Committee of the Whole

Office of the Clerk of Council City of Gahanna 200 South Hamilton Road Gahanna, Ohio 43230 Meeting Minutes Committee of the Whole Thomas R. Kneeland, Chair, Karen J. Angelou, Ryan P. Jolley, Brian D. Larick, Jamie Leeseberg, Stephen A. Renner, Michael Schnetzer Kimberly McWilliams, CMC, Clerk of Council Monday, June 9, 2014 7:00 PM Council Committee Rooms ROLL CALL: Present 7 - Ryan P. Jolley, Thomas R. Kneeland, Brian D. Larick, Jamie Leeseberg, Michael Schnetzer, Karen J. Angelou, and Stephen A. Renner ADDITIONAL ATTENDEES: City Attorney Ewald, Karl Wetherholt, Dottie Franey, Jennifer Teal, Chief Murphy, Tony Collins, Laurie Jadwin (CVB), Rory Gaydos, Niel Jurist, Sue Wadley, General Williams, Anthony Jones, Clerk McWilliams, Jim Perry, residents. VISITORS - 1. Laurie Jadwin, Convention & Visitors Bureau, Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival - Volunteer Information Jadwin thanked Council for allotting her this time; we are 11 days from Creekside Jazz & Blues Festival; many have volunteered at admission gates; city stakeholders have been asked to work as directors on duty; you will be ambassadors for the festival and the city; oversee volunteers at those points; the festival is all staffed by non-profit organizations; thank them for their help and support; you will be staffed with a radio; you are the point of contact for that gate; there will be staff all around; you will oversee with cash handling; festival has 3 main admission points: North Mill, South Mill and High Street; call on radio to get a visit when cash box is getting full; each booth gets a binder for all information; each day has a different colored wrist band; admission has gone up; it is $5; raised one dollar; there are dollar- off coupons at AAA; military get in for free; both active and retired and their immediate family (spouse/significant other and children); Sunday anyone bringing a non-perishable gets in free; that gets donated to Mid-Ohio Foodbank; GRIN did not have space when this first began; have a relationship with Mid-Ohio Foodbank; everyone coming through an admission gate will pay; there is a refund process; if they come back to Convention and Visitors' Bureau office through end of June with receipt and wristband, people can get a refund; each 3 City of Gahanna Page 1 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 gates will be equipped with 3 iPads; 2 for processing credit cards; one will be collecting visitor information; we will collect zip codes to see where people have traveled from; no coolers allowed; no pets unless it is an identified service dog; please arrive 15 minutes early for check-in; volunteer headquarters is at the Sanctuary; will have t-shirt and lanyard; parking for the Saturday evening shift will be challenging; do have shuttles; aqua team will come around with water; have a relief crew; if you have a lost child, keep child with you and call dispatch; they will come to you; first aid is on premises at Mill Street and Walnut Street; Mifflin Township Fire Department will be there; the lost and found will be at volunteer headquarters; in case of emergency weather, we do have a line of authority for that; part of your job is to greet and part is to make sure no one walks out carrying an alcoholic beverage; there will be trash cans by the exit; safety of attendees is of utmost importance to us. Jadwin left packets of information including schedule and vendor/business listing and map. Larick thanked Jadwin and team for putting the festival together. ITEM-From Clerk of Council 2014-0059 Liquor Permit-Big Daddy’s 1. Liquor Permit - Big Daddy's McWilliams asked for a motion resolution that the City has no objections to a liquor permit transfer from Big Daddy's to RHF Group, LLC; Police Division has no objections. RECOMMENDATION: Motion Resolution, Consent Agenda. ITEM-From City Engineer 2014-0060 Service and Engineering Supporting Docs 1. Hamilton Road Central Presentation Wetherholt gave Hamilton Road Central project update; there is a slight update to last year's handout for this; displayed the south end of Hamilton Road project; the scroll displayed shows the project in its entirety; basically this project has been worked on since 1996 when county engineer first proposed this to us; got north half of Hamilton Road from Morse Road through U.S. 62 back in 2007; southern portion had some public involvement; looking for funding; cost is over $10 million; we secured Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) attributable funds to build this; first phase past design is all local; right of way acquisition started this spring; about halfway City of Gahanna Page 2 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 finished; expect to have right of way finished by end of summer; next portion is utility movement; even have our own water line there that needs improved; this widens the road to 5 lanes; puts roundabout in at Clark State Road; Carpenter Road gets relocated; puts in roundabout at Northeast School; provides an opportunity for future development on the west side; plan calls for a mutli-use path on west side, sidewalk all along east side; will tie in southern half of City with northern half; has street lighting and landscaping; landscaping needed to make proper view on roundabout; proceeding up Hamilton Road, it puts sidewalks up to Peace Lutheran Church's driveway; islands provide refuge and pedestrians are able to get across; roundabouts that have been installed in conjunction with pedestrians work better than you think they would; especially if pedestrian traffic gets worse than predicted; believe this will work and work better than what we have now; Carpenter Road is a very tough place to get out