Tallmadge City Council Regular Business Meeting (2013-2019)

REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 14, 16 1. CALL TO ORDER: President of Council Donovan called the Regular Council meeting of Thursday, July 14, 2016 to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. PRAYER: Elder Phil Robinson, First Church of God, Tallmadge. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. 3. ROLL CALL: Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso – present. Also present were Mayor Kline, Economic Developer Rita Weinberg, Dir. of Pub. Service Esler, Dir. of Finance Gilbride, Dir. of Law Raber and Clerk of Council Burton. Mrs. Ray was absent and Mr. Sisak was on vacation. 4. MINUTES: 6-23-16 Regular Council meeting minutes. Mr. Rensel moved to approve the 6-23-16 Regular Council Meeting minutes. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Voice vote 5-0. The 6-23-16 Regular Council meeting minutes were approved by a vote of 5-0. FINANCIAL REPORTS:  SMR Transfer in the amount of $200,000 to Council on 6-30-16.  Bond Retirement Transfer in the amount of $100,000 to Council on 6-30-16.  Fire/EMS Capital Fund Transfer in the amount of $35,000 to Council on 6-30-16.  Fire Transfer in the amount of $65,000 to Council on 6-30-16.  Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 5-31-16 to Council on 6-14-16.  Appropriation Report, Fund Report, Revenue Report, and Encumber Report for the period ending 6-30-16 to Council on 7-1-16.  Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 6-30-16 to Council on 7-7-16.  Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 6-30-16 to Council on 7-7-16.  Revenue Comparisons for the period ending 6-30-16 to Council on 7-7-16.  June Financial Reports to Council on 7-7-16. Mr. Stalnaker moved to accept the Financial Reports. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Voice vote 5-0. The Financial Reports submitted by Dir. of Finance Gilbride were accepted by a vote of 5-0. 5. PUBLIC HEARINGS: None. 6. COMMUNITY INPUT: Tallmadge City Council meets on the second and fourth Thursday’s of the month for the Regular Council meetings and the preceding Monday’s 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 anybody would like to address Council, please come forward and state your name and address. Would anybody like to address Council this evening? No takers. 6.A. ANNOUNCEMENTS: There will be an Investment Board Meeting following the Regular Council meeting this evening. 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 Mayor: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I will start off with the Tallmadge Little League. Two teams are playing right now as we speak and both teams are up 3-0 in the top of the 4th and they are both at the State Championships and so if they win, then they are looking at a fire truck ride back into town sometime tonight. I’m glad they text me to remind me of that. I told them to do that. So, if you hear some sirens going around the Circle; that is the 9-year olds, 10-year olds and the 12-year old girls. Pres. of Council: Where are they playing Dave? Dir. of Finance: Clyde. Mr. Rensel: Clyde, Ohio. Mayor: We are also starting the budget process for 2017. We are putting that together. If Council would like to see anything special within your wards or within the City; please feel free to stop and talk to myself or Jill inside the office. I would appreciate that. This week was a nice week of swearing-in new safety forces. We had two Fire Fighters on Monday and two Police Officers on Wednesday and so Fire is fully up to staff and the Police Department is back to 2007 staffing levels. We are still down one and they are working on getting that vetted through the process. Concerts in the Park on the Circle started last week and they will continue for the next four weeks and then Circle Fest is August 20th. I’m sure you are all aware of that. Mary asked me about some stats for monthly reports and so what I have up here and I will get these to you, but as you can see up on the board, this is the Tallmadge Fire Department 2015, and 2016 by month. So as you can see, January comparisons going down all the way across. We are in a trend this year to be well above what our call status was in 2015 with the total calls for service. 2,680 calls and we are trending at 2,900 calls that we should hit this year and so that is quite a bit. I will make sure Council will start getting these on a monthly basis. Ms. Tricaso: Thank you.  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 14, 16 Mayor: I had the Police Department in there also, but it is not coming up. We have a brand new system that we started with New World. New World is a software packet for the Police Department and also for the Fire Department and safety forces through Kent State. It brings up our reporting system to a Windows base instead of the old system that we had and it is easier to run calls and show you calls and so I will pull up those reports for you. Calls for service are definitely up. It is a $30,000 addition to our portion of the program. We did not have it in the 2016 budget because we weren’t sure exactly when it was going to come out. It is out now and they started working on it. June 29th was the first day that we turned it on with the City and so we will be charging our portion of it. It is around $30,000 to $36,000 maybe. I think it is $36,000 between Fire and the Police. I would ask for Council’s consideration of Item 10; Ord. 55-2016, Item 11; Ord. 56-2016, Item 12; Ord. 57-2016, Item 13; Ord. 58-2016, Item 15; Ord. 60-2016 and we will talk about some of those. A couple of those are at 1st Readings and I will explain them when we get to them. End of report. Dir. of Pub. Service: All of you should have gotten a letter that I put out. I am forced to increase the sewer rates for our Akron customers by 25%. That is still less than what they have increased to us. We are trying to negotiate with them. We are not happy with the way that they are calculating what our portion of the improvement should be for the trunk sewers and we will continue to negotiate that. We have Equipment Operator interviews beginning next week. We have 15 interviews scheduled. Next Thursday is the bid opening for the demolition for the 10-Minute Lube on the Circle and the Barber building on West Avenue and a portion of a building down on Southwest Avenue. It is kind of amazing how the RNC is even affecting our North Avenue Project. AT&T’s relocation of their lines is kind of slowing things down up there. We are waiting on them to relocate their lines and the people that they need to do the splicing on these new lines are actually up at the RNC and so they are only able to come down here and work on the weekends. Hopefully they will be back down here next week. Tallmadge Fair begins on the 26th through the 31st. Pres. of Council: Mr. Esler; question; you said that the 25% increase is not even what they had increased to us . . . do we know what the actual amount is? Dir. of Pub. Service: It was 29% what they had proposed, but also, when we do these; we are just passing along these increases and we are not taking into account what increases to our people’s salaries or what we need to do as improvements to our facilities also. So, anytime we just keep passing along these increases that they give us just to pass along is really not enough, so we will be looking at this . . . after we do this increase, we will keep an eye on it because we clean out the flues on those master meters and we have been able to reduce our billing some and so we are going to have to keep an eye on that after we do this increase to see where we are at and then we will decide if we need to do further adjustments. Pres. of Council: So, we are looking at possibly another adjustment when? Dir. of Pub. Service: I can’t say for sure when. We will keep watching the numbers after we make this adjustment. Pres. of Council: OK. Thanks. Mr. Rensel. Mr. Rensel: Yes, thank you. Mr. Esler, and I think the Mayor confirmed this may be two weeks ago; we are not predating the bills back to the beginning of the year? Dir. of Pub. Service: No. No. We won’t be doing that. Mr. Rensel: So, in August it will go up for the period starting in August; right? Dir. of Pub. Service: Correct. Pres. of Council: Anybody else? No one responded. Thank you. Dir. of Finance: Thank you. Everybody should have received the June Financial Reports. Everything is still going well. Our income tax is still doing well at 5% above where we were at last year. So, we are pleased with that still and we will just continue to keep you informed in monitoring that. We did once again receive from the Auditor of State’s Office an Award of Distinction for our clean audit, which a representative from the Auditor’s Office stopped by today to present that to my office and staff and then finally my office is working on a popular annual financial report which is a slimmed down financial report based on our current financial report to the community and so we are working on that and that will probably come out some time at the end of July or beginning of August and be distributed to the community in their Tallmadge Express. I would also ask for your consideration of adoption of Ordinances 58-2016 and 60-2016. End of report. Pres. of Council: I have a quick question for you. Is everything still on-line? Everything . . . Dir. of Finance: The on-line checkbook? Pres. of Council: Right. 2  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 14, 16 Dir. of Finance: Yeah, it is on-line. I keep it updated. I update it about quarterly with the checkbook information. There is limited review of it. I have reviewed the statistics and there are maybe one to two people a month click on it and look at it, but it is still out there. I know there is some fighting down in Columbus between Kasich and Treasurer Mandell as to whether that is going to continue to be funded, but we are . . . we keep it updated on a quarterly basis. Mr. Rensel: Yes, thank you. Ms. Gilbride; looking at the financial report that you issued; income taxes overall are up 5%, but the business sector was down 10% or 13%? Is that a temporary dip? We are trying to understand why that occurred. Why the personal income tax is up and business is down? Do you have any idea? Dir. of Finance: The way I like to explain business income; that is the income tax on a business’s net profits. So that source of income tax is very volatile because you can have businesses right now that their withholdings are up, but because they are growing and expanding; they are putting their money back into their business, thus reducing their taxable income. So that is why that number fluctuates. I never like to gauge how well we are doing with income tax on that. If you look at the other two sources, they are much higher up than the 5% that we are up, but that business income is kind of cyclical and so it goes up and down and kind of fluctuates and so it is not a great indicator technically and actually when it is down it kind of indicates that our businesses are growing because they are investing in themselves and their taxable income is down. Mr. Rensel: OK. Thank you Ms. Gilbride. Mr. Stalnaker: Mollie, please pass on to your associates that we as a group really . . . it really impresses us with the clean reports that you get. That is amazing. Thank you and all of your associates. You didn’t do it by yourself. Dir. of