City Council Regular Meeting

COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 1. Call to Order: Vice Pres. of Council: It is Thursday, June 27, 2024, and this is our regularly scheduled 7:00 p.m. Council meeting. 2. Opening Prayer: Rev. Ken Bulgrin, First Apostolic Church, Tallmadge. Pledge of Allegiance: 3. Roll Call: Mr. Bozic – Excused, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino – present. 4. Correcting and Adopting Previous Meeting Minutes: 6-13-24 Regular Meeting Minutes – To be provided. 5. Financial Reports: None. 6. Public Hearings: Pres. of Council: We do have a public hearing this evening for Ord. 2024-44, and I will at this time turn the meeting over to the Community Issues Chair, Mr. Ted Roy. COMMUNITY ISSUES Ted Roy, Chair Mary Gutman, 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. Third Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2024-44 – Public Hearing on 6-27-24 @ 7:05 p.m. Extending the moratorium on acceptance of any zoning application for an adult use cannabis operator and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kilway Mr. Roy: I would like to call Community Issues to order. Tonight, we have Ord. 2024-44 before us. I will read the ordinance into the record. It is 7:03 p.m. and I call the public hearing for Ord. 2024-44 to order. Dir. of Law: Mr. Roy, if I can just state that you can go ahead and read it into the record, but we will not be able to proceed with the public hearing until after 7:05 p.m. You can read the ordinance into the record, but you cannot open the public hearing until 7:05 p.m. Mr. Roy: Read the ordinance into the record. Dir. of Law: You can start things late, but you can’t start things early according to the Sunshine Laws. I would ask that when we are setting these, we might want to be setting them at 7:02 or 7:01 instead of 7:05 for the future. Sometimes they are but this particular one got set at 7:05 p.m. Mr. Roy: I will officially open up the public hearing on Ord. 2024-44 and it is 7:05 p.m. Is there anybody who would like to speak in favor of the ordinance? If so, please come to the microphone and give us your name and address. No one responded. We will move on, is there anyone who would like to speak against Ord. 2024-44? No one responded. Second time, is there anyone who would like to speak in favor of Ord. 2024-44? No one responded. Is there anyone who would like to speak against Ord. 2024-44? No one responded. Third and final time, is there anyone who would like to speak in favor of or against Ord. 2024-44? No one responded. It is now 7:07 p.m. and I will close the public hearing and call the Community Issues Committee to order. Are there any comments? Dir. of Law: Mr. Roy, if I may, I would just like to ask Council that what is in front of you tonight is to continue the moratorium but we do need to have a direction and some guidance as to which way Council would like us to proceed as far as drafting the ordinance or resolution ultimately in favor of zoning for distributors, cultivators, processors, or not in favor of that. What I am not looking for tonight is you are not voting on that issue, but just kind of giving me a direction. I did have a conversation earlier with a couple Council people who kind of indicated that they thought it might be appropriate for us to draft something that would allow them in the zoning code. Is that agreeable generally with everybody to move forward in that manner? 1  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Mr. Pavlik: I would recommend that we do. Mr. Rubino: Yes. Dir. of Law: Then along with that I would be amending . . . I would be preparing documents that would be also probably removing the prohibition on the medical marijuana just because those seemed to be tied together if you are going to potentially permit the recreational, I think I will draft the necessary things to also permit the medical and then we really also need to come up with where we would like those to be located so thinking through the zoning code and where we want that. So, are there any particular members that would be interested in meeting with the Administration as we are looking at drafting that? Pres. of Council: I only need 3. Mrs. Gutman: As this is a zoning issue, I feel it would be appropriate for me to be involved. Mr. Pavlik: I would for Economic Development. Mr. Roy: I would like to. Dir. of Law: OK. That sounds good. Is that agreeable with everybody and if somebody else wants to have input, you are welcome to meet with me too. I just obviously I don’t want to have more than a quorum of Council people present at any given meeting. Everyone is invited to provide input and feedback to me as well. Mrs. Epstein: I know we spoke a little bit about it earlier today, but I would be supportive of updating the zoning code. I did attend that webinar that you had invited us to see what has been going on in the past 6 months to set this all up. That does seem to be underway, and people are applying for licenses now. I would be supportive of that. I think if we extend the moratorium now, we could miss out on opportunities that are taking place over the next 6 months. Can you talk a little bit about the tax benefits that we would be getting? Dir. of Law: There are some excise tax benefits that go along with having a distributor in the community. There were some changes that were at the State legislature. I think I heard a news story earlier today that they didn’t think that was going to be through before the end of the summer and so I don’t know if that is going to be picked up again in the fall to change the percentage or the amount that might come to municipalities as a result of that excise tax. So, there is that benefit and then any income tax which would be our primary form of income for our municipality would be the same as any other entity. We get taxed the same. The moratorium, I would highly recommend because we don’t have anything in place right now and until we have regulations and places as to where we want these, we need to flush that out. I don’t know that we don’t want them popping up in residential districts for example and so I highly recommend the moratorium until we have an opportunity to actually put in our code where we want these facilities to be located. Mrs. Epstein: Is that a possibility because it is a retail dispensary, and any other kind of shop wouldn’t be in a residential district right now with our current zoning code? Dir. of Law: That’s true and I would assume that we would just treat it as retail, but again, do we want this to be in every single commercial use or do we want to have it in certain areas like certain overlay districts instead and that sort of thing. So, does anybody have any thoughts on that? Mrs. Gutman: I guess my thought, along with Jessica, I’m afraid that we are going to lose an opportunity with a 6-month moratorium, but could we compromise with a shorter moratorium of 2 to 3 months to give us time to get the legislation we need drafted? Dir. of Law: So, again that is a maximum and what my envision is and what I had said even when this first got introduced is that I am hoping that we can be working towards implementing something sooner than that and so I would like to see us progressing towards the actual legislation much quicker than that so just because it says 6 months, it doesn’t mean that we take 6 months. I would like to have it have gone through the process and us have plenty of time and the legislation sunsets as soon as we have other ordinances so as soon as we pass the other legislation it would terminate the moratorium. 