City Council Regular Meeting

COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 1. CALL TO ORDER. President of Council Loughry called the Council meeting of Thursday, July 28, 2022, to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. Opening Prayer & Pledge of Allegiance: Prayer: Pastor Deborah Wissner, St. Mark Lutheran Church. Pledge of Allegiance: Bentley Licitri – 6th Grade Student at Talmadge Middle School. 3. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – present. Mrs. Allman and Mrs. Gutman were excused. 4. Correcting and Adopting the Previous Meeting Minutes: 7-14-22 Council Meeting Minutes. Mrs. Kilway moved for the adoption of the 7-14-22 Council meeting minutes. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – unanimous. The 7-14-22 Council meeting minutes were adopted by a vote of 5-0. 5. Financial Reports: None. 6. Public Hearings: None. 7. Community Input: This is the point in the meeting that we allow the public to discuss anything that is not on the agenda. • Sue Christopher, Tallmadge Pointe Apartments, 306 Northeast Avenue, Tallmadge. Discussed problems with parking at her apartment complex. Also discussed problems with younger adults being disrespectful to the older residents on the Freedom Trail. 8. Agenda Additions: None. Pres. of Council: Mr. Cooper, as part of your report, did Justin give you a report from IT? Dir. of Administration: No, not today. Pres. of Council: Because I had asked to have a report this evening, so I will follow up on that. I had asked Justin to give us a report on communication with Verizon. They have been in communication with Verizon, I’m sure. There are things on social media about the increase of calls dropped and I also had a conversation earlier with Justin regarding our weather alerts. Mayor: Mr. Loughry, if you would direct those questions directly to me or Mr. Cooper, we will make sure you get those reports. The Verizon issue: they have cell towers that are down and they have a 7-day fix that they are working on. I didn’t know that you were going to ask that question, but I will give you a little update on that. So that is being worked on by Verizon. It has nothing to do with around Tallmadge but some of the towers around the area are down. We did have weather events last week where some got texts; some did not get texts; some got phone calls. They were on-line quite often this week with the vendor, and I think it should be straightened out by now. 9. Reports of Administrative Officers: a. Mayor/Director of Safety/ Director of Economic Development: Thank you. • This is Hamrick Packaging. I was with them today and they plan on moving into that building within 6 to 7 weeks. That is out on Maplecrest Drive. This road has now been approved and they had bid openings to install that road going all the way back to the back to down by Kent Displays. Martin Wheel will be located down around this tree line down there. I would expect Martin Wheel to break ground sometime next year • This is the Aldi’s store. You can see the roof line is up and the concrete people are laying the floors in there. • This is Valvoline right beside the Arby’s. They are breaking ground there, so they are moving along very nicely. • This is the Joint Dispatch Center. That is the inside of the dispatch center. That is the old Weaver Workshop area and they started building some walls and office space. Some of the floor work is being done. All of that brick and block that is outside that they demoed; those were interior walls that came down. If you saw that trench work to the north side of that this week, that is the electric service going from North Avenue up to the building and the new cell tower will be stuck back in the corner of that building. 1  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 • Inside the Fire Station, for those of you who have not been up there lately, you can see the garage bays. They were pressure washing that today. This area is called the day room. That is where the couches and the tv’s and the dining area will be in there. This lower picture here is the kitchen area and this is the hallway to the sleeping quarters and what they call the business side of it. The painters are scheduled to come in in two weeks and they will start painting on the inside of that. That is on the upper tower. The stairwell is just being installed. It is done enough that I was able to walk up it. The trash dumpster location is there, and this is a window that they will open up and there is a repelling anchor inside this room and there is one down in here and that is where they will practice their repelling from the upper tower all the way down to the parking lot for rope rescue and that kind of thing. Joe Viscomi and Rhonda are new members of the Lions Club. They were inducted last night and the only reason why I showed you that is so I could show you the next picture. They also had Santa Claus there and so it is Christmas in July and Santa happened to be there last night, so I had to take a picture. End of report. Mrs. Kilway: The car wash that is being rebuilt on West Avenue and Thomas; it seems to be going really slow. Do we have any anticipate open date or