City Council Regular Meeting

COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 1. CALL TO ORDER. President of Council Loughry called the Council meeting of Thursday, March 9, 2023, to order at 7:00 p.m. Please note on the top of our agenda we will have an Executive Session before we adjourn this evening. 2. Opening Prayer & Pledge of Allegiance: Prayer: Pastor James Case, Tallmadge Lutheran Church, Tallmadge. Pledge of Allegiance: Mayor Kline. 3. Roll Call: Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – present. Mr. Bollas was excused. 4. Correcting and Adopting the Previous Meeting Minutes: 2-23-23 Council Meeting Minutes. Mrs. Kilway: I would like to make a motion to approve the 2-23-23 minutes. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Roll Call: Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman – unanimous. The 2-23-23 Council meeting minutes are adopted by a vote of 6-0. 5. Financial Reports: • Fire & EMS Fund Transfer in the amount of $175,000, Street Maintenance & Repair Fund Transfer in the amount of $200,000 to Council on 3-1-23. • Appropriation Report, Fund Report and Revenue Report for the period ending 2-28-23 to Council on 3-3-23. • February Financial Reports to Council on 3-3-23. • Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 2-28-23 to Council on 3-3-23. • Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 2-28-23 to Council on 3-3-23. • Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 2-28-23 to Council on 3-3-23. • Income Tax by Source Report for the month of February to Council on 3-3-23. • Revenue Comparisons for Major Funds for the period ending 2-28-23 to Council on 3-3- 23. Mr. Sisak: I move for the acceptance of the Financial Reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride. Seconded Mrs. Allman. Roll Call: Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic – unanimous. The Financial Reports are accepted by a vote of 6-0. 6. Public Hearings: None. 7. Community Input: Pres. of Council: So, this is the time in our meeting where if someone in the audience would like to speak to Council on anything that is not on the agenda, this is the time to do that. Just come to the podium and state your name and address and make your comments to me as the Chair and you have 2 minutes. Would anyone like to do that this evening. Paul Evans, 417 Northwest Avenue, Tallmadge. I would like to make note of the narrowness of the streets on Northwest Avenue and I am sure there are other streets here. With the increase of the new developments where the old Tallmadge Springs/Bakers Acres is; there is a lot more traffic, bycycle traffic and so forth. I had a recent occasion where I was out front and there was a woman pushing a baby carriage and she is asking if she could come through my yard because there is not enough room for her to walk along the streets. I have seen on other occasions a woman pushing a baby carriage very quickly across the street as there is no room for them to walk. On another occasion in front of my house, the neighbor had a lawn care company; they are delivery trucks and you have to cross the double yellow line and there are people lined up. The landscaping company had their setup in front of my house mowing the yard across the street. Traffic was backed up past Evergreen and around going down the hill. School busses were dropping off kids in front of the neighbor’s house next door and so traffic is backed up from the school bus. The school bus proceeds to go up Evergreen to drop kids off, but in the meantime, somebody 1  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mr. Evans (Cont’d.) took it upon themselves to break the line of traffic and try to go and make a turn onto Evergreen and luckily the school bus stopped and there wasn’t a head on collision. I think something needs to be done to widen those streets in those areas. I won’t get into the fact that there is a mote in front of my house and a big drop-off where people would fall into the culvert in front of my house, but there is not enough room for the foot traffic and bicycle traffic which is increasing expendentially every day and all of the delivery trucks. I mean, I understand that if you have a double yellow line you are not supposed to cross those lines unless you have to. People are constanatly having to do that now and it is getting more and more with all the delivery trucks, the mail trucks, and it is just getting very, very dangerous for foot traffic and people. With the increase in the number of people there has to be something done. Extend the berms, make it wide enough so somebody could pull off at least half a lane. It has to be done safely. I have other things, but that is the main issue I have to talk about this evening. Pres. of Council: Any questions for Mr. Evans. 