City Council Regular Meeting

VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 1. CALL TO ORDER. President of Council Kilway called the Virtual Regular Council meeting of Thursday, August 13, 2020 to order at 7:00 p.m. This is a virtual meeting due to the State of Emergency. 2. SILENT PRAYER: PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: 3. ROLL CALL: Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Carano, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – present. Mr. Donovan arrived at 7:09 p.m. Also present were Mayor Kline, Dir. of Administration Cooper, Dir. of Economic Development Springer, Dir. of Law Raber, Dir. of Finance Gilbride and Clerk of Council Burton. 4. MINUTES: 7-9-20 Virtual Regular Council Meeting minutes. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of the 7-9-20 minutes. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Voice vote 6-0. The 7-9-20 Virtual Regular Council Meeting minutes were adopted by a vote of 6-0. 5. FINANCIAL REPORTS: • Street Maintenance & Repair Transfer in the amount of $104,000 to Council on 7-31-20. • Bond Retirement Transfer in the amount of $79,000 to Council on 7-31-20. • Appropriation Report, Fund Report and Revenue Report for the period ending 7-31-20 to Council on 8-6-20. • July Financial Reports to Council on 8-6-20. • Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 7- 31-20 to Council on 8-6-20. • Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 7-31-20 to Council on 8-6-20. • Revenue Comparisons for the period ending 7-31-20 to Council on 8-6-20. • Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 7-31-20 to Council on 8-6-20. Mr. Sisak moved to approve the financial reports. Seconded Mrs. Allman. The Financial Reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride were accepted by a vote of 6-0. Mr. Loughry: I would just like to thank Mrs. Gilbride for the good job that she does. Pres. of Council: I would have to second that. Yes, she does do a great job. Dir. of Finance: Thank you. I appreciate it and I couldn’t do it without all of the staff that work for me. 6. PUBLIC HEARINGS: None. 7. COMMUNITY INPUT: Pres. of Council: At this time we normally take community input, but since we are virtual we have asked the public that if they had anything that they want to discuss to please e-mail it to us and we would read it at this time during the meeting and as of 4:00 p.m. we have not received any communication from the public. 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. 9. AGENDA ADDITIONS: None. 10. REFERRALS OF FIRST READING ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS: a. The following shall be referred to the Finance Committee: • Ord. 49-2020 • Ord. 50-2020 • Res. 9-2020 b. The following shall be referred to the Planning & Zoning Committee: None. c. The following shall be referred to the Personnel Committee: • Res. 8-2020 d. The following shall be referred to the Community Issues Committee: None. e. The following shall be referred to the Safety Committee: None. f. The following shall be referred to the Public Service Committee: None. 11. REPORTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS: MAYOR, DIR. OF PUBLIC SERVICE, DIR. OF ADMINISTRATION, DIR. OF ECONOMIC DEV., DIR. OF FINANCE AND DIR. OF LAW. Mayor: Thank you Madame Chair. Thank you Council for coming back from your break. It has been a busy couple weeks since you last met here and so I appreciate all of you taking the time to be here tonight. The administration has been extremely busy and when you see some of the reports coming out with the economic development and Mike Rorar’s group; you will see some of that stuff. Today I had the great opportunity to walk through the Tallmadge School system with all of the teachers in the buildings. Since typically at this time of year I meet with all of the teachers in a group setting, but this time every teacher was in their classroom and we were in the hallways and they were setting up their classrooms and  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Mayor (Cont’d.) they were very appreciative of the school district in making the decision to continue having students coming into the classrooms. The first day of school is the 26th and that is transitioning kids back in, orientation and then I think the first full day of school is the 31 st of August and so hats off to the Tallmadge School Board, Jeff Ferguson and Steve Wood for putting a very safe plan together to allow the students to be able to return back to the classrooms. It has been a long time. Ripley Farm, if you have seen some activity out there . . . Matt will talk about that in his report, but just to give you some information, the old houses that are on there; there is a controlled burn training for the Tallmadge Fire Department. Chief Passarelli and Ben Stasik have been working very hard to get that going. It will be a multi- jurisdictional training as part of their training for their fire requirements and that is on the 28th of August and Saturday the 29th. They had to actually move that up because the Ripley people wanted to move that up a little bit. I think most of you saw that I sent you the Fire Department and Police Department monthly reports. I sent those out. It has been a while since I send those to you and as you can see we are caught up to date on those and so if you have any individual questions on that, feel free to give me a call and we can discuss those. Also, for your consideration tonight for the East Avenue/Washburn Intersection to design that; if you recall we did receive ODOT funding for the East Avenue Corridor from Brimfield all the way to Community Drive. The engineering of that will be in the next couple years. Construction Phase 2 from Munroe Road to Brimfield is scheduled for the year 2025/2026 so therefore I have escalated the intersection and I am asking Council for their consideration to have GPD be the engineers of record to design that intersection. The price that we expend on that will then