City Council Regular Meeting

VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 1. CALL TO ORDER. President of Council Kilway called the Virtual Regular Council meeting of Thursday, September 10, 2020 to order at 7:01 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, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – present. Also present were Mayor Kline, Dir. of Public Service, Dir. of Economic Development Springer, Dir. of Law Raber, Dir. of Finance Gilbride and Deputy Clerk of Council Conti. 4. MINUTES: 9-10-20 Virtual Regular Council Meeting minutes. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of the 9-10-20 minutes. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Voice vote 7-0. The 9-10-20 Virtual Regular Council Meeting minutes were adopted by a vote of 7-0. 5. FINANCIAL REPORTS: • Fire & EMS Fund Transfer in the amount of $125,000 to Council on 8-28-20. • Street Maintenance & Repair Transfer in the amount of $105,000 to Council on 8-28-20. • General Infrastructure Transfer in the amount of $30,000 to Council on 8-28- 20. • Bond Retirement Transfer in the amount of $75,000 to Council on 8-28-20 • Appropriation Report, Fund Report and Revenue Report for the period ending 8-31-20 to Council on 9-3-20. • August Financial Reports to Council on 9-3-20. • Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 8- 31-20 to Council on 9-3-20. • Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 8-31-20 to Council on 9-3-20. • Revenue Comparisons for the period ending 8-31-20 to Council on 9-3-20. • Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 8-31-20 to Council on 9-4-20. Mr. Sisak moved to approve the financial reports as submitted. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Voice vote 7-0. The financial reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride were approved by a vote of 7-0. 6. PUBLIC HEARINGS: None. 7. COMMUNITY INPUT: Pres. of Council: We have asked the community since our meetings are virtual that if there is anything that they would like to discuss or have discussed during the Council meetings for them to contact our Council Clerks either by e-mail or phone call and submit something in writing and we would read it, but as of 4:00 this afternoon, we had not received any so we will continue with the meeting. 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. 55-2020 • Ord. 58-2020 • Res. 10-2020 b. The following shall be referred to the Planning & Zoning Committee: None. c. The following shall be referred to the Personnel Committee: None. 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: • Ord. 56-2020 • Ord. 57-2020 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. I will start off with the 2021 Budget. We are working on that very diligently. We are still in the process or putting that together. Hopefully, some time by the end of September or 1st of October we should have a complete budget. Jill Stritch and Mollie have been working extremely hard trying to pull the numbers together and so I would like to thank them for all of that. We have met with all the Department Heads and are continuing to make modifications on that to give Council a balanced budget by October 1st I think that is the deadline for Council.  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 Mayor (Cont’d.) Dr. Cooper and I have started contract negotiations with the part- time firefighters. Their contract is up at the end of this year. You do have a couple of ordinances; Ord. 56-2020 and that is the agreement to allow the City of Tallmadge to enter into an agreement for the LPA Project; that is the East Avenue Corridor. It is for the engineering and design of that. It is a $2 million project and it is 100% funded by the safety funds from the State of Ohio and ODOT and so we are happy about that. Then there is Ord. 57-2020; it is allowing us to enter a contract with the engineers who took the proper procedures and ODOT has agreed to allow us to enter that contract with GPD and that is for the East Avenue Corridor. The Halloween Program: we will have Trick or Treat here in Tallmadge. We are working out those details with the Summit County Health Department and allowing that to happen. It is an outdoor event and social distancing will be required and the proper way to hand out candy; we will be giving out advice. The Rec Center will not be doing the Street Dance, but we are doing a Drive-in Movie and it will be at the High School parking lot and not at the Rec Center parking lot. There will be a movie screen like a drive-in theatre with staying in your car and tuning in to a certain radio station and you can watch a movie put on by the Rec Center on Halloween night. Lastly September 11th which is a very somber day; the day that we have been putting candles in the Circle. The City of Tallmadge has not been doing that; it has been the Fire Department Unions who bought the candles and they put those out. The union elected to not put those out this year but to do a modified version of it due to Covid; they have to handle those candles and set them up and take them down and so it has just been a movement that we will never forget what happened on that September 11th but this year it is a different version that is being done. I know that some of you have called and asked what is going to happen on Facebook and that and it is still going to be a day of remembrance and I encourage all of you to not forget that. It has been 19 years and we will do something every September 11th and we will continue to do that. Hopefully, next year