2  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Mr. Bollas: Within those 6 months I know you had mentioned having a workshop for legislation; would there be any other homework that we could help in providing input? I know before you had mentioned things like getting more community input. Dir. of Law: So, with any text amendment of the zoning code there is always a public hearing and so there would be a public hearing for anything that would be proposed. If you want to do something in addition to that; if you want to host a community forum or something where you allow people to come or have a special meeting of Council where you invite people to come and speak specifically to that particular issue, you can do that. Mr. Bollas: But we could not all be present? Dir. of Law: If you were doing it as a Special Meeting, you would hold it as a Special Meeting and hold it with that topic as the agenda topic. Mrs. Epstein: One other thing and I know we discussed this earlier, but our neighboring cities some of them do not have moratoriums in place and some of them allow medicinal already. So, there is the stipulation that you can’t have 2 dispensaries within a one-mile radius so if a neighboring city moves forward with it, I think that is where I am thinking that there are opportunities that we would then lose because you know, the West Avenue Overlay that we were talking about just this morning, that is right on the border of Akron and so if somebody in Akron it is a mile within that that would eliminate West Avenue as a possibility. Mr. Pavlik: The same thing on the other end in the JEDD. Something in Brimfield happens near the center of Brimfield, you lose the opportunity potentially in the JEDD. Mrs. Gutman: I have concerns the moratorium might discourage business from approaching us as well because that leaves a little uncertainty in their mind whereas a community without a moratorium they know already what is happening. Even if we give them reassurance that we are moving forward, it is not as certain in their mind as somebody that doesn’t have that hold. Mr. Bollas: Just to reiterate what the Law Director was saying, you are stating that the maximum is 6 months, and it could be pulled forward? Dir. of Law: Correct. Mr. Bollas: So, it could be a month? Dir. of Law: Correct. Next Council meeting there could theoretically be legislation. Mr. Bollas: So, this is just providing kind of a buffer if needed if they we are not ready at that point? Dir. of Law: So, if Council doesn’t pass the moratorium, I guess you just have to be prepared that if someone would file an application, they have a vested right then at that point and we can’t move forward with changing the legislation after that and so if you wanted to have any further restrictions or if you want to research the number of them or if you wanted to do anything like that, that is permitted under the ORC, you will not have that opportunity. So, just be aware that if you choose not to pass the moratorium, they will be treated just like every other commercial entity. Mr. Rubino: So, you are saying that if we don’t pass the moratorium, we can’t make any laws governing this once somebody applies? Dir. of Law: They would not fall under that. That one business or however many would apply between now and when we would pass legislation. Mr. Bollas: Just to keep in mind that when we do see legislation, it could potentially go up to 3 readings. Dir. of Law: It will go up to 3 readings. Any zoning text amendment or zoning legislation will need 3 readings. Mr. Bollas: So, you are talking 3 meetings potentially so that is already a month and a half and I would be in favor of supporting this legislation tonight just because I think it buys us all some time and the Administration some time to make sure that we are all doing our due diligence and then we will have the workshop and potentially an additional meeting to hear the community and that could potentially again be pulled forward on the schedule, so realistically what I am hearing is that it may be sooner than 6 months. 3  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Dir. of Law: Correct. If Council’s desire is to move forward as quickly as possible, then I would suggest like this would be going to . . . it is a text amendment so it would have to be . . . it’s not going to be ready by July 1st which is the next meeting of Planning & Zoning. It needs to go in front of Planning & Zoning, and they have to vet it and recommend it to Council, and it has 3 readings and a public hearing. So, I wouldn’t necessarily have . . . I don’t know how many additional meetings you want to have with regard to that as opposed to just moving forward with the legislation. Maybe you don’t want any additional restrictions and that is OK. I just want to make sure that you are aware of what that would be right now. Mr. Pavlik: There are restrictions within the State Bill where they can (inaudible) right. I mean they can’t be a mile away from another and . . . Dir. of Law: Yes. They have to meet all of the regulations and there are a lot of regulations that they fall under, and they fall under the State agency that controls them and so those are the things that are already in place; yes. Mrs. Gutman: Correct me on this, because I do get confused. Right now, the only people that can apply are people with medicinal licenses. Dir. of Law: Correct. Mrs. Gutman: And we are already prohibit medicinal and so realistically no one can apply yet and so we are talking about various timeframes this morning, what is that timeframe looking at before they let anyone else apply? Dir. of Law: I don’t remember off the top of my head exactly what was spelled out in that session, but I believe that it was like later in the summer/September I think that they were going to be doing the next round which was going to be for people that are within . . . another identified group that they were going to flush out more that would be allowed to apply. Mrs. Gutman: So that does give us a buffer without shutting down in the eyes of the businesses. Mr. Pavlik: Yeah, so I I’m reading that correctly, Ms. Gutman, if we don’t approve this moratorium by rule, they can apply because we don’t allow medicinal marijuana facilities in Tallmadge so . . . Dir. of Law: If you wanted to be joint, then they would not be able to do that. If they want to be a fully recreational distribution center, then they would be able to do that. I don’t know what the business model is if most of them are wanting to do both where they can treat for the medicinal or the recreational