come off of the ODOT Project, so it will still be the same. GPD is doing the ODOT project, so I thought it was appropriate to have them do the East Avenue one. It is the design of the traffic light signal tying into the subdivision of Phase 2. It is $60,000 for engineering and the reason we were able to get as low of a rate for that is because they are also doing some of the ODOT stuff along that corridor. The construction cost for the intersection; the engineer’s estimate at this point is $800,000 and Mollie will talk later on; I don’t know about tonight, but we will have legislation and that will be funded by a TIF from the Ripley Farm Development to be able to pay that intersection off and some of the ODOT Project. There will be more to come on that, but just to let you know, hopefully that whole intersection including engineering; we will get reimbursed through the TIF within the next ten years. It is s pretty nice project. With that, I will entertain any questions or comments. Mr. Sisak: Point of order; Mr. Donovan arrived. Pres. of Council: It was 7:09 p.m. when I saw Mr. Donovan log in. Mayor: I am Mr. Rorar tonight. Mr. Rorar is moving his daughter into college today and tomorrow and he said he could come back and log in from wherever he is at; Tiffin, and I said no, I will handle it. So, you can see the PowerPoint presentation there. Total permits in the Zoning Department were 53. Code enforcement; 43. Paper plans, which is so nice now; all the plans that we had in the lower area underneath Council Chambers have been scanned into a computer program and so it is much easier to pull up plans via a web based solution and so it is really nice. You can see the cemetery has been very busy. We are running out of spots, We gave 148 grave spots and a lot of those are just individuals just spattered around the cemetery and then the columbarium of the niches; only 33 are left and so we will be considering it in next year’s budget to add the second columbarium because I think it is time to do that and we are working on the foundations in the cemetery. The Rec Center: Monday through Thursday 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and then they close down, and they clean the entire facility and then we open back up from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and then Friday and Saturday’s schedules are there. Still we have members at the Rec Center of almost 6,000. The visits at the Rec Center to date are 4,000, but only 160 people on an average visit there and so I know Jessica and the staff up there is working very hard to get people in. It is very safe, but it is summertime and I am probably one of those 5,000 members, but it is too nice outside, so I am not really going to go in there. Then there are some pretty neat projects that they are working on. 2  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Dir. of Pub. Service (Cont’d.) We have been up and down on how we are going to be doing before and after care and we saw on Monday that Summit County came out; the Health Department came out and said that maybe school shouldn’t open up and they were going to have a meeting and they were going to continue to discuss that and so we are offering before and after at the Rec Center and that registration is currently going on with returning families up until August 5th and then after that August 7th for new folks. So, it is a nice program that we are offering at the Rec Center. We are able to divide groups up into four separate sections of the building and maintaining the CDC regulations for doing that. Parks and Rec, or Parks; the halls and shelters are still closed. Reservations have been cancelled through August 15th. We have staff cleaning restrooms on a 3 to 4-hour schedule. Maca Park; if you have not been out to Maca Park to see the playground unit out there; it is a beautiful setting. The chip’n’seal parking was completed. I’m not a real fan of it, but it is a great maintenance tool and I am growing to like it, but it is a step before we do the asphalt in a couple of years on that. Moving down; you can see Rotary Park; that rubberized playground and the cement concrete around that is so much nicer. I mean, it is a beautiful park that is out there. I had shown some of the Rotarian members there. In the Street Department, they have also been extremely busy. You can see all the work that has been going on. There were 12 tons of debris that was swept up with our street sweeper. So that is just going up and down the streets and collecting stuff and that is contaminated soil and so we have to put that in a spot down at 210 Osceola and then have it filtered, dried and then taken away by a special dumpster. There is ditch work going on and asphalt repairs and we have logged 24 hours on the berm machine going up and down the roads cleaning that out. And then some of the work going down East Avenue from the Circle to Elm has been redone where the mail trucks go along the edge and it wears down and breaks down the road and that was done internally with our crews. The summer paving program is actually completed. I know it started and I think it is completed. Watermain breaks; 3 for the month. Total for the year is 22 and there was 1 sewer backup and hydrant flushing and some hydrant repairs during the hydrant flushing; you find broken hydrants. Nine hydrants were repaired and so that is why we do the hydrant flushing program and making sure we are cleaning the system out. So that is Mike Rorar’s report. Thank you, Mike Rorar, if you are listening out there. I thank that whole department. The Service Department has done a phenomenal job doing the work for the City and they work hard every day keeping us safe and keeping us clean and the roads moving along. Pres. of Council: He does really do a great job. I was out in Kent at a car dealership and someone said that they lived in Brimfield and we said, we live in Tallmadge, and he was like, wow; Tallmadge looks so nice and so that is always nice to hear someone