City Council Regular Meeting

COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 1. Call to Order: Pres. of Council: It is Thursday, May 8, 2025, and this is our regularly scheduled 7:00 p.m. Council meeting. We will start things off with our opening prayer led by Pastor Andy Alberts with the Tallmadge Lutheran Church followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. 2. Opening Prayer: Pastor Andy Alberts, Tallmadge Lutheran Church. Pledge of Allegiance: 3. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino – present. 4. Correcting and Adopting Previous Meeting Minutes: 4-24-25 Council Meeting Minutes Mr. Pavlik: I will make a motion to approve the minutes. Seconded Mr. Roy. Roll Call: Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. The 4-24- 25 Council meeting minutes were adopted by a vote of 7-0. 5. Financial Reports: • Fire & EMS Transfer in the amount of $210,000, Street Maintenance & Repair Fund Transfer in the amount of $175,000, Bond Retirement from the General Fund in the amount of $125,000, Bond Retirement from the Safety Services Income Tax Fund in the amount of $97,270 and Bond Retirement from Tallmadge Reserve Incentive Dist. TIF in the amount of $11,575 and an advance from the General Fund to the Tallmadge Reserve Incentive Dist. TIF in the amount of $11,575 to Council on 4-29-25. • Appropriation Report, Fund Report and Revenue Report for the period ending 4-30-25 to Council on 5-6-25. • April Financial Reports to Council on 5-6-25. • Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 4-30-25 to Council on 5-6-25. • Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 4-30-25 to Council on 5-6-25. • Income Tax by Source Report for the month of April to Council on 5-6-25. • Revenue Comparisons for Major Funds for the period ending 4-30-25 to Council on 5-6-25. • Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 4-30-25 to Council on 5-6-25. Mr. Pavlik: I move to accept the financial reports. Seconded Mrs. Cipa. Roll Call: Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa – unanimous. The Financial Reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride were accepted by a vote of 7-0. 6. Public Hearings: None. 7. Community Input: Pres. of Council: This is the part of the meeting where anyone wishing to address Council on something that is not on the agenda can come to the podium and state your name and address and you will have 2 minutes to speak. If you wish to speak on an item on the agenda, if you could wait for the committee to be opened on that specific ordinance, and then you could come to the microphone and speak to that. With that said, is there anyone that would like to come to the microphone and speak this evening? Thank you. 8. Agenda Additions: None. 9. Reports of Administrative Officers: a. Mayor/Dir. of Pub. Safety: • I am going to be really brief this evening. One of the big things that we had going on in the last couple of days is we had the Tallmadge Elementary School 3rd Grade students who came and visited us here at City Hall. They met with the Mayor, Finance Director and the Law Director and one of the classrooms were able to meet with Mr. Bollas so that he could be there with his daughter’s class and we basically just told them a little bit about what we do here at City Hall and how the City operates and how the local government decisions are made. They asked a lot of questions. They were very engaging, and they really gained a better 1  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Mayor (Cont’d.) understanding of civic responsibility. So, they toured City Hall, they explored Council Chambers and other areas where City business takes place and so they really had a great hands-on experience for everyone involved. • Just a little follow-up with my “After Hours with the Mayor.” I did have a couple of residents that brought some concerns up and we are in the process of working on those issues. • Just a reminder for the office of Information Technology that on May 3 rd the Office of Information Technology conducted Tallmadge’s semi-annual recycling event and even though it rained, it was a very well attended event with approximately 311 cars dropping off electronic waste. It filled two box trucks and partially filled a third one and it also filled a trailer with TVs. So, if you missed that event, they would have another one in the fall, or you can also drop off your e-waste in the drop box that is in the Tallmadge Community Center parking lot. • Finally, we will discuss this a little bit more with our ordinance as well, but the Recognized Heritage Structure audit is almost complete and part of that process we will move to establish a Historic Structure Steering Committee. The purpose of this committee is to review the findings of the audit and make a determination on the current historic structures which is Section 1109, and we are going to determine the purpose, the criteria and the maintenance and enforcement issues involved. Based on that information, we will determine and reassess the findings of the audit. I need 2 representatives from Council to serve on this steering committee. So, at this time I would like to ask if there are any volunteers that have time during the day to come in and serve on the steering committee and just take a look at the process in general. Mr. Pavlik: I would have time to do that. Mrs. Cipa: What days are you meeting? Mayor: I do not have the meeting dates set yet. So, that would be something we could get Mrs. Hussing to maybe talk to you about. Mrs. Cipa: I can do it as long as it is a Monday or Tuesday. Mayor: OK. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your help. That is all I have this evening. b. Director of Administration: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief update. • Ms. Poole, our Economic Developer, will be providing a monthly update usually at the second meeting of the month. I can tell you that she continues to hit the ground running and has conducted BRE’s. She is working hard and meeting all her colleagues at Summit County and counterparts on Team NEO also with Jobs Ohio. • In regard to the agenda this evening, just to let you know we held fact-finding with the FOP/OLC on May 5th. During the Personnel Committee we will be requesting an Executive Session during the June 12th Council meeting to discuss the fact-finding report. We anticipate having it by that time. That is Ord. 2024-76 and Ord. 2024-77. They are both at 3rd Reading and we will be requesting them to recall them earlier than the current date, which is June 26th. • Fact-finding with the IAFF is scheduled for May 13th so I will have an update for you at the next Council meeting and finally City Hall will be closed tomorrow from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for employee training. This is something that we will do annually, and it will start . . . we will do it in September in the future, but this is Employee Safety Training that we wanted to get started now and we will do that. This has been posted on our website, on a splash screen and so if you logged in you can’t help but see it. It has been up there for about 2 weeks and then we have had a sign on the front door notifying people. The splash screen and the front door also will notify anyone wishing to pay their utility bills that they can drop them off at the box in the south parking lot here at City Hall. Pending your questions this evening, which concludes my report. 