let's come to order
welcome to the tuesday august 9th
bexley city council meeting
we have returned to resume our eponymous
guidance upon the city
i'd like to uh thank you all for your
attention and for your uh service to our
city
and as always our thoughts are the
people of ukraine uh mr mcpeak how are
you
fabulous thank you i missed you buddy i
missed you oh let's give it back give us
the roll call let's see who's here
all right uh miss lamke
here mr marcelino
miss fiable here mossad here mr markham
here mr klingler here and miss robinson
here i like to make a motion for the uh
sam marcelino's uh absence to be excused
he has contacted us about that second
all in favor please say aye aye
all opposed same sign
i'd like to make a note here real quick
uh we did meet during the
break uh we were missing council
councilmember assad
uh
uh some of you asked about uh excusing
uh making a motion to excuse miss odds
absence um i do not believe that was
necessary i think mr official backed me
up uh during the council break i don't
think that
i think council members have every right
to expect to be able to make plans
travel plans and to be absent
without needing excuse for that
officially
ms todd's absence is excused from that
meeting though unless there are some
objections from this group
if
well
she came back injured though uh please
join me in the pledge of allegiance
i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america and to the
republic for which it stands
one nation under god
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all
we're gonna uh
we're gonna skip over item four
i think
we're going to
defer item 4 and move on to
let's see here
item 5 which also i don't believe we
have anything item six public comments
do we have any public comments speaker
slips mr mcpeek
no public comments
president's report
natalie did you attach some things
oh let's look at him i you know what i
love photos
so
apologies the way that our civic
clerk system does this it's great does
it stretch it all out for us so we have
to next time we'll put them as a pdf oh
no look at us look how skinny we are
july recess really uh
we look
we've never
never looked better
i just want to if if you'll go back go
ahead and go back and let's scroll
through these real quickly i just want
to show that uh council was actually
very active on on the break this year uh
because we were fortunate enough to get
through our
interviews for the new police chief and
bring in gary lewis
we had a special meeting to do a first
reading of the contract as well and here
is a distorted picture of all of us
around gary lewis
go ahead and scroll down uh we also
council members came out for pelotonia
uh this last weekend to cheer on our our
fantastic writers and i think if we go
another picture there
oh there there she is
our own jazz sod was out there riding as
well
and uh finally
uh
the put together a golf team to compete
with the boosters
and i i'm hazy as to the outcome but
there we are holding the trophy so
i don't i don't know
i know you didn't really know
and non-visually i did meet with uh
director ben heckman who you also saw
there leading us on that uh pelotonia uh
cheering uh he discussed a couple things
going on with the library had some great
pictures of the new auditorium
renovation that they are doing also
mentioned that they have begun to work
on the pocket park that's next to the
library sounds fantastic sounds like it
would be he envisioned as a great place
to hang out have lunch maybe and you
know coming in out of the library
he also mentioned the library summer
community read numbers are back up to
pre-pandemic levels
uh they're also establishing a community
committee which is a new initiative at
the library working toward obtaining
more in-depth and robust community input
and feedback on library services and
programs and thank you natalie for
helping me
in that liaison meeting as well did i
miss anything natalie
all right that's it for my president's
report we'll move on to the city or
just real quick i apologize mr klinger i
haven't shared this with you but august
24th is confirmed for the council
hearing at 6 p.m for 81 north drexel uh
details to follow the the uh today was
the today's the day it got officially
set and the deadline to get the notices
out and it all happened thank you
natalie and kathy what was the time
again six o'clock 6 p.m on august 24th
and what
i don't know
all right i'm adding it to my calendar
right now sorry
that
president mark and i have a question yes
go ahead let's do what's going on do i
have any other steps that i need to do
before you do not have any other steps
that you need to do and we could talk
about the procedure and stuff
offline
but there's nothing you specifically
need to do in advance
what will happen is we will get the
written arguments
i presume from
the proponent and people who are opposed
to it and i'll make sure that we'll make
sure that gets distributed in advance
and then we can talk about the process
that night
okay
thanks i guess one more thing of an
update i just thought of just to keep
you guys folks surprised
there is uh as you know um there is an
appeal currently from pending from the
decision that you issued regarding 2300
east livingston affirming the b zap
decision to grant the variances um
multiple weeks multiple months into that
appeal the appellants
decided to request an injunction to in
an effort to stay the process
of moving forward towards
eventually building
as authorized by you pending the outcome
of the appeal
um i participated actually in a hearing
on monday well i was mostly watching
because i wasn't a party but or on
behalf of the bexley cic because they
have some concerns about if that doesn't
go forward to make a long story short if
it's not too late to do so yet um the um
court indicated that they will actually
be issuing a decision on the merits
within the next couple of weeks and
there was no injunction issued because
everybody agreed nothing's really going
to happen except an arb hearing on
thursday evening to look at design
the design of the building so nobody's
going to be demolishing or anything like
that so
i i i can't tell you what that decision
is going to be because i don't know but
i'm cautiously optimistic just based on
some things that were said at the
hearing or not said at the hearing so
that is uh an update
i mean of course i'm sorry
just so yeah either side can appeal that
to the court of appeals thereafter but
again this is
would be a big step for you either
either way it goes
mr mike peak do you have an auditor's
report for us um nothing formal but i
just have three things to uh just give
the council an update on um one uh emily
who is our new uh finance person has
joined and she's had a successful
training in the month of july so
i'm really grateful for uh the council's
support to add her to the team um i know
it's a it's a big boost to the to the
finance team so thank you um
second thing is
we have
a completed 2021 financial audit from
julian and grubb
as part of that audit close process they
have offered to provide
council members typically it's the
finance and
president council president an overview
of that
my recommendation is that we don't do
that
they're more than happy to dedicate an
hour and walk you through all the
