Tallmadge City Council Regular Business Meeting (2013-2019)

REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 16 1. CALL TO ORDER: President of Council Donovan called the Regular Council meeting of Thursday, April 14, 2016 to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. PRAYER: Fr. Mike Matusz, Our Lady of Victory Church, Tallmadge. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. 3. ROLL CALL: Mr. Donovan, Mr. Rensel, Mrs. Kilway, Mrs. Ray, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso – present. Also present were Mayor Kline, Dir. of Pub. Service Esler, Dir. of Finance Gilbride, Dir. of Law Raber, Economic Developer Weinberg and Clerk of Council Burton. 4. MINUTES: 3-10-16 Regular Council meeting minutes. Mrs. Ray moved to approve the 3-10-16 Regular Council meeting minutes. Seconded Mr. Mr. Sisak. Voice vote 7-0. The 3-10-16 Regular Council meeting minutes were approved by a vote of 7-0. FINANCIAL REPORTS:  Bond Retirement Transfer in the amount of $100,000 to Council on 3-31-16.  General Infrastructure Transfer in the amount of $60,000 to Council on 3-31-16.  SMR Transfer in the amount of $200,000 to Council on 3-31-16.  Appropriation Report, Fund Report, Revenue Report, and Encumber Report for the period ending 3-31-16 to Council on 4-8-16.  Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 3-31-16 to Council on 4-8-16.  Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 3-31-16 to Council on 4-8-16.  Revenue Comparisons for the period ending 3-31-16 to Council on 4-8-16.  March Financial Reports to Council on 4-8-16. Mrs. Ray moved to accept the Financial Reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Voice vote 7-0. The Financial Reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride were accepted by a vote of 7-0. 5. PUBLIC HEARINGS: None. 6. COMMUNITY INPUT: Pres. of Council: I would like to welcome all of the students that are here this evening. Tallmadge City Council meets on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month for the Regular Council meetings and the preceding Mondays are the Council Committee meetings. At the Committee meetings legislation is discussed thoroughly with Council deciding to adopt, amend, reject, hold or table the legislation. We do allow time for community input at this point in the meeting. If anyone would like to address Council, please come forward and state your name and address. I believe we have a guest this evening. Brad Cromes, 550 East Riddle Avenue, Ravenna, OH. Treasurer, Portage County. I am here because I serve as the County Treasurer of Portage County next door and you all know that there is a portion of Tallmadge that adjoins our county and so I am making it a point to get out to see every city, village and township within or contiguous to Portage County just to share what my office is up to and give you a quick update on what we are doing. I did that last year and I brought my 2-year old; he has elected to stay home tonight, which I think is wise, however, I will say that I am used to being the youngest person in the room and so I love that there are a bunch of young people here. I have some materials that I will distribute to you all and so I will bring those up to you now. What is coming around; there is a blue sheet there that has on either side; one side is the work that we did in 2015 and some goals that we have for this year and the other item that is coming around is a red brochure and that brochure talks about one of the programs that we put in place in 2015. Just very quickly, on the red brochure; that is our Home Improvement Prrogram. It is very similar to a link deposit program that is in place in Summit County, but what this is is we took $1 million of our County’s Investment Funds and deposited them in three of our local banks in Portage County for which then those banks are making available a $1 million to do home improvements of a permanent variety to houses in our County that meet the criteria of the program. So, having an immediate value of $175,000 or less; the amount of the loan being $40,000. From my office’s perspective that is valuable to us because it continually improves property values and that shows in other communities where it has been in effect for a longer period of time. The borrowers then offer a 3% discount for the loan rate and obviously they get a little bit of the cut and we are just about 6 months into this using that at this point and we are evaluating it now for edification I would suppose you would say; we are going to be evaluating it this year as well. Just very briefly on a couple of the other things that I mentioned last year when I came, that we were going to be reviewing our website and we have completed that project and we have 60+ pages of information out there now that are related to not only things that are on the tax bill, but just general information and how to spend correctly and save and that sort of finance related information. So, I encourage you to check that out and we also have a Facebook page. We are playing catchup there a little bit because obviously there is a value in that and we can use that proactively to reach out to people.  