2  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 c. Director of Economic Development: No report this evening. d. Director of Public Service: Good evening. I would like to request that Ord. 2025-52 is passed at 1st Reading if that is possible tonight. • Just a reminder that our pavement marking starts next week; May 11th however because of the weather we have allowed them to start on West Avenue last night and this evening and that to add that double turn lane on the inside lane eastbound which we all talked about which is an issue with people passing the whole que to shortcut in front of them to get onto the Circle faster. We have had several complaints about it. So, everybody should be aware of that. They won’t have flaggers out there because it is illegal to drive through the freshly marked paint that is put down. • Also, next Thursday, the Circle starting at 6:30 p.m., will be narrowed right there between Northwest and West. There is a storm sewer that needs replaced. It’s right in front of the bulletin board if you are wondering where it is at. The Circle should not be closed but do expect delays. • Also, the Tallmadge Water Tower; the maintenance began. Remember this is the EPA audit from 2 years ago that we needed to fix a couple of things on the tower and get it painted. Believe it or not, that is a guy up there . . . that is 112-foot high so that is a pretty good lift. It should take 4-5 weeks to get this work done and the outside of the tower painted. • Lastly, the Maca Pool filling was done. This is the second time . . . we had a pretty good leak. Compliments to Jessica Simons and the Water Department for figuring out where the leak was and they got it to stop. It is about 250,000 gallons to fill it. Remember the pool opens May 24th. There is a member only sneak peek on May 23rd from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. if anybody is interested. That concludes my report for the evening. If there are any questions. e. Director of Finance: • Everybody should have received the April financial reports. Just to point out, we are seeing our income tax slow down a little bit; our withholdings while they are not significantly behind right now we are seeing things kind of even out and not seeing the big growth that we had previously so we are just continuing to monitor that right now. Right now, we are coming in at about where we anticipated with our budget so that is good. We are just not kind of seeing those big jumps. Really the unusual one that we are seeing are those individual taxes come in. We have seen some unusually high individuals with large tax payments this year. Mr. Pavlik: It was high in March, and I was going to ask that question, but I saw that March was higher year over year comparison and February was down. Dir. of Finance: Yes, are you talking in . . . Mr. Pavlik: The Income Tax Comparison. Dir. of Finance: Yes, yeah, we are seeing fluctuation. If you kind of look at the one that I kind of, try to take a look at a little is the Income Tax by Source. So, the overall is a little skewed because there was a rate increase with the JEDD withholding and so our Tallmadge withholding right now is about 1% behind where it was last year. Again, not a huge deficit and to be honest, the last several years due to the amount of COVID and Federal money that was being filtered through businesses and such, we were seeing a lot of businesses paying . . . having unusually high withholdings because of bonus payouts and different things like that. So, the 1% behind isn’t giving me any angst but we are just kind of seeing it as, I expected this year, we are kind of seeing everything kind of level out and be more normalized than we have in the last few years. We have had a lot of growth but with very unusual circumstances. • Many of you should have received a notification from the Auditor’s Office that there was an audit report released that was our Federal Single Audit of our Covid money. The big audit 3  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Finance (Cont’d.) is still underway. They are still working on that and so that will be second but because we were only required to have a Federal Audit because of receiving the ARPA funding they did special procedures and it didn’t have to be as extensive so that is why you are seeing a separate audit report being issued earlier this week. I believe I got it on Monday and so there will be another one that is kind of the big one and I will keep everybody up to date on when we expect to receive that but probably not until closer to the end of June or the beginning of July. Other than that, if anybody has any specific questions on any of the financial statements, I will end my report. f. Director of Law: Thank you. • I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank the Police Department for their hard work in doing the Prescription Drug Take Back. They collected over 214 lbs. of unwanted or unused prescription medication which was then collected by the DEA as part of their national campaign for that so again thank you to the Police Department. • I just wanted to report that we have gotten our first round of drafts back from the codifier. For those who may not be familiar, my department has been working very hard to comb through our entire codified ordinances to review obsolete language, duplicative language, unclear language and trying to really clean it up. This is a process that I have been undertaking with the various department heads and so the next step in the process is to meet with all of them again to go through these drafts and then proceed to make any further edits, so it is going to be several more months before it comes before Council and again my plan is to present to Council in a work session and we will work through all of those changes. You have that to look forward to later this year. End of report. 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. 2025-51 – P.H. on 6-12-25 – Amending Ord. 77-2009 creating the list of Recognized Heritage Structures (LRHS); to remove 12 Southwest Avenue. Sponsor: Mayor Kilway Mrs. Gutman: I call the Planning & Zoning Committee to order. We have Ord. 2025-51 at 1st Reading this evening. The ordinance was read into record. The sponsor is Mayor Kilway. Do you have anything on this? Mayor: So, this is a piece of property that the City owns. It is 12 Southwest Avenue, and it does have some structural and environmental concerns in it. So the Architectural Review Board did meet on April 29th and they voted 4-0 to recommend to Council that that entity be excluded on the Recognized Heritage Structure list and then of course this is one that we will have another piece of legislation as well where we are requesting to be able to demolish that building because of its unsafe conditions. So, this ordinance right here just takes it off of that Recognized Heritage Structures list. Mrs. Gutman: Thank you. Mrs. Raber, I would just like to clarify that we are not setting a public hearing for this. Dir. of Law: That is correct. Oh no, I’m sorry. Yes, you do need to set a public hearing for that. I believe it is listed in the ordinance itself. Mrs. Gutman: So, we will set that public hearing then for June 12th @ 7:01 p.m. Dir. of Law: Thank you. 4  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Mrs. Gutman: At this time are there any questions or other comments on the ordinance? Is there anything else for Planning & Zoning? Hearing none, I will just say thank you all and I will close Planning & Zoning. ii. Additional Items: None. b. FINANCE Donald Pavlik, Chair Christine Cipa, Vice Chair The Finance Committee deals with budget, appropriations, reappropriations, bonds, franchises, investments, and expenditures. i. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2025-50 – Setting a fee for electric vehicle charging stations and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Pavlik: I call the Finance Committee to order. Currently we have 5 ordinances in front of us tonight. First up at 1st Reading is Ord. 2025-50. The ordinance was read into record. The sponsor of this ordinance is Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar. Do you have anything you want to add to this? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes, we have to set a fee. We have 2 of the charging stations ready to go. They are not hooked up yet to the payment subscription. We do get a one-year free trial on that, but we do need to set a fee before we hook that up. This is for recommending 35¢ per kw. 38¢ is the Ohio average kw at these electric charging stations. 45¢ is the nationwide average. We are trying to recoup 100% of that 38¢ so the subscription payment system charges 15% on each one of our transactions so that is where the 45¢ is coming from and so we would make a total of 38¢ per kwh. Mr. Pavlik: Are these the charging stations that were donated by Serpentini? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes. We still have one more to go and that will be at the parking lot by the bulletin board there across from the Circle. Mr. Pavlik: And it is a credit card and how often do we get that payment? Dir. of Finance: I believe . . . so it is through a company called Flow who uses that and so we would get a monthly payment. Mr. Bollas: So right now, this is for the Rec Center, Fire Station 2 and the parking lot at Tallmadge Circle. Are we responsible for the maintenance of the actual station itself? Dir. of Pub. Service: No, Serpentini is for a few years. Mr. Bollas: Now is that equipment up to the latest technology standards and adaptable to future technology? Dir. of Pub. Service: Adaptable to future technologies; I can’t say yes to that, but it is the most current. Mr. Rubino: What is the plan if the electric rates, as volatile as they have been, change; would it be more proactive to put it on like a fuel surcharge type of program to where it is fluctuating with whatever the City is currently paying or are you more comfortable with just a flat rate? Dir. of Pub. Service: Right now, I was hoping to use that first year trial to see how this even works. We might not make any money. They might not even be used. I mean, we don’t know. I was going to come back to Council in a year’s time and maybe come back to this and see what everybody thinks. I don’t know. It might not even be worth the time. Mrs. Epstein: So, the free 12 month subscription . . . I just want to make sure I understand the 15% fee; does that still get charged? 5  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes. That still gets charged. So, we get the subscription for each charging station for the year, so it is $2,000 for each charging station we have. That is free but they are still going to charge us the 15% on each transaction. Mrs. Epstein: Then after the 12 months we will reassess at that time and then those fees would then be reoccurring and we would be responsible for those, not Serpentini? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yeah, we might go up to maybe 60¢. I don’t know. We could be proposing to someone else to cover that $2,000 fee. That is what I like about the 3-year subscription. It gives us a chance to actually take a look at a baseline maybe and come back and say what is going on with the usage. Mrs. Gutman: It may be a premature question, but have we considered some kind of recourse for people who park and leave their car after they are charged? I mean I can see if they are at the Rec Center or something it being more of an issue because if you are there a little longer but I know other places can run into that where the car is sitting and blocking use for anyone else. Dir. of Pub. Service: We can take a look at that. I’m sure we can probably have a sign posted. Mr. Pavlik: If memory serves me correctly, when you guys voted on this in 2022 or 2023, I think there was something where there was a city near Columbus that charged like a $45 fee for going over . . . Dir. of Finance: Yeah, there are some cities that would have like once your car is charged, the charging knows it and it starts charging you for every like half an hour of fees, so you don’t leave your car there. Again, I think to Mr. Rorar’s point, let’s see what happens and if we need to institute a fee like that, we can talk with the vendor on how we incorporate that in. I am sure they should be . . . hopefully they will be able to give us that kind of data like you know how long were cars charging; how many cars were charging and that kind of information because people have to subscribe to their system to get it so we should be able to get that kind of data to make better informed decisions moving forward with how to manage them. Mr. Pavlik: I’m sure the front desk people at the Rec Center probably should be made aware that someone might come in and complain if the car is sitting there. Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes. Mr. Bollas: Last question I was just going to ask around the locations. I recall in the legislation a few years ago, there were some additional locations on there like I want to say the library and other places, so is there an intent to expand this any further than this or just use these 3 locations and then pilot it then for a year and see . . . Dir. of Pub. Service: Just use these 3 and then pilot. Let’s just see how it goes. Like I said, they might not even get used. Mr. Bollas: I just remember a list of locations last time. Dir. of Pub. Service: There were some others, but these were the ones that were the most ideal as far as having access to power. Mr. Roy: Can there be like little signs like on 91 that says electric station to the right or whatever like that to kind of advertise a little bit so people when they drive by it, they can see that they can get their car charged up. Dir. of Pub. Service: With technology today, if you have an electric car, you know where all of these charging stations are at. Dir. of Finance: Our station will be listed in the Flow app so people who have electric cars have all these things to find the charging stations. Mr. Rubino: Is there going to be a section in the financial reports that reports on the revenue coming in? Dir. of Finance: Yeah, I will make a separate revenue line in the General Fund for the revenue. 6  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Mr. Pavlik: Are there any additional questions? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve this ordinance? Mrs. Cipa: I make a motion to adopt Ord. 2025-50. Seconded Mrs. Gutman. Roll Call: Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein – unanimous. Ord. 2025-50 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. B. Ord. 2025-52 – Authorizing the Director of Public Service to issue a request for proposal for professional qualifications for energy service providers for self-funding energy efficiency improvements on municipal buildings and the Mayor to enter into an agreement and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Pavlik: Next we have Ord. 2025-52. The ordinance was read into the record. The sponsor is Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar. Do you have anything further? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes, thank you. This is a request for qualifications from consultants to suggest and carry out energy-saving upgrades for the City buildings. If you think about City Hall, the Rec Center; they are coming up on 20 years and how the HVAC units are all going to go out at the same time. We have already seen that with the chiller and some of the other big item ones. I think about the Police Department, there is a boiler and everything. So, what this is going to do is it will give us an opportunity to set in motion or plan to do the improvements and hopefully that it pays for itself through lower energy bills. Other cities have done this. The City of Cuyahoga Falls and Fairlawn are the closest ones that have done this, and it has actually done well for them. It is important and the reason I ask this to be passed at 1st Reading tonight is we would like to know the numbers going into the 2026 budget. So, that is really why we need to get this thing going. Mr. Pavlik: OK, so this is something that will be approved now but it is a 2026 event? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yup. So, we are just asking for qualifications to get the ball rolling and get the numbers from them and go with it. Mr. Pavlik: Are there any comments or questions from Council? Hearing none, do I have a motion? Mrs. Gutman: I move to adopt Ord. 2025-52 at 1st Reading. Seconded Mrs. Cipa. Roll Call: Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman – unanimous. Ord. 2025-52 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. C. Ord. 2025-53 – Authorizing and directing the Director of Public Service to uniformly increase water rates and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsors: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Dir. of Finance Gilbride Mr. Pavlik: Next we have Ord. 2025-53. The ordinance was read into the record. The sponsors are Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar and Dir. of Finance Gilbride. Would either of you like to comment on this ordinance. Dir. of Finance: Sure, I actually have put together a few slides to go over why the increases that we have proposed are what they are. I know that they are rather large, but we have not had water rate increases in Tallmadge since 2012. So, I know we have had a lot of sewer increases and people’s bills are large, but the water fund is a separate fund and so we need to also make sure that we are funding that properly. First, I just wanted to show Council over the last 5 or 6 years what our Water Fund has looked like. As you can see there has been a kind of slow leak per se of funds out of that fund and so we have seen that decline and then from 2023 to 2024 we have seen a larger decline than usual and then of course, the decline predicted in the 2025 budget is also rather large. Additionally we had presented in the 2025 budget; we have $5.6 million of infrastructure that needs to be repaired of broken water lines while that is expensive that is also costing us money because we are losing water and paying for water leaking out