we can get together. End of report. Mr. Sisak: Are we going to set up the Budget Work session? Mayor: We will give you those dates. Mr. Sisak: OK. Mayor: We will give you a phone call. It’s usually the first meeting in October, the second meeting in October and then November and the timeframe will be on the . . . Dir. of Finance: Actually, I will introduce the budget at the last meeting in October and then we try to schedule the Work Session sometime in the beginning of November; so, between that October and November meeting. Dir. of Pub. Service: I want to start off with the storm on September 7th. We had between 3-5 inches of rain. I’m hearing somewhere in between there. We had to close down Howe Rd. and that was between Green Valley Drive and the Freedom Trail. Everybody had water. All in all, I thought the City faired very well. Does anybody have any questions on that? Mayor: I can only say that I think the Street Department had 5 or 6 men out that night. They did great digging out ditches and such. They responded in a timely manner. Its just that one lake between Dave Cooks’ house and the Carter’s lake rose and it lasted for about 15 minutes. Dir. of Pub. Service: Moving on, we went out to bid on our trash/recyclables and we had three bidders. You can see that as of right now, Kimble is the lowest bidder. We are still looking at the bids. Currently we pay $35.81 so you can see that there is an increase. If you look to the Table, you can see everybody but Green, and I don’t know why Green is so low, but everybody is paying in the $50’s except for Green. The first term is for 18 months and that is because our current contract ends on January 1st and that is a horrible time to be getting new trash cans and swapping them out during the holidays it is probably one of the busiest times of the year to have them changed out and so moving forward it will be on June 30th. So, we decided to correct that moving forward and so moving forward for the next four years it will be on June 30 th. That’s why the first is 18 months and the next three will be for 12 months. Recyclables: they brought back glass, so all three companies recycle glass. It’s back in and you can see right there that it is cardboard, number 1 and number 2 plastics. The pizza boxes are the killer. That contaminates the whole load and they have to throw everything out. So, you guys have to be careful what you put in there. Moving forward to Zoning; there were 52 permits. Code Enforcement: there were 36. 2  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 Dir. of Pub. Service (Cont’d.) Moving forward, we are readdressing our Design Code. Businesses are starting back up since the Covid and we had let some things go the last couple months and in the next week or so, we are going to start enforcing the Code. Code update: we are right at the end and we are in a push to get this thing out, so we are really close; probably 95% ready. Cemetery; there were no burials and the monument foundations have started and we have 32 monument foundations that we have to do and keep in mind that in the spring because of the Covid and the split shifts and so we thought now would be a nice time to do it before October gets here. Recreation Center: the membership is down about 437, but visits are up. We are adding more hours starting September 28th. We are going to expand our hours a little bit more, not a lot more. We will see how that goes. We are getting about 162 people a week, however this past Tuesday, after Labor Day, we had 200 people come to the Rec Center. The halls and shelters remain closed. The Before and After Care has started and as of right now, we have 14 children in the morning and 25 in the afternoon. All emergency doors have been replaced. They were all rusted, and they have been in there since the building was built, so that is good. Howe Road Park structure has been repainted. The structure on the left is what it looked like and they really did a nice job. There on the right is what they look like now. Street Department: There were 8 tons of debris from the street sweeper. Culverts were replaced and catch basins were installed; 1,500 feet of ditching was done; 7,500 lineal feet of crack sealing was done. This keeps the water out of that pavement and so it is a great maintenance tool. We are doing more of it and hopefully we can make it around more neighborhoods than we did last year. The Summer Paving Program is probably 90% complete. The only thing left is that they have to re-adjust the manhole casts. I’m not sure why it is taking them so long to get back in here and do it. The leaf machines are getting tuned up now. We brought them back in and just so you know, we are going to change it up to late season because of Covid and we are not bringing in any workers in and so we are just going to use our workers on staff. So, we plan on covering the City to the best of our ability. This is a picture of the Atwood Drive Crossover Replacement and I want you to know that there are dual excavators in tandem there working. That is efficient and that means you can get that job done in one day instead of having one doing all the work. Next are the tandem street sweepers; why do we want two street sweepers is because the first one makes a trail and so he has to keep going back and so the second one catches the trail and they can get through a neighborhood a lot quicker. They want street sweeping done as well as the catch basins being cleaned out and they want a record of that and so this is good for cleaning the City, but