of now; difficult to turn left; we will move Carpenter Road north so that it lines up with this splitter island; regarding Joe Worman's hill, his driveway will be part of the roundabout; north of Worman Drive, there will be a break in the median where people can get out of driveways and go the other direction; Reynoldsburg/New Albany roundabout is an example of that; where the new retention pond is, it is large enough to service this section of Hamilton Road as well as future development; northern roundabout has a couple different purposes; it will be a traffic calming device; approach speed is 20 mph due to curves; will provide better access to busses; Northeast School needs to have busses on right side load; roundabout allows them to get there, load and get out; parking lot still has normal access with a five-lane roadway; will be a 2-season construction; will begin in July 2015; utilities need to be relocated; we are intending to apply for an Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) grant to fill in local match which is 20% of total cost; that is split almost equally between County and City; most of cost will be what we already have appropriated if we get that grant; project will go into 2016 and will probably finish up in fall of 2016; the culvert will be replaced; will require 2-3 weeks of road closure; will have to endure that; will occur in early portion of 2016; the road is built half width; precisely the way Hamilton Road North was built; did Granville Street that way as well; regarding the construction management, the County has the capacity to be the managers and inspectors; they want to take that on as part of their monetary contribution for local match; they were the construction managers on Hamilton Road North; we had the usual amount of issues with that as we would if it were an ODOT managed project; that is the other alternative; feel comfortable that we have a good relationship with County; their chief construction manager was one of our interns years ago. Angelou asked about issues down by Carpenter, north of there; the driveways. Wetherholt said the resolution to that is we are rebuilding driveways up to garages in many instances. Leeseberg asked about multi-use path and parking in City of Gahanna Page 3 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 driveways; will there be enough room so we don't have cars parked on the path. Wetherholt said yes but that could be a problem near Worman. Kneeland asked about the material for the mutli-use path. Wetherholt answered asphalt. Kneeland asked about maintenance life. Collins said we've had some minor maintenance on one in north section; that one is 6+ years old; we seal it. Kneeland asked about maintenance dollars. Collins said 10 years for routine maintenance costs; we come back and slurry seal the multi-use paths; they are essentially light duty roads; same pattern as those. Kneeland asked about kick-off for construction. Wetherholt said July 2015. Larick asked about elevation of the road. Wetherholt said there are different places where different things happen; Worman stays the same; if you go east, it cuts into hill but to the west, it's a fill; road is very narrow now. Larick asked about steep ingress/egress for properties. Wetherholt said the driveways on east side go all the way up to garages; that is to make the grade match; reasonable grades. Larick asked about crosswalks and crossings; for visually impaired individuals, what options might there be to accommodate them. Wetherholt said there is no hawk signal. Schnetzer asked about road closures for culvert. Wetherholt said not for very long but there will be points in time where you can't get through; will be timed to minimize time of closures. Larick went back to crosswalk options. Wetherholt said there is a signal at Granville, U.S. 62 and Gatsby's. ITEM-From Director of Public Service 1. 2015 Refuse Contract Franey gave an update about a transformer fire; a transformer on a wooden pole on the east side of Hamilton Road/U.S. 62 intersection caught fire and burned the wooden pole; weakened it enough that it fell on our mast arm and destroyed the entire cabinet and sent such a surge that it damaged signals along Granville, Hamilton and the Beecher Road/Hamilton Road cabinet; have a rental at Beecher Road/Hamilton Road; at U.S. 62 we have a cabinet that was intended for Clark Hall where McDonald's used to be; will now be waiting on 2 traffic cabinets. Franey began with the refuse bid; we are part of a consortium; Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio's (SWACO) mission is to manage the District municipal solid waste stream to achieve environmentally responsible and cost-effective disposal, treat solid waste as a resource capable of yielding recovered materials and energy, reduce reliance on landfilling, and plan future disposal capacity for the District; we work closely with SWACO and they support our consortium; went out for 3 kinds of bids: 1. Status Quo: same days, unlimited solid waste weekly, 2. Automated, and 3. Contractor Designed; Rumpke City of Gahanna Page 4 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 was the only contractor to offer a savings; Status Quo bid would give a cost difference of -$29.40 over three year program; City is messy on trash day; does not give any incentive to change residents' habits; some residents pay for wheeled containers; they pay on top of monthly fee; Rumpke also gave an Automated price; all pick-ups would be on same day; worst case, pickup would be Friday; trying to get it to Wednesday; would pay 60 cents more over 5 years; everyone would get a 96 gallon recycling container and get a 96 gallon waste container; that is the equivalent of 3 trash