Tallmadge City Council Regular Business Meeting (2013-2019)

REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:30 p.m. September 13, 18 1. CALL TO ORDER. President of Council Kilway called the Regular Council meeting of Thursday, September 13, 2018 to order at 7:30 p.m. 2. PRAYER: Pastor Doug Walters, Tallmadge First Church of God, Tallmadge. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: 3. ROLL CALL: Mrs. Allman, Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan, Ms. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Ms. Tricaso – present. Also present were Mayor Kline, Dir. of Pub. Service Rorar, Dir. of Finance Gilbride, Dir. of Law Raber and Clerk of Council Burton. Dir. of Administration Cooper and Dir. of Econ. Development Weinberg were on vacation. 4. MINUTES: 8-23-18 Regular Council Meeting minutes. Mr. Donovan moved to adopt the Regular Meeting minutes of 8-23-18. Seconded Mr. Sisak. Voice vote 7-0. The Regular Council Meeting minutes of 8-23-18 were adopted by a vote of 7-0. 5. FINANCIAL REPORTS: • Street Maintenance & Repair Transfer in the amount of $125,000 to Council on 8-31-18. • Bond Retirement Transfer in the amount of $150,000 to Council on 8-31-18. • Appropriation Report, Fund Report, Revenue Report, and Encumber Report for the period ending 8-31-18 to Council on 9-5-18. • Tallmadge Recreation Center Profit and Loss Report for the period ending 8-31-18 to Council on - 9-7-18. • Income Tax Comparisons for the period ending 8-31-18 to Council on 9-7-18. • Revenue Comparisons for the period ending 8-31-18 to Council on 9-7-18. • August Financial Reports to Council on 9-7-18. • Consolidated Investment Portfolio for the period ending 8-31-18 to Council on 9-7-18. Mr. Sisak moved to approve the Financial Reports submitted. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Voice vote 7-0. 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: Tallmadge City Council meets on the second and fourth Thursday’s of each month with the Council Committee meetings starting at 7:00 p.m. followed by the Regular Council meeting. At the Committee meetings legislation is discussed thoroughly and Council decides to adopt, amend, reject, hold or table the legislation. We do allow time for community input at this point in the meeting. Is there anyone who would like to address Council at this time please come forward and state your name. No takers tonight. OK. Thank you. 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. 9. REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES: None. 10. AGENDA ADDITIONS: None. 11. REPORTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS: MAYOR, DIR. OF PUBLIC SERVICE, DIR. OF ADMINISTRATION, DIR. OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, DIR. OF FINANCE AND DIR. OF LAW. Mayor: Thank you Madame Chair. First of all I would like to thank the Fire Department and the public for coming out for September 11th at the Circle. I see Ralph Jordan is here and Mike Passarella, the Fire Chief, thank them for the work that was done setting those candles out. It was a yucky morning and was postponed from 8:00 a.m. until noon and we had a little prayer service on the Circle and it is just phenomenal to see the outcry of the public coming out throughout the whole evening and so it was fun to go down there and walk . . . I wish I didn’t have to do it, but there were a lot of positive comments and so kudos to the Fire Department who have done this for 17 straight years. Don’t forget that the Heart Walk, if you are involved in that, is this coming Saturday. It is down at Akron U and you should know by now if you are on a team or not with your red t-shirt. If you need an extra shirt; you can use mine. The following Saturday is the Bike and Brainstorm starting here at City Hall on Saturday morning and I would encourage you to don your helmet and your bicycle and go on a 6 mile road trip and then back to talk about it. The new squad is here. It was going to be here tonight, but they were unable to bring it down tonight, so at the next Council meeting we will bring the new squad that is in service now. I would request Council’s consideration for Ord. 73, 74 and 75-2018. That’s the whole agenda and the resolution for Mike Dornack. Dir. of Pub. Service: Good evening. For the month of August, before I start on the month of August, let’s talk about the salt for 2018-2019. We are in a cooperative purchasing program with the university and they put out a salt bid and Cargill was the only one who submitted a bid and their price is $79 and that is up roughly $25 from last year. The problem with the bid though was that . . . the number 2 bullet point there is that they are not going to start delivering until after January and that really puts a lot of municipalities that are part of that purchasing program in the hurt because they bank on ordering the salt now and getting their bins full. Fortunately for the City of Tallmadge, we are about 2/3 full in our bin, but still you don’t know what November and December are going to bring and so that is not a good thing. We are looking at different alternatives, but there again, keep in mind that we are already in the middle of September. None of this is good news. I think Councilman Sisak asked the question a couple of weeks back and there is an article about salt prices going up and so we know the price, but the issue is can we get it delivered.  