it is good for the EPA as well. In the Water Department, I didn’t, and the Mayor cringes every time I say this, but there were no watermain breaks or backups, so that was awesome. Nice job Water Department. Two hydrants were repaired. Two backfills were installed. We developed a response plan that if we lose power and the water pressure drops in either pump station, we replaced the valve on the Northeast Pump Station and it is the high pressure one and it actually can communicate. It works with the one down here at City Hall and so if we lost power, we would have to go through and open up that one to operate Northeast or visa versa. Now, the one on the right and this is all done by computer and by pressure in the lines and so what used to take over an hour to get that valve open now can be done in 60 seconds. I walked in and I was glad that the Water Superintendent was able to get this done. It’s huge for the asset management and the EPA likes this because now if one pump station goes down, we can rely on the other one. It’s good stuff. That’s the end of my report. Mayor: It’s probably one of the most important things that we have done in my ten- year career except for putting in the pump station is by putting that valve in and it allows the system; the high pressure district, to be comingled with the water tower and the reliability for the residents. It is a good thing. 3  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 Mr. Sisak: I have a question. A comment first then a question second. I think that the work that you and your department have been doing over the past several years with maintenance prevention has allowed the City to have; like we had on one day with zero water main breaks in any given month in any given city is pretty impressive. You guys are doing great job. As far as the trash hauling quotes, I think we have two choices; we have an unlimited and we also have a per bag. Is it pickup in the contract; is that something that we are looking at in the new contracts? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes, so right now we have unlimited and you have low volume. So low volume is anything under 30 gallons and then unlimited is obviously anything over 30 gallons. Mr. Sisak: So, obviously that will be in the new contract as well? Dir. of Pub. Service: Right. Mr. Sisak: Alright; thank you much. Pres. of Council: Next would be Dir. of Administration, however, he is excused this evening, so we will go on to the Dir. of Econ. Development. Dir. of Econ. Development: Good evening. Based upon the screen before you here, we continue to reach out to our business community as part of our business retention program. I had the opportunity to meet with Pandora’s Cupcakes, Park Ford, S.D. Meyers, Akron Plastics, Trident Restorations, Petiti Garden Center as well as Command Plastics. We are touching on our manufacturing, our service retail industries and many of the businesses continue to do well. Some are doing actually quite well. We are going to see that some have done so well that they recently received some recognitions. Each year the Beacon puts out a Beacon status of 2020 and this is based upon popular votes and Tallmadge did quite well. You can see based upon the verdicts that came in that each of these Tallmadge businesses received 1st place within their category and so kudos to Carol Martin’s Salon & Spa. She won three different awards with the hair salon and the spa and massage. Novus Clinic took two awards. Congratulations to the Tallmadge Rec Center who was voted the best workout facility within the area; and Gionino’s Pizza. That was one of the businesses that we had the opportunity to visit with just last month. And again, through these business visitations we learn about expansion opportunities and we check in to see how these businesses are doing. Many of these are businesses that are expressing interest in expanding in the future. Based upon the slide you see here; we just want to visit Derma Med and this is something that we brought to Council probably about a month and a half ago. Derma Med continues to move forward on their expansion project. This is a $1.5 million expansion and it will need some job creation and the realtor allows for them to construct another facility which would mean additional jobs. This is a really good project and based upon the picture, you can see that they are getting the site prepped; the foundation has been poured. Then there is another slide and next we were fortunate to get a contactor to begin some work at the location of 29 Northeast and this is a CIC site. It is an office building that has been vacant for a few months and we are currently in the process of doing some interior renovations and restoration work completed. This is one of the properties in our overlay district that certainly has preservation as a high priority. We do have the contractors in there as we speak doing the restoration work and we do have a perspective tenant. That concludes my report and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Mr. Bollas: Any leads or potential leads for the Village at Towne Center near Pandora’s; I see some vacancies there. Are there any updates on that? Dir. of Econ. Development: As a matter of fact, just this past Friday the Testa Group has a perspective tenant, not that it is definitive as we speak, and it would be a little premature to say much about it, but that is the site that we continuously try to find tenants that are looking for either a relocation or an expansion opportunity. If we could