City Council Regular Meeting

COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 1. Call to Order: President of Council Loughry called the Council meeting of Thursday, July 27, 2023, to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. Opening Prayer & Pledge of Allegiance: Prayer: Rev. Andy Alberts, Tallmadge Lutheran Church, Tallmadge. Pledge of Allegiance: 3. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – present. Mrs. Allman was excused. 3.A. a. Safety Adam Bozic, Chair Craig Sisak, Vice Chair The Safety Committee deals with disaster services, communications, fire, and paramedics, police, and health. • Presentation of Proclamations to former Police Chief, Ron Williams and Officer Jon Wright Pres. of Council: To let us do the proclamations and then to also allow these folks to get back to their lives on this beautiful sunny day, we would like to amend our Agenda and that requires a motion and a second and a vote. Can I have a motion to move the Safety Committee up please. Mr. Sisak: So moved. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak – unanimous. Our agenda is amended and so we will recognize Mr. Bozic in the Safety Committee. Mr. Bozic: I will open the Safety Committee by reading the first proclamation to Officer Jon Wright. So, I will go ahead and read a little bit about Officer Jon Wright. The proclamation was read into the record. Officer Wright: I will take a second to say that it has been an honor and a privilege to serve the community of Tallmadge. A lot of that time was spent during hours when most of you were asleep. It was still a pleasure, and it was something that I have always enjoyed it and hope to continue and to enjoy in other capacities as well. Thank you. Mr. Bozic: Our second proclamation will be given to Chief Ron Williams. The proclamation was read into the record. Ron Williams: This is great. I really appreciate it; I really didn’t expect this. All I want to say is thanks for the opportunity since 1989. It has been an honor to serve the community. I would do it again and just thanks. Mr. Bozic: Thank you. So, hearing no other information on our committee. Mayor: On behalf of the City of Tallmadge, Chief Williams and Jon Wright thank you for your dedicated service to the City of Tallmadge. It has been an honor and privilege to work for you, under you and you have done a great job for the City and the City is very proud. Citizens of the City are very happy and congratulate both of you on your retirement. Good luck to you in the future and whatever we can do for you, please let us know. Thank you. Mr. Bozic: Anything else for the Safety Committee. Hearing none, I will go ahead and close committee. i. Additional Items: None. 4. Correcting and Adopting the Previous Meeting Minutes: 7-13-23 Minutes Mrs. Kilway: I move to adopt the minutes from the 7-13-23 Council meeting. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Mr. Bollas: Just one small correction on page 3 when I asked about the State Championship signage updates. Mr. Rorar you had replied that that was going to be on your list of to-dos, but the response is missing from the text; that’s all. Thank you. Pres. of Council: So, we can amend those minutes. So, we have an amendment. So, can I have a motion to amend? So moved. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Roll Call: Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, 1  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. I believe we need a second motion to adopt the amended minutes. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of the amended minutes. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic – unanimous. The 7-13-23 Council meeting minutes are adopted as amended. 5. Financial Reports: None. 6. Public Hearings: None. 7. Community Input: Pres. of Council: This is the point in the meeting where anyone from the community can address Council for up to 2 minutes for anything that is not on the agenda this evening. So, is there anyone in the audience that would like to do that. We will move on to Item 8. 8. Agenda Additions: • Presentation of Certificate of Appreciation to Dr. Michael Andrews & Staff Mrs. Kilway: Presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Dr. Michael Andrews & his staff and his family from Tallmadge Veterinary Hospital. He is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. She went on explaining the good work he has done for the residents of Tallmadge and presented him with the Certificate of Appreciation. 9. Reports of Administrative Officers: a. Mayor/Director of Economic Development: I will be short. It is with sadness that I announce that Dr. Cooper has decided to retire from the City of Tallmadge after 7 years of dedication to the City of Tallmadge. I convinced him to stay on until after the Circle Fest so his last day of service will be August 19th. Don, I appreciate all that you have done for the City of Tallmadge and I truly believe that the City of Tallmadge is so much better off safety-wise and all of the safety programs that Don has put together and has done an excellent job and I truly want to publicly thank you for all of your dedicated service to the City of Tallmadge and I am happy for you. I know you are going to go on and work with your family and I appreciate that, and I think that is a great job that you are willing to retire from the City of Tallmadge to take care of your family. Don, thank you for all of your service to the City of Tallmadge. End of report. b. Dir. of Admin. /Director of Safety That’s a hard one to follow up on. A couple of things. You are probably aware that the Summit County Fair is underway, and the Public Safety Services in Tallmadge are serving there very well. So, EMS, first aid stations and safety planning has been done by the Fire Department and traffic management is being done by the Police Department. Please thank those officers and firefighters when you see them at the Fair. It is a hot one and if you could pass out a bottle of water as you pass by that also would be very much appreciated. Tomorrow is supposed to be a really hot day with a high heat index so you are probably aware that Jessica Simons and Mike Rorar and the Parks and Rec Department have established the Rec Center as a cooling center for anyone in the City who might need it tomorrow during the normal business hours. So, anyone can essentially walk in during regular business hours and there is a nice way for them to sign in and they will get an armband and then they will be able to use the front lobby and the concession area. Unless we get too many people it might overflow into some other parts, but they won’t be permitted to use the rest of the facilities unless they have a pass. So, I just wanted to mention to you that that is going to be posted tomorrow morning on the City’s website as well as the Rec Center’s website and I very much appreciate Mike and Jessica’s leadership on that issue. Just a follow-up congratulations to our two long-serving, Jon Wright and Ron Williams. Thank you for the proclamation. That was a great idea in a combined 61 years of 2  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Dir. of Admin. /Dir. of Safety (Cont’d.) service to the City of Tallmadge. That is worth our acknowledgement and respect. That is greatly appreciated. That’s all I have right now. Thank you very much. End of report. Mr. Bozic: I just had a couple of follow-up questions related to, I believe at the last meeting that we are still in the process for looking for new Police Officers and I was wondering if you could provide an update on that? Dir. of Admin./Dir. of Safety: We are in the final part of the process and finishing up background checks and doing the final step before an offer is made by the City and an interview with the Police Chief. We just had a person who signed up for that and met with the Police Chief and the person took a job at the City of Kent. So, he cancelled that last meeting with the Chief. So, my guess, I just heard yesterday I believe that the estimate in the next month or two we will be making an offer to two officers. Mr. Bozic: The other question I had was related to the Comp Study. Dir. of Finance: The Comp Study. So, we are actually . . . we just kind of finalized some information and we wanted to make a comprehensive information sheet for the Department Heads and we just finalized that today and our intention is that next week and the following weeks to get those meetings with the Department Heads scheduled as soon as possible and get their feedback and then bring that back. Mr. Bozic: OK. Thank you. And then my other question was kind of going back to the Police Department and Fire Department related to the need of Police Officers; do we have kind of an overview of what our overtime hours are for our current officers and has that equated to maybe needing more officers