Committee of the Whole

200 South Hamilton Road City of Gahanna Gahanna, Ohio 43230 Meeting Minutes Committee of the Whole Stephen A. Renner, Vice President, Chair Brian Metzbower, President Jamie Leeseberg Karen J. Angelou Brian D. Larick Nancy R. McGregor Michael Schnetzer April Beggerow, CMC, Clerk of Council Monday, July 22, 2019 7:00 PM Council Committee Room A. CALL TO ORDER B. ITEM FROM THE CLERK OF COUNCIL 2019-0097 LIQUOR PERMIT REQUEST: #84786050005 101 Mill Street, Suite B105, Stadium Sports Bar; Economic Development Transfer (TREX) for D1 Permit Liquor Permit stands with no action taken. C. ITEM FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY 2019-0095 Update From the Director of Public Safety Mayor Kneeland stated that the Safety Director did not get in from his flight and therefore wouldn't be able to give his report in person. D. ITEMS FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SERVICE & ENGINEERING 2019-0096 Update from the Director of Public Service & Engineering. Grant Crawford, Interim Director read the Public Service and Engineering update attached to the minutes. He updated Council on the Touch a Truck event that will occur on Saturday, August 24, 2019 9a.m. to 1 p.m. MR-0032-2019 MOTION RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SERVICE TO BID THE JANITORIAL SERVICES CONTRACT. RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. City of Gahanna Page 1 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes July 22, 2019 MR-0033-2019 MOTION RESOLUTION TO AUTHORIZE THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SERVICE & ENGINEERING TO BID THE MUNICIPAL LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE CONTRACT. Mrs. McGregor asked what was Hamilton Central? Mr. Crawford responded that it was the double round-a bouts, the new winding section. RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0072-2019 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION - Damage to City Property Mrs. Angelou asked what was the damage. Mr. Crawford responded various city damage be it property, vehicle or waterline damage. RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0073-2019 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS - Water Meter Proceeds RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0074-2019 TO AUTHORIZE THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO CONTRACT WITH CARGILL FOR ROAD SALT FOR THE 2019-2020 WINTER SEASON. Mr. Leeseberg asked if there was a minimum needed to purchase. Mr. Crawford responded there was not. Mrs. Angelou asked if this was the same cost as last year. Mr. Crawford responded that it was and the same supplier. RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0075-2019 ORDINANCE TO AMEND THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF GAHANNA OHIO: Amending Chapter 1303.02 Amendments to Code of Part Thirteen Building Code RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0076-2019 TO AMEND THE BUILDING AND ZONING FEE SCHEDULE. Mr. Renner said that there was a question last week about some of the fees. Mayor Kneeland responded that he asked Mr. Crawford to look into those questions and that he should have something to report. Mr. Crawford said he did review the comments and concerns that the citizen brought up and said that upon review of fees, we do appear to be comparable to neighboring municipalities. In some cases, we are higher, in some, we are lower. He said he could provide details from City of Gahanna Page 2 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes July 22, 2019 certain subdivisions if Council would like, for example, Columbus would be $200 where we are $150 and New Albany would be $130, but there would be fees for additional inspections. Mr. Renner asked for a statement with some data submitted to Council would be helpful. He asked if there was a permit available for solar panels which is somewhat of an outlier that the citizen mentioned. Mr. Crawford asked if that was a specific permit that Council wanted looked at. Mr. Renner said no, but requested that Mr. Crawford address some of the comments. Mr. Crawford said that folks had done an extensive review and compared with Columbus and Westerville and worked to find a middle ground. Mr. Metzbower asked why would there be an off number, as with New Albany's case. Mr. Crawford responded that he didn't know how they determine their fees so couldn't answer. He said the inspection fee is 10.1 cents per foot, but that they probably have some formula to calculate. Mr. Metzbower asked if Gahanna had a basis for fees. Mr. Crawford said it was based upon surrounding communities and past permits to keep it sustainable and keep to the middle ground. Mrs. McGregor asked about the example of replacing a set of steps the same size. Does it require an inspection or is that just a permit fee? Mr. Crawford said it would depend on a certain situation. If it is the main egress into the property it would require an inspection. If it is under 200 square foot no more than 30 feet from finish grade and unattached as in a free standing deck in the back, it would not need an inspection. Mr. Renner said that the conversation was that this was somewhat expensive for homeowners. He asked if there is any appeal process. Mr. Crawford said he was not familiar with any process to ask for help but that it would probably be City Council. Mrs. McGregor said that it did seem that that small of project, that a $250 fee was a large percentage of the whole project. Mr. Crawford said it was $150. It was initially reviewed as an alteration, and then it was discovered it was not. It wasn't a barter situation. Mrs. Angelou said that it was more of a glitch then. Mr. Crawford said correct. Mr. Renner asked Mr. Crawford if he would have the information before the next agenda. Mr. Crawford said he would. Mrs. Angelou asked if we were keeping track of how fast the permitting is being done and we have data on it. Mr. Crawford said we do. Mrs. Angelou asked if it was going down. Mr. Crawford said it was originally 2 weeks now it’s down to 2-3 days RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. City of Gahanna Page 3 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes July 22, 2019 E. ITEMS FROM THE DIRECTOR OF FINANCE 2019-0094 Capital Needs Assessment 2020 to 2024 Mrs. Bury presented the 5 year Capital Needs Assessment (attached). Mr. Leeseberg asked when the last time a facilities plan was done was. *unk*: 2005 Mrs. Angelou asked about 2019. She said there were expectations that things would move back to semi normal and that services would be back to what was expected. She said her concern was that we're kind of stuck and that we should be able to move forward and replace those are gone. 6 months until 2020 and she doesn't feel we should be stuck. She wants to see forward motion now. Mrs. Bury said we can only do so much and only have so much manpower to handle it. She pointed out that the two Police Management Analysts were on board, advertising has begun for Communications Manager and Miranda pointed out that PD Sergeant and Lieutenant testing was progressing. Miranda explained that she will be doing PD Officers and we are moving forward with positions that we have funding for. Some of the positions that are vacant, the money was moved to pay for those positions that were