City Council Regular Meeting

COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 22 1. CALL TO ORDER. President of Council Loughry called the Council meeting of Thursday, April 14, 2022, to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. Opening Prayer & Pledge of Allegiance: Prayer: Rev. Daniel J. Doty, First Congregational Church. Pledge of Allegiance: Lauren Scovern, 5th Grade Student from Tallmadge Elementary School. 3. Roll Call: Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – present. 4. Correcting and Adopting the Previous Meeting Minutes: 3-10-22 Council Meeting Minutes Mr. Sisak moved to approve the 3-10-22 Council meeting minutes. Seconded Mr. Bollas. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman – unanimous. The 3-10-22 Council meeting minutes were adopted by a vote of 7-0. 3-24-22 Council Meeting Minutes Mrs. Kilway moved to approve the 3-24-22 Council meeting minutes. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Mrs. Kilway: On page 3, and it was just a typographical error. It is a continuation of the Mayor’s discussion. It has Mr. Sisak’s name on the top when it should go down about three rows. The first three lines are a continuation of Mayor Kline’s discussion. Mrs. Kilway moved to amend. Seconded Mr. Bozic. Roll Call: Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. The 3-24-22 Council meeting minutes were amended and adopted by a vote of 7-0. 5. Financial Reports: • Fire & EMS Fund Transfer in the amount of $140,000, Street Maintenance & Repair Transfer in the amount of $200,000 and Fire/EMS Capital in the amount of $27,241.96 to Council on 3-29-22. • Appropriation Report, Fund Report and Revenue Report for the period ending 3-31-22 to Council on 4-5-22. • March Financial Reports to Council on 4-5-22. • Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 3-31- 22 to Council on 4-5-22. • Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 3-31-22 to Council on 4-5-22. • Revenue Comparisons for the period ending 3-31-22 to Council on 4-5-22. • Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 3-31-22 to Council on 4-5-22. • YTD Income Tax by Source for the period ending 3-31-22 to Council on 4-5-22. Mr. Sisak moved to accept the Financial Reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman – unanimous. The Financial Reports have been accepted by a vote of 7-0. 6. Public Hearings: None. 7. Community Input: Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to Council regarding something that is not on the agenda? No one responded. 8. Agenda Additions: • Adam Bozic – Presented Tony Whitmer with Certificate of Appreciation. • City Department Presentations: None. 9. Reports of Administrative Officers: a. Mayor/Director of Safety: Thank you. For all of the people watching this on u-tube, Dennis had asked me to explain a little bit about how to find us on u-tube. The Mayor gave a short presentation. Bridges out of Poverty- We had that training. It is now posted on our “k” drive. This session is 1 hour and 23 minutes. Then there is a certificate that you can fill out and 1  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 22 Mayor (Cont’d.) submit to H.R. Hopefully by this time next week we will have a new Captain with the Tallmadge Police Department and we are in the final stages of making that offer. We have a couple of interviews on Monday and then by the end of next week hopefully that will be wrapped up. Matt Springer’s last day was last week. If you have any economic questions or concerns forward them to the Mayor’s office. I am looking at restructuring the Mayor’s wing and how that will work between Safety Director, Dir. of Administration, Community Development, H.R. and also Economic Development. I have been doing a little restructuring and I will have legislation for the next Council meeting. Let me end with my favorite project (new fire station). On the brickwork; we are down to the front door entrance and then on the back side of the building, they have the scaffolding up for the middle bay to complete that brick, but they should be wrapping up the outside brick by the end of next week or the following week. We did get an updated schedule and the final completion date, not the temporary but the final occupancy is October. We should be moving in by the end of July as a temporary occupancy and then we have to tear down the front building and do the front parking. That is the end of my report. b. Director of Administration: Good evening. Just one quick brief report. Toward the end of last year, we engaged a firm to do a study of our Police Department and we are still working on that if you were wondering. It has been several months now. There have been a couple of delays, nothing too substantial, but enough that we are continuing to work on it. As soon as the report is completed, we will be getting a copy to Council and all other parties, but I just wanted to give you an update on that. That’s the end of my report unless you have any questions. c. Director of Public Service: Good evening. My monthly report: Monday, May 30th is Memorial Day, and the pancake breakfast is from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and then the parade kicks off at 10:00 a.m. and the ceremony follows directly after that. That will be over at the Tallmadge Cemetery. For the month of March, you can see there were 117 total permits were issued for the month, 75 of which were street openings and that was mostly due to Tallmadge Reserve and 34 re-zoning certificates. Keep in mind that that is for fencing and decks and that sort of stuff. Violations were 35, and 8 were a property disrepair. The cemetery: it was a busy month, we had 13 burials, 10 of which were full and 3 were cremains. That is the most burials we have had in a month over a 3-year period. We have 418 grave spaces available. Recreation: The membership is at a 52% increase from last year. The majority of the increase is mostly non-insurance based and so that doesn’t include the Silver Sneakers. The visits were at 20,000 and that is the first time we broke that since pre-pandemic numbers. A Recreation Coordinator was hired, Kelly Ward. She is out of Portage County. The Girl Scout Daddy/Daughter Night was held on March 3rd. Summer camp registrations started on April 5th. The 7-9 group is already full. Easter Scramble is this Saturday, April 16th. It will be at 10:30 a.m. and then keep in mind that the Rec Center is closed on Easter Sunday which is April 17th. Parks: The rentals begin on May 1st. The fields are supposed to be open on the 10th. We are struggling with some of those. They are pretty wet still. Maca Pool passes are over 1,000. That is the highest number we have had since 2019. Lifeguards: we have 4 spots left for the lifeguards. In the Street Department, 16 tons of debris was removed from the street sweeping. 144 2  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 22 Dir. of Pub. Service (Cont’d.) hours on snow control compared to February when it was 978 hours. We did 900 lineal feet of ditching in March as compared to February when we did zero. Two catch basin repairs, 4 mailboxes repaired compared to February when we had 28. The cemetery sign was installed on South Avenue. In 2020 we found that the sign was rotting and the brick on the bottom was falling off. They did a nice job installing that. Annual signal inspection was completed. We went through the whole City and all of that is taken care of. Interior of the Ritchie was painted and then training for storm water, chain saw as well as the Bridges over Poverty. The East Avenue/Washburn Intersection Project starts Monday. Expect delays and the traffic signal is probably going to be in the flash mode during the 8-hour day. It will flash caution on East Avenue, and it will flash red at Washburn. Utility Department: We had one watermain break. 8 so far for this year. Zero backups. Fire hydrant flushing starts April 18th and should go through June 6th. That is pretty long, but that is weather dependent. We try not to flush while it is raining. Keep in mind that we want to make sure that all the hydrants are up and operational and then the flow of water is very important. It is not stagnant water, but it is good to get that water moving through all of those lines. Obviously, your home doesn’t produce that type of flush like a hydrant does and then the main reason is the ISO rating for insurance. I think the Chief appreciates that. The sewer rate increase comes out May 1st. Keep in mind; we have been talking about this. It is on our website. That is a direct increase from Akron because they have raised it for treating our waste water and keep in mind they actually asked for a 34% increase with a 3.5 annual and we argued that and we challenged it and we got it down to 28.5 with a 3.5 annual and so instead of hitting everybody at once, we decided to break it into these two 16% increases. We did put this notice on everybody’s bill. Whether they saw it or not, that is a totally different question, but this notice was on everybody’s bill giving them a warning that this was coming out. d. Director of Economic Development: No report. e. Director of Finance: Thank you. Just a reminder that City Income Taxes are due Monday, April 18th. We’ve been having a little bit of foot traffic, but not too much. Luckily R.I.T.A. has some real good on-line resources for people to file on-line and so we try to direct them to that. I did want to make Council aware that my Assistant Finance Director is retiring at the end of this month. I have appointed a replacement. Her name is Kim Guseman and she will be starting April 25th and so once I have her in place I will be glad to bring her one evening and introduce everybody to her. I wish my Assistant, Carissa Otterman, the best of luck. I appreciate her service here and am looking forward though to the new addition. I think she will be a great addition to the City. End of report. f. Director of Law: Thank you. I just want to take the opportunity this evening to remind everyone