who lives in another community comment on how nice our City looks all the time. Mayor: I appreciate that. I will pass that on too. Dir. of Administration: Good evening everyone. Just a couple quick things to report. September 1st, we start negotiating with the Part-time Firefighters Association and we have initiated contact with them to proceed with that. Regarding the pandemic, we still only had a few employees directly affected by Covid- 19 and a couple have used FFCRA time; that Federal Family First time that the City is required to offer two weeks for people that are directly affected and basically we are rather blessed frankly with how few employees have been directly affected, so we are trying to keep up the good work to maintain that. We are also just trying to keep up with changes that come weekly from the State and also the County. Recently the changes have mostly been affecting the schools and so they are giving us a break, but I don’t envy our partners at the school district. Also, we are hard and heavy on the budget for 2021. Most of you probably know that we start in July on the budget and we only engage Council in the fall, but we work on it for many months. We are starting to schedule now the meetings with all the preliminary proposed budgets have been submitted and now we are going to start meeting with the Department Heads in the next week or two. That’s all I have Madame Chair. Thank you very much and have a good evening. Dir. of Econ. Development: As the Mayor had stated, we have had a busy couple of weeks since we last met. During the month of July, we had the opportunity to meet 3  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Dir. of Econ. Development (Cont’d.) with several different Tallmadge businesses and those include Trans Foam, Herman Machine, NC Chassis, Meyer EV which stand for electric vehicles and Studio 655 Salon and this is just a great opportunity for us to reach out to our business community and check to see how they are doing and find if there are ways that we can do things better or more efficiently and just making sure we are addressing the needs from these businesses. Really what it does is it provides opportunities for our expansion efforts and so this is a case in point and we have successfully negotiated and entered into an agreement with Derma Med Coatings; this is a Tallmadge business located on the Portage County side of things and they are in the process of constructing a 20,000 square foot warehouse expansion. This is about a $1.5 million project and it is going to lead to about 7 new full-time jobs and 2 part-time jobs. This actually makes Derma Med one of the largest employers for the City and this is just really gearing up for what will be a larger expansion in the years to come. Derma Med is involved with the medical adhesive business and so the warehouse expansion allows them to gear up for the additional construction project in the future which leads to additional jobs for the City of Tallmadge. This will be a 7-year 100% tax abatement and we are in the process of talking with the Portage County Auditor’s Office as we speak. This is good news for Derma Med and certainly for the City of Tallmadge. Along these similar lines, Menards’s, while they have not officially given an opening date, they are accepting applications for both full-time and part-time jobs and so if anybody is aware of anybody who may be in the job search, they are accepting applications as we speak. You may have noticed on Northeast Avenue a new sign that just went up in recent days. Speelman Electric has placed a banner over their front entrance at 235 Northeast Avenue. This is right along the Freedom Trail directly next door to the Waltco building and Speelman will be making this their future home base and so they are in the process of working with an architect and putting together a really comprehensive plan. They don’t anticipate expanding the footprint of the existing building, but again they will be relocating and coming over here for their future home and there will be more details to come in the future months. Directly next door you may have seen some activity with the orafis with the Summa building. There were some issues involved with some of the orifice material being installed incorrectly. Contractors are quickly putting that back together and doing it correctly this time around and we were told that this will have no delay on the grand opening which again is expected to happen on September 14 th. Unfortunately, we only learned this afternoon that Leppo Rents is going to have to postpone the ribbon-cutting events. As you know this was scheduled for August 24th, but for obvious reasons, for just health and safety, we are going to have that postponed. That was per Leppo’s request and so at this point we will keep you posted in the coming days and if I hear anything new, but as of right now; that is going to be postponed. A couple other pretty neat projects that the City has been involved with; we have the opportunity to conduct two different site visits. The first one was to a property at Midway Plaza. I’m sure you are all very familiar with the site. Obviously, it has been riddled with vacancy problems, some blighting consequences and so the City is actively looking at site redevelopment opportunities and we have been taking a few potential end users over to that site. Very differently on the right is the existing Summit DD facility. This is about a 120,000 square foot facility. The building itself is in phenomenal condition, but it is obviously looking at potential end users and so the City of Tallmadge is certainly going to actively explore what options might exist out there and hopefully find a great end user for that property. Then very last, as the Mayor had mentioned we were involved in a pre-construction meeting earlier this week and this is for the Tallmadge Reserve Development. You will see earth movement in the coming days. Fechko will be the contractor involved in getting all the earthwork prepped and you will see 37 new single-family homes constructed as part of Phase 1. This is about a 103-acre site which will have, when it is completely built, 208 single-family units. Then as the Mayor had mentioned, our Fire Department as well as a couple other jurisdictions, will have an opportunity to do some active training on a few of those residential houses that sit up along the roadway. That concludes my report. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. 4  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Mayor: There is only one question I would follow up on. Matt, when he talked about Leppo Rents; they are postponing only the ribbon cutting. I think they are going to open their doors to the public; is that correct Matt? Dir. of Econ. Development: Yeah. I’m sorry if I didn’t articulate that well. That is just the cancellation of the ribbon cutting and everything is on schedule in terms of the opening. They will be open to the public I would imagine if you drive by you can actively see the landscaping plan as we speak and it looks like a phenomenal project and things are going really well for them. It’s just that due to Covid concerns they are being careful and safe and so they are cancelling the ribbon cutting. Mayor: Yeah, you have to drive by Nottingham and West Avenue, the old Vendor’s Park, and see what that is transforming into. It is really . . . it was a good decision on our behalf and Council’s behalf. Thank you. Pres. of Council: Yes, thank you very much. I do have one question, particularly with the Speelman Electric moving into their new building; so that will then empty a building over on the corner of Osceola and Commerce and then I know they also have some other warehouse right off of West Avenue. Is there any plans or ideas of how to get that filled so we can get more . . . this isn’t a Tallmadge . . . Dir. of Econ. Development: That will be the next challenge. Pres. of Council: There is nothing on the back burners right now going into those at this time? Is that correct? Mayor: If I may speak a little bit. Their current office there on Osceola; Mr. Speelman himself owns the real estate and he plans to keep that real estate in his name, and he plans to do something with it in that building. In the other office space right besides, Giant Eagle was just some rental space that they were renting out for some storage back there. I think that will quickly be reused up. Mr. Loughry: Mrs. Kilway, can I ask Mr. Springer a question? Pres. of Council: Absolutely. Mr. Loughry: Matt, do you have any information on the commercial property listed for sale on West Avenue that abuts the cheerleading academy? Have you talked to the realtor or know what that is listed at or any information on it? Dir. of Econ. Development: Yeah, I think that is Collier International right next to the substation. That is a 6-acre commercial site. The asking price is $400,000 and I believe it is a Collier’s International broker and so we have been in discussions with them about some potential users that are looking. That’s really the extent of what I know at this point. Mr. Loughry: Thank you. Dir. of Finance: Good evening. Thank you. Nice to see everybody. Everybody received the financial reports for July. We are holding steady. I did quickly, before the meeting, run the preliminary numbers. We just got the report at the end of the day from RITA on our second distribution, but we seem to be running on target at least for what we anticipated in the budget. We are seeing a reduction of income tax in the General Fund, but it is running around 3% which is right where we were budgeted. So, how we are managing that; I’m not sure but I’m grateful. Other than that, I do have information on the CARES Act, and I think we can probably address that when we talk about Res. 9-2020 later in the meeting. Otherwise, I can answer any questions. Dir. of Law: Good evening. Our office has remained busy like everyone else through these last few weeks. We have been helping troubleshoot and problem solve as to different issues that arise and one of the things that we have been actively working on that was not mentioned in the Service Director’s report is the Zoning Code update, which we have been putting quite a bit of time and energy into. We are doing our best to hit the final phase so that we can move on to kind of a finalized draft that we can start presenting to the public and to Council and so we look forward to doing that hopefully in the next few months. I have no other items to report this evening. If there are any questions; I would be happy to answer them. 12. REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES OF COUNCIL OF THE WHOLE: a. PUBLIC SERVICE Rebecca Allman, Chair Dennis Loughry, Vice Chair James Donovan No legislation at this time. 5  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Mrs. Allman: I call the Public Service Committee to order; myself, Mr. Loughry and Mr. Donovan are present. We have no legislation at this time. Council, or Administration; do you have anything? No one responded. OK. I close committee. b. FINANCE Craig Sisak, Chair James Donovan, Vice Chair Michael Carano • Ord. 49-2020 (1st Reading) – Expressing intent to sell unneeded, obsolete, or unfit equipment, vehicles, and vehicle accessories by Edinburg Auction in calendar year 2020 and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak: I call the Finance Committee to order; Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan and myself are present. We are in receipt of the Finance Director’s Report for the month and everything looks pretty good and I am grateful that we have been able to control our costs throughout. Unfortunately the Rec Center, I think we are a point where we are not going to be able to cut ourselves to savings and hopefully some of these projects coming out or programs coming out here in the next couple months will help with some of the deficit there. So, are there any questions about the report? No