of pipes, water main breaks and those kinds of things. These are also waterlines that are 7  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Finance (Cont’d.) under streets that need repaired and repaved, and we don’t want to repair and repave roads and then dig them up to fix waterlines. So, I just wanted to present everybody with a snapshot of what our current rates are. As I stated, these have been the rates since 2012. Our minimum quarterly charge for water is $34 a quarter which annualized is $136 a year. Our average residential bill is $72.65 a quarter and annualized is $290.60. Then for our commercial and industrial customers our average quarterly bill is around $175 and annualized is about $700. So, I also wanted to kind of give a snapshot to give people an understanding because all this gets again lumped to our citizens on one bill and they think it is all for water and it is really barely for water; it’s mostly for your sewer bills. So, to just give a snapshot of what our average water usage looks like, the water portion of the bill is only 28%. As you can see, 2/3’s of the bill is our sewer rate and those have been increasing over time and because our water fund was stabilized, we did not want to increase water rates while we were having these large sewer rate increases. So, they weren’t getting double hit at the time. The bills have been increasing in the last several years because of the increases in the sewer costs that we have been receiving, which is common throughout this area because most of us rely on Akron to process our sewer, and we have all heard all the stories. Mr. Pavlik: Is the sewer; has that been done like annually? Those increases? Dir. of Finance: We did the last increase to sewer in 2023. The Sewer Fund right now looks pretty good so I think we can kind of do a little shifting of gears here and let the Sewer Fund stabilize and run a little bit and absorb the increases we are getting. I think this year we had a 5% sewer increase. Sewers are a little different because . . . water we pay for the metered water that goes through. Sewer, we have a little bit of ability to control because we keep our sewers clean as the meters are running back through Akron and so we have a little . . . a little more control of our sewer than we do of the water. Dir. of Pub. Service: We have more control of our sanitary sewer meter. Dir. of Finance: Correct than we do over our water meter. We keep our sewer meters clean, so the levels stay low. Dir. of Pub. Service: We have access to that meter where we don’t have access to the water meters. Dir. of Finance: So, this chart, and I will forward this presentation to Council so you can have it to review. Basically, what I wanted to present was what the rate increase looked like for the quarter and then annualized and then what the new quarterly bill would be if that rate was instituted. So, I think the average residential bill is kind of what everybody is interested in talking about and so as we said, $72.65. The first year it would go up $7.26 a quarter and that would be basically $30 additional a year for your water bill. The next year it would go up $11.99 so that would be another $47 and you can all read, so that would bring our quarterly bill by the end of that period from $72.65 a quarter to $121 a quarter at the end of the 4-year rate increase. So, that would essentially be $200 extra a year for a resident for water. Next, I have this fancy software that helps me do projections about our water, so this projection includes all of our operating and considers spreading the $5.6 million of waterline projects out over the next I think there were 5 projects, so over the next five years. Each year we would do one of the waterlines and issue debt through OWDA to be paid back over time. So, if we do not increase the water rates, the black line that is our fund balance. So, you can see if we do these waterline projects, we do not increase water rates by about the 3rd quarter of 2027, we will run out of cash. The red line on here is that kind of dotted line, that is our Minimum Fund Balance Policy. Our Minimum Fund Balance Policy says that we should try to keep 25% of our operating cash available in case of emergencies or big things and especially with water and sewer funds having that kind of capital sitting around in case we had a major catastrophic water main break or things like that, we need to have the capital available. So, this is just for every- 8  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Finance (Cont’d.) body a kind of a snapshot. The bar part is the revenue so that is our charges for the sale of water and like I said, I will send this out so you can get a more detailed look at it. But I just wanted to provide kind of that snapshot of where we would be in 2 years basically if we do not do a water rate increase. Mr. Pavlik: If memory serves me correctly, in the budget, we budgeted a water repair on one of the streets and we were going to look to see which one is the worst and then make that decision. Dir. of Finance: That is incorporated in it. Mr. Pavlik: That is funded by debt. Dir. of Finance: Correct. That would be funded by an OWDA loan so each one of those water projects each year will be funded by a separate OWDA loan and that would be the process we would use to fund those and then that debt service is considered in this projection also that we would pay them back over a period of time. Mr. Pavlik: And then that dotted red line which is our Minimum Fund Balance that is set by ordinance; correct? Dir. of Finance: Correct. Mr. Pavlik: And when was that set; do you recall? Dir. of Finance: That I believe our Minimum Fund Balance Policy has been in effect since 2005, so we have been following that policy for quite a bit of time. Mr. Pavlik: Is that something that you would suggest that needs to be adjusted? Dir. of Finance: I personally don’t think it needs to be adjusted. If I did, I would present it, but if the Finance Committee would like to sit down and take a look at it with me and have a discussion about it, I am more than happy to do that. Mr. Pavlik: Thank you. Mr. Rubino: If that black line represents the cash position target, if we stay at our current rates is there a line on there that represents what these increases . . . how it will . . . Dir. of Finance: Next slide. Great segway. So, here is what we look like with the increases that I presented. So, as you can see, I know they look like significant increases, but they really keep us with our cash balance very close while we are doing these capital projects in line with our policy. So, we are not, during that period, going to be accumulating excessive amounts of funds. We will be bringing in enough to make sure we can operate and then do these waterline projects that we need to do. You can see when you get to 2032, there is like a little bit of uptick so I do believe that if we go out a little further because the debt service will start dropping off some. There will be some room for some growth. So, this is the slide that shows what these rate increases are and where they get us. Mr. Rubino: But it looks like, when you get out to 2029, even in 2030, it looks like it dips below that line. Dir. of Finance: So, the policy allows you to dip below it as long as you have like a plan in place to come out of it. So, it does barely go below it and the policy allows for it so the policy isn’t so strict that it says you can never go below the fund balance, it just says that you need to have a plan in place if you do go below to have a revenue source to come out and ideally we would be able to also have other cost savings or things like that in between and if we were coming to a place where we were reviewing the budget and we weren’t going to go too far below. Obviously, we analyze that with every budget we would modify our budget accordingly at that time. Mr. Rubino: When was the last increase that we have taken; what year? Dir. of Finance: 2012. Mr. Rubino: 2012. What was that increase? Dir. of Finance: That was a 3-year increase, and I believe they were like 8, 7, 7 over those three years. 