going to be laid off because the positions were not going to be back filled. Parks and rec will be working on a staffing survey to determine that staffing requests were proper. Mayor Kneeland said that he knew that one of the issues was the Senior Center and that he has been working with Mr. Barr on a solution that is very workable. It would be more of an interim timing for about a month before they could get someone in there full-time. Mr. Barr said that through the end of the month Zack Guthrie is at the Senior Center to handle the duties that a typical supervisor would take care of. Part time staff are assisting. Beginning in August, there will be a manager and or Deputy Director over there on a daily basis to continue that then in September one of the full time employees will be over there until the staffing study is complete. It is his hope that this will be completed in September/October so that we can be sure we're appropriately staffed for what we need today. Until then it makes sense that we're staffed accordingly. Mrs. Angelou said that the people that are going to the Senior Center are feeling that it's going to be closed, and she needs to know that they feel like the center is there for them. She said Zack is going a great job and she wants to make sure all of this is happening. Mr. Barr replied that he thinks it will come in the personnel SOM with approval for higher pay for camp counselors and lifeguards. He pointed out a news story over the past weekend where the YMCA had to close some pools because there weren't enough lifeguards to supply adequate City of Gahanna Page 4 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes July 22, 2019 pool coverage. He said he was asked about opening the pools for free with the heat and said that his decision was no because of the risk of not having staffing. He said that is why he looking forward to the study to make sure that we are competitive. Mrs. Angelou said we need to be conservative in what we do but we need to make sure people know why we do what we do. She said that she thinks the money will come in clearly and that will make us feel safe in what we're doing and that 2020 will be great. Mr. Barr said that 2020 should show more programing that will show more revenue in the black. Mr. Renner asked Mr. Leeseberg and Mr. Schnetzer about the sidewalk discussion from Finance Committee and what the next step was. Mr. Leeseberg replied that we were going to look at other programs I believe and come back to finance. He said that in the CNA there was $600,000 per year ** to replace all of those sidewalks looks like we're just paying for that as opposed to just funding. You (referring to Mr. Schnetzer), were looking at a zero percent loan that gets paid back right? Yeah, so it looks like just a $600,000 year outlay with with no** repayment process or not. Mr. Schnetzer replied that you ask if there was an action item, there really is not, the point of bringing it forward was just to kind of take the temperature of Council to see if they wanted to explore this further and to see if the administration if they would take it under advisement and get their input and I believe where we left off is they were going to discuss a timeline internally before committing to bringing something back to us at a specific date. Mayor Kneeland said he discussed this topic with Mr. Crawford to make it a whole topic over time, Westerville was used as the model and the reason that the money is shown in the budget is because of modeling it after Westerville. A plan for curbs and sidewalks modeled after Westerville will be discussed hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Including a discussion on what they did before and what they do now. We didn't want to not get something in the budget so we could have a conversation about what the program could look like. MR-0030-2019 MOTION RESOLUTION TO TRANSFER APPROPRIATIONS BETWEEN ACCOUNTS. RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. MR-0031-2019 MOTION RESOLUTION TO TRANSFER APPROPRIATIONS FROM PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENTS TO THE MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0077-2019 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION - Heil Drive Bridge Grant City of Gahanna Page 5 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes July 22, 2019 RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0078-2019 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION - Severance Payments RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. ORD-0079-2019 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION - Severance Payments RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. F. ITEM FROM THE DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES ORD-0080-2019 TO AUTHORIZE THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE ALL DOCUMENTS AND AGREEMENTS WITH VENDORS FOR ADMINISTRATION OF THE CITY'S SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND DRUG TESTING POLICIES THAT IS PROPERLY APPROPRIATED ON AN ANNUAL BASIS; AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY. RECOMMENDATION: Consent Agenda. G. ITEM FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT ORD-0081-2019 AN ORDINANCE ADOPTING THE CITY OF GAHANNA COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE PLAN. Aaron Domini from OHM Advisors presented the Gahanna Land Use Plan 2019. For Presentation details see https://www.gahannalanduseplan.com/ Mrs. McGregor asked if any consideration was given to affordable housing, like smaller homes on smaller lots. She said there are some areas that turn over very fast. Mr. Domini stated that the idea of creating a mix of housing types that some might be more affordable would not be in the detached form. There is a lot of that detached family housing. This plan didn't drive to create more of that. He described conservation developments that would have smaller lots clustered together but that was not the focus. Mr. Renner stated that he was happy to have one plan as a guide. He said that because of the conflicting data, it is a good start. He asked about traffic and is there a statement over all statement about traffic? Mr. Domini said that sometimes when they do these projects, they're done in conjunction with a thoroughfare plan. An example of that is what they are doing in Upper Arlington on Lane Avenue. They are concerned with what is happening on west campus. So there is a pretty detailed study of how we align those things. He said he didn't feel there was a City of Gahanna Page 6 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes July 22, 2019 broad brush statement on traffic in the report. He continued that if we did something like that, it could be a statement making sure that mobility and land use decisions are both considered in alignment and that could be a good addition because there isn't a direct statement. Mr. Jones said that there are some focus areas along some corridors that redevelopment should minimize access points along Hamilton road in order to control traffic flow and the impact of dense developments kind of like we did at the Shops at Rocky Fork. So it is requiring connectivity internally to the site minimizing out access points there. RECOMMENDATION: Public Hearing. H. Adjournment Meeting adjourned at 9:14 p.m. City of Gahanna Page 7