good to see everybody thank you and
welcome to the
february 22nd bexley city council
meeting
and last we were here two weeks ago the
snow was falling and the roads were
being cleared and it looked like
snowmageddon and now we have had
sunday and monday a nice
beautiful warm weather a little taste a
little promise of spring
and if it was just me but
sunday and monday walking around i could
just feel the
trees breathing in and out the
exhalation and the oxygen in the air
it felt great
felt like promise
i think this year we feel a little extra
promise in the spring hopefully
a spring in the summer where we can
be a little more active
see each other a little more uh with
less restrictions
and let's hope that's the case
mr mcpeek would you uh call the roll
call please
yes thank you
fibel yeah klingler here lampke here
marcelino here markham here robinson
here and sod
here 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 individual and liberty and
justice for all
i'm going to make a note that in the
agenda that we have here number five
says adjourn
nice try nice try i don't know who did
that but then
we do have a couple uh presentations mr
mayor
[Music]
like to do an introduction we do
[Music]
please join me at the uh podium i'm
going to move this back a little bit
[Music]
so i asked maggie and jeff to join us
this evening they have uh
they have been our community garden
leaders since i believe 2018.
right officially in charge yeah when
they got roped into being officially
charged yeah and before that yeah
they've been doing it since 2014. yeah
2014. uh so i said a decade i think
that's about right we'll call it a
decade
so i i have this proclamation to read um
but before i do it
i want to say that um
you know we we put together the north
community garden in
around 2017-ish
17 we were planning 2018 the the soil
soil guy
the lovely soil
so jeff and maggie came in and they
inherited a
disgruntled
nars garden they helped us they worked
with us cooperatively to fix it
and then we tackled another pretty
daunting task which was to
redo the south gardens so the south
gardens redoing it didn't mean like oh
let's make it look nice it meant
literally scraping it
and starting all over and
the community garden community is very
passionate about their gardens
appropriately
and it took a lot of leadership
to get that to happen and i i can't
thank you guys enough for what you did
through that and so
they have uh they have passed the torch
as it was as it were to
the next generation of leaders of the
community
in january i believe yes and uh so i
wanted to thank them for their their
hard work and this proclamation talks a
little bit about it
but doesn't quite capture the depth of
certainly not time i have no idea how
much time you put in but it's ridiculous
yeah right
and also you need to know maggie and
jeff are both master gardeners
uh through osu's extension and
maggie's a fantastic accomplished
swimmer
and jeff plays the bagpipes so
you should know that as
well and lifelong backstage
seneca park yeah i think actually you
grew up across the street from my mom i
just found out recently or relearned it
recently
okay whereas maggie and jeff harriman
have volunteered extensively as bexley
community garden leaders over the past
decade
photographers and whereas in 2018 the
harrimans assumed the responsibility of
managing the bexley community gardens
and took an active leadership role in
assisting the city with bringing the
north gardens to completion and helping
to redesign vacate and reinstall the
south gardens
and whereas over the past four years the
airmen have abundantly given of their
tireless and often thankless time
helping organize gardeners and their
plots
it can be difficult
coordinating cleanup days also difficult
helping manage giving gardens in
community herb gardens encouraging
native pollinators through native
plantings and helping to host beekeeping
of both gardens helping repair soil
conditions wrangle plot maintenance and
whereas earlier this year maggie and
jeff announced they were stepping down
as garden leaders leaving behind a
bountiful legacy of growth as well as a
new leadership model designed to help
keep the garden sustainable into the
future
therefore i benjamin j kessler mayor of
the city bexley do hereby recognize
maggie and jeff for their outstanding
contributions to our community and to
its health nutrition and well-being and
do hereby proclaim
february 22nd 22 also known as 2 22 22
as the maggie and jeff harriman bexley
community gardens day thank you
congratulations
so the first thing i would just like to
say that i am most proud of in the
bexley gardens is in 2010
our current president then was dawn
skaggs and he started donating food to
the broad street presbyterian food
pantry
in
2021 we donated 1
553 pounds to the pantry not only is
that obviously a little bit of growth
but even the coolest part about that is
that it was in thirds a third from the
north garden the giving gardens a third
from the south giving gardens and a
third from the gardeners themselves so
they're starting to recognize that you
know if you have extra then share it so
that's one of those big things that i
think
people just think gardens oh you rent
and you go so we are really big on
education and giving back so thank you
and the thing that the mayor maybe
didn't mention he's giving us a lot of
credit but without mike price and mayor
kessler and the bexley community
foundation we would not look like what
we do today we've had a lot of and the
master gardeners from franklin county so
there's been a very large group effort
to make them look what they like they do
so thank you to all those people too it
wasn't just us
thank you guys
go for it for you
maggie and jeff thank you on behalf of
the city council of the city of bexley
the community gardens are just a
fantastic gem here in the community and
uh we appreciate your work and and what
you've done to make it that thank you
second we have ms tracy baum here
tonight
please approach the podium i told her
i'd give her some walk-up music but
everything
everything that she sent me had explicit
lyrics and we couldn't uh we couldn't
utilize him though but i want to say
welcome to you and congratulations on uh
your new position as executive director
says push
green give us the lowdown on uh
what's up well i wanted to first thank
you all for inviting me to come i
thought the best way to introduce myself
would be by performing an original song
i'm just kidding i'm not gonna sing
so i tend to talk really fast when i'm
nervous and i am nervous although half
the crowd just left so that's comforting
and
just a little bit of
huge dogs and signing them up for all
the bexley rack activities that we can
afford um
a little about the chamber we are a
non-profit organization and our mission
is to be an advocate and a resource for
local businesses
i look at it as being a conduit of
information i want to be the person that
people come to when they have a question
and i want to have those answers
um
we also in addition to me as the new
director we have a new board president
kevin rau who many of you may know from
his time at the drexel yes
kevin is also an attorney at albeit
waker and he owns a media company here
in columbus shearwater media
i'll just quickly plug some events we
have coming on march 3rd we have a happy
hour with crafty culture brewing and
your first drink is on us you don't need
to be a member it's 5 30 pm march 3rd
march 8th we are continuing our
partnership with bexley city schools on
the bexley women lead program
so march 8th is international women's
day which will be really special we're
going to do some mindfulness and have
lunch at blue spot yoga
in march 30th our women in business
returns in person i'm sure i'll see you
there when we um it's at the merchant
which is a member business in east
columbus it's co-working and event space
other than that i just want to thank you
for inviting me our website is a really
great resource as well as our social
media channels
i don't remember being sworn in i don't
know
if you were gonna have sung a song which
one would it have been well
it was an original original composition
yeah
