okay
it is live on youtube and it is now
started
right oh we have some great
entertainment troy markham
tonight a furry friend
one of our favorite four-legged citizens
is joining us tonight as a rather
special guest
welcome everybody to um our first april
meeting of city council um we're
thrilled
um i'm thrilled to see all of my
colleagues and all of our department
heads and um needed
essential people to make the work of the
city of bexley happened this evening
um i am hoping that we all remember that
we
are here for the good of bexley and i
would like
our dear auditor bill harvey to please
do real call
miss flyball here mr klingler
here ms lamke here mr markham
here mrs robinson here
assad here mr sharp
dear all right
mr kessler you need to scooch over a
little bit so that we can stand to do
the pledge of allegiance
thank you i pledge allegiance to the
flag
of the united states of america and to
the republic
all right so
um we have some invited guests
um tonight and um
uh claire oh mr kessler's already tried
to help me pronounce her last name
and i don't have it so i'm going to go
ahead and let
mr kessler um um
where's tobias cevas okay
thanks thank you though you know
um sorry i'm getting our
screen shares set up here so i can pull
up
um claire's resume
um but uh sorry okay here we are there
we are i could see claire is with us
uh claire welcome i i don't see on my
screen for some reason but i see that i
should oh there you are
hey okay all right um thanks so much for
joining us
um i talked a little bit about you at
our last council meeting but so council
knows that
um you are a uh obviously backstage
resident
uh with a passion for um for for wreck
and you you've spoken with with uh mike
and i and we think you'll be fantastic
addition to
the rec board so if you could just
provide maybe just a little bit of
background about you
and what makes you interested in the
position and then any questions council
might have
okay great hi everyone i'm excited to be
here and to be
potentially joining on the board here
tonight um i see you all have my resume
up so i'll do a super quick overview of
me
um i have a business background i
did an mba and then have worked in
marketing
and as a business manager and then for
the last seven years
um i've been running a small business
together with my family
here in columbus in real estate so
i do think that um my business skills
and understanding of budget and
management and
making decisions will be really helpful
for the board um
the reason that i wanted that i saw that
when i saw this position that i was
really excited
about it is when i think about
a big part of what makes bexley one of
the reasons i love living in bexley is
really related to parks and rec
and i am on the bexley community
foundation grants committee
and through that process i just kept
seeing things come through that i just
thought were so fun
and just added so much to the community
and i realized that the trend was so
many of them were bexley parks and
wrecks
and um so when this position came up it
just felt like a really natural fit for
me
um i have two kids a 10 year old and a
seven-year-old
we are heavy users of all the programs
um we attend i think every event and
festival
and um we just we love the parks
so it just was i was just really excited
to be able to give back
to an organization that i feel like
gives a lot to us
so any questions or anything else that i
should highlight ben that
would be helpful um
any questions from council just saw that
i i just i'm going to step real quick in
front of just sod if you don't mind
jessica
i just um thought you were amazing
on paper claire i mean she's she she's
done
startups she's she's this woman marketed
for your play and bugles
two of my favorites um she raised money
for
things she's passionate about she said
she operates a real estate
uh rental real estate business i mean
she's she's
you are creative you market you manage
um you uh you're just i you raise money
for things you're passionate about and
um
and then and then you started talking
about the rec department and how much
you love it and now oh my gosh
i'm so excited i am so thrilled that
you're gonna bring your expertise
but not only your expertise but you're
clearly your passion for what i always
call
the soul of our community the rec
department so
we're excited to uh well thank you thank
you
so thank you jessica
has something to say as well jess
i think maybe you're muted or at least i
can't hear you jess
a lovely world of zoom i got you
right claire um i just wanted to say
thank you for giving your time back to
bexley
you already do that with the community
foundation you've already done that
for the whole community with childhood
cancer
you know we've crossed paths with the
ages of our children
and as lorien hit upon
it's really this community is as unique
as the houses are the people
and i had no idea looking at your resume
that you have have had
all of these things going on as well so
anyone who can handle walmart i
i also in consumer goods handled walmart
and
contribute a lot to to our community and
to park and rec so just thank you i know
how busy you are
as a business woman and a parent and
it's really
amazing that you're willing to give back
even more time to our community
people like you or what makes it happen
so thanks so much
thanks these are easy questions i like
it
well you just seem like you'll fit
perfectly you're going to love being on
the rec board too therefore i agree
i sat in on the meeting last week and it
was great
so awesome wonderful wonderful
um do any of my other colleagues have
any questions for claire
all right i don't see any um
i guess all i can say is thank you thank
you thank you um
and uh yay for you
thanks for watching okay thanks for
joining us claire appreciate it okay and
is that
um in the spirit of parks and rec i am
juggling a
uh park soccer game right now is is
do you need other things for me is it
okay if i drop off i don't mean to be
yes to be uh brief with you all but i'm
just we're
always welcome but go be okay okay
thanks guys great to see you look
forward to thank you okay
all right we have our day activities
presentation
i'm not sure who's doing that mr mayor
do you know who's doing that today here
we have
we have our good friend hallie raskin
here and i i believe
i need some help susan could you use
your hand raised feature just so i know
i'm
i'm putting the right person here in the
panelist room and then also paige
paige balada from the library paige
yes thank you i figured that out all
right and i will
share my screen oh you should let me
share my screen oh do i
okay yes please
i will oh hello i will do that
it's going to take about three seconds
for that setting to
cross over and it should hi everyone
can do that hi hallie you're welcome hi
thanks for having us here we have paige
and susan quintense paige vlad and susan
christensen
thank you so much we're excited to have
you here to talk about
arbor day which this year of course our
day is the 30th but
we have a whole lot more going on than
just something on the 30th so
i don't want to spoil the fun you guys
talk about it okay so
mayor you talked about this is susan
quintin's thank you
president bible and the mayor for having
us
we're delighted to share our passion for
trees with you
and the mayor said arbor day so here is
a little fyi
arbor day is always the last friday in
april
always last friday in april so uh the
tree commission in the city of bexley
are
so excited about arbor day we're selling
and breeding it all month long
and here are some fun facts bexley has
been
a tree city usa for 34 years
capital has been a tree campus for four
years
and in 2014 bexley was the first
accredited municipal arboretum in the
united states
so we're pretty excited about that and
three reasons why we're celebrating
every day
but we couldn't wait for the 30th to
celebrate so
we have already started putting
information in the bexley blast
about how to plant a tree or how to
mulch
uh uh your trees uh no mulch volcanoes
please because although they won't
erupt they could kill your tree and
you and if you want to learn how to
paint a tree bexley arts
offered a virtual watercolor course last
saturday
look at these great things so those are
our new bexley profiles
um hallie and paige bilotta are here and
paige is going to talk as a community
partner
about what the library is doing
well susan as you know we are delighted
to be celebrating
all things trees at the library uh
first off we hope that um our
bexleyites are barking up i mean
brushing up on their knowledge of all
things trees
in anticipation of the arbor day trivia
tuesday happening on april 20th
at 7 30 p.m uh
and for those tree hugging friends and
neighbors
to enjoy a great book and great
conversation
mayor kessler and councilman markham
will be guest hosting what is sure to be
a interesting and lively
discussion on the over store by richard
powers that's on april 22nd
at 7 pm for our younger saplings
we recommend venturing out with family
on
an arbor day scavenger hunt for those
feeling leafy or lucky
challenge sheets can be submitted to
bexley public library by april 29th and
they will be entered into the bpl
tree raffle lastly
bpl has acorned or assembled
a list of book recommendations in
support of arbor day
all of which can be found on
bexleylibrary.org
and with that i'll introduce hallie
raskin executive director of the bexley
community foundation who will ensure
that
you are all rooted in bcf's
arbor day activities well played
well played hard to follow you
thank you that was great um so yes our
bexley community foundation is thrilled
to
fund two grants actually related to our
festivities a 2500
grant was awarded to the arbor day
planning committee
um to celebrate arbor day all month long
as we've talked about and there will be
more information on that on the next
slide but the
paintings of the trees that bex arts um
led we funded
the paint that the paint and the brushes
that the people used to make those
um and then in addition fourteen
thousand five hundred dollars um
was awarded and that will fund a hundred
tree giveaway which actually has taken
place
before but residents can now actually
through the website which is in the
bottom corner of all of our slides at
bexley.org arbor day
sign up to receive a free tree um the
resident is responsible
responsible for planting the tree but
that is funded through our bexley
beautification fund and our denise and
berry blank tree fund
um and then just to kind of wrap up the
whole month of fun
on may 1st may 2nd if it rains
we will be hosting um the arbor day
planning committee
over at the south community gardens
different activities for families we've
broken it up so they'll
there will be hour long sessions at 10
11 3 and 4 and you can sign up through
the wreck
the rec brochure i think comes out
tomorrow and you can sign up online it's
free
but there will be stations um over by
the schneider park fields
and the south community garden um there
will be an installation of a fairy house
um that celeste williams and this group
has been working on it's pretty
remarkable my kids got
um a tour of it actually the other day
the book cart from bexley public library
will be there and um there will be a
free
book giveaway um so everyone can go home
with a book about trees
there will be a tree activity with vex
arts piccadilly will be there
we're going to paint kindness rocks with
the scouts
and then also a talking tree which you
can see the costume in the bottom corner
it's really
quite fun and then also we've been
collecting just locations of different
fairy gardens around bexley
and we will just publish those in a map
so residents can take a tour
throughout the weekend so with that i'll
hand it back to susan
um and that's it thanks thanks thanks
hallie so
what we say is what trerific ways to
celebrate our urban forest
and here are a couple more um we have
awesome trees here
and we are going to ask you
to identify awesome trees and let us
know about them
the tree commission has just initiated
the bexy landmark tree
program similar to the heritage tree
ordinance that maybe some of you
remember that
councilman markham and sharp discussed
with council last year
anyone can nominate any tree in the city
of bexley for landmark tree status
and the winning trees will be announced
at our tree commission meeting next week
so if you have a favorite tree to
nominate go to
our revenge is mine okay www.bexley.org
arbor day
and nominate your tree and then a last
really important um program or event
that we would like to share with you for
the first time ever
we have had a tree canopy assessment
study done
uh for the city of bexley and it was
funded for
by the bexley beautification fund for
sixteen thousand
five hundred dollars so what is a big
deal about a canopy assessment study
except a bunch of big words
well it's a baseline of the percentage
of our community
covered by trees and that's a big deal
because a canopy percentage
can be translated into economic factors
environmental factors and social
statements
two important numbers to remember thirty
nine percent
and four million dollars thirty nine
percent and four million dollars
if you wanna know what those mean you'll
have to come to our tree commission
meeting next week at 4 30.
so in closing i have a kind of a little
challenge
for you if you would like to make our
arboretum better
i have a way that you can do that you
can go out and look at your trees
and if you have mulch touching your
trees please take it off
if there's more than two or four inches
of mulch around your trees
take it off they will love you and so
will we
happy arbor day come and celebrate the
true roots
of bexley that's it
guys paige hallie susan you guys are
tree-rific
i love it i am we are also grateful for
everything that you do for our community
thank you so much
for all the love that you give and for
making it so easy
for us to be uh tree huggers so so thank
you so much
thank you council anybody else have
anything for these
three trific people looks like troy
markham might have something to add
that message for about revenge was uh
supposed to be for matt klingler so
uh yeah matt i want to see you
nominating
i want to see you nominating a heritage
tree all right
[Laughter]
i'm on it yeah i'd love to see everybody
uh really
kind of step up and take a look at the
trees around them and nominate a
heritage tree because i think
that's one of the things that's really
special about bexley and
if you haven't really if you have not
yet immersed yourself in the arboretum
activities uh that we do uh each year
uh please do because i'll tell you what
it is pretty amazing
it's it's really it really makes you
appreciate
uh the environment that we live in which
is
which is somewhat unique really um and
very special
and also the activities that we have
planned every year is
it's just really really amazing and and
the people here the tree commission
uh and uh grant archer all the all the
people that work here in bexley do such
such amazing job i really encourage you
to uh
to jump in and enjoy a lot of these
activities and thank you very much for
for doing all these
anybody else on council
ladies thank you we so appreciate you
um you are so welcome to stay
you are also more than welcome to pop
off
thank you thank you thank you so much
guys
appreciate it thank you thanks
bye all right we have one more invited
guest
to come and speak to us i do believe
that um someone is here to speak about
earth month am i here i think you're
here it's the queen of green
okay i'm excellent my screen hold your
horses
while this goes up i'll let everyone
open up a new window
a new tab www.greenbexly.org
i see troy's typing
okay let's view full screen
which is right here so happy
earth month bexley as we know earth
month is
all day every day but this month is
extra special for two reasons
the first reason is this is the earth
month where we get to build
the better than normal that we want
and the second reason is that this
year for earth month we are in single
digits
of number of years we have by
2030. if you don't already know by 2030
we have to significantly reduce our
carbon emissions
throughout the entire world so we gotta
step to it
all right so there's so much to do so
we're celebrating the whole month long
all right the first thing which you've
already done is you've visited our new
and improved website www.greenbexly.org
where there's a lot of information even
for your kids
we are really hoping that residents will
make some sustainable actions this earth
month the only way that we can be green
is by the actions that we do
and actions speak louder than words but
a pledge is a good place to start
so the first 100 people who sign up to
make a pledge
for a time length of your choice will
receive a sweet treat from johnson's
i delivered some today but i'm looking
forward
to tricycling to your home and giving
you a gift card so
don't log off this call before you make
your pledge
and the next thing we have going on
is litter pickups all throughout the
month which i believe were discussed at
the last council meeting
we're having our regular little pic
litter pickups and we're having the
trash talk letter pickups
and there's even a u7 little kids soccer
team and they're hosting a litter pickup
too and if you want to host a litter
pickup
you can you can just email me my emails
at the bottom of the next slide and i
will get you hooked up with those new
grabbers
we also know that everyone in bexley
likes to have their voices heard
so we're giving you the opportunity to
do that in a
conductive manner no need to go vent on
the buzz
there's a link on our website to our
sustainability survey and we would love
to hear from you jen is there something
you'd like to say
no okay i just can't stop smiling
elizabeth you are
this is awesome keep going the news is
here i just want to make sure that
they know how to get in touch with me my
email address is on the next slide
also as per usual we have the great
green bexley independent study challenge
we are still giving away
lots of money to k-12 students
who live or learn in bexley
this month we're talking about
biodiversity in case you were wondering
the bananas you eat today
are not the same bananas that your
grandparents ate in the 1950 and that is
because of biodiversity
so click on this link to learn more and
troy agrees with me so i'm verified
excellent oh thanks to the community
foundation
for our prize money for that
and we click to the next one and
sometimes it works oh
okay folks mark your calendar for the
24th we're having cleanup day
yes you can get your paper shredded
and all these other things that you
would like to discard we're also having
the yard sale and free sale
free cycle day on may 15th and we are
still looking for volunteers to help us
i'm going to bring bagels it's going to
be a great time
my email address is at the bottom of the
slide so if you want to be there
you know how to get in touch with me
and i do believe we have one more
session of the green bexley outdoor boot
camp for
kids and we're all over the place you've
been to our website of course
and my facebook page is hoppin we even
have a video yesterday
showing you the ins and the outs of the
compost truck
also we have um a new addition to the
bexley fleet
it's my tricycle um with some additional
signage
for this month so please if you see me
wave and say hello
thank you but don't worry i'm not done
yet
we have some other fun things coming up
love your alley is going to be a big
deal
next month in may but there is already
information available online
yard sale and free cycle day of course
you know about
energy aggregation phase two of our
single use plastic band
all that fun stuff
and not to be a downer but this is more
of inspiration just want to show you
how we do with our household trash sent
to landfill
as predicted last year we had an
increase of trash so we're really
working
to reduce that trash please recycle
please reduce before you recycle of
course you'll find
all of these things on our website
the information is at the bottom of the
screen and
thank you so much for having me
oh elizabeth ellman you are a treasure