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:30 p.m. September 13, 18 Mayor: While we are still on that topic, myself and Mike Weigand attended a meeting at Akron U this morning and every community in Summit County was represented at this meeting and it was standing room only to find out what is going on with this bid. There are two suppliers in the area; Morton Salt and Cargill. Morton Salt did not put a bid in, but ODOT who bid out early in May; Morton bid for ODOT but not for the other communities and so they went to Morton and said, why aren’t you bidding and it is almost as if you recall about 10 years ago there was an issue going on between Morton Salt and Cargill. You bid this one and we will bid that one and they got into a lot of trouble for that. That is why this meeting was set up today with the folks from Akron U that put this bid out; what can we do? There were some attorneys from Akron and Akron U, but the bottom line is that they are out again for another rebid trying to get more folks to bid on it but they are saying that there is a problem in the mine and they can’t make deliveries because they can’t get it out of the mines. That is why they are postponing until January 7th to start deliveries, but every community in Summit County on January 7th is going to be asking for their deliveries and how many truckloads do you think we will get? It is going to be minimal and it is going to be like that . . . and we tried to stockpile and some of them tried to stockpile and they denied them stockpiling on last year’s bid. So it was really an ugly meeting this morning because they say that they have 50 years of salt available in the vein that they are in right now, but they cannot get it out of the mine. Mr. Sisak: And that is Lake Erie? Mayor: That’s Lake Erie. Mr. Sisak: Where does Morton mine at? Mayor: Lake Erie. Mr. Sisak: It almost seems like they are trying to outsmart the bid process again. Mayor: So then we say we need to bid earlier and we asked Morton . . . Mike actually called them and asked if we could purchase salt outside of the CUE that way and I’m not sure if we will be able to do that at $100 per ton; we might be able to get it. So, it is almost like they are price fixing again. I’m not using that term lightly; it seems like to all of us that were in the meeting that that is really what is going on. Mr. Sisak: Yeah, it is turning into a monopoly versus open for bids. Mayor: There are no stockpiles on the ground above the mines. That is the problem. Mr. Carano: Was the price of salt pretty steady before for years and years? I mean that is a 50% rise in . . . Dir. of Pub. Service: It’s been all over. I mean it was up to $100 a couple of years ago for a ton and so it fluctuates like that. But, just letting you guys know, we will stay on top of it and this is what is happening and none of that is good news just so you guys are aware of it. Mr. Sisak: What is number 3 up there? Dir. of Pub. Service: No guaranteed commitment and that is the other thing and so you put in your order; the City of Tallmadge uses roughly 3,500 tons and there is no guarantee that we are going to get that. So even though that was bid, that is your price and they should start delivering in January, but you are not guaranteed that you are going to get the amount that you put the bid out for. Mr. Sisak: Do we have a commitment to purchase whatever we say? Mayor: Yes. Up to 80% of it; up to 80% of the bid and so last year what was going on . . . we used ours and other communities that did not and they can buy their supply because they get penalized if they don’t spend up to 80% of their load. So you have to estimate what you think you are going to need; what Mother Nature is going to do in the weather to get your salt load. Pres. of Council: We use a liquid form too; is that correct? How do these salt prices affect that liquid at all? Dir. of Pub. Service: They probably will because there again you need the salt to make the brine. Pres. of Council: That’s what I thought. But, do we have plenty of the brine? Dir. of Pub. Service: You have to make it and there again, you don’t let it sit. Mr. Loughry: So then what chances are what we will probably have to do this year whether we like it or not is to commit to buy more than we know that we will need to be sure that we are in good shape next year. So, what they are doing is they are forcing everyone to stockpile. Mayor: But our bids; our allocation had to be put in so they could put the bid together a long time ago. So, I don’t know how many months we have . . . we wanted 3,500 tons. Tallmadge School District is in the same way, but they are with us. Their salt is in our dome. Mr. Loughry: Would ODOT let others purchase from them? Mayor: That was a topic today about how many people have extra salt to give away to someone else. Do you think any community is going to commit to say that I am going to give you 5% of my load that is in my bin? That is what they are going to ask ODOT. Mr. Sisak: Could we piggy-back off of their bid? Dir. of Pub. Service: They had to be in with them in May. Mr. Sisak: Well, we piggy-back on Barberton’s contract for rubbish; is that different? Mr. Carano: I don’t want to say that there is a snake under every rock, but I wonder if there is a correlation between that and the attempt to use fracking brine in the future. I mean, who knows. But, it was just something to wonder about anyway. 