land this one tenant, we would be in good shape for that location. I will continue to pursue that. Mr. Bollas: Thank you. Pres. of Council: Yes, thank you Matt; we really appreciate it. 4  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 Dir. of Finance: Good evening everybody. You have received your financial reports and I know income tax has been our big focus this year. We are down about 3% in the General Fund, and that is about what we budgeted to be down this year. We aren’t seeing any huge decreases at this time due to Covid and I am continuing to monitor that, and I am starting to see that start to lag a little bit more. I think some of the small businesses who did receive some of the payroll grants may have been running out of the funds and some of those jobs that were able to be maintained by those people go away but they will be replaced by the wonderful report that Mr. Springer just gave so hopefully we will get some of that back. I did want to report the Senate Bill 357 which would give the City additional CARES Act money from the State; it passed the Senate, but has not been reviewed yet by the House and I’m not sure since this is an odd time with the election coming on and so I’m not sure what the schedule is for the House to vote on that. I did receive what the City has the potential to receive from that and that is $631,310 additional dollars. If we do receive that we will have to figure out the best way to use those funds and the County is thinking about doing some more business grants and things like that and we will probably be using those funds for something. End of report. Dir. of Law: Thank you. Just briefly, the Stow Municipal Court has resumed doing jury trials. We had one this week and it went smoothly. I did also want to remind everybody that this week is National Suicide Prevention Week and we do have a link to the Summit County Alcohol and Drug Addiction and Mental Health Board and they have lots of services if there is a need and certainly they can reach out especially now since we are all under additional stress and we are going to be especially aware of that issue. To that end, we have also seen an increase drug addiction and a resurgence in overdoses, and we are going to be having a Drug Takeback Day on October 24th in conjunction with the DEA. We were not able to do that in the spring because the DEA cancelled it. It was at the end of April and it was in the initial shutdown, but we are planning to participate at the Police Department where we can you know, do it safely and socially with using the garage facility as we have in the past and we will provide additional information closer to that date. Thank you. End of report. 12. REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES OF COUNCIL OF THE WHOLE: PERSONNEL Michael Carano, Chair Rebecca Allman, Vice Chair Jonathon Bollas No legislation at this time. Mr. Carano: I call the Personnel Committee to order; myself, Mrs. Allman and Mr. Bollas are present. We have nothing before us today. Does anyone on the committee have anything? No one responded. Council? Mr. Bollas: Yes, I have been playing phone tag with the Fire Chief this week and I just want to understand a little bit more about our involvement battling the fires out West. Mayor: Mike Passarelli has been traveling out West using his vacation time here at the City. He used to be on the front line, but now he is on the Admin. line where he is part of the administration organizing the manpower in and out on the medical side of it. So he has done a good job and we also had a local fireman; one of our guys who is on another team that went to Texas for the disaster there and as you saw there were 28 members from the Summit County area that went on that team. He is part of that team and when he travels, FEMA pays for his salary here and if there is any overtime to fill his shifts he is gone, then they also pay for that. So, we are fortunate. He was gone for just under two weeks. He is back; they are both back in town and so the Chief hasn’t gotten back to you for a reason. He has been tied up this week. Mr. Carano: Mayor Kline, that is pretty commendable what they are doing. I don’t know what kind of recognition we can give them for that kind of work or if the Express can do some kind of article to let the people in the community know what kind of service people in Tallmadge are doing. I think that is very honorable. Mayor: Thank you. I will see what we can do. Mr. Carano: OK. Thank you. Anybody from the administration? No one responded. OK, I will close committee, thanks. b. PLANNING & ZONING James Donovan, Chair Craig Sisak, Vice Chair Dennis Loughry No legislation at this time. 5  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 b. PLANNING & ZONING (Cont’d.) Mr. Donovan: I call Planning to order; myself, Mr. Sisak and Mr. Loughry are present. We have no legislation on the agenda this evening. Is there anything from the committee? Mr. Loughry: I have nothing. Mr. Donovan: I do have one that I would like to bring up. Mike touched on it earlier and I don’t know if you can see this letter that went out . . . Mayor: Hang on Jim. Mr. Donovan: It doesn’t look like it is focusing. I’m sure that somebody has it, but a letter went out to businesses and it is written fine; it is a temporary sign compliance courtesy notice. It is just reminding people about the signs and what is temporary and what is prohibited and what is not. It just kind of . . . you know, we are in exceptional times right now and we have to get behind our businesses. I