she
is i affectionately call elizabeth
ellman our queen
of green and um she
guys that's what you call clean green
energy do you love it i would like to
participate in whatever plan she has
to get that clean green energy
and uh bill and uh
ben know what i'm talking about clean
green
energy anyway elizabeth you're awesome
you have lots you're awesome look at
those solar panels on your house
i know it's great we love it
um um if she just quit
giving me a hard time about which
direction i put my trash cans
i'd be okay gloria and i made especially
for you
uh an image it's on the back of your
water bill newsletter
so please reference it yeah thank you so
much
anybody anybody else on council needs
some help with which direction to put
your trash can so that we can be kind to
our
to our collectors anybody have any
comments or questions for elizabeth
ellman
is she awesome okay well she had the
last word then i will say we're only as
green
as the actions we do so please take our
pledge and please encourage everyone you
know to also take our pledge
because it's good it is good
it's good all right okay thank you for
you elizabeth thank you so much for
joining us tonight
thanks for having me we love your energy
take good care
all right our invited a special invited
guest
um we're through with them so item
number four
is chick and they were so fun to
have all those people come and join us
so that was great um
but now is a chance for other special
guests to
share their thoughts with us um item
number five on our agenda
is public comments we always ask that
during public comments
um you share with us your name
your address and that you try to keep
your comments to
less than five minutes if you could
please
um all you have to do if you have
anything you'd like to say
is simply raise your hand use that
raised hand icon and we're happy
to call on you
all right mr mayor oh there is somebody
i do see someone in attendance who would
like to speak
and i'm not sure who it is because
for whatever reason i'm not seeing the
hand oh there we go
andrew lenoble would like to speak
talking is permitted
so andrew is unmuted sir
andrew
hello ah there you are
welcome sir thank you just state your
name and your address if you don't mind
please and thank you
sure and is this the right time even if
the ordinance is later on in the
agenda is this the right time to
publicly
actually uh we would prefer that you
wait to speak at that time it's it's
fairly
um i i believe knowing that you sent us
an email
that you're here to speak about the dora
and um it's it's fairly soon on the
agenda so i would prefer if that's what
you have to talk about
um that you wait and speak then all
right not a problem
all right thank you for understanding
anyone else um that would like to speak
um yes um ms lewis if you'd like to
speak
good evening this is don lewis at 663
euclid avenue
unfortunately we had a little situation
with a small accident on sunday and
everybody as well but i just wanted to
brag on the
bexley police department how terrific
they were they were outstanding and
exceedingly helpful so kudos to them
and the rest of the bexley police
department thank you
thank you mr lewis our police department
needs a little bit of boosting
every now and again thank you so much
anybody else have anything to talk about
um with counsel
anything that's not on the agenda
um patty markham has her hand up
miss markham yes this is patty markham
at 875
south remington road i have had the
pleasure of working with
elizabeth allman and um
mayor kessler on i don't know two or
three
trash trash pickups um
both with the trash talk with um the
mirror
as well as some that i've been working
on with some community action groups
and i just really want to thank the city
um for the extra time that they're
taking to support this with
supplies with the trucks and with
all the work that they're doing as well
as the mayor for
um i mean whether they're supply whether
it's
um sponsored by the mayor with the trash
talk or
sponsored by our group that's doing them
the mayor is always there
and um it has been fantastic
it's this great opportunity to
make an active step to make our
community better
to get to see what's going on in our
community and
to take action and we
are just really we're very lucky to live
in the city
but we also have such a great
opportunity to make it better and
just really appreciate all that the city
does to help us
take these active steps to make it
better and um it's also fun
so i just wanted to say thank you i know
that these are
above and beyond what you're doing on a
day-to-day basis for the city
i just think it's been really great
thanks patty so much for your
encouraging words we we all appreciate
those very much
there's somebody else that has their
hand in the air lori
thank you hello can you hear me
yes you can please state your name and
give us your address we would
really appreciate it my name is larry
katz i'm at 299
south roosevelt and uh
i kind of feel a little bit bad about
coming in at this point everything up
until now
has been so bright and cheery and
glowing and
happy and uh in
in actuality that's exactly what i want
i wanted to continue
and that's why in the past i had
asked questions about the
section 8 housing that's been proposed
and seems to be pushed through
in all kinds of manners without
what i believe should be proper
discussion and information and
i just wanted on the record that when i
spoke before i
asked questions that were either
ignored or at the cic
meeting that were either ignored
or answered incorrectly
so that's the only reason why i'm
speaking
i get promises that i will be
someone will get back to me that
information can be found
somewhere that is
one thing but then it turns out to be
another thing
at the one meeting i ask specifically
will there be section 8 housing
and the person from cic said no no no
but ben ben and sarah you would know
better than me
ben and sir declined to respond in any
way
and it was ended that there was no
section eight but then it turns out
there will be section eight
the only thing left up in the air is how
much section eight
there will be so at this point that's
all i've got
i just want it on the record all right
thank you so much we appreciate your
comments
is there any is there anybody else um
who
would like to speak this evening
all right seeing none i believe
we can move on to item number six
which is the president's report
um and i'm trying to get to the words
that i want to make sure that i can
share
um a couple things um
this is directed specifically to my all
of these actually are specifically to my
colleagues um
i want to remind you the ohio ethics
commission and the board of professional
conduct
would like to remind you that the
deadline line for filing calendar year
for 2020 financial disclosure statements
is
approaching the general filing deadline
is
monday may the 17th
um i wanted to just just give kudos to
my colleagues for always remembering um
to fill us
in on their liaisons reports they are
always so good about
sharing different news um about
their um about the organizations they're
involved with the ones that they're in
charge of sharing information
um and um i i appreciate those of you
who
also when there isn't anything to add
you you don't feel like you need to get
give us some sort of
a formal um uh
day-by-day date by date thing that that
that
that that's happening in the
organization we they
we know that all the organizations and
bexley do great jobs
and um i appreciate though all of you
keeping us
very well informed um about those that
you are charged with so thank you
um on that one and then the last piece
of information i
i kind of find exciting um
council i want to thank you um and i
want you to know how grateful i am for
your patience as we have collectively
learned to do
the city's business virtually i'm
grateful that our mayor
has technology has one of his special
talents
we would have had to hire someone to
manage this
or stretch our one-man tech department
even thinner
i think that most of you share my desire
to be together
to do our work and indeed the light at
the end of the
that tunnel is brighter than it's ever
been
there is just one more among us
who has not yet received a second shot
um i am proposing tonight that
two weeks after that second shot
we return to council chambers this will
mean
that our first meeting in may will be in
person
we will welcome members of the public to
join us
the public must wear masks and be seated
six feet apart so that we can make sure
everyone is healthy and safe however
however for now we're going to encourage
that residents join us on zoom unless
the residents have comments
uh to share with council we spoke about
this at our virtual retreat uh earlier
this year about
a little over a month ago and i
discussed this with the mayor
and our city attorney and i have their
support
on this recommendation but i more
importantly i would like
a consensus from council on these plans
as well so
i am wondering if there is some
discussion about it or
if anyone would simply like to make a
motion
um because i really do want to have at
least
a um a voice vote on this to make sure
that
everybody feels comfortable um coming
back to
council together after everyone has
their second shot
and i'm president i'd be happy to make a
motion to
resume in person council meetings the
first meeting in may
thank you richard is there is there a
second
second there are a lot of people ready
to second
is there any discussion anybody want to
share with us any of their concerns or i
know jessica's excited about it
i i would just say thank you for your
leadership and i think that um
this is this is exactly where we are in
in the timing of
this pandemic and we're doing the right
things with
taking the steps to make sure we're safe
and and
moving forward in leadership in our city
by returning to together
and we're all better in person
as we've learned through all of this and
i'm just grateful where we're at in this
pandemic that we're able to do that
so thank you to my fellow colleagues for
being patient and listening
and um i i love where we're where we're
going with this
so thanks for your leadership president
bible thank you jessica
jen robinson's had her hand up as well
jen
i just want to piggyback off of what
jess said i so appreciate everybody
who's a part of this council
it took some of us a little bit longer
to get to this point to feel comfortable
and certainly the vaccine played a lot
into it but i just so appreciate
everybody's willingness to meet
each of us where we were and and
our comfort level in this and i am
thrilled
um i was joking earlier with somebody
that we're actually us newbies are
actually back at
the big kid table we made it to the
adult table
we graduated from zoom so uh i just i'm
looking very forward to the energy that
we have when we're all back in the room
together so
thanks president fibal for your
leadership and thanks everybody else for
feeling like this is the right time to
do it thanks jen
richard mr sharp
yes i uh neglected to include in my
motion but i think it's um
assumed uh that we will be continuing
offering the um online interface for
residents because that's something that
is useful regardless of the situation so
thank you richard i want
i want it to be clear that it is um
it is my intent that and and i want
to i want consensus on this as well that
anyone who wants to
speak at council will need to come to
council but we will continue to
zoom
did everybody freeze i think i froze did
i freeze i think i froze
no you didn't freeze nope you're fine
okay
um any comments
on jessica um i think that
because we we all acknowledge that not
all of our residents attend these
meetings or listen to them on zoom it
might be
beneficial mayor kessler that we put
that in the blast
so that the citizens know that we will
be returning when when that makes sense
and then
um that we will be taking public comment
in person and chambers and
uh attendance will still be you'll be
able to hear live on
zoom correct lorienne and what i'm
saying you'll be allowed to hear it live
on zoom
individuals will be placed six feet
apart if they choose to come to council
and
individuals in council chambers members
of the public will be asked to wear
their masks so it will be um
safety precautions that are very very
similar to
our students at school so
um mr sharp
um yes i would like to uh for those
residents who are
have a medical or or a handicap issue
um we should still allow individuals
with ada
requirements to participate with
um questions on onsoon
if they notify us in advance
i think that sounds like a fair option
if they if they notify us in advance i
i i would i would agree with that
richard
keep in mind everybody anybody is always
permitted to
submit anything they want in writing and
people do
right mr fischel do you think it's
appropriate that i would just do a voice
vote on this or do you think you would
be more comfortable with a
with a voice mode is fine okay
point of order don't we need a three
don't we need to suspend the three
reading
no because it's not an ordinance
it's a it's a procedural thing and
that's okay okay i'm fine okay all right
not an ordinance it's not a resolution
it's it's
it's my council rules and i could simply
make this say this is what we're doing
but that's not my style
um i want a consensus um with
my colleagues um i would always want a
consensus with my colleagues about
things like this but i said i especially
want consensus
because this has to do with our our
safety and health
so um this is what we also
basically this is what people shared
with us
during the retreat what they would be
comfortable doing
um in order to get you know to come back
so
um with that um
all those in favor of our our
conversation
right now and our plan moving forward um
starting to go
um in person in may please signify by
saying
aye aye
those opposed same sign
all right guys i hope you haven't gotten
real used to these
squares actually they're mine they're
rectangles on my page but um
we're gonna go in person
all right so um that is the end of my
report
so i believe that we can move on to
our city attorney and see if he has
anything to share with us this evening
mr fishel
just one thing that i want to mention
and obviously it's not
we're not going to get into a debate
about this point but for people who
listen who are listening who don't
really understand
um you know the the idea of using the
phrase
section 8 housing to me is one of those
additional flash points
um that is used on purpose because
of um underlying
beliefs about who should or shouldn't be
living in bexley
i just want to make something really
clear here this is
section 8 housing is really not a thing
that we're discussing here
what we what what city council did
approve
last year this year it might have been
last year
was a ban on discrimination and housing
specifically
focused on housing vouchers so the fact
that somebody might be coming to
live in one of these new places who has
a housing voucher
should not affect and will not affect
their ability to live in one of the new
developments should they continue to go
forward
or any other place in bexley but again
the idea of using this uh
the phrase section 8 housing we all know
that has a connotation
and that connotation in my view
continues to be used for purposeful
reasons
that are inappropriate and unrelated to
the developments that are going up
that is all i want to say
thank you mr official mr madam president
can i can i um
further further uh piggyback off of mr
official statements
i also want to just for anyone who's
listening for the making those comments
section 8 housing is colloquially used
to usually refer to
apartment complexes that have over time
transition to a different type of use
and have started to broadly accept
vouchers in lieu of market rental
and typically i think associated with
properties aren't maybe as well managed
or maybe aren't um as well
and as good of a conditioner of older
vintage
so that the the proposals that the cic
and the community builders have brought
to
to bexley are very different
than what is referred to colloquially as
section 8 housing their tax credit
housing
and it's a totally different animal
altogether tax credit housing has a
a legion of additional regulations
that apply to it it has mandatory
investment
it has mandatory management requirements
it's
it's a program that was in in part
created in reaction to the fact that
the traditional section 8 housing
vouchers were not necessarily achieving
the level of quality and the level of
oversight that that is is present in the
tax credit market
so when we hear about developers like
homeport
or woda or the community builders
they are building tax credit housing and
that is dramatically different
than what is being thrown out as
referring to section 8. so i think
that's an important distinction for any
anyone from the public who hears this or
has listened in
um and as i said i've i've toured
a somewhat comparable project by the
same developer in akron
um has some physical similarities not
exactly the same market
after 15 years of constant management
you get a feeling for
what a radically different product we're
talking about this is
and i'm so glad that council passed
the strategic plan amendment last year
and the prior strategies that led the
cic to the point where it is today
so i just wanted to further clarify
thank you mark for bringing that up
well and i meant to say i'm sure the
mayor has much more information than i
do
again my point was just to clarify that
one statement
and you know to be real blunt to dispel
any idea that having people who might
live in
who might need assistance and living in
bexley through ever whatever mechanism
is a bad idea it is not a bad idea and
it's consistent with
our values and it's consistent with our
strategic policy
so that is all i have to say i'm off my
soapbox
thank you mr mr official we appreciate
you
um i believe uh we're gonna stay with
you
um for oh wait a minute
benjamin kessler you flipped things
around
from what the agenda that i am looking
at on uh which is great
i assume that this yeah it looks like an
accident you know was put
all good it's great i'm looking at an
older agenda and i love that okay
um so we're gonna continue with um
administrative updates sorry everyone my
number eight was different than
with what's on um uh mr kessler's
uh live uh feed um so we're with the
financial
uh department um i'm wondering if mr
harvey has
anything other anything to report he
gave us his
the statement last um last time around
and i've asked him to do it once a month
so we will be on next month or next um
meeting um for an update but does it
do you have anything to share with us mr
harvey
no report ma'am thank you very much does
anybody have any questions
um from council for uh mr harvey or for
mr hale
all right seeing that actually actually
uh
ben if when you get around to talking
about the dora
uh i should mention to you i've had a
couple of questions about
uh potential taxes to the
uh business owners for the dora and i've
of course told them there wasn't any but
you might want to that's something to
think about as you're talking through
that
that's all madam president sorry thank
you mr kessler can you
hang on to that and and share that
during the dora thank you i appreciate
that
um police department um chief reinhardt
do you have anything to share with us
no man nothing beyond my written report
i'm gonna put you a little on the spot
because
i think officer bird needs to be bragged
about
could you do that for me could you do a
little bragging rights
oh you want me to do the bragging oh i
do for sure
are you really deputy bird what are we
calling now
well we still call him officer don but
he
uh he was fortunate to be picked uh
to be on that that the cyber task force
on the fbi
cyber task force and of course he met
his contact
when he had his car crash the mayor has
actually met the point of contact
for the cyber task force because we we
gave that gentleman an award
for the uh the help that he rendered to
officer byrd
when he uh had his car crash but uh they
recognized right away the fbi recognized
right away that