9  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Mr. Rubino: And prior to that, when was the last increase? Dir. of Finance: I don’t know that. I would have to do some research to figure out before that grouping of increases and what year they were increasing that from. Mr. Pavlik: It would be nice to know because you can track back to say that every 15 years you know, 12 to 15 years we have had to make capital improvements to the water tower, the lines and that justifies the increase. Dir. of Finance: Yeah, let me do some research. Mr. Pavlik: The thing that kind of worries and scares me at the same time is the fact that we are increasing 55% over 4 years but we are not anywhere near where we were 4 years ago when we had that huge disparity between the black line and the red line. We are almost going to be . . . so it is almost seems like we could be coming back in maybe a year or two years from now and saying 15%, it wasn’t right and we need to increase it more or in 2029 or 2030, of increasing it again another 10 to 15%. Mr. Rubino: That was sort of to my point is you know obviously we are taking larger chunks of rate increase every large gap. Would it be more beneficial to build in a growing minimal increase yearly so not only does that fund grow but we stabilize in it more and we don’t take on these large increases? Dir. of Finance: Yes, I don’t disagree with you on that. Because of the position of the water fund right now I feel we need to act now on this so that we stabilize the fund. I would like to further . . . this software that I have I would like to further analyze our current rate structure in totality and for our water and our sewer rates and come back to Council with a plan that includes something like that that does have some increases that tie into the Consumer Price Index or things like that so we do not keep hitting our residents with these big rate increases time and time again and kind of sitting on it and then moving forward. Mr. Rubino: I think that would be super beneficial and even if we set a cap to it to where you know if the fund reaches a certain amount that the increase will pause until it falls back below this amount. I think it would be helpful for the residents not to absorb that all at once. Dir. of Finance: Yes, I 100% agree. I am just presenting this because I think that we need to move forward with this for the Water Fund. I feel the Sewer Fund is stable, but I would like to do further analysis and hopefully in another year or two from now come back with really an overhaul of what our rate system is. Our sewer rates right now are . . . if you guys saw how many sewer rates, we bill you would pass out. So, we want to kind of work on unifying that and making it a more uniform stable system and part of that is incorporating some kind of annualized index for these rates, so our residents are not getting hit so hard by the increases. Mr. Rubino: The only other question I have is in Section 2. of the ordinance it says, “the Director of Public Service is hereby authorized at his discretion to increase or decrease the water rates in direct proportion or in any lesser proportion to any increase or decrease in rates made by any government entity to the City on its users.” Not that I don’t trust Mr. Rorar at all, wouldn’t that be a better decision each time put before Council in an ordinance so that this stuff is easily tracked and that when you go to make a change, sort of like what you were talking about of a general rate increase it can be done through an ordinance rather than . . . because I mean theoretically Mike could just raise it 1% a year without any ordinance at that rate. Dir. of Finance: So, we have similar language to that with our sewer fund and what it lets him do is only pass on the increase we would get from Akron for our rate. So, he can’t . . if Akron doesn’t increase our rate, he can’t pass on a rate increase. He can only pass on those increases that we receive directly from the provider of our water or the processor of the sewer rates. It is similar language we have on our sewer fund. I guess that would be up to you guys if you would like to continue with that language or if you would prefer to do 10  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Finance (Cont’d.) it differently. But that is what that means. He just can’t just do 1% a year if Akron doesn’t give us a . . . Mr. Rubino: It has to be proportionate. Dir. of Finance: Correct. It has to be directly proportionate to the rate increase they are charging us to purchase the water. Mr. Rubino: I guess it was nice that you put increase or decrease because I don’t see Akron giving us a break. Dir. of Finance: Positive thinking. Mrs. Epstein: Have we had to do that in the past, or have there been increases that we have been able to absorb up until this point? Dir. of Finance: So, the water rates really have not changed much over time. Primarily that is how we have passed on the sewer rates because of the processing increases we have gotten from Akron and Summit County. So that has been the primary way we have actually increased rates over time is with just passing on the cost of those sewer processing that we received from those entities. So, if they were to increase our rates by 5% then we would just increase our rates by 5%. Mrs. Epstein: We did have to do that with the sewer. Dir. of Finance: Correct. We have done that multiple times with the sewer. Mrs. Epstein: That did come to Council though before this current Council. It wasn’t this one, but it did come to Council I believe previously; right? Dir. of Finance: You probably received a memo from the Service Director that he was increasing the rates, but this current Council has not voted on sewer rates. Mrs. Epstein: No, not this Council but previous Councils then talked about when those sewer rates came, and they were passed on. Dir. of Pub. Service: I think it was just a discussion. Mrs. Epstein: Just a discussion. Thank you for clarifying. Mrs. Gutman: I have a question about the big green mountain of capital improvements. Obviously, that is affecting the black line. When we get over that mountain and get those done, is there another one looming in the future? Does that take care of what we know our outstanding problems like what does it look like beyond there? Dir. of Pub. Service: The same. You will see another mountain. All the waterlines are at an age when they are failing. We have some failing faster and that is the 5 that Molly brought up. We have others that are going to start going just as fast. Mrs. Gutman: Hearing that makes me feel a little leery about that black line just sitting right at the minimum like that. I don’t like to be the person saying are we really increasing these rates enough, but I . . . Dir. of Pub. Service: I think we are. I think what Molly suggested is what we need to do. I mean it is a hard pill to swallow now. Mrs. Gutman: It is but doing it over time I like that it is these smaller increases instead of how we got hit with like 30% in 2 years with the sewer. This is better to spread it out. If you guys are comfortable with that sitting even under that minimum at certain points, it is just knowing you have all of that out there. Dir. of Finance: My intention would be that at the end of this 4-year period to have the incremental rates in place so that we are seeing that trend to have enough in the wings to then move on. Because also in addition to doing these projects, I am going to have to present to the Ohio Water Development Authority the ability to pay. Like I am going to have to show them projections that we have . . . Mr. Pavlik: In this bucket. Not City finances . . . Dir. of Finance: Correct. In the Water Fund bucket I have the money to pay the waterlines back. Mr. Pavlik: You have to show cash flow? 11  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Finance: Yes. So, I will have to show them that I have the ability to pay all of this back. I mean, I will be glad to . . . I can project this out longer. I just kind of was keeping it within like the 5-year to 6 years beyond the capital plan that we currently have in place. Mr. Pavlik: So, when you are looking at the green mountain, there were 5 projects that we had in the budget listed and depending on what needed to get done, we had an allocation of a dollar amount. I think it was around $4 or $5 million and that was going to be borrowed and all of that. How many projects is this? Dir. of Finance: That is all of them. Mr. Pavlik: That is all of them. Dir. of Finance: So that is all of them. They are just spread out over the next 5 years. Those exact projects that are in the budget are the green mountain over that 5-year period. Mr. Pavlik: Got it. Mr. Bollas: Looking back on like the last time we had a rate increase it was like 2012, and there was like a 3-year projection or 3-year implementation you said till like 2015, so between . . . Dir. of Finance: No, 2012 was the last year of the increase. Mr. Bollas: OK, so from