8. Agenda Additions: None. 9. Reports of Administrative Officers: a. Mayor/Director of Economic Development: Mayor: Thank you Mr. Chairman. • Next Wednesday is the State of the City if you plan on attending make sure you let the Chamber or the Council office or the Mayor’s office know. That is next Wednesday at the Venue and then next Thursday at Tallmadge Rotary I am doing it at 7:15 and then on the 21st at the Primetimers so I will be doing it three times in the next couple of weeks. Then I will also do it in Council Chambers for all the City employees that want to come for a luncheon. I will provide the pizza. • I am setting up a meeting with Brimfield to go over the JEDD map here in Council Chambers and I will let some of the Council folks know that inquired about that. Mike Ladd is looking at his calendar and he is willing to come in and talk about some of the zoning stuff over there in the JEDD. As soon as they get that scheduled I will make sure that some of you Council members are aware of that. • The Tallmadge Expo is April 15th. It starts at 9:00 a.m. on that Saturday and it ends at 3:00 p.m. if you want to be part of the booths. The City will have their booth out front and I am sure it will be a busy day. There are still some booths available at the Rec Center and you can see the Chamber office or talk to Becky. • The Joint Dispatch Center: I was at the construction meeting today and it is really moving along. Let me just show you a couple of photos. This is the COG which is made up of Stow, Cuyahoga Falls, Fairlawn, Tallmadge and Summit County as the prime COG members and then there are several communities that will be contracted to the COG so we are pretty excited about how that is all coming together. • The Tallmadge Fire Department, I am happy to announce that we did receive our temprorary occupancy this week. Some of the camera views were shown. The temporary doors are up and functioning very well. The primary doors; we are still working on the legal aspect of that with the Law Department. I request Ord. 2023-40, that is the demo grant for Station 2. If you remember at the last Council meeting I talked to you and I did forward a note to Council requesting that. We did receive two grants for that. The Federal Grant and then the other grant that we get a matching through our local demo program. So, at the end of the day when it is all said and done, the $19,000 demo for the building should cost the City roughly around $3,000. It is money I have to spend and it is a reimbursement grant just like the DD Building. We also received that grant. End of report. 2  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 b. Director of Administration/Director of Safety: Excused. Mayor: He is in training tonight. Pres. of Council: Everyone should have received a written report pertaining to the Police Study and follow-up. c. Director of Public Service: • Good evening. First, I would like to request that Ord.2023-42 be considered for being passed at 1st Reading tonight. • We had 20 total permits issued; 11 of which were zoning certificates and keep in mind that those were for fencing and decks. • Code violations there were 34. 13 of which were property disrepair. • In cemetery there were 9 total burials; 7 which were full and 2 cremains. We actually sold our first niche in the new columbarium which is part of the columbarium plaza. • In the parks; the memberships you can see that 7,437 was 500 more than last year which is always moving in the right direction since Covid has kind of come and gone. Then the visits were up about 17% from the pervious year. • We had the first Family Fun Night and we had 675 in attendance and you can see the upcoming events; the Girl Scouts Daddy/Daughter Game Night is March 9th and the Princess Tea Party is March 19th. Spring Break Camp is March 27th and the Easter Egg Scramble is April 8th at 10:00 a.m. • The Community Center is still closed and that was due to that pipe that burst on December 26th. We are still on schedule to open on April 1st. I will probably be coming to you with a change order. Right now the ceiling in the kitchen needs to be replaced. It was not part of the insurance, but with all the new ceiling being done; that ceiling looks terrible right now. It is about $4,700 to replace that ceiling and it should get done. It just didn’t hit the insurance. Then hopefully we are good, but that will be different than what we normally have had, so I might be coming to you with a change order for that as well. So, I will keep you posted and then there you can see how Maca Pool’s membership for the residents and then on March 15th starts the non-residents. • The Winter Wonderland was February 11th and that was the second year for that. Pretty good attendance. We had 150 people there in attendance. • The Street Sweeping is occurring in all our municipal lots from our second shift and they have been trying to work until 9:00 p.m. because that is the noise ordinance and what that is is by the EPA it is mandated that we have to sweep all of our lots at least twice a year and while the winter shift is in, this is the best time to do it because there isn’t anybody parked in the parking lots in the evening. If you are hearing any complaints or hearing anybody saying anything about it, it is us, but we should be done one night in each parking lot. We are trying to cut it off by 9:00 p.m. With that being said, we had 262 hours believe it or not, on snow and ice control for the month. We had 9.42 tons of street sweepings were removed. 