john byrd is a skilled uh knowledgeable
investigator
and they they came to us and said hey
that's something we're missing
you know we have a lot of smart cyber
people but we don't have anybody with a
detective background
can we have him one day a week and we
put our heads together looked at
scheduling he said yes
we can give you john bird one day a week
and they said in exchange for that
he'll he'll have free access
to literally thousands of dollars worth
of training
we probably would have never sent him to
just to too expensive
and the fbi is putting him through it
but he had he had to receive this other
commission
uh in order to participate as a deputy
u.s marshal
so that's kind of a big deal he's still
a sworn
bexley police officer that's his primary
job
but it's kind of a big deal to have that
the second that second commission and
to be honored by the fbi so yeah you're
right madam president
john byrd is the real deal and he is
representative of the quality of police
officers we have on this agency
he's one of many and and honestly i'm
proud to
be associated with him as
am i he's a special bird
anybody else have any comments for the
chief or questions
you don't i don't see anything chief so
you be safe tell all of your um
special um employees how much we are
grateful for them
please do and we'll do man we'll do
and tell officer bird that we are
cheering him on
so i'll do it thank you so much
um we're going to move on to a
recreation department with
michael price thank you madam president
nothing to add to my written report
all right does anybody have any
questions for michael he's going to be
getting a really great
board member
uh looks like jessica saad has a
question for michael
jess mike you know i always love to i
love park and rec
and i always want to want to bring up
some things that are in the report
because
our community does too and i always get
a lot of questions
um could you just highlight your in your
written report about the pool
and what's going on there that would be
great
sure um we are we're moving forward with
opening the pool this summer
obviously there's still uh coven 19
pandemic restrictions involved with that
at this point based on those
restrictions um
our expected capacity is 130 at a given
time
as a result of that and understanding
then we have such a limited capacity
um our normal membership mod model will
not work
with those restrictions we don't think
it's the best way to move forward
uh we don't what we didn't want to do
was offer up memberships and then have
people with memberships have
accessibility issues where they can't
get into the pool because of the
limitation on the numbers
um so we're going to move forward with a
a pre-registration register as you swim
uh
system in which you'll get an hour and a
half swim time
you'll register uh will probably look
like is
um on sunday you'll register for monday
through thursday dates
and times and on wednesday you'll
register or
thursday register for friday through
sunday
it'll be you know likely it'll be five
dollars per person per swim time for an
hour and a half with a swim
uh our goal is to get in as many
different uh
uh times within the day we have we have
to juggle
our camp programs we have to juggle swim
lessons in the morning like
juggle swim team but the goal is to get
uh
i think at least four maybe five swim
sessions per day
we will limit participants to one swim
session per day so that we
increase the opportunity for all
residents to get access to the pool
that's the plan at this point obviously
we'll keep an eye if
um if guidelines change if that capacity
number is able to increase we will we
will do that when it can be done safely
uh we will also keep
um all options on the table if something
changes between now and say middle of
may
and we need to rethink the structure and
and look
look bad at back at a possible
membership structure again
we'll look at that if things change i
don't anticipate that happening in
this amount of time but we're keeping
all options open but that's the plan
at this point um and i'll
you know i'll answer any questions
anyone has mike um just
an additional question to that is hiring
that's happening right now right
yeah hiring process is going on right
now
thank you you're welcome monique lamke
has a question
monique hey mike um would you be able to
give us maybe some rough estimates on
your numbers for
summer camp enrollment
yeah i i can give you some rough
estimates we are um
we're still going through the process we
still have people that are registered
on a waitlist that we haven't gotten
into weeks so it's tough to say
i expect this to change throughout the
week i guess if that makes any sense so
but where we stand right now i think
we're close to
um uh this is a rough number about 80
percent of capacity
with the understanding that we still
have people in terms of the process we
have still people that want to get in
that we have to work through
what we don't want to do is uh go past
our capacity so we're taking it sort of
in groupings of people on the waitlist
so we're looking at the next tens for
example on the waitlist
next on the waitlist hey what weeks do
you want let's fill those in
make sure we still have capacity and
then look to the next 10 on the weight
list from there
but our numbers are about 90
our max numbers are 90 per camp in the
two older camps
they would normally be closer to 115 120
um and in our play camp which is for
preschool aged kids it's normally about
72 for the capacity we're at 59 for our
capacity
i i feel fairly confident we're gonna
hit our mass capacity for the most part
in all those weeks
given the limitations that we have great
thank you i know with
some parents returning to work in the
office child care
and that summer camp experience is
really important for many of our
families so
appreciate you answering that for me
sure
all right anybody else have anything
else for michael
up i do see richard sheriff's hand
richard yeah i was
pleased to see the um ryan solomon
memorial fund that was established and
i'd encourage
anyone who has some extra resources to
contribute
to that uh fun in his honor
and memory thank you richard
anybody else have anything to share with
us or to ask mike
price all right michael price
thank you so much for all you do please
know that we appreciate you
all right we are moving on to
andy bayshore in our service department
mr bay short good evening madden
president i do not have anything else to
add to my written report tonight
all right i have a quick question how
long do you think that project's gonna
take on going down drexel
me and dave coke actually meet with odot
and a couple other traffic engineers
later this week
i don't want to put a time limit on it
right now because we're
we're still finalizing everything okay
are we talking months and months and
months are we talking
months and months yeah it's
gonna be a long time and so and so um
drexel is going to be
a little dodgy to get down i'd say a
couple months pretty confident
okay all right thank you sir
anybody else have um a question
from mr bayshore
the grounds are looking beautiful sir
please thank everyone who's
putting an effort into that so thank you
thank you
i think we do matt klingler has a
question or a comment
matthew yeah thank you madam president
um hi andy i was just
wondering if you could give us an update
on the sewer
or um the sewer program for the
residents
or that where that stands um
the mayor is actually going to touch on
that in his report
um we've identified 140
participants that are willing to
participate in the program right now
we have contractors and inspectors lined
up and ready to go
um just ready get ready to pull the
trigger on
awesome thank you
anybody else have anything to um
ask um mr bayshore for his
expertise on i don't think so
all righty thank you mr bayshore
yes ma'am all right i think we
are to the mayor's update mayor kessler
thank you madam president um
[Applause]
first off a couple things i want to
focus on that
i realize they're not in my report i
want to
take a moment to thank the bexley school
district for
um in general they've been doing such a
fantastic job working through the
logistics
of the pandemic and
um some of you may know that they have
arranged a vaccine clinic
for students and i believe that's been
going well
found out today that they had a couple
doses left over
and they reached out to us and one of
our employees here was able to
to run over there and get a vaccine
because he had been
on a wait list for another vaccine it
was going to take a while to get to it
so
um just an example of the sort of
partnership that we enjoy but it just
reminded me first off
so grateful for that small but very
large
gift but it reminded me just of the
professionalism
and the competency of the school's cove
task force and the administration and
the staff and the teachers
and the just amount of work and
and heartfelt effort that has gone into
what is tied
is at times as we all know thankless
thankless job so
i want to just give them a shout out and
take a moment to say how impressed i've
been
watching um that organization really
tackle
a really complicated issue um
i don't think that i mentioned this at a
last council meeting that the um
house bill the number of which i don't
have in front of me
uh which was passed in january changed
the regulation on electric scooters
so some of you may have seen uh the
electric scooters or as they're called
micro mobility devices
in bexley that is now legal in ohio it
was not legal in ohio before
although they were present in some
cities and i'm not going to comment
further on that but
because of that law change cities do
have the ability to further regulate
them
um the chief and i have discussed it
discussed it with some of you guys
are our our current take on it is to
kind of see how things evolve
now that that market has matured quite a
bit more than it had when they initially
came into the columbus market
um so we're just kind of taking a wait
and see approach if any council member
wants to delve deeper into that then
let's talk about it so i just wanted i
wanted you and the public
i know you guys are aware of i want to
make sure the public was aware of that
change
um
matt asked about the sewer remediation
program update
uh we have a little bit over 140
households that have registered for the
remediation program
um and if you'll recall we had a pilot
our pilot program is designed to fund
fully fund 100 households that were to
use the entire benefit of the program
and so we did we've been doing some
analysis just to see where that
where it leaves us that we have more
people that have signed up which isn't
surprising
sorry i have to look at that photo of me
getting vaccinated there it's kind of
freaking me out right now
uh more people uh who have signed up for
it then the current funding might
suggest
so we've done some sensitivity analysis
on that and just to kind of think
through it a little bit here
the uh the total cost per household if
they if everyone who use
every part of the program would be three
thousand dollars that's assuming that
after the initial inspection
somebody has at least two thousand
dollars worth of eligible expense
to be receive a grant and or they choose
to go ahead and
use the grant we can envision lots of
scenarios where the
amount of work that needs to be done is
so great that
the choice might not be made to utilize
that grant
um so the maximum cost uh is you know
roughly
400 some thousand dollars at everyone to
work to max out
we think that it's probably gonna be
somewhere in the middle
of like the 50 of households max out
around 253 000 maybe mark
um we could be wrong it could be a
little bit higher
but we're not really going to know until
the first inspections occur
so the recommendation that we have
is to move forward with
all of the initial inspections sorry
about the typos and then come back to
council if additional grant capacity is
needed which will
will start to it'll start to be clear it
won't happen all at once i mean it's
going to take some time to get those
inspections in
it's going to take time for people to to
say they're going to do work and get
reimbursed for that work
so we're not sure if we have adequate
funding at 300 000 to do 145
houses or households
we may very well have enough but we
might not so
the approach that i i was going to take
was a wait and see approach
uh the alternative to that is for
council to
go ahead and just provide additional
funding just in case we max out
i don't think it's necessary but that's
an option another option is
we did initially talk about 100
households and we would
stop at that hundred and see how it went
so another thing we could do
is only clear the first 100 houses that
signed up
households to sign up and then tell the
others if they just have to wait for a
phase two
um i think that there are lots of
reasons it's better to
go ahead and get all the information we
can get from the folks who have signed
up
but i wanted to throw this out there and
not make a decision in a vacuum
and if this is more appropriate to be
had
um you know within the context of a
committee meeting or
with another ordinance that's fine i
just wanted to make sure that i was
touching base with you guys about what
we were thinking
i'm kind of opening up any comment that
you guys might have
give me initial thoughts richard does mr
um i would i would be open to
letting this percolate for a little bit
and if we want to
add it to uh finance or a
service committee
discussion at a future council meeting
as a council of a halt of the whole
rather than a separate
subcommittee type meeting i think that
could be appropriate
and a follow-up question i did have
was is it really anticipated that the
follow-up inspection
will always be 500 or
[Music]
if minor things were identified and
corrected it would just be a
minor subsequent
inspection yeah that's a great
question i i think we've been using that
budget number of 500 because that was
the quote for the initial and
do you have any ideas about that maybe
the follow-up might be a little less
expensive
it is possible it could be a little less
expensive
but with the number that we give the
contractors and inspectors the 500 was
kind of um
it was actually pretty reasonable so i
don't think it'll be a whole lot cheaper
i mean it's possible but it's really
hard to to guess without
having one done yet
right um jessica has her hand up
jess yes thanks president bible i
am i just wanted to touch upon um what
mayor kessler said about the 145
registered participants i i would like
to honor
those 145 and if it's a phased
um process where we have to come back
for more money after we see where we're
at after the initial inspection
i'm all for that but i would like to i
would not
i'm not in favor of capping at 100 i
would like to include the 145 that have
registered
you jessica um it looks like matt has
his hand
in the air mr klingler thank you madam
president um
one i'm in support uh of what richard
and jessica said of doing all of the
inspections and then seeing where we are
i think
you know this program as we've spoken
about is mutually beneficial to the
residents and the city
so the more information we have uh
the better off we'll be just one quick
question it came up
or we were talking subcommittee about uh
who was inspecting did we determine is
it going to be
is it going to be the city or a third
party
it's a third party mat um so we have a
we have
pre-selected contractors who um can
provide the inspection we're gonna
provide contact information to household
heads and household and they will
contact the inspector go ahead and have
that done
so we're not administering the whole you
know connection between the inspector
and the household
great okay that's all i had thanks
thanks guys appreciate all your hard
work
thanks matt you know i really i really
appreciate what richard had to say in
having a
a you know a more in-depth perhaps
conversation
um after we think about this a little
bit
and potentially
there would be more information that you
might be able to share with us
um prior for that to that conversation
mr kessler yep okay um
it looks like uh i think troy has his
hand in the air and then jen and then
richard will circle back to you um
mr markham i'm going to defer to uh
councilman uh councilmember robinson i
think she was ahead of me there
all right i just do with whoever's on my
list
first so all right ken robinson thanks
right and and thanks president fibo yeah
i accidentally clicked lower at hand so
i'm jumping back and forth
um mayor kessler do we have or andy do
we have an idea of
how long it will take and you know what
that timeline is in terms of
when you might come back to council and
and
know that there there might be some
additional expenses
i'm going to andy jump in here i'm going
to guess that we'll probably need about
two months to really feel from the first
wave
of data that we get back and then
hearing from homeowners what they're
planning to do
we'll probably be able to trend that out
and gauge what that might look like
we'll have plenty of time to discuss any
tweaks that need to be made before i
think we hit
like all 140 some odd households or had
their inspections and started to do work
so i would
i would say give us a couple months
after those inspections start
to uh get a feel for a sample set of
what's going on
okay so we'd be this would be something
that would potentially um come before
council say after our summer recess
yeah or right before yeah okay thanks
try marcum so it sounds like we are
looking at
you're talking two months to do the
initial inspections actually get boots
on the ground and get that done
is that is that correct um so i'm gonna
i'm gonna venture to guess that there
are people in the world like myself who
are gonna get that follow-up email and
say you can now schedule inspection
and i'll be like okay i'll get around to
it right so like i think we'll have a
tail on this it's quite large
but i think that we'll have a front end
we'll have a good bulk of information
come in from some an initial wave of
inspections
so no in two months i do not think we
will have had all households inspected
because we're really leaving it upon the
homeowner to do it to schedule
to have it done but i think we'll have
enough data from that those that we have
had inspected to
have a little bit more of an insightful
conversation is there a
is there a uh i don't apologize for
defining it this way
but is there is there in your mind like
a certain phase then where you're gonna
say there's a there's a
a number of those inspections that come
in before you start the second phase
where you start
um looking at those estimates
and and we would plan to uh to start
dispersing
uh money for those uh for those grant
the grant money
um i don't have any i don't i haven't
really thought of it that way so no i
don't really have an answer
for that um the
my my take on it is that as we get and
someone has an inspection
and let's say they have a punch list of
three things that's going to cost 5 000
bucks and they're eligible for the grant
that we will process those in the order
they're received and so we'll start
going through that
exercise and i think that we will learn
a lot from that
and i think it's like i said i think
it's unlikely that we're going to end up
at a maximum funding per household but
uh we'll find that out and as we go
along you know if
um if we get to the point where it seems
like we're going to need some more
funding
my understanding is that council is
going to want to talk about that and and
and we'll have that discussion
i guess my own feedback on this would be
i i also am in favor
of going ahead with the people who are
registered for those inspections because
i think
i think we get a lot of information
about that as well that's probably going
to be helpful to us uh
in the long term i i feel like it
probably would be beneficial
for us to put together a committee a
council committee
at some point when we're getting those
those back those inspections back where
we can kind of
get a handle on maybe uh putting
together
an idea of what we're looking at the big
picture and and reporting back with uh