than we anticipated? Dir. of Finance: The overtime right now is just kind of filling shifts. I don’t think we are anticipating that . . . I think that when we hired the two new officers that overtime would then back off. I don’t think we are not in a position at least on the Police side, that the overtime is indicating that we need to increase staffing. In the Fire Department we continue to monitor the overtime. We have increased the part-time staffing a little bit higher recently, but we do monitor the Fire a little closely. If you want figures, I can compile some information about what kind of overtime we have been seeing and unusual spikes if we have been having any. I can kind of give you a monthly report of what kind of overtime we see in those departments. Mr. Bozic: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that you know you said in a month or two we may have an offer and it seems like we missed the opportunity maybe for this current one because he went somewhere else, but if we are a month or two away and we are kind of seeing overtime hours now, that may indicate that we are already behind the curve so anything we can do to speed up the process, I don’t know what can be done, but I think anything we can do would be greatly appreciated. Mayor: I do believe that Chief Bohon, that he is now in place, that his number one priority is to work on personnel. We do have a list of personnel. Captain McGhee and Captain Eichler, their number one priority is to finalize that list, give it to Chief Bohon so we can make those tentative hires. Unfortunately, the guy on our list decided to go to Kent. That is just the way it goes. We really want to hire Police Officers. Mr. Bozic: That concludes my questions. c. Dir. of Public Service: I want to report on the Summer Camp. I think all of them are doing the water events tomorrow. They are at the pool; they are at the splash pad, and I think they are even doing something with hoses over at the park and then we have access to those kids at the Lions Hall. The Lions Hall is air conditioned. So, if anybody needs to get in, we can get them in there. That will be the end of my report. Mr. Bozic: I have a couple of questions for Mr. Rorar. At the last meeting or it might 3  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mr. Bozic (Cont’d.) have been the one before, we were talking about the pool pump at Maca and you guys were going to look into what that cost would be for a replacement and/or having one on essentially standby or rebuild quickly. I was curious if you got that figured out. Dir. of Public Service: We looked at that and we figured that we have the main pump a backup for it, but there are like 5 different pumps there so you would have to have 5 different pumps and that just doesn’t make a lot of sense to have anything on standby so we do have a backup for the main pool and the rest of them are the features and the slides. Mr. Bozic: But the crucial one and the main one . . . Dir. of Public Service: We have a backup for it. Mr. Bozic: My other question was related to if we were in the midst of doing conduit run for fiber and I had asked a question about the cost to actually run the fiber in that conduit. Mayor: So, the conduit has been installed from Fire Station 1 all the way to the Joint Dispatch Center to Overdale, Kent Drive, Alandale, Howe Road to the Joint Dispatch Center. The secondary conduit is our conduit, the City of Tallmadge, so we can get fiber between Fire Station 1 and the goal is to Kent Drive Park. It is $4 a foot and we did install a fiber between Fire Station 1, Tallmadge Police Department and so they did backfill a fiber from Fire Station 1 and then a fiber from Fire Station 1 to the Joint Dispatch Center past Kent Drive Park so the only connection that we need to do now is between Kent Drive into Lions Park which would then allow us to have Wi Fi in our camera system and so we are working on that detail right now. Mr. Bozic: That would be great. Dir. of Law: If I could add that we did confirm that there was no cost benefit savings for us doing it at the same time because the labor costs were going to be added on again and so . . . because we did look at that and if that had been the case, we may have come back sooner, but there was no cost benefit savings to it by doing it at the same time. We didn’t understand why, but we asked him and that was the answer we got. Mr. Bozic: I believe I saw something on Facebook potentially that said that the Lions Park bathrooms maybe were vandalized again? Dir. of Public Service: Incorrect. We were doing downspout repair at that location. So, whoever reported that must have thought something happened. Mayor: Keep in mind, we do have a camera at Lions Park. It is just not Wi Fi connected, but we do have a camera at Lions Park and anybody vandalizing Lions Park, you are on video camera. d. Director of Finance: Good evening. At the request of Councilperson Loughry, I have brought my Annual Community Report. This is for 2022. This is just a small report that I put together for our community businesses, different people who don’t want to take the time to go through a 200 page financial report and gives them kind of a glimpse into the finances of the City and so I am just going to briefly go through it. I have been doing this since 2016 and it would have been for fiscal year 2015. So, there are 6 of these available. They are all on our website. If anyone would like to see a historical report and just briefly this is just an overview for somebody to read. It just lists some different awards, and it shows that we do submit this report to the Government Finance Association of the United States and Canada for review. They do have an award program if you meet all the criteria for reporting and transparency and those kinds of things, they issue you an award for that and so we have received that now for every report we have done, so for 7 years, 7 reports now that we have been able to receive that. 4  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Dir. of Finance (Cont’d.) We give the resident a brief overview of City Government, let them know who we are and who we need to contact. Then by page 3 we get into the finances. Here initially we let the residents know where are we getting the funds to operate our City. Where do those come from? Top, number one as we all know is our income tax. That is our primary source of revenue. We have 2 levies, and you will see we have had really good steady growth on that. This is 10 years’ worth of history for that. You will see starting in 2020 there are two lines because we established the extra ¼% for the Safety Income Tax and so I made sure I separated those out for residents to see what we are reflecting on General Revenues and then what kind of revenue that we are collecting that is exclusively for safety forces. We had a little dip here and obviously that was the Covid year, and I am happy to see that we have been able to recover. I think that is a good indicator of the strength of our businesses in the community and how they weathered through that and just a good work force that we have business wise. Secondarily, I show down here to the residents our property tax revenue. That is also another primary source of revenue especially because our Fire Department is partially funded by the Fire and EMS Levy Fund to point out, we received on a $100,000 home, the City receives $169 of the $2,188 that the taxpayer pays. So, this is just to show the taxpayer how the City is using their property tax money and then over here based on a dollar, where their other dollars are going. So, you can see that 70% of the property taxes we pay here in Tallmadge go to the school district, which is the case in most places because in the State of Ohio that is how our school districts are funded. There is some that goes to the County, the libraries and so we get about 7¢ on every dollar that is spent. The third kind of major source of revenue that we have is our charges for services on our utility systems. Obviously, our Water and Sewer Departments and our major operating funds within themselves and they are a major source of revenue. Then also included in our charges for services, we do have charges we would have at the Recreation Center for Maca. So, those are things that we charge the resident to do, and they pay us for that service. You will see down here is a 3-year history of where our revenues fall as you can still see down here, our primary source of revenues is income tax, charges for services mostly relating to water and sewer charges and then these other smaller areas. Then I proceed to go into how our government funds are used. Again, there is a 3-year history for every category of expenditure. You have General Government which is just basically the general operations. You are talking about the Finance