i don't want to give too much away maybe
at the next time you invite me
thank you and congratulations again
[Applause]
mr kessler i think she's going to get
along just great at the um bexley
celebration events meetings because
their sense of humor is going to be
[Music]
we're going to move to number six
public comments mr mcpeak do we have any
speaker slips
i have i have no speaker slips all right
we will move past that to the
president's report i just have two
things and the first is
just a recognition of it was great to
see everybody come out last sunday to
the opening of the senior center over on
cassidy
and
i will say
when you've been in
city public office for a while you go to
several events where there are three or
four or five people show up and uh this
one was just jam-packed it was so full
not only all of you but just so many
members of the community and i just i
think it just really reflects the
excitement of having this facility
available to us and so i just want to
say thanks to mr price and mayor kessler
and
all of you too because i know that uh
that is something that has been
uh something that we've had that we've
thought of you know pretty regularly
over the years and to to actually
physically be there and to see everybody
and to see
matt klingler playing ping pong with the
senior citizens there i think is uh
yeah
the second thing is i met with newly
elected board president victoria powers
recently and just to ask her how things
are going with the school board and get
an update since i am the liaison there
she mentioned a couple things
one was that they are partnering with
the jewish community center to expand
and improve their athletic facilities
using jcc's property
so that's something that they hope to be
able to have
to expand what they're able to do in
terms of offering the students
facilities for
those
activities the second thing is she
expressed to us her gratefulness to be
able to use city council chambers for
the school board meetings
and she said something that we already
knew that we probably don't really think
this is a really nice facility she said
it's really fantastic for them to be
able to
see each other as they as they talk and
and debate and everything like that
the second thing that she said was
she felt like
having a city attorney like mark fishel
was a great asset and she was a little
jealous of that so wow i just wanted to
bring that up because that's probably
something that we do also take for
granted is having his his guidance and
well she doesn't know you but we will
bring her in here sometime in the next
few weeks
and uh we'll ask her to elaborate on
that if you would like to
um and speaking of that we'll move on to
the city attorney report all right
of order uh there was some fine print in
the city attorney's new contract which
he failed to see
that said that he also can cover the
school board free of charge so
we can loan him out
as i tell people all the time i may have
told some of you you get what you pay
for
[Laughter]
um so that is very nice of her though i
appreciate that and i'll let her know i
appreciate it um a couple two things um
real quick one is that and we'll get you
more details probably by next meeting
but we met with and reached a tentative
agreement pretty quickly with the
dispatchers and animal control officers
new contract their contract expired at
the end of last year um and we it was
delayed for various reasons um and the
new contract would be retroactive to
january 1st of this year it's a
three-year contract again the union's
voting on it sometime soon i haven't
heard
hopefully they approve it
the other thing is as some of you may
have heard
uh governor dewine
i mean i i kind of laughed because it's
an anticipation of what the mayor's
going to talk about in a few minutes
going the opposite direction but
timely signed a house bill 51 which
allows virtual meetings through june
30th even though all that time with
omicron we couldn't now we can so but
what it does do until june 30th i'm i
mean i'm anticipating we won't have the
health needs for virtual meetings but if
situation arises like counselor woman
fibel who couldn't be here but maybe
could have attended virtually that is
now an option for anybody who can't
attend i mean um through june 30th and
with proper excuse matt klingler
i thought i'd look at her
i don't want to speak for mr markham but
um but anyway so those are those are the
two things i wanted to share and like i
said more to come on the negotiations
thank you very much any uh questions for
our
city attorney
mr auditor it's time for your report
thank you just a couple items um
i am working on the um
items to discuss in next week's strategy
meeting
um so my plan in that meeting is to walk
through um priorities of we'll say my
department um for the upcoming year um
so if there are things that are of
interest to you and i've met with most
of you um that you'd like to have on
that list
please be sure to email me um but i'd
like to walk through them and then get
your feedback and ensure that we are all
in sync and focusing on the right areas
in addition what i'd like to do is walk
through what i'm kind of referring to as
a one-pager which is intended to be a
one-stop shop for you all to go to to
just get the lay of the land of the city
finances
i know this is complicated um i'm a 20
plus finance uh year finance
professional and uh i've had a lot of
learning to do over the past few months
but i want to figure out a way to
translate this for you all in a way that
that's um comfortable and and meaningful
for you so i'll walk through that with
you all
and then again if there's anything else
that you
think should be a priority in the
upcoming year just send it to me i'll
get it on the list and again we'll walk
through that with you to ensure we have
perfect alignment so thank you all thank
you mr repeat we look forward to that
that's very exciting i think it'll be
great to have that time to work with you
in sort of an informal workshop and i'm
excited about the things we'll uh find
out and
discuss any uh
questions or comments for our city otter
mr mayor will you take us through your
administrative reports with your city
directors yeah mr president um
andy bayshore with the service
department
is with us
this evening
one moment bring them over here
hey andy
hi mayor hi city council
good to see you good to see you guys
um i have my report uploaded there and i
have nothing else to add to my report
tonight
any questions for andy
that's fiber
andy i know that everybody else raved
about you two weeks ago but i didn't get
to
officially rave about you i i sort of
was here to do that but
anyway i wanted to thank you so much and
i know that um as you um
there's still an aftermath i don't know
if you guys have noticed but now
that they've cleaned the streets now
there's some potholes now they're taking
care of the potholes they all are taking
care of the aftermath of
everything else so this
this snow project never ends so please
please
give tyler a big thank you for me again
and um i i i am grateful for all that
you guys do and i don't
i don't know that that all of us always
know
that you know this is a
you know a 48-hour job when that happens
i mean everybody's working and all the
time it's all hands on deck so i wanted
to make sure that i as the chair um of
this committee thanked you so thank you
thank you thank you thank you i will
pass it on thank you very
much mayor you want to continue oh sorry
i had a quick question actually oh i'm
sorry we have comment one more yeah
thank you
andy um i've been meaning to email you
did did the extra bike rack come in yet
from darrow
it did uh we received it at the shop
yesterday so wonderful and then i saw in
your report as um
councilwoman file just said moving from
one project to the next looks like we're
gonna install the additional bike racks
um so thank you so much that's exciting
um i know i
we the senior center now with that being
acclimated talking about
some there and then um i did hear back
from blue spot so i'll have to connect
with you
okay i'm not but thanks i love that's a
hint that spring is on its way right
i hope so
that's wrong you do i had the
opportunity to uh to drive friday