took this as . . . I realize there is compliance, but there are a lot of businesses struggling. You know there are a lot of places that are lucky to be open. It is tough to make your rent; it’s tough to keep employees on and I think anything that helps; if this stuff gets somebody in a restaurant to eat or in a store or whatever, a temporary sign is not going to kill Tallmadge for the next few months or until we are past this wave of Covid. It is just something that kind of rubbed me wrong. This isn’t Tallmadge; this isn’t supporting our people; this isn’t supporting our businesses and I don’t want that to come across to the businesses that we are petty, and you can’t put up a sign. I mean it is really tough. It doesn’t affect me in the least; I don’t have a temporary sign up so I don’t have a dog in the fight, but there are a lot of people struggling right now and unless you have owned a business and you had to make a payroll, sometimes that goes overlooked by people; they don’t understand that; what it is like to do anything to survive at that point. It is nice when you get a check from the City or from the County, or whomever; it is nice; it is not going to end, but these are the folks who are paying for those checks you know and I just don’t want this to come across as intimidating or we are going to fine you for doing what it takes to survive. I just think we need to get behind our businesses and be glad that there are still there and not be worried about a temporary sign. That’s just me, and I don’t know how everybody else feels about it, but I want to throw it out there. You know, when things get more normal, I have no issue with that keeping it clean as it always has been, but I just think this should be reconsidered. So, that is my two cents. I don’t know if you all have seen it, so you probably don’t know what I am talking about, but anyway. Mr. Carano: I agree with you. I think we are in times that are quite unusual and sometimes flexibility is good, so here, here to what you just said. Mr. Donovan: I just know that my wife is back to school and I am looking at the sacrifices that they are going through to get kids back in and we forget sometimes what the businesses are going through too. We are all struggling to make it and keep things going. Everybody wants a nice community and we don’t want signs junking up the place, but I think this is a time when I think we can kind of forgive that. Let that slide for a while. You know, if it keeps somebody a job or keeps the place open, God bless them. Mayor: Jim, thank you for the comment and I will discuss it with our team and we will see where we will go from that; Mike and the Law Director and the Administrative staff and we will . . . will talk to them about your comments. Mr. Donovan: Thank you. Is there anything else to come before Planning & Zoning? Mr. Sisak: I would agree with you as well. I haven’t seen much that is that offensive or that irritating that I would have an issue with around town in the recent past couple months, so let’s support them as much as we can. Mr. Donovan: Thank you. Pres. of Council: Thank you Jim. Very well said. 6  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 COMMUNITY ISSUES Dennis Loughry, Chair Jonathon Bollas, Vice Chair Rebecca Allman No legislation at this time. Mr. Loughry: I call Community Issues to order; myself, Mr. Bollas and Mrs. Allman are present. We have no legislation. Does anybody on the committee have anything? No one responded. Mr. Bollas: This was related to the Labor Day heavy rains we received, so it is a flooding complaint off Washburn. I did have a chance to actually visit the residents and take some pictures and I will be sharing those with the Service Director for awareness and I do believe there is a correlation with what I saw with the potential easement we are looking into between Washburn and Hanna and so I do believe, at least from what I saw, it looked like there could be some potential relief if that proposal is a go. Mr. Loughry: Thank you. Administration? No one responded. OK, then real quick, what I would like to do is just let the rest of Council and any residents that might be looking in to know what my budget requests were for this year and if any of you want to add what yours were; feel free to do that. I talked with everybody involved regarding these, except there is one new one that I only discussed with Matt this week on, but I have requested an update on our Brimfield Waterfield Study. I requested funding for the Richardson Trust Fund at $10,000 and I asked for a Part-time Senior Citizen Resource person, $25,000; that could be too high. That would be used for education, training and travel, and consulting, contractual services. Presently in probably in forever, I don’t think Council has had a fund where they could use it to do things and maybe we are not even allowed to have that. Mrs. Raber can let me know. The one for Economic Development is, and I requested this back when I was an employee, but when you are an employee and if someone doesn’t want to present it in the budget; it doesn’t get there, but now that I am on Council, at least I know we can discuss it. The proposal is to dedicate 5% of the prior year JEDD revenue and to put that into the CIC for the specific purpose of using it for grants for Tallmadge businesses with 25 employees or less. So, to make it really simple, if our revenue is $1 million, you would be putting $50,000 in the CIC. Presently we do not fund the CIC from the General Fund annually. So, it is just