Director, the Administration of Government; the Mayor, Council, and all of those administrative functions of the City. We have Police, Fire, which are our second and third and of course, you can see over here the big, huge one is utilities. So, that is why utility expenses are high and that is why you see utility revenues are also high as a result of that and as we discussed, you know, part of that is that charges are being received from Akron and Summit County for our sewer bills. This third page is a little bit technical, but I still provide it because some people might find it interesting and this is based off of basically the balance sheet and then that position of the City and it breaks out our net position into assets, liabilities, and then our net position or our money that we have available for other things. Pres. of Council: This is the page that prompted the request from this presentation. Dir. of Finance: So, our assets are basically things that we own, possessions that is cash, money that is receivable to us and all of our capital assets so all of our buildings, etc. Overall assets are the things that the City owns and possesses. Liabilities; we have 5  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Dir. of Finance (Cont’d.) current liabilities, long-term liabilities which would be our debt or leases, long-term items that we would owe to employees for compensated absences and those kinds of things and again, ignore these ones because they are weird and complicated. So, basically liabilities are the things we owe. Then our net position is basically when we take the liabilities away from the assets; do we have a positive number or a negative number and obviously we want to have a positive number. This is broken down into three categories. The first one is our Net Investment in Capital Assets. So that would be all of our assets, our buildings and equipment and things minus the debt that we owe on them and minus the depreciation that we have. Then we have some assets that are restricted. Those assets mean those are monies that we have that have a restricted use. Like our Fire & EMS Levy and those things. Then we have unrestricted assets and those are basically dollars that the City has available to use however we intend. A big factor that affects these that also affects the deferred inflows and outflows of resources and so you are saying like, why is this $1 million and then we go to $8 million and then we go to $10 million. Part of that has to do with liabilities that we have to carry for pension obligations of our employees through the State Pension System. We are required to report liabilities of the State Pension System on our books as they may become a liability of ours if the pension system would increase the amount of funding we would have to provide. Not likely, but we still report them and there has been some fluctuation and changes made at the pension systems that allowed us to have less liabilities on our books so that is why you are seeing over the past 2 years that net unrestricted grow so immensely. So that is basically the meat of it. This just kind of talks about all of those things in that report that I just mentioned. This here is where they actually talk about the retirement system. This is just my verbiage of that that I just tried to explain it in layman’s terms. On the rest of the report, we just highlighted some different things that happened in the City this year for people to see to identify what is going on around town and then kind of the last page just kind of gives some fun facts for the residents to see you know statistics; who are our top employers, what are our school districts and those kind of things. So hopefully something that our residents can kind of look through and see . . . we did do a Facebook post putting this out. I asked the Rec Center to put this out in their newsletter that they put out to everybody that is on their list so that not only residents but other people who are using our facilities might see what is going on in Tallmadge and it is on our website. Right now, there is a post on the front of the webpage, and it is also on my Annual Financial Reports page on the Finance Department page. If any residents would like me to print a copy for them and send it to them, ii would be glad to do that. They would just need to contact my office. I will be glad to answer any questions anyone would have on the report. Pres. of Council: When we get awarded for the report, number one I noticed they changed the name over the years; it used to be CAFR and now it goes by another name. Dir. of Finance: So, this is different. There are two reports that I do each year. One is not called a CAFR anymore, it is called an Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. It was discovered that that abbreviation was actually a derogatory word in other countries and so they stopped the use of it. It’s very hard for me to think about not saying that. So that is the big report that is 180+ pages long. This is called a Popular Annual Financial Report and it is called Popular because it is supposed to be popular for you to put out to the population of your city. Something that they can actually briefly look at and get an overview. So, both of those reports are submitted, and both are reviewed separately. 6  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Pres. of Council: My question is when those organizations, when that organization looks at us, are they just looking at the detail of the way we operate or are they also looking at those balances; the assets, the liabilities and they are saying that your City is in fine shape. Dir. of Finance: No, what those are . . . they are actually doing is just . . . they are awarding us based on the information that we are giving in the report. They are not making judgements about our financial stability, so they are saying you are presenting information in your financial report that is transparent and gives the appropriate people the information that they need. It has been audited; it is accurate, and you are providing them with information that you need to provide so the people that do need the financial information are getting the information that they need. The same thing, they are making sure there are criteria about how you are distributing it, what information you are providing, is it readable and those kinds of things. Pres. of Council: So, our bond rating is based on the information. Dir. of Finance: Correct and investors use the big report to make sure because obviously after we sell our debt then it is traded on the open market and so those reports are very important to those kind of people, but yes, if we had a bond rating and the bond rating agencies look that we are doing these kinds of things and it helps because it tells them that we are being conscientious about our financial reporting. Pres. of Council: Anybody else? Mrs. Kilway: I would just like to say thank you very much for everything that you put together. Even this popular document is still a huge amount of information that is given out and you have done it in such a way that the average Joe can understand it and people do not realize how lucky we are to have you Mollie as our Dir. of Finance. So, thank you very much for what you do and for the way you present everything, and you do your I’s and cross your t’s; I love it. Thank you. Mayor: On behalf of the City of Tallmadge, I would like to thank Mollie and her team for doing such a fabulous job for the City of Tallmadge. She is so on top of our City finances and we are very fortunate to have Mollie Gilbride and her team running the City of Tallmadge. So, thank you Mollie for everything you do. Mr. Sisak: (Microphone not turned on) Dir. of Finance: We have $484,475.12. Pres. of Council: Anything else for Mrs. Gilbride? No one responded. e. Director of Law: Thank you. I too just want to give my thanks to both Officer Wright and to Chief Williams. I had the opportunity to work with them for almost 20 years and it has been a pleasure and honor to serve with them. So, thank you to them for their committed service. I also wanted to just report that we are moving along with our recodification. It is a long process because I reported to you all earlier that we are not anticipating that we are going to have anything to come before you until summer of 2024, but that process is underway and they are working on that. I am excited. I think when it is done, it will help clean up some of the obsolete provisions and it will help reconcile some of the things that are duplicative or unclear and it will also just consolidate it into a format that will be more user friendly and more searchable and easier for people to access and so that is always a good thing. Thank you. End of report. Mr. Sisak: (Microphone not turned on) Dir. of Law: It is external and we are going to be moving it to basically the host; we will change the host and you will be linked to who we use for our website and so it will be all connected and so you will be able to type in a search term and actually search our ordinances instead of having to go to a different host page to do that separately. 