anything? Are there any issues going on with that? Mayor: I think it is just a lot of work. I do have two other items. I did make an appointment to the Dir. of Public Safety and Dr. Cooper is the new Dir. of Public Safety. I will give you an update on the Dir. of Administration in the next couple of weeks or so. End of report. Pres. of Council: So, in the interim will Dr. Cooper be doing both jobs? Dir. of Administration: Good evening. Just one thing to report. You may have noticed that on our website now is our posting for the next Fire Chief position. So, if you go onto the website under How Do I and then go to Employment Opportunities, you will see listed among a few others the Fire Chief position. There are documents in there that describe the process, the requirements, and other things like that. I welcome and encourage you to look those over. The process will be taking place . . . the posting will be up for about 3 weeks. We already have had some inquiries and we look forward to that process continuing over the next 6 to 8 weeks. So, if you have any questions let me know. Otherwise, we look forward to it. Mr. Bozic: You had made mention that we were going to do kind of a larger scale search for our next Fire Chief if I’m not mistaken. Can you kind of elaborate on what that kind of means and what additional costs would be associated with doing that kind of a larger scale search? Dir. of Administration: So, larger scale, if I used that term, my intention was just to mention that we will be looking outside the department as well. So, we are advertising in the newspapers, that is the Beacon, the Express, the Record Courier and also with the Ohio Fire Chiefs Association website which has a couple thousand members and also has statewide access. So, the cost associated with that for the Fire Chief’s website is about $75 and the newspapers are in the $50 range: $50-$75 range. So, a few hundred dollars will be the total for the advertisement. Mr. Bozic: So, the window for the applicants is now open; correct? Dir. of Administration: Yes. Mr. Bozic: And you said we have interest already? Dir. of Administration: Well, in the posting, it says if you have any questions, you are welcome to e-mail me, and I will respond, and we have had a couple inquiries with questions. Mr. Bozic: And have we had applicants? 2  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 Dir. of Administration: No. No applicants yet. Mr. Bozic: I guess my thought here is being that I am from a military background and it is kind of the next man up and knowing that we have to replace a Fire Chief and we also have to do a Police Chief eventually and we have a new fire station getting opened up; we have new Lieutenants getting ready to be selected or promoted, I guess timeline wise wouldn’t it make more sense to promote the next man up? Mayor: No. The next man up has clear opportunity just like everyone else to apply for it and so for the two Chiefs; it’s not the first time we have gone outside to look at this. We did it when Pat Gaffney was the Chief. We did not do it when Passarelli became Chief, but we have two people . . . two to three people currently in the Fire Department that are eligible and they have a clear-cut advantage over anyone else, but we don’t know who is out there. We might not get anybody else who applies; we don’t know. That is why we are posting it. But it is my decision to go outside, and I am sticking by that decision and going outside to get options. That is all we are doing is looking to see what is available out there. It is no different than a lot of places. The City of Akron just did it too and they have 500+ employees to move up. They also went outside to advertise. We don’t know what is out there. Mr. Sisak: To advertise for what? Mayor: Chief. When they got the Chief . . . Police Chief. Mr. Sisak: I guess if you are done Adam, I remember when I first moved to Tallmadge in 2007 and Mayor Grimm at the time had advertised externally for a Fire Chief and I think it was Denny Crossen at the time and said that that was the biggest mistake he had ever made. I think if we don’t respect history then we are potentially going to make the same mistake and I know Mr. Cooper you were in the fire service for how many years? Dir. of Administration: 40 plus. Mr. Sisak: 40 plus and you started out as a firefighter? Dir. of Administration: Yes. Mr. Sisak: And what was your final rank when you retired? Dir. of Administration: Which time? Mr. Sisak: What was your final rank when you retired? Dir. of Administration: I was the State Fire Marshal. Mr. Sisak: How about with Cuyahoga Falls? Dir. of Administration: Assistant Fire Chief. Mr. Sisak: And how did you get that position? Mayor: I’m not sure where you are going here. Mr. Sisak: Excuse me, I have the floor. It is from internal promotion. Right? You would have never had that opportunity if you weren’t internally promoted; correct? Dir. of Administration: No. Mr. Sisak: OK. Thank you. Pres. of Council: Well, so since we are going down this path and I think it is fair to everyone that works in the City and everyone that is a resident of our City to know our thoughts if they are interested