morning at 5 30 in the morning from here
to buffalo new york
trying to get around the storm and it
was coming and we got to see from how
ohio
to you know new york um
how everybody handles the snow trucks
and plows and i had just such an
appreciation for all always what you
guys do but i started looking at the
plows a little differently from state to
state and
how much salt goes out and the width of
the front of the plow and how they
handle the roads so
again thank you for all you guys do and
have done
thank you you're next to do the ride
along
andy quick question for you council and
and i received a notification from
columbia gas about the
their astor and college project and i
know there had been some talk with them
about where that might actually
ultimately be located the letters
suggesting they're starting in
march or may i can't remember uh
do you have confirmation of that
um mayor me and dave coke have had two
meetings you know the city engineer with
them um they're wanting to
start asap
but they have not met all myself and
dave's requirements so it will be coming
but um we still have yet another couple
pre-con meetings to go through before we
let them start
okay that was also my understanding
which is okay so they're still working
through some due diligence stuff for
that yeah final approval okay
thank you um
thanks andy appreciate you being here no
problem thank you
uh police department update
uh chief goff
in his office
good work of the people how are you
good how are you doing
good
what's up
the floor is yours sir
yeah other than the report that you see
i have nothing additional to add to it
as you can see on one of the sections
from our detective sergeant
one of the annoying things that are
going on right now is the catalytic
converter that's
happening citywide nationwide so
um after doing a little research on that
i didn't realize how much these things
were getting form but uh
it's quite an entrepreneurship that
they're putting forward for themselves
apparently but um
i do know they're going to start a task
force locally to try to combat some of
these things but i will give you more
information on that when i hear more
about it so
any advice on pro on on
res for residents to protect their
vehicles from that
yeah it seems to be they're hitting the
you know the bigger vehicles like the
suvs because it doesn't require them to
jack the car up and they can just slide
underneath and cut off what they want
um but
if you don't if you have they're they're
targeting the cars like prius is because
they have more
uh valuable metals and the catalytic
converters apparently but um they're
saying that
i don't know if this is going to be a
possibility for people to do but extra
license plate and
in the catalytic converters i'm not sure
if people have that means to do that
because it allows us to track them a lot
easier for for recovery and for
investigation but
lighting lighting lighting is always a
big plus for uh deterrence
for thieves
so that's what the suggestions were when
we talked about it here in the last few
days
okay
any questions for the chief
lorien
um one i've already mentioned uh to cmx
app i put it um i sent him an email and
i asked him to put some of this
information in the blast
um the other thing the other thing is
she forced the chance that you can share
with us what happened about three or
four nights ago
um when we got some bad stuff off of
off of the road
somebody uh
and i just wanted to make sure that
uh our our guys uh got a good um
applause for doing that so
and you're confused
i'm hearing
so initially when you had the
presentations i'm hearing
every other word there's some kind of
disconnection
about four nights ago um there was um
someone was pulled over
and it was just because their lights
were out in the back i believe and there
were all kinds of
awful stuff taken out of the car um just
from a routine stop and i just wanted to
make sure
that um
our police officers got a big thank you
for all their hard work yes they did
they sure did happens it seems to happen
a lot um
we get a lot of big stops apparently
lately so
um but yes um
i have uh
i've had discussions with some of the
the sergeants for the work they do and
um
and they still they still work hard to
get that stuff off the streets but um
so yeah i let them know so please do
thank you
can i throw a note on to the end of here
says that uh this week i got my official
notice acceptance into the
citizen police academy for the
so
encourage uh anybody out there if
there's spots still available i know
that they are accepting uh
people right now and i think it's a
great opportunity uh i would encourage
anybody out there that's interested to
do that and you can find it on the
police web page on the city webpage link
for that
you'll have a good time i promise
thank you very much chief appreciate you
being here thank you matt
uh we have our wreck and parks director
mike price here with us
hello everyone good to see you
i i don't um
uh nothing specifically to add to the
written report obviously uh happy to
answer any questions but i did want to
give a quick presentation update to
council on
commonwealth park uh and the efforts
there
um so i don't know if anyone has any
questions or anything on the report then
if not we can move hopefully to this
quick update um
ryan demay with field sources here ryan
i appreciate you being here
ryan's been our consultant on the
commonwealth park project he also helped
us out with schneider park athletic
field and getting through some of the uh
initial hiccups with uh getting the turf
to the the level that we wanted to get
it to so i appreciate you being here
ryan and he might be able to answer some
additional technical questions that that
the council may have um
but uh ryan provided us with numbers
that were a part of our our process for
budgeting for the commonwealth project
uh frankly for last couple years i think
starting back in 2020 we've been sort of
looking at this project
um
obviously with covet capital projects
were put on hold uh so some of that
stuff didn't didn't actually take place
we're now sort of at the point uh to
move forward on the project
i will say as as
uh through the new sort of bid process
if you will um
ryan has worked hard to get us quotes on
uh the trades that would go into
completing these projects
um what he has seen and he can speak to
us as well as he's seen from even the
quote he provided us back in
november as part of the 2022 budgeting
process
a fairly significant increase in costs
i'll say across the board but there's
probably certain areas that he could
identify that are higher than others um
with that said um this is a little
overview of our budgeted amounts
and our
the quotes that we've had come in uh
through the process so
the 20 that come off west of 143 000 i
think that was based on um numbers back
in 2020 even
that's been carry over
money for this project as we've
continued to have it sort of on the
front burner
2020 a commonwealth ease of 230
is a number from from november as i
mentioned uh when we
we put into the capital budget item
uh for for the 2022 budget
um
equipment uh is again i think that is
from a uh the same line item around the
time the commonwealth west 143 which is
some special equipment for maintaining
the fields at a higher level
it's a mower but it has attachment
pieces it's a special
a more
athletic field designed mower but it
also has a number of special attachments
um
spreading of um
what am i what am i trying to think of
top dressing um
uh it also allows us to do uh
um
aeration that has aeration on it it has
uh some different blowers to help with
leaf and mulching of leaves so it's got
a number of uh pieces of equipment
um we haven't purchased that yet either
again we held off on that as sort of
covert hit but the updated numbers uh we
have commonwealth west and these are
based on actual quotes that we have that
are good uh you know for the next month
or so
hopefully
um 190 000 for west 255 000 for east and
the equipment is still
the same number at this point
uh i say that to
sort of update council obviously we have
the money to move forward on the west at
this point the plan is these are two