minutia um but i recommend that we
as a
group just spend time and i can walk you
through that
to ensure that you guys have visibility
and awareness as to what's going on and
what's being called out in the financial
audit so i'll just reach out and make
sure that we do that and we can either
do it in a pre-council meeting or as a
stand-alone meeting
thank you mr mcpeak yep and the only
other item that i have is that you know
during the month of july
i met with um you know part and parcel
to that audit they're called out some
opportunities to improve controls in our
hr
end-to-end processes so have met with
two hr consultant groups um explained
the concept of an end-to-end audit of
our hr functions um have a few estimates
back um but now with um the mayor um
identifying and successfully bringing on
um the police chief
work to transition
that due diligence and interviewing
process and ultimately make a
recommendation to the council as to
you know whether or not we want to
proceed with an hr audit um but
nonetheless i've had two two good
meetings and i think two groups that
have a special niche in municipalities
in cities the size of bexley and could
offer some insights as to um some things
that we could do uh to improve our
end-to-end processes
excellent thank you
any questions for the auditor
moving on to uh the administrative
updates mr mayor do you want to take us
through the administration
yes thank you and uh mr baish is with us
now we have a
technical uh intricacy of this meeting
which is that our audio is not going to
go over our speakers here for mr
bayshore so hopefully this laptop's
going to be loud enough
and if not i will help translate and the
auditor's right here to make sure i
i translate accurately
so andy take it away
good evening mayor and city council
my report is attached
been pretty busy month of july i started
august uh service department was um
pretty much i think every service
department employee worked over the
fourth and we had five uh
employees working over the pelotonia
and other than that business as usual um
be happy to answer any questions the
drexel project is going good
um we haven't lost too many days due to
weather but
it's just we still got a lot of work to
do on it but it is going good as of
right now
thank you andy any questions for andy
yep
andy i just want to commend the
contractors
if you'd pass that along to them their
cleanup on drexel has been outstanding
their signage
well done
it's been difficult
but
but not impossible
idea on time i know that's a loaded
question
when it comes to construction but any
idea on on when they'll be out
uh matt it's gonna be a while as soon as
we're about ready to reopen bryden and
drexel within the next couple weeks but
as soon as we open that back up we have
20 uh storm structures to install
so we'll pretty much
be working throughout the winter
until you know it gets the weather
finally takes over then
restart in the spring but
as far as a completed project i'm i'm
hoping um
late summer of 23.
and follow-up how does that fall in line
with the
directional median
that would be part that would be part of
it you know as far as like like the
whole completed project
okay okay
yeah so there's a sewer the sewer
portion
which is underway right now correct um
will not allow this the installation of
those medians and the bump outs in the
fall so that's probably going to kick to
spring
which is i think why andy's saying late
summer by the time all the bumpers have
been installed and you know soil has
been installed
and then plantings would be ideal in the
fall anyway for that project i didn't
know i thought the sewer was kind of
but if that's the whole median so it'll
be cleaned up crews will be out the road
will be choppy which has been for a
little bit um
and then back in the spring
coming back in and doing some more work
final course of asphalt landscaping
going in the fall
the long project
yeah right
or
on the medium
ice cream in the meetings
thanks to andy any other questions
all right thank you sir thank you and
please andy pass along to the service
department in my update just talked
about the committee events we had this
past month
uh we just had a lot more
fun therefore a lot more support so it's
been great having the full support of
your crew we appreciate it
thank you
um
beecher
is on vacation on a beach um so i'm sure
you all are on the beach anxious yeah
about that but uh anxiously awaiting the
finance report in the next border
meeting
and then our debt our deputy and interim
chief
is is helping
transition the child to college right
now so
that is super exciting but the written
report is here talking about new
officers
and oh man
it's happening
it's happening all over the place isn't
it
uh activity in the detective bureau um
some uh some great photos there of the
uh
of the shop with the cop events through
uh the bexley police academy alumni
association and our officers
and
and our statistics update so i can i can
pass along any questions or try my best
to answer mr klingler i just wanted to
highlight and give a shout out to dsw
they donated uh packages of socks to all
those kids that shopped oh that's great
and especially don overly she did a
great job with that program so that was
very fun
i'll do a little shout out to the police
social media account if you're not
checking it out this last week it
featured detective fleming
uh
stealing a car
stealing a showing how the hat didn't
show how to steal it but he did
demonstrate the theft of a kia
and
i don't know that much about
uh officer fleming but hopefully they
recovered that car without too much
damage
uh later on but the uh
the message is wait there was a real
message in there though which i didn't
know which is that you can actually if
you have a kia or hyundai you can
actually prevent quite a few of these by
just getting that thirty dollar
steering wheel lock is is is what the
mess apparently i i i had the pleasure
of the last two weeks of serving and
franklin county grand jury and
apparently their kids and hyundai's are
i don't know how to do it thing i swear
i don't super easy to steal i mean
compared to other cars everything
everything was on yeah i was just i was
just just to piggyback on that which i
think that's great um
is that there are two items in that
report that i think are really good for
us to put on the blast and i will make
sure that sam does it i think that we
get these reports and they're really
fabulous for us but those key things and
how
our community can be a little bit more
safe
by just being lies are good things to
put on there so i love those i love
those and
i know a lot about officer fleming he's
pretty awesome guys
yes you may
while we're talking about the the police
um i know that a couple years ago uh
laurie anne and i had a chance to do the
bexley citizens police academy um i
think
president markham's gonna do it yeah i'm
all lined up here i think we start in
september anyone else especially any
council members i'm not getting tased
though i'm not going to do that now you
don't have to volunteer you have to okay
i know you i know
i get tased seven times cameras um but
the class runs for 10 weeks it starts uh
september 7th it's going to run every
wednesday until november 9th 6 to 9 p.m
and we'd certainly love it if anyone