7  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 10. Reports of Standing Committees of Council of the Whole: b. 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. Mrs. Kilway: I would like to call Planning & Zoning to order. We have no ordinances or legislation before us this evening. Is there anything from Council? Anything from the Administration? Mayor: Just to let you know that the Planning & Zoning Commission did not receive any applications for August, but we do anticipate September will be very busy. i. Additional Items: None. c. Finance Craig Sisak, Chair Jonathon Bollas, Vice Chair The Finance Committee deals with budget, appropriations, reappropriations, bonds, franchises, investments, and expenditures. i. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2023-68 – Appropriating additional funds from the American Rescue Plan Act for Howe Road Park Improvements; reducing appropriations in the General Fund that had been allocated to Howe Rd. Park; and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Sisak: I would like to call Finance to order. We have 1 st Reading of Ordinances and Resolutions. We have Ord. 2023-68. The ordinance was read into the record. Clarifying question for Mrs. Gilbride. That $484 number you gave us; is that with or without these reappropriations? Dir. of Finance: That is without that. So, once you take that out, it would be lower. Mayor: Mr. Chair, I think the Service Director has some items for you. Dir. of Public Service: So, I am requesting additional funds for the Howe Road Park Phase II. The original cost estimate came in at $1,600,000 and we were able to remove parking lots, a drive, but we kept the shelter at the front at the entrance there because the reason why we are putting in a new shelter is that the old shelter is going to be part of the dog park and so it won’t be used for family gatherings or anything and then the new restroom which is to the left; that will be new and will be updated and will be very nice and then the dog park itself which is the yellow figure 8 looking section there. So, what was removed from that $1,600,000 were these back parking lots and the playground unit and there was a trail and some other stuff that we took out of it and that is what brought us down to the $1,000,000 and we had $757,000 that you guys allocated towards this project and then it will probably cost $300,000+ to finish this up. Dir. of Finance: The new total that would be left if this were approved would be $165,475.12. Mr. Bozic: Mr. Rorar, if you could just point out really quick in that illustration the new features and items that we are going to be giving are Howe Road are parking lots, the restroom, Dir. of Pub. Service: So here is the new entrance coming into the existing parking lot and the road that takes you back to the old ball diamond and the old tennis courts. This is the proposed new parking lot with the shelter. This is the dog park with the existing shelter and this is the new restroom unit. The old restroom unit would be down in here that we have already removed and these would be the parking lots that we chose not to pick up because that was an additional $600,000. 8  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mr. Sisak: The parking lots are they asphalt or gravel or chip-n-seal? Dir. of Public Service: This parking lot right here will be asphalt. That is the only parking lot we are expanding. Mr. Sisak: At what price? Dir. of Public Service: $88,000. Mr. Sisak: So, the other $200,000 of these dollars are for the shelter and then the family bathroom? Dir. of Public Service: Yup. Mr. Bozic: The orange square at the bottom; that is the playground? Dir. of Public Service: That was a playground; yes. It still exists but it is not part of this. Mr. Bozic: So, there is no new playground. I guess I am just confused as to what it is that we are actually getting for that amount because we are asking for more, but I don’t see where the dollars are going. Dir. of Public Service: That is the cost of everything that is out there. So, to do the restroom unit I need $433,000. To do the shelter and the parking lot I need $260,000. To do the dog park I need $193,000 so I am with you. That is the cost of doing the business we are in. Mr. Bozic: Is that . . . are we . . . the quotes that you have are those figures generated from Brandstetter Carroll? Dir. of Public Service: Correct. Mr. Bozic: So those aren’t technically the true numbers because they are not going out and seeking bids for those. Dir. of Public Service: Those are the engineer’s numbers that they have been putting the products in for the last two years and those are the numbers they are coming back with. Dir. of Finance: So, technically when we are doing an appropriation, we would use the Engineer’s numbers to appropriate and hopefully knowing that those are a little bit high and then you would have money left. Mr. Bozic: Are we able to kind of, not necessarily, do it on our own, but go out and seek bids because $100,000+ for a dog park seems way too high. Dir. of Public Service: We checked that, and their number is right on the money. I thought it was extremely high and I solicited 3 quotes and the numbers came right back on. I was actually shocked by that. So, yes, for the last two months I have been doing just that and the numbers are coming back pretty close to what they are. Mr. Sisak: So, the initial allocation of the $757,000; what did that include? Dir. of Public Service: That included the dog park, and the restroom. Mr. Sisak: You just said the dog park needed more money. Dir. of Public Service: No, I don’t. So, the other day the dog park was $195,000 and the restroom is $433,000. Then the shelter in the parking lot up there is $260,000. There is a $93,000 contingency on that. Mayor: So, basically, I think if we do nothing tonight, we still have the authority through Council legislation to build the dog park and build the restroom. But to go forward with completing the park, you would like to add money to allow for the shelter in the parking lot. Mr. Sisak: Do we currently have a playground there? Dir. of Public Services: Yes. Mr. Sisak: Is that like others; rectangle? Dir. of Public Service: Yes. Pres. of Council: If you don’t do some parking back by the playground area, how far will people have to walk to get back there? Dir. of Public Service: Well, just like the games are played now on the ballfield; 9  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Dir. of Public Service (Cont’d.): people park on the grass and there is a small parking area right up there and then we do have the tennis courts. Pres. of Council: So, we would continue to allow people to drive back there. Dir. of Public Service: Correct. Mrs. Gutman: Mr. Rorar, you said you eliminated a trail? Dir. of Public Service: Yes. Mrs. Gutman: How much was the trail, and did it connect to any of our other trail systems? Dir. of Public Service: No, so can you see this line right here; there is a bridge and then it came down this way. That trail was $174,000 and I removed that from the plan. It is a nice feature for the park, but I don’t think it is necessary at this time. We can always go back and add that later. Mrs. Gutman: Right. Mr. Sisak: I mean it sounds like a brush hog and some grindings and I mean . . . I am just picturing some of the stuff that could potentially done internally. Dir. of Public Service: We have done that so the demolition of the old restroom we proposed to do that in-house. We took that out. The demolition on the concrete, we decided to do that in-house. The soffit: we decided to do that in-house. There were things on the original list when it was $1,600,000 and we got $600,000 off. Mr. Sisak: I am not sold on spending however much money on a parking lot. I mean we need it, but could it be gravel or cinders or something like that initially. Does it take away from the park itself and the usage and people enjoying it; I don’t know. Any other questions? Mr. Bozic: Yeah, I mean I just . . . going back to the restroom at $400 some thousand I mean, you build a house for cheaper than that and so I don’t understand how the price is still where that is, but I mean that seems pretty high. I’m sure you have done all of the work, but when you hear that number and then you have some shock value there and that seems a little too much and I know because I used to work at the Rec Center and I went through the Parks Master Plan and I remember all of the cool features we were going to have at Howe Rd. Park and it was going