with some information and some ideas on
that to just to give us a heads up so
that we're uh
we're kind of being proactive about how
we're we're looking at this and what we
can sort of
um you know what we can forecast in
terms of the decisions we'll be making
thank you uh mr marcum um mr sharp
richard i'll circle back to you sir
yeah i apologize for explaining this
i'm in support of the registered
households as well
this question is for andy and
the auditor what
is due to the number of households in
the inspection
cost do we have to have that
bid out um to a contractor
uh i thought we approved ben you can
tell me better than
i i thought we agreed to find a few
contractors that were approved
and the homeowner can then select them
is that not correct
yes no particular contractor is gonna
even if there were an issue with
threshold in this instance it's a
service that's being provided not a
not a right not you know
work that's being performed in the same
way so i don't think
and i would defer to our city attorney
but i don't think this goes into the
state bid requirements
okay i just want to make sure because
there was reference to
a contractor and it sounded to me like
there was one
inspector contractor which if that's not
the case then i would agree with you as
well
all right anything further for the mayor
on this one
look madness oh yeah mr klingler
just just for quick clarification for
anyone listening so
they're going to use one of the
contractors for the service of
inspection
and then after they get the inspection
report they can use
abc contractor registered with the city
of bexley they don't have to use one of
those three
that are doing the inspection correct i
just want to make it clear for anyone
listening later on that
that's what's going to happen okay and
that's the
the point of the follow-up inspection is
to just verify that things were done
properly to code in a working like
manner in a way that's going to actually
you know meet the the punch list
yeah so we we as council thank you matt
those were good questions and a
good mix you know piece of information
to share with
our residents um i um
as council i think we need to um
rely on richard as as our service chair
um
mr kessler and uh mr bayshore to lead us
through this project
and um process and
uh make sure that we're as informed as
we possibly can
and richard you will let us know when
we're gonna have
um and and and
mayor kessler you as well let us know
when we need to have this
uh a bigger conversation about this and
with the input from
our illustrious finance chair mr martin
we don't want we don't want his time to
be cut
right all right thank you everyone we
appreciate
uh you walking us through this i can't
believe it was a
year ago and almost we've been through
one
we were getting ready for the second so
all right mr mayor what else do you have
for us sir uh two quick things well
first off look at how happy this
this pharmacist looks to be injecting me
with a vaccine
isn't that she's just excited about it
so i just i wanted to share that with
you guys she's taking a glee
um did you did you cry i did a little
bit
shut up tears of joy bill harvey um so i
want to recognize
work that uh councilwoman assad has been
doing on
um our artist bike rack series so
jessica applied for grant from the cuny
community foundation
um approached local local bexley artists
the uh the work that they have provided
is uh really fantastic and the work that
jess has
put into um getting all these pieces to
fit together has been great and
we're gonna add to the community
foundation funding through our
um our our budget that we have for
streetscape fixtures in order to provide
even more of these racks just because
they
felt like we could get even more out
there and make a little bit of a bigger
splash so
those are about to get ordered and we're
going to see them in a few months we're
looking forward to ribbon cutting so
thank you jess
for your work on that um you can read
everything else i don't want to belabor
this too long i do want to thank
um council members markham
who has along with patty been at
several of our trash pickup events and
organized one of their own and then
richard sharp who led an
event over the last weekend it's uh i
encourage all of you to join at any time
don't
don't worry if it's registration's full
just come on and join me we've got
plenty of stuff for everybody
and it's a very rewarding way to
improve the community and chat with
people you might not have met before
and uh i've just been i've been getting
a real kick out of it so
thanks again to everyone who's been
participating in this and that ends my
report
happy to take any questions thank you
mayor kessler
thank you for all you do um
there's someone who has a question for
mr
for the mayor yes indeed ms lamke does
monique
mayor kessler thank you for including in
your report
that block parties are going to be a go
with upcoming graduation parties i know
that many in our community are
interested could we include um the fact
that block parties are now
a go in the city's usual communication
channels
so that everyone is aware
absolutely yep we will do that
great thank you richard sharp
since the mayor didn't talk about the
livingston quarter
plan i thought i'd have an idea in the
background for college and livingston
grand entrance way
aspirational i'm sure
okay i like aspiration thank you
um i'll have it up i'll have a more
substantial update on that in our next
council meeting
we're working behind the scenes and
making some progress
awesome all right thank you anything
else for the mayor
all right then can we please move on to
what i believe is the consent agenda
okay two items on the consent agenda
the minutes from the 3 30 21 city
council meeting and the minutes from the
226
21 city council retreat workshop
are any questions from or comments from
council about these two
sets of minutes
any questions or comments from those in
attendance
do i have a motion to pass um at the
consent agenda
motion uh i think it was
troy and then i will allow monique i
believe you uh
seconded it um mr um harvey
mr markham yes ms robinson
yes mrs fiable yes assad
yes mr sharp
yes ms lamke yes
mr klingler yes fast
thank you all right if we could please
move on to ordinances and resolutions
um with visiting presenters
this um ordinance um 20
or 10 21 has had um three readings and
is currently
on um it we we put it
um on the table um mr
klingler do you have some action on
ordnance 10
21 yes i'd like to
move to take this ordinance 10 21 off
the table please
we have a first is there a second second
okay all those in favor please signify
by saying aye
aye aye all those opposed same sign
and and and for debbie maynard who is um
who does such a great job at getting
ours but may not have heard
which voices because i did not um share
um
i believe there was a motion by matt
and jen robinson seconded it
and the motion passed to take um
ordinance 10 21 off of the table
all right this is either um
we should either start this conversation
either with mr kessler or with uh mr
klingler
gentlemen let mr kessler
take the take it away okay well um
so you all are very familiar with the
proposal but i wanted to
uh talk a little bit about some feedback
that we've received since our last
council meeting um
and i want to also probably revisit
again the the origin of this the
conversation and the concept in the
first place of a designated outdoor
refreshment area
so i do we do have a first off matt and
i have worked on a
a revised application or revised um
proposal based upon some of the feedback
received and uh we'll get into that in a
second
but i want to highlight the initial
conversation which back in may of 2020
uh i brought to you guys the idea of a
dora
in an effort to encourage adequate
social distancing on in restaurants
and that wasn't designed to um or wasn't
envisioned really that that would be
something where
you know people would necessarily
everyone would go get a
alcoholic beverage and then just go walk
around the streets it was really more
to enable restaurants to go beyond their
current fenced-in area for their patios
that they have in order to expand
beyond that patio area into additional
space
next to them ohio liquor law requires
has a lot of requirements about serving
of alcohol within
a fenced in area on the actual premises
so
the way the tool that we as a city have
to allow a relaxation to that law
so that for example you could imagine
i'm going to pick on giuseppe's you can
imagine giuseppe's
having bistro tables that go in front of
the bewell studio space you could
imagine
the uh
rusty bucket having some tables that go
a little bit further up main street in
the sidewalk
i i haven't really looked at that space
but another one that's actually
a very real case scenario is kitty's
kitties cafe kitty's cafe has a liquor
license they do
serve a little bit of alcohol right now
they have tables
out on the sidewalk outside of their
fenced in area
currently patrons of kitties cannot
legally sit
at one of those tables or other other
patrons can if they have an alcoholic
beverage
so with the door they would be able to
do that allowing
kitties to space people out a little bit
more allowing patrons to feel a little
more comfortable in that environment
and ultimately helping those restaurants
sell
product uh whether or not it's cinnamon
buns or
maybe a bloody mary in a way that helps
keep their business afloat and help
keeps our main street district thriving
so that was really that is the gist and
that's the inspiration behind it
we've had some questions about residents
who've said well can't you just let
businesses do that but then say you
can't carry that cup
any further the way dora works is very
specific
it's governed by ohio revised code
4301.82
it lands up lays out exactly what you
can and can't do and what those
regulations are
and so the short answer to that is no i
don't believe that that's an option
um the good news is we've spoken with
our colleagues at or at you know
in cahanna in powell
in hillyard worthington
other cities on grove city there are
other cities that have doras
and we found across the board that the
general feeling is that the dora isn't
really being used to
turn these historic downtown areas
of which there are other ones like ours
not as good of as ours of course but
similar to ours in
central ohio um these uh have not turned
them into you know many
strips on las vegas they have not turned
them into times square
they can have maintained the same
character as those communities in those
neighborhoods
and simply provided restaurants with a
little bit more flexibility a few more
options and patrons with a few more
options
police chiefs have not had issues with
additional crime
additional dui and there have not been
issues with litter
cited by those communities so
essentially what we have heard so far is
this was another tool and there has been
very little
uh if not really frankly no negative
uh connotations to what other districts
have experienced
and we understand that like that doesn't
mean that we won't have some negative
experiences and the good news is we have
a whole lot of tools to
quickly pivot and adjust if we do
have negative experiences
you guys have all seen i've forwarded to
you emails that i have received i know
matt has
i think received kind of the same email
so we were forwarding sort of emails
that were to both of us
um the general theme of concerns had to
do with
um excessive drinking and rowdiness uh
associated with
the proposed dora but the boundaries of
the door i would say that there were
multiple comments that talked about
the alleys as a including the dora
and we'll get to that in a second the
hours of the dora why are the hours as
late as they are proposed
and um i think other
litter and other issues is kind of
associated with those
those key points um so this proposal has
been revised
uh slightly uh one of the changes um
based upon the
the comments that we've seen is actually
not a change it's a clarification
the boundary of the proposed dora was
actually narrated to not include the
alleys but it wasn't clear in the
exhibit the exhibit
was done a little sloppily but whoever
prepared this exhibit so
that's been tightened up a little bit so
it's a little more clear that the alley
is not
a part of the dora and you know that was
literally a function of the it was a
zoning district that got recolored
initially on the map and so it just
needed to be
honed a little bit um and then the other
change to this proposal is
on the hours and the reason that we had
said till midnight initially was because
that is kind of as late as giuseppe
stays open at times and that was sort of
just
in our head we were like we're thinking
of the restaurant that stays open the
latest that
would allow them continued operation in
their kind of normal
function but even at midnight which
happens is pretty quiet so it doesn't
feel like you know it necessarily needs
that expanded patio area
after a certain time so um as a initial
suggestion of a change we cut that down
to
11 p.m
as the latest time and again the door
would really only function if those
restaurants were open
until then and from talking to our
restaurant partners we really don't get
the sense they're going to change much
about their operations
again it just gives them a little more
flexibility so if harvest pizza were to
close at nine at nine pm
obviously the dora function within the
harvest would not
be past nine pm it's simply kind of the
latest
possible time that would be allowed
under an environment so
those were the tweaks to this uh but
we're really interested to hear from
anyone who's come to the meeting tonight
to speak additionally about anything
else or to
further address some of the points that
i just traced and and matt do you have
anything else you want to
pull out from what we've talked about
um no other than i think i forwarded
some links to
council members of other municipalities
and cities that have this the one
you know in my research throughout this
whole entire thing the one i keep coming
back to is worthington
they have um homes that um are adjacent
right to businesses
um along their dora um and and there was
an article on this week news
where they interviewed several and said
that it received nothing but positive
reviews
and there was a 10 bump in restaurant
sales they have churches along their
dora
they have schools nearby it's similar
it's a similar setting to ours so and
then they haven't had any problems
um and theirs came out a year or two ago
so other than that i don't uh great
presentation
i don't have anything to add
matt thank you another thing to think
about here is that's also true i think
of gahanna i don't know grove city's
district as well but hillard as well
and powell they're all they're all areas
that are intertwined with residential
districts
unless there's something i don't know
about them i think that was my
understanding
gahanna is mostly creekside but it does
go across the
i don't mill street or whatever the road
that goes north south there that becomes
clark state kind of
and there are homes behind that so yeah
there is
residential there
all right council before i before i
shift over to
our attendees is there anyone who would
like to make a comment
uh troy mr markham
yeah i guess it's going to ask for a
clarification so when you say the dora
area outside the restaurant it sounds
like you're seeing the door
area outside of a specific restaurant
would close
when that restaurant closes so the
example you're using is harvest
pizza if they close then the dora area
outside of their area is not
it that's not active or it's not
accessible to
to patrons are the are
are patrons not free though to roam
that outside of a dora area of a
restaurant that they
have purchased alcohol from or how how
does that work
yeah great i'm sorry i didn't mean to
suggest that i'm i did not communicate
that clearly that's what you and
what you got from that my point was that
harvest would no longer be serving
for example if all the restaurants close
at nine o'clock there are no restaurants
serving
um the only way that you can legally
consume a beverage is it had been
purchased from that restaurant
and um you know so i guess you could in
theory really really nurse that
glass of wine for you know two hours to
like
really like eat out your until 11 p.m
but it just doesn't it's not a
it's not a scenario that really tracks
with the intent or
kind of the purpose of the uh of the
door
jessica assad you have a question
um i just wanted to say thank you to
mayor kessler and to matt for the work
that they've done
after receiving um responses from
residents and i really appreciate that
graph that shows other cities and the
hours
that of the operation in those other
cities so how many do we have there we
have
nine including us um so i think that
that
that really speaks to a lot as well that
this has been successful as matt
you touched upon and thanks for bringing
up that
you know gahanna and some of these other
um cities are
very similar to bexley that there are
residents there
there are schools there are churches
nearby and things
have been very successful i think it is
a creative um it is a time to be
creative with the pandemic and
and where we are with our restaurant
community and i commend you guys for
putting this out there for the city of
bexley i think that this is going to be
a way to help our local
restaurants you know continue to
be successful and thrive um as we are in
a different place in the pandemic now so
thanks for um thanks for your time and
putting all this together and
and taking the time to listen to the
residents and get their feedback to make
to make this as successful as possible
thanks jess mr marcum do you have
something to add yeah just again another
clarification
because we're looking at that attachment
uh we are we are amending this
from midnight to 11 p.m right the
attachment still does say
midnight but we have changed our
proposal is that correct
the attachment this is the attachment
that says 11 where does it say midnight
we're the one we were just looking at
the the spreadsheet had
uh ours as there we go right right
that's right
right so that was based upon the last so
yeah it would say uh
i would say that and then that is going
to require an amen
uh amended uh action is that true
yes um i miss unless mr official
corrects me the the attachment is the
the application so i'm i'm amending the
application but you your ordinance
authorizing it is just
pointing to that as an exhibit so i
don't think the ordinance itself needs
to be amended
i agree great
all right ms lamke has a question
thank you president fibel um mayor can
you remind me under
these this application whose
responsibility is it to pick up any
litter
that might arise from adora activity
well legally it's the person who
littered is responsible
but in an ideal world yes from a code
enforcement perspective it would be the
property owner whose property
it is located on or the right-of-way
adjacent to that property so
if it's you know in front of i'm i'm
i'm not going to pick on anybody if it's
in front of
you know restaurant acme then
it would be their responsibility to pick
that up
as they would any any other litter that
they might find
okay and do you feel that we as a city
have sufficient resources
to enforce any code enforcement issues
if for some reason that business or
property owner didn't pick up
the litter i do feel we have sufficient
resources
i also feel that code enforcement is an
imperfect vehicle and you know if we
have a property owner that doesn't
pick up their property then that's going
to continue whether or not there's a
door
i'll tell you we have expanded the
number of trash receptacles we have on
main street
we plan on having specifically
compostable
compost receptacles because the cups
we're talking about here are compostable
cups
uh to accommodate the at those
businesses those cups
um and we'll continue to monitor
if there is a large influx in uh
need for our receptacles then we'll we
will simply
uh empty them more frequently and or
look at
additional receptacles based upon just
the patterns that we see emerge