listening or if anyone up here who
hasn't done it before would like to do
it it's a good time dinner included
right and so my wife and i call that
date night for the fall
that'll count
they're still looking i think for five
to six more people so pass the word on
10 robinson
i just want to say that if troy's going
to get a taste i'm totally in i'm with
the whole family signing up
we should auction that i actually wanted
to give a shout out to monique as we're
talking about the police department
right now for those of you who are here
for the amazing pizza and ice cream
festival which definitely needs to
happen again
it was delightful to see
so many of our our officers there at the
event in uniform some with their
families participating actively
participating in some of the challenges
and some of the games that were being
everybody was having such a great time
and it as somebody who is
really understands the value of building
community i really was so so pleased to
see that and it was everybody was having
fun kids were interacting with the
police the you know the adults who were
there were also interacting it was just
such a great community event and i was
so thrilled and monique that's cheers to
you too because i know that you have a
really great relationship with our
department and our officers and thank
you for doing that i think it makes a
world of difference
uh fleming did say that he'll be
practicing his box box folding skills
for the next summer uh so he's he's
gonna be working and i heard he was
given i heard he was giving people rides
on ikea and the kia
yeah
[Music]
jessica
yeah and just a quick shout out to our
police department um our pelotonia ride
was on sunday
and the first three miles of that ride
are when you'll see a lot of accidents
from downtown and now bexley is on that
route and i just wanted to say it's the
second year that it's been here and
i can say as a writer i feel extremely
safe when we turn onto
broad street and our neighborhood
and a left onto cassidy they do an
amazing job of keeping
um cars
which is what you're always thinking
about when you're on that bike from uh
away from those riders and
so a big shout out to our department for
being out there and and keeping uh all
of columbus's and everyone who comes in
you know nationally for that race safe
all right
thank you
um
reckon parks update mr price
you're muted thank you mayor can you
hear me okay
yep
all right hey uh just just a couple
quick highlights from the uh report uh
the commonwealth park athletic field
project uh
hopefully some of you have been over to
see
commonwealth west which is uh nearly
complete and looks great
um happy to announce that that project
is coming under budget which is which is
nice
um we are we will be in front of a board
of um
controls uh later this evening to talk
about the commonwealth east project
we do have quotes in and i needed to
update uh the report which had a pricing
of
199 000 we actually had some slight
adjustments to it uh within the last 24
hours and it's actually gone down to 189
000 and change so that project is quoted
out
less than we budgeted for as well so
that's exciting news for us
um
the pool quick update on pools staffing
we as of july 5th we're able to return
back to normal operational hours
as you as you all probably remember on i
think it was thursday june 16th we had
to go to reduced hours
um due to a shortage of lifeguards in
that
two and a half week period
we were able to um hire roughly 20
additional staff and get them trained
and then get them set to work uh and so
within less than three weeks uh we were
able to get back to a you know full
operation which is
you know which was great you know
obviously is unfortunate to have to
reduce hours it's a shortage that that
the industry has seen nationally and
obviously affected us as well but i
appreciate natalie mullen and her work
and swim safe and their work to
address it as quickly as we possibly
could and get back to regular
operational hours
um one other thing let me jump back if i
can do the commonwealth park project we
are also just uh heads up to council we
are asking border controls to waive the
formal bid process
um in accordance with the legislation
that was passed a couple months ago um
so we do have multiple quotes on on all
trades and that'll be a pos part of the
process with border controls later this
evening
i also wanted to highlight our activity
brochure um
and our registration which opened up
this monday which was uh
very exciting to see the support that we
had from the community for our program
offerings
we saw uh we had about a hundred and
about i'm sorry about a thousand five
hundred uh registrations for programs
which was up
um
which was up nearly sixty percent from
fall of 2021 where we saw the same time
period about 940 registrations our
revenue was also up about 46 percent uh
from 67 000 in 2021 to 98 000. so it was
great to see the support for that uh for
the registration and and um excited to
get those programs started here over the
next couple of weeks
uh lastly well two other things sorry
splish flash and dash is um
saturday august 20th
uh we're excited to uh be offering i
think this is our 10th of uh normal year
if you will uh for the triathlon so big
thank you to the community foundation
and the sam powers youth and recreation
fund that that has supported that event
every year
we are continuing to look for volunteers
if any of council members are interested
or can volunteer or know anyone that
would be interested please um please
have them reach out to lorien
who heads up our volunteer coordination
and thank you lorient for all your work
on that
lastly just i want to reiterate the work
that bexley bloomers are doing hopefully
council is aware of this and the
community is aware of this but lexie
bloomer is an
organization made up of uh volunteers
that spend their thursday mornings at
jeffrey park
really working to beautify the park and
and
deal with the landscape and the beds and
addressing a number of different needs
and they have been a huge help
they have a celebrity celebrity bloomer
program so if anyone
uh from council is interested in
volunteering sometime on thursday
mornings they'd love to have you join
the group but again i really appreciate
all the work the bloomers are doing mary
mcmunn and susan quintens take the
leadership on that they do a fantastic
job and we really appreciate
all of their work and uh there's plenty
of work to be done and they are they
they plug away at it every thursday
morning so we appreciate that
end of report and i'll answer any
questions that council may have
thank you mr price
i do have a quick question for you all i
see matt claire's hand now raised but uh
i i just wondering why we have
celebrities and quotes there uh for our
past celebrities
mr uh
it's a title mr klingler what is uh
celebrities
mr quinlan what time do the bexley
bloomers start
they're usually about nine to noon
nine to noon okay you make that work
it's a lot of fun yeah
and think about
that many people doing a few hours worth
of work i mean that adds up it really
does add up that's a lot of weeding and
a lot of
so it's a lot of fun
mike i want to pass along the um the
thanks that i passed to the service
department because i know that
rec department is
at least as active with the different
