Tallmadge City Council Regular Business Meeting (2013-2019)

REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. December 8, 16 1. CALL TO ORDER: President of Council Donovan called the Regular Council meeting of Thursday, December 8, 2016 to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. PRAYER: Silent prayer. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. 3. ROLL CALL: Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mrs. Ray, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso – present. Also present were Mayor Kline, Dir. of Pub. Service Esler, Dir. of Law Raber, Dir. of Finance Gilbride, Economic Developer Weinberg and Clerk of Council Burton. 4. MINUTES: 11-10-16 Regular Council meeting minutes. Mrs. Ray moved to approve the 11-10-16 Regular Council Meeting minutes. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Voice vote 7-0. The 11-10-16 Regular Council meeting minutes were approved by a vote of 7-0. FINANCIAL REPORTS:  Community Development Block Grant Transfer in the amount of $24,250 to Council on 11-30-16.  SMR Transfer in the amount of $158,000 to Council on 11-30-16.  Fire Transfer in the amount of $100,000 to Council on 11-30-16.  Police Pension Transfer in the amount of $15,000 to Council on 11-30-16.  Appropriation Report, Fund Report, Revenue Report, and Encumber Report for the period ending 11-30-16 to Council on 12-2-16.  Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 11-30-16 to Council on 12-5-16.  Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 11-30-16 to Council on 12-5-16.  Revenue Comparisons for the period ending 11-30-16 to Council on 12-5-16.  November Financial Reports to Council on 12-5-16.  Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 11-30-16 to Council on 12- 6-16. 5. PUBLIC HEARINGS: Ordinance 80-2016 At 3rd Reading. P.H. ON 12-8-16 @ 7:03 P.M. Adopting a budget for various funds of the ADOPT 3-0 City of Tallmadge, Ohio for current expenses and other expenditures during fiscal year ending December 31, 2017, appropriating the necessary funds for the administration thereof, authorizing transfers between funds, and providing for immediate enact- ment. Pres. of Council: It is now 7:03 p.m. and I call the public hearing for Ord. 80-2016 to order. If there is anybody who would like to speak in favor of Ord. 80-2016 please come forward to the podium and state your name and address for the record. No one responded. Is there anybody who would like to speak against Ord. 80-2016? No one responded. Is there anybody who would like to speak in favor of Ord. 80-2016? No one responded. Is there anyone who would like to speak against Ord. 80-2016? No one responded. Third and final time; is there anybody who would like to speak in favor of or against Ord. 80-2016? No one responded. It is now 7:05 p.m. and I will call the public hearing for Ord. 80-2016 closed and I will recognize the Finance Chair; Mrs. Ray. Mrs. Ray: Thank you Mr. Donovan. I will call the Finance Committee to order; myself, Mr. Stalnaker and Mr. Sisak are present. We do have Ord. 90-2016 in front of us. Are there any additional comments by members of the Administration? Mayor: Not at this time. I will wait until you go back into session unless you have a question. Mrs. Ray: No, I don’t think so. Mr. Sisak; Mr. Stalnaker are we all good. Alright then Mr. Donovan we would move to adopt Ord. 80-2016 by a vote of 3-0. If there is nothing else I will call the Finance Committee closed. Thank you sir. Mrs. Ray: Mr. Donovan, I would make a motion to adopt Ord. 80-2016. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Mayor: Thank you. As you can see up on the screen the 2017 appropriations and those are all funds; those are the 32 funds that we really work on and you can see the grand total; the $32,187,000 budget. It is a nice size budget. It is a lot of money; it is a lot of responsibility and it involves every department in the City of Tallmadge and I think this is a good budget. The Capital portion of the funds is $2.6 million for Capital and that is for six cruisers, to the streets, to storm water, and so we cover a wide gamut of Capital Improvements for the City. It does not have in there a new fire station or the sanitary sewer rate increase or anything like that until we finalize those negotiations . . . or the Joint Dispatch Center. So there will be things coming back. The nice thing is that the Minimum Fund Balance for the General Fund is $2.7 million and we are anticipating having a Fund Balance of $5.2 million. So we are $2.5 million above the Minimum Fund Balance, which is phenomenal. I do believe that number is going to climb when we start seeing the financial reports and the amount of revenue that is coming in the end of last month and this month. So, it is a great budget. A lot of hard work to put it together and special thanks to Jill Stritch for working very hard on it and the entire Administrative team; all of the Department Heads and help from Mollie and Megan putting this stuff together. It is really a team effort that is about a four or five month process putting the budget together. So, with that I think it is a great budget and I encourage your adoption.  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. December 8, 16 Pres. of Council: Is there anybody else? No one responded. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mrs. Ray, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan – unanimous. Pres. of Council: Ord. 80-2016 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. Thank you to everybody who worked on it. We appreciate it. 6. COMMUNITY INPUT: Pres. of Council: 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 there is anybody who would like to address Council please come forward and state your name and address. For the record; this will be changing. No takers. 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 DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Mayor: Yes, thank you. I am going to do a little something different; a little walk-through . . . I know it is going to be a quick meeting and we want to get out of here, but it is the last meeting of the year and so I do have a little thing that I have put together. I have a presentation this Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. and I am going to go through these really quick and so . . . every picture that I am going to show you was taken in 2016, all but one. I will point that out when we get to it. You all know about the Woodridge Development. That was January and the Eastwood Glenns; that was last January. The Hederson Subdivision, which is on the agenda tonight; Mr. & Mrs. Hederson are in the audience and that is the street now and the lots and as soon as it gets adopted; they will start three homes that will go on that. January 18, 2016, in front of the old “Y” and groundbreaking a little bit ago. There is the construction starting. Those are the borings that they had to bore down each one of those columns between 30’ and 36’ deep and filled them with 3.5 yards of concrete to the top. The car wash on Erie Drive. It is now open. There was a soft opening, but you can drive through it. Dayton Freight; probably most of you never get out to Dayton Freight. That is taken from Maplecrest Golf Course. That is the underground detention facility for the Testa site. That is part of the North Avenue Project. That is one of three of those sites. Tony Jaber’s on the Circle. It is coming along. They were there today. That’s today. You can see that there are actually guys in there. It was a beautiful summer and fall and they decided to work in the winter. Colony Park; that is the only picture that was taken in 2015. North Avenue in front of City Hall. We all saw that sign. I am happy to announce that maybe Santa Claus will come a little early for the opening. This is standing in that same spot, so you can see . . . Mrs. Ray: I love the street lights on North Avenue. Pres. of Council: Everybody likes the lights. Mayor: That picture is not in Tallmadge, but that is the building that was approved to go in the old Tallmadge Springs site down on Northwest Avenue. Pac Man is there taking away the 10-Minute Lube and that is the 10-Minute Lube today. Martin Wheel as it is today. There is Bryan’s new salt dome. I don’t know how many tons are in there. There are 700 tons in there and there is the old one that holds 14. A special thank you to Council for their hard work this past year. You have worked on 91 Ordinances and 14 Resolutions and so a lot of work goes into those things and all these projects are a result of Council’s, and Planning & Zoning, and Heritage and BZA’s and all of the other groups and especially the Law Department who is involved in every one of these things making sure that it is run smoothly and I think it was a great year for the City of Tallmadge. It would be hard to duplicate 2016 in the future because so much went on, but Rita is working on that. Mr. Stalnaker: We want to thank you, but you have to remember that we need leadership. Thank you. Mayor: No, I enjoy it, but thank you for the comment. A special thank you to Cheryl Esler for the design of the Tallmadge Circle Christmas lights. She came to me and said that she wanted to change something up and I felt like I didn’t want to do that, and she said trust me; you will like it and I think . . . the comments when I was at the Primetimers luncheon; there were 15 unsolicited comments from different parts of the whole room that loved the Circle. At the Chamber the other night; everybody was coming up and saying that they liked it. There was one naysayer, but I will take one out of 30+ comments. Mr. Sisak: Thanks for getting the manger up. 2  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. December 8, 16 Mayor: The manger; for the record, the manger was always going to go up, but not until after Thanksgiving. Let’s get through Thanksgiving. Last year we put it up before and we got yelled at. It is not even Thanksgiving yet. This year we are getting yelled at because it went up after. Oh well; it’s up. And also the new website; the new branding from the IT Department was . . . that was truly a group effort from a lot of people to work on it. End of report. Pres. of Council: Thank you and thanks for the slide show. Mayor: Yeah; it’s fun to put it together. Pres. of Council: It’s nice to have a before and after. It’s gets foggy. Any questions? No one responded. Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes, thank you. The Street Department has made . . . finished their 7th complete round with the leaf collection today around the City and I think that is pretty good. We looked around to a lot of other communities and they only make one or two passes through their cities and so I think seven passes is pretty good. They will be breaking down most of the trucks tomorrow and getting ready for snow control. They are out pre-salting some of the streets right now with liquid deicer. In the Utility Department we are out videoing and cleaning sewers and we are out there making a lot of repairs and finding some collapsed sewers. We have had a lot of water main breaks lately and so they have been busy with that. The Rec Center got their basketball tournaments going on on the weekends. It is packed out there and we are already working on Maca Park getting it ready for next season. End of report. Mr. Rensel: Yes, thank you. Mr. Esler, trucks are running around and stringing wires. They were on East Avenue today. Do you know what that effort is all about? Dir. of Pub. Service: It is fiber; I’m not sure who is doing it. I know that it is Taylor Communications actually stringing it. Mr. Rensel: And they are going above ground? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes. Mr. Rensel: OK. Thank you. Dir. of Finance: Thank you. Everybody should have received all of their financial reports. As the Mayor did mention, November was a good month for us income tax-wise. It bumped us up; we were running around 5% over last year and November bumped us up to 7%. So it was kind of a big month and so we will see if that sustains if maybe people paid early; it could mellow out, but I expect us to stay between the 5% and 7% over last year and so that is great. Otherwise, we are wrapping up everything and watching everything in the budget and keeping everybody’s budget under control for the end of the year and getting all of that done. End of report. Dir. of Law: Thank you. It has been a busy year and end of report. Economic Developer: Thank you. You may have read that the Cascades in our JEDD was sold recently to a New York based operation called Benchmark Development Group for $15.8 million. We don’t know much more than that. From talking to Portage County, they seem to think that the company will market the property and get some more tenants in there, but other than that, I think it is just going to be business as usual. I don’t see anything negative in this as of yet. So, we don’t really know until we have some time and see if they are going to be successful. End of report. Mr. Rensel: Rita; question please. I have had more than one person come at me this week saying that Menard’s is going into where the old Maplecrest is. Can that be confirmed now or is that still . . .? Economic Developer: I don’t think we can confirm anything at this point. I mean, they are doing their due diligence out there. We have talked to the developers, but we don’t have anything with any certainty. They have talked about a number of things going in out there. They are looking at two big boxes; some other retail out buildings and then some industrial in the back. Mr. Rensel: OK. Thank you. Mayor: One thing on that also is that the zoning has not been completed; it has not been submitted to Brimfield and so they do have to go through the process to change the zoning to even allow that style of store to be on that golf course. Mr. Rensel: I get these stories where somebody knows the owner and they are doing this and I keep saying, because I listen to Rita, and I say that no, it is not there yet and they look at me like you don’t know . . . you must not have your ear to the ground anymore and so that is why I thought I would ask tonight because I don’t think it is done yet either, but it is encouraging that that is the way it is going. That will be great for all of us. I just thought I would ask. Thank you. Pres. of Council: While we are in that area; are there any updates on the Ripley parcel? Do we have any information on that? Economic Developer: All I know is that the initial developer we are working with; Lemmon and Lemmon; their option expired and another developer came in behind them and so they have not approached us. They must be going through the same process because there were a lot of issues there and so they are probably doing their due diligence, but beyond that, it is another housing developer and I have nothing other than that. 3  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. December 8, 16 Mr. Sisak: So then the Cascades sold for roughly $15 million. What was the original investment? Economic Developer: Now that I don’t know. Mr. Sisak: It would be interesting to see. Mayor: And when you say Cascades; Lowe’s and Wal-Mart; those are not part of it. Mr. Sisak: No; of course. Mayor: It is just the strip plaza and the . . . Economic Developer: Two of the strip plazas; the car wash; and a park-like or open space. It does not include the 10 acre lot next to Kohl’s. The former owner retained ownership to market that later or build on that later. Mr. Sisak: That’s fine. Pres. of Council: Thank you. Anything else? No one responded. 10. Ordinance 81-2016 At 3rd Reading. PLANNING & ZONING Accepting the dedication of streets within the Hederson Subdivision for public pur- poses; setting performance and mainte- nance guarantees therefore and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak: I would like to call to order the Planning & Zoning Committee; myself, Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Kilway are present. I think we were trying to get some more detailed information on this. Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes, Mr. Sisak; we have received the bonds and we are ready to go with this. Mr. Sisak: Alright. So everything cleared? Dir. of Pub. Service: Everything is good. Mr. Sisak: Alright, so the recommendation from Planning & Zoning is to . . . Mrs. Kilway: Adopt. Mr. Sisak: OK; we’ll adopt 3-0 then. I will go ahead and close Planning & Zoning and I will go ahead and make the motion to adopt Ord. 81-2016. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mrs. Ray, Mr. Rensel, Mr. Sisak, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. Ord. 81-2016 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 11. Ordinance 88-2016 At 2nd Reading. FINANCE Authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement with Power Tool Repair Inc. for a New Jobs Program Grant pursuant to T.C.O. 160.05 and providing for immediate enactment. Mrs. Ray moved for the adoption of Ord. 88-2016. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Roll Call: Mr. Rensel – yes, Mr. Sisak – yes, Mr. Stalnaker - yes, Ms. Tricaso - yes, Mr. Donovan - yes, Mrs. Kilway – I wish to abstain from voting or any discussion at this time due to a business relationship with Power Tool Repair, Mrs. Ray – yes. Ord. 88-2016 is adopted by a vote of 6-0-1. 12. Ordinance 90-2016 At 2nd Reading. PUBLIC SERVICE Amending Codified Ordinance 1361.01 Performance and Maintenance Guarantees for Landscape Improvements, 1361.02 Planting, Trimming and Removal of Trees and Shrubs and 1361.99 Penalty and pro- viding for immediate enactment. Mr. Stalnaker moved for the amendment to Ord. 90-2016. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Roll Call: Mr. Sisak, Mr. Stalnaker, Ms. Tricaso, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mrs. Ray, Mr. Rensel – unanimous. Ord. 90-2016 is at 2nd Reading and has been amended and will remain before the Public Service Committee. 13. Ordinance 91-2016 At 1st Reading. FINANCE Authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement with Brookwood Senior Management, LLC. for a new Jobs Program Grant pursuant to T.C.O. 160.05 and providing for immediate enactment. Pres. of Council: Ord. 91-2016 is at 1st Reading and is assigned to the Finance Committee. 4  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:00 p.m. December 8, 16 14. Resolution 14-2016 At 1st Reading. Extending the sympathy of the Council and the Administration to Mary Lozowy and members of her family in the death of Michael Lozowy and providing for imme- diate enactment. Mr. Rensel moved for the adoption of Res. 14-2016. Seconded Mrs. Kilway. Mayor: For those of you who may have known Mike Lozowy or if not, sorry Sue, but what a great firefighter. He was one of the best firefighters I have ever ran into. I did work with him for a little bit and if you ever did CPR training or inspections, Mike was just a top notch person. He will be sorely missed from the entire Fire Department community. I know the Fire Chief is here in the room and so our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and his kids. He was truly one of the best guys you would want to be around. Mrs. Kilway: I would just like to reiterate Mayor Kline’s sentiments. Mike was an A-1 person all the way around and he will be sorely missed. Voice vote 7-0. Res. 14-2016 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 15. ADDITIONAL ITEMS: Mayor: Mr. Chairman, if Council . . . tomorrow after you drive home from work, try driving down North Avenue and see which way you can go. End of report! Mr. Sisak: Is there a ribbon cutting? Mrs. Ray: Unfortunately people have been coming south on North Avenue quite a lot lately. People who just couldn’t wait. Mayor: Tomorrow might be a better day for it! Pres. of Council: Oh my gosh, Sue has done a great job all year and she has left me a little note to read and I am to remind Council that this is the last meeting of the year and we are to wish everyone a Blessed Holiday Season and we will meet again on January 12th at 7:00 p.m. for the Committee meeting and 7:30 p.m. we will begin our Regular meeting. So, a new schedule and I was supposed to ask everyone to look over that meeting schedule on Monday and see if there were any comments. Sue is asking us to adopt the calendar then if everybody is OK with it. Mayor: Did you amend that date? Mrs. Kilway: No; he doesn’t know about it yet. Mayor: October 26th is Beggar’s Night and since it a joint meeting now, we could go later in the evening or if you want to make it on Wednesday instead of Thursday. That would be my suggestion. Mrs. Kilway: I would move to change the October 26th meeting to October 25th. Seconded Mrs. Ray. Pres. of Council: We haven’t done anything with it yet. Mrs. Ray: Yeah, we haven’t adopted it yet, so do we really need a motion to change it? Dir. of Law: You can make one motion to adopt the calendar with the amended date of October 25th. Mrs. Ray: I will be wherever you tell me to be and show up! Someone is going to have to send me a reminder anyway. Pres. of Council: So, I think we have a motion to adopt the calendar with one minor change and we have a second to that. Do we have any more discussion? No one responded. Alright; all in favor of the new calendar. Voice vote 7-0. The motion carries. Is there anything else to come before Council this evening this year? No one responded. 16. ADJOURNMENT: Mr. Sisak moved to adjourn. Seconded Mrs. Ray. Voice vote 7-0. The Regular Council meeting of 12-8-16 adjourned at 7:30 p.m. sb Approved: _____________________________________ __________________________________ Susan E. Burton James M. Donovan Clerk of Council President of Council 5