100 lineal feet of ditching was done, 3 culverts were jetted and 2 culverts were replaced and we started trimming the vegetation blocking the stop signs. That is the only vegetation that we don’t have to ask for the property owner’s permission or send a letter because it is a safety issue and that is actually an ORC rule that any . . . and there is a rule with the speed of the road you have to be able to see that stop sign from so many feet back. We try to measure all of that stuff up. So, if you hear anything about us cutting limbs, yes that’s true and we are doing it just because it is a safety issue. • The Utility Department, there again, zero watermain breaks. Great job. Zero backups in the sewer; great job. 3  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 • Four water valves were repaired. • 7,306 lineal feet of sanitary sewer was televised, and I am going to credit the work that they have been doing with that to prevent the sanitary sewers from backing up. What we have there in the picture; that is a cutting head when they do find calcium deposits in those lines. Those are 12” lines and it has 9 blades on the front of it and it is run by water, 1600 psi and believe it or not, West Avenue had almost 2” of calcium that was as hard as concrete to get out of there, but that cutting head blew that out of there. Great job from the Utility Department. • Lastly, North Munroe sidewalk ARPA funding and right there in the red is the sidewalk on North Munroe from East Avenue to the Roundabout and you can see it is a segmented piece of sidewalk there and what the ARPA funds are going to do is make the connections so the green area is what it is going to connect and the reason why we switched sides is two-fold. You can see down there by Bentley Place and Regency, not Bentley Place, but Clark Avenue there was sidewalk there already and we wanted to connect on the other side of the road because the grade is bad so keep in mind that those big beech trees and the rock wall that is there . . . if you stayed on the opposite side you would be cutting into those and probably removing those giant trees and I’m sure that would be quite a bit of hoopla. So, we don’t want to go there. We will have a crossing right there and we will probably put up the crosswalk flasher at that location. That ends my report. If there are any questions? Mr. Bozic: I do have one thing. Thank you for that report. On Washburn Road, it is the road I live on, so I see this the most, but we have quite a few mailboxes that keep getting taken out. Not by our City guys but by drivers. There is a long stretch of straight followed by multiple quick turns or sweeping turns, and I think we have some drivers that are a little over aggressive on those turns. I know right now my parents’ neighbors have their mailbox missing and I think there are two others on an actual straight that have mailboxes that have been replaced. I guess what can we do as a City to help or monitor that better or what can we do basically? Mayor: Send the Police out there to ticket people for speeding. Mr. Bozic: Mr. Sisak asked if there was signage. There is some signage for speed limit signs. Dir. of Pub. Service: It is marked properly. Mayor: There are speed humps. Mr. Bozic: What I am also finding too is because of the light now you have people that come up over the crest of the hill which is where I am at and they see the light is green and they gun it trying to make it all the way down to the end of Washburn so you have cars that are doing like 80 mph down Washburn trying to catch the light. I’m sure I have been guilty of maybe not going that fast, but definitely not 80, but at least trying to catch a light; I’m sure I have been guilty of that. I guess if we could do something to . . . Mayor: We will send a note to set up the speed trailer. Mr. Bozic: The speed trailer or something. I just know that it worries me even in the morning when my kids get on the bus because I live there on that crest too. Just something to think about. I know we have quite a few incidents recently. Dir. of Pub. Service: I will check the signage and make sure there are enough speed limit signs and make sure there are warning signs. I believe there are, but I will just double-check. Mrs. Kilway: Just to add onto what Mr. Bozic was stating, I did receive a phone call from a resident in the last week or two about speeding in Tallmadge and he is a bus driver for the City and the school system and he sees people speeding and distracted driving constantly and he is asking very nicely if we could get some traffic enforce- 4  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mrs. Kilway (Cont’d.) ment going on in the City when it comes to speeding. So, I am just passing that along to the Administration. d. Director of Finance: Good evening. Thank you. Everyone should have received the February Financial Reports. Our income tax is still looking good so far this year so we will keep our eye on that, but withholdings seem to still be coming in strong for us. Our business profit taxes are a little behind right now but it is still early in the year and a lot of times that is just timing differences that we have going on. My office is in full swing with the audit. You may or may not receive communications. Usually if they want to communicate with Council it is directly to you so just for your awareness and if you could please respond promptly to them if they do get in touch with you. I will be glad to answer any questions if anybody has anything about the financial reports. Pres. of Council: I read an article of the impact of the reduction in the CAT (Community Activity Tax) and how that was negatively impacting Twinsburg. Do you know how that should impact us? I mean Twinsburg has a whole lot more manufacturing. Dir. of Finance: We have not gotten CAT tax money for . . . I don’t know if Twinsburg was getting so much that they had some