City Council

MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING MASSILLON CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 2025 COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Good evening. Welcome to the Massillon City Council meeting for Monday, August 4, 2025. We have in attendance the following City officials: Mayor, Jamie Slutz, Chief Deputy Auditor, Stefanie Myers, City Engineer, Alex Pitts, Director of Development, Ted Herncane and Income Tax/Budget Director, Lori Kotagides-Boron. Under #5 on the agenda is where the public can speak on any topic that appears on tonight’s agenda and under #17 is where the public can speak on any topic that does NOT appear on tonight’s agenda. I’d like to remind you that if you have a cell phone, please set it to mute, vibrate or turn it off. Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Roll call, please. 1. ROLL CALL Roll call for the evening found the following Council Members present: Holly Bryan-Huth, Jill Creamer, Sarita Cunningham, Mike Gregg, Julie Harwig Smith, Ed Lewis, Seth Marcum, John Paquelet and Eric Ray Roll call of 9 present COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. 2. INVOCATION COUNCILMAN MIKE GREGG 3. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE LED BY COUNCILMAN GREGG COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Councilman Gregg. 4. READING OF THE JOURNAL COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Madam Clerk, are the minutes of the previous meeting transcribed and open for public viewing? COUNCIL CLERK ROLLAND – Yes, they are. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Are there any additions or corrections to be made? COUNCIL CLERK ROLLAND – No, there are not. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – If not, then the minutes stand approved as written. Thank you, Madam Clerk. COUNCIL CLERK ROLLAND – You are welcome. 1 5. REMARKS OF DELEGATIONS AND CITIZENS TO MATTERS ON THE AGENDA 6. NEW AND MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS 7. INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Ord. No 65 – 2025. ORDINANCE NO. 65 – 2025 BY: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE AN ORDINANCE authorizing Mayor of the City of Massillon, Ohio, to enter into a Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) agreement with Chad and Michelle Hartman for the purpose of renovating the structure located at 47 Lincoln Way W., Massillon, Ohio, for commercial and residential purposes, and declaring an emergency. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Ray. COUNCILMAN RAY – Thank you, Council President. This ordinance covers, as stated, the Community Reinvestment Area agreement with the Hartman’s. They’re taking on a major investment of nearly $4 million dollars to help beautify downtown. Also, obviously, it’s a business venture as well. But they have went all in on it and what we’re trying to do is give them a 75% tax cut over 10 years. Due to the fact that there was an absence of multiple council members, if there’s any questions, I can all Director Herncane up so you guys can get an overview or any questions. Would you like to come on up, Mr. Herncane? Mrs. Hartman is here as well. TED HERNCANE – Mr. President, Members of Council, Councilman Ray. So, I think there were three absent last week; I know you all have read the packet. But I can go into the whole speel we did last week. Are there any questions that anyone may or may not have on this? COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Paquelet. COUNCILMAN PAQUELET – Mr. Herncane, so it’s a tax abatement, basically, correct? TED HERNCANE – Correct. COUNCILMAN PAQUELET – Ten-year tax abatement at 75%. Now, what happens if the auditor or there’s an increase value of that property in three years or six years and the new appraisal, does it stay based upon the today’s rate or is it 75% on future increases? TED HERNCANE – I would be…the rate is fixed. The amount they pay would be based on whatever that appraisal is. The appraisal goes up, there’s going to be more tax owed, but they will still only pay 25% of that value. COUNCILMAN PAQUELET – Okay. Perfect. I just didn’t know if it was fixed at that. Alright, thanks. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Lewis. 2 COUNCILMAN LEWIS – So, I apologized for not knowing all of this, but, essentially what we’re looking at today is for the next ten years for every $100 lobbied or levied against the property, they would be pay 25% and we would abate the 75%, correct? It’s a 75% abatement? TED HERNCANE – Correct. The tax estimate that they got from the County on, I think the last page in your packet, they’re estimating a post construction value of 2.1. They’re estimating that the real estate tax is per year of the $39,146. 75% of that is about $29,000 so they would be paying $10,000 or $11,000 and then the rest, technically abatement and exemption are kind of synonymous, it’s a tax exemption. They would be exempt from paying the taxes of 75% of that new appraised value for a period of ten years, yes. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Then what perimeters do they have to follow? Do they have to maintain any kind of standards? TED HERNCANE – Well, that’s a good question, Councilman. The CRA program is one we don’t use a whole lot. The last time we did a CRA tax exemption was for the Midwest Health Services new office building back in 2013 or 2014. This program is a little more flexible than the Enterprise Zone program. The only real caveats are the applicant has to commit to retaining or creating at least two new jobs which they will have four or five and that’s really the only requirement other than falling into the categories of eligibility; a new build or a renovation or rehabilitation, things like that. So as long as they maintain the two new additional employees for a year, they’ll be fine. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – So if they get two new employees this year and that’s all the employees that they have for the next ten years, they have met their minimum? TED HERNCANE – Correct. The CRA program is a little different than the Enterprise Zone program. Our CRA covers most of the downtown area from as far north as Cherry St. by the movie theater, west along the highway down to probably Tremont and east a couple of blocks. It’s not really a job, ours is really not set up as a job creation or retention exercise. With it being specifically for the downtown area, the point is to provide that incentive through the State for exactly what the Hartman’s are doing. What Midwest did ten years ago; either build new or rehabilitate a building in that downtown area. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – My apologies; you said that the post construction estimate values $2.1 million dollars? TED HERNCANE – Correct. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Do we know what the current is? TED HERNCANE - $245,000. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Okay. Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Harwig Smith. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – Who is going to oversee that the agreement’s met? Is that our job, the City’s job? 3 TED HERNCANE – Correct. Every year, by law, we are required through the Tax Incentive Review Committee which is chaired by the County Auditor, per the Revised Code. Every year, TIRC gets together in March and reviews all of the tax abatement agreements that the City has. The CRA’s, the TIF’s, the Enterprise Zone agreements. So every year there is a committee that reviews these and then makes recommendations to City Council as we saw probably a couple of months ago to accept those recommendations. They can either recommend continuation or termination based if the applicant or the party involved in a tax abatement project does not do what they’re supposed to do, there is that mechanism that it can be modified or terminated later should they not do that. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – Okay. And I don’t know, Eric, if Michelle Hartman if she wanted to, just for the people who weren’t here and for the people that are watching the Council meeting who didn’t see the Work Session, maybe she could re-explain to them what they’re doing with the building. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Hello. MICHELLE HARTMAN – Hello, thank you, Council. So just a recap of what we’re doing at the 47 Lincoln Way W. building. On the first floor will be retail. On the second and third floors will be apartments. They’ll be a total of 17 apartments one of which will be ours, as my husband explained last week. We have put all of our assets into this project, so we are going as far as selling our house when it’s ready and moving into what we’re calling the “owner’s suite” up on the top floor. Right now we’re looking at general contractors. We’re going through the energy audit process for the Pace loan. That’s part of the process and once we have that we’ll get the final build construction or build prints together and then we’ll look for a general contractor and we’re hoping to not break ground, but start somewhere in October or November timeframe. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Bryan-Huth. COUNCILWOMAN BRYAN-HUTH – How many retail spaces could there be? MICHELLE HARTMAN – There could be up to three on the main floor and then there’s a mezzanine which may offer another retail space. It’s a little unclear as to what’s going to happen in that spot right now, but there’s also a possibility if there’s smaller spaces needed, it can be broken into smaller spaces as well. COUNCILWOMAN BRYAN-HUTH – Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Cunningham. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Thank you, Mr. President. As you stated last week, because one of my concerns, if there’s going to be apartments in there that are going to be for seniors, how are they going to get upstairs because there’s not an elevator there? But you did explain that you will be adding an elevator. MICHELLE HARTMAN – Correct. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – I also want to commend you and your husband; it’s taken a lot of courage to put that kind of money in downtown Massillon. But here, I want to pat myself on the back for a second because as of tomorrow, Massillon Quick Print is fifty-years 4 old. So I know about starting nowhere near what you’ve committed to but back in 1975 people were saying that the economy’s horrible, why are you going to do this? So, yes, thank you so very much for deciding to use your money in Massillon. MICHELLE HARTMAN – Thank you and congratulations to you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Marcum. COUNCILMAN MARCUM – I just have a quick question for Director Herncane, if that’s okay. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Mr. Herncane. COUNCILMAN MARCUM – So, higher level question than this one property, but do we have any DRD’s in the area that we could maybe explore implementing for projects like this in the future that’s Downtown Revitalization District? TED HERNCANE – We do not. COUNCILMAN MARCUM – Okay. I know it’s a newer concept, a newer thing. I think the State just allowed it a couple of years back. So I wasn’t sure if we’ve explored that because it sounds like project like this might be a good candidate to start flushing out those ideas. TED HERNCANE – Correct. We have not explored that to date but we can. COUNCILMAN MARCUM – Okay. TED HERNCANE – And there was something else that I wanted to add; one of the most significant parts of this project is the fact that the Hartman’s did receive both State and Federal Historic Preservation tax credits which are very competitive and they are very hard to get. I know they hired a consultant to do that. They really went the whole nine yards and did it the right way because they’re serious about this. One requirement of, I believe it’s the State’s tax credits, there needs to be in order for them to receive those State tax credits, there’s a requirement that they be at least a 3% local government investment. The tax abatement satisfies that requirement and I think the abatement amount is something like maybe 7% or something, it’s well above that 3%. In order for them to also get that component of the tax credits, which not many people get, we’re required to have a little skin in the game too and a tax abatement like this is the easiest way for us to do it without, obviously, paying cash out of pocket. COUNCILMAN RAY – Thank you for that. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Gregg. COUNCILMAN GREGG – Thank you, President Slater. This is probably more for Mrs. Hartman. So, you currently have a tenant in that first floor. Will they continue? MICHELLE HARTMAN – Yes. They’ve signed a five-year lease with us. COUNCILMAN GREGG – Okay. And I’ve also heard some questions regarding parking for the apartments that you’ll have. What is the plan? 5 MICHELLE HARTMAN – So, between street parking and then the city parking garage that’s behind there; that’s currently pretty open. They’ll have the opportunity to park in either of those spaces. There’s also the parking lot that’s behind Margarita’s there as well that has parking, so, plenty parking in the area for our residents as well as people who are coming down to shop and dine. COUNCILMAN GREGG – Okay, great. So my question with the parking garages, what is the status of those spots? Are those just free and open to anyone? MICHELLE HARTMAN – Yes. COUNCILMAN GREGG – At one time, the hotel had a certain number and the City had a certain number. I’m looking at Director Herncane. TED HERNCANE – I believe, Councilman Gregg, you are correct. I believe that the hotel does rent or lease a certain number of spaces from the City, but the majority of the deck certainly is open for anyone to use downtown. If the Hartman’s wanted to, we could probably look at an agreement whereby we set aside a certain number of spaces, something like that. We’d have to talk to the Safety Service Director about, but there are, I don’t think people use the parking deck as much as they should. There’s plenty of space there on any given day. COUNCILMAN GREGG – Okay. Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Bryan-Huth. COUNCILWOMAN BRYAN-HUTH – Thank you, Mr. President. I don’t have a question so much as an out word comment or working thought; so, without this program, without this abatement, the building stays at its purchased value, no renovations happen, no further businesses come in and no residents come in, so the tax money stays and I’m not going to run these numbers in my head right now, but I would think that we would be less than what we’re going to get with the tax abatement. So, just to work that around out loud. COUNCILMAN RAY – Correct. And also they would run the risk of losing the funding from the Historical Preservation which we’re definitely applauding you for continuing to restore what is there. Me being a contractor myself, we like the old “bones” and want to keep them to the best that we can, especially when they are salvageable. So, we commend you for doing that. COUNCILWOMAN BRYAN-HUTH – As long as I can remember, I sound like one of those older people; but that building has had one retail store in the bottom and the upstairs has been vacant. I can’t remember Penney’s being there. I only know Penney’s to be next to the Lincoln. So, to have it revitalize, to have it in use, to have it attracting people downtown is ideal in my mind. Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Any more questions? Councilman Ray. COUNCILMAN RAY – Seeing no more questions, I’m going to go ahead and bring this forward for a vote. I would like to waive the rules requiring three readings and bring Ord. No. 65- 2025 forward for a vote. 6 COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilwoman Bryan-Huth. Roll call for suspension. 9 yes for suspension COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – And for passage. 9 yes for passage COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. Ord. No. 65 – 2025 has passed. Ord. No. 66 – 2025. ORDINANCE NO. 66 – 2025 BY: HEALTH, WELFARE & BLDG. REGS. COMMITTE AN ORDINANCE authorizing the Clerk of Council of the City of Massillon, Ohio, to certify the list of unpaid and delinquent nuisance abatement services to the Stark County Auditor to be entered upon the tax duplicate to be a lien upon such land from the date of entry to be collected as other taxes and assessments and to delete any property owner’s names or adjust the dollar amounts owed, if applicable, prior to certification to the Stark County Auditor provided that the Director of Development provides documentation to do so, and declaring an emergency. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Cunningham. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Thank you, Mr. President. Because there were three Councilpersons not here last week, I’d like to ask Mr. Herncane to please come up and if there are any questions, then he clarify them for you. TED HERNCANE – Mr. President, Members of Council, Councilwoman Cunningham. So, this is not really a new concept, but it is different in that this is the first time that the Law Dept. has asked us to send these to you for your approval for the Clerk of Council then to send a certification to the County Auditor, which Atty. Mack will assist myself and Ms. Rolland in the certification matter. But what these are is a list of unpaid and delinquent, basically high grass violations and on page three, there might four or five junk and debris cases. So, every year the code enforcement officers, obviously cite high grass and those are assessed on the taxes. What these are are cuts that are made after tagging. They have five days to cut their grass then they go and do a re-inspection. If it is not cut and it exceeds eight inches, then we have two contractors that we use. One for the east side of the City and one for the west, so where the lot is, we let those contractors know every day what lots need cut on their side of town. They cut the lot, they send it back to us, we created this spreadsheet to send to you for the certifications to go to the County to assess the taxes. We’ve done this for a long time. Over the last year as we’ve worked very closely with the Law Dept. and City Council and the IPMC and some other code matters, this was one thing that Atty. Mack was adamant that we get an ordinance to approve these assessments and then send them to the County with that ordinance. The junk and debris, these are cases where somebody’s tagged for junk and debris. They have certain period of time to abate the issue, if they do not, then we send a contractor out to abate the nuisance for the City and there’s a bill, an administrative fee and then we would assess the taxes there too. So, we’ve done both of these for a very long time, but you will see these a couple of times a year. Maybe quarterly. 7 COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Are there any questions? COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Harwig Smith. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – So, just so people know, like every time they go out, they’ll get a notice if they have high grass and that is put on their door, is it also mailed to them? TED HERNCANE – Correct. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – And then each time they’ve gone out, they get another saying sent in the mail and also put on the door? TED HERNCANE – No. There’s a letter that is put in the newspaper every spring which is signed by the Safety Service Director that says how the high grass is going to work. The letter that they receive, they get a one-time notification, up front that they need to abate the issue and if not, a contractor will pay it. The letter that they do get and that we do publish in the newspaper does say that “notice will be given one time; any subsequent violations, there will be a tag” but there won’t be any follow-up letters or anything like that. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – So, we’re not sending them, most of these people owe like $205, $225, other than that, that first notice on their bill, they never got anything in the mail saying “you owe $205 now as a fine?”. You’re saying that we don’t send that to them? Because a lot of people don’t read the paper. TED HERNCANE – The letter that they get saying that if they don’t cut it after a certain period of time, it tells them what those charges are. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – It tells them what the charges are? TED HERNCANE – Yes. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – But we’re not actually sending them a bill? We’re just putting it on their taxes? TED HERNCANE – Correct. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – Does the County charge us anything for putting it on their taxes? Are we paying any type of fee or anything? TED HERNCANE – I have not seen that in the past. I don’t believe so. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – I think it would be nice if we actually gave them one chance like, here’s your bill now before it shows up on their taxes. A lot of people just don’t see things in the paper or get the paper. TED HERNCANE – They would see the notice and they would see the posting and they would see the tag on their house, hopefully. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – Okay. 8 COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Ray. COUNCILMAN RAY – And ultimately they’ll see that their grass got cut. You know you didn’t cut your grass, so, I’m just saying. TED HERNCANE – And other than the posting, they do receive it by mail as well. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Any more questions? Councilwoman Cunningham. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Not a question, but a comment. Because we don’t have somebody that travels every street in Massillon to see if there’s high grass, if you notice a home that has the high grass, they would appreciate if you would call the code enforcement and let them know that such a such house address, they have high grass, then they would take a look at that. Am I correct? TED HERNCANE – That’s correct. With four code enforcement officers, they are out and about in the community far more than they were. But the City’s 19 square miles and there’s four of them on any given day. So, if you see something, say something. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Gregg. COUNCILMAN GREGG – Thank you, President Slater. Just to piggy-back off what Councilwoman Cunningham said, there’s also an online form that people can go on the City’s website and complete a complaint about neighbor’s high grass. TED HERNCANE – Correct and those complaints can be made anonymously if an individual didn’t want to start an issue with their neighbor. COUNCILMAN GREGG – Correct. Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Anymore questions? Councilwoman Cunningham. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Thank you, Mr. Herncane. TED HERNCANE – Thank you. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – I make a motion that we waive the rules requiring three readings and bring Ord. No… COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – I have another question. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Oh, I’m sorry. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – I’m just noticing that for some of these people it’s the same; say like if someone has three parcels, but it’s one lot. So we’re charging them triple fines for those? 9 TED HERNCANE – It’s per parcel, yes. COUNCILWOMAN HARWIG SMITH – Okay. Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Lewis. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Just to clarify. We’re not changing any practices that we’ve been doing for years now. We’re just simply now coming to Council for our approval to have it posted in the paper. TED HERNCANE – For your approval to have it sent to the County, correct. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – In the past, we’ve done that, regardless if it was without our approval. TED HERNCANE – Correct. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – So, we’re not changing anything at all. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Cunningham. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Okay. I make a motion that we wave the rules requiring three readings and bring Ord. No. 66 – 2025 forward for a vote. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilman Gregg. Roll call for suspension. 9 yes for suspension COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – And for passage. 9 yes for passage COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. Ord. No. 66 – 2025 has passes. Ord. No. 67 – 2025. ORDINANCE NO. 67 – 2025 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE AN ORDINANCE making certain appropriations from the unappropriated balance of the 1100 General Fund, for the purpose of Income Tax Refunds, for the year ending December 31, 2025, and declaring an emergency. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Lewis. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Yes. This is an appropriation of $135,000. This is to cover what we anticipate for additional income tax refunds. As you know, we’re obligated to make these payments back to individuals or corporations who have made quarterly payments or annual payments and we need to refund their excess tax payments that they’ve made to us. I did talk to the Budget Director and she did make the best of her ability projections outward and she does hope that this is the last time she has to come to us to make these adjustments for our 10 budget. Are there any questions or discussion this evening? Seeing none, I make a motion to suspend the rules requiring three readings, bringing Ord. No. 67 – 2025 forward for a vote. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilman Marcum. Roll call for suspension. 9 yes for suspension COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – And for passage. 9 yes for passage COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. Ord. No. 67 – 2025 has passed. Ord. No. 68 – 2025. ORDINANCE NO. 68 – 2025 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE AN ORDINANCE making certain appropriations from the unappropriated balance of the 1100 General Fund, for the purpose of upgrades to the IT system, for the year ending December 31, 2025, and declaring an emergency. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Lewis. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – As most of us have become familiar with, IT systems are in constant need of updating, upgrading and changing. With the constant threats related to security and what not, we as a City have an obligation to make sure we stay on top of that. So what this is regarding is making sure that we have security systems in place that protect our servers and protect our e-mails, what not and what forth. This is an appropriation request for $65,000. Are there any questions or discussion this evening? Seeing none, I make a motion that we suspend the rules requiring three readings, bringing Ord. No. 68 – 2025 forward for a vote. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilman Gregg. Roll call for suspension. 9 yes for suspension COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – And for passage. 9 yes for passage COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. Ord. No. 68 – 2025 has passed. Ord. No. 69 – 2025. ORDINANCE NO. 69 – 2025 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE AN ORDINANCE making certain appropriations from the unappropriated balance of the 1422 Shearer’s Food TIF Fund and the 1431 Baker Hughes TIF Fund, for the year ending December 31, 2025, and declaring an emergency. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Lewis. 11 COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Yes. This is just using these TIF’s for the Millennium Blvd. Extension Project. We’ve already looked at the going out for bid and what not of this project. It’s over there is the business part that Baker’s Hughes is located. There is $52,000 needed for this project and that is what this appropriation is requesting. Are there any questions or discussion this evening? COUNCIL CLERK ROLLAND – Mr. Lewis. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Yes. COUNCIL CLERK ROLLAND – There is also a $100,000 appropriation. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Oh. That’s the other piece, yes. And there’s also a $100,000 in Section 2 for the lighting, I believe. But we discussed all of this maybe a month ago as part and it was passed. This is just the financial piece of it that is coming in behind of it. Are there any questions or discussion? Seeing none, I make a motion that we suspend the rules requiring three readings, bringing Ord. No. 69 – 2025 forward for a vote. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilman Marcum. Roll call for suspension. 9 yes for suspension COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – And for passage. 9 yes for passage COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. Ord. No. 69 – 2025 has passed. Ord. No. 70 – 2025. ORDINANCE NO. 70 – 2025 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE AN ORDINANCE reducing appropriations in the 1212 Summer Concert Fund, for the year ending December 31, 2025, and declaring an emergency. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Lewis. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Yes. We are reducing this fund by $1,135.03, basically zeroing out the account. It’s a reduction in the certification for that account. Just so that you are aware, this account was funded through donations of the community to help fund the summer concerts series. Some of our donors in the past have preferred to donate directly to the City, but those donors have now worked with the City in keeping the summer concerts alive, but donating the money to the local Chamber. So, with that being said, there’s no longer for the City to hold the money in an account because the money will be passing through a different channel. And so with that, we have to zero it out. Are they any questions or discussion this evening? Seeing none, I make a motion that we suspend the rules requiring three readings, bringing Ord. No. 70 – 2025 forward for a vote. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilman Gregg. Roll call for suspension. 12  9 yes for suspension COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – And for passage. 9 yes for passage COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. Ord. No. 70 – 2025 has passed. Res. No. 7 – 2025. RESOLUTION NO. 7 – 2025 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE AN RESOLUTION approving the 2026 Stark County Alternative Tax Budget for the City of Massillon, Ohio, as listed on the attached Exhibit “A”, and declaring an emergency. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Lewis. COUNCILMAN LEWIS – Yes. This is an annual piece of legislation that we have that’s been brought to us by the Auditor. We have to send this alternative tax budget to the Auditor of the County. It’s essentially our justification of why we have to levy the taxes that we do in order to ensure the services are being delivered in the City. So we give this to the Auditor every year. It is not our actual budget. That is coming in the future weeks. We usually receive that late Octoberish and then we usually take about four readings before we pass that. But that is forthcoming. That is not what this is. It’s just letting the Auditor know what our projected anticipations could be and whatnot. Are there any questions or discussion? Seeing none, I make a motion that we suspend the rules requiring three readings, bringing Res. No. 7 – 2025 forward for a vote. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilman Marcum. Roll call for suspension. 9 yes for suspension COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – And for passage. 9 yes for passage COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Thank you, Madam Clerk. Res. No. 7 – 2025 has passed. 8. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 9. PETITIONS AND GENERAL COMMINCATIONS 10. BILLS, ACCOUNTS AND CLAIMS 11. REPORTS FROM CITY OFFICIALS Mayor’s Report - May 2025 12. REPORTS OF COMMITTEES 13  COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Our next Work Session will be Monday, August 11, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. 13. RESOLUTIONS AND REQUESTS OF COUNCIL MEMBERS COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilwoman Cunningham. COUNCILWOMAN CUNNINGHAM – Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to give a “shout- out” for the folks that came to the benefit for my daughter, Amanda. A big ‘shout-out” to Diane who is our Clerk of Council/Administrative Assistant because she took the bull by the horns and put that apron on and went around trying to sell 50/50 tickets for us and she did a great job. So, I just wanted to thank everybody. Thank you. 14. CALL OF THE CALENDAR 15. THIRD READING ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS 16. SECOND READING ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS 17. REMARKS OF DELEGATIONS AND CITIZENS TO MATTERS NOT ON THE AGENDA 18. ADJOURNMENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Councilman Gregg. COUNCILMAN GREGG – Thank you, President Slater. I move that we adjourn this evening. COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Seconded by Councilwoman Creamer. Roll call. 9 yes to adjourn COUNCIL PRESIDENT SLATER – Meeting adjourned. ______________________________ ______________________________ DIANE ROLLAND, COUNCIL CLERK MIKE SLATER, PRESIDENT 14