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 16 Mr. Cromes (Cont’d.) We are also then looking, just to wrap up, this year to expand our offerings for making tax payments as simple as possible and so we are going to be looking at a new vendor for on-line bill payment and we are going to look into credit card payment into our office finally and just looking at things like e-mail billing and some of that and so we are going to be wrapping up our proposals on that on Monday and we are going to be moving forward hopefully and get those things soon. Again, that is the nutshell update, but my main point was to come out and say hello to you and so I appreciate you letting me do that and if you have any questions and there is time available, I would be happy to answer those. Pres. of Council: OK. Thanks a lot. Is there anybody else who would like to address Council this evening? No one responded. 6.A. ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. 7. REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES: None. 8. AGENDA ADDITIONS: None. 9. REPORTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS: MAYOR, DIR. OF PUBLIC SERVICE, DIRECTOR OF FINANCE, DIRECTOR OF LAW AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPER Pres. of Council: We will have the Director of Finance go first this evening. Dir. of Finance: I would like to go out of order please because I have a commitment I need to get to this evening and so I would like to report to Council now. I did just want to let Council know that on Tuesday, we did award the $1 million note that we had out. We received 9 bids and were able to get a net interest cost of .99% so that is a really great rate for us on that note. So, considering that I just got a CD at .85%; those gaps are coming together and so I think that was a great rate. We have been very busy in our office the past week. Traffic is stepping up with people coming in to get help with their income taxes; those are due on Monday, April 18th. A Federal holiday is being celebrated on April 15th and so the date is the same as the Federal Tax Day of April 15th. Otherwise, you have all received your financial reports and everything right now is going smoothly. It has been a good quarter. Our income tax kind of took a good jump up there in March to get us about 8% above where we were at last year. So, hopefully we can stick with that. Income tax does kind of tend to have some ebbs and flows and so hopefully we will continue to keep that up over last year. That is all I have. If anybody has any questions? Pres. of Council: No, thank you. Mr. Mayor. Dir. of Law: I am very privileged this evening to have with me Amelia Ross. She is a 3 rd Grader who heard us speak. For those who don’t know, every year we go into the 3 rd Grade and kind of give a little bit of a quick overview of what the various office holders do in the City and she had an interest in law and so I am very privileged that she followed up and wanted to shadow me this evening and so I know you all welcome her and you will get a chance to talk to her a little bit more after the meeting today. So, I am glad she is here. Mrs. Ray: Welcome Amelia. Dir. of Law: I just also wanted to reiterate that everything is going very well with the planning for the Opiate Forum which is April 27th and we are also participating in the DEA’s Drug Take Back Day, which will be Saturday, April 30th. So those are two separate events, but they are related and the planning is going very well for all of that and we hope to have your support and your presence at those events. Thank you very much. End of report. Pres. of Council: Any questions? No one responded. Mayor: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I have quite a few items to talk about. I gave Council a letter that I sent off to the US EPA that went off today and it also went to all Summit County Mayors and the County Executive and our other State Legislators. On Monday, Mary Tricaso, myself and Rita were at a meeting out at Summit Racing with Congressman Ryan to talk about this EPA ruling that has a potential that could be very detrimental to Summit Racing. It is a 600+ page document and buried down inside that document . . . if you . . . you will no longer be allowed to modify a vehicle that you drive if you want to race it. So anybody who wants . . . I’ll say a Mustang, that you want to soup up a little bit and drive down a race track; Summit Racing is that place that you go buy all those parts from; one of the places; there are other places, but Summit Racing is the big one in our area and they would no longer be allowed to sell that part for that vehicle. So it could be very devastating to our local economy when you are talking about over 1,000 jobs out at Summit Racing just in the Tallmadge area and then in the region about 2,000 jobs plus or minus and so that is what this letter is about and I am sure that I can get Council . . . we are looking at a resolution of support of whatever Congressman Ryan and his group are producing legislation to modify this House Bill. At first they closed the hearings on this, but now they reopened them back up and so there is some time here and so it is really gaining a lot of momentum and so please read