2  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:30 p.m. September 13, 18 Dir. of Pub. Service: I was in a similar situation a couple years ago with lack of salt and no other community came forward to loan us any and so it is going to be the same thing this time around; you are not going to get any . . . nobody is going to let you borrow anything from them. Cemetery; there were 9 burials; four full and 5 cremains. Zoning; there were 50 permits issued; 34 of which were the zoning certificates which are fencing and decks and setbacks. Parks and Rec; the Rec Center membership was up by about 515 for the month and the visits were down by about 500. So there was a correlation. The spinning studio renovation was completed and that is a picture of it right there. The ceiling was lowered and the lights were enhanced; electric was added and cable was installed and air conditioning which was key and then it is actually being used so far. So, hopefully more classes get into that and hopefully some nighttime classes will be offered. Before and after school care has started. Everything is going pretty well. We are working out some of the issues with the schools with the bussing. Mark it down; the Fall Indoor Yard Sale is September 22nd from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Rec Center. Keep in mind that the Farmer’s Market is going on Thursdays until October 11th from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Maca Pool is closed for the season. The members this year was down by about 99 visits, but the visits were up by about 100. We are rethinking the bonus days because of lousy turnouts and we exhausted some resources to get the lifeguards and we didn’t get the turnouts we were hoping for and so we really have to think if it is even worth doing those bonus days next year. Parks; Eagle Scout Jack Markley constructed the dugouts at Lions Park and those are completed. Something new, the Facility Rental Clerk, which is normally stationed in this building; we are moving that position out to the Rec Center and the reason why is it is logistics. You can go there for longer hours and pick up the keys for the hall rentals and if you are going there to rent the fields; it makes more sense to have that person stationed there as opposed to this building. There again Saturday’s and Sunday’s are open as well. The Master Park Plan; I believe we talked about it. There have been several meetings all week and the open house was tonight at 6:00 p.m. The spinning studio again and then the Street Department; if you look there, the summer contracts have been completed; asphalt paving, concrete repair, pavement marking and all of that has been completed and everything turned out pretty well. Crack sealing; we did all the crack sealing in-house. We didn’t go out for bid for any of that and that was finished. Big thanks for the Service Department for doing the Circle Fest. Those guys do an outstanding job and I believe we mentioned that last time and keep in mind that the Street Department does a lot of park repairs and the restroom roof at Howe Road was fixed and repaired. A tree fell on it and so the guys in-house did that repair and they excavated the footers for that Eagle Scout at the Lions Park dugouts. Utility Department; I am jinxing myself; there were no water main breaks and no sewer backups knock on wood. The utility department went through and they raised a lot of the sanitary manholes and a lot of that had to do with the repaving that was going on and so those were raised. The lead and copper samples were taken and something that has been done before, but we are actually doing this on all our lines is that we have leak seekers in here and they are probing our lines with electronics and they are finding the smallest leaks possible. You can see how it is done here and the graft on his meter went up and that is where the leak is actually occurring at and so we have a lot of leaks that occur that we don’t even know of until they come to the surface. Here we are finding leaks that are small enough and keep in mind that every gallon is costing us money and so we should really focus on these leaks as we can. So that is something new that we are doing. That’s my report. Any questions? No one responded. Pres. of Council: The Dir. of Administration and neither is the Dir. of Economic Development. Mayor: They are both on vacation. Dir. of Finance: Thank you. Everybody should have received their monthly financial reports. I don’t think there was anything provided in there of any great excitement or change from the previous reports you have received. I would ask for adoption of Ord. 75-2018. End of report. Mr. Sisak: How are the income tax revenues? Dir. of Finance: They are still behind about 5% right now. I did confirm with RITA that some of our net profit reductions were due to a couple of businesses that have not been filing estimates, but they won’t be able to really tell us anything further about that until they file their end of year return to know why they would not owe as much as they had owed in the past and so a lot of . . I confirmed with them that this going on in a lot of municipalities right now due to the changes that were pushed onto us from the State level and so it is still hanging around there; still the same about 5%. I don’t . . . I am not really seeing a trend that is going to change. Municipal net profit returns; a lot of them are filed in October due to them getting the automatic extension from the IRS and then those become due on October 15th and so we might have a better indication then, but I am expecting the 5%. I don’t see our net profit taxes rebounding by the $350,000 that they are behind right now. So, I think that is probably going to be a safe bet that we will be 5% behind from where we were last year by the end of the years still. 