to be just as nice as Lions Park and we have slowly kind of pulled it back because of cost, not because we just said no, but because of cost and it just seems like that park is no longer going to be kind of right up there as Lions. We are just giving it kind of a quick update that is worth $1 million. Dir. of Public Service: I don’t think it is a quick update at all. I think that restroom is needed. That restroom that is there now is pretty outdated; pretty rough. Almost embarrassing. This restroom will be just as nice as the one at Lions and so I think that update will be nice. Gravel parking lots; yeah can do them but the problem with those is what ends up happening there is those will get turfed by every kid that drives through there because it is fun to do doughnuts in gravel. So those are things that you have to think about. That is a little bit tucked away. So, yeah, it is the price. I get it. No one likes it. I don’t like it, but it is what it is. So, if you want a nicer park, put that nicer restroom in there. I mean that is the price of doing that business right now. It stinks but it is what it is. Mr. Bozic: Is part of that price tag due to the location of it and where you have to get connected to the sewer? Dir. of Public Service: We actually moved it closer. Mr. Bollas: Just a few thoughts. Wholistically, we haven’t yet gone through the ARPA Round 2 submissions for how to use the remaining funds balance. Are there components of this proposal that can be included in a new submission that are more urgent versus some that could be budgeted for in the following year? 10  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Dir. of Public Service: Absolutely, there is always that case. So, at the end of the day what you end up losing is the shelter and a parking lot for that. So, the dog park as the Mayor stated in the beginning that is $700,000 and it should cover the dog park and the new restroom. Mayor: The number one priority at Howe Road Park should be the restroom facility. That is, and I am sure most of you have been out there to see this thing. It is deplorable that we as the City of Tallmadge allow a restroom to be operational at Howe Road Park the way it is today. So, if we can reduce it or whatever, modify the funds, but we have to build a new restroom facility at Howe Road Park. Pres. of Council: I am just trying to think through. I do not have a dog. I have a cat and they don’t have cat parks, but we do have dog parks. So, I am trying to get my head around the number of our residents; who are going to use that the most and so I see that we are dedicating a lot of square footage to a dog park and we eliminated a trail and I just know that a lot of our residents walk on trails and maybe the thought process is that they already have enough trails to walk on and we don’t need this one right now. Then I look at the location of the bathroom and it seems like the people using the dog park are the closest to the restroom and the people at the playground and the shelter are the furthest away. But maybe we just tried to locate it where everyone had equal access. You want the T-ball field to be close to the bathroom. Dir. of Public Service: There is a reason why we did that. Mrs. Kilway: I just want to kind of reiterate that when we did the Parks Master Plan and we did the surveys and the number one thing that came back was people wanted a dog park and as I am going through the City every door that I am at, there are dogs at literally 95% of the households in Tallmadge and I am not talking just one dog. There are multiple times that 4 or 5 dogs are living in a house with the rest of the family. I keep getting repeated questions, when is the dog park going to be done. That has been the number one recurring theme over the last year and a half is when is this dog park going to be done. I know it is a lot of money, but when we committed to the Parks Master Plan we committed to bringing amenities that the majority of the residents are going to be able to take advantage of and then we are given this nice surprise with the ARPA Funds that are actually going to help us fund this instead of it coming out of our General Fund. I don’t like the extra cost as much as anybody else does. I do think that there needs to be at least a compromise to get this thing completed. Mrs. Gutman: I’ll agree with Carol on the dogs and say that when you go to the other dog parks in the area, they are busy and it certainly, I think. is something that would be used in our City as well and appreciated by our residents. So, I don’t doubt that. The numbers hurt, but it would hurt more if it was coming out of the General Fund. I am aware that the ARPA money is still taxpayers’ dollars, but like Carol said, it was just a surprise and I don’t know are we going to put that restroom in the budget down the road if we don’t do it now? Are people going to use a dog park that has a crummy restroom? So, if we are going to do this, let’s do it all the way even though it is uncomfortable, and the dollars aren’t going to get better I don’t think. So, I guess, you know I don’t like the numbers, but I think it is very valuable and we have the opportunity with this grant money, and we should take advantage of that. Mr. Bollas: One last thing to consider is that we haven’t really taken any submissions for Round 2 Projects to use this remaining balance. So, my only hesitation is more so of how to use that remaining funding and second thought I had was is there a way to chop up or break out the ARPA Funds we are using to do the bathroom and possibly the shelter and maybe piecemeal it a little bit so we can use some from the General Fund, some from ARPA and we still have an unencumbered amount that we could use for new proposals we haven’t even heard of yet. That is my own thought. Mr. Sisak: There were probably 30+ items on that original ask list for the ARPA Funds 11  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mr. Sisak (Cont’d.) and we went through and kind of the top ten bubbled to the top so to speak. So, there are still some from the first submission that could carry over to the second based on their worthiness on whether or not we move forward with them. I wouldn’t recommend adopting this at 1st Reading just based on maybe Mr. Rorar could put together a couple different scenarios and try to get us to the most comprehensive, complete with the bathroom, without the shelter, with the dog park, with the bathroom, with the paved lot, without the dog park with the shelter, you know something like that. Just so we can have, I think, a better understanding and a more holistic approach to seeing this completed. Mr. Bozic: There is actually, I think, you said that if we do allocate this money, there will be about $174,000 left from the ARPA Funds, or somewhere around there. Dir. of Finance: $165,000. Mr. Bozic: So, then Mr. Rorar, I believe you said the trail was $175,000. So, for missing the trail and that and I believe we are missing the pump track which was on the original plan when we first did the Parks Master Plan. That was in the original . . . Dir. of Public Service: I think it is still in here. So, everything colored was everything that was going to happen in Phase II. It is still there. Mr. Bozic: So, remind me, how many phases is Howe Road Park? Dir. of Public Service: It is supposed to be 3 phases total. Mr. Bozic: So, do we have a price number on Phase III? Dir. of Public Service: No, so you asked at the last meeting what was the cost estimate to do this whole park and it is $3.2 million with last year . . . keep in mind that just the paving and parking lot and this new entrance was $274,000 and so the sticker shock of what I am asking; we should be kind of used to it. It is outrageous right now to do this type of stuff. So, $3.2 million estimate to do the whole park and if you guys approve this tonight and with last year’s $274,000 out of $1.3 so we will have almost half of the park done and we are right on course with the estimate of $3.2 million. Mr. Bozic: I guess I’m not to say that we shouldn’t do it if we can’t do it all, but knowing how far it has taken us to come to this point and luckily as Ms. Gutman had said we got some of those ARPA Funds available to put towards this park, I would be concerned about our capability of doing Phase III in the future if we still owe another $2 million left over to finish up the park. Dir. of Public Service: I agree with you because you know this is only one park out of 11. We have game plans for the other 10. Mr. Bozic: Because if I recall, I believe it was like $13 million to do all the parks together if I remember the number right so there is a lot left to do throughout the City and I would just like to know how do we come up with the best plan that isn’t going to cost us $400,000 for a restroom with gold toilets. I mean . . . Dir. of Public Service: And I wish they were gold, but they are not. Mayor: I have to believe the engineer’s estimate to put that restroom in is high. I think if we were to go out to public bid, I think you will see a much better favorable price to come in. Dir. of Public Service: There again, there are no gold toilets at Lions Park. It is very similar to the Lions Park restroom. It is just where construction prices are at. Pres. of Council: If I understood or understand what we just were kicking around there, we have $165,000 left if we approve this as presented tonight. We can complete Phase II if we spend $175,000. It puts the trail back in; right? Dir. of Public Service: I need another $600,000 to do Phase II. Pres. of Council: Then never mind. Mrs. Kilway: Well, I do know that part of the ARPA Funds we went for and put street lights on Southeast Avenue and that ended coming in much less than what was originally budgeted so we could potentially use it for safety for the whole City by putting 12  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mrs. Kilway (Cont’d.) streets lights not only on Southeast; there is Southwest; there is Northeast; there is Northwest. A lot of those streets don’t have a lot of streetlights and the cars are just racing up and down and people are walking on the streets. So, I think $165,000 would go a long way to helping with the safety of the City as well. Pres. of Council: I know Mr. Sisak said that he was not in favor of adopting this at 1 st Reading, but to get things going, I would be in favor of doing it instead of just kicking the can down the road for months or so. But, again, it would require all 6 of us to agree on that or it is just going to wait 30 days or whatever anyway. So, I would make a motion to adopt this at 1st Reading. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman – unanimous. Ord. 2023-68 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. B. Ord. 2023-69 – An ordinance allowing the Mayor to apply for Federal Congestion Mitigation/Air Quality Funds Programmed by the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study (AMATS) to improve the East Avenue Corridor and declaring an emergency. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Sisak: We also have Ord. 2023-69. The ordinance was read into the record. Dir. of Public Service: So, plans are submitted, and this is to get bonus points through AMATS through the CMAQ which were the congestion litigation asphalt funds and these are due actually at the end of the month. This application is due and so that is why we are requesting this and so this is for the East Avenue Project and that is widening it to put a turn lane down and sidewalks and definitely needed because the traffic down there and part of the Washburn intersection was done and so we were anticipating this and the detailed design for this should be done in 2024. The road right-of-way will be in 2026 and these funds that we are applying for will be available in 2028 to get the project started. Mr. Sisak: Any questions for the Service Director. Mrs. Kilway: So, it is said in the ordinance that the proposed improvement for the existing roadway network is at a cost of $11,575,044. So, in 2028 we could probably expect that to be $15 million? Then we would be responsible for 20% of that? Dir. of Public Service: Those are anticipated. Mayor: It is the anticipated cost for when the project is awarded. Dir. of Finance: Just a reminder to Council that we do have the TIFF that we established on the Tallmadge Reserve that we will be collected on in tax year 2024 and that will fund our portion of that. We thought that project was going to come sooner and so now that it is 2028 at that time we would access if we need to do a bond issue or not for our portion and then pay that down as we collect the TIFF revenues, but we will have to access that at the time. But I just wanted to remind everybody that we do have a revenue source established for that. Mr. Bozic: So just to clarify and make sure I am understanding this correctly, this is for the full East Avenue Project and not just solely for sidewalks? Dir. of Public Service: Correct. It is from Munroe down to the City limits. Mr. Bozic: OK, from Munroe to the City limits . . . Mayor: That is Phase I. There are 2 phases of this project. Dir. of Public Service: This is just for Phase I. Mayor: Both phases are from Community Drive all the way out to Brimfield. This is from Munroe Road to Brimfield. Mr. Bozic: Can you provide just a quick . . . what is it that we are hoping to accomplish from Munroe to the city limit? Are we talking about installing a turning lane in the center, turning lanes on the right-hand side to go down those side streets? Just kind of a quick overview of what it is that would look like. 13  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Dir. of Public Service: So, it is a turning lane down from the center and it will be widened and there will be sidewalks. Mrs. Kilway moved for the adoption of Ord. 2023-69 at 1st Reading. Seconded Mr. Bollas. Roll Call: Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. Ord. 2023-69 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. C. Ord. 2023-71 – Authorizing the Mayor to exceed a contract with Cementech Inc. in excess of ten percent (10%) for sidewalk installation on North Munroe and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Sisak: We also have Ord. 2023-71. The ordinance was read into the record. Dir. of Public Service: Councilman, you are correct. It is on the north end right before the Roundabout and there was a grade issue there. We originally, when we submitted this, we were only going to do to Clark where the existing sidewalks were and then I think the committee said take it all the way down to the Roundabout. We didn’t know what the end result was going to be with this grade and we were going to do it as we got there. Mr. Sisak: I saw the excavating work. Are they going to be using block for like the retaining wall? Dir. of Public Service: It is actually poured now. Mr. Sisak: Like a form. Dir. of Public Service: It will be 11” high and then the sidewalk will go from that curb to the street curb. It is a 2:1 slope and they are going to make it a 3:1 slope. Mr. Sisak: I will take a motion. Mrs. Kilway moved for the adoption of Ord. 2023-71. Seconded Mr. Loughry. Mr. Bozic: So, you had mentioned that this includes a retaining wall. Does this factor in the additional costs of the extension of that sidewalk? I know that it was being paid for by the schools I believe. Dir. of Public Service: We thought it was easier if our contractor just bill the school for that additional 120’ that the school requested. Mr. Bozic: So that is not being billed to us? Dir. of Public Service: No. Roll Call: Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry – unanimous. Ord. 2023-71 is approved by a vote of 6-0. ii. Additional Items: None. Mr. Sisak: Is there anything else to come before Finance this evening? Hearing none, I will close committee. d. 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: We have nothing on the agenda tonight. Does anybody have anything for Personnel? Mayor: I just want to recognize Councilman Bollas for coming in to meet with the Administration on the Personnel Study. We did meet again after you had left and made a couple changes, but we are meeting with Department Heads starting I think Monday morning. Mr. Bollas: Thank you again for having me in and even going through the process and what was discussed just for transparency targeting the August 10th meeting to have that presentation currently again pending any changes, but that is the target of it right now. Anything else for Personnel this evening? Hearing none, I will close committee. 14  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 i. Additional Items: None. e. 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. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions A. Res. 2023-9 – A resolution opposing Ohio Issue 1 and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Councilperson Carol Kilway Mrs. Gutman: I call Community Issues to order. We have before us at 1 st Reading Res. 2023-9. The resolution was read into the record. This is sponsored by Councilperson Kilway and in that spirit I will turn it over to her for comment. Mrs. Kilway: So, I am very much opposed to Issue 1 primarily for the fact that it takes away our one person, one vote aspect. Issue I requires a 60% majority of voters to amend the Ohio Constitution. It creates a system where 40% of the voters could deny the bill by majority thereby diluting the power of the people and the integrity of the one person, one vote. It is utilizing a low turnout August special election to pose the question to the voters and this was done after . . . just a few months ago the General Assembly outlawed August elections except to certify for fiscal emergencies at the local level. At the time, Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Chief Election Officer, stated that the August Special Elections were bad news for the civic health of our state. He told lawmakers that all these special elections waste tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and allowed too few voters to make the big decisions. This isn’t how democracy is supposed to be. It was his view that the electoral integrity told him that he needed to reverse his position and in record time he did. Last November, LaRose did declare that he would oppose expanding signature gathering requirements because that would disadvantage grass roots citizen’s groups and empower special interests who have deep pockets and he was told to hire more people with clipboards and within months LaRose did flip on that pledge as well. It is ending the 10-year practice of the one person, one vote and deciding constitutional amendments by weighing no votes one and a half times more than yes votes. Part of the stipulation is is that it requires instead of collecting valid signatures on just 44 of the Counties; it is now requiring it on all 88 counties and it is almost virtually impossible for that to happen. So, if anyone has any questions, this is where I feel that we really need to show the people that this is a very bi-partisan resolution. This affects everybody. It is not just a Democrat thing. It is not just a Republican thing. It impacts everybody on how we can make changes to our Constitution. There is one more fact here. So while Ohio citizens have been very judicious with their initiative power and over the 111 years they have adopted only 19 of 71 amendments; that is 27% to advance any type of an initiative, so you know the citizens of Ohio are very astute in what they want to change in our Constitution and for the General Assembly to say that now we need 60% vote in order to change anything, I think it is just a slap in the face to the Ohio residents. So, does anyone have any questions or anything to add? Mrs. Gutman: Thank you Mrs. Kilway. I will say my peace in that I strongly support this resolution and I will take the viewpoint and why it is bad for Tallmadge residents in that in Summit County we have a set of interests that might be dramatically different 15  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mrs. Gutman (Cont’d.) from those in say a county in Amish country. If this Ohio Issue I is passed, that Amish country county could prevent any citizen initiative from seeing the ballot and so our Tallmadge residents couldn’t even vote on something they wanted to bring before voters because of something they didn’t like in Amish country. That is not democracy and that is not fair to Tallmadge residents. That is what Carol is referencing when she is saying this would require signatures in all 88 counties rather than the current 44 and we are not talking about . . . just to get it on the ballot. Our residents deserve to be able to put initiatives on the ballot. That is a right they have had for over 100 years and aside from it being a very poor use of taxpayers dollars to have this election in August as Carol mentioned, and it has been acknowledged that is my number one reason why I am strongly supporting Carol’s resolution on voting no on this. Anyone else? Mrs. Kilway: I would move to adopt Res. 2023-9. Mrs. Gutman: We have a motion; do we have a second? I can second. I will provide the second to the motion. Mr. Bozic: Point of order. Can you clarify a yes and no vote for us as to the resolution. Dir. of Law: The resolution is to . . . it is in opposition to Issue I to the resolution opposes Ohio Issue I so voting yes, in favor of the resolution, is saying that you support voting no on Issue I. Voting no on the resolution is the opposite then. Mrs. Gutman: So, a yes vote is to oppose it? Dir. of Law: A yes vote is saying that you oppose Issue I. Pres. of Council: A yes vote is saying that this Council is telling our community how they should vote. They should vote no on Issue I. A no vote is just saying possibly that you don’t agree with that position. It is not saying that you . . . it’s not saying that you support Issue I . . . Dir. of Law: You are voting on the resolution. Pres. of Council: You are voting on the resolution the way it is worded. Dir. of Law: Correct. Mr. Bozic: Thank you. Mrs. Gutman: Is there any further discussion? Mrs. Kilway: Just a little point of order. So, voting on this resolution, please think about your constituents and how you would want to represent them and what you believe that your constituents would want as you are looking at this as well. Maybe not every single part of your being would support this issue, but you are representing Tallmadge and you need to look at what Tallmadge would want on this issue and that is where I am going with this. That is just . . . I don’t want to give up my democracy and my one person one vote. Roil Call: Mr. Bollas – no, Mr. Bozic – no, Mrs. Gutman – yes, Mrs. Kilway – yes, Mr. Loughry – no, Mr. Sisak – abstain. Dir. of Law: I think pursuant to the rules you do need to express a reason for the abstention; pursuant to Council Rules. Mr. Sisak: Yeah sure. Dir. of Law: That you have to have a conflict of interest. Mr. Sisak: I don’t have a conflict of interest other than I don’t feel like I should indicate which way my constituents should vote. Dir. of Law: I don’t believe that that is a basis for the abstention. I’m sorry. Mr. Sisak: OK, then it will be a no then. Mrs. Gutman: OK. Thank you. The resolution fails by a vote of 2-4. We have no further business. Does anybody else have anything for the committee? Mr. Bozic: It is not a community issue, but it definitely fits within some community news; I just wanted to provide congratulations to our Tallmadge Little League Teams that just played in the recent State Tournaments. I also wanted to mention our Maca 16  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mr. Bozic (Cont’d.) Marlins or our Tallmadge Marlins Team who finished second for the boys and girls at the end of season championship and so we were outnumbered by quite a few swimmers, but we still held strong as the second place winners. I wanted to congratulate both teams and the coaches and all the parents and everybody involved. So, congratulations. Mrs. Gutman: Thank you. If there is nothing further, then I will close committee. 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. 2023-62 – Exhibit A – Amending Part Fifteen – Fire Prevention Code by adding Chapter 1524 Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCS); and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Safety Cooper Mrs. Gutman: I will call Public Service to order. We have before us at 2 nd Reading Ord. 2023-62 – Exhibit A. The ordinance was read into the record. I know there was some discussion about this at the last meeting. Dr. Cooper, would you like to provide any updates? Dir. of Public Safety: We invited Marshal Quick to attend in case you have any questions, but as previously stated, there are currently no rules in place regarding the installation of these devices. Although they are in the works with the State Fire Code and also the Building Code, the Residential Code, they just don’t exist yet. So, as an interim approach to take until such things are finished and applicable we wanted to use something that is being used around the region in Northeast Ohio and other communities that is not unreasonable but just brings some level of safety for not only the general public but also the firefighters who would be dealing with an emergency of one of these devices. So that is it. If you have any questions, Marshal Quick could probably address them for you. Mrs. Gutman: I actually did have a question/comment. This is regarding Part L. under the general requirements. The statement that any attendant shall be trained in the operation of the EVCS system and able to supervise and respond to emergencies. If I remember correctly, this isn’t actually like text that you all wrote. This is taken from another source. Fire Marshal Quick: Yes. Mrs. Gutman: I just feel like that is somewhat vague I guess into what supervise and respond to emergencies means and perhaps you would want to add a little more of what exactly you are expected to be trained in. Fire Marshal Quick: I look at it similar to like a gas station attendant and if they would see somebody pull away with it still connected to their car that they would be able to hit the emergency button. It is the same way as we have talked about the training for the employees. They should see something that when a car catches fire, they would know how to turn it off and then if somebody is just say nearby and some kids decided to hit the button, they would know