kind of grace period, but I would have to go back and look, but that was phased out in the early 2000’s so I did not see that article, so I can look into what that was about and see if there are impacts that would be on this. e. Director of Law: Thank you. I just want to do one last reminder that we are hosting, both Summit County Council person Christine Higham and myself have invited Prosecutor Sheri Bevin Walsh to do the Women’s Self Defense Class and that is March 16th and that is a Thursday at the Rec Center from about 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. It is free. You do not need to preregister. It will be on Court 4 so just come into the Rec Center and let them know that that is why you are there and they will have you come back. I have been getting questions about whether children are able to attend and really it depends on the age of the child. They are welcome as long as they can hold their attention for 2 hours. There are some instructional pieces to it beyond just the active part of it too. All are welcome. 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, and public property. i. Second Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions A. Ord. 2023-34 – Amended – P.H. on 4-13-23 @ 7:01 p.m. – P&Z Rec. Adoption 5-0 – Amending the zoning map by rezoning the property of Applicant, Todd Meighen for GT Brazilian Jui Jitsu, Porra LLC, Owner, located at 51 Southeast Avenue, Parcel 6000098, consisting of approximately 0.3884 acres from Industrial District (I-1) to General Commercial District (C-3) and approving the existing general development plan. Sponsor: Councilperson Kilway Mrs. Kilway: I call the Planning & Zoning Committee to order. We have in front of us Ord. 2023-34. We do have a public hearing on that on April 13th @ 7:01 p.m. The ordinance was read into the record. This was in front of the Planning & Zoning Commission last week and they did a very thorough job of going over everything and 5  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mrs. Kilway (Cont’d.) they did consider whether the applicant had provided adequate evidence that the proposed district changes were consistent with the standards as listed and it was unanimous on all the standards, they agreed on them except one did not apply and then they did give us a recommendation to adopt 5-0. Is there any discussion on this. We do need to amend it and it will go back to 2nd Reading. Mr. Bozic: I have a question related to the parking. It says in the report that we got, which by the way, these are very detailed and I appreciate these. It talks about needing 11 spaces for parking. Just wanted to confirm that does not include any of the spots that are on Erie on the west side of Erie that are . . . Mayor: For public parking. It is not included and they do have a lot of space where they could add more parking, but they would have to go back to Planning & Zoning for that request. Mr. Bozic: Because then it says additional future parking. So that is not currently part of the . . . Mayor: It met the site plan that they presented and met the code. I think they are going to need more parking in the future. Mr. Bozic: I would think so. OK. Thank you. Mrs. Kilway: I would entertain a motion to amend the ordinance. Mr. Sisak: I move for the amendment to Ord. 2023-34. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman – unanimous. Ord. 2023-34 is amended by a vote of 6-0. Mrs. Kilway: Is there anything else to come before Planning & Zoning at this time? Hearing none, I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. b. Finance Craig Sisak, Chair Jonathon Bollas, Vice Chair The Finance Committee deals with budget, appropriations, reappropriations, bonds, franchises, investments, and expenditures. i. Second Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2023-36 – Authorizing the Mayor to contract with inSITE Advisory Group, LLC for economic development consulting services without competitive bidding, appropriating the necessary funds, and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kline Mr. Sisak: I call the Finance Committee to order. We currently have Ord. 2023-36 at 2nd Reading. The ordinance was read into the record. Does anyone have any comments on this? Pres. of Council: The Mayor didn’t ask, but I would be in favor of adopting this at 2 nd Reading. I am very familiar with inSITE and the work that they do. Mr. Bozic: I have a question before that motion. So, and I agree that that could be a very hard spot to fill considering, but you know this is an area that I think there are probably multiple agencies or vendors available that specialize in this sort of thing. Mayor: It was not a lot. Like Mr. Loughry said, they do it for other communities and they have done a great job. I have known the guy that is going to work for Tallmadge and he used to be a part of the Akron Teams and I think they will do a great job on doing this work for the City of Tallmadge. Mr. Bozic: So, my question was, are we aware of other vendors that offer similar services. Did we seek out to do a comparison? 