different projects
to move forward on west
this spring and then to look at doing
east in the fall a part of that is
logistics and making sure that we still
have field spaces that are open we don't
want to have both down at the same time
um
so
i wanted to make sure council is aware
that a the the cost is about 73 000 more
at this point than what we have
uh budgeted for we are
capable if council is okay with it uh to
move forward with west understanding
that we have two pots of money
in terms of how it's been discussed the
east and the westfield to use to
accomplish that
but it may mean that we have to come
back when it's time to move forward on
the east project to ask for additional
funds so i wanted to make sure council
was aware that we also have in front of
border controls after this meeting today
to approve
the west um project or the quotes that
were brought in for the west project
uh in in accordance with the most recent
legislation on on the bid process
so with that i i just again want to give
you an update see if you guys have
questions for either myself or ryan
um and and i and i think mayor craig
mcfarland would want to make sure
council is okay with
how we intend to move forward if yeah
there's no concern one thing to clarify
real quickly is the the athletic
equip the field equipment the tractor
and such
would there be any reason would it be a
problematic to wait until next year
uh with that purchase no and that could
potentially be a funding source that's
already approved that could be used
towards this in which case that number
comes down from seven or three thousand
that would be one way we could probably
complete the project without further
appropriation for the year would just
mean that we would put that
equipment into next year's budget again
so mr clinton
if i recall we budgeted 400 000
for these projects is that right does do
you does anyone remember how much you
budget the 400 000 was for the
commonwealth park master plan
installation which i think is the
columbia work if i remember correctly
but the total is around 426 but there
was a separate 400 000 was the restrooms
the gateway features okay so that
doesn't these numbers don't include the
restroom and gateway features okay
and is there any
advantage to
approving like appropriating or
approving it all now
so we can lock in
the pricing for
commonwealth east what are we doing for
we're doing west first
right we're doing west first companies
is there any advantage to that instead
of waiting until the end of the year and
saying oh we want to
we now want to do east and they come
back and say well that's it's not 255
000 it's 300 000 now you know i'm gonna
ryan if you don't mind because of this
it's a conversation that we've had uh in
terms of making sure as we talk about
these numbers that
that the contractors that he's he's met
with are still comfortable
uh with even though we're doing these
projects at different times that we feel
like we have a number that that is going
to kind of stay where we want it to be
does that make sense right yeah yeah so
certainly certainly something that we
explored and the the thing is right now
is that most of those contractors will
not commit to a price
more than 60 days out just because of
commodity costs pricing materials things
like that so that's sort of the
roadblock that we run into with that
particular item
so but if they were able to get a po now
would they
and for work to be done in the future
would they
yeah so yeah i think that's the question
that we asked specifically was if we
locked in with the po today
would you commit to this price and the
answer was no i would not do that more
than 60 days in advance okay
and that is something we're seeing
across the board with a lot of our
projects right now
and having to come up with creative
language in those contracts
mr marcelino thank you very much uh is
the increase in price uh more geared
towards labor costs or materials or
anything
i think it's both from our conversations
but i'm like ryan
yeah so the answer is both so uh for
example the piping so we have drainage
piping irrigation piping that pricing
has increased across all of our you know
all vendors that we've surveyed
uh upwards of 120 to about 130 percent
uh since this was originally priced on
the labor side what we're finding is uh
because of the influx of art funds
most of the qualified contractors are
just inundated with products or projects
excuse me and their pricing is such that
there's a lot of money in the market for
them to do a lot of work and
their prices have gone up from a labor
standpoint
a secondary question i'm not sure who
this would go towards but for the
bathrooms if this if those aren't
included in this would there be any
benefit to waiting to try and fund it
all at one time
that's no i don't think so
it's a pretty unique
nuclear different contract there are
components of the restrooms that are
being
built out as part of this project the
electric and some of the plumbing
but the the restrooms are going to come
into like
a lot of mason work
building trade it's just a different
practice just discipline than what we're
talking about here will we be setting up
so that way they can be installed at a
later date yes so we've very purposely
planned these two projects so that
they're
speaking to each other the the equipment
that is going into the fields for this
the athletic fields sorry going on to
commonwealth athletic fields will be
housed within those structures um so
it's being placed
with that in mind
ms lamke
mike i had a few questions for you the
figures that are up there the 190 664
and the 255 550 are those the lowest of
the three quotes that you obtained yeah
that would be uh uh
combining the lowest quotes in each
trade i guess
my next question is i i know we
discussed it but
if it's at all possible
to do them at the same time
if space were available elsewhere
through the city for recreational
purposes
would we save any money
you know that's a that's a tough
i don't know the answer that i think
you know ryan may have a better sense of
that as to whether we would save money
in terms of the way this has been
structured this project we're not going
to have a loss of efficiency in terms of
material costs and different things like
that the way that's been structured but
i can only imagine that
from a contractor's standpoint they've
got to come back on the site and that
takes time and energy and money that
that they're passing along to us so i i
i would assume there
would be some cost savings
logistically i'm not sure
i'm not sure how we would pull that off
in terms of facilities
but there probably would be some cost
savings
but
would he be able to chime in if he
thought that
if so if it's all possible to do them at
the same time and if recreational space
were available elsewhere in the city
could we potentially save some money
yeah so i would say just in terms of
construction costs what you might save
is something in the order of a very low
five figures maybe ten thousand dollars
you know somewhere in that neighborhood
uh and some of them might be offset if
you have to rent outside the city
something like that so not sure where
that nets you right but in that range i
would say in terms of and it's exactly
what mike said it's the mobilization of
equipment
his son
um i think that's a great question from
councilwoman lamkin it's something we
had talked about early on and i
understand where rex coming from and we
asked to do
commonwealth west and east at the same
time because we are limited to where we
have programming and we learned that it
became very transparent during coven how
limited we were with space for
programming so we know that that's a
challenge and that's why we want to
you know better east and west for those
programs
however we did talk about that now we're
looking at with the 73 000 and we know
construction prices because of the need
is warranting higher
cost across the board as the mayor spoke
to
um i'm wondering is there an opportunity
for us as councilmember brought up to
revisit that in doing those at the same
time would we be able to
possibly get
a few numbers to be able to show
just a few itemizations of that 73 000.