community events that we had from the
fourth of july through the different uh
events over july but just in general
this summer has been super packed so
you guys have been fantastic i know from
the bexley celebrations events committee
side we've had to shuffle rolls uh new
ways this summer just because of how
much is actually going on so thanks to
you mike and to your team uh for all
their extra work this summer
and mr phil
thank you
yeah i mean i i have a procedural
question
and we're going to if we have to pull
out this ordinance we can but the
charter specifically requires counsel
to waive the competitive bidding
requirements i know we did stuff in that
ordinance but i just can't recall i can
and the wording was
i think what mr price meant was that
because it's in given to council in
advance
we have to
tell council in the meeting ahead of a
border control meeting that there are
less than three bids as a part of that
and then border control can review it
okay so there's so that he's not asking
to waive the right it's not a waiver
it's it's a rebit correct i
misunderstood it's a requirement of that
process um so waver was a
and if you look at uh
the
highlighted section there just to be
super clear about this that's one of the
sub trades in the project which is
specific to sand slit drainage
so uh
sand slit drainage
uh does not have three quotes
i have no problem with that i just want
to make sure he wasn't asking us to wait
to wave the
formal bidding process it's compliant
with our formal bidding process yep
that's all
thank you mr fishel thank you
mike i also just wanted to highlight off
of your report that it was awesome to
see the community camp out is back for
friday uh september 23rd and 24th i
remember when that first started i
kessler family sides prices were all out
there and i think maybe 15
families and then it just took off yeah
it took off so it's exciting to see that
back i think the community is going to
really respond
yeah i'm sure that's going to fill up
yeah
we are excited it's a fun it is really a
fun event so if you haven't if you
haven't done it it's a great opportunity
to get out and camp with family
especially young families in a in a
very uh safe and friendly environment
and frankly if if somebody's maybe isn't
isn't quite ready for the camp out and
you gotta pull up your tent in the
middle of night it's not too far of a
trip back to the house so it's nice
i remember the first time my tent
collapsed was during the
one of the rain on slots we had there
thank you mike anything else
all right thanks mike
looks like you've got a handful there in
the dugout or something so go back to
what you're doing talk to you soon see
you
all right um
it's been a busy month um but you guys
have the benefit of receiving me here
after driving back from maine overnight
yesterday so i'm going to be quick and
to the point
um i wanted to
thank you all for as i have before but
again for all of your
help with the chief police hiring
process including tonight's hopeful vote
for the appointment resolution
ordinance um
but that was like very much a village
process it wasn't just any one small
group of people so thank you to the
interview committee got a couple
interview committee members in the
audience thank you for all your help uh
each one of you had a special role as a
council member and so really appreciate
all the roles and all that all the time
you guys put into that um i like that
is waving by the way and that
she's very friendly in that photo
um if you haven't driven past it or
noticed what's going on here
the schneider trail head is
is taking shape in a good in a good way
here um so it was really fun to come
back into town and see how much that had
had progressed in just a few in a couple
weeks
um so you can see this is the trailhead
off of main street it was designed it
took several years to get this thing
finalized because of
just where the different property lines
rested and also we really wanted to
design something that would
be
um
harmonious with any future development
at gateway south
so it's been designed to be sort of a
simple trailhead that can expand into a
big community plaza as part of a future
redevelopment at gateway south
one of the
neat features if you look closely you'll
see that these are granite curbs
those granite curbs the granite is from
the old city hall site so we extracted
that granite
we held on to it i have to be honest i
was a little skeptical i we wanted it in
the project but it looked a little
shoddy uh
until they cut it up and put it in place
it looks great so check it out
um
and our willow tree i think that might
be our first willow tree in arboretum
collection i might be wrong about that
but
there's a willow circle
and then the trail itself you can kind
of see off in the distance
as we walked it recently uh still being
completed but we'll tie into the dog
park the athletic fields the playground
etc
so that is by the way that is funded
primarily through the main street tiff
the streetscape tiff
those dollars were set aside i think in
last year's budget for that and then
the baxter community foundation also
provided a 20 000 grand to help out with
it so
they're a big piece of that and like we
said thanks to all the uh volunteers
all the fun i don't have photos from
every event here but we had a very fun
july so
thank you to all of you and and as has
been mentioned the pizza and ice cream
festival is in a beloved new addition i
think to that calendar so thank you
monique
um
awesome
all right that concludes my report i'm
happy to answer any questions i have a
question for you i've been meaning to
creep down there and look around and i
haven't but i'm curious as to the status
of the dog park
so we uh awarded the contract for the
dog park fencing drainage uh is going to
be done in-house but now that we have a
fence contractor lined up i think andy
said in his update it's going to be a
fall project for the fence okay we're
hoping to have it
um roughly operational
roughly
uh one of the neat things as we've kind
of helped clear out that space over the
years is its grass is starting to grow
there where we didn't think it would so
we're going to try
to have some of it be grass before it's
going to be mostly or all mulch so
um it's coming along
yeah
the livingston corridor so i believe
this morning i was driving down
livingston and saw some work
further down is that related to
this project is it are they starting to
skin the road i don't know the
terminology but i haven't been there
for a week or two but or two actually
weeks the um the curb work that's being
done is prepping them to come in and
repave
i don't know if that's what you're
referring to but that's what i was
seeing before oh yeah yeah but i think
they're just doing some curb cleanup
which is great i didn't even realize
that was part of their scope but the
curves were in pretty bad shape so
there's spot curb repairs and then uh
should be milled and resurfaced by the
end of the fall
that's not narrowing it physically it
will be narrowing it with pavement
markings
but it's related
and i wanted to clarify also the library
pocket park the troy mentioned is a
joint project of the library in the
cities
to tiff hopefully as part of our year
the parks so
that's a fun collaboration we're also