in this. I think, and I have been in management for a long, long time in family business, corporate business and working for myself and I think when you represent others and you are a steward of others money, not just your money, in our case we are stewards of tax payers money that we have a responsibility to give them the very best employee that we can that we can afford and I don’t know how you do that if you are not willing to open up the process and let outsiders compete. Now, I also think that if we are doing our jobs correctly, as an employer, that those that work for us should be trained and ready and should be able to compete with the outside and win the competition. I don’t think that there is anything hurt by letting the taxpayers know that we are going to 3  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 Pres. of Council (Cont’d.) look under every rock to try to find the very best person we can and hopefully we have done our job internally to have somebody internal that is ready. So, that is just my opinion on the whole thing. Dir. of Administration: Mr. President, I didn’t mean to shut off the dialogue with my response, but the reason I said no was that if my employer at that time would have chosen to go outside as well, I would have competed and I think prevailed even as an internal candidate going outside. That wasn’t their choice. I didn’t have to do that. I would have liked to have thought that I would have had kind of a leg up because I had so much internal knowledge and experience in that organization. So, I think the same will occur here. The internal candidates are excellent, and it will be a very interesting competition, but everybody in the City is entitled to the best Fire Chief we can possibly find whether it is internal or external. I do think that we have some great internal candidates and I think our next Fire Chief will be just as excellent as our previous. Pres. of Council: Anything else for Dr. Cooper? Good discussion. Mr. Bozic: I do have one other question pertaining to the Police Department study that I know you sent an e-mail out that it is in the works. Do we have a specific timeline for when we expect that to be released and my other question with that is; do we have a specific timeline for the Police Chief? Dir. of Administration: So, for the first one, there are three phases to the Police Department Study. There is no specific timeline for the first phase, but our expectation is that very soon we will have delivered to us the written report for Phase I. With regard to a Police Chief opening, we don’t have one and he hasn’t announced when With regard to a Police Chief opening, we don’t have one and he hasn’t announced when it will be. The Fire Chief has announced and so we have a specific time for that and that is why we are posting. So, as soon as we know with the Police Chief and when he chooses a date and time we will go from there. Mr. Bozic: I may have misunderstood then because I thought at the last meeting you had said that it was not news to anyone that the Police Chief is going to be retiring soon or it is in the works. Dir. of Administration: I said something like that within the next few years. So, no dates yet. c. Director of Public Service: Good evening. • The Old Town Hall is going to start getting the paint job completed starting next week. Pres. of Council: So, it will be done by Circle Fest? Dir. of Public Service: That is the goal. Mrs. Kilway: I just want to commend the Service Director for the recent cement work that was done over on Ambler Circle. It is a difficult area because the cement work along the edge of the road and in front of people’s driveways. The contractor, Sable, did a wonderful job. Mr. Bozic: Mr. Rorar, I just wanted to thank you for training your guys so well because every time I drive around the City, they are all over the place. The Street Department and the Water Department, I see them every day they are out there and wearing their reflective vests and you can’t miss them. Make sure to tell them all that they have done a great job. Mr. Bollas: I just have two comments. Regarding the East Avenue Widening Project with the public hearing we had back in May, I know there was some correspondence back and forth with the analyst that you were working with and I wondered if there was any progress at this point and what will that potentially look like for us to be able to respond to the public inquiries. Dir. of Public Service: So, the public comment period has expired at this point. There weren’t a whole lot of comments. The answers we have to post, but I believe we are reviewing those answers right now. We have the utility meeting next week with ODOT as 4  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 Dir. of Public Service (Cont’d.) well as our engineer and so it is in the process, but we are still looking at 2025 before they break ground. Mr. Bollas: Secondly, I just wanted to thank the Parks and Rec Superintendent who has been very responsive and collaborative for various ideas with the ARPA Proposal and vending. She has been very responsive, and I appreciate it. Pres. of Council: Mr. Rorar, will you be our point