which is normal behavior for us like for
example in the summer we empty
receptacles more frequently than we do
in the winter as you can imagine
so it's normal for us to to change our
practice based upon what's happening
from a demand perspective
okay thank you and then my second
question is regarding the proposed hours
um thank you so much for for having your
staff do the research to see what ours
other central ohio doors um operate on
and i appreciate the update and changing
it from
i believe 4 to 11 p.m monday through
friday
11 to 11 saturday through sunday was
there any thought or could there be
additional discussion
to further limiting those hours to uh
perhaps be a little more conservative
um i would defer to you guys and
i know matt for you guys to leave that
discussion
council member klingler did um did you
have any thoughts on that um the reason
i ask is
is the range of the other hours from
central
outdoors they're kind of all over the
place um some of them even limit
what days the week they are some of them
end as early as
nine some of them don't start till later
in the day
uh would you be open to perhaps further
limiting
the hours other than what is being
discussed tonight
yeah i think um a few good points that
were brought up to me
um in emails uh 4 p.m
could be a little early with um kids
from montrose still walking home
from school um if somebody's you know
as an open container down main street
just the interaction there
so we i mean it we could move it from
five
to 11 maybe um
i don't know mayor kessler how you think
that plays out but um
that was a valid point that that was
raised to me
monday through friday 5 to 11 p.m
yeah i i don't see how that would be an
issue
i think it's you i think really this is
the point where like you guys
uh you guys have a lot of latitude in
that and maybe this is a good
conversation to have after we have an
opportunity to hear from the public but
it's you know up to the way that you
guys would like to conduct that
conversation
thank you so much for indulging me i'm
more than happy to listen to
public input and to continue the
discussion
all right we will continue the
discussion um mr harvey has something to
say pray to that though really quick
before
he talks am i correct that there is
something
um in um the dictates
that we have to revisit
how this is doing in a certain number of
years
mr kessler uh
yeah the ohio statute says every five
but um that you know as you know
we will revisit it every time we receive
an email from a resident so it's like
that's just the way we work so
yeah but yeah statutory every five years
yeah i know we are we are very good at
tweaking what we need to tweak and
listening to our citizens but i
but i wanted to make sure that everyone
knew that indeed that is something that
is mandatory that we do have to
revisit this formally um every five
years
uh mr harvey uh yeah matt
or ben just a couple of clarification
questions
you anticipate this to be an ongoing
process
assuming it works so next year and the
year after we'll continue to do this i
assume
and secondly i don't think you plan on
stopping this
based on weather i mean you're going to
let this if i want to sit out
someplace in the middle of january i can
do that is that not correct
well the way we proposed it so far it
doesn't have it's not season out there's
no seasonality there are some doors that
are seasonal
um
you know for administratively it's just
a little bit of a different
communication challenge but it's nothing
huge i i
it is also very hard to predict if it's
going to be 70 degrees in march
you know like so it's you know it's uh
i think it's simple not to have
seasonality but if that's a desire of
counsel then
go for it right all right council if
it's okay with you i'm going to um we're
going to shift and we're going to see
who and who has joined us who i know
that um there is a gentleman that has
been waiting all this time
to speak to us so i am going to flip
over to the attendees
and ask anyone who would like to speak
on this topic to please
um use their hand icon i will remind you
to please um state your name
uh give us your address and then um
please keep your try to keep your
comments to five minutes thank you
um andrew lenoble has his hand in the
air thank you for waiting for us
um mr lenoble
can you hear me we sure can thanks so
much for joining us and are you able to
to turn my video on so you guys can put
a face to the voice as well
uh we we we normally don't do that but
we are happy to if you'd like us to
um can you do that mr kessler
it is done thank you very much i
appreciate it
uh my name is andy lenoble i live at
2390
sherwood road uh my wife has been a life
my wife dana's been a lifelong
resident of bexley we have a
four-year-old son and a two-year-old
daughter and
first i just want to thank city council
for
distributing a letter on friday about
the dora
i think without that letter i i probably
wouldn't have a tent known about this
meeting and and knowing that i
had a chance to to voice my opposition
um so i appreciate that consideration
and i also wanted to thank the mayor
who returned my call the same day
yesterday and
really appreciate him getting back to me
so quickly
i understand the dora proposal is
nuanced
it's not just an open container law i
understand the intent
is to help restaurants that have been
struggling
and i've heard that many other places do
it so we should do it as well
i think that's the wrong approach and
that it's not
an appropriate place to do it on main
street
uh bexley's very unique i drove it
up and down this morning and saw
churches synagogues
businesses i saw very little uh in the
way of
things you would want to walk to with
your beer um
and so the whole proposal is a bit
confusing to me
um i'm trying to imagine a time when i
someone would go to kitties or
giuseppe's
and and order a beer to go and and the
one thing that also concerned me was it
doesn't appear to be a limit on the
number of cups you can order to go
so i don't know what's stopping someone
from ordering five cups to go or four
cups to go
as many as they can carry and
and i guess i don't know where you would
take that cup i understand the intent
we're trying to drive foot traffic to
main street and have people
i guess peruse the few the few things
that are there it just doesn't seem like
an appropriate place
obviously with with two young kids my
biggest concern is drunk driving or
somebody just acting recklessly
i know mayor kessler acknowledged that
the police said there's been
there are no issues in these other areas
if you're going to drive drunk you're
going to drive drunk which
i completely agree with but why give
someone one more opportunity to drink
their beer a little closer to their car
i mean
maybe they're not a resident of bexley
and walking back to their home
maybe they're getting in their car after
drinking two to go cups
i don't and and then here comes a kid on
his bike or a family walking
to me it's a chance to keep bexley
unique and we don't need to be like
these
other places that do it i get that it's
very
case dependent i get a door in a place
like the short north or a downtown
district
uh or gahanna which is a confined area
creekside
i've heard worthington mention a lot but
they go
till 10 o'clock so their hours are
they don't go as late into the night and
again i just don't i think the proposal
that we should do it because other
places do it
and hopefully it will drive foot traffic
to to main street
is the wrong approach um
i also think it's not as easy to roll
back as we do
it's not working out for us so let's
just revoke it
the way i read the statute you need to
give another notice
in a in a newspaper you need to have
another hearing
so who knows how easy it would be to
roll back if people had a problem with
it
and again my my suggestion would be to
not have it at all
and keep bexley a very unique special
place
um i did find it a bit ironic that and
that uh councilman klinger who's
sponsoring the bill
on the website for city council it says
he's committed to improving the safety
of streets for pedestrians bikers and
and joggers i think i hope this wouldn't
have an impact on it but it seems like
it's certainly not a risk
we want to take um
you know in the event you're committed
to moving forward with the proposal i'd
ask you to reduce the hours
to 10 p.m on the weekend and to not have
it at all during the week
and again i think it under i heard many
council members speak to the
values of bexley i think it sets a
terrible
standard to have your kids walking
around and see people holding
holding beers i just don't think it's
something that we need our children
growing up with whether or not
people are responsibly drinking or not
so again i just want to reiterate i
appreciate the the
time that the mayor and city council has
given the public to weigh in
um i know very few people in bexley was
surprising very few people actually knew
know about this proposal certainly if
they didn't get the letter very few
people i've talked to know about it
and so i hope you'll take into
consideration that
we don't need to adopt it simply because
other places are doing it
and maybe there's other creative ways to
support our local businesses maybe we
can attract other businesses or shops
rather than thinking the ability to hold
a beer will be a draw
on main street appreciate your time
thank you andrew we appreciate you
sharing your thoughts with us
trevor has his hand in the air trevor
can you please share your share your
address please can you hear me
we sure can hey how are you doing i'm
trevor webb
and i live on 2340 sherwood road
um yeah to to kind of reiterate
what andy was saying like i i'm not as
opposed
to this because i can see some benefit
for you know the local businesses but i
also just wanted to throw in that um
maybe you could reduce the hours like it
after looking at this
um i agree that a lot of other
communities are doing it but at lesser
hours
i'm originally i came into this thinking
that you would ask this to go to
midnight
and i was going to ask for 10 pm but it
looks like you've already reduced it but
like you pointed to with uh worthington
um i believe they only go to 10 p.m
through sunday through thursday i think
that would be
a little more reasonable and also thank
you guys for uh
sending out that letter like without it
like andy just mentioned
uh i would had no way of knowing that
this was even being discussed
so so a sincere thank you to you guys
like
obviously i don't normally jump in on
these things so this is
foreign to me but i just trust that you
guys do good work and you always do so
so thank you for for letting us speak
and uh
letting us know the issues that were
coming up you know in our backyard so to
speak
so thank you thank you trevor for for
sharing your thoughts with us we
appreciate it um
joseph uh kahane i'm not sure if i'm
pronouncing your last name
um correctly so please forgive me no
worries thank you for calling on me
uh can you hear me yes oh i'm so glad
thank you um um again i want to thank
you
for um for uh oh no i'm sorry 2415
sherwood road is my address my property
abuts the alley um
between sherwood and um
and main street uh and i want to thank
the the mayor who also returned my call
um the same day and um i brought up the
ali situation
um and he clearly has reacted to it when
we talked on the phone
and he has brought it to the council so
i'm greatly i'm really appreciative
of that there are a couple of other
concerns that i have
because our i've been living in bexley
my family
my kids grew up here they went to bexley
schools my wife and i
live here and we've been here for 28
years
and what a couple of things that i worry
about one is the
the parking lot that's behind that abuts
the alleyway
that's in front of xencha and the gym
and ah and um
that i worry that tables hypothetically
could be
placed in that parking lot to expand
seating outdoor seating and what i worry
about
is having to countenance
just the noise that happens naturally
when people are dining and
and having a good time i think that it
would be
a real disruption of our lives
especially in the summer
when windows are open and doors are open
for for air i just think it would be a
pretty pretty noisy as it is when people
are simply walking
uh in the alleyway a young people um
walking through walking by we can hear
it loud and clear
so having diners in that parking lot
as extensions of the restaurant i think
would be
would be really would be disruptive and
noisy for the people whose properties um
are are about the the the alley
so that's one that's one concern another
concern i have
is parking parking on sherwood
um uh from um
5 p.m that's the revised proposal from 5
pm until
11 p.m um i i
i think that and this is monday through
sunday
um that parking would be a problem
traffic for people looking for parking
uh would be a problem and if people are
starting to do this at 5 00 p.m
uh uh monday through friday and saturday
sunday at 11
a.m this is when kids are playing these
are when people are outside
this is when there's a great deal of
just
beautiful bexley life happening uh
during those hours so for those of us
who live on sherwood
road um i think we would be can we may
very well be contending with a density
of
traffic that is really difficult um you
know we have some sense of this for just
a few hours a day when the bexley market
is there which is fine because it's a
it's one
late uh you know afternoon and it's
delightful people park but it's pretty
crowded
but that's okay i can imagine something
like that seven days a week
it would be a real bother and it would
be
a um it would
really um alter the quality of our lives
in in bexley and we've been living here
for 28 years we love this place
this is a great neighborhood and i i
just worry about having to deal with
those
additional challenges which just changed
the character of living here
you know the other thing is how would
this affect property values
uh for us here with the things that i
mentioned
i mean would families with children want
to come
you know one you know consider the
properties here in the same in the same
way they do now
if there is this additional traffic
a saturday especially saturday through
sunday which are primary family days and
and family recreation times and monday
even and monday through friday
five two to eleven it just changes
things i mean i
i wonder if they would wanna live on
sherwood
uh between um drexel and um
and cassingham so i think that i would
it would be
wonderful if the council might
consider uh some of these reservations
that we have
and how this proposal would impact us
thank you so much for sharing your
thoughts with us we appreciate it
anyone else um in attendance who would
like to share their thoughts with
about this subject
um i believe it's um the lewis is our
one of lewis's is interested in speaking
and yes this is don lewis again at 663
euclair avenue
i want to bring up two things one i
think it's very
interesting that bexley has a tendency
to compare itself to other cities not
only in this uni
this issue but many others many other
cities whether it's worthington or
westerville
or throughout the city are different in
terms of the demographics and the number
of people they have there
and because of our demographics and the
density that we do have here
here and actually it's a condensed area
with a potential a lot of people
so that's one issue the second issue is
and having lived here 40 years
one of my biggest concerns the students
we have dealt with
on our street is throughout some of the
other streets here in south bexley
lots of trash lots of cans
etc and i don't know how you can contain
that
the kids if you walk they throw the cans
in the street they throw their paper
cups in the streets and so on and so
forth
i don't want to blame them entirely but
it has over the years it's been a mess
and i don't know how that's going to be
contained even if you have containers
that are available
many of them don't use it thank you
thank you mr lewis anyone else in
attendance like to share their thoughts
about the dora
i do not see any so i am going to um
allow council
members to discuss
does anybody want to share their
thoughts about this i heard a lot of
changes in time i heard um
10 o'clock i heard um
changed to five o'clock i think those
were some of the things that we were
talking about
i think we also have the option of of
potentially
um looking at
weekdays is potentially different than
weekends so i'm
i'm interested in hearing hearing what
you all have
um to say um ms robinson
jen thanks president bible um and i want
to thank those
um who came to speak to us today um the
concerns are valid this is something new
and we want to make sure that we are
doing something
for our city that our city embraces um i
have a couple thoughts that are
um kind of coming to mind um i know one
whenever we talk about something new
and especially something that has the
potential to draw new people
to our community um we have this idea
that there's going to be a huge influx
of people coming to participate in the
dora
do we have and i think everybody should
come to bexley and participate in
everything because it's a great city but
do we have any kind of
in your research um mayor or um
uh matt do we have any kind of
um ability to gauge numbers of people
coming in when when you talk to people
in worthington or gahanna or any of
these other places are you finding that
you know people are coming in in large
numbers and all of a sudden we're
dealing with you know a much higher
population i think
if we had a better idea of what that
looked like it would allay some of the
the concerns um that we're hearing um
i also um was curious about
um and mayor you can potentially speak
to this the
the parking lot that one of the
residents mentioned is that
restaurants a parking lot is a parking
lot correct
res a restaurant or a
um you know they can't just set up
tables because they want to
um expand it has to be a proper area and
not taking parking spots
and a a a parking lot away from
you know usable um space is that correct
yes that is correct so if if a business
in our
heavily regulated uh main street
district wants to
expand their outdoor seating area even
within their own premises
they do need to come to the building
department and get approval now we have
expedited
approval during the pandemic plus that
doesn't mean it's without discretion and
one thing that we have not had requested
and i think we would have to
to treat very sensitively and
contextually is any sort of
occupancy of parking spaces because you
know parking requirements are a
different thing altogether and
i think the point made is excellent
which is like you know that interface at
the back of a building
next to a yard is very different from a
patio interface at the front of the
building on main street so
that's the sort of thing that we would
take into consideration if we had that
request
but no a restaurant cannot legally just
start to place additional seating
um outside of their current area without
approval
so that would have a review process of
course okay thank you
um then the last thing that came to mind
as i was looking over
and thank you um matt for sending that
um spreadsheet with all the information
on it
it is really helpful to see and i wonder
um
and i'm not presenting this as a formal
amendment and just throwing it out there
for conversation
is if we looked at this as kind of a
thursday through saturday with one
chunk of time because it's you know
people are tend to be a little more
social it's kind of the weekend
and then looked at sunday through
wednesday and
in a different time frame and then we
could potentially look at um
small a a smaller window of time on that
day on those days that weren't
weekend hours um and because
you know we do want to make sure that
our residents are are comfortable with
what we're doing
and want to participate and and um that
you know they came here and they want i
want to make sure that they
are are being heard and their their
concerns are being addressed
so thank you thanks jen
um i think um mr sharp is as next to
speak richard
thank you um one of the things as i've
been