Finance: No, I don’t do it by myself and I appreciate the staff that I have in my office and I thank you very much. Dir. of Law: I have no report this evening. Economic Developer: The Planning & Zoning Commission met last week and they had a very full agenda and so there is a lot of activity in the pipeline and the developments that we have going on around town, as you look around, are coming along very nicely. We are finally seeing a lot of good progress on the Circle and the Testa Project next door. The underground detention is coming along and they are working on that and then it looks like the stair tower is pretty much complete. I don’t know if it is all there, but it is coming along. We have a new car wash going in on Southeast Avenue and it is also coming along very nicely. End of report. Mrs. Kilway: Yes, do you have any information on property on South Avenue; the old steel plate property? I noticed it says, “Leased” on the sign right next to S.D. Meyers? Economic Developer: I don’t; do you (Mayor) know anything about it? Mayor: In talking to Dana Meyers and Scott Meyers the other day; it is leased, but I’m not sure who it is leased to yet. They are still working on the contract and they are not going to release that yet. Mrs. Kilway: So we should have a business moving in there very shortly then? Mayor: Yes. Mrs. Kilway: Fantastic. Mr. Stalnaker: Refresh my memory; what is going on beside East End Welding? Mayor: East End Welding out there; Klaben Ford has that site and Dayton Freight in the back is in Tallmadge and is putting a huge addition on. If you have ever been down there and you are on Maplecrest Golf Course; it looks like huge construction down there. They are taking that site and moving a lot of dirt and they are taking it over to Klaben so they can raise it about 10 feet. I think they are done with the fill on it right now and so when they do finally build; you can see the vehicles from the expressway. They are raising that site, but that is Klaben and they will be building some time. Mr. Rensel: Under the subject Mayor, based on the design concepts you presented on the new intersection; won’t that cut into that area? Mayor: No. If you know that “s” curve right there; right when you come around Mogadore Road and in front of East End Welding where that detention pond is; they had to have that for both storm water, but also for fire protection prior to them having a waterline out there so they were able to draft water from that pond for fighting fires in that area and now there is a 12” water main that goes down their property so . . . and that is still not a done deal . . . I mean that conversion diamond is still being looked at from O.D.O.T. It is preliminary and it was approved; some funding was approved, but they do not have all of the funding approved yet. I think they are $3 million off and so they are still working on that aspect of it. Pres. of Council: Is there anything new with the golf course? I keep getting questions about that. Mayor: As far as we know, the golf course is still the golf course. I just left there . . . well, it should go away because I played terrible! It is still . . . there are a lot of rumors out there saying it is sold or it is not sold. Working with the developer; I think there is only an option on it. That’s all we know. Pres. of Council: That’s the last I heard and so I didn’t know if there was anything else. Economic Developer: There is still the option and I guess right now they are still looking at possibly industrial in the back and some retail in the front, but nothing is conclusive right now. 3  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 14, 16 Pres. of Council: Is there anything else? No one responded. 10. Ordinance 55-2016 At 3rd Reading. COMMUNITY ISSUES/SAFETY Authorizing the Mayor to enter into a POLL 2-0 Memorandum of Understanding with the Tallmadge Board of Education for a School Resource Officer and providing for imme- diate enactment. Ms. Tricaso: I would like to open Community Issues/Safety Committee to poll. Mr. Rensel? Mr. Rensel: I’m in favor. Mayor: Ms. Tricaso, I think you are polling so I can give you my report about the M.O.U. with the school district. I did meet with Jeff Ferguson the very next day and actually we had our quarterly meeting and they are 100% behind that. They still have to take it to the school board, but there seems to be no problems with it on their behalf. One question was about . . . I think Munroe School; they may not have a room for the officer to sit in by himself because there are no more classrooms and so they are going to work out that detail, but the M.O.U. is ready to go and we are happy with it but they still have to sign it, and since you are on break, I still would ask you to consider adopting this because we may have to send our Officer to Columbus next week for the training for this. Ms. Tricaso: Then we will recommend adopting 2-0. I close committee. I recommend that we adopt Ord. 55-2016. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan – unanimous. Ord. 55-2016 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. 11. Ordinance 56-2016 At 2nd Reading. Supporting Documentation FINANCE Authorizing payment of a moral claim not to ADOPT 2-0 WITH SUPPORTING exceed $24,226.56 to George Serba and DOCUMENTATION Deborah Serba for a water main break at 51 Southeast Avenue and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Stalnaker moved for the adoption of Ord. 56-2016. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mr. Rensel, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. Ord. 56-2016 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. 