one responded. We do have Ord. 49-2020 at 1st Reading. It is expressing intent to sell unneeded, obsolete, or unfit equipment, vehicles, and vehicle accessories by Edinburg Auction in calendar year 2020 and providing for immediate enactment. Mayor: That is at 1st Reading and that is OK to stay at 1st Reading. Mr. Sisak: Are there any questions from the committee on that? No one responded. I would imagine it is pretty much standard housekeeping. Mayor: There are a couple of items, if I may Mr. Sisak; there are a couple items on there that some other departments, now that the list is out, are considering maybe they may be able to use that in their spot; some weed whackers or something like that so that is why we will keep it at 1st Reading and we will try to add or take away before the next Council meeting. Mr. Sisak: OK. Alright, so we will give that a 1st Reading. • Ord. 50-2020 (1st Reading) – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into a contract with GPD Group for engineering services for the East Avenue/Washburn Road Project, appropriating necessary sums, and providing for immediate enactment. Mayor: Yes, I asked Council for their consideration on this. This is a project that we have actually been talking about for multiple years and the residents out there are really asking for a traffic light controlled device out there so they can pull in and out and I think that will help not only Washburn Road, but it will help some of the other side roads because it will make a break in traffic to allow people to pull out especially with the development going on down there; traffic impact is extremely high. Mr. Sisak: Yeah, I agree. We definitely need to do something at that intersection with the housing development and the added traffic to the east and the JEDD itself. Committee: what is the recommendation? Mr. Carano: I recommend going forward with it. Mr. Donovan: I recommend adopting at 1st Reading. Mr. Sisak: So, we will recommend adoption of Ord. 50-2020 at 1st Reading. Any comments from Council; I apologize. No one responded. • Res. 9-2020 (1st Reading) – A resolution requesting the City of Tallmadge to receive its share of funds from the County Covid-19 Local Government Payroll Support Grant Program Funds and declaring an emergency. Mr. Sisak: Moving on; Res. 9-2020 is a resolution requesting the City of Tallmadge to receive its share of funds from the County Covid-19 Local Government Payroll Support Grant Program Funds. I’m surprised you guys didn’t hyphenate that or abbreviate that; and declaring an emergency. I think Mrs. Gilbride would like to comment on this. Mrs. Gilbride: I know we have been talking about . . . the City already received money from the State of Ohio and in addition to that the County did receive direct CARES Act funding and they have decided to further push some of that money out into all the communities in Summit County. So, they have created 6  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Dir. of Finance (Cont’d.) this payroll support grant program. The City is slated to receive just over $492,000. The program requires the City to spend those funds on payroll support for first responders and police and fire within the City and the additional duties that they have had to attune and related to the program so we have this resolution before you tonight. This is just to accept the grant funds. At the next Council meeting I intend we will have legislation that then further appropriates the money accordingly. I am in the process right now . . . these funds are back dated to March 1st and so I am in the process of going through the Police Department and Fire Department payroll to accumulate the amount of funds and what that looks like once we accumulate those funds, then we will make further . . . we will take it a step further and move into the State’s funds because the County’s funds are very specific as to what we have to spend them on; we are going to take care of those first and then we will move into appropriating and deciding further action on the $600,000 that we received from the State. Mr. Carano: Since that fund seems to be from the County for safety, fire and police; is any of the money at all going to be able to take some of the burden off of the Rec Center or even the money from the State or anything? Would it be able to be allocated that way? Dir. of Finance: The money cannot . . . none of the CARES money can replace revenue. So really the only burden that we can decide to take off the Recreation Center with these funds would be you know the hand sanitizer that they have had to purchase; the extra cleaning, all of the safety precautions that we put in place. What we are trying to do is find the most streamlined way of spending the money so that when the Auditors come in it is not kind of a nickel and dime you know . . . a hand sanitizer here and there. That is why the County established their grant this way so that when we got audited and they got audited, it was a very streamlined. A very specific process and so when we get to Part 2 after we have taken care of the Police and Fire payroll support, we will look at all the other things that we have spent money on that we can get reimbursed for from the State portion, but our goal; my goal from a finance perspective and from the perspective of knowing that the State Auditors are going to be in here next year auditing it; if we can make it very streamlined then it will make it easier on us to just get everything through. So, you might not see a bunch of stuff at the Rec Center, but the reality is that whatever costs that this is able to offset in the General Fund is really helping the Rec Center and the City overall. Mr. Carano: Thank you. Mr. Sisak: How did they . . . was there an algorithm for the amount of money that we were to receive, or did we submit an estimate and the secondly; does this money have to be used in a certain timeframe? Dir. of Finance: So, the County used the same algorithm that the State uses with