then on looking at a projection and say it is 2012 right now and just using that analogy again, the green mountain as of 2012 looking out to 2016, 2017, why wasn’t a general rate increase explored at that point or was it and how was the decision determined to just kind of let it marinate and then all of a sudden now we are looking at . . Dir. of Finance: I mean, if you look at this chart in 2022 our minimum fund balance was around $500,000 and we had almost $3.5 million dollars in our water fund. So, we really didn’t need it during those times but as I was stating we were also having very large sewer rate increases so . . . Mr. Pavlik: We wanted to offset. Dir. of Finance: We were not really . . . because we were having all the large sewer rate increases and the water fund was stable, and we were not making movement on . . . Mr. Pavlik: Do you think you are going to have large sewer increases over the next 5-7 years? Dir. of Pub. Service: Not over the next 4 years. I’ll give you that. Mr. Pavlik: OK. Well, at some point in the next 2 weeks, Ms. Gilbride, I would like to sit down with you and go over a lot of this stuff as Chair of the Finance Committee just to better understand it. Are there any other questions or comments on this? I would recommend that this would go 3 readings to digest all this information. Dir. of Finance: Oh, absolutely. Mr. Pavlik: OK, with that we will leave Ord. 2025-53 going into the 2nd Reading. D. Ord. 2025-55 – Authorizing the Director of Public Service to advertise for bids and the Mayor to enter into a contract for the HVAC system services, appropriating necessary funds and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mr. Pavlik: Next up is Ord. 2025-55. The ordinance was read into the record. This is sponsored by Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar. Do you have anything? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes. Thank you. We have 8 buildings that the City runs with 94 HVAC units in them. Each building has a different contractor, so it makes it difficult to get them all on the same page and do the same maintenance and make sure we are following all the same protocol. So, I would like to go out to bid and get one contractor to do all 8 buildings is what the goal is. Mr. Pavlik: Are there any comments or questions at this time? Pres. of Council: What does that service contract look like in terms of, like you know, consolidating all the units in all the buildings. Is it mostly like a pricing benefit or . . . Dir. of Pub. Service: It will give a yearly and quarterly what they are supposed to do so 12  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Pub. Service (Cont’d.) like change the filters, you know, and it spells out each unit and what they are supposed to be doing, and you will get a breakdown of each unit’s cost in that bid. Mr. Rubino: Do you know based on the several contractors we are using yearly on all the facilities what the estimated cost using that is and what we are hoping to save? Dir. of Pub. Service: I do not. Like I said, it is more of a simplistic thing is to make sure that they are all on the same page. I can’t say that right now that all the contractors are all on the same page. Then it gets confusing because you don’t know which contractor to call at times when you get a 911 that this unit is not working. It is really to help us out and manage it better. The cost will probably be about the same is what I am going to guess. Mr. Rubino: I didn’t know whether, depending on what the cost involved is, if it would be more beneficial to do it internally than even hiring it out. Dir. of Pub. Service: No. You would have to have an army of guys to do that. Mrs. Epstein: Do you know why it is set up where each building has a separate service provider? Was there a benefit at the time? Dir. of Pub. Service: No, I think it was just the way you know, you had one fire station, you had on police station you know; who are you going to call. I think it was just the way it rolled out. Mrs. Epstein: If it switches and you are able to find one service provider, will they have the capacity to handle all 8 buildings? Do you feel OK about that? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes. Then there would be an “out” clause so if something is not going well with this contractor, we can get rid of them in 30 days. Mr. Pavlik: Any further comments or questions on Ord. 2025-55? Mayor: I just want to say also that theoretically by having the one contractor they will have a team of individuals dedicated to our account and so they will know exactly what has happened previously. If they come out for one issue, they will know that wait, I was just here 2 weeks ago and x, y and z had to be replaced, and we are not seeing that right now, so it is also to streamline things. Mr. Pavlik: You have to find who did that building and you have to call them and you have to be . . . Mayor: And then sometimes with some of those contractors too, they have multiple technicians that come out and one technician doesn’t always know what the other technician did. Mr. Pavlik: Alright, any questions or comments on this ordinance? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion. Mr. Rubino: I move to adopt Ord. 2025-55. Seconded Mrs. Gutman. Roll Call: Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik – unanimous. Ord. 2025-55 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. E. Ord. 2025-56 – Authorizing the Mayor to receive funding from the Summit County Land Reutilization Corporation Community Development Matching Grant Fund for the demolition of the structure deemed blighted at 12 Southwest Avenue and authorizing the Mayor to enter into all necessary agreements pursuant to the Tallmadge Demolition Program appropriating funds and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kilway Mr. Pavlik: Next up and final one is Ord. 2025-56. The ordinance was read into the record. This is sponsored by Mayor Kilway. Do you have anything on this? Mayor: Just basically what I alluded to earlier when we discussed taking it off of the Historic Structure list. This building is in very, very poor shape. It is structurally unsound. There are some environmental issues as well and it is in the best interest for us to demolish it and the City did receive a 50% grant that will cover 50% of the cost of the demolition up to $9,785. 13  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Mr. Pavlik: This is Common Ground; right? Mayor: Yes. Mr. Pavlik: I would imagine that the environmental issues stem from the gas station that is next door. Mayor: No, no there was another issue and that was the reason why Common Ground had to leave. Mr. Pavlik: OK. Mayor: I do believe we discussed this almost a year ago. Mr. Pavlik: Yup. OK, any comments or questions on Ord. 2025-56? Dir. of Law: Mr. Pavlik, I would think that it would be wise to keep one tracking at the same time as the other ordinance; they kind of go hand-in-hand and so maybe just giving it a 1st Reading tonight and then having a final vote after we have the public hearing on June 12 th. Mr. Pavlik: Sounds good. With that, we will leave Ord. 2025-56 going to 2nd Reading. That concludes all the ordinances tonight under Finance. Is there anything else that needs to be brought forward? Hearing none, I will close committee. Thank you. ii. Additional Items: None. c. PERSONNEL Christine Cipa, Chair Donald Pavlik, Vice Chair The Personnel Committee deals with personnel, labor relations, insurance claims, Rules of Council and State Statutes. Ord. 2024-75 – TABLED until 6-26-25. Ord. 2024-76 – TABLED until 6-26-25. Ord. 2024-77 – TABLED until 6-26-25. i. Additional Items: Mrs. Cipa: I call the Personnel Committee to order. Ord. 2024-75 was tabled until June 26, 2025. Will that remain tabled? Dir. of Administration: Yes. 2024-75 we would like to remain tabled until June 26th. Mrs. Cipa: Next we have Ord. 2024-76. This is also tabled until June 26, 2025. Dir. of Administration: We would like to have this recalled for an additional 3 rd Reading and a vote and I would also request an Executive Session prior to that vote to update Council on a fact-finding report. We anticipate receiving the fact-finding report prior to June 12th and then we will provide a recommendation to the Council based on the findings of the fact-finding report. Mrs. Cipa: Do we need a motion to change this to June 12th? Do I have a motion to change this to June 12th? Mr. Pavlik: I will make that motion to change Ord. 2024-76 until June 12th. Seconded Mr. Rubino. Mrs. Cipa: We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Pres. of Council: Just a quick point. I will not be in attendance the meeting on June 12th. So, as of right now, on June 12th we have 5 Council members confirming attendance. Dir. of Administration: Just to clarify, when we get the report, we will have seven (7) days from the date that we receive the report. Council will have 7 days to vote on it. If Council does not vote on it, it is assumed accepted by Council as with the FOP OLC this would be for the Patrol Officers, and it would be assumed accepted. So, because of the timeline set up by fact- finding once we receive that report we have a timeline and so he asked us for our Council dates and just clarifying so actual attendance is important on that date. 14  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Mrs. Cipa: Any further discussion. Please call the roll. Roll Call: Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy – unanimous. The motion is to change the date to June 12th instead of June 26th on Ord. 2024-76 and it is passed by a vote of 7-0. Mrs. Cipa: Next we have Ord. 2024-77. Dir. of Administration: We would like to have this recalled for an additional 3 rd Reading and a vote and I would also request an Executive Session prior to that vote to update Council on a fact-finding report. We anticipate receiving the fact-finding report prior to June 12th and then we will provide a recommendation to the Council based on the findings of the fact-finding report. Mrs. Cipa: I will need a motion to change the date from June 26th to June 12th. Mr. Pavlik: I move to change the date from June 26th to June 12th. Seconded Mr. Roy. Roll Call: Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino – unanimous. The motion is to change the date to June 12 th instead of June 26th on Ord. 2024-77 and it passed by a vote of 7-0. Mrs. Cipa: Are there any additional items for Personnel? Hearing none, I close Personnel. d. SAFETY Nicholas Rubino, Chair Ted Roy, Vice Chair The Safety Committee deals with disaster services, communications, fire, and paramedics, police and health. i. Third Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2025-48 – Exhibit A - Tracked Exhibit A – Amending Sections 705.03 “Alarm User Responsibility” and 705.99 “Penalty” of the Tallmadge Codified Ordinances and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Mayor Kilway Mr. Rubino: I call the Safety Committee to order. We have two ordinances on the agenda for tonight. Ord. 2025-48. The ordinance was read into the record. Any comments Mayor Kilway? Mayor: This is at 3rd Reading and we have already had significant discussion on this, and Captain Eichler did come to the last meeting and gave everyone a detailed explanation as to why we are doing this. Again, most of these alarms that the Police respond to are commercial. There are a couple of them that are having repeated false alarms, and this is just a way to help get their attention to get the issues corrected. Mr. Rubino: Are there any questions from Council? Mrs. Epstein: I have one question. We have been provided a lot of detailed information and in perhaps 6 months from now could we get an updated report on the alarm calls and if this is happening and what type of impact that we are hoping for. That would be appreciated. Mayor: OK, we can do that. Mr. Pavlik: I will make a motion to adopt Ord. 2025-48. Seconded Mr. Bollas. Roll Call: Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas – unanimous. Ord. 2025-48 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. ii. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2025-57 - Appropriating ONEOHIO Opioid Settlement Funds for Naloxone to be available in City Parks and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsors: Dir. of Finance Gilbride Dir of Law Raber Mr. Rubino: Our second ordinance for tonight is the 1st Reading of Ord. 2025-57. The ordinance was read into the record. Do our sponsors have any information they would like to share with Council? Dir. of Law: So, the City of Tallmadge participated in the Opiod Litigation and received 15  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Law (Cont’d.) amounts of money pursuant to that litigation that is paid over a period of time as part of the settlement. Those funds are restricted for their use. They can only be used for certain things primarily dealing with opioid remediation or prevention. So, we have encountered a new legislation with the State of Ohio under House Bill 47 which requires that we install AED’s in all of our parks and so we had been talking about the possibility of putting Naloxone in the parks and part of the concern was that you have to have electrical units to be able to keep them in temperature controlled containers because if it is extreme heat or cold they will not function correctly so what we are looking to do is to house both the Naloxone and the AED’s in the same units and have the electric installed and being able to do this we will be able to be a harm prevention strategy so that if an emergency arises people can call 911 and there will be placards by each of these boxes that indicate what they need to do. They will be given the lock box and so it will be locked to prevent tampering and so those items are there and are available for use in order to access that and will be talked through what to do for the 911 dispatcher. So, that is what this is about. Pres. of Council: The security and temperature control; is there historical tracking and monitoring that will be implemented to track if for example, if there is a power outage or whatever may happen and there is a malfunction that there may even be a point in time where it goes above or below the required temp time to maintain. Dir. of Law: That I don’t know. I will have to turn that over to the Service Director with that. Dir. of Pub. Service: No, there is no way of tracking that. They are just hooked up with electric so that they can have that temperature control. If they lose power, they lose power. We will just have to keep an eye out for when the electric goes out. Pres. of Council: I was just curious about the risks. Do you have an hour to respond or is it days? Dir. of Pub. Service: I don’t know enough about it. Mrs. Gutman: This is actually a really good point but there are thermostats; I don’t know the technical terms, I don’t remember, but you can put in trackers that record the temperature and you can download their data and look at what the temperature range was. This is from back in the days when I worked in a lab and so I’m sure the technology is even better now, but it is out there, and it is a good idea. Pres. of Council: I know medical spas get audited frequently just to insure that as they are treating patients there was no potential health threat. Mr. Rubino: Is there any question if the City could end up liable or be exposed if let’s say the temperature went too low or too high or the product expired or it was a bad batch or something happens that somebody uses that and it hurts them beyond . . . because they are not a medical professional using it, or doctor; are we worried about that at all? Dir. of Law: So, I think the answer is no. The Summit County Health Department was the one that originally brought this up so it has been a little while now but we had an opioid reduction forum here in City Hall and they were hoping to get these into more public locations and we had talked about that then. So, they seem to think it is a good idea, but we can certainly pursue that particular question. I know that, again from that training, that if you use it on someone and they are not actually experiencing an overdose that it should do no harm to them so I don’t know if that would be the same if the drug wasn’t as effective so we can look into that and I think those are all good questions and we can come back to you at the next meeting and see if we can get some answers from the Health Department. Mr. Rubino: I would just be interested. Obviously, there are Good Samaritan laws that protect somebody who is trying to save somebody. To Mr. Bollas’ point, you know if something were to happen if they were to have . . . you know something were to happen and we didn’t know that stuff fluctuated in temperature or froze or got super hot and this stuff wasn’t good anymore, I don’t know what the limits are for this stuff. I was just interested to know if that would affect or if it didn’t save the person’s life because of that; are we liable for that? 16  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Law: I would think the