something to think about. On the Senior Resource position, we have additional income tax for safety services, and I think primarily what I’m thinking would be used for safety reasons for those folks. In terms of economic development we get about $1 million, and again, Mrs. Gilbride will correct me if I am wrong, but for discussion let’s say it is $1 million that comes into us as economic development revenue and we don’t earmark any of that to be used for economic development directly for our Tallmadge businesses and I think that it would be nice to use some of that money to help small businesses that typically don’t get any help from the government. So, that’s all. It might not, you know; we might not be able to do any of it, I just would like us to discuss it. So, is there anything else? Mr. Carano: The reason for this Resource person idea; what do you envision that they might be dropping in and visiting people who they get notified of someone having trouble; maybe checking in on them and that kind of thing? Mr. Loughry: It could be. I was thinking of them more in terms of them being a liaison; like in other communities use 211 or 311; a phone number that we would have a person call that would be our link. It doesn’t have to be a Policeman; it doesn’t have to be a Firefighter; it would just be a dedicated person that looks out for and tries to help our seniors. We already have some people that do parts of that and the Mayor may say, Dennis we are doing OK; we are just doing it with three people or four different people in this way. I just would like that to be I guess promoted so if you are a senior, you know where to go. Or Maybe you just call Mrs. Morgan. You know that’s all just so that all of us are on the same page to help the seniors in our community. Anything else? No one responded. End of committee. 7  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 d. 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 before us this evening. Does anyone on the committee, Council or the Administration have anything for the Safety Committee meeting this evening. Mr. Carano: Mr. Bollas; I met with Chief Williams about a week ago I think, maybe a little longer now, to discuss all of the stuff that is going on. We had a great conversation. I really like Chief Williams and I think he does a wonderful job in the community. I brought up a lot of issues and things or questions that are being asked across some communities and across the country and he had very good responses to all of them. So, some of the discussion that we had concerned the Resource Officers in the schools. As our society has become more militarized, I wondered if we couldn’t have resource people that are trained in like conflict resolution or psychologists who can sort of do the same thing that the Police are doing, but they are not carrying guns. I don’t know if any of you have gone to schools where they have had Police but possibly everyone at our age might not, although Johnathon, I don’t know you are a young guy, and so I brought up that discussion like that. Now I am not anti-having the rifles; you have a lot of strange people running around carrying those and you are going to need something like that in some situations and I understand that, but unfortunately our society is a very violent society and I have seen things that show that since the time of 1609 or whenever; we have had like twenty years of peace so we are kind of a violent society so I was thinking in terms of the militarization thing. So if in the schools the Resource person would be beneficial or out of the Administration when we had domestic problems if they trained psychologists or somebody or a conflict resolution person rather than an armed officer although they should be available as backup. Those kinds of discussions. I also brought up the . . . I want you to know that anything I say is not because I am criticizing Tallmadge; I know that there are problems in some communities and I want to see that our community never has these problems. So, one is sort of the white nationalist type being hired in some places which I don’t think is good and you know they give the old OK sign. They took away my OK sign. I can’t use it anymore. It is . . . you know, so I asked about hiring; how are those with hiring or what do we do to make sure that we weed people out; he told me about the psychological test that they give and everything. So, it was a very good discussion and at the end of it we thought that maybe it would be good if at one of the Council meetings he could come and speak and reiterate some of the things he said to me and then if you have questions; ask questions. Let me lastly say this; I don’t know how many of you remember years ago when the Iraq War started; my brother and I tried to do a resolution to not partake in the Iraq War in Tallmadge. It wasn’t very good because you are looking at us being unpatriotic; right? But I think history has shown that that was one of the biggest mistakes that this country had ever made in terms of lives, funds, and all of that kind of stuff. So, it is important that we discuss things sometimes and don’t pigeonhole anybody in certain boxes so that we can discuss important matters and try and see if there are things that we can do to improve. So that is why I bring this up and of course, I appreciate today and any thoughts you have. Mayor Kline, you being the Safety Director, if you think it would be good to have Chief Williams at one of the meetings; that would be nice. Thank you. Mayor: Chief