person with First Energy on that new substation that they are doing that is going to go down 91 and Howe Road? Dir. of Public Service: Yes. d. Dir. of Finance: Thank you. Just before this meeting I met with the Mayor and Councilman Sisak to go over some of the ARPA proposals. We looked at them and generated kind of a preliminary list. We did not want to identify all of the projects, so I am going to work on getting that together. It’s not all of the funding because obviously we need to leave room for changes and so we identified what we are calling Round 1. I will work on getting that list together and notifying everybody of the initial projects that we thought were good for that funding and then if anybody has any questions, I will be glad to answer them. Mr. Bozic: I have one. At this point in the process would it be too late . . . this idea came from Gina Conti about potentially holding a public open forum to get input from our constituents and their thoughts or ideas for the use of some of those funds. Dir. of Finance: Like I said, we only identified half of the ARPA money to be spent and so we intend to do that and so if you would like to have a public meeting with your constituents and invite them you are welcome to do that and we will likely . . . you know, after we get the first round through . . . you know this funding isn’t . . . we have a lot of time to spend it. That is why we didn’t just want to . . . obviously we have $4 million worth of submission and we picked about 5 of them and that is about half of the money and so we want to have that opportunity to have some additional things that may come down the road. Mr. Bozic: You are already at $4 million, but like you said . . . Dir. of Finance: Some of the projects that were submitted are not going to be in there and so others were some that were strictly eliminated. But if you want to have a meeting with constituents and have idea sharing and submit some of those projects that would be fine. Mr. Bozic: If that is something that does come to fruition, is that something that you would be willing to attend? Dir. of Finance: Yeah, I would be glad to attend in case people have questions about . . . yes, absolutely. e. Dir. of Law: Thank you. Happy to answer any questions. 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. Third Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions A. Ord. 2022-55 – Amended – P&Z Rec. approval 4-0 – Approving and granting a conditional zoning certificate to Applicant, David Hockey, Towerco 2013, LLC, and property owner the Tallmadge City School District Board of Education, for construction and operation of a wireless telecommunication and antennae on 2,800 square feet of 9.881 acres on PN 6000312, (250) N Munroe Road 5  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 Sponsor: Councilperson Carol Kilway Mrs. Kilway: I call the Planning & Zoning Committee to order. We have Ord. 2022-55 at 3rd Reading. The ordinance was read into the record. I think this is pretty much ready to go. Mr. Loughry: I would move to adopt. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. Ord. 2022-55 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. ii. Additional Items: Mr. Bollas: Have there been any application in terms of the land development right next to the Pulte Development in between the Aldi’s? I have seen a lot of activity out there. Is there any confirmed activity at this point? Mayor: No, not as of today when I was talking to the DeHoff’s. They are staking out some driveways and doing work on that site so between the pump station; right on the Portage County line. 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. 2022-62 – Exhibit A – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into a new manage- ment agreement with the Ohio History Connection for the Tallmadge Church State Memorial and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kline Mr. Sisak: I call the Finance Committee to order. We have Ord. 2022-62 – Exhibit A. The ordinance was read into the record. We will give this a 1 st Reading and review the legislation and vote on it next time. Does anyone have anything else to come before Finance? Mr. Bozic: Can you give a little snapshot of what that ordinance means? Mayor: Yes, it’s our annual . . . our maintenance contract for the church. The State, the Historical Society own the church and we have a maintenance agreement and a rental agreement on the church. This contract is from July 1, 2022, and it will end June 30, 2023. It is just setting up requirements versus their requirements. They will pay us for some maintenance on the church. We have to have it open certain time to do the maintenance of the interior cleaning and that. The painting was done by the association. Dir. of Law: Mr. Bozic, I did review the contract and compared it with our previous contract and there are no substantive changes of any note; just a few cleanup things that they added. Mr. Sisak: Anything else to come before the Finance Committee tonight? Hearing none, I will go ahead and close committee. 