cans; resident can opt for a smaller container that would be the equivalent of 2 cans; would save almost $60 over the period; if they went to the even smaller container, could save about $92.40 over the contract; still offer senior discount; with Contractor Designed, Rumpke would offer a rebate to City with increased recycling percentage; Gahanna would probably benefit most from this kind of program; does set up that template and change the culture where you begin to look at some trash as an asset, encourages people to recycle; SWACO would like to have that happen; reduce amount of trash going to landfill; encourage recycling; Rumpke went one step further; this one you save significantly more money but recycling only picked up every other week; not something most communities were in favor of; these sized cans do fit as evidenced by a photo inside Franey's personal garage; most communities are leaning toward Contractor Designed Option A; seeking consideration but wanted to open it up for discussion. Jolley thinks it's a great option; asked if there are limitations to picking up these cans in neighborhoods with smaller streets and lots of street parking. Franey said they just roll these to the truck. Larick asked about excess; more than would fit in bin. Franey said right now, residents have unlimited; idea with this is you cannot do that now; in pre-bid meetings, this was discussed and we don't want to have to call for bulk pick up; Rumpke will do bulk pickup every week; bulk pickup would be specifically items like furniture, etc.; an item, not just a bag of trash; can lease an extra trash container for $7.95/month. Kneeland asked what happens if you underestimate and cannot fit it in that week. Franey said hold a bag till next week. Angelou said what about yard waste. Franey said all 3 pickups on same day; consortium worked together and asked that Gahanna's day be Wednesday; they told us they believe that will work; have not gotten absolute yes yet; depending on which option a community chooses. Schnetzer asked about 96 gallon recycle bin. Franey said that is default; our attorney said you could probably get them to go smaller but that is what they want. Schnetzer confirmed that all savings were over the 5-year period. Kneeland asked for a final comparative chart. Franey said what I have has been sent to you. Angelou asked when it would go into effect. Franey answered 2015. Franey displayed examples of the footprint of the existing containers and compared them with the City of Gahanna Page 5 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 proposed containers. Renner said definitely Option A. Jolley agreed. Angelou said Option A. Schnetzer said he is leaning toward Status Quo because of the challenge of changing yard waste day. Kneeland asked about items that were not recyclable. Franey said about 10% of what goes in a recycling bin is not recyclable; what they do is take those and stack them; they find a market for them; then they sell that whole lot. Angelou asked if they will do some education. Franey said yes. Renner said there is a placard on top of the cans; asked about timeline. Franey said we would like to tell contractors by June 26 which option communities are going with; then we have time to execute contract; by October 15, Rumpke gives us implementation plan and we begin educating this fall. Kneeland asked if there was a plan to educate the public at this point. Franey said we have no plan for that; maybe that could be a topic at the next Coffee with Council. Larick asked whose wish it was to have all pickups on one day. Franey said theirs. Larick said he is fine with Option A but going to be a painful transition; try to minimize that. Franey said this is the way society is going but know how much work changing from Status Quo is going to be. Angelou said the recycling containers having lids is a huge plus. Renner encouraged everyone to visit SWACO. Kneeland said concern I have is the indiscriminate resident; how will that be monitored. Franey said they should tag what is out there and then it could be a zoning issue. Kneeland said majority in favor of Option A. Franey said by 26th they actually want to tell Rumpke which communities are going with which option. Renner asked about Wednesday versus Friday. Franey said we will tell attorneys that we are considering Option A but it needs to be on Wednesday not Friday; not here the next day to take calls; can't provide customer service; not in favor of Friday pickup; holidays would bump everyone one day. ITEMS-From Council 2014-0061 Council Supporting Docs Intellinetics Larick said McWilliams has done a great deal of work to get the office running more efficiently; currently everything that we have is paper; there is a relatively significant amount that has been microfilmed or microfiched; that makes for challenges for requests, accessibility and research; talked to Ohio Historical Society; talked about McWilliam's history in Groveport; have had a discussion with intellinetics to see what it takes to go from a purely paper environment to something that is more accessible; retention schedule and requirements could be addressed with this; need a decision of are we at a place to pursue the beginning of this work; we do have a records administrator who City of Gahanna Page 6 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 works very diligently to make sure when questions are asked, information is given; she is the life and breath of records in the City. Kneeland said the other risk is that we have a basement full of paper; all it would take is one flood; this is a single point of failure; this would allow all departments to access records and have people becoming responsible for their own records; Whitehall