Williams did talk to me about your conversation. He thought you had some great questions. He was very happy that you came in and talked with him. I will definitely . . . some day when we can get back together because I think that would be a nice thing to do face to face. Everyone there instead of over the camera here, but it can be done both ways. 8  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 Mr. Bollas: Thank you Mr. Carano for your comments. The only other question I had was were there any updates on the training exercises that were going on on East Avenue? I saw some activity today as well. Mayor: So, the Fire Department had training on Friday and Saturday. There were eight different agencies from around the region: from the City of Akron to . . . just a lot of different agencies. There were 112 or so firefighters that were trained during those times and they were able to take the houses down safely and there was only one incident with one person getting burnt on his shoulder just from equipment; he got an ember down his back. Outside of that everything went well. I think Ben, the Assistant Fire Chief, did a great job. The Chief was actually out fighting the fires out West. So, Ben Stasik took it over and did a phenomenal job with his team. Mr. Bollas: Thank you for that update. I have no further questions. Does anybody else have any questions for the Safety Committee? No one responded. Alright, I close committee. e. PUBLIC SERVICE Rebecca Allman, Chair Dennis Loughry, Vice Chair James Donovan Mrs. Allman: I call the Public Service Committee to order; myself, Mr. Loughry and Mr. Donovan are present. • Ord. 56-2020 (1st Reading) – Exhibit A – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation for the East Avenue Project, LPA Agreement No. 35302 and providing for immediate enactment. We have before us Ord. 56-2020 at 1st Reading authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation for the East Avenue Project, LPA Agreement No. 35302 and providing for immediate enactment. Committee: do you have anything? Mr. Donovan: I would recommend adoption at 1st Reading. Mr. Loughry: I agree. Mrs. Allman: Administration, do you have anything? Mayor: I did speak about this in my report, but just to reiterate what this says; this is the LPA; we are the local agency and so the City of Tallmadge is the representative for ODOT and so it is a contract that we enter into with ODOT to allow us to do this project. Then from that point we hire the engineer and then after that is done, then we will also apply for the funding to do the construction portion of that. It is not earmarked for construction until 2025, 26, or 27-time frame based upon the funding source and so it is a way out. It just takes that long for these projects to do. This allows us to get the project started. Mrs. Allman: I recommend adoption of Ord. 56-2020 at 1st Reading by a vote of 3-0. • Ord. 57-2020 (1st Reading) – Exhibit A – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into a contract with Glaus, Pyle, Schomer, Burns, & Dehaven, Inc. for consulting and engineering services for the East Avenue Project, appropriating necessary sums, and providing for immediate enactment. Mrs. Allman: We also have 57-2020 at 1st Reading authorizing the Mayor to enter into contract with Glaus, Pyle, Schomer, Burns, & Dehaven Inc. for consulting and engineering services for the East Avenue Project, appropriating necessary sums and providing for immediate enactment. Committee? Mr. Donovan: I would recommend adoption of Ord. 57-2020 at 1st Reading. Mr. Loughry: I agree. Mrs. Allman: Administration do you have anything? Mayor: Just to add that GPD was also the Engineer of Record for the I- 76/Tallmadge Road intersection. They entered into contract with the Portage County Engineer so it is really working out well that they were able to award them the contract based on qualifications and the process that we had to go through; the ODOT procedure and so they are used to the whole corridor so it really helps a lot. 9  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 12. REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES OF COUNCIL OF THE WHOLE (Cont’d.) Mrs. Allman: Thank you. I recommend adoption of Ord. 57-2020 at 1st Reading by a vote of 3-0. Is there anything else for the Public Service Committee? No one responded. I close committee. f. FINANCE Craig Sisak, Chair James Donovan, Vice Chair Michael Carano • Ord. 55-2020 (1st Reading) – Declaring certain City-owned vehicles to be excess and authorizing the Director of Public Service to sell such equipment at public sale or trade-in and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak: I call the Finance Committee to order; myself, Mr. Donovan and Mr. Carano are present. We have Ord. 55-2020 at 1st Reading and it is declaring certain City-owned vehicles to be excess and authorizing the Director of Public Service to sell such equipment at public sale or trade-in and providing for immediate enactment. It seems like housekeeping. Would that be correct Mr. Rorar? Dir. of Finance: Yes, that is correct. We will be trading that in for one of the new Police vehicles that we purchased. Mr. Sisak: I thought we were leasing our vehicles now? Dir. of Finance: We are, but we do have the ability to trade in and then Enterprise sells those and then it offsets the cost of the vehicle. Mr. Sisak: Excellent; perfect. Mr. Carano: I have a question for Mrs. Gilbride. We had talked in the past and I thought we were going to move forward with the cars being hybrids. Is that