bringing the synagogue on board to
help help facilitate that plan
any other questions
thank you
that concludes my update mr president
all right thank you we'll swing it over
to mr fishel all right consent agenda
meeting minutes from june 28 2022 from
city council and the meeting minutes for
city council's special meeting of july
21st 2022
any questions or comments from council
questions or comments from the audience
um
can i get a motion
motion to approve the consent agenda
second
motion to approve by minister klingler
second by miss sod mr mcpeak
mr markham yes sod
yes fibal
lampke yes klingler yes robinson yes and
marcelino
consent agenda passes thank you
all right moving on to a third reading
ordinance 25-22
to amend section 262.02 c3 to include
christmas eve and new year's eve as
holidays and to authorize the mayor to
grant up to four additional hours of
time off immediately preceding holidays
for non-bargaining unit employees that
was introduced by ms lamke
thank you mr official
mayor do you want to maybe walk us
through some of the proposed changes i
see that we've got a proposed amendment
up here
so
um
the title if you want to start with the
title is
the title is on the following holidays
proceeding or following holidays not
just preceding holidays
um and so the logic for that is for
example we had a fourth of july uh
uh extra four hours off proceeding or
false start following
the formal fourth of july holiday
um
and the other change to this
is
that
instead of saying on the workday
adjacent to one of the holidays set
forth in the section it's on the work
day immediately proceeding or
immediately following one of the
holidays set forth in this section
so only
four hours on one of the one of the
holidays yep okay
sounds good um
any questions from council on the
proposed amendment
not um i motion to
amend ordinance
25-22 as shown on the screen
second
motion by ms lamke second by ms fibel
any comments or questions by council on
the amendment
questions or comments from the audience
on the amendment
mr mcpeak
robinson
yes lampke yes fibal
assad yes marcelino
marcum yes klingler yes
amendment
what is it what are we doing here the
amendment the amendment passes thank you
we're both feel a little rusty
i'm here for you man
uh
ms lamke okay i motioned to adopt
amended ordinance 25-22
second motion to adopt by ms lamke
seconded by mr klingler any comments or
questions
on the ordinance from council
questions or comments on the ordinance
from the audience
mr mcpeak
robinson yes klingler yes side yes liam
key yes marcelino
arkham yes viable yes
ordinance passes thank you
all right we are on to the second
reading of ordinance
28
22 to approve the appointment of chief
gary d lewis jr as chief of police and
director of special projects to
authorize and direct the mayor and
auditor to enter into a three-year
employment contract with chief lewis and
to declare an emergency it was
introduced by mr mercelino so mr marcum
mr marcelino is not here so i will uh
present this the second reading
hopefully you all have had a chance to
take a look at the contract if you want
to go ahead and click on the ordinance
or the contract is it all it's two
documents right
that's not helpful it's supposed to be
loading it looks like
any questions or comments while we're
loading up some content here
while we're loading up the content i i
will tell you
we did get a nice big
project to do during council break this
year and i think it was it was very
worthwhile very worth it uh i was really
honored to be a member of that interview
committee i'm happy to see rachel lang
john offenberg here who
joined me monique sam the mayor as part
of that process as well fantastic
candidates we were able to to interview
uh just a very rewarding process
and i i think that the the committee
itself really did a fantastic job of we
we joke about all the arguing that we
did
uh but we did argue a lot and that was
probably i think helpful to the process
um the contract here mr official or mr
mayor do you want to
take us through anything uh
about the contract i know it's got a few
kind of new uh
yeah so this is um
first off i think it's consistent with
the appointment ordinance that we are
titling this position chief of police
and director of special projects
the reason for that is that the employee
that we're hiring
has been professionally doing a lot more
than just being a chief of police in the
past couple of engagements that he
served in and so um we wanted to capture
that and capture that potential um so
the chief of police director of special
projects job description the draft of
which is also attached to the uh
to the agenda here
outline some additional types of
projects that the this position could
help manage um
and
certainly not limited to that um
so that's one one key difference from
the prior chief of police contract
compensation is higher as well we've
discussed that um
that one of the reasons i think that we
wanted to make sure that we captured
that distinct job title is because this
position is getting paid a little bit
more than most other chiefs of suburbs
in columbus
and so
if down the road we have a more
conventional chief of police i think it
allows us to
compensate accordingly if that makes
sense we've also placed in this
employment agreement the option
for the chief to take the
resident stipend that we are planning on
rolling out under his leadership to the
rest of the officers
which is already in our budget for 2022
and
we added a paragraph
by termination by city for convenience
um
this cert this sort of mark can better
probably explain this but essentially
it just specifies that this is an
employee at will uh it does require
council to confirm any sort of removal
so it's not like
the process doesn't still have to be
followed but you don't have to have the
strong link to uh termination for cause
so anything i should you want to add to
any of that mark
no i think i mean the
the um
chart refers to being terminated for
cause um
which is a special procedure that would
have to come up for you and all sorts of
less unpleasant things you'd have to do
but we all know that in a position like
this we'll hope for the best but plan
for the worst and while nobody goes into
thinking there's going to be any issues
this would give either side the ability
to get out and already has a defined
severance payment um so we don't have to
worry about that if that ever comes up
again nobody thinks it's going to i
don't want anybody to interpret anything
but that's a little bit different than
the prior contract
right and it certainly would not be a
small ordeal even if it were
convenience quote unquote
i think we can guarantee that
ms lamke
i just wanted to echo your comments um i
also had the pleasure of serving on the
interview committee and i think one of
the things that mattered most to me was
being able to observe very qualified
candidates in
one-on-one interviews small group
interviews hypotheticals scenarios large
groups and then our public forum in our
community forum
i think having taken these candidates
through those paces really gave them a
flavor of what bexley is like what
bexley expects of them and i'm so
pleased that chief lewis accepted and
will be our next chief of police and i
think it also bears mentioning that you
know in our vision for this this police