and I don’t know how many people will go through the steps of the medicinal once the recreational is available because it is one less step you don’t need to have the card and all of that stuff and so medicinal may go away. I don’t know. I’m not an expert in this and like every other community we are trying to figure out the new . . . State rules and regulations and trying to figure out how it will work here. I’m just doing my best to answer the questions. Mr. Pavlik: So, can we change the moratorium? Can we change the moratorium to like 2 months? Dir. of Law: You can amend it. 2 months probably won’t give us enough time to actually adopt the legislation I would say though even if it was introduced . . . Mr. Pavlik: But we would be closer to that end game where we might have 30 days of . . . Dir. of Law: I would recommend that you don’t have any timeframe that you . . . like if you want to have some kind of parameters around it, I think that you need to have the moratorium in place up to the time that you actually adopt the legislation. Because otherwise, you have the potential of somebody getting in that two-week window. Now what are the odds of it, maybe really slim, I don’t know, but there is that potential. Mrs. Gutman: I don’t know. I mean, the potential is there but when you look at what the regulations are for where they can put them already especially with the church restriction, then you add in the schools and then you add in where our zoning already puts the retail locations, I wonder if we are going to do all of this and then come back and say that we are not adding any extra restrictions anyway and we have potentially lost you know the business. I’m torn at this point. Mrs. Epstein: I think there is greater potential of losing opportunities to bring businesses in here and one of the things that we talked about during the overlay meeting with West Avenue this morning is, and I know I brought it up, but other people reiterated it, is that we live in Tallmadge 4  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Mrs. Epstein (Cont’d.) and then when we want to go do things, we have to leave Tallmadge. So, our neighboring communities are going to be participating in this and we are making it harder for businesses to participate in this in our own City. Mrs. Gutman: This is true. I can’t speak to the recreational side, but have patients who need this and use it and do not want to have to drive to places that they are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with or you know go to other means to get it, so that is a consideration if we end up being shut out of West Avenue because Akron gets the location and that would be really sad. Mr. Rubino: We are all in favor of restrictions and good zoning practice; I think we have kicked the can down the road long enough in my opinion. We had 6 months to do something about it and I also think if it is going to happen anyway, I would prefer not to lose out on the West Avenue possibility. Mr. Bollas: Before the moratorium we were also waiting on some direction from the State as well which I know even as of today, we are still hearing some updates coming in and so I think a part of it was absorbing those regulations and then how we adopt them or adapt them to our community. It wasn’t just buying us time; we were waiting to see what the State was doing; is that right? Dir. of Law: You are correct. It is not like we sat here and twiddled our thumbs waiting for educational trainings to come out so we can understand what it all is better and we did that and we have availed ourselves of that information and we are trying to get up to speed on it but it is still evolving and changing and so there wasn’t like delay just for the sake of delay. There was, let’s try to see what this is before we make a decision and so that is why we had the initial moratorium, and these rules are hot off the press. Some of them are, like you said, still changing and there are still things being proposed and so they are still evolving and that is why the additional moratorium was proposed just to give us an opportunity to make sure we had a direction. Additional when we talked about it before, it wasn’t clear exactly which way Council was leaning and so now that we have direction, we can move forward with that. Mr. Bollas: Is there a line in the sand when there will be no more changes recommended from the State like where it is finalized or is it just kind of continuing? Dir. of Law: I would assume that is regulatory, there are going to be additional changes and things like that. I would think that the primary structure is probably kind of in place by now based on the rules, but the rules can be modified or changed still. Mr. Pavlik: Wasn’t the deadline like June 30th? Dir. of Law: Yeah, June 30th. I think it was June 30th for the applications and I think some of them went into effect so some of it is in effect now but again there are more that I keep seeing in the news that keeps coming out and again things with the State and how much the excise tax might actually come to the municipalities and things like that seem to be up for discussion in the State House so those things are subject to change I guess. Mr. Bollas: So, after the discussion here we are looking at either amendments to the duration in terms of months or accepting the current 6-month proposal with the understanding that it can be pulled forward at any point in time and also understanding we will have 3 readings if it is even proposed at our next regular scheduled meeting. Dir. of Law: And again, I don’t know if it can be finalized by then. If Council is looking for additional community input, then we can schedule . . . those things take time and again I am looking for direction from you guys if you say no, we are good with whatever happens that the State has imposed and we don’t want to exercise any of our local zoning report and do anything in addition then you can do that but just realize that . . . Mrs. Gutman: Our local zoning . . . like what the State has put in place doesn’t pre-empt our zoning right? They still have to comply with both as it stands right now; right? Dir. of Law: Correct. They have given us the authority to say like OK, we want no more than 5 dispensaries in the City of Tallmadge. We can limit the number. We can limit the location; we can say that we only want them in the West Avenue corridor. We don’t want them on East Avenue; we don’t want them on South, or we do want them everywhere that we have commercial so again I 5  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Dir. of Law (Cont’d.) don’t know that all that has been thought about and if it is and everybody is good with that, that is fine, I just want to make sure you all know what the implications are. Mr. Pavlik: So, if we choose to do 2 months, that gives us some time to put legislation in place; 60 days and I think that maybe we could come up with . . . Dir. of Law: We would be able to draft the legislation and again the process with any zoning is that it has to go in front of P&Z for recommendation and I believe