uses these folks; we have Ewald from Records Commission standpoint to get input to see where we can go with this; we believe they are the right company to go with. Jim Perry, intellinetics, said we have been in service for 20 years servicing document management; the State Auditors' Office, Franklin County Clerk of Courts, etc. are some clients of ours; we provide services for many police and sherriff's departments throughout the U.S.; we offer a full content management solution; gives you ability to scan and categorize all documents you have; up to 100 types of security; includes auto-redaction; full workflow tool; there are automatic notifications that are part of that as well; retention schedules would be part of the solution; all of this is built in; film and fiche could be made into TIF files and searched; go through Intellivue and search here and on network to access documents that way; this is a full content management solution; can scan, index or retrieve; can store any type of format; any electronic file can now be stored; discussed 10 different areas. Kneeland said some areas discussed were the ability to produce documents; already has redaction built into it. Ewald said we talked about current status of records and response time; making sure we don't release anything personal; need to move forward calculated and carefully with expense in mind; think it is good to move in this direction; amount of duplicates in system is alarming. Kneeland said want to familiarize everyone that we are exploring this; just an introduction that we can move down this path. Larick said two fundamental components; start and move forward component; also historical component; getting history migrated into this environment so that everything is available with ease is going to take a significant amount of time and effort; have a shrinking window; don't want to wait until that window closes to move forward. McWilliams said looking at efficiencies, records is a challenge; you cannot find a document without getting up and going downstairs and looking at a notebook in the basement; current Records Administrator Sharon Montgomery has run effectively with minimal tools; think it is imperative to get a document management software; each department would have a license to search and save their documents; imperative move to start the process. Kneeland said we also included Gaydos in this process. Gaydos said this is a big step forward; storage is something that has to be considered; once configured, would be a huge gain in efficiencies. McWilliams said microfilm is becoming obsolete; not a good use of our money to maintain documents in a way that is not searchable; we aren't even going to be able to access that type of City of Gahanna Page 7 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 record anymore. Larick said historically we've have a significant concern of permanent records needing to be in paper or microfilm; this does not change that; puts it in an electronic form where it would be readily available. Angelou said off-site permanent record would still be involved; has Montgomery been involved in all discussions. Larick said in some discussions but not all. Angelou asked why. Larick said a big part of this is doing things differently than how they are being done today. Kneeland said we are not doing massive duplication anymore; we have that here and off-site; that is cost; some discussions were technical in nature and by her own admission, Montgomery didn't want to be involved in those discussions; it wasn't a side step by any means. McWilliams said it wasn't an exclusion; imperative to have her involved in this if we move forward; that is when she will be intensely involved with this process. Kneeland asked for thoughts on this process and moving forward. Larick said there were some adjustments you were going to look at; this attachment has options. Perry said part of this is discovery; all of that is used for configuring the solution; current records manager would have to be involved with that; after configuration would be installation and testing. Angelou asked about time frame. Perry said at least 3-4 months. Kneeland said there are 2 parts to this; historical and current moving forward. Angelou asked how historical conversion would happen. Perry said there are a number of ways to do that; have to look at each document type; have proposed that even film and fiche be converted. Kneeland said we are looking at ways to control costs further and look at ways to not have to farm everything out. Perry said option 1 is software installed, training, maintenance, licensing; the other is more of a rental on your server; most organizations choose to have everything on site; would be a matter of loading and configuring software and doing training after that. Larick said would it be possible for Perry to present what the transition would look like with a rough timeline including historical conversion and business looking different moving forward ; does Council have any input on vendor. Angelou asked if it needed to be bid out. Larick said no; and I don't see the need with the comparisons we've made. Kneeland said Perry is a Gahanna resident. Renner said he has no problem. Kneeland said we need a correct, current proposal before we can start legislation; that will give us time to do a little more research. Angelou asked about help once installed. Perry said all support is done in house; staff handles calls Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; 8 step process; after process, you will have full documentation around all software; support is part of maintenance costs; don't outsource any support. McWilliams said Westerville just did this project and had 5 