3  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:30 p.m. September 13, 18 Mr. Loughry: So, I am assuming that you used that knowledge on your forecast for next year? Dir. of Finance: Yes, that is very much taken into consideration. We are lucky though in the fact that next year we do have a little bit of an offset will be that the JEDD tax rate is going up ¼ of a percent and so you are not going to see . . . we might see; I’m not even predicting that we would even be where we estimated this year; you know 5% would probably. . . even to where we were but we will see a little bit of uptick from this year to next year simply due to the fact that we have a rate increase of the JEDD income taxes of about $1.3 million and so I think that is about a 20% increase, but that is just the JEDD; that is $1.3 of our $11 million in income tax that we receive so there will be maybe like a 1%. I forget what I have done, but yes, that has been taken into consideration and basing our estimates on what we are doing this year and not where we have been; we are strictly using this year’s numbers. Dir. of Law: Thank you. No report. 12. Ordinance 73-2018 At 1st Reading. FINANCE Declaring a certain City-owned vehicle to be excess and authorizing the Fire Chief to sell such equipment at public sale or trade-in and providing for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Ord. 73-2018. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Mayor: Madame Chair, the squad that just came out of service that we are going to sell. Mr. Sisak: Do we strip those down? Mayor: Yes. It will be through an auction. We even take off the logos or the Tallmadge name. Mr. Sisak: I’m sure there is a lift in there and other stuff. Mayor: Yeah, we transferred it out. Mr. Sisak: You took it out. OK. Roll Call: Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Ms. Tricaso, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Carano – unanimous. Ord. 73-2018 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 13. Ordinance 74-2018 At 1st Reading. PUBLIC SERVICE Authorizing the Director of Public Service to advertise for bids and the Mayor to enter into a contract for snow removal and salting services for certain City properties for the period November 1, 2018, through May 1, 2019, and providing for immediate enactment. Mrs. Allman moved for the adoption of Ord. 74-2018. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Mr. Loughry: Just a question for Mr. Rorar. When we outsource work like this; does the vendor provide their salt or do they use our salt? Dir. of Pub. Service: Yes, they provide their salt. Mr. Loughry: So if we wanted to; could we increase the amount that we outsource? Dir. of Pub. Service: This outsourcing is just for the parking lots and sidewalks in the early morning hours throughout the week. I don’t think we want to outsource any more than that. Mr. Sisak: How many years have we been doing this? I only think it has been a couple; two or three maybe. Dir. of Pub. Service: It’s been a couple and we really kicked it on last year when we went to shifts because we wanted the second shift to focus mainly on the roads and we really enhanced bringing in the contractors to do the parking lots and sidewalks until the first shift started again. So, the second shift is only 6 guys and so we want them out on the roads. Mr. Sisak: I would say that the roads reflected that. They were in very good condition last year. Mayor: What we have been doing for probably the past ten years is using a contractor, but we never went out to bid on it because it was always below the allotted amount and so we would use them just to do the City Hall parking lot, the Rec Center early in the morning until our guys would get in, but now we get a better price by doing it Mike’s way. Roll Call: Mrs. Kilway, Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Ms. Tricaso, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan – unanimous. Ord. 74-2018 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 14. Ordinance 75-2018 At 1st Reading. FINANCE Appropriating additional amounts and pro- viding for immediate enactment. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Ord. 75-2018 at 1st Reading. Seconded Mr. Donovan. Mayor: This is, if you recall, the generator behind the Rec Center was hit by a vehicle at the end of the school season last year and it knocked the generator over and we put it back up and it is unreliable and the insurance company will replace the generator, but we have to appropriate the money first to get reimbursed and so this money will come back to us in an insurance claim. 4  REGULAR MEETING in Council Chambers @ 7:30 p.m. September 13, 18 Mr. Sisak: Do we know who hit it? Mayor: Oh yeah. Do you want to see a picture? Dir. of Finance: We are throwing it to our insurance and then our insurance will adjudicate it through theirs. It is much easier that way. Roll Call: Mr. Loughry, Mr. Sisak, Ms. Tricaso, Mrs. Allman, Mr. Carano, Mr. Donovan, Mrs. Kilway – unanimous. Ord. 75-2018 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 15. Resolution 18-2018 At 1st Reading. Extending the sympathy of the Council and the Administration to Michael Dornack and members of his family in the death of Theodore Roehlig and providing for imme- diate enactment. Mr. Sisak moved for the adoption of Res. 18-2018. Seconded Ms. Tricaso. Mr. Loughry: Just a note that Mr. Dornack also lost another relative this week. Pres. of Council: I did notice that; a cousin I think. Voice vote 7-0. Res. 18-2018 is adopted by a vote of 7-0. 16. ADDITIONAL ITEMS: None. 17. ADJOURNMENT: Mr. Donovan moved to adjourn. Seconded Mrs. Allman. Voice vote 7-0. The Regular Council meeting adjourned at 7:59 p.m. sb Adopted: ____________________________________ ______________________________________ Susan E. Burton, Clerk of Council Carol A. Kilway, President of Council 5