6  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mayor: I did not go out and solicit quotes. This is a professional service that I am allowed to enter into a contract based on the appropriation of it. I have known this company for a long time and I think the price is good. It is going to be 25 hours a month, up to 25 hours and if they have to go over that, it will be negotiated with us to go further on that. They are providing guidance on development efforts. Any open land is available to bring in clients and outside vendors to come to those sites, redevelopment of properties, business retention going out with me and Helene. We have been doing a lot of that; business retentions. Knocking on doors and setting up meetings and going out to vendors. Mr. Bozic: Thank you. Mrs. Kilway: Mr. Sisak, I would agree with Mr. Loughry that this is something that I think we should do. We don’t have a designated person right now. The faster we can get this moving I think would be better. Mr. Sisak: No, we don’t have a motion. Mrs. Kilway: I move to adopt Ord. 2023-36 at 2nd Reading. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Dir. of Finance: We are actually moving the appropriations and so we are moving the money out of salaries that we had appropriated to hire and we are just moving that down to the contractual section. We are not adding $60,000 to the budget; we are just moving it from one category of expenses to another. Mr. Bozic: For clarification that was from the personnel portion . . . Dir. of Finance: Correct so we are moving it out of Personnel and down into the Operating Expenses. Mr. Bozic: You had mentioned roughly 25 hours per month and then if we exceed that; do we know what that rate is for the additional hours? Because sounds like a lot but then I am thinking you know that could be three or four visits a month roughly. Mayor: I don’t anticipate them, unless we get a big project coming in to go over that. I want to try and maintain and keep it at the 25. I do not really want to exceed that because the money will not be there. The hourly rate is like $50 an hour for them to go out individually after they exceed that. Roll Call: Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. Ord. 2023-36 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. ii. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. B. Ord. 2023-38 – Accepting the ARPA First Responder Wellness, Recruitment, Retention & Resiliency Grant from the Ohio Emergency Management Agency; authorizing the creation of the OMEA ARPA Fires Responder Grant Fund; appropriating and advancing the necessary funds and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Finance Gilbride Mr. Sisak: First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions; we have Ord. 2023-38. The ordinance was read into the record. Dir. of Finance: I apologize, I did send an e-mail to ask for this at 1st Reading so we can sign the grant agreement and move forward. We have been awarded these funds and we have until December of 2024 to spend them. They will be spent as explained in the ordinance for physical scans, health and wellness for our firefighters in the Fire Department. Mr. Bozic: In the ordinance it talks about physical scans, behavioral health training, wellness program; does that include like exercise equipment or things like that? Dir. of Finance: No, it is actually for like the behavioral health is like training and like wellness training for them, so no it does not include actually any . . . Mr. Bozic: So, consulting type . . . 7  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Dir. of Finance: Yes; professional services. Mrs. Kilway: I have two questions here. First question is this going to be for all of the firefighters, part-time and full-time or is it just the full-time? Dir. of Finance: I am going to have to get clarification. I believe it is for all of them, but I will have to clarify that. Mrs. Kilway: Based on that, I might have to recuse myself from this since my husband will be a beneficiary of this. My other comment on it would be . . . Dir. of Law: Mrs. Kilway, you can’t make any comments. Mr. Bozic: How are we going to administer this program. Are we paying those professional services or are the firefighters being reimbursed? Dir. of Finance: No, we will have to actually . . . these are Federal funds and the guidelines that we received from the Ohio Emergency Management are very strict and intensive and so these will be actual contracts that the City will enter into for the firefighters to go. So, they will not have a choice of where. It will be a standardized process that we contract with . . . Mr. Bozic: It is not a reimbursement thing on their part . . . Dir. of Finance: This will be paid directly. Mr. Sisak: I was just going to say the one piece that is kind of interesting is the recruitment aspect. You know again, it seems like a lot of this is around the current department members, so I just wondered about the recruitment aspect of it. Dir. of Finance: So, there is another portion of this grant that we have not been awarded yet that actually it says it is recruitment but it is also a retention portion so they have reviewed the wellness portion and have awarded those portions of the grants, but applications for the retention and the recruitment portions are still under review so we could come back if we do receive additional funding for additional appropriations for this. Pres. of Council: So, Mrs. Gilbride, sometimes when cities take Federal monies; grant, awards or whatever, sometimes there are restrictions or things tied to that that may not be beneficial to the City. Do you see any misgivings at all about taking this money? Dir. of Finance: No, I think there are going to be a lot of