vendors; Perry came in lower than that; can bring that so we can compare. RECOMMENDATION: Back to Committee 2. Council Office Performance Data, Mid-Year Update, Forecast City of Gahanna Page 8 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 Larick said will talk about this very briefly; McWilliams has been working very diligently at reporting on work in Council office; objective is to look at hours worked in Council office; purpose is to get an understanding of how much work we have; wanted to minimize overtime and extra hours; that has essentially been completed except McWilliams puts in many hours getting up to speed on Council office ; want to mention in short that the hours were similar in 2012 and 2013; office is down 20 hours/week this year; that is based on some changes monitoring how work is done and going electronic; there is a distinct ability to reduce demand of hours even further; there is an ongoing discussion on passports; how many completed; net revenue; have a bit of a ticker in there; records is another piece of this; how many records requests worked; range is typically 1-6/week that the records administrator works on; how many are completed or pending; Montgomery does an awesome job keeping up with them; records research hours takes up about 5-8 hours/week; rest of time is doing other duties; operating expenses outside of manpower; looking at this, there is $4,000 in one week in April; we're in the hundreds most weeks. McWilliams said we terminated our contract with Iron Mountain in April; that was the cost associated with that. Larick said will add some simple summaries; make it so it is simpler to see; objective here is it doesn't take a lot of energy to input and doesn't take a lot to figure out what it is saying. McWilliams said this tool shows how we can work more efficiently; things need to be realigned and restructured; this dashboard will determine how we can run as efficiently and effectively as possible. 1. Gahanna Competitiveness Kneeland said what drove this is the loss of AEP; trying to figure out how we become sustainable and increase revenue, etc. Larick said part of this came from discussion around the Comprehensive Master Plan; this is a more tactical plan; who are the most competitive cities; what do they do and how do they approach things; what is in our control; identification of what are those things and what needs to be in place to move down those paths to take most advantage of those things; comprehensive planning is critical but more long-term and big picture than this. Kneeland said this ties in closely with performance metrics; seems like we should be evaluating and comparing our hard core services with other communities;from a revenue per resident, how do we compare to some other community; some of that could come from day population versus night population; how do we tie all this together to accomplish all those things people believe we need to be successful; is there more we can identify to make the community better. Larick said competitiveness in growth of population, growth in jobs or simply intrinsic growth of job value; is there consensus on what competitiveness we are concerned with; want to maintain growth in City of Gahanna Page 9 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2014 population and revenue. Schnetzer said we are built out; need to direct attention on economic development and get maximum benefit out of what we have. Larick said also need to be competitive in how do we keep people; keeping us on their short list of places to live. Schnetzer said a huge player in that is the schools; absolutely critical to families; do we engage schools in discussions and find where synergies might lie. Kneeland said do we have statistics other than ICMA on how we compare. Larick said we have some numbers; not sure what we want to compare; what are the drivers of where people want to be; Dublin and New Albany, what is it they have that drives their perception. Kneeland said we constantly get compared to Westerville; what do they do that we get compared to; where are they structurally. Larick said does this warrant a separate committee of some kind. Kneeland said would be more efficient to have another committee. Renner said you are asking several different large scale questions; each one will take a large amount of energy; think it best in a different committee with dedicated resources. Larick said not just Council people be a part of it; needs broader perspective; neutral input. Leeseberg said thought of Niagara that just came here; speak to their decision maker; schools brought me here; businesses as opposed to people are two different questions; good demographic of people and housing; what kinds of people do we want to appeal to. Angelou said we have a development department; we have Community Investment Corporation and have a number of organizations; have a Chamber of Commerce; have availability with MODE and 2020; have a lot of content; a lot of trained people; since 2011 have heard jobs, jobs, more jobs; interesting to note that Gahanna is having more start up businesses; have ability to have a lot of information out of data that MORPC has. Schnetzer referred to the SIPOC framework; what is end product. Larick said getting understanding of are we able to take advantage of our resources in the most effective way possible; how do we get to understand what we should look at changing, implementing, doing so that we are a community that is commonly thought of as one of the first places want to go. Kneeland suggested bringing this back in 2 weeks. Schnetzer asked Council to consider who else you want to include. RECOMMENDATION: Back to Committee Jayme Maxwell, CMC, Reporting City of Gahanna Page 10