i know you spoke to it's labor costs but
just a few things to see
because it sounds like we're kind of
going to keep
you know being put in this position um
and we wouldn't want to see
you know 30 000 in a year from now when
we go to do the other field if
i know you're estimating maybe 10 but
we're not really sure right would that
be fair to say i think that number will
stay
it'll stay pretty flat just because
mobilization costs are what they are
it's loading up equipment materials
moving into the site and i don't see
that number changing very much at all i
think what you will see fluctuate a
little bit is maybe on the labor side in
terms of if some of these projects that
are sort of in the hopper in other
places do get built i think you'll see
prices flatten out maybe even fall so i
think right now what we're seeing with
other clients and elsewhere around the
state that that's going to peak sometime
here around this summer
and that's part of the reason also of
splitting these up is that we hope that
that number and the the feedback that we
get is that that number should stay
pretty flat for the fall so
most of the influx of the of this art
money that is going towards athletic
field projects and improvements
elsewhere throughout the city throughout
the state is this spring this summer on
that kind of construction cycle so
another reason to
decouple these and have them be split up
okay so you would advise in doing that
still that yeah that would be that would
be my professional recommendation to
splitting them up just for that purpose
right that yes we are paying for more
mobilization but if we were to do this
together uh i think that the likelihood
of everything finishing on time for an
on-time opening would be very very
challenging okay
thank you
this tribal
in addition to that i think that mike
you mentioned when we talked about all
of this because i was very curious how
that would work ages ago when we talked
about this but you mentioned um
the cost we would have and not being
able to have some of the programming i
mean we do make money on some of the
programming correct can you speak to
that
and um where would we get the fields and
would we have to rent
fields would we you know that kind of
thing
yeah i mean we do make you know we we
generate revenue off those off the
programs um
you know those fields are not large
revenue generating sources for us so i
don't want to give the perception that
we're going to lose we would lose out
from a financial standpoint on a lot of
revenue by having the fields down and
not being able to offer those programs i
do think you know in terms of the
experience for our residents we will
lose out on a lot in terms of uh not
having access to the fields for things
they would want the schools use one you
know one of the commonwealth uh
uh west i'm sorry commonwealth east they
use it in both the spring and the fall
um to support their programming so
having
for so losing on that and not having
another space field for them to move
into i think is is the
the bigger concern i have even more so
than the financial impact which i
understand there there would be a
financial impact from a program revenue
side uh but that would be a little that
would be nominal secondary to
you know i think the impact of losing
out on the programming opportunity
in addition to our own programming we
also support like we said the schools
but um
cesa
which are made up of community youth
teams soccer teams um so there's a lot
of community teams that are using that
space as well that they wouldn't have
access to our residents would be
presumably traveling maybe back out to
easton for their weekly practice as
opposed to locally so those are some of
the
impacts of not having so much
flexibility from we have to remember
that the rec department is a certain
service not only an economic thing so
thanks mike
anybody else
thank you mr price
thank you back to you mr mayor uh just
real quick mike just can just make sure
that when the contract's approved i get
it enough time to review it
as soon as we get the contract yeah so
it's awarded yeah and we'll have board
of control
meeting with that today yeah that's fine
i just want for sure to help remind me
to help you remind me
mr hale
with the finance department update
good evening
um
you have before you the uh january
report
um
not too much
um
that's um alarming or interesting or
in this report um
[Laughter]
i mean it's pretty run-of-the-mill for
january you have some you have some
variances but a lot mostly they're due
to timing we always uh of course are
focused on income tax income tax while
under budget it's it's still doing
pretty good i mean we're
we're 272
812 dollars ahead of last year so we're
getting some good growth although we're
a little bit below budget um although we
just budget every year at 2.6 growth
which is what the mayor and i did we
studied 10 years which included two
recessions and that's the number we came
up with to project every year
um
other than that still working with the
cic to collect or you know get the money
moved from the cic
over to
um
to us so if you looked at the cic
revenue the second
revenue from the bottom it's ten
thousand negative but uh we will
hopefully soon get that corrected
um and if you just jump down to the
bottom where the bottom line um
you know what how do we compare to what
we projected again we we
were our ending fund balance is about
493 000
better than projected but if you look up
just above that again timing
we typically would spend most of our
last
encumbrances that we carried forward in
the early part of the year and we're
spinning those a little slower this year
you can see where 384 thousand dollars
better if you will but i really
anticipate we'll end up spending most of
those so again it's hard to take much
from a january port because there's so
many timing issues like for example i'll
just jump back um to just make an
example of like if you see the auditor's
office we have a positive variance of
132 thousand well that's because over a
hundred thousand of that instead of the
last week in january we paid our in
property and casualty insurance first
first week in february so that'll wash
out next month um
but uh so we look good but nothing you
know
there we don't want to get too excited
or too
um
remorseful over of our january report
with that i'll take any questions
any questions for mr hale feature makes
it so
exciting the drama i know right yeah
it's a roller coaster
pardon me
all right thank you beecher for your
time thanks for joining us this evening
all right good evening you guys have a
good evening
a good one
um
a couple things
more than a couple things
to talk about this evening with you all
um
so in my update i have
several different updates there a couple
i want to draw your attention to that i
forgot to write down so i'll start with
those
one is that we
have had some really good conversations
with aep over the aggregation
concept
and have a promising model
uh that i will be discussing at greater
depth with you ms lorianne had a meeting
with them again this morning
and
so some some pretty hopeful
uh changes in kind of where we're
looking on aggregation approaching it
from uh chris will be here at our next
meeting
it's okay with you troy uh on march
8th to present
what we're we're going to give you guys
a couple scenarios to look at kind of
what happens when we look at this from
some other angles like we kind of
suggested last talked about it so
i think we
might have a good solution and if so
now's the time to act because kind of
need to know by march or april in order
to move forward with that june time
frame once again we're a year later so
plus it's about to go off the table all
together so
there's that as well um
drexel avenue uh the schematic