a little bit of modification for the Local Government Fund and so for the most part, every community in the County received about the same amount as they received from the State for local governments. There is some weird calculations in local government funds that some communities don’t quite get as much as they do and so the County had to kind of smooth that out a little bit to distribute it a little bit more fairly so that was the kind of algorithm that they used to determine that. Was there a second part to that question? Mr. Sisak: Of course, there was does it have to be used in this calendar year? Dir. of Finance: All CARES Act money has to be spent; out the door, by December 30th and so we have to basically wait for this. If it takes us until the last payroll in December; that would be the last chance that we would have to spend those funds. Currently, the County kind of did a preliminary study and they are wrapping it up that they have determined that in relation to the CARES Act, about 25% of a firefighter’s time now and about 15% of a police officer’s time in their duties are now spent doing CARES Act things rather than . . you know like cleaning and sanitizing and precautionary measures and so the County will not allow us to charge more than 15% of a police officer’s time and 25% of a firefighter’s time to the grant and so that is why it is a little more complicated figuring out the calculations because I have to go through and figure out . . . take out all of their . . . any leave that they have taken and so it is a little more complex than you know the wage times the percent. 7  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Mr. Sisak: Sure. OK, are there any more questions for Mrs. Gilbride this evening? Mayor: Yes. I have a question. Mollie, do you want to explain the 3rd grant that we are looking at that Dr. Cooper is working on for FEMA? That is another revenue that we are trying to go after. Dir. of Finance: Right. So, any other additional items that we identify we do have been approved and Council approved that a while back and so we have been approved for FEMA funds and so we also have the opportunity to get reimbursed for some of our emergency stuff through FEMA and that does require a local match of 25%, but the CARES Act money can also be used for that local match and so we are going to really try to spread the dollars out and recoup as much as we can. Mr. Sisak: Great. Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan; your thoughts on Res. 9-2020? Mr. Carano: I recommend adoption. Mr. Donovan: Yeah, I am all for it. Mr. Sisak: So, we will go ahead and make a recommendation to adopt Res. 9- 2020 at 1st Reading. Is there anything else to come before the Finance Committee? No one responded. Hearing none; I will go ahead and close committee. Thank you. c. PERSONNEL Michael Carano, Chair Rebecca Allman, Vice Chair Jonathon Bollas • Res. 8-2020 (1st Reading) – Extending the sympathy of the Council and the Administration to Arthur Grant and members of his family in the death of Jimmie Grant, Jr. and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Carano: I would like to call the Personnel Committee to order; myself, Mrs. Allman and Mr. Bollas are present. We have before us Res. 8-2020 at 1st Reading extending the sympathy of the Council and the Administration to Arthur Grant and members of his family in the death of Jimmie Grant, Jr. and providing for immediate enactment. Anybody on the committee want to make a statement or Council-at-Large or the Administration? No one responded. Mr. Bollas: I would recommend adoption at 1st Reading. Mr. Carano: It is recommended 3-0 to adopt. Is there anything else from the committee or Council or the Administration? Mayor: Sorry, I’m back. We did have an e-mail go out welcoming some new employees of the City; those are just replacement bodies and they are basically from a previous employee. These are not new additions but hats off to the guys who have left and retired and congratulations to the new employees that came on. There was like three or four of them on the memo that went out to Council from Andrea. Mr. Carano: Thank you Mr. Kline. Is there anything else? No one responded. I will close committee. d. PLANNING & ZONING James Donovan, Chair Craig Sisak, Vice Chair Dennis Loughry • Ord. 47-2020 (3rd Reading) Amended 7-9-20 – P&Z Recommends Approval 5-0. Approving and granting a conditional zoning certificate to applicant/ owner Rodney Myers/Myers Iron Sales and Rental, LLC for use as a public storage garage at 1392 Newton Street (Parcel No. 60- 10480). Mr. Donovan: I call the Planning & Zoning Committee to order; myself, Mr. Sisak and Mr. Loughry are present. I think all that is on the agenda is Ord. 47- 2020. I believe that is amended and ready to go. Is there any further information or comments? Mayor: No, this went to Planning & Zoning and they did receive approval through Planning & Zoning with some recommendations and Council, at their last Council meeting, made those recommendations and amended the ordinance and so that put it back to 2nd Reading and this is a business that is going out on Newton Street and a lot of you may know Newton Street extension 8  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Mayor (Cont’d.) going in across from the Walsh construction site right down there by the railroad tracks. It is a nice-looking building and it is in an industrial area and I think this is a quiet use that will not be harmful to the neighbors even though the neighbors are also in an industrial zoned lot. Some of the residents that live there are grandfathered-in, but I think it is a nice addition to Newton Street. Mr. Donovan: Committee? Your thoughts? Mr. Sisak: I’m good with it. Mr. Loughry: I’m in agreement. Mr. Donovan: We will recommend adoption of Ord. 47-2020. Is there anything else to come before Planning & Zoning? No one responded. Hearing none; I close committee. e. COMMUNITY ISSUES Dennis Loughry, Chair Jonathon Bollas, Vice Chair