steps that we are going to go through to spend it; the contracting rules that we are going to be under require a little more extensive than we would normally have to go through because it is Federal dollars, but overall, I don’t see any. Pres. of Council: You don’t’ have to hire 15 new firefighters. Dir. of Finance: No, this is serving our current population of firefighters and I think providing anything to help them with health and wellness is a good thing for the City. Mr. Bozic: I have one additional question. So, because you mentioned that the recruitment retention portion may not be part of this, should we omit those words from this ordinance then? Dir. of Finance: No, that is the name of the grant. We just have not . . . we submitted two pieces; one was the wellness portion and then another is a recruitment but the whole entire name of the grant is that. So, if we do come back; we have already accepted the grant and all we would be doing is accepting the additional funds and appropriating the additional monies. Pres. of Council: I move to adopt Ord. 2023-38 at 1st Reading. Seconded Mr. Bozic. Roll Call: Mr. Sisak - yes, Mrs. Allman - yes, Mr. Bozic - yes, Mrs. Gutman - yes, Mrs. Kilway – abstain, Mr. Loughry – yes. Ord. 2023-38 is adopted by a vote of 5-0-1. 8  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 C. Ord. 2023-39 – Authorizing the Director of Public Service to advertise for bids and the Mayor to enter into a contract for the replacement of the culvert and deteriorating storm sewer on Elton Dr. and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Sisak: Next we have Ord. 2023-39. The ordinance was read into the record. Service Director Rorar, is this one of the ones you wanted passed? Dir. of Pub. Service: No sir. Mr. Sisak: Alright. We will just give this a 1st Reading. D. Ord. 2023-40 – Appropriating necessary sums for the demolition of 715 Eastwood Avenue and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kline Mr. Sisak: Moving on, we have Ord. 2023-40. The ordinance was read into the record. Can I have a motion please. Pres. of Council: So moved. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Mr. Bozic: Do we have a date? Mayor: April 1st is what we are trying to schedule. It takes at least 2 weeks after tonight if Council chooses to adopt this and we can turn it over to our contractor and he has a two-week period that he has to apply to the EPA for the demo and that gives the guys time to move out and gives the Fire Department time to play in it meaning they can do some training and cut holes and knock walls and then turn it over to us to demo it. Mr. Bozic: Do we have any worry that the temporary occupancy in the new building will become an issue and we may not be able to renew that or may not be able to stay in there for any . . . Mayor: No, we would have received the permanent occupancy but since there is plywood on the two doors; the temporary doors, there are no doors on the middle. The Summit County guy said it was temporary and so as soon as we get the permanent doors installed on those two doors, we will get permanent. Roll Call: Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – unanimous. Ord. 2023-40 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. Ord. 2023-41 – Authorizing the Director of Public Service to advertise for bids and the Mayor to enter into a contract for demolition of 89 East Howe Road, appropriating necessary sums and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Sisak: Next we have Ord. 2023-41. The ordinance was read into the record. Is this another one you wanted? Mayor: I mean, we will take it but it is a large appropriation. Mr. Sisak: Is it OK with everyone? Pres. of Council: Well, the ordinance is just allowing the Dir. of Public Service to advertise, so I would just assume adopt this. Oh, I thought we were just entering into a contract. Mayor: This is the grant that we received and is a reimbursement and it is 75% and we pay 25% and the grant will pay 75% up to $1 million. We think it is going to come in less than that, but it is OK to give it a 2nd Reading. Mr. Loughry: Yeah, I don’t want to appropriate $1 million on 1st Reading. Mr. Sisak: No. When do you expect to have the final cost estimate? Mayor: We won’t until we go out for public bid. This is a bid because it is going to exceed; we have an Engineer’s estimate of . . . it will be less than $1 million because 9  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mayor (Cont’d.) we in there for asbestos. We think there is very, very little asbestos inside that building and so that portion may be removed. Since we received the grant for $1 million, that is what the re-appropriation is for. Mrs. Kilway: When we do adopt this ordinance and appropriate the $1 million and we have the demolition. Is it like 2 to 3 months; is it 6 months, it is a year? Dir. of Finance: This grant, and I am working with the County Land Bank on it regarding that. There is a provision that they are looking into where we may be able to apply for reimbursement. We have enough funds available to cover it. Usually, I would say 60 days max. Mr. Sisak: Alright, so we will give that a 1st Reading. Mr. Bozic: I have a question for the Mayor. Is there a vendor through any of the open government sources of collective bargaining or contracts that we can use through the State that we won’t have to put it out to public bid. State Purchasing; that’s it. Thank you. Mayor: No, there is not. It has to be a public bid. There are like three firms that are certified through the State that do the demo and I would think all three firms would apply or pull the application. E. Ord. 2023-42 – Declaring certain City-owned vehicles, personal property and equipment to be excess/obsolete and authorizing the Director of Public Service to sell such equipment at public sale or auction and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar. Mr. Sisak: Moving on, we have Ord. 2023-42. The ordinance was read into the record. Dir. of Pub. Service: Council, this is the one that I would like to . . . Mr. Sisak: So, can I have a motion please. Mr. Bozic: So moved. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Mrs. Kilway: I just had a question. Looking through the itemization list; it says there are tornado sirens and control boxes. Can we use those at all? Dir. of Pub. Service: No. Mrs. Kilway: Not at all? Dir. of Pub. Service: We took them down. Mrs. Kilway: What about . . . they are junk? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yeah. Adam Bozic: Under the office equipment section, that includes all of those cubicles and basically anything that was left in there from our walkthrough; correct? Dir. of Pub. Service: Correct. Roll Call: Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman – unanimous. Ord. 2023-42 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. Is there anything else to come before Finance? Hearing none, I will 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. Bozic: I call the Personnel Committee to order. We have no legislation in front of us so I will open it up to Council and the Administration. Hearing none . . . I do have one question. I know we were talking briefly about what kind of plans we have for our 10  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mr. Bozic (Cont’d.) Police Department as far as retention or recruitment type thing. Do we have anything in the works currently? Mayor: I know Dr. Cooper has been working on the job posting and that is I think ready to go out. He is not here tonight but I will let him know. Mr. Bozic: Hearing no other input, I will close Personnel 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. i. Second Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions A. Ord. 2023-35 – An emergency ordinance to accept the New National Opioid Settlements: Teva, Allergan, CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kline & Dir. of Law Raber Mrs. Gutman: I call the Community Issues Committee to order. We have at 2nd Reading Ord. 2023-35. The ordinance was read into the record. Are we keeping this at 2nd Reading? Dir. of Law: No, we actually have a deadline in early April to respond to and so because of the recess of Council I would ask for 2nd Reading adoption this evening. I had provided an attorney/client memorandum with regard to it. Mrs. Gutman: OK, in that case, can I have a motion? Mr. Loughry: I move to adopt. Seconded Mr. Bozic. Roll Call: Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic – unanimous. Ord. 2023-35 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. We have nothing further for Community Issues. Hearing none, I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. e. Safety Adam Bozic, Chair Craig Sisak, Vice Chair The Safety Committee deals with disaster services, communications, fire, and paramedics, police, and health. i. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Res. 2023-4 – Urging the legislative branches of the Federal Government as well as the State of Ohio to enact legislation to further protect the citizens of the City of Tallmadge, Ohio from the inherent dangers of a train derailment on the tracks located within or near our City and declaring an emergency. Mr. Bozic: I call the Safety Committee to order. We have Res. 2023-4. The resolution was read into the record. Dir. of Law: So, I have lived here almost my entire life and I had to ask whether we had any active railroad tracks and we do. So, we do have them still within our City and so the Ohio Municipal League has sent this out to encourage municipalities do not have; we are pre-empted from doing much with railroads or regulating railroads in any way. It is primarily Federal and then I think the State is going to see or try to do some things potentially on their end and so I just think it is a collective effort by municipalities to try to make their voices heard after the East Palestine issue. 11  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mr. Sisak: I would move to adopt at 1st Reading. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Pres. of Council: I would just ask; there is nothing in the ordinance; I am asking, that you think might be beneficial for us holding this so we can get further comment maybe from some residents or the public or are we safe to just adopt this this evening? Dir. of Law: You are welcome to. I mean there is really not a definitive timeline on this. You are welcome to hold it over. I don’t know if anybody would have any comments, but it would be fine to on this one. It is not like a tight deadline or anything. Pres. of Council: I am alright with adopting. It is a good thing. I just didn’t want to you know this is a hot topic right now and I didn’t want to make it look like we were rushing to do something and then someone have something to say at our next meeting. That’s all. Mr. Sisak: I don’t think the conversation will end here. Mr. Bozic: I agree. I actually was going to have a question about that. I know we may not have much restrictions that we can put on the railroads but specifically at Eastwood where the track crosses; I don’t believe we have any crossing gates that come down at those location and it is a bit of a hill if you are coming from east to west so I didn’t know if that is something that is City enforced if we can require that or can we ask why we don’t have one there. Who do we go through to find out something like that? Mayor: It is Federal. I mean we could put the request in, and I think we can actually offer to pay for it. I think they did that down on Southeast Avenue if I recall and I am dating myself on that crossing. It’s been a while. Dir. of Law: I know that I have only handled one exemption and it was the whole process to go through that and that is necessary to have signs be able to be posted that say it is a railroad exempt and school busses don’t have to stop. We did that out on Middlebury and so it is a whole process that we can look into that. If we think . . . Mr. Bozic: I think it is worthwhile looking into it at least. It may be determining whether or not we have had near misses or incidents in that area. I know back in my day during high school, that was the railroad track that everyone tried to launch off of when they would come speeding down Eastwood. It is a bit of a little ramp there. I never participated in that, but I know of people. I think that might be something that if we could find out if there have been accidents in that area and near misses. Mayor: I will get a report for you at that intersection. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman – unanimous. Res. 2023-4 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. There is currently no other legislation in front of us. Do I have any other input from Council or the Administration? Hearing none, I will close the Safety Committee. i. Additional Items: None. 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. Mrs. Allman: I call the Public Service Committee to order. We have no legislation before us this evening. Mr. Bozic: We are all aware of the increase in the water bills and I have heard from a couple of citizens just in passing and in general conversation about the increase being fairly significant. What can we do as a City to help maybe mitigate that cost? Is there a program that we can put out there that talks about water conservation and different 12  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. March 9, 2023 Mr. Bozic (Cont’d.) things like that just as a reminder to our citizens that here are some tips and hints on how you can lower your water bill? Dir. of Pub. Service: We can look at that, but keep in mind that that is the sanitary part of it. The water part of the bill was not the issue; it’s the treatment of that water and the City has been doing a lot of work with Daryl Stineman, the Utility Superintendent, was in here I think probably three or four months ago, and it is everything that goes through the water that they have to treat and the gallons of water that they have to treat and we have done a really good job at reducing a lot of that ourselves, but there again in the homes and at the businesses they have to watch what they are doing. You know, the grease going down the drain and the oddity of the odd; you know only toilet paper should be going down your drain, but it is all the weird substances that they throw down there. We can put something out there for sure, but it is really what you put down your drain. That is how we get billed so heavy; it is that treatment of the sanitary and not the water itself. Mrs. Allman: Is there anything else for the Public Service Committee? Hearing none, I close committee. i. Additional Items: None. 11. Reports of Special Committees: a. Council Operations Committee i. Additional Items: Pres. of Council: So today, I worked with both Mrs. Burton and Mrs. Conti, and we finalized their job descriptions and got them to Mrs. Stritch. 12. Announcements: Pres. of Council: Superintendent Wood told Rotary this morning that the cell tower on the school property by the football stadium will be installed by the end of March and hoping to be operational by late summer with at least one carrier but anticipated that there will be several carriers. Is there anything else? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion to go into Executive Session for the purpose of discussing pending court action and sale of property. Mr. Sisak: So moved. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. The motion to go into Executive Session passed by a vote of 6-0. The time is 8:05 p.m. For those in the audience, we will not take any action after we come back other than to adjourn. That is the same for you that are live streaming. Pres. of Council: It is now 8:40 p.m. and we are back from Executive Session. Can I have a motion to adjourn? 13. Adjournment: Mr. Bozic moved to adjourn. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Roll Call: Mr. Sisak, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry – unanimous. The Council meeting for 3-9-23 adjourned at 8:41 p.m. sb Adopted: _______________________________ ___________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Dennis K. Loughry, President of Council 13