that we have another Drug Takeback coming up on Saturday, April 30th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. We have the location at the Tallmadge Police Department and you don’t have to get out of your vehicle. We have it set up that you can just come through like a drive-thru and it is really convenient for people and the push is great to kind of help remind everyone to do that spring cleaning and get rid of those unused or unwanted prescriptions drugs. It can also be over the counter drugs that you can get rid of as well. This is a national effort through the DEA and some of you may have seen some of the news articles in the national media this week that there have been more teenage drug overdose deaths, even though the number of users has gone down and that is significantly related to the 3  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 22 Dir. of Law (Cont’d.) use of pills and medication and then unfortunately once addicted or experimenting with that, sometimes they will pick up counterfeit pills that are laced with fentanyl which is causing a lot of these overdoses. So, anything that we can do to kind of help keep our families and communities safe is very important and just also a reminder that if you can’t make it to that drop-off date, that we do have what is called a “dump box” which is a box that is secured that is in the lobby of the Police Department that you can utilize any time that the Police Department is open which is 24/7 so you can come and drop those off and dispose of that at any point, but again, the drive-thru just makes it that much easier. 10. Reports of Standing Committees of Council of the Whole: a. Planning and Zoning Carol Kilway, Chair Rebecca Allman, Vice Chair The Planning & Zoning Committee deals with land use, zoning, conditional uses, planning, economic and community development, public property. i. Second Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions A. Ord. 2022-45 – P.H. on 5-12-22 @ 7:03 p.m. – Repealing Tallmadge Codified Ordinance Section 1103.06 R-6 Residential Open Space Planned Development Districts and amending the Table of Contents, Code Index, Section 1101.04 and Section 1102.14 to eliminate references thereto. Sponsor: Council and Administration Mrs. Kilway: I call the Planning & Zoning Committee to order. We have Ord. 2022-45. Ord. 2022-45 was read into the record. We do have a public hearing scheduled for May 12, 2022 @ 7:03 p.m. and I know that Planning & Zoning has their first reading of this after we referred it to them last week and so we really have nothing on this. Is there any discussion that anyone has on this ordinance? No one responded. Is there anything else to come before Planning & Zoning at this time? No one responded. I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. b. Finance Craig Sisak, Chair Jonathon Bollas, Vice Chair The Finance Committee deals with budget, appropriations, and reappropriations, bonds, franchises, investments, and expenditures. i. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions A. Ord. 2022-46 – Appropriating funds for the General Infrastructure Program and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kline Mr. Sisak: I call the Finance Committee to order. We have Ord. 2022-46 at 1st Reading. The ordinance was read into the record. This is for appropriations to the Old Town Hall. The 2022 appropriations did not provide sufficient funds for the needed repairs. Mayor: The Tallmadge Historical Society came to me. They have been repairing the wood on the sides of that structure for multiple years and so this year we have $30,000 to help with that. They buy the wood and we help pay for the labor to install that. They were going to replace 14 boards and finish the west side and then do the 14 boards on the east side and I said, let’s just do that side and be done with it so we don’t keep coming back and when that wood is completed, we will paint the entire structure. We had $30,000 in our budget to do that and the Tallmadge Historical Society already bought the lumber, and they are paying for the lumber to change all that is needed and then our portion of it would be $35,000 for the labor and $18,000 to paint the building. Two separate vendors; two 4  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 22 Mayor (Cont’d.) separate contracts and so that is why I am asking for the re-appropriation to finalize this building. We have changed all of the windows. The west side of the building is done up to the top of the windows and they already have the scaffolding up. I should have told them to do it last year. They bought the material, and we are helping them with the labor. It is our building; they just have a lease on the building. Mrs. Kilway moved for the adoption of Ord. 2022-46 at 1st Reading. Seconded Mr. Bollas. Roll Call: Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. Ord. 2022-46 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. B. Ord. 2022-47 – Creating the American Rescue Plan Act Fund and