is is in draft form that entire plot of
the street
we're taking a look at that internally
we'll be uh distributing that to
residents along the street here in the
next week or two so send out a letter
today just letting them know about that
process as well
yeah uh on the uh march 3rd council
retreat that's not on my calendar but
you guys know about that i hope just a
reminder
um
so i wanted to talk tonight i had a very
wordy statement about cobit 19 and our
emergency mask orders
and i'm not going to read it verbatim
for you
but i will say that back when we put the
mask mandate in place it was september
10th
the delta variant
was upon us
hospitalization rates were climbing uh
infection rates were climbing
um and that mandate had stayed in place
through delta and and then through it
didn't really wane it got replaced by
omicron and then the omicron surge
um where we stand today as a region and
bexley is is pretty much in line with
the region
is that our hospitalization capacity has
increased so hospitalization rates have
gone down
our hospital
hospital capacity is now quite a bit
better than it was back on september
10th when we instituted the mass mandate
and our community spread rates are also
lower so
we are in better shape today than we
were on september 10th when we put this
in place
also we know that the omicron variant is
generally
less of a dangerous variant although
more communicable
but less severe i should say
kids ages 5 to 11 now have access to the
vaccine which i believe was not the case
at least it
maybe was just happening when we put
that other mandate in place
and
throughout i've said that we're waiting
to take direction from our public health
officials which is is true
it's just become a little more
complicated right now because there's a
whole lot of different guidance out
there throughout the country about when
is the right time to come off of
mandated
masking or just suggested even just
suggested masking we expect the cdc is
going to release updated guidelines this
week or next
but what we know is that
um throughout
society right now uh in the face of
these lowering numbers the the mandates
are being lifted
um and so we have a council meeting
tonight and we don't have another one
until march 8th and uh
i would like to talk to you guys about
lifting that
mask mandate
my recommendation is that we do so my
recommendation is that we do so
immediately i think that
waiting to a date certain in the future
creates
just sort of a weird in-between phase
where
people are less likely to comply than
they even are today and there's really
no
strong enforcement mechanism and i want
to say that really an enforcement
mechanism is not the way that you get
this to happen right you get it because
you have captured public faith and trust
and we have done i think a pretty good
job in bexley of getting that public
faith and trust and one of the reasons
we do that is because we have been quick
to act when necessary and we've been
quick to act when necessary which means
that goes both ways that goes both in
putting
requirements in place and also in
removing them so
i'm hopeful uh that this is the last
time we have a mandate that would be my
wish
uh but if we should find ourselves in a
situation in the future where community
spread of anything is at such a point
where
a mandate is necessary and recommended i
would hope that
through building public trust and faith
we would be in a position to be able to
do that again if needed
um
having said that i want to reiterate my
hope is that
we are beyond that um
in uh attached to the agenda is a
proposed a draft updated proclamation of
a state of emergency
my other hope is to move beyond this all
together i feel at this point in time
that we are we are left with really two
two um
provisions here one of them is a little
bit more substantial than the other
they're both substantial but one is more
universally applicable i guess
the one is the prohibition against
refusing service on the basis of face
coverings so this came this came about
early on in our orders
and it has to do with businesses
being required to allow people to wear
masks for public health purposes um i
think that's an important right that
individuals should have
and we've heard stories about some
businesses uh
prohibiting the wearing of masks in
their
places of
business their business places their
interior public spaces
and there's some that's really
problematic
that's a really problematic
requirement so
in tandem with this recommendation to
lift the orders uh i've drafted an
ordinance that would take this
flesh it out a little bit more and place
it within our code as a provision of our
code permanently down the road
it has
some language to anticipate what would
happen if someone is just up to no good
trying to cover their face in a bank you
know for example
and it has some definitions to flesh out
this idea
but my hope would be then that you guys
would consider that ordinance pass it
and then these orders would go away
uh the other pieces here is uh
you can read restrictions within city
facilities just reiterating the city has
the ability to have
its own requirements within its own
facilities and that and this is a issue
that um just we wanted to further
fortify which is that when the school
district uses these chambers
they have the ability to put in their
own rules and to and to enforce them so
that is true already but we are making
it extra clear uh
for the anyone who has questions about
that so
um
that would be my proposal and before i
move any further down in my update if
it's okay with you mr president if i
could just ask for any feedback
on the intent to lift the mask mandate
yeah let's have it
miss robinson
first of all i want to just say thanks
for being so thoughtful in your
presentation um i know those of us who
have been listening into the cove task
force meetings over the last you know
months um it's it's really hard to kind
of gauge where the the right path is and
i i appreciate
um not only your thoughts and in your
wordy presentation which wasn't worthy
at all uh but also the uh
marginally worthy but that's okay um but
um
one of my concerns was um the um
what we do in buildings where we know
that it's not just a grocery store or
you're not just popping in someplace and
it's a quick kind of in and out so i
really really appreciate that section
too
that you uh brought our attention to
where we have the ability or the city
has the ability in
say council chambers or in meetings to
to say hey you know we're in a close
proximity for it x amount of time and we
would really like for you to to put a
mask on we all want to keep everybody
healthy and safe
at the same time we all want to start to
move forward and hope that this is
something that we begin to live with
instead of constantly react against so
i just want to say thanks for uh
for presenting this the way you did and
for listening so thoughtfully to all of
the input at those
the the task force meetings and you know
helping betsley kind of navigate what
has been an incredibly challenging
couple years in a way that we've finally
gotten to the point where we can say
it's time to take the masks off
when appropriate so thanks
it's sad
so um
section two i'm just hearing about it so
could you expand on that for me a little
bit more with is that is that making it
mask optional i'm just
just
seeking to understand exactly
yeah section two is honestly a little
superfluous uh we already have the
ability within our own facilities to
specify and enforce our own restrictions
for visitors to our facilities so it's
just reiterating that
the section that is further fortifying
the position of the school district is
because
at the last school district meeting
there were individuals that came and