answer to that is no. Some kind of harm prevention might be available, and it is better than none and we still, again they have to call 911 so that they will dispatch emergency services too. I think again we are trying to take extraordinary measures, so I think the answer is no to that. I am curious about the temperature control issue, and we can certainly take a look at that. I will reach out to the Health Department and see what they have to say about that. Mr. Rubino: Have we had any calls to our park systems say in the last year or two for these kinds of instances that you are aware of? Dir. of Law: I do not believe that we have seen any; I am not aware of them. We can also look into that but again it doesn’t mean that it is not a potential issue and so having this available again; it can’t do any harm. Mr. Rubino: The funds for this grant; this is just sort of what the Health Department recommended or did we explore other options to use this money. Could the money have been used for saying the school system to educate about drugs and opioids and stuff like that or did . . was this really what they thought was the best or did we search for other options? Dir. of Law: So, there are other possibilities and there are other additional funds that are available. Again, this is an opportunity to kind of meet the requirements of both the Ohio House Bill 47 and provide a harm prevention strategy so that is why we thought it might be a good use of the funds to be able to do this both at the same time. Dir. of Finance: We actually did use some of these funds previously to help; the high school band requested them to fund a counselor in the school. They stopped that program, but we did help them with some of these opioid funds already. Dir. of Law: That was not OneOhio funds but they were a different . . . settlement. Mr. Rubino: Could those funds; are these like recurring funds? Dir. of Finance: They are recurring but not forever. So, they are for a specified period of time. We do get funds every year and currently we have $75,000 so there are still funds available. The OneOhio Opioid Funds have kind of more stringent requirements than some of the other ones we got directly that weren’t through OneOhio so we intend to explore more opportunities with the funds but this came up with the AEDs and so this was an easy kind of add-on with something to do with those funds. Mr. Rubino: Great. Does anybody else have any other questions? Mayor: Just incidentally with these AED boxes. As soon as you open the box it automatically calls 911. So, if someone is having an overdose reaction and it . . . Dir. of Finance: You don’t open the box until you call 911. Dir. of Pub. Service: You just have to call 911 first. Dir. of Finance: People can’t just get into the boxes. You have to actually call 911 and the dispatchers will give you a code to get into the box. Dir. of Law: It is designed that way. There may be some . . . as you indicated they are internal and have more security but because we are not out in the parks we don’t look. When they are expensive units, we don’t want them to be vandalized or stolen or anything like that so . . . Mr. Rubino: Does anybody else have any other questions? Pres. of Council: Assuming the code gets scrambled, like randomized in some way, you know like you issue a code, but it is not the same code . . . Dir. of Law: I don’t know how that works. Mr. Rubino: Anything else? Hearing none and because there were some questions asked it is probably best to put this to 2nd Reading, and we will go from there. Is there anything else anybody would like to ask the Safety Committee or any other discussion? Hearing none, I close committee. iii. Additional Items: None. 17  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 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. Mr. Roy: I call the Community Issues Committee to order. We have no legislation before us this evening. Is there anything for the Community Issues Committee? Pres. of Council: I just have one question. How is the Sheetz project tracking? I received some calls recently about some of the traffic congestion caused by some of the tank installs and the construction. Are they on track? Are they on schedule with the buildout? Dir. of Pub. Service: They are on track. They lost some days with that weather. They are doing fine. We have not had any complaints in a while really. Pres. of Council: Can you remind me of the target date? Dir. of Pub. Service: I would have to get back to you on that. Pres. of Council: It was sometime in the fall. I thought there was some roadwork associated with the turn lane. Dir. of Pub. Service: They have to widen it; yes. Mr. Roy: Is there anything else? If not, I will close committee. i. Additional Items: None. 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. i. First Readings of Ordinances and Resolutions. A. Ord. 2025-54 – Authorizing the Director of Public Service to advertise for bids and the Mayor to enter into a contract for demolition of 111 West Avenue appropriating necessary sums and providing for immediate enactment. Sponsor: Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar Mrs. Epstein: I call the Public Service Committee to order. We have one ordinance before us this evening. It is Ord. 2025-54. The ordinance was read into record. The sponsor is Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar. Do you have anything? Dir. of Pub. Service: Thank you. So, this is the old YWCA, the GTF. Right now, all of the renters that were in there are out. There is still storage of equipment being used for the Little League, but they are no longer allowed to use that facility as of April 30th, so everybody has been out of there. Right now, we are starting the environmental cleanup and hazardous waste so that it is removing all light bulbs and ballasts and everything so that it is going to . . . we are getting contractors lined up to start that. Then we will go out to bid and hopefully get the building down after the Circle Fest. Mrs. Epstein: Are there any questions or comments from Council on this? Pres. of Council: Ms. Gutman and a few others were on a committee with the Little League last year and then I know we had a meeting in January. Just wondering if we need any follow- up discussions or planning to get back with Little League on any proposals or solutions like short-term versus long-term. I know it is a tough situation. Dir. of Pub. Service: It is seasonal. So, they are more worried about the fields and playing games right now. The discussions with Little League have been about batting cages and . . . So, I’m sure as we come out of the season, we will start hearing more but there again they can 18  COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 p.m. May 8, 2025 Dir. of Pub. Service (Cont’d.) rent our facility at the Rec Center. We have offered that to them. They get the 50% rate since they are a local group. But no, to answer your question nothing has been discussed as far as the new building. Mrs. Epstein: Alright. Is there a motion? Mrs. Gutman: I move to adopt Ord. 2025-54. Seconded Mr. Rubino. Roll Call: Mrs. Epstein, Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa – unanimous. Ord. 2025- 54 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. Mrs. Epstein: Is there anything else to come before Public Service? Dir. of Pub. Service: I have one. September 4th is when Sheetz is supposed to open. Mrs. Epstein: Is there anything else before Public Service? Hearing none, I will close committee. ii. Additional Items: None. 11. Reports of Special Committees: a. Council Operations Committee: No report. i. Additional Items: None. 12. Announcements: Pres. of Council: I just want to thank Councilwoman Gutman for her service to our community and to City Council and I genuinely wish you well in the future endeavors in Columbus. Mrs. Gutman: Thank you so much. Mayor: I would also like to thank Mrs. Gutman very much for all of her service to the City. You served it extremely well. Your insight, your knowledge and your thinking outside of the box has truly been inspirational and you are going to be greatly missed. Thank you for all your service. I appreciate it. 13. Adjournment: Mr. Pavlik moved to adjourn. Seconded Mr. Roy. Roll Call: Mrs. Gutman, Mr. Pavlik, Mr. Roy, Mr. Rubino, Mr. Bollas, Mrs. Cipa, Mrs. Epstein – unanimous. The Council meeting of 5-8-25 adjourned at 8:30 p.m. by a vote of 7-0. sb Adopted: _______________________ ____________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Jonathon D. Bollas, President of Council 19