chief and the role that we see forward
the community really played a large part
in the interview process as well um and
uh there was a lot of interaction
with the candidates with community
members who
were concerned and had interest had
questions the candidates i think are to
be especially commended for
coming to our town hall function to to
answer questions and really
i think it shows
not only the quality of the candidates
but i think it also shows quite frankly
the desire to work in this position in
our community that they were willing and
able to do all that i think mr klingler
had his hand up before me
um i was really grateful that i'm
grateful for the work that all of you
did to find us these amazing amazing
candidates to narrow them down to these
fabulous individuals and um
i am also
grateful to the mayor for including the
rest of us
um in
the week of
um i had the pleasure of
uh taking all three of um
all of the candidates um to around the
city to give them a tour of the city and
i had two other individuals from the
community who joined me and um
one of one of my favorite things when i
was when i was a chair of chair of a
board when we lost the ceo um
one of the members of my board said
that you know
the the end decision is would you like
to sit down and have coffee with them
they can be great they could be
wonderful they could you know do this
fabulous but i would tell you all three
of them were amazing um and they were
fun to be with and they were asked great
questions um
so i think
that
you all did a great job finding us
really great people i think we got
the best of the best so thank you for
that
mr klingler i just want to echo that um
thank you to the interview committee all
of you i know it wasn't easy it was a
lot of effort i realized that um
and a special shout out to the mayor for
his
his foresight in including
the public i mean
it's not often that happens i mean the
amount of public input we had in the
process
in which it was laid out was
um
second to none i mean you don't see that
often
so i'm i'm very happy
with all three candidates that we have
but where we landed um
thank you i mean that
you guys put in a lot of effort and it's
not lost on all of us
thank you
i am going to uh did you i do want to
add one thing just that you know
um
one just to echo the what some of what
you guys said so we have you know we had
four candidates come forward and
through that process as i was talking to
the three that did not end up getting
selected i authentically was able to say
you know i i really enjoyed getting to
know you better through this process i
hope to see your career continue to
thrive and let me know how i can help
and i it was tough you mentioned we
argued i would have said we had really
good
meaty debate as we worked through like
our different
different uh
characteristics of the candidates and it
was a difficult decision i mean we had
some
quality candidates with some really
compelling
compelling attributes they would bring
to our community and so just being able
to build even build those relationships
with that process and the fact that we
had candidates come forward that said
we
applied to this position and we answered
the call because we saw the work that
you guys put into it as a community how
much you cared and the values that you
expressed through that process
and then i think they
seemed to authentically have enjoyed the
town hall which you know just the the
way that the community came out and the
types of uh conversations they had
through it so i thought the process was
really uh not just healthy but
fascinating and i think got us to a
really great position
i really enjoyed visiting with chief
louis louisville i was working with you
guys to kind of finalize the
decision-making process
and got to see firsthand how he works
with the people that he works with there
and
um the sort of relationship that he has
with his um
superior and with his direct reports
and um i just want to say i want to say
what you guys have already said which is
i think we have a very talented
candidate coming here as our chief of
police i'm very excited to see where he
takes our police department
i think that the values that he
expresses
really really match up and align with
what we asked for when we went out
searching for this position so um i
don't know if it's too early to say
there's a kind of sense that that was
the cadence that we were getting into
here but
um i appreciate your support through the
process and your hard work and i
certainly hope that tonight we can uh we
can confirm gary d lewis jr is our next
chief of police
thank
you know really really held our
department together um
while we would
while we waited to make this while we
waged it to make this choice and um he
has handled our choice in a very classy
not surprised way um
not surprisingly for us that he would
handle it in a very a very classy way
and i applaud him i applaud his work and
i applaud
um our department and already
um being very positive about their new
leadership every officer that i've
you know had an opportunity to talk to
and i've had a lot because i've been on
you know all kinds of different events
and and talking to them and i ask
what do you think what are your thoughts
and they're they all
have a real
excited optimism about how they respond
so i just wanted to make sure that you
know we gave a shout out for sure um
took off and uh interim chief goff will
be here next meeting and he will not
escape uh our our ebullient thanks uh
for his time he's served in this role
love it ms robinson
all right
coming back to
is the um kind of the event that we had
here to announce him as our potential
new chief and i think the thing that
struck me the most because we've talked
a lot about the community involvement in
terms of hiring him but the community
members who are in this room who may or
may not have been a part of that
interview process but who some of them i
know very well some of them i don't know
well but how excited everybody in this
room were and some of those people who i
know have been as in the
former safety chair i know have had a
lot of
concerns and complaints and
worries and they were here and they were
excited and i think that speaks so well
that our department is excited but also
that the community is excited because it
is a partnership and that partnership
has to be strong and on on a solid
footing and i'm so glad that that is
where we are starting and i am thrilled
to um to have somebody like uh
like chief lewis be a part of our city
thank you all right we'll uh pause the
love fest here for a second and i'm
gonna ask for a suspension of the three
reading rule and adoption tonight
because uh our chief gary lewis is
currently uh transitioning here to try
and hit a start date of september first
and we are still on target for that
right
pending our approval correct of this
contract that he can have the confidence
to do that so this time i'll move that
we suspend the three reading rule on
ordinance 28-22
second
first a second or by me second by mr
klingler
any comments or questions from council
any comments or questions on the
suspension from the audience
mr mcpeak
marcelino
yes splingler yes bible yes robinson yes
lamke yes and sod yes
suspension system three-ring rule passes
and at this time i move to adopt