it gets a notice as a text amendment first so you would have the text amendment would go in front of Planning & Zoning and they would have to announce that they received it and then it goes on their agenda for the second meeting and so it would be, so there is the timing of that and then you have to have 3 readings of Council as well and so you would get any recommendation from Planning & Zoning typically at 2nd Reading is how we usually time it and so you usually get your Planning & Zoning stuff after they have met at the beginning and then it is introduced and they have their meeting of their official meeting on it and they make their recommendation and then you have it at 2nd Reading and you amend it at 2nd and then you have it at 3rd. So, because of the timing of this because we are at the end of the month, it would probably be a 3-month process would probably be closer to getting it completed. Mr. Bollas: Based on that, I was just doing some math and it looks like 3-1/2 months. So, do we want to amend the ordinance to that timeframe given the process? Dir. of Law: Which again, if it is at 6 months, it will automatically sunset, and it is written in the legislation that way that if we have other legislation, you know it is going to be in effect until there is an adoption of the other ordinance. That is how it was written. Mrs. Epstein: I think for me to answer your question my original concern was missing opportunity and I think we still have potential to miss opportunity even at 3 months and I think the feedback that we received, while we didn’t have anybody speak publicly at the hearing this evening, Issue 2 had a pretty large turnout and it was passed by 54% and I think the voters spoke when they voted in November and 54% is a pretty good number that was pretty close to Mayor Kilway’s leading percentage and also in preparation for the hearing I e-mailed close to 500 people in Tallmadge. I did not get a response and I think it is because people feel that they have spoken and that is what the vote was for. So, I don’t want to do anything to interfere with people’s vote whether it be 3 months or 6 months. Mr. Bollas: Thank you for that input and I don’t see this conversation as like a for and against the actual topic. I see it more as how you take what is already inevitable and is going to happen and then put some guidelines on it and have a discussion around strategic planning and look like the number one theme, I am hearing tonight is location. So, no one is saying that I am hearing that they are for or against like the actual product. I think the discussion here is around the regulations and the zoning and the locations and some of the rules and the legal ramifications like law enforcement and things like that. That is at least what I am hearing tonight and if we don’t take action just given the natural order of things in terms of the process regardless it is not going to happen overnight. It is going to take at least 3-1/2 months. So, but again, it is going to happen so it is just a matter of do we want to allow the Administration to put some kind of guardrails around essentially location is what I am hearing. Mrs. Gutman: We wouldn’t be prevented from doing that without the moratorium. It would just be a matter of whoever applied before we had that in place like we couldn‘t restrict them after the fact; right? Like say we had 3 applications and we decided we only want to have 2 in Tallmadge where basically those 3 couldn’t be . . . we couldn’t restrict them. Dir. of Law: They would fall under our general zoning ordinances. Mrs. Gutman: I see the risk; I do, and I appreciate your position and your advice, but I also from a business perspective and the perspective of . . . there are so many limits on the locations, that it is a limited opportunity that we have and I think that is the bigger risk is that we shut ourselves out of the people that do have licenses that can take those locations and go elsewhere. 6  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Mr. Bollas: So, we are not going to move to amend, then Mr. Roy you would have to ask if there is a motion because you are still in committee. Mr. Roy: At this time is there any motion to adopt Ord. 2024-44? Mr. Bollas: So moved. Seconded Mrs. Gutman. Roll Call: Mrs. Gutman – no, Mr. Pavlik – no, Mrs. Epstein – no, Mr. Roy – no, Mr. Rubino – no, Mr. Bollas – no. Ord. 2024-44 was REJECTED by a vote of 0-6. 7. Community Input: Vice President Bollas: This is the point in our meeting where anyone in the audience that has a question for Council that is not on the agenda can come to the podium at this time. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to Council this evening, please come forward. 8. Agenda Additions: None. 9. Reports of Administrative Officers: a. Mayor/Director of Economic Development • We have been very busy the last couple weeks here at City Hall. We are working with our energy broker. We have been working with him since the beginning of the year. Our gas aggregate will be coming up at the end of October. We are $3.73 per mcf and like I said that is coming up at the end of October. The energy rates are extremely volatile right now, so we do have the opportunity to lock that in at $3.85 per mcf so it is a very slight increase, but it is a very good choice to make at this time. That is going to be a fixed rate for 24 months. Typically, in the past we have had like 3 and 4-year contracts, but they are not doing those right now because of the volatility. We are going to keep working with our broker moving forward. • As we all know, we had the storm last week on June 17th. I really want to thank the Service Department, the Fire Department, and the Police Department for the quick response to the storm. I am going to let Mr. Rorar go into the specifics on that. I think our City did an excellent job all together, especially our Rec Department with our Summer Camp kids. They did a great job with that as well. • Circle Fest. Again, we are still working on that. Working on a lot of details. More to come. As Ms. Epstein mentioned we are still working on the West Avenue Overlay. We did have the stakeholder meeting this morning that you were all invited to. I want to thank all of the Council members that were able to attend. I thought it was a great event and was very well attended. We had over 30 people there. The businesses were very responsible to this additional layer and I think it is going to be a great addition to help attract business along that area. Again, thank you very much for everyone’s input on this. We are working hard to bring more businesses to Tallmadge where we can. • Strategic Planning, I am going to let Mr. Ignazzitto go into a little more detail with this. With that, we have been working on it very hard and getting a company to come in to do the strategic planning. I am just going to remind Council that this strategic plan was not budgeted for by our previous Council. I will be coming to Council at the next meeting for a re-appropriation so that we can fund this, but this is a very important tool that