Rebecca Allman No legislation at this time. Mr. Loughry: Thank you. I would like to call the committee to order; myself, Mr. Bollas and Mrs. Allman are all present. We have no legislation, but regarding community issues, you find out what is going on a lot through social media and I know this, but the Mayor and I this morning had a conversation about people; some people in some allotments primarily, who are already planning for Halloween and want to know what is going on. So, I just thought we might get some sort of update on that in this committee. Do we have anything yet, or do we just want to wait a little bit? Mayor: Thank you Mr. Loughry for bringing that up. Actually, Andria, who monitors all social media brought that to our attention yesterday. There are some parents out there trying to figure out what is going to happen on Halloween and I am just trying to get kids back in school, but Halloween is coming up and I know that is very important, so Jessica at the Rec Center is trying to come up with a plan to present to the Administration to do some type of event; I will call it like a drive-in Halloween; a movie screen . . . something up there. I mean, we want to do something, but we also have to follow the CDC regulations and I know some allotments . . . I know my allotment on a posted Halloween night, I would say, and I know most of the kids; probably 50% or 60% are not from Tallmadge that come in there and I am OK with that but not in a Covid situation. So, I think it might be some individual allotments. We were brainstorming today; decorate your house and we will have a team go by and give a prize to the house that is most decorated . . . so we are trying to come up with something and I appreciate you asking me yesterday or today, or whatever day it was. Mr. Loughry: Thanks. You know, I think especially those families with young children; school age; everyone is just looking for whatever kind of normalcy we can give them you know and so, but thanks for looking into that so quickly. I appreciate it. Is there anything else for the committee? Mr. Carano: You are right about that and it is sort of a shame when you think about that. I remember as a child when all the different times of the season were coming up and you anticipate and look forward to them. Things are just different, and it is just unfortunate, and we can just hope that this Covid thing will go away some point in the near future. That’s all. Thank you. Pres. of Council: I just want to say that obviously I’m thinking that since . . . with everything that is going on and we are not going to have the Street Dance for the first time in my lifetime. I mean; that is just kind of strange to me. It’s sad. It’s very sad. I hope we can get a vaccine before then. I don’t think so, but hopefully. Mr. Bollas: Yes, I just wanted to give a quick update on a few community issues or complaints that I received in August. The first was a resident on Jennifer Trail that had stated that she is losing electricity and power and wondering if anything can be done regarding that or what may have been the root cause of the that recently. The power went out near my home as well several times. Do we have any information regarding the latest outages? 9  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Mayor: Yes, did you not get that report? I think you sent the information to the Service Director Mike Rorar and then . . . we have a good contact at First Energy; Kirt Gardner who is our local rep and he responded within a couple of hours and gave a detailed report of all the outages in that general area and I will say that over 50% of the outages were caused by private property tree limbs falling that took out the lines. There were a few items that were from an equipment failure from First Energy, Ohio Edison and then a couple trees from car wrecks and that. I will be sure to make a note that Mike give you that report because I know I saw it. Mr. Bollas: Thank you so much. I don’t recall seeing that and I appreciate that update and I will relay that to the resident as well. The other update I had was another resident on Washburn which was similar, but this had to do with a tree falling in terms of a branch falling near the culvert drain and it looked like we had removed a portion of that branch and there was just a follow-up complaint that I was working with the Service Director on. The last update that I had this evening was around the Hanna Drive easement proposal we were working through with the Service Director and the next action item on that is he was going to follow up with the Mayor and the Law Director if it was a project worth pursuing. They had shot the grade. I met the Service Director and the resident out on the property to review essentially in going over this 500 feet of property, it would have been roughly 1” fall and so the Service Director is going to follow up with you guys to determine if that would give enough relief and worth pursuing. I just wanted to relay that the residents were very thankful for us visiting out there and they would appreciate any relief we could give them, but just thank you in advance to everyone involved if we can do anything for them to help prevent flooding from the subsequent neighborhoods drainage. Thank you. Mr. Loughry: Anyone else? No one responded. Great job this evening. Thank you. Close committee. f. SAFETY Jonathon Bollas, Chair Michael Carano, Vice Chair Craig Sisak No legislation at this time. Mr. Bollas: I call the Safety Committee to order; myself, Mr. Carano and Mr. Sisak are present. We have no legislation at this time. Does anyone on committee or Council or the Administration have anything for the Safety Committee for this evening? Mayor: Just to give you a little update on the fire station. I do have R.F.P’s (Request for proposals) out for architectural firms for the buildout of Fire Station No. 2. Those are due to the City on August 20th. There is a lot of activity and a lot of people are interested. There are a lot of