challenged the school district's
approach to their mask provisions
by trying to use our rules against the
school district and so this is just
that they already had the right to to
follow their own rules
i'm further explaining that they have
the right to do that in a city facility
so that's really that doesn't apply to
the greater community really has to do
with only within the context of a
city-owned facility
so then my question would be from a
legal perspective mark do we do we need
to say that
are we just showing support well let's
say sorry i would say from people's
perspective we don't need to say any of
it i think that reiterating what the
mayor said i think it's a smart idea to
say it though from a practical
standpoint so that way it's not just why
can't why can we do this or why can't i
do this because i said so
which is legally a legal answer here not
unlike when we talk to our kids it's a
little different but uh but in this
situation i think it would be very
helpful to have this in legislation
passed by council so there is no no
reasonable question
and that's section one specifically i
don't think section two i anticipate
being a long-term issue
no but uh section two i'm sorry were you
asking about section one or section two
two
two but i guess one as well yeah two i
mean again the school district thing is
is a perfect point with two um the um
again section one is
just to make sure that we don't have
anybody who decides that uh
pandemic's over or
whatever takes us
change in approach from the city to mean
that i can't i i can prohibit you
prohibit you from getting service here
because you have a mask on
so mask optional that's right that's up
to the business
right so the the business
with with removing the mandate so the
mandate's not anywhere in these orders
so the mandate's gone there's no mandate
under this proposal
so it's automatically masked optional
the point is preserving their their
option to have a mask because there are
there are contacts we not that i'm aware
of in bexley yet it became it came on a
radar early on in the pandemic that
there were contexts where businesses
were sort of politicizing everything and
saying if you bring a mask in here i
don't want your business stay out don't
wear a mask and the point is these are
places of public accommodation
there are uh immunologically compromised
individuals who have the need to wear a
mask and we'll be should feel
comfortable doing that
that helps thank you with the
explanation yep
who else
that's final and i'm not sure if you
just simply want our our feedback our
yay or nay but i would absolutely
support this i think that it's i think
that it's time i think that there are
i just i just think it's time i've i've
really
loved the way our city has handled this
we have not taken this lightly in the
least
we have you know tiptoed into wearing
masks
and then we put our foot down and
continued because we thought it was the
right thing to do
and i think we have been a leader
in central ohio in that regard and i
think that they i think there's a lot of
people in central ohio who will also
look to us
so i guess my question would be are we
prepared
to do that
um are we
are the cities around us
going to be following suit soon would be
my question
and how do we feel
about that because i know we we stand in
partnership with a lot of our central
ohio
neighbors and i'm also interested to
hear
what um i mean i know we are two
different entities
but i'm i'm
i'm i'm curious um what you have heard
from the school
and how they will react
to us doing this these are really good
questions i feel uncomfortable
representing the position i appreciate
that but i'll
i'll say this in a way that's very
generic and thread in the needle and i
hope we'll give you some comfort so i've
been in really close contact with the
school district here in bexley i've also
been close contact with leadership in
the cities of columbus worthington and
whitehall who have the
the same
mandates in place i believe reynoldsburg
does
groveport does as well i have to admit
i've not been in contact to go for it so
um
each city has a slightly unique
situation for example council calendars
to consider
and
some of us have executive orders other
have both executive and councilmatic
actions so they have slightly different
timelines that they need to engage in
um we're all well aware that as we made
a joint statement last week that it's
going to be within the next several
weeks we believe
they're aware of my intent uh tonight um
i'm aware of another city that has
is planning a similar announcement but
dealing with the i think a march first
date so
everyone's going to push a little bit
differently but we've been in comp and
in communication and making sure that
like
i wanted to be careful that if i did
something here it wouldn't jeopardize
what other cities are doing i don't
sense that that's the case i also know
that we need to do what's right by our
community ultimately i agree i
completely agree i just i just know that
a lot of people follow suit when we did
it they followed and i just hope that
the other cities
yeah i don't think we're putting them in
an unduly uncomfortable situation um i
also know that the school district is
is well aware of it um i don't want to
say
whether or not they're supportive of it
i'll just say that they're
um we've we've kept in close contact
we're we're talking to our experts
together i think we're both comfortable
with what's happening right now i can
say that
um and i did speak with uh just a final
gut check this afternoon i spoke with
our
prime public health spirit animals dr
norris turner and dr friedman both
this afternoon so uh rock stars i made
sure that you know i uh i've
communicated this to the cities i've
communicated it to our covet 19 task
force
um
i do need to call joe mazzola still but
i think that
he also knows that we've had
conversations over the past week several
conversations so he understands where
we're coming from
um so
with that all being said um we would be
looking at going mask optional as a city
on at the next council meeting on march
8th no this one my intent would be this
would be effective immediately so
as of tomorrow
so um
and you had said it last time and i read
an article from mayor ginther as we move
from the pandemic to the endemic
and you you know that that phrase i
think is really important and i i wanted
to
um just say through
this you know the pivots and pauses that
we've done and i've had a lot of calls
on where we're at as a city
over the past month as i know you have
too mayor kessler
um i have said all along that i've
really appreciated the transparency
between the covet task force and the
mayor and the conversations that we
don't always have online that we have
offline and all of those pivots and
pauses to seek to understand what's the
best for the community at the time so i
wanted to say to you thank you for
the transparency whether somebody's
agreed or disagreed you've you've tried
to be as transparent along the way and
get out to the community where we are if
you look at a lot of city websites i
don't know if you've done that but to
watch coven numbers or to see where
they're at it's kind of hard sometimes
to find but i feel like in bexley we've
done a good job of at least trying to be
transparent again whether in the
community has agreed with us or not
you can go on our website and you can
kind of find where our numbers are and
what we're planning to do and the blast
has done a nice job with that so i just
wanted to in a weird time where we don't
have all the answers and we don't
exactly know the path
uh that we're taking
i just think that the transparency that
you provide the community has been
has been good so thank you for that
thank you
miss lamke
mayor i know that you and i uh spoke