we need to have in our toolbox in order to plan our next 5 years and even 10 years into the future. • There are a couple of people in the audience about the 1128 Woods property. I am going to ask for 1st Reading adoption of Ord. 2024-49. We have been working hard on that since the beginning of the year and even before that and we finally have gotten to a point where we can take action and get something done on that. • We are having a ribbon cutting for Royal Union Pets and many of you know that they did open up right next to the old Tallmadge Photography location. They have expanded in one year’s time, and they are moving into a much larger facility just across the parking lot. The ribbon cutting is going to be on Monday, and I will e-mail everyone as to the time of the ribbon cutting. It is at 137 East Avenue, Suite 104. It is right next door to Carol Martin’s Studio where Western Reserve Fabrics used to be. 7  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Mr. Rubino: The date that Andrea sent out was on Tuesday. Mayor Kilway: Tuesday; yes, she is usually right on these things. • I stopped by Rite Aid today and I was able to talk to one of the Manager’s there. They went into bankruptcy last year and as part of that bankruptcy, the whole business went up for bid is how they put it to me and Walgreen’s purchased them out is what had happened and so that is why on July 3rd the are going to have a liquidation whether it is a sale or somebody is coming in; nobody is sure exactly what is going on. The employees there have been contacted by Walgreen’s to call in and there is like a survey that they have to do and give some information on their employment and one of them was asked if they would be willing to travel or relocate to another store, but the pharmacy, the last day for the pharmacy at Rite Aid will be July 8th. Unless you advise them otherwise, all of the prescriptions will then be transferred to the Walgreen’s over on Brittain Road and if you don’t want it to go there you need to get there before July 8 th and have your prescriptions forwarded to the pharmacy of your choice. The last day for the store is going to be August 18th. I know this is very disturbing news. We are on it, and we have been doing a lot of investigation as to what is going on and we are working diligently to get any information that we can. So, this is the information that I received today from one of the Assistant Manager’s. • On a better note, the Tallmadge Circular; the second edition went out this week. It has been delivered. If anyone did not get one and they want a hard copy of it, they can call my office and we can make sure we can get one to them. We are also posting it on the City’s website. Any questions? b. Director of Administration/Director of Safety Good evening Vice President of Council, Council members, Mayor, Dir. of Law, Finance and Service. It has been a busy week as the Mayor said and it is just really great to be back in the City. • The Mayor mentioned the Strategic Plan and we will be looking at 2025 through 2030. I know I mentioned it last week a couple of times we were much closer to the plan that we will have with facilitators. There are 2 facilitators we are looking at and we will be making a decision in the next day or two. Both of those we have talked to and there will be a strategic planning team. We will be looking to have two members from Council on that team. In addition to that, both organizations have agreed to have one on one interviews with each member of Council to get their input that we aggregated as we move on through different states that would include interviews with businesses, with individuals, with civic leaders, and there will be a couple of town hall type meetings where discussion will go on to gather input. Once we had that strategic planning team, I talked about how they got back together and work with our facilitator and we put that together and go through the process to get a strategic plan that will guide us to do that. So, that is the process we are looking at. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out or give me a call. I am available to have coffee or just meet to chat. So, as the Mayor said, we will be looking for having 1st Reading on July 11th and then passage on the 25th so we can get started and underway in early August. • The other thing I would like to mention is the Farmer’s Market. I know I talked about it two weeks ago. This week we had 57 people. It is very weather dependent and that is the highest number we have had. Had a great crowd. I say weather dependent, however last week we only had 35 vendors, but we still had the same crowd. So, we have developed quite a service that runs from June through October for our residents and the community at large so I would highly urge you guys to stop by some time if you haven’t seen it recently this year on how big it is. I mean you can get everything from meats to breads to books, we have a couple of youth vendors doing things and so it is really great to see the community come out; Tallmadge residents and beyond. So, it is a great opportunity. That 8  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 • Dir. of Administration (Cont’d.) concludes my report pending any of your questions. Mr. Bollas: Around the potential for interviews, just one suggestion if questions, you know if any kind of questions could be sent out in advance just for preparation so that maybe we could come in with some ideas and have some lead time to get our ducks in a row versus kind of being put on the spot questions. Dir. of Administration: Absolutely. What they are looking for is to gather input on your views of where we have come from, where we are at now and where you would like to go in the future across the spectrum from public services, parks and rec, law enforcement, Police Department, zoning . . . it will be used to inform the City, the leadership, as a whole on where the citizens want to go. It is a real . . . we are excited to work with either of the facilitators. Mr. Bollas: I did have one more question. So, and I believe this is more Dir. of Safety or Public Service. So, recently about a month ago I was contacted by a resident that lives on the cul-de-sac of Vicki Path and there was a desire to paint the fire hydrant and in doing some research, I know that other communities have done like an “adopt a hydrant” program where the City provides the paint specs to the resident and if the resident is willing to paint the hydrant and I was just looking if that was a small sample to provide. This person was willing to keep it up. The one that I was sent in community input was looking a little rough and I know that especially that they are in these resident’s yards and they are willing to help with that if we would provide those materials. I know it can’t be that much. I would be willing to entertain that. I just wanted to get some input on that. Dir. of Law: So, I know we had previously worked with the Builders Club who wanted to come and do that, but I think that kind of has fizzled out at this point. I know that