good companies calling with fire department backgrounds and so we are pretty excited about that. My goal is to get an architect on board sometime this year which if you recall during the budget cycle, we said that was not in there and we did not schedule any funds until after we saw if the levy was going to pass and it did and so I will be coming with the re-appropriation to hire an architect so we can get ready for bidding and building a new station sometime in the second quarter of next year; 2021. Mr. Bollas: Thank you for that update. I have one question to follow up on that regarding the fire truck; are there any updates there or progress related to that? Mayor: The fire truck is on order and it takes from the time that they receive the confirmation of payment or that we are going to pay; the commitment; it is 12 months from that date and so I don’t even know if we are in the pipeline to get a view of the chassis yet. But there will be progress reports when it comes time and I will make sure we pass those on to you guys. Mr. Carano: I have a question; Dave, with the fire station . . . I know before when there was discussion about it there was a major controversy about the roof color being red or green. That is something we are going to have to think about ahead of time because there was a diversion of opinions on that and very strong ones at that. Mayor: Some with our own staff and I can hear them laughing in the background and they are muted! 10  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. August 13, 20 Mr. Loughry: So, I just want, I guess for the record, many of you know what I do for a living and then some don’t but I work, when I work, I work for an architectural firm doing business development and as such we do projects like this and so whenever we have that legislation I will not be participating. I will be following the advice given to me from Law Director Raber on when I can participate and when I should not because this will be a multi-faceted endeavor with engineering firms involved, general contractors, all sorts of sub-contractors and so I want to be able to participate when I can, but for sure, not participate when I should not. Mr. Bollas: Thank you for the update. I will also follow the guidance of the Law Director on that. Thank you. Mayor: Also, for the record, we have no preconceived company that we are looking at. The RFQ’s or P’s are due in by . . . Q’s; qualifications are due on August 20th. I don’t know who is going to submit, but when they do, I will also confer with the Law Department and the committee that selects the architects if the firm that he is working with is one of the firms that we select and I will make sure that it is above board. Mr. Bollas: Thank you for that update. I just wanted to add a thank you for the monthly activity report. I just want to thank Chief Passarelli and Chief Williams for that and their staff. I really appreciate all of the information. I look forward to reviewing it. Anything else for the Safety Committee this evening? No one responded. Alright. I close committee. 13. REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES: None. 14. THIRD READINGS OF RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES: a. Ord. 47-2020 (Planning & Zoning) – 3rd Reading. Amended 7-9-20. P&Z Recommended Approval 5-0. Approving and granting a conditional zoning certificate to applicant/owner Rodney Myers/Myers Iron Sales and Rental, LLC for use as a public storage garage at 1392 Newton Street (Parcel No. 60-10480). Mr. Donovan moved for the adoption of Ord. 47-2020. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman – unanimous. Ord. 47-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 15. SECOND READINGS OF RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES: None. 16. FIRST READINGS OF RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES: a. Ord. 49-2020 (Finance) – Expressing intent to sell unneeded, obsolete, or unfit equipment, vehicles, and vehicle accessories by Edinburg Auction in calendar year 2020 and providing for immediate enactment. Pres. of Council: Ord. 49-2020 is at 1st Reading and is assigned to the Finance Committee. b. Ord. 50-2020 (Finance) – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into a contract with GPD Group for engineering services for the East Avenue/Washburn Road Project. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Ord. 50-2020. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Roll Call: Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. Ord. 50-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. c. Res. 8-2020 (Personnel) – Extending the sympathy of the Council and the Administration to Arthur Grant and members of his family in the death of Jimmie Grant, Jr. and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Carano moved for the adoption of Ord. 8-2020. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Voice vote 7-0. Res. 8-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. d. Res. 9-2020 (Finance) – A resolution requesting the City of Tallmadge to receive its share of funds from the County Covid-19 Local Government Payroll Support Grant Program Funds and declaring an emergency. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Res. 9-2020. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Roll Call: Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Carano – unanimous. Res. 9-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. Mayor: I say this to all of Council; if you have any budget requests or anything like that, now would be a good time to give us a call; give Jill; give Don; give one of us a call to say hey are you thinking about this or that. We welcome your input. 17. ADJOURNMENT: Mr. Donovan moved to adjourn. Seconded Mr. Carano. Voice vote 7-0. The Virtual Regular Council meeting of 8-13-20 adjourned at 8:06 p.m. sb Adopted: _______________________________ _________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Carol A. Kilway, President of Council 11