providing for Immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kline Mr. Sisak: We also have Ord. 2022-47. The ordinance was read into the record. Mrs. Kilway moved for the adoption of Ord. 2022-27. Seconded Mr. Bozic. Roll Call: Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry – unanimous. Ord. 2022-47 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. ii. Additional Items: None. c. Personnel Jonathon Bollas, Chair Adam Bozic, Vice Chair The Personnel Committee deals with personnel, labor relations, insurance claims, Rules of Council and State Statutes. Mr. Bollas: I call the Personnel Committee to order. We have no legislation this evening. Is there anything from Council or the Administration? Hearing none, I will close committee. i. Additional Items: None. d. Community Issues Mary Gutman, Chair Carol Kilway, Vice Chair The Community Issues Committee deals with Parks and Recreation, civic affairs, and liaison between Council and the Recreation Board and intergovernmental affairs. Mrs. Gutman: I call the Community Issues Committee to order. We have nothing before us this evening. Does anyone have anything for the committee? Hearing none, I will close Community Issues. i. Additional Items: None. e. Safety Adam Bozic, Chair Craig Sisak, Vice Chair The Safety Committee deals with disaster services, communications, fire, and para- medics, police, and health. Mr. Bozic: I call the Safety Committee to order. We are all present and currently we have no legislation in front of us. I will open it up to the Administration and Council. There was discussion regarding the renovations of the Police Station and some discussion regarding furniture at both stations. i. Additional Items: None. 5  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 22 f. Public Service Rebecca Allman, Chair Mary Gutman, Vice Chair The Public Service Committee deals with streets, highways, sidewalks, buildings, and improvements; water, sewer, electricity, gas, energy resources, recycle, waste, and trash. i. Second Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions A. Ord. 2022-44 – Recognizing the outcome of the 2020 Census reaffirming the Ward boundaries as provided in Tallmadge Codified Ordinances Chapter 105.01. Sponsor: Mayor Kline Mrs. Allman: I call the Public Service Committee to order. We have at 2 nd Reading Ord. 2022-44. The ordinance was read into the record. Mayor: This memorializes the census and so we are not really having a change, and the map again is on the table, and as you can see up on the screen there, Wards 1, 2, 3 and 4 the difference between the highest and lowest is 6.6%. The standard around the County and in the State is anything over 10% they like it changed. Some of them don’t change at 10%, but we are well below that and based on the outcome of the R-6 ordinance, we may not see a change in the next census either because the 2 nd Ward right not, and that is the Ripley farm, is the lowest at 4,414 and then Ward 1 is the highest, so I think you will see in the next census Ward 2 bouncing up a little bit, but I don’t see Ward 1 changing much because it is fully developed. Now we have a tracking mechanism thanks to Megan, she said let’s put this in an ordinance, so we know where we are at. We are required to let Summit County Bd. of Elections know of our decision to rebalance the wards if we do, but we feel it is not necessary at this time. ii. Additional Items: None. 11. Reports of Special Committees: a. Council Operations Committee: Basically, this was created primarily to get the live streaming going and I just want to thank everybody; Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Conti, Mrs. Burton and then everybody on the Administration side for working so hard and cooperating to get this done. I would have never ever thought that we could have done this in 3 months and we did and so I am thrilled with that, and IT Department worked extremely well with an outside vendor in spite of everything else that they have on their plates, so this is pretty good getting this done as rapidly as we did. So, that’s all I have on that. Mr. Bollas: Yes, I just want to echo the thank you to the Administration, IT and Chad with Dove and just everybody that was involved. I know there was early on and come budget time last year, there were a lot of mixed emotions on it and some apprehension, but it is really just a great thing for the City. It brings about transparency and we are also partnering with a Tallmadge business, and it is just really fantastic, and I just want to echo those comments and the expedited nature of this project. i. Additional Items: None. 12. Announcements: I would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter. 13. Adjournment: Mr. Sisak moved to adjourn. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – unanimous. The Council meeting of 4-14-22 adjourned at 8:05 p.m. sb Adopted: ____________________________ _________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Dennis K. Loughry, President of Council 6