something that is still in the mix? Dir. of Finance: I don’t remember if those were . . . Mayor: They were. Dir. of Finance: Oh, they were ok. Mr. Carano: Thank you. Mr. Sisak: OK, so Mr. Donovan and Mr. Carano recommend adoption. I recommend adoption by a vote of 3-0. • Ord. 58-2020 (1st Reading) – Appropriating funds for the State of Ohio House Bill 481 distribution and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak: We also have Ord. 58-2020 is at 1st Reading and is House Bill 481 distribution and providing for immediate enactment. I would imagine that again this allows us to accept money; is that correct Mrs. Gilbride? Dir. of Finance: Yes, that is going to allow us to accept the money and actually we did receive those funds here at the beginning of the month from the County, so those were distributed down and we are looking at additionally reimbursing ourselves for some of the . . . the receptionist at City Hall that we have been using; we have had to place people in the parks and those kinds of items and some of the smaller stuff; we are going to catch up with that and then we are also looking into some potential technology purchases for help with these on-line meetings and making sure that we have all the proper equipment in place so if we do need to go through this again that we would have the proper equipment to do that. Mr. Sisak: I think I have a $1,000 paper weight here. We are at least halfway there. So, recommend adoption Mr. Donovan and Mr. Carano? Mr. Donovan: Yes. Mr. Carano: Yes. Mr. Sisak: OK, so we will recommend adoption by a vote of 3-0. Res. 10-2020 (1st Reading) – Exhibit A – Accepting the amounts and rates as determined by the Summit County Budget Commission and authorizing the necessary tax levies, certifying them to the County Fiscal Officer and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak: We also have Res. 10-2020 accepting the amounts and rates as determined by the Summit County Budget Commission and authorizing the necessary tax levies and certifying them to the County Fiscal Officer and providing for immediate enactment. 10  VIRTUAL REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. September 10, 20 Dir. of Finance: This is also housekeeping, however, I would just need you to tonight to give it a first reading just in case we have anything that comes through from the County before the end of the month then we can adopt it at the next meeting please. Mr. Sisak: OK, is there anything else to come up for Finance this evening? No one responded. Seeing none; I will go ahead and close committee. Thank you. 13. REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES: None. 14. THIRD READINGS OF RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES: None. 15. SECOND READINGS OF RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES: None. 16. FIRST READINGS OF RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES: a. Ord. 55-2020 (Finance) – Declaring certain City-owned vehicles to be excess and authorizing the Director of Public Service to sell such equipment at public sale or trade-in and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Ord. 55-2020. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman – unanimous. Ord. 55-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. b. Ord. 56-2020 (Public Service) – Exhibit A – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation for the East Avenue Project, LPA Agreement No. 35302 and providing for immediate enactment. Mrs. Allman moved for the adoption of Ord. 56-2020 at 1st Reading. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Roll Call: Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. Ord. 56-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. c. Ord. 57-2020 (Public Service) – Exhibit A – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into a contract with Glaus, Pyle, Schomer, Burns, & Dehaven, Inc. for consulting and engineering services for the East Avenue Project, appropriating necessary sums, and providing for immediate enactment. Mrs. Allman moved for the adoption of Ord. 57-2020. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Roll Call: Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Carano – unanimous. Ord. 57-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. d. Ord. 58-2020 (Finance) – Appropriating funds for the State of Ohio House Bill 481 distribution and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Ord. 58-2020. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan – unanimous. Ord. 58-2020 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. e. Res. 10-2020 (Finance) – Accepting the amounts and rates as determined by the Summit County Budget Commission and authorizing the necessary tax levies, certifying them to the County Fiscal Officer and providing for immediate enactment. Pres. of Council: Res. 10-2020 is at 1st Reading and is assigned to the Finance Committee. Mr. Loughry: Thank you. I forgot one of the budget requests. I had requested that we budget so we can livestream all public meetings. I can watch any athletic event, football or whatever for Tallmadge High School and I just think that we have the ability to give our residents the same opportunity to watch how their government is working. Thank you. 17. ADJOURNMENT: Mr. Donovan moved to adjourn. Seconded Mrs. Allman. Voice vote 7-0. The Virtual Regular Council meeting adjourned at 8:10 p.m. sb Adopted: _______________________________ _________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Carol A. Kilway, President of Council 11