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 or additional items at this time. Any items for the Personnel Committee this evening? Pres. of Council: I would like to say one thing. The discussion earlier in Personnel, I 6  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 Pres. of Council (Cont’d.) mean obviously it is our job to legislate and their job to administrate. Sometimes some may feel that the lines get blurred that you can administrate but only with the money that we release to you. I get that, but we should never be afraid to have honest discussion. I’m sure everyone would prefer that they did ask the questions ahead of time as opposed to on the floor as long as you are respectful and you are doing it with the intent of what is the best for the City from your perspective and your constituent’s perspective. Just say it in the right way. Mayor: I enjoy the questions. Pres. of Council: So, you know they always come up in Personnel. They are personnel related most of the time. That’s all I have to say. Mr. Bollas: Any additional items for Personnel? Hearing none, I 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. Kilway: I call Community Issues to order. We have no legislation before us this evening. Is there anything from Council? Pres. of Council: I will let you know that we are ready for Circle Fest. Mrs. Kilway: Is there anything else for Community Issues? Hearing none, I close committee. 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 will open the Safety Committee. There currently is no legislation in front of us. Does anyone from the floor have anything to discuss? Mr. Sisak: I have one thing. You had asked about the Police study, and I know we are doing a few. Mr. Bozic: Well, my question was in relation to the Police Department study that I believe is very similar to what we just received from the Fire Department. Mr. Sisak: OK. The one from Mr. Downes? Dir. of Administration: Yes, that is the Police study. Mr. Sisak: I just wanted to make sure because there is the other study that we are doing with positions, and I wanted to make sure that we weren’t mixing our metaphors. Dir. of Administration: Can I clarify a little bit? So, we do have a compensation study that is underway. Actually, just initiated, so we just started that. We had a Fire study done at the Fire Department. It is just over a year now. I did want to mention something though. Mr. Bollas asked a question last meeting about a summary report, and you suggested that we put deadlines or estimated deadlines in there and I have asked the Fire Chief to do that with that study. So, as soon as that is completed and we can get those added, I will distribute it to Council like we did the previous report and then we do have the Police Department study. That is what Mr. Bozic asked about earlier and that is underway. We are waiting to hear back from . . . that is Mr. Downes. Mr. Bozic: Is there anything else? Hearing none, I will close committee. i. Additional Items: None. 7  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 28, 2022 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. Pres. of Council: Since Mrs. Allman and Mrs. Gutman are absent, I guess I become the Chair this evening. I will call the committee to order. There is no legislation. Mr. Rorar is doing a great job. Is there anything for Public Service? Hearing none, I close committee. i. Additional Items: None. 11. Reports of Special Committees: a. Council Operations Committee Pres. of Council: This is just so Council is aware of what is going on and Mr. Bollas is taking the lead on Council’s budget as it pertains to things in this room. I have seen e- mails with him and Mrs. Gilbride. Mrs. Burton is obviously working on their budget items for the internal office. We have all been asked to submit anything that you would specifically like done in the City and/or in the Ward for your constituents. Get those to Mrs. Conti please. Then this week, Mrs. Burton, Mrs. Conti and I actually just today, completed our job descriptions for the Clerk and Deputy Clerk for Mr. Cooper. Just so you know what we did; we looked at the ORC, we looked at our Charter and we looked at the job descriptions as they exist today, and we looked at about 6 different communities in Northeast Ohio and the Clerk position and how it operates. Mr. Sisak: I have one comment. Just as far as I think what we have done in Council over the past year with going online and televising and video recording our meetings, it is driving transparency within government, and I think that is what I look for and my constituents look for is transparency. Sometimes we do ask questions on the floor and on the record on purpose for that transparency because sometimes it is lacking and so I think we need to continue to be transparent. There are a lot of other things to where we can continue to drive transparency for our constituents and for our community. i. Additional Items: None. 12. Announcements: None. 13. Adjournment: Mr. Sisak moved to adjourn. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic – unanimous. The Council meeting of 7-28-22 adjourned at 7:50 p.m. sb Adopted: ___________________________________ ______________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Dennis K. Loughry, President of Council 8