ordinance 28-22
second a second by mr klingler any
comment from city council
comment from the audience
oh come on
good to see you guys now cut come up
here
come on come on up i'm come on john mr
offenberg repeat
he could please come to the podium
john aufenberg you are commanded to come
to the podium
rachel lang you are commanded to join
him please
please
don't
don't don't make me send the bailiffs
turn your mic on please and state your
name and address rachel lang 755 vernon
road
am i commenting only on the suspension
no you're commenting on the ordinance
now at this point so
thank you for the clarification the only
thing i could offer to everything that's
already been said is
that the ad-hoc comments that i'm
getting from people are feeling very
included
so i think that that's because of the
process and so just a thank you to mayor
kessler that it feels like we really
afforded the city due process notice and
an opportunity to be heard and that's
what they had been asking for and i feel
like they really got it so that's my
only comment
mr often rachel john i'm john offenburg
33 north remington i just want to say it
was an honor to be able to participate
in this
i am
really proud of what you all have done
and
mr mayor i think your leadership was
exemplary
i learned so much in this process that
it was very very positive thank you all
yeah i think we'd like to also again
extend our thanks to you guys it was uh
there was a lot of hours to put in and a
lot of
mr mcpheek will ready to vote on the
ordinance
markham yes assad
yes bible enthusiastically yes
marcelino
lamke yes robinson yes splingler yes
ordinance passes
there we go
thank you
mr fishel back to you all right on to
first readings first reading of
resolution 6-22
adopting the 2022 recommendation of the
bexley tax incentive review council
regarding the tax abated properties in
the city of bexley introduced by ms
lamke
thank you this resolution follows up on
the recommendations made by the bexley
turk at their june 29 2022
meeting
um given that it's just a first reading
there are the attached recommendations
um it's a lot to kind of go through
mayor do you want to add anything
no this is our standard yearly uh
confirmation of abatements that are in
place all of the properties were found
to be in compliance with the
requirements of their abatement and
it was a smooth and efficient turk
meeting
i will tell you auditor stinsiano does
run a very nice turk meeting i mean
i've been sat through them over the past
10 or 11 years he's really got it down
recently
any questions or comments uh on this
if not we'll move on mr official all
right first reading of ordinance 29-22
to appropriate ten thousand dollars from
the water fund and ten thousand dollars
from the sewer fund to pay overtime for
the remainder of 2022 by introduced by
ms lamke
um
thank you this ordinance uh is
appropriating some additional funds due
to some increase in
main breaks that we've had some increase
in flooding that i'm sure everyone has
noticed
uh mayor i will turn it over to you
maybe you can tell us how you got to the
figures of ten thousand and ten thousand
too i'm going to invite andy to unmute
and take his video on here to join me if
he's still on but i think the um
as you know so we've had a major water
project which is not unusual but the
drexel project has been much more
involved than some others which has
required some after hours work also an
increase in overall water main breaks
and then
i think i was talking to the columbus
service director and she said that the
flooding even though it actually that
particular event did not result in a
whole lot of city infrastructure
flooding but the one rainfall event that
we had
um
was in early june
uh was the the heaviest rain in the
history ever recorded in the city of
columbus
so uh that you know that was one event
we had others that were actually much
more difficult for our system because
the june event was preceded by or was it
june or july i'm it's mixing in my head
maybe andy can can clarify but it was it
was dry to begin with whereas before it
was water you know water was the water
table was a lot higher so
oh there we go so long story short um
we've had plenty of
of after hours events that have brought
in our sewer crew
even when it's not city infrastructure
they're there to help support residents
and help them
you know troubleshoot what's going on
and so you know we were responding to
some pumps that weren't working and to
uh all sorts of different backups and
basement issues just on the in the event
that it might be a city city issue and
i'm very proud of the level of service
that we provide to our residents
and obviously we have a lot more
continuing infrastructure work we're
working on having said all that andy
you're here so anything else to add
no as far as a ten thousand dollar
number in each account um i just tried
to estimate on what we went
through so far and you know what what i
think we'll need for the rest of the
year
and mayor you pretty much covered um
covered everything we've just had
we've had a lot of
actually we've had a lot of
overtime in the evenings and at night
that we did on purpose just so that we
wouldn't inconvenience the residents
during the daytime
uh and then we've had some main breaks
too um i talked to eric i think it was
last week and as of today
uh we've been in i think we're nine
water leaks ahead of where we were last
year at this time
i think we're four valves ahead of where
we were um this year last time it's just
as far as after-hours stuff
comments or questions
thank you andy
i think yeah mr klinger you have a
comment or question is it fair to say we
should appropriate for next year's
budget um
what we spend this year do you see i
mean we went through 2021 and we had
record floods or record rains and 2022
has seen the same thing
i mean
should we as a council just make a note
when we're doing our budget next year we
should appropriate more money towards
this
so every time we will definitely analyze
what our historical was for this year
when we finish out the year or where
we're at like
well it'll be next month when we're
calculating for it so the budget will
reflect
uh especially when it comes to the sewer
work but just an assumption that it
unfortunately seems to be a recurring
occurrence not just obviously because
but in all other communities in central
ohio so
i think the water might be a little bit
more of an exceptional item and so andy
and his crew and i will discuss that but
we will certainly take that into account
when we budget
climate change building has to be there
really won't be as many events
very true
anyway
any more comments or questions
if not we'll move on to uh committee
reports first up thanks andy
our own esk
well first off i have to have a big
shout out to my 14 year old my oldest
the boy who made me a mom hate inside
it's his birthday so thank you to
council tonight so i'm gonna actually
make dinner with my family which is very
exciting
um and then some exciting stuff i mean
school starts who's excited school
starts next week for bexley schools um
next thursday the 18th
and
i wanted to also highlight a new
um
series at the senior center it's their
first ever lunch and learn series it's
going to be august 17th and september
14th at 11 30.