how to actually reset it. So, it is not the same as putting fires out but more if something should happen you would hit the emergency button and call 911 and things like that. I think that is what the other cities were referring to. Mrs. Gutman: So, I would maybe just add a sentence that says according to facility 17  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mrs. Gutman (Cont’d.) written procedures, so that there is something written so that that the employee knows exactly what they are supposed to do and it is written out for them. That would be my suggestion. Mr. Bozic: So, I think we are in a very unique situation where like you guys said that there is nothing being provided from the State and/or the Building Department so I guess what is the precedence for something like this where . . . can you provide another example of a time where City government instituted its own rules, regulations prior to the County or State Fire or the State of Ohio. Mr. Sisak: It is just home-rule. Dir. of Public Safety: Not off hand. We can get that information. Mr. Bozic: I am looking for something that would be similar just to kind of wrap my head around and OK, this makes sense and we can enforce this; it is something that yes, we are looking out for the safety of the employees that are there, but we are not overreaching or creating ourselves potential liabilities I guess because we are creating regulations that we may or may not be able to enforce I guess. Fire Marshal Quick: Now, with this, we are not the only City. This actually came from the NEOFPA which is the Northeast Ohio Fireproof Association. They talked to Fire Marshal Reardon who is actually the State Fire Marshal and discussed it with him and the NEOFPA is very highly looked upon in Northeast Ohio where we actually are one of the better fire prevention departments. So, already we have Beechwood City, Willoughby City, at the present time, Tallmadge, the City of Kent, City of Ravenna; we are all pretty much doing the same thing and trying to get this ordinance passed because there is nothing in the NFPA which is the National Fire Protection Agency and it is not in the Building Code, Fire Code so there are no safety issues. Somebody could put this up and we have no way to turn it off. It is connected to the breaker, but as we know the Fire Department does not know where every breaker in every business is so, we would like more of an emergency shutoff like you would see at a gas station. If something should happen . . . that would be for anybody if they should see a Police Officer or a customer, they could just be able to hit the shutoff. It is already being done by other cities and two of the cities have passed it. Dir. of Law: Mr. Bozic, if I could just add that there are often times that municipalities will exercise their home rule authority. Under the Ohio Constitution, we are permitted to do that and as a Charter community we can set regulations. There are some areas that the State has pre-empted us from but this is not one and even within our Fire Code there are certain things like our fee structure and things like that that are in there that are specific to us and are not necessarily guided by the State. So, oil wells would be another example that has since been pre-empted but cities reacted because there weren’t State guidelines and so that is just another example. Mrs. Gutman: Any other discussion? I think if we could keep this at 2 nd Reading so you can consider my comment. Thank you for sitting through our meeting tonight. I appreciate you being here. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions B. Ord. 2023-70 – Exhibit A – Authorizing the Mayor to enter into an intergovernmental Agreement between the County of Summit and the City of Tallmadge for use of fiber optic conduit and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kline Mrs. Gutman: Then we also have Ord. 2023-70 with Exhibit A. The ordinance was read into the record. Comments from the Mayor on this? Dir. of Law: So, this is separate and apart from what we previously did with the other conduit. This is I believe the Mayor actually mentioned it in his report earlier that we have conduit available already and connectivity between the Fire Station and the Police 18  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Dir. of Law (Cont’d.) Station and that the County would like to put fiber in our existing conduit that is mutually beneficial for both parties and there is like minimal cost to us. It is essentially running the power and electric to a portion of the boxes and that’s it. We do get the ability to also have that nice redundant eventually connectivity to the PSAP, so it is mutually beneficial, and I am just asking for your approval of that. We would ask for 1st Reading adoption of this particular one because time is of the essence since this project is kind of underway. There is no cost to it. Mrs. Gutman: Could I have a motion? Pres. of Council: So moved. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Mrs. Gutman: Do we have any further discussion? Mr. Bozic: I have one clarification question on the exhibit that we were provided. Can you explain what the yellow line is and then I believe there is a blue line on there as well. Dir. of Law: That is a number that needs to be filled in. I don’t have a green line. The other yellow one I see is just a phone number. Mr. Bozic: I mean the map on the bottom of that and there are some yellow lines that run down Stadium, and it looks like it . . . Dir. of Law: That is a technical thing, and I don’t know. Mayor: (Microphone not turned on) Mrs. Gutman: Any further discussion. Roll Call: Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. Ord. 2023-70 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. C. Res. 2023-10 – Expressing support for the City of Akron, Ohio’s (THE “City’s” or “Akron’s”) proposed “Alternative” combined Sewer Overflow (“CSO”) Projects in Summit County, Ohio, which will provide a greater environmental benefit for the Cuyahoga River watershed region than the Row 11.A requirement in Akron’s long term control plan update; urging the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to reconsider its continued insistence in requiring Akron to spend in excess of $200,000,000 on largely idle water treatment technology, but instead move forward with more environmentally beneficial and cost-effective alternative projects; and declaring an emergency. Sponsor: Council and Administration Mrs. Gutman: Next, we have before us Res. 2023-10. The ordinance was read into the record. Is there any background on this? Mayor: Two thirds of the Tallmadge Sewer District from, I’ll say N. Munroe, S. Munroe flows to the City of Akron and the other side goes to D.O.E.S., Summit County. So, anything we can do to help reduce the cost for the sewer enhancement for the City of Akron will help keep the cost for the City of Tallmadge down because they are anticipating the Federal EPA raising that. I think this is beneficial to the City of Tallmadge. Mrs. Gutman: And you might not be able to speak on this but what is the EPA’s position on why are they being, I guess I would say, having continued insistence? Mayor: They would like to see zero discharge on a storm event. Akron has done tremendous work reducing that overflow coming from not only the City of Tallmadge but all of the Akron residents through the main trunk line. They put that big tunnel in the ground and any overflow, the overflow water goes into the tunnel, and they pump it out at a controlled rate. The EPA would like to see more of the combined sewers flowing into a controlled system. This is an excessive request from the EPA to the City of Akron to ultimately make it 100% protection. They have done a phenomenal job of doing this work. Mrs. Gutman: OK. Thank you. Can I have a motion to adopt? 19  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 27, 2023 Mrs. Kilway: So moved. Seconded Mr. Bollas. Roll Call: Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic – unanimous. Res. 2023-10 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. Mrs. Gutman: We have nothing further before Public Service. I will go ahead and close committee. Additional Items: None. 11. Reports of Special Committees: None. a. Council Operations Committee i. Additional Items: 12. Announcements: I would just remind Council and everybody to mark your calendars for Circle Fest and we will pick a date to get those golf carts ready to go. 13. Adjournment: Mrs. Kilway moved to adjourn. Seconded Mr. Bozic. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Bollas, Mr. Bozic, Mrs. Gutman – unanimous. The Council meeting of 7-27-23 adjourned at 8:56 p.m. sb Adopted: _______________ _______________________________ __________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Dennis K. Loughry – President of Council 20