listening to the residents comments and
thinking about
it is the
nature of the suburbs that have been
compared
i don't know whether i'm allowed to
mayor am i allowed to share a screen i
just thought we'd take a quick visual
tour
of worthington hilliard and um powell
just to see the downtown you can share
that i think
okay
okay here's pow if you can see that
um between old and tangy and liberty
street
there's um uh open space there
they have a large parking lot there
that's right on main street that's
successful
they have small houses that are small
businesses
you know with benches and places for
people to sit and congregate like over
here
another uh if we go
to sorry i'm not good at
sharing this uh
how do i go to a different screen i've
got to call it up but
the tab so the tab you just click on the
tab like 705
high street up there
my menu bar is blocking it and i can't
you can drag your menu bar to move it
there's worthington
uh somehow
okay here's worthington
sorry my menu bars here so again there's
lots of uh
space um
this is like the main business district
uh where there are restaurants close up
um down through here that are
close enough for people to walk to the
town square
and then here's hillyard they have
the heritage park a lot of open spaces
for people to congregate in their
downtown area
and i think that's what works and along
with guyana with creekside
and when it was originally proposed in
capital space
was included in the proposal
it kind of made sense with a lot of the
activities that we already had
have had with capitals shared space
so um i'm not
advocating one way or the other but i i
think it gives us perspective
as to maybe
how the the doors work in those areas
versus
maybe hallowed work investing
richard you have anything else to add um
yeah i'm still confused on
if we did do reduced hours like was
suggested
what the process would be to change that
in the future
once we gained more experience and
comfort level
similar to we know we have to uh with
jeffrey mansion there's the alcohol
policy that that needs to be revised and
brought forth to councils in order to
change
the limitations that we have on
those councilmatic control restrictions
so um it's been mentioned we can change
things at any time
but i didn't know about the hours or or
the days of
active use whether um we have to hold
the hearing or whether that can be
changed just administratively
mr fishel or mr um kessler do you know
the answer to that
because i'm curious as well how how how
does this get changed does it have to be
changed
via an ordinance or a resolution or does
it
does it can the administration just
change it or how does that work
i would think with any substantive
changes like the hours and the days that
things like that whether they're
contributing to be contracted or
expanded it would have to go through the
same process
as the initial approval i'm not 100 sure
of that but i believe that's the case
okay mr markham has his hand
raised troy
both council members raised points that
i was sort of thinking
along richard's line since we are
approving an ordinance with an
attachment
um you know if we would like to make
changes to that
i guess i'm curious as to how that would
happen to i'm not
just a general question about the
technical nature of what we're doing
here in terms
of our vote on an ordinance with an
attachment
the other thing is um i
was thinking along the lines of jen
robinson as well
to me it makes more sense instead of
grouping this as a monday through friday
and then the saturday and sunday to do
it more along the lines of the school
days
kind of model where
we would have one set of hours for uh
maybe sunday through thursday
and then another more you know uh
more expanded set of hours for friday
and saturday is i think we tend to
expect you know that uh those hours are
a little more conducive to
uh to uh later evenings than uh
than what we would hope to maybe uh have
for uh
days that the kids would be going to
school and that sort of thing
i like that i dream dear mr markham and
and jen i think that makes sense and i
also
um believe that if we're doing this um
to help our businesses
um those would be more in line
at least i would guess um for hours
during the week for these restaurants as
well
i would think that they go later on the
weekends and not as late
during the week um just um sod has her
hand in the air jessica
and jessica thank you so much for
insisting that we send these
letters out to our community last week
you
uh made a good call on that one thank
you president fibal
um yeah i wanted to just say thanks to
hearing from some of these
residents andrew trevor um joseph and
the lewis's
for taking the time to come on tonight
and those who have emailed um the city
as well
thanks to um mayor kessler for always
being the great mayor that he is to
getting on the phone and talking to
these residents to help them better
understand
what we're trying to do here um i'm
going to touch upon kind of a little bit
what troy said
and um thank you richard for bringing up
those google maps you are
you're you're tech not your tech is on
today
um but something to consider as we're
kind of talking through this and hearing
from residents is
and we we all know that we are uniquely
bexley and we take a lot of pride in
that i do think it's always important
though to look at
communities that have done something see
how they've done it what's worked
and then how we can you know make it
right for bexley so
maybe we go a little more conservative
in the start
and then track the success and add on
instead of going as big as maybe some of
the other communities have done in the
beginning just
food for thought when we're talking
about restaurants and the success of
those restaurants and i could completely
be wrong because i've done no study on
this just thinking of
friends and socially when um
they're usually going to meet at a
restaurant
it's usually like a thursday night
friday night saturday thing
so maybe we start with that's when the
door is i don't know that
um and i would ask the marin um
and uh councilman klingler um to let me
know
do we have to do it all seven days or is
it something that we could
start off with with a thursday friday
saturday um
i do i am hearing the resonance and i
know that um
councilman klingler and i share um share
the same
um values for the city that we do want
things to be safe we
we love that we're becoming more bike
friendly we want all those things i know
he's with me on that so when the
residents kind of brought
up about you know kids being out on
bikes and
and that interaction i i hear them on
that so maybe
you know in in councilman klingler you
already spoke to this but and this is
why it's good to have discussion because
this didn't really
i wasn't thinking about this until we
had the discussion tonight
but i do think pushing back so that
we're away from those
after school extracurricular not just
when kids are coming home from school
but then we have to also think about
kids who've stayed a little bit later
with after school care or whatnot
that they you know maybe it's a six
o'clock time
so just some things to think about as
we've heard from the residents
thanks miss sudden uh ms lamke has her
hand
raised as well i just wanted to
to piggyback off of what uh jessica just
mentioned um i
too would probably want to start with a
more
cautious conservative approach
i did notice in some of the or at least
three
of the nine or ten
central ohio doors that we have you know
three of those
restricted the days to i believe only
weekends or friday through sunday
i don't know if we want to be that
conservative but i would rather
limit the hours and the days possibly
more and then widen it as the door
becomes a big
big success which i think it will be
um i i have a tendency to
to agree with miss lamke um you know
this is how we handled it when we were
talking about
um when we were talking about adding
um allowing alcohol at
jeffrey mansion um and every time we
ever
looked into doing that we aired on the
side of
of conservative you know putting our
toes in first
um seeing what it looked like and then
um we've and we've readjusted we've
added on
i mean we gradually do what we know
we can handle i have a lot of faith in
our community
um being respectful and i have a lot of
faith
um in our businesses handling this well
and i have oodles of faith in our police
that they will be able to help us
monitor this
and i too believe that this is going to
be a success
i think that um we need to
we need to think about um how
what looking at this conservatively
looks like
i hear a lot of suggestions and um
i would look to um mr klingler or
mr kessler to to guide um
guide us on suggestions with this based
on what we have heard from our attendees
and
what other council members have said
go ahead ben i was just going to say i
don't think i need
we could talk about it further um i i
don't need to make an amendment to the
ordinance because it's the application
i don't need to make an amendment to the
application right you can just do that
right there yeah so what i would yeah
but what i would i guess
recommend and you guys take it for what
you want is
um first off i have some ideas from what
you said about hours that i'd like to
share but also
i'd like to get some legal analysis on
maybe looking at phasing hours or more
of a
range so that there's ability to make
some switches without the full on
you know notice in the dispatch and long
long um long notice period or something
like that
so i think it'd be good to get a little
bit more legal analysis before we
vote so i would assume that we're maybe
looking at tabling but i don't want to
put those words in your mouth matt
um but what what i heard from the hours
a couple things just
to think about um and i sketched down
some of what i was hearing
and i added my own spin to it so full
disclosure
um first off sunday
i think one of the challenges of having
sunday going like sunday through
thursday is that
sunday the reason there's that earlier
start time is anticipating or
based upon what some other districts
have done that you have a little more
casual lunch atmosphere at those
restaurants
maybe even brunches so
maybe giving sunday its own designation
where it gets to start earlier because
it's a
you know casual sunday weekend um monday
through thursday five to nine
uh most of our restaurants are closed by
nine on those weekdays
and then friday and saturday allowing
some a little bit of later
uh later out or sorry friday friday
would be
5 p.m to 11
and then saturday would be
11 to 11. potentially um and i i want to
reiterate like as we talk about that
richard talked about open space
i get that um you know
we're not thinking about this as a way
for large crowds to gather with
alcoholic beverages
in our district that's not at all what
was this was ever talked about before
this has talked about
the businesses during normal operations
having expanded
ability to seat people in a more
distanced fashion so this started as a
public health discussion
and there are some other potential
benefits and you know the chamber of
commerce couldn't stick around as late
as this conversation
has gone but elaine did text me to to
reiterate that the chamber is supportive
of this and
and their members are supportive or
sorry their board is supportive
um because of the flexibility you can
give businesses so
when we talk about curtailing hours and
the conservative approach i totally
understand that but think about it a
little bit from the lens of a restaurant
so i'm running a restaurant and
some of the time i can seat people with
beverages at a table
and some of the time i can't and so now
are we deciding when
there might be a busy dining night what
if it's a
you know some holiday on a monday or i
don't know i really don't you know
memorial day or something and
you know it's a little bit of a busier
day for that restaurant
and then they might normally have and so
they would really like to use that
additional seating space but they can't
because we have curtailed the hours to
be outside of their
hours or to be you know they're out
there
operating in hours outside of our door
hours so i would really advise council
to try to track with business hours
because i think that would make it
a more clear more easier interface with
our businesses
but again you know take it slow
always makes sense i do think that this
is a take it slow because i think that
we know
from the experience of other
jurisdictions what this kind of entails
so we've
we're not reinventing the wheel we're
not the first people to try this we're
actually
kind of the last people to try this and
so we have the benefit of all that other
experience
uh to guide us
madam president i just want to piggyback
on what the mayor said if that's okay
um and to make sure i'm understanding
what
and thinking through this correctly so
again
mayor correct me if i'm wrong so what
you're saying is for example
if this if this revised dora looked
as i was a thursday through sunday
approach instead that would mean that
for example giuseppe's could no longer
have
their seating on the side on the side of
their building
pretzel avenue correct on thursday on
monday
monday tuesday or wednesday now no
um just to clarify currently their
seating on drexel avenue
is fenced with containers so there's his
fence
okay so there's a bad example yeah an
example would be
giuseppe's has expressed an interest in
having a little bit more
seating beyond their their premises
currently
which is totally understandable they
have such a constrained patio space
so what it would mean is if giuseppe
sets a couple tables up with the
consent of their landlord a little bit
to the west of where they are right now
that some of the time they could serve
people there and some of the time they
couldn't
right and so if the if the dora did not
exist on
monday tuesday or wednesday they
couldn't seat their people
monday tuesday and wednesday there
because the dora would be
is what would provide them the authority
to do that
oh now you guys are froze
yeah i did some back every 30 minutes my
internet's freezing for some reason
all right and kitty kitty's taking
kitty's cakes as well
right man yeah that's another current
example
yup yeah that's what i was looking for
i am not a present if i may uh
jen you asked a question um are
outsiders coming into the cities
in the cities of of size you know like
like ben said we're we're one of the
later ones to do this and we're one of
the smaller ones but
i haven't seen and i haven't seen any
cities marketing come to our dora
it's more of a in within their community
and their patrons
shopping at their shops along main
street and kind of a sip and stroll
is what i've actually seen on a couple
websites um
there was an issue in cincinnati with
people congregating in large masses
but that's a highly populated area it
was more of a mask situation
and that was what the headline was in
cincinnati um
we don't intend this to in in this
ordinance to make it
any less safe for anyone um it's it's
more of
an enjoyable experience for our
residents in bexley
and and like i said all i can do is look
at other communities and i'm not trying
to
to say we have to do it because other
communities are doing it this was
presented
this was presented to me by the mayor
and i said yeah i'll help do the
research let's
do this and um i thought it was a good
thing for our restaurants and for
and for our residents so that was the
approach i took
with it um and if there were red flags
all over the place you know
we would have curtailed it to to um
to incorporate you know some of the
issues we've seen in other communities
but i
i haven't seen any it's been nothing but
positive reviews um
from what i could tell and in towns
there's towns all over um
ohio not just this isn't just clemson
so this this has been happening prior to
covid
but we really did start investigating
this
during covid um we saw that our
our businesses were
you know suffering and we want to pick
them up we know that
our bexley is a is a healthier bexley
when our businesses are thriving and so
i do believe that that
was really what sparked
an interest in us doing that
so i just i wanted to add that mr harvey
has his hand in the air
oh you did mr harvey do you not yeah i
i hear everybody's concerns
i guess the one thing that i
would suggest we don't do is
only do it on certain days because i
think people will say gee we can go to
giuseppe's
and wherever we're all picking on
giuseppe's and sit outside and have a
drink
and that would be nice and if we want to
we can walk down to the bucket or
whatever
and um i would be concerned if it's like
no we can't do it tonight because it's
wednesday no it's open on wednesday no
it's only open on
thursday friday saturday even if we
decide to limit the hours i certainly
think it ought to be something that we
we consider to do every night of the
week so that people can
um you know get in the habit of doing
this
because that's really the ideal is to
get in the habit of doing escada
and patronize our businesses so that's
all
thank you mr harvey um mr um sure
yeah i apologize if i gave the
impression that i was
anticipating that there would be large
groups um
i was just thinking of places um
where people could
finish their dinner they see there's a
line waiting to get in for a table
they've got they may want to spend time
together with friends
and want to take their their drink
or get a refill before they leave the
restaurant
and go out and just sit and chat
somewhere else rather than
taking up a table and so
that that's the main thing i was trying
to say that
that those areas have places for people
to
have some um that people can just relax
enjoy
watching people walk by talk whatever
and so i i think when the drexel opens
it could be
potentially helpful to the drexel and
and there are out of town people that
come specifically
to the drexel and to giuseppe's um
that if they have to wait for a table
if they can get a drink and sit down in
the little micro park
right there by by the drexel and
and wait and then after the navy they've
had time for the alcohol to
at least dilute in their system before
driving home
all right council does does anyone have
any
more to add this evening on
the dora
no um i do see a hand in and those in
attendance um
you will have an opportunity if you'd
like to speak at the end of
of counsel um to speak again if you'd
like to
um we are going to continue on with
business on
on this ordinance um i want to ask
uh mr klingler um if he has
action um any further action on this
ordinance this evening
i'll motion to table this ordinance
madam we have a first is there a second
i'll second this is sad okay thank you
jessica thank you matt
um all those in favor please signify by
saying aye
hi hi hi he's opposed same sign
um all right i want to thank everyone
for the great
conversation we had on that i want to
thank mayor kessler and
matt klingler for all their diligent
work
on that um great job and then i need to
apologize because i have to take a
three-minute break
and um i would ask that we try to hurry
and be back here like at uh 8 31
um okay council
thank you lorianne for that break oh my
gosh i'm so sorry i couldn't
i had to take a break
[Laughter]
hey why did you have to take a break
i wanted to hear if i could i wanted to
see if i could get a hold of
you
well it didn't work
is everyone having problem hearing her
or just me yeah she's in slow motion
it's awesome
[Music]
all right well whatever all right
are we back are we live are we good to
go
benjamin are we good to go so good
anybody need any cheez-its
nobody are you ignoring me can you guys
not hear me seriously
i can't hear you at all no i couldn't
hear you asking me if i could hear you
are you serious yeah not funny
you are not we're ignoring you
are we live
are we alive we are aren't we we are
live
we've been live the whole time all right
fabulous
happen to watch us sorry guys all right
well we're gonna
we're gonna move on then um
we are two uh third readings is
everybody back with us i guess i should
check and make sure
raise your hand if you're not back
monique's not back
i don't think i'll wait till monique
gets back
see 32 it is 8 32.