you pack your lunch you bring it and you
will hear
um some free educated
educational programming about
alzheimer's and dementia so i thought
that was
a great
thing for the community to know about
and
our seniors to know that that's there
and to go take advantage of those free
programs
end of report thank you strategic uh jen
robinson
well may i be the first to wish you all
a happy bexly day tomorrow ah very good
hi bexley garb um i have no report today
so that's all i needed to say thank you
that was that was still excellent
service and environmental ms bible
ask you
mr president if i may please invite
sometime soon camille steels she is the
new um
head of csg's csg um the 14th in her
um row i would love to uh welcome her to
a meeting sometime in the near future
um if i may please by all means she gets
herself
um settled and situated etc
i also wanted um
to ask council
if you knew
that it is a state law
that no person
driving or in charge of a motor vehicle
shall permit it to stand unattended
without first stopping the engine
locking the ignition
removing the key from the ignition
effectively setting the parking brake
and when the motor vehicle is standing
upon any grade turning the front wheels
to the curb or the side of the highway
i don't know if you knew that but i
wanted to make sure you didn't know that
you are going to be hearing
a lot from me in the next uh few weeks
as we prepare for
sustainable september we are going to
really
concentrate in september on
sustainability and in fact we are going
to have a labor day brew fest that is
going to be themed around
some sustainability so our activities
are going to revolve around that
but you're going to hear in the next
few meetings me speak about
turning your key
and idling free
because idling has a lot of
downsides to it
not only is it bad for
the atmosphere it's bad for people's
health especially
bad for children's health because they
breathe faster than we do so therefore
they breathe in all of that ick
faster than we do
and ironically where do we see a lot of
idling
moms and dads waiting for their kids
and
believe it or not
it's not only
eats up lots of gas it also eats up lots
of oil so it's expensive and in the long
run it has a lot of um bad effects on
the way your car actually
runs
so
stay tuned
finance ms zlamke
i had just a couple of additional quick
announcements um this friday
since we are getting ready to go back to
school
don overly with the police department is
putting together a fill the cruiser so
any of you who are out buying school
supplies if you want to buy a few extra
you can drop them off at montrose
between 10 and 1 this friday i know that
they will donate the schools to or the
supplies to the bexley schools and would
really appreciate it
next august 21st the bexley minority
parent alliance is having a
back-to-school picnic at 5 p.m at
jeffrey mansion in their shelter house i
plan on being there i would love to see
all your smiling faces so please come
and join me can you go is the date again
i'm sorry
august 21st the the day after splish
splash dash
lori ann and i will be there
volunteering we would love we still need
volunteers
okay
nicely done
awesome awesome so let's fill up the the
volunteer list first slash dash um next
up i wanted to give a huge kudos to
council member robinson and mike price
and ben heckman for
uh putting helping me put together the
pizza and ice cream festival you guys
were rock stars you and ben heckman have
a very comedic duo
interaction so i'd love to see that
again but a sincere thank you for for
you helping out and then finally um at
our next couple meetings as we enter
budget season i wanted all of you to
start thinking about uh budgets for your
individual committees
um more to come on that in the next
couple meetings
coming up mr klingler
thanks just a quick reminder we have a
council appeal on august 24th
uh 6 p.m at bexley city hall
also lots of great things going on over
at st charles
they're well underway with their frank e
murphy convocation center so ride your
bike or drive by and see what's going on
there
and then lastly a big event in baxley um
the bexley brewfest is septem september
4th
so get your um ticket
spexleybrewfest.com
it's a great event put on by the pitts
family
um it coincides with our labor day fest
too
that's right
that's right so
log on
that's fun get your tickets get your
tickets now so we might be doing goat
yoga we're going to be bringing the farm
to you we've got some seriously fun plan
we're going to drop some eggs
we've got some serious fun flavors
the trifecta in case you want to
experience all of our exhaustion splash
and dash weekend followed by the smoke
and fire festival weekend followed by
the brewfest celebrity block party
weekend three in a row there's a lot
going on triple crown i will volunteer
for the switchbacks
i try really hard to allow parents who
are cheering their kids on not to
volunteer it's okay i'll volunteer at
this time we allow public comments from
the audience with no speaker slip
well now you're going to have to state
your name and address please
constance lewis 663 you clear
i know this city is so busy doing all
kinds of wonderful things this summer
but please
heads up
august 20th saturday is also move-in day
for capitol university's freshman class
so please welcome the new new residents
to our community and be patient with
traffic yeah thank you no doubt thank
you ms lewis
any other comments from the audience
hi everyone my name is jake hepron i am
the municipal and public sector
representative for rumpke in the
columbus area and i met miss fiable when
she took a tour a couple months ago yeah
i've been working with elizabeth and sam
over the past month or so planning the
feed on the street program for bexley so
it kind of coincides with your
sustainable
sustainable september
that we're going to be starting that the
first week of october october 3rd is the
first date uh elizabeth wanted me here
tonight to
answer any questions you guys might have
for me
or in the future if you guys can't think
of anything right now i can give you my
contact information and reach out that
way can you tell us how long that the uh
you said starting septem when when was
the start
the first day october october 3rd is the
first day how long does it run it's
gonna last
three to four weeks i think so pretty
much the month of october yeah and so
what we plan on doing
is
uh we've been coming up in our meetings
with some items that
hurt our facility the most such as
bagged recyclables tanglers
batteries etc um so we're focusing
mainly on that those kind of things if
our third party is going out and
checking each resident's
container containers and then
either putting a good job sticker on it
and then the first week they're going to
put like they're they're calling it an
oop sticker
so if they come back the next week and
they're making repeat offenses then
we won't pick up their recycling so
we've been coordinating with you guys as
well as expecting
a little bit increase in call volume as
well for those
weeks potentially but yeah we ran an
audit
last week or two weeks ago of you guys
recycled material and
you guys
probably are the best municipality in
the columbus area for recycling whoa
i've really been working hard on it for
the stockton river events
they specifically mentioned the sod
households improvement over the past two
months
manager
looked at me it was like why are we
auditing because these materials we've
been
studying hard for this oh we won't tell
elizabeth you said that right
we're gonna be better jake we're getting
better that you guys are
all better than most we don't rest on
good we're going for great exactly going
for great
we won't stop until it's 100 but you
guys are great at recycling and all you
have to do is
take that and you realize
yeah how crazy it is you see
film tape stretch across the entire
facility and it's
you don't really realize what goes into
it until you see it so i have a question
what are tanglers sorry so plastic bags
yeah so our six-pack
things what happens is the rollers
they throw up cans and bottles and they
put they
lighter materials such as paper it falls
to the bottom
so there's like textiles and clothing it
gets tangled up in the machines and then
we have to go in and cut it out which is
a pretty dangerous job
it's pretty exciting because in our new
facility we won't have those tangled we
won't be tangling it's called ballistics
and it moves up and down like that
instead of tangled so
we won't be having those issues as much
in the future but
until 2024 one of our new facilities but
it's still an ongoing issue for us
so
i appreciate you guys letting me a
chance to speak any more comments or
questions
all right thank you very much thank you
thank you
more
any more uh comments questions from the
audience got such a big audience tonight
all right
if not can i get a motion to adjourn
motion do adjourn can i get a second
second all in favor say aye all opposed
same sign
we're adjourned