) ORDINANCE 2024-18 - AN ORDINANCE MAKING SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS Lanuzza made a motion to waive the 3 readings of Ordinance 2024-18. Seconded by McKnight. All Yea. Lanuzza made a motion to pass Ordinance 2024-18. Seconded by McKnight. All Yea. OLD BUSINESS: • Wendy from Compass Point Planning has draft of new Subdivision regulations, Planning Commission will look over them at the next meeting on July 22. • Still waiting to hear about Water Improvement Grants: U.S Representative Troy Balderson, $2,700,000. State Senator Andrew Brenner, $750,000. • Graves shared Rite-Aid tax information that Hobson had requested. They pay around $5,500.00 per year, should not affect the Village much in income taxes when they close. • Gibson Chen, AVETIN Engineering discussed options for upgrades at sewer plant, upgrades to our Class A plant, or change to a Class B plant and have sludge hauled away. Mr. Chen recommended upgrading our Class A plant. Discussion followed with Council. Mr. Chen mentioned touring a couple of different plants/demonstrations, will let Snell know when this could be done. NEW BUSINESS: • Lanuzza shared that Cornerstone Church is looking for council volunteers to help with the Peace meals. Please let him know if you can help. • Lanuzza mentioned that Pelotonia will be here first weekend in August. VILLAGE ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT: • Streetscape Stop signs should be installed some-time this week. • Fresh Mex that is moving into the old Door 142 is hoping to open in August. They had questions about outdoor dining with alcohol. Suggested that they come to the next Planning Commission meeting. • Still waiting to see if the Village may get funded (another entity would have to back out of funding.) through OPWC for street paving. Would pave E. College St. and North end of Taylor St. • Group that is building fireplace on square has temporarily stopped construction. They are getting state required permits. Council agreed to pay for these permits which will cost between $1,000.00 and $2,000.00. • Fire Department has loaned us their generator to use at the lift stations during storm outages. A new generator for the Village would cost around $5,000.00 to $10,000.00. Could still use the generator instead, but set up a memorandum of agreement. FISCAL OFFICER'S REPORT: • Council reviewed the bills, financial reports and bank reconciliation statement for the month of June 2024. Hobson made a motion to approve the financial reports, bills and bank statement for June 2024. Seconded by Lanuzza. All Yea. POLICE CHIEF REPORT: • Neighborhood Watch Meeting, Tuesday, July 16, 6:30 p.m. • National Night Out, August 6th from 6-9 p.m. at Merrin Park. • Department completed Ohio Alerts training on June 18. ZONING INSPECTOR’S REPORT: None SOLICITOR’S REPORT: • Looked at information from Snell regarding stop sign changes, as well as the memorandum of agreement for the Fire Department generator. • Graves sent over information about a class action suit regarding customer credit card fees. The Village does not receive those fees, so it would be up to customers to join the law suit. • Looked at the proposed tower lease agreement. If the Village decided to do this, the agreement could be modified. (Hobson requested a copy of the proposed agreement. Snell will share with all of Council.) COMMITTEE REPORTS: PLANNING COMMISSION: Next meeting July 22nd at 5:00 p.m. FINANCE, PUBLIC WORKS, SAFETY: Next meeting August 19th. MISCELLANEOUS COMMITTEE REPORTS: None ADJOURNMENT – Shoemaker made a motion to adjourn. Seconded by McKnight. All Yea. Meeting Adjourned at 8:18 p.m. _____________________________________ Mayor Jerry Day ___________________________ Suzan Graves, Fiscal Officer TO: MAYOR & COUNCIL FROM: BRUCE SNELL, VILLAGE ADMINISTRATOR DATE: JULY 15, 2024 SUBJECT: ACTIVITY REPORT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT The Fredericktown Community Development Foundation (FCDF) met on July 11th to discuss economic development in the community. We have starting meeting on the second Thursday of the month, so we meet next at the FLS Board of Education Building on August 8th. BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS The Board of Zoning Appeals did not meet in June as there was no business to discuss and we do not anticipate a BZA Meeting being scheduled in May. OHIO PUBLIC WORKS COMMISSION We have heard nothing new back from the OPWC in regards to our finding request. We had requested grant funding in