all right we can go ahead and start
moving on with our third readings
ordinance 11 21.
okay so third reading of ordinance 11
21 uh to amend
chapter 1230 definitions chapter 12
52.15 accessory
uses and structures and chapter 12 23.05
demolition
in order to provide for additional
regulation
criteria related to the construction and
demolition of accessory uses
and structure in the city introduced by
ms saad
yes thank you mr fishel um this is our
ordinance that um has come about
due to some changes that we're making
with
um our bzap and arb
committees this is looking at a garage
and accessory structures
it's a working group compromise as i
just said
of the arb and visa they have been
meeting to facilitate amendments to
bexley's code regulating the design
placement and specification of accessory
structures
i am going to ask since this is the
third reading tonight that we do
table this um due to the fact that we
are getting
feedback currently from our bzap members
and they're going to be speaking upon
this at their next meeting which
um is on the 22nd
and we will be doing um
a public meeting on this at our next
council meeting
which will be um april
20 um
what is our next april 27th
yeah 27th i had a lot of notes from that
last discussion on the dora so it
came into so i'm going to ask that we
move to table this so that we can
further hear from vzapp before we um
go to a public meeting and a third
reading
does any before um jessica assad
formally um
makes a motion to to table is there
anyone on council that would like
to uh would like to ask any questions or
has a comment on this ordinance
is there anybody in attendance who has a
question or comment on this
ordinance assad you have
action on this ordinance yes president
fiable
i would like to make a motion to table
ordinance 11-21 there's a first is there
a second
second jen robinson thank you jen um all
those in favor
signify by saying aye hi
uh those opposed same sign
tabled thank you so much um ordinance
1221
mr fishel all right third reading of
ordinance 12-21 to adopt and approve the
city of bexley electric aggregation plan
of operation
governance and to declare an emergency
mr sharp
okay um according to our
minutes at the last meeting we were
going to be having our
attorney consultants attend the meeting
before we
passed this so um mayor
were you able to set a date with that
yeah so because we the board of control
has been meeting a couple times about
the actual
aggregation and
i don't think we're at a point where i
think we well i know we're not at a
point where we feel comfortable
like bringing it back to council um and
i know that this is not the same as
aggregations plan of governance but i
think the two obviously are
pretty tightly related to each other so
i didn't think we would want to pass
this ordinance before we had a
recommendation from the border control
so i would ask richard and
i'll i'll make sure to follow up with
you in the next couple weeks if we get
to the point where maybe at our next
meeting we have folks in to
talk about it but i would say it should
be i would recommend it be tabled
well that was my impression from our
last meeting that it would be
but i wanted to make sure that there
wasn't any change on your end
um uh madam president
if you want to ask
anyone from the audience or from council
if they have any questions that
about the ordinance or the program
itself
while we have the opportunity and then
after that period of discussion i'll
make a motion to table thank you mr
sharp anyone from
council have any questions or comments
that's on ordinance
12 21. anyone in attendance have any
questions or comments on 12
21 mr sharp do you have some
action on 12 21 please
madam president i moved to table
ordinance 1221.
thank you mr sharp is there a second in
there a second
thank you mr klingler oh there's a favor
please signify
by saying i
it was opposed same sign thank you
you do need a stronger table you are
right mr markham
i'm putting a lot on there all right
we can move on if we may to second
readings mr fishel
okay we have a second reading of
ordinance
13-21 to appropriate 8089.45
from the unencumbered general fund to
pay for replacement of a jeffrey park
stage
and 10 that were destroyed during a
storm in 2020 mr markham
you've said it all except uh this money
is reimbursed to us
from an insurance claim so uh we're
ready to uh
rock and roll with some more stage tent
outdoor equipment and we're gonna uh use
that money to buy
replacements wonderful
anybody from council have any comments
or questions about
ordinance 13 21
anyone in attendance have any comments
or questions
on ordinance 13 21
mr markham i think we had some
suggestions during pre-counsel about
this and the consent agenda much as i
enjoy hearing mr fishel read these
things over and over i'd say let's move
it to the consent agenda
i got to read it there too so well
he does that's right
council does anybody have any objections
to placing this on the consent agenda
not on the table on the consent agenda
okay seeing none consent agenda i will
take note of that
ordinance 14 21 please mr fishel
all right second reading of ordinance
14-21 to appropriate 180 thousand
dollars
from the recreation fund and to
appropriate three hundred fifty thousand
dollars from the unencumbered
general fund and and an additional
hundred fifty thousand dollars
from the recreational recreation fund to
pay for expenses
related to the jeffrey mentioned expense
expansion mr marcum
yeah can we pull this up i know we
needed to uh change some figures here i
think our math was a little off last
time
that's right
is it 330 yeah
so this should have
this looks correct the corrected numbers
okay
right so we're looking at a hundred and
eighty thousand dollars from the
recreation fund
uh that uh was included in the 2020
budget but was unspent
and then we're looking at an additional
150
000 uh um
that were that we're appropriating from
the rec fund
to complete the project and
that's going to give us a total of 330
right
correct and i will tell you mike price's
uh is not in the meeting anymore because
um
obviously we were not taking action this
evening he is he mr sharp had requested
a uh kind of a reconciliation of money
that's been spent to date in the chain
orders
mike is still working on putting that
all together to get that to you guys was
in a way that's easily consumable
right now it's it's not so we're we're
gonna try to get that to you guys later
next this week or early next week
okay and then the third leg of the table
is 350 000
but that is money from the bexley
community foundation that
they are contributing to this project
that is correct
all right should we should we amend that
tonight
mr official
or should we do it all together to be
amended i think it would i thought it
was just the incorrect
the numbers were incorrect and they were
fixed the math needed
to be they were they were fixed but we
haven't corrected it we have an
amendment
you can go ahead and amend it that's
fine i mean i think it's a clerical
issue so
i i i then if you say it's a clerical
issue then we'll
we'll keep it at that that's fine you
know what you could just you could you
could think about it this week and we
can we can
we can amend it next okay but this is
not amended ordinance 1421. that was
just
put there in anticipation of the
change right so it'll need the name
changed um
the name will need to be i mean if
people are comfortable if people really
want to amend it you can but
i don't think it's necessary again it
was just but i'm not still clerical
there
was an additional mistake it actually
will be a little easier if you just
amend it now because then
it'll carry through the agenda as
amended and we won't have and just amend
it
let's do it and i'm president
yes i make a motion to amend
section 1 to the 330
three hundred thirty thousand that's
indicated on the screen
ms lampke will second thank you both of
you
um is there any discussion from council
on amending
ordinance 1421
nope okay anybody in attendance that has
any questions about
amending ordinance 1421
roll call please ms fibel yes
ms lamke yes ms robinson
yes mossad yes mr markham
yes mr klingler yes mr sharp
yes damn it is there any further
discussion
um from council on this amendment
any uh from the uh those in attendance
all right with your permission mr
markham we'll move on
roll on all right thank you sir what are
we all right
so we have a second reading of ordinance
15-21
to incorporate a prop a pr i'm sorry to
appropriate fifteen thousand
seven hundred uh god i'm sorry i have a
bad screen there we go
um to appropriate fifteen thousand seven
hundred dollars from the water fund to
pay for water line reconstruction in
conjunction with the 2021 street
reconstruction project
introduced by mr merkum again just
moving the money uh from the water fund
to
pay for this project that we've thousand
done
hundred dollars all right thank you mr
official thank you for mr marcum
does anybody have any questions on
um this piece of legislation
anyone in attendance have any questions
about this piece of the legislation
mr markham consent agenda yeah let's
let's have mr official read it at the
consent agenda
all right let's have him i'll be there i
plan to be there
good all right we have one more second
a resolution all right it is a second
reading of resolution 0-3-21 to confirm
the mayor's appointments
of claire ceballos appointment right
just ones
to the recreation board mr klingler
yes this is uh can you pull up the
ordinance man
please
the ordinance of resolution oh 321 um
for claire bios we heard from our
earlier
this evening uh just uh with the term
expiring june 30th
2021
for the rec board all right
anybody have any conversation
about um this one
i am not seeing anyone oh mrs lamke
i thought she was great i'm glad she
came
thank you i thought she was pretty much
a rock star too
anybody from count anybody fro up from
those in attendance
have any questions about this piece of
legislation
um mr um klingler what would you think
about this
um being put on the consent agenda
yeah i'm all for it just as the parks
and rec chair committee
or committee chair i'm excited um for
her to join the rec board as well so
very impressed i've consent agenda all
for it
all right perfect thank you so much all
right then we can move on to our first
readings if we could please
all right a first reading warden in
16-21 to amend the capital stadium
lights
planning approval conditions in light of
pandemic based changes to capitol
university's athletic schedule
in order to allow for two nighttime
license licenses in 2021 to operate
stadium
lighting in which the lights are on past
the hours of 9 30 p.m but off prior to
the hour
of 11 p.m introduced by ms saad
yes thank you mr official um this
ordinance just
to as a first reading to council to let
you know there were a number of us who
set um on council during when
um the original ordinance was written
but it's important on the capitol
stadium lights but it's important to
take into a fact that coven and a
pandemic happened this year so there
were many athletic schedules that
were compromised and this would capital
university was one of those so this
ordinance
is to amend the capital stadium lights
planning approval conditions
in light of the pandemic based changes
to capitol university's athletic
schedule
an ordinary in order to allow for two
night
time licenses in 2021 to operate stadium
lightings in which the lights are on
past the hour of 9 30
but off prior to the hour of 11.
capitol university's 2020 football
season was delayed
until the spring of 2021 which is where
we are now
and therefore capital did not utilize
the nighttime license for lights past
9 30 p.m in 2020 capital wishes to hold
a nighttime football game in the spring
of 2021 for the delayed 2020 season
and also in the fall of 2021 for the
standard
fall season the planning approval
conditions do not allow for more than
one license for
lights to be used past the hour of 9 30.
the city of bexley has made multiple
concessions to organizations and
businesses in bexley in order to
alleviate
hardship brought by the coven 19
pandemic
therefore the
stadium game day and stadium management
for day and night games and athletic
events planning approval conditions
approved october
27 2014 is hereby amended to allow for
two nighttime licenses in 2021 to
operate
stadium lighting in which the lights are
on past the hour of 9 30
but off prior to the hour of 11.