we have had those programs in the past for people. Dir. of Administration: I am not familiar with that program. I don’t recall when I was here in the past, I don’t recall that being done by the Firefighters or the Street Department, but that was 20 years ago. I need to look into it and after further discussion with the Fire Chief and the Dir. of Public Service and I will get back to you on what the possibilities of that are. Mr. Bollas: Absolutely. Dir. of Administration: Are you looking at more for just individuals or a whole collective to provide that to everyone. Mr. Bollas: So, I think it is a program that would be available to anyone who is willing to participate in the program because this was my first experience with it and it was a complaint, but it was more of wanting to help out and material-wise it is not that big of a quantity when you are thinking of one hydrant, but I know there are several in our community that are looking in need of some care and we have residents who are willing to help out with that. There is also an opportunity there too, I don’t know the regulations around it, but getting the kids involved and getting some artwork. I know we have done various programs like that like painting the trash cans in the parks and things like that. Again, I don’t know the legal guidelines around what is required or what is allowed and what is not allowed, but I know it was the matter of the resident wanting to do it, but just asking hey, is there . . . does the City provide those materials. Am I on the hook for this myself; that sort of thing. Dir. of Administration: I’m happy to see the community involvement. I need to do a little more research on it and then we will get back to you. Thank you. c. Director of Public Service Good evening. I don’t have a report for this meeting, but I do want to give a storm update for the June 17th storm. As the Mayor said, it was good coordination between the Fire, Police and Service Departments that night. I also want to make mention of the great job 9  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Dir. of Pub. Service (Cont’d.) that the Summer Camp Counselors did. Keep in mind, Summer Camp was being held at Lions Park and we had 16 large trees come down from that storm during that event so the Counselors acted on the emergency management plan that they had in place for those storms and got everybody under shelter and secured and withstood that storm and then they got home safe. So, great job to that group of park workers. Moving on, so we lost a total of 24 trees in the parks. 16 in Lions Park and then 8 at Howe Road Park. We brought in a tree contractor to do that and it took them over 5 days to handle those trees. The Street Department, there again, I would rather have them out cleaning up the streets in front of people’s houses instead of hanging around those parks. The tree contractor was brought in and keep in mind that we didn’t budget for that and so I am probably coming in for a re-appropriation. That is a lot of trees to be taken care of. They were not cheap. I am actually dreading the bill. But the Street Department did a great job. They had almost 90 hours in the storm cleanup right now. We are almost done. The next couple of days we should be done. I would also like to commend First Energy. They had all of the power back on for most residents by 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. I know a few of those residents rode it out for about 21 hours without power, but the majority of them had their power on before 11:00 p.m. So, all in all, it was a pretty wild storm. That’s all unless there are any questions. Mrs. Epstein: I know that we had talked about it because Howe Road and Wring Drive were hit and so I did get a couple of questions and I know we talked about it, but if you could just maybe tell the viewers at home about any debris cleanup. Most of the trees in our area probably had Homeowner’s Insurance that took off that debris, but if you just had a few large limbs in your yard, can you talk about what options are available to a homeowner? Dir. of Pub. Service: Sure, so you can hire a contractor obviously to clean up your yard. If you choose to do it yourself and haul the branches to Brimfield Aggregate or Mulch Makers, the third one is you can cut everything down to 4’ length and bundle it no more than 50 lbs. and they can’t be more than 19” in diameter. You can put that out with your trash. So those are your 3 options on cleaning up any branches or debris. Mrs. Epstein: I did want to just say because my daughter’s friends were there at Lions Park and I also just wanted to reiterate what Mayor Kilway and you said, they did a really great job and I know a lot of the parents were really appreciative of that. That was a scary situation for those little ones. So, thank you. Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes, they did a great job, and we did tweak that plan just a little bit based on that storm. That was a pretty quick storm. d. Director of Finance: Thank you. I have nothing to report this evening, but I will answer any questions if you have any. e. Director of Law: Thank you. My office continues to work on the recodification given what happened in the vote earlier tonight, I am going to probably be moving towards, as part of our recodification and we are looking at the zoning code stuff just incorporating that a repeal of the medical marijuana section so we would be taking that up along with the other changes to that code. If anyone has any questions or concerns or suggestions or wants to propose something else with regard to legislation, let me know, otherwise I would probably, based on that, just move forward with that. Since Council has moved in this direction as well, I am assuming we are not planning any additional meetings or anything like that with regard to the cannabis subject, so we will just incorporate those uses in the code for commercial and we will look at light industrial for the processing and the distributors. Is that the direction you 10  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Dir. of Law (Cont’d.) want me to move in? Mrs. Gutman: I think it is worthwhile to meet and look at what the State specified and how that lines up with what we have and if we want to propose anything additionally. We are at risk, but people come in and do something that we don’t want, but I still think it is worthwhile for us to meet and talk it over. Mr. Rubino: I agree. Mr. Pavlik: I agree. Dir. of Law: OK, so I will send out an invite for the 3, Ted, Mary and Don and we will have a meeting where we can discuss it further. Mr. Bollas: Moving on to Item 10. 10. Reports of Standing Committees of Council of the Whole: a. PLANNING AND ZONING Mary Gutman, Chair Jessica Epstein, Vice Chair The Planning & Zoning Committee deals with land use, zoning, conditional uses, planning, economic and community development, and public property. i. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2024-48 – Approving and granting a conditional zoning certificate to applicant, Ellen Selle, Sheetz, Inc., on behalf of owners, Burton Thompson, Jr., Kevin Thompson, Babara A. Thompson, Joan M. Thompson and Roholt Real Estate LLC, for an automotive filling station located at 592 S. Munroe Road (PN 6009938), S. Munroe Road (PN 6005077), 855-857 Southeast Ave (PN 6004494), and 583 Southeast (PN 6009979). Sponsor: Mary Gutman Mrs. Gutman: I call the Planning & Zoning Committee to order. We have 1st Reading of Ord. 2024-48. The ordinance was read into the record. Will we be setting a public hearing? Dir. of Law: No, this is conditional zoning so the public hearing is in Planning & Zoning, and they are setting it on the meeting for this agenda and then they will have it in July. I apologize. This is the second time. So, it is July 1st is the public hearing and so if anybody would like to come out; it is next Monday. It will be at 2nd Reading, and you will have their recommendation for you at the next Council meeting. Mrs. Gutman: So, this will stay at 1st Reading and I do have a printed version of the application if anyone after Council would like to look through that printed version. Does anyone want to speak to the application or have any questions? Is there anything else before Planning & Zoning? Hearing none, I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. b. FINANCE Donald Pavlik, 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. 2024-49 – Appropriating necessary sums for the demolition of 1128 Woods Drive and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kilway Mr. Pavlik: I call the Finance Committee to order. We have Ord. 2024-49 at 1st Reading. The ordinance was read into the record. Are there any comments from Council? Mayor Kilway, do you want to add anything? Mayor: We have spoken about it in the past. We have been working on this since the 11  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Mayor (Cont’d.) beginning of the year. It has kind of been in limbo and it is a blighted structure and it is dangerous to the surrounding area and I do feel that we need to expedite it to take this structure down. So, if I could get 1st Reading adoption on this I would really appreciate it. The time of demolition would probably be around August by the time we get the contractor to put us on the list and everything. Mr. Pavlik: Are there any comments? We talked about applying for the grant, but the grant reimburses us but does not bear the cost to the property owner so we are actually doing him a favor by tearing down that structure. So, can we plan on filing that lien which I understand is due in September and we can only do it annually in September and if we do get the grant to reject that grant after September? Dir. of Law: That would be the plan, but obviously there are things beyond our control like the timing of the contractor and when they can come in and weather and things like that so we will do our absolute best that we can to make that happen within the timeline. It is subject to timeline. Mayor: And like we have discussed; this grant was applied way back in November of last year and it is just kind of in limbo. We don’t know if it is going to come to fruition or not, and we want to get this structure down as soon as we can and if the grant doesn’t come in by the time that we are ready to tear it down and charge the real estate taxes to it or to its real estate taxes, then we just don’t take the rap too. Mr. Pavlik: Service Director Rorar, is there anything that you would think would be out of the ordinary and not be able to tear this down by the end of August? Dir. of Pub. Service: It is just like the Law Director said, it is all about timing, but no, there shouldn’t be. Mrs. Epstein: If this is passed tonight, you don’t need to . . . as far as bids, it is under $50,000 and so you do have some flexibility there. Do you foresee scheduling issues if it goes into effect tonight to be able to have it demolished by August 31st so that a lien could be put in place? Dir. of Pub. Service: I would say no, but there again, I don’t know what the contractors already have scheduled moving forward. Mr. Pavlik: Do we know that date in September that we have to have the lien filed? Dir. of Finance: It is the Monday after Labor Day weekend. So, it is the Monday following Labor Day. Mrs. Epstein: So, September 9th? Mr. Pavlik: Is there anybody from the audience that would like to speak? Tom Johns, 1118 Woods Drive, Tallmadge. I live next door to 1128 Woods Drive, and I would recommend taking a drive-by. My other recommendation would be that there is a back garage back there where the door is wide open and has been for the last year. I would like to see that secured. Every time I hear a story about an escaped whoever or whatever, it is always a concern about who is in that garage or that barn. So, I would like to see the door at least secured with the assistance of the City. I appreciate Mayor Kilway, I appreciate Jonathon Bollas for taking his time and coming out and looking at the property and seeing what we are up against, and I certainly thank everybody here for hearing the story and taking a drive by. Thank you. Mr. Pavlik: Service Director Rorar, is that something that we can secure that shed? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes. Mrs. Epstein: Is that shed not included in the demolition or would it be . . . Dir. of Law: It is not. It was not condemnable. Mr. Rubino: Once the building has been removed, who is responsible for the upkeep of the property; the cutting of the lawn and such? Dir. of Law: The property owner is technically responsible; however, the City has already been doing the upkeep of the lawn and maintenance and so it will continue to be that way 12  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 Dir. of Law (Cont’d.) which is also certified to the taxes. We hope that that changes. Mr. Pavlik: I have seen pictures from Councilman Bollas about the security cameras on the poles, on the telephone poles. Is that something that we can call First Energy to have those taken down? Dir. of Pub. Service: That is the homeowners. Mr. Pavlik: OK, but it is on First Energy’s pole. I wouldn’t think that they would want stuff on their poles. Dir. of Pub. Service: I will have to take a look. Mr. Bollas: One of the pictures I had sent there is a picture where it is on the pole and in the e-mail I asked the question if that was permitted and if that would be on them to potentially remove it because it is just a home security camera that is hard wired that is just hanging down and I advised the residents not to take it down so the City had a chance to review it. Dir. of Pub. Service: I will take a look. Mr. Pavlik: Are there any other questions or comments from Council? Hearing none, is there a motion? Mr. Rubino: I move to adopt Ord.2024-49. Seconded Mrs. Epstein. Roll Call: Mr. Pavlik, Mrs. Epstein, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Gutman – unanimous. Ord. 2024-49 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. Mr. Pavlik: Is there anything else that needs to come before Finance tonight? Hearing none, I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. c. PERSONNEL