the amount of $129K for a $268K project for the 2024 Street Improvements. The project finished thirty-two in scoring but only the top thirty-one projects were selected for funding at this time. I was assured by the Executive Committee, which scores the applications, that not all thirty-one projects will actually materialize, once the requesting parties are required to begin executing their projects, and our project will likely be funded after all. PLANNING COMMISSION The Planning Commission recommends that Council revise the Zoning Code to allow alternative driveway surfaces, as opposed to requiring a hard surface, such as asphalt or concrete. If this is Council’s desire, I will prepare legislation for the August Council Meeting. The Planning Commission will meet on Monday, July 22nd to discuss the draft version of the revised Subdivision Regulations. SERVICE DEPARTMENT The service department is currently flushing fire hydrants throughout the Village and to Woodridge Subdivision and FT Precision, which are also serviced. STREETSCAPE • Old streetlights have been removed and new street lights have been installed and are all functioning at this point. • Concrete curbs and sidewalks have been completed. • The paving and striping are complete and parking spaces have been painted. • Paver bricks have been installed. • We are waiting on decorative solar-powered stop signs with decorative street signs. I have been told this is a “supply chain issue.” 1/2  • Thirty-plus trees will be planted when it cools off in the late summer/early fall, as the trees will have a better chance of survival if planted in cool weather. • Several manholes will be adjusted to grade, as will several water valves. • We will perform a walkthrough of the project with ODOT `and create a punch list of sorts on July 31st. BRIDGE ENHANCEMENT We have been formally notified that our applications for TAP funding for the proposed SR 95 overpass enhancements. We have been awarded up to $550,000 in federal funding for the bridge enhancements, which will cover ninety-five percent of the costs of construction, based on the engineer’s cost estimate. Construction of this project will likely occur in 2027. SIDEWALK FUNDING We have also been awarded $800,000 for new sidewalk funding. This is federal funding is administered by ODOT and there will be no local match required for the sidewalk work. Obviously, this $1.35 million in funding is in addition to the previous $1.3 million in federal funding we had received for the Streetscape. This project will begin roughly around Carol Drive, on West Sandusky. The new sidewalk will run down the street to Bollinger Drive, continuing north to the existing sidewalk near Bollinger Drive and Malibu Court. Construction of this project will likely occur in 2027. ODOT is currently seeking proposals from engineering firms that may be interested in engineering/designing this project. UTILITIES We have been discussing the future of the WWTP. As you know, the current biosolids press and microwave (for killing harmful bacteria) is over twenty-years-old and, like any mechanical equipment, has a finite life. Gibson Cheng, with Avetin Engineering, will be at the Council Meeting to present a recommendation for Council consideration. We recently formally requested federal funds for replacing roughly 18,000 linear feet of antiquated 4” water main and twenty-five fire hydrants, replacing the 4” water line with 8” PVC. The estimated construction and administrative costs for the project is $2,999,150, with the local share being ten percent ($299,915). The Fiscal Officer has indicated that we do have the cash reserves in the Water Fund to cover our local share. We have received word back from U.S. Representative Balderson’s Office that our request has been sent to the Appropriations Committee for further consideration. This is a very big deal for the Fredericktown Community, as the requested funding would provide us with the ability to make much needed improvements to our 100-year-old under-sized four-inch mains without raising water rates to cover the debt service a project of this magnitude would require. We are currently seeking proposals from engineering firms that may be interested in engineering/designing this project. WILLIAM “BILL” BURGETT MEMORIAL HIGHWAY HB 380 was passed by the House and this bill will include the naming of the William “Bill” Burgett Memorial Highway, which will cover the State Route 13 Bypass. This bill will now before the State Senate for consideration. 2/2