12. Ordinance 57-2016 At 2nd Reading. PUBLIC SERVICE Authorizing the Mayor to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Miami Valley Fire/EMS Alliance for the City of Tallmadge Fire Department to participate in Ohio Task Force 1 and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Stalnaker moved for the adoption of Ord. 57-2016. Seconded Ms. Tricaso. Roll Call: Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Rensel – unanimous. Ord. 57-2016 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. 13. Ordinance 58-2016 At 1st Reading. FINANCE Accepting the 2016-2017 Ohio EMS Priority 1 (Training and Equipment) Grant; apppro- priating the necessary funds and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Stalnaker moved for the adoption of Ord. 58-2016. Seconded Ms. Tricaso. Roll Call: Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Stalnaker – unanimous. Ord. 58-2016 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. 14. Ordinance 59-2016 At 1st Reading. PLANNING & ZONING Amending Ordinance 40-2016 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/convalescent care facility located at 619 North-west Avenue. Pres. of Council: Ord. 59-2016 is at 1st Reading and is assigned to the Planning & Zoning Committee. 4  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 14, 16 15. Ordinance 60-2016 At 1st Reading. FINANCE Accepting the Local Government Innovation Fund Grant for the Tallmadge Area Fleet Performance Project; authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement with Clean Fuels Ohio to complete the project; appropriating the necessary funds and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Stalnaker moved for the adoption of Ord. 60-2016. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Mayor: If you recall, Council passed an ordinance allowing us to apply for the grant, but it did not authorize us to enter into a contract. We didn’t know if we were going to get the grant. It is a $50,000 grant that was received for the Tallmadge School District, Brimfield and the Summit DD and we all have to put in some in-kind contributions to that which was that $5,000. The Tallmadge portion is in the range of $1,200. So we did receive that grant and so this authorizes us to . . . we have to appropriate money and then it gets reimbursed and we repay ourselves back and so it is really a no money change; it is just that we have to front the money for the fund and then once it is all done; we will get the money back and it goes back into the General Fund. Mr. Rensel: Mr. Mayor; what does Clean Fuels Ohio benefit from this? Mayor: What we benefit; they are actually running . . . Mr. Rensel: Is it a State program or is that a private enterprise? Mayor: It is a private enterprise working for . . . it is that Clean Ohio Grant, so we applied for the grant for them to come in and do a study on all of our vehicles; our fleet . . . anything from lawnmowers to police cars to fire trucks to diesel fuels. What can we do to increase the fuel to make our vehicles have better fuel systems from going through a different style diesel fuel; do we go to electric cars; do we change our policies on how we purchase; do we go to eco fuel vehicles and things like that. So, they will give us a recommendation for our fleet and all the other fleets that are part of it. Mr. Rensel: This is a recommendation; it is not . . . there are no penalties if we don’t follow their recommendations? Mayor: Nope. Mr. Rensel: Thank you sir. Mayor: And you will have more reports as we get the reports; I will make sure that Council gets them. Roll Call: Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso – unanimous. Ord. 60- 2016 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. 16. Resolution 8-2016 At 1st Reading. Extending the sympathy of the Council and the Administration to Florence Cooper and members of her family in the death of Jack Cooper and providing for immediate enact- ment. Mr. Stalnaker moved for the adoption of Res. 8-2016. Seconded Mr. Rensel. Mayor: Jack Cooper, as we all know, was a great employee to the City of Tallmadge. He was a great mentor of my own. It was hard to fill his footsteps when Jack stepped down and I became Service Director. Jack was a great guy from the City of Akron in the engineering department and we were very fortunate to have him around the City for the years that we were able to do it and I was with Jack a week prior to his passing and he was still talking about projects and still doing this and what about that and checking up on things. We will miss Jack a lot. Mr. Rensel: I second that. Going back a ways . . . Mayor: All of the Tallmadge Little League stuff. Mr. Rensel: Goes back to Little League. Great, great employee. Voice vote 5-0. Res. 8-2016 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. 17. Resolution 9-2016 At 1st Reading. Extending the sympathy of the Council and the Administration to Larry Valenti and members of his family in the death of Wanda Valenti and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Rensel moved for the adoption of Res. 9-2016. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Voice vote 5-0. Res. 9- 2016 is adopted by a vote of 5-0. 18. ADDITIONAL ITEMS: Pres. of Council: I am to remind Council members of summer break. The next meeting will not be until August 22, 2016. Is there anything else to come before Council this evening? 5  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. July 14, 16 19. ADJOURNMENT: Mr. Rensel moved to adjourn. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Voice vote 5-0. The Regular Council meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m. sb Approved: _____________________________________ __________________________________ Susan E. Burton James M. Donovan Clerk of Council President of Council 6