that over and if you have questions, you can see me after. Today we had one of several meetings with Akron Sewer and so we are making some headway on our sewer contract. Still, unfortunately as we told you back in the budgetary process; sewer rates will be going up for the Akron side. We are meeting internally with how much that is going to be and it will be legislatively done unlike just a regular pass through; we are allowed, but I think the magnitude of this sewer rate increase will . . . I want to debate it 2  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 16 Mayor (Cont’d.) and talk about it and talk about it on Council floor and so we will be bringing that here fairly quickly to you guys. Again, with the help of Megan, and she has been excellent on this contract stuff; multi-page document . . . the City of Cuyahoga Falls, City of Lakemore, Summit DOES and Tallmadge are the master meter contracts and the City of Akron has their outside legal people and we had a pretty good meeting today, but some of these things we agree to disagree, but we are down to one item that we disagree on and we are working that out. The Freedom Trail; you do not have the legislation in front of you tonight, but the next Council meeting you will have it. We are working with the City of Kent and Metro Parks at the end of the Freedom Trail going into Kent how dangerous it is going from Tallmadge to the Kent Trail. We are going to widen that a little bit; the Tallmadge portion. We are going to be working in Tallmadge and Kent and then Kent will stripe it and sign it and that is really only a temporary thing because AMATS has awarded us; Tallmadge and Kent, the ability to create a bridge and start doing the studies on that and so within the next three years, I think we will . . . it is about a $3 million project to do that to make it a proper connection, but this will make it a lot safer connection. It is going to require a MRU. Kent has their legislation May 1 st and so ours will be at the next Council meeting. I have been working with Ripley Farm. There is a contract on Ripley Farm and we are working with the developer. There is a lot of work to go on that yet, but their goal is to try to get in front of Planning & Zoning by May. Hopefully we can, but I am not real sure. A little mixed use out front maybe and residential. The Summit County Health Department; I did meet with them this week to go over a couple of things. There are some . . . the lead issue of pipes is a big issue with the Summit County Health Department and so we were talking about that. They have different kits that are available that we are looking at. What does that mean? Some other different Health Department issues of allowing people to call them and they will provide free services to go out to our residents or anybody in Summit County, but some brochures that they are going to pass out to us help promote awareness and keeping people safe in Summit County. The North Avenue Project; I don’t know if Bryan is going to talk about it, but it is going on. Mr. Stalnaker: I just told Craig that you have a simple answer to this. You have to vote for Trump. EPA is the first department that he will do away with and then he will modify the IRS! Mayor: If that is all he would do; would be to get rid of the EPA and not push the button to blow us up . . . Pres. of Council: We wouldn’t need the EPA then either! Mr. Rensel: Mr. Mayor; recognizing that Megan does very well with contracts; are you two working together with this EPA issue and Summit Racing? People I have talked to . . . my side of the legislature are not as confident that this thing could be as dangerous as it is and it all depends on the language which requires a lawyer or interpretation of law and so I am asking if Megan is involved in that so she can . . . Mayor: She is not, but she will be with writing the legislation, but rest assured that when you have people from Washington DC that are out there and all the attorneys are out there with Congressman Ryan, Renacci and the State . . . DeWine sent a real nice letter opposing this House Bill and those are all . . . I don’t want to talk politics, but those are all Republicans saying that this is not right and you need to do something about it and fix it because it is not only Summit Racing, but it is anybody who sells after-market parts. Mr. Rensel: Right, but when this first came up it was supposedly to be implemented the first of July. Now what you seem to be saying is that the legislation is not complete; the hearings are open. Mayor: It was going . . . they reopened the hearings. It was going to be adopted in July until you found one page . . . one paragraph buried in a 600+ page document prohibiting the modification of a street car. Mr. Rensel: Street Car. I understand. Mayor: And light duty truck. Mr. Rensel: Sure. Yes; that too. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you Mr. President. Pres. of Council: Is there anybody else? No one responded. Mayor: I’m done. Pres. of Council: Next up; Director of Public Service. Dir. of Pub. Service: Thank you. We are ahead of last year on sales for pre-season passes for Maca Park. We have 141 passes sold. It is only six weeks away; May 28th we are opening Maca and so we are scurrying out there. We have some painting to do of the floor and some of the features and some other things to work on out there and so we are trying to get that done ahead of time. Work continues on North Avenue. They have 300 days to complete. They will have 200 days that they can actually close it. I think we are quite a ways away from the actual closing of that. First Energy set their poles. They had originally said that they were going to take 90 days to do their completion. I think they are moving a lot faster than what they thought they were. They originally said they were going to be at the Circle for 30 days alone to set the poles and they are already transferring cables and so I think they are going to be out of here a lot quicker than that. 3  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 16 Dir. of Pub. Service (Cont’d.) AT&T is setting some new underground vaults and conduits. They are still working on that on the west side of the road. Liberta; they are right now in the process of moving water services over. They will do the hydrants and hopefully the next step will be the underground detention systems on both sides of our building and then over by the church. We have been approving the materials as they come in. So we are close to getting that approved so they can get those started. I believe that will be the next step and so they won’t need to close the road for that. I have two people who are actually retiring down at the Service Center. Tomorrow we are going to give an Equipment Operator skill test to some current employees so they have a possibility of advancing down there. Then we will be advertising soon to give a Civil Service test to hire two new employees. We have received our first zoning application for the Woodridge Sub-development and that is for their model home and so hopefully that will be started soon. Our hydrant flushing for this year has been completed and so hopefully we won’t be getting any more dirty water calls. End of report. Pres. of Council: Tonight we have a new report. Welcome Rita. Economic Developer: Definitely a new report. I don’t have any specific project information other than I have been working with the Mayor on the Ripley Farm and vetting a current proposal and trying to work with the developer who would like to put in something on that property. I have also been trying to look forward as we look at business retention and expansion efforts in the City and talking to businesses in the future about ways in which we might be able to get creative to help them achieve their business efforts and maybe try to do some things a little bit different. If we have threatened business losses in the future, maybe we can bring some tools to the table and so we are just trying to get a little creative on that. Pres. of Council: Any questions? No one responded. Thank you very much. 10. Ordinance 23-2016 At 3rd Reading. PLANNING & ZONING Approving and granting a conditional zoning certificate for special nonresidential development to applicant Pavlak Enter- prises Incorporated on behalf of owner Mary Kathryn Markle for operating a car wash located at Parcel No. 6010144 on Southeast Avenue. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Ord. 23-2016. Seconded Mrs. Ray. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mrs. Ray, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan – unanimous. Ord. 23-2016 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 11. Ordinance 40-2016 At 2nd Reading. PLANNING & ZONING Approving and granting a conditional zoning certificate for special nonresidential development to applicant LTC Tallmadge, LLC on behalf of owner Yusef Khan Grotto 169 for operating a skilled nursing/con- valescent care facility located at 619 Northwest Avenue. Mr. Sisak moved to amend Ord. 40-2016. Seconded Mrs. Ray. Roll Call: Mrs. Ray, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. Ord. 40-2016 is amended by a vote of 7-0. 12. Ordinance 41-2016 At 1st Reading. FINANCE Authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement for the sale without bid or real property at 26 Nottingham Street, not needed for municipal purposes, to Tallmadge Grow, Inc. a Community Improvement Corporation. Pres. of Council: Ord. 41-2016 is at 1st Reading and is assigned to the Finance Committee. 4  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. April 14, 16 13. ADDITIONAL ITEMS: Mayor: I apologize, I forgot one very important item that Danny Boy’s at the Circle is now open for business and I actually just had a pizza there a little bit ago; one piece; that was all you could eat it was so filling. I encourage Council to swing by there and patronize them. It is very nice and it looks nice inside if you haven’t been in it. They will have an official ribbon cutting. They wanted to wait a week until they get used to it down there. It was very good. 14. ADJOURNMENT: Mrs. Ray moved to adjourn. Seconded Mr. Rensel. Voice vote 7-0. The Regular Council meeting adjourned at 7:24 p.m. sb Approved: _____________________________________ __________________________________ Susan E. Burton James M. Donovan Clerk of Council President of Council 5