Jonathon Bollas, Chair Donald Pavlik, Vice Chair The Personnel Committee deals with personnel, labor relations, insurance claims, Rules of Council and State Statutes. Mr. Bollas: I will go ahead and open the Personnel Committee. We have no legislation before us this evening. Does anyone have anything to come before the Personnel Committee? I just have one question in terms of labor relations and in terms of the timeline of the upcoming negotiations. Please remind us of the process and timing. Dir. of Administration: Yes, we anticipate the letters going out to the unions in early July and then theoretically it is supposed to be completed in 60 days. It does not occur as you are aware of in that time. We want to start early and meeting in July because we will be going and negotiating all five contracts this year. We will be doing that concurrently but we will start off individually I mean we will start off one at a time; one meeting at a time and ramp up to five and then get all five of them moving. Mr. Bollas: OK. Dir. of Administration: So, you know obviously the goal is to have them completed by December 31st. Completed meaning through the entire process and approved by Council. So, that is the goal, and we will keep you updated once those letters have gone out, which should be at the next meeting. Mr. Bollas: Alright. Thank you so much. Anything else for Personnel this evening? Hearing none, I close committee. i. Additional Items: None. 13  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 d. SAFETY Nicholas Rubino, Chair Ted Roy, Vice Chair The Safety Committee deals with disaster services, communications, fire, and paramedics, police and health. i. Second Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2024-45 – Authorizing the approval and adopting the Summit County Hazard Mitigation Plan and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kilway Mr. Rubino: I call the Safety Committee to order. We have Ord. 2024-45 before us this evening at 2nd Reading. The ordinance was read into the record. Is there any discussion? Mayor: Just to let you know this is basically a housekeeping ordinance coming out of Summit County. We did have a quick question that we wanted to ask and clarify with Summit County before we had asked for 1st Reading adoption last meeting. We did get that clarification and we have no issues with this at all. This does need to get adopted in order to continue on. Like I said, it is like housekeeping as well as the next one that is coming up as well too. Adoption as soon as possible would be great. Mr. Rubino: Are there any other questions? Mr. Pavlik: I will make a motion to adopt Ord. 2024-45. Seconded Mr. Roy. Roll Call: Mrs. Epstein, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik – unanimous. Ord. 2024-45 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. Mr. Rubino: Is there anything else to come before Safety this evening? Hearing none, I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. e. COMMUNITY ISSUES Ted Roy, Chair Mary Gutman, 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. 2024-46 – An ordinance approving and adopting the Summit County 911 Plan and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kilway Mr. Roy: I call the Community Issues Committee to order. We have Ord. 2024-46 before us at 2nd Reading. The ordinance was read into the record. Mayor Kilway, do you have anything on this? Mayor: As I had mentioned this one here is also one that is done every year out of Summit County. Again, it is a housekeeping issue. We just wanted to have time to review it and make sure there were no issues with it. It is ready to go as soon as it can be adopted it would be great. Mrs. Epstein: I move to adopt Ord. 2024-46. Seconded Mr. Pavlik. Roll Call: Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mrs. Epstein – unanimous. Ord. 2024- 46 is adopted by a vote of 6-0. Mr. Roy: Is there anything else to come before Community Issues tonight? Hearing none, I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. 14  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. June 27, 2024 f. PUBLIC SERVICE Jessica Epstein, Chair Nicholas Rubino, Vice Chair The Public Service Committee deals with streets, highways, sidewalks, buildings, and improvements: water, sewer, electricity, gas, energy resources, recycling, waste, and trash. Mrs. Epstein: I call the Public Service Committee to order. We have no legislation before us this evening. Does anyone have anything for Public Service? Mr. Bollas: I have a question. A while back I know we had passed a resolution sending some communications to the City of Akron in support of opposing the water treatment facility as we are a pass-thru community it could impact us with increased rates. Has there been any updates at all around where that is at with the City of Akron? Dir. of Pub. Service: The Judge is in tune to have Akron move forward with installing that additional piece of infrastructure. Mr. Bollas: And that was millions of dollars. Dir. of Pub. Service: Oh yes. Mayor: Hundreds of millions of dollars. Dir. of Pub. Service: It was quite significant, and it was for the overflow when the storm water and the sanitary sewer mixed and the likelihood of that happening in a 3-year period is like once or some odd low number. Mr. Bollas: So what . . . Dir. of Pub. Service: Akron is still appealing it. They don’t need anything from us at this time. We did write some support letters a year ago. Mr. Bollas: Is there any analysis we need to do in terms of the almost like the scenarios of if this happens, you know, from a finance water bill perspective, the potential impacts to the residents proactively. Dir. of Pub. Service: I think once Akron finishes the fight, we will know that. They are still fighting it. Mr. Bollas: Then on a general topic of utility bills; are there any callouts for rates or things forthcoming in terms of electricity or water, sewer? Dir. of Pub. Service: You heard from the Mayor tonight about the gas. Then electric, we will probably have a better idea come November on the electric. Mrs. Epstein: Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, I will close committee. i. Additional Items: None. 11. Reports of Special Committees: a. Council Operations Committee i. Additional Items: None. 12. Announcements: Mr. Roy: I would like to make one comment. A friend of mine, his mother, was having a heart attack, and she was extremely impressed how quickly our forces got there and were able to save her. Again, with everything that went on with the trees down and it is just good to know that our City is prepared and I think we owe compliments on how well everything ran. 13. Adjournment: Mr. Pavlik moved to adjourn. Seconded Mrs. Gutman. Roll Call: Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mrs. Epstein, Mr. Roy – unanimous. The Council meeting of 6-27-24 adjourned at 8:17 p.m. sb Adopted: ___________________ ___________________________________ ______________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Jonathon Bollas, Vice President of Council 15