so that is what this ordinance is doing
um
mayor kessler if you want to weigh in on
this at all but i think that this
is very um it states what it's planning
to do and i think we have to take into
consideration
how capital was um
how that football season was delayed due
to a pandemic pandemic and
how we as a city need to look at
making this happen for them when they
didn't get to use one of their
night games um this past year due to
coped
jess i think you laid it out pretty
clearly there um the only
uh thing i would add to that is that
i will forward an email i received from
the south mexican neighborhood
association
i i don't have the exact wording but it
was supportive of the concept of
allowing them to have that second night
because of the
delayed season so i will forward that to
you guys on council
and uh i think it's uh you know
i think it's a small concession to make
the uh the other thing i've noticed
the the one license that they have this
year has been used
as part of that delayed fall season it
was a reduced capacity crowd they had a
maximum of 200 uh folks in attendance
and um it was a pretty quiet event
um compared to what you might you know
think of as a football game so
i think um i think it seems like a good
uh compromise to allow them to have a
slightly kind of normal season
in the midst of some what they've been
dealing with so
thank you all right anybody in
attendance have any
uh any any of the council members have
any questions about this
um ordinance
anyone in attendance have any questions
um or comments about this ordinance
all right sing none resolution 421
mr official okay uh resolution
421 approving the 2021 havenwood park
landscape plan
introduced by mr klingler
you i'm not muted okay uh
thank you mr fishel um
yeah i'll go ahead and read the
whereases this is the first reading
havenwood park is a unique and important
park within the city's greenscape
and has historically functioned as a
passive neighborhood park
and it has been several decades since
the city investigate invested in
landscape design within the park and a
variety of landscape features
have declined over the years and the
city of bexley design staff
worked with a group of interested
residents to arrive at a landscape
plan to refresh the existing landscape
and preserve the park's historical
context
as a passive park for the enjoyment of
adjacent residents
and visitors to the park and numerous
public
workshops and opportunities for public
engagement have been conducted
including on-site tours of the park
neighborhood outreach
review and approval by the tree and
public gardens commission
and presentation to the south bexley
neighborhood association
and the process for approval by city
council provides additional venues
for resident engagement and feedback and
provides the administration
with the with the confidence to pursue
funding opportunities for the proposed
landscape plan
on the meeting agenda there is an
attachment that is
48 pages long uh mayor kessler is this
the presentation that elena andrews
um is planning to give in our next
council meeting
uh it's it's um thanks matt so ellen
will be at the next council meeting her
presentation will
be based off of this i know that she's
developing an additional option
um then the options that are shown in
the presentation
in response to some residents who've
reached out to
uh some of us just to let the let us
know that they have some concerns about
one of the hardscape features so she's
going to provide an option that does
that does not have that hardscape
feature um so what you see here that
attachment today which is
as as matt said it's a 48 page that's
some really interesting historical
context by the way
and then it goes into it goes into some
design concepts
um that will be a little bit modified
and um but it will serve long story
short yeah the 48-page document serves
as the
quote-unquote plan but it'll probably be
a 49-page document at least by the time
you guys see it next
next meeting as long as the entire thing
is read i'm good with it
at the meeting
i can do that if you'd like mark
sounds like a plan all right um uh
i i um did sit with um
a member of the community who actually
um
lives on havenwood park that really
enjoys
the the greenness of the park and is
very concerned about um the hardscape
that is potentially going to be added
so i want to thank um mayor kessler for
for listening to me um after i had had a
really nice conversation with this um
resident and i want to thank you so much
for
asking um elena andrews to at least
have another option for council to
consider
so um it looks like there's someone
um a council member that has um
ideas or or something to share mr sharp
uh yes i'd like to thank elena
for the work that she did on this plan i
was
privileged to be able to sit in the
triumph public garden
commission meeting when it was presented
and
i think the community will appreciate
the
changes that can be made the um
one question i had is if it's not
too much of a bother to ask is that
hardscape
feature in question the stage area or
different
it it is what is considered to be the
stage area okay
um because that was raised in a meeting
that i attended
um i don't think it was necessarily by
by the resident that you might have
talked to
and so um i hadn't seen any changes made
based on those comments so i appreciate
that that's being considered
thank you thank you richard anybody else
have any comments
or questions about the havenwood park
plan
that our amazing elena andrews has
put together for us anybody in
attendance want to share
thoughts about um madam president
yes please my hand i don't have a hand
raised future
um i i just wanted to clarify that it is
being colloquially referred to as the
stage that's that this this is a paver
patio kind of concept it's more than
that i mean the idea was to have a space
where someone who's
wheelchair-bound would be able to be
kind of in the park and enjoy it a
little bit and then there will be
seating
it's um it's raised the proposal is to
have it raised a grand total of you know
six inches above the grade so it has a
little bit of a
a little bit of a vista and it could be
used as a band
set for a very small jazz band for our
jazz in the park but
um as we frame this i think the the
concerns that have been raised
absolutely valid i mean the the idea is
to to maintain a passive park and
we'll get into this with more detail the
next meeting but just to be aware it's
it's designed to be a very
multi-functional community serving use
not just a
not just a stage as as elena designed it
and she'll
she'll speak to that and present an
option that doesn't have it at all
so just want to clarify that
our residents had um had
interesting comments on it and they um
approached it in a very kind
way and um
and i and i'm so glad that we i had an
opportunity to talk
um but i'm wondering if there's anyone
in attendance
who would like to share their thoughts
about havenwood park
all right well hopefully you will join
us again next
um time around um on the uh what did we
decide it was the 27th
of april when we um invite elena andrews
um to come speak to us and that will be
towards the
beginning of our um
our council meeting under ordinances
that have
guests to come correct mr kessler
it will be i will just full disclosure
there's a zoning hearing that night as
well for the
garage discussion structure so it'll i
believe be after that probably and so
it'll be
you know it might be a little bit into
the meeting but okay
fine fascinating conversation preceding
it
all right can't wait all right thank you
so much
um mr kessler on that one mr official
would you like to continue with
ordinance 17
21 for us please
i was muted first reading of ordinance
17-21 to amend chapters 1476
unsafe buildings to include provisions
for unsafe sites
ms yes thank you mr fishel
the city of bexley desires to protect
human health and safety
bexley's current nuisance ordinance
protects the community and its residents
against unsafe structural conditions
but does not provide explicit
protections against
unsafe site conditions it is in the best
interest of the community and its
residents if the city provides for a
process to rivety
unsafe site conditions therefore
to be ordained by the city by the
council of the city of bexley
um section 1 that chapter 14
76 be amended as follows chapter 1476
unsafe buildings and sites
1476 definition declaration of nuisance
abatement all buildings are structures
which are structurally
unsafe or not provided with adequate
egress
or which constitute a fire hazard or
otherwise dangerous to human life which
in relation to an existing
use constitute a hazard to health by
reason of inadequate maintenance
duplication or um the purpose of this
chapter is because of
unsafe buildings all unsafe buildings
are hereby declared to be public
nuisances
and shall be abated by repair and
rehabilitation or
by demolition in accordance with the
procedure set forth in this chapter
all sites which in relation to an
existing use constitute a hazard by
health
by reason of inadequate maintenance and
environmental contamination exceeds
applicable state and federal
environmental
standards for human occupancy for
purpose of this chapter unsafe sites
all such unsafe sites are hereby
declared to be public nuisances and
shall be abated by
rehabilitation in accordance with the
procedure set forth in this chapter
this ordinance also talks about having a
notice to the owner
so the superintendent of the buildings
shall examine or calls to be examined
every building or structure
or site the superintendent will
receive written notice to the owner and
record including any purchaser under
a recorded land contract anti-person
occupying such a building or
site if they um are not the owner
there's a service of notice that is in
this
posting of signs the superintendent of
building shall calls to be posted at
each entrance
to an unsafe building or site
and permits in all cases of construction
and repair
um that permits cover such work to be
obtained if required by building code or
any other city ordinance
um non-compliance if the owner
of record or the purchaser under a land
contract
fails or neglects or refuses to comply
with the notice of repair
and remove such building or structure or
portion thereof
such person shall be subject to the
provisions of this chapter and the
superintendent of buildings
shall proceed to have the building or
structure or site or portion thereof
demolished and removed from the premises
unsafe conditions um any owner manager
or leasee or occupant of a building who
discovers or has reason to believe that
that this exists on the premises a
condition may endanger other property
um life or limb of a person the
condition cannot be
immediately remedied and then the
penalties
are in uh section 14 30-99
so basically this ordinance is
um again allowing for the desire to
protect human safety and health
by um adding provision to unsafe sites
mayor kessler would you like to add
anything else to this first reading
you read it um so uh you know this
this ordinance was section 1476 was
added to
our code in march of 1969 my dad was
running track and field for bexley high
as a senior
when this was written um so there's been
a little bit of change in the
landscape of what's safe and not safe we
have awareness of
of things we did not used to have
awareness of and it's of course
this is speaking specifically to unsafe
site conditions
um very transparently this is adding
the ability for the city to uh
to help encourage uh
the environmental cleanup of a site
which is contaminated
um we have some controls over
petroleum leaks on commercial sites
we don't have controls over uh hazardous
health conditions for human habitation
residential sites
we we have a board of health that has
similar powers
we also have the ability to have those
powers as a city so
this is adding additional tools to our
arsenal
for uh dealing with property that is
unsafe for human habitation
um we've used this ordinance before for
unsafe buildings
um very recently actually we used this
ordinance on a property
in the city successfully to remedy some
pretty unsafe conditions and it was an
it was a
incredibly important tool to have so i
think
there's a plenty of precedence for other
cities having
this sort of capacity and there are lots
of controls
in the legal system to control against
the abuse
of a of a section like this so i think
it's an important thing for us to
to incorporate and uh
would welcome any questions and also if
there's any sort of additional research
that we might need i will tell you
i noticed while jessica was reading that
there was one little i
you can see the bolds that have so we've
made this gender neutral we've changed
some things in bold
um there was one section in here where i
need to add and site
or site and we are waiting for specific
legal review from environmental council
so there's
there's some a little bit of additional
review work that still needs to be done
so that i i would imagine an amendment
may come
come your way just sounds good
and along those lines actually may or
you probably didn't see it
shortly before the meeting we got any
email with
um indicating that my question was not a
concern
a lot of other things that need to be
considered here before
moving forward too fast
sure yep
right um anyone from council have any
questions or concerns about
this piece of legislation
which i think is really important for us
to
look into um to maintain the safety of
our community
anybody in the attendance have any
questions or comments
all right um seeing none and with your
permission to continue
assad we'll move on sounds great
all right um we are going to um
move on to um service and environmental
committee
um chair is richard sharp mr sharp
thank you i don't have anything to
report
other than i would like to reiterate my
thanks for
to the esac committee the tree and
public gardens committee with
and the community foundation and the
library for all their efforts
and the mayor's office and um
putting together such a robust earth
month
program uh series i i think it's
probably the best organized that i've
seen
um the city have and um
so um kudos to everyone involved with
that
also like to thank the residents who
came out
saturday to assist in cleaning up the
bike trail along
um allen creek uh drive
um just south of um the uh
kiwanis and um
rotary park might be rotary parked i
apologize if i got the wrong
social organization associated with it
um
there uh south of krogers and uh making
that entryway to the city look
a lot better in the report thank you
as president of the white house bexley
rotary i thank you for your correction
um finance committee troy markham chair
nothing for me tonight thank you thank
you mr markham
safety and health committee chair jen
robinson
jen i do have just a couple things
tonight but i wanted to start with one
thing in particular
in light of the mayor's statement during
our last council meeting and after
talking with several members of the
community
i thought it was important that council
jointly acknowledges the rise in
anti-asian
attacks and violence in our country and
i'd like to read
a prepared statement and ask afterwards
for council to vote to approve it as our
collective of
acknowledgement of this really important
issue the statement reads as
follows in recent months acts of
physical
and verbal violence against people of
asian heritage have occurred across our
country
these attacks are deplorable and
heartbreaking demonstrating
again that racism exists in our society
in this moment it is important that we
stand together
against the racism and violence directed
at the asian
and asian american members of our
community as well as their family
members and loved ones
council would like to extend our support
and sympathies to our asian community
we come together to reaffirm our
commitment to calling out
and standing against racism we come
together
in solidarity with anyone and everyone
who is subjected to racist violence
and hatred in their many forms we remain
steadfast in our commitment to making
bexley to making the city of bexley a
community where all
are welcome included feel safe
and are fully valued so um i would like
to
um i believe if i recall correctly
um president fibal that i can ask at
this point for
a um uh a motion to approve this
statement on behalf of council
if i okay absolutely
um so you have you have made a motion to
to affirm um this
and um you would like some consensus
from council is there is there a second
on that okay i heard matt klingler's
voice first
is there any discussion among council
members on this one
i applaud you for for for writing this
for taking the initiative
for um i mean it truly is
a reflection of our values as a
inclusive
community um that values um
every everyone in our community and we
want to
be as welcoming as we can for those in
the future
and i would ask that this
statement if approved be put someplace
appropriate
um whether it's on our web page or in
the blast or
wherever um the mayor and our
communication department
um head believes it to be appropriate
um so i believe we have a first and we
have a second and there
richard sharp has a comment
yeah i like to thank jen for her
hard-working crafting
um this statement i appreciate the
effort that she went into
to make it as inclusive of a statement
as possible
so thank you absolutely richard i i
appreciated your input and all of this
and as well as the rest of council and
i'm glad that
that we are doing this
um i believe that um mr um
mayer managed to figure out how to um
use his hand icon i can use my hand icon
when i'm not screen sharing but i can't
what i am that's what's going on in case
you guys thought i didn't know where the
handwritten thing is
i just i will uh we'll make sure that
assuming you guys vote on this we'll
make sure to
uh to post this alongside the statement
that we already have on our website so
we'll we'll refresh that
and we'll what my intent would be is
just to add
the counsel statement um in addition to
my statement so it's you know coming out
across as
joint complementary statements thank you
that would be lovely um
with that i think we can just do a voice
vote all those in favor
please signify by saying i i i
i all those anyone opposed please
signify the same way
all right thank you jen would you like
to please thank you so much
for that and and and for your leadership
on that and would you please
continue with your report if you have a
couple other things
um to mention i wanted to just say
congratulations to the bmpa
on their incredibly successful circle of
excellence event last sunday
despite a few hiccups with um zoom and
youtube and all of that which we've all
experienced the event was really really
wonderful and congratulations to all the
students who are
recognized and who received scholarships
during that event
lastly i wanted to make sure that
everybody who's listening
is aware that the bexley dei
in partnership with the community
builders is hosting
a presentation a community discussion
on the mixed income housing projects
here in bexley uh that's
this thursday april 15th at 7 00 pm
um and i know that um that should be an
informative event and i know they were
happy to be able to provide that
uh uh for the city other than that
um i have no other information to report
i just want to say thank you to council
um i think we did something really great
tonight and i'm really proud to
serve with all of you and glad that we
were able to to come together and
agree on this statement so thank you for
for your work on that
all right if we could please we'll move
on to
zoning and development committee jessica
saad chair
jessica yes thanks president bible um
because of zoom i can do this so i just
want to remind everyone
that next wednesday night in place of
bravo this year the
bexley education foundation will be
hosting together in gratitude
it'll take place at 7 00 pm i hope uh
everyone and those attending tonight can
can join us um that is an advantage of
zoom right there right
and then um next i would just like to
say thank you to mayor kessler for
highlighting our bexley arctis
bike rack series this has been a grant
in the making
for the past year and covid
sure can slow down things but that's
okay because
we are um now have ordered these bike
racks and
by june or july they will be on main
street and i think that's super exciting
i do want to acknowledge these amazing
um
group this amazing group of women who
i've had the opportunity to work with
very talented uh very diverse group and
the women that um have contributed their
art
that will be um in these bike hitches on
main street
are aj oshie anna sokol and dalia cops
and um it's going to be a lot of fun to
highlight them
and to share more with you on what the
pieces that they have
donated to these bike racks mean um the
neat thing about these bike racks is
their their artwork will be um
here for as long as we want it to be
because uh the process that we're using
is called image infusion
and so it it will allow um
coding that um will last you know
is timeless and so it's it's a really
kind of neat
unique way of having art on our streets
and showcasing again
some local very talented women artists
i'm really excited about that
stay tuned for june or july and a big
thank you to the bexley community
foundation for supporting this project
what will we do without them
jess anything further what's up
all right thanks so much recreation and
parks committee
matt klingler chair matthew
thanks um the only thing i wanted to say
is um
i have a lot of appreciation for all of
the residents feedback and council's
feedback regarding the dora
you've given um a lot of great feedback
and uh the mayor and i will take that
and and revise it as
as we will so that's all i have um
thank you thank you for all your hard
work on that all the research you've
done all the comparisons you've done i'm
working diligently with the mayor on it
we we are grateful thank you um
judiciary and strategic committee
monique lamke chair monique thank you i
just have one quick uh
item on april 21st at 7 00 pm
our council committee on the proposed
amendments by charter
review will have its next meeting all
are welcome
all are welcome yes thank you
all right thank you miss lamke we are
to the blast item on
the agenda which is a public comment
and so this is a time when anybody that
wants to share with us
from um the public wants to share any
thoughts with us
um about any topic we'd love to hear
from you
all you have to do is raise your hand
with the icon
i don't see any does anyone have
a motion emotion that we adjourn
thank you mr klingler i didn't think
there was gonna be
can i please get a second
there are lots of seconds i'm gonna i'm
gonna say it was jen robinson but i
think they're a lot so
all those in favor signify by saying aye
aye
same sign all right thanks guys you are
so great to work with thank