this morning about this
and i wanted to let you know that i i
too would be in support of this for a
couple reasons
the first being last week i attended the
kova task force and listened to the
experts
and i think that
we are
headed in the right direction rate rise
number rise
um spring is coming i think this would
be a very different
conversation and comment from me if we
were say
in the fall heading into winter
but i think that i can support um ending
bexley's mass mandate based on
the the information we have now
and i would also encourage all of us
including all city leaders to not be
afraid again if in the future
circumstances warrant reinstating a mass
mandate or implementing other public
health
measures
we were in the minority with having our
mass mandate be so long and i'm okay
with that i'm okay to be in the minority
but certainly if we lift it
effective immediately if circumstances
save months or
god forbid seasons from now we have to
put one back in place
um
i i would certainly be willing to listen
to the data at that time
mr marcelino
uh i just wanted to thank
the city council as a whole i wasn't a
part of it last year uh or the years
before when you guys were making these
difficult decisions but uh the mayor as
well you all were leaders at that time
and i appreciate still wanting to be a
leader at this time uh you know as i
look back i'm forever grateful to the
city's grace uh in acknowledging these
mandates when they were necessary um it
helped me and my family feel safe during
a very trying time
but i think at this point that we all
have had the opportunity to protect
ourselves via vaccination if we choose
um or still uh have that option to wear
mass and i still feel as though we'll be
safe as we move along here and i know
that this is a fluid situation that
we'll keep an eye on so i guess that's
my long way of saying that i too uh at
this time support uh this this action
and uh again i would encourage community
members to continue to wear masks in
place where uh where some elderly people
maybe and you know
around you and everything but for those
that might be at risk but otherwise i
think it's time to move forward thank
you
you know
we represent the legislative body here
in the city
and i think that a
an executive emergency order is probably
one of the
greatest trusts the community puts into
its leadership you know we're basically
saying you know with this great power
comes great responsibility
and uh when
the uh executive order was put out i
know we had sort of a a robust sort of
debate about you know the mechanisms for
that and and
how we would know or how we would you
know
monitor
that executive uh order and and the
power that comes with that
um i will say
that i think uh i'm really pleased that
we did take the time to do that that we
took the time to have that debate
i do think that
i appreciate the fact that i know that
mayor kessler has felt that
responsibility i know that that's been
something that's weighed on you every
day
since this has happened i know that
you've been prudent
and i think we've been attentive
when i see the numbers go down and when
i see
the thoughtfulness of how we're planning
to move into this next stage
i feel good about where we're going
and i feel i look forward to
the success of finally having this
executive order completely
lifted
i also appreciate your spider-man quote
although
it it goes as far as first century b.c
which i said incorrectly democracy right
um okay well with that i'm gonna intend
to go ahead and and make those changes
um and we'll be talking more about
ordinance 520 i believe
522 sorry two years in the past there
522 uh
as part of a first reading
um
shifting gears a little bit got a border
control meeting this evening you've
already heard enough about that so i do
want to note
uh one of the bid items uh for i believe
is a pump uh only only received
one bid because it was spec'd to a
manufacturer and so
it doesn't have three quotes just for
that one item but there are three
overarching quotes in aggregate uh when
you look at the project as a whole so
just wanted to be clear on that also on
our last border control meeting
we looked at
bids for the jeffrey mansion cooling
tower and awarded the lowest to best bid
to ohio heating and cooling it was both
the lowest and the best
there's a sustainability update from
elizabeth allman so you can talk up you
can see what she's been up to over the
past couple months
a little bit of it
our chief of police search
forums continue our second community
forum is tomorrow at noon
and then
our saunders group has been meeting with
lots of different community groups and
organizations the survey's out we mailed
over 500 surveys to
to tenant residences within the city who
might not be part of our communications
infrastructure already received some of
those surveys back
so those went out last week
and hoped to have a community report in
early to mid march as a result of those
engagement efforts plus internal climate
surveys with the police department
our trash talk with the mayor is coming
back if any of you guys would like to be
highlighted to talk trash with me
um i think the first one is actually
this saturday um i believe we have some
high school students interested in
participating so
i'll get the dates out in the blast but
um
it's a great way to there's plenty of
litter out there let me tell you it's
kind of
kind of obsessed with it right now it's
driving me nuts um so there's plenty of
litter and we'll be having fun cleaning
it up the trash talk events are only one
hour long it's a little bite-sized
nugget of time and you'll be amazed at
how much of a pickup truck bed full of
trash you can pick up as a group within
an hour am i right trey yes and also
unrestrained access to the mayor oh my
gosh just unrestrained but you better be
picking up trash if you want to talk
trash so
uh sanitary storm sewer update um
lorianne very rightfully praised our
service department um
they also were out all day today making
sure our sewers were continuing to run
as as appropriate through
we've had some very challenging uh
storm events two of them in the past two
weeks it it is like a
a little bit of a ptsd experience for me
because it hails back to march and may
of 2020 a little bit um
are just to give you an idea of what's
been going on
back in 2017 the current gauge
the check that that shows the alum creek
level
near us uh was installed and started
reading
the two highest
crests of the creek were march 2022 and
may 2022. the second two highest after
that were today
it was the third highest and then a week
ago thursday not even a week ago the
fourth highest what a lucky city council
right so in a five-year
period we have had
four of the top four events have
occurred over you know the past two
years um in kind of close order with
each other
right now it's really challenging the
ground is so saturated that any sort of
water added to that is just not doesn't
have anywhere to go
the army corps of engineers released
water from
the dam up at
alum creek
reservoir
yesterday or the day before so there was
already a higher level going into this
and um all that is to just remind us
that our sewer projects are incredibly
important we've we've
gone and inspected over 100 homes and
helped people make some changes on their
property side we've also been escalating
our
sewer improvements and so i've detailed
for you some of our 2022 projects
meaningfully we are we are working on
capacity increases and what that means
is
additional volume that can be taken by
our
by our infrastructure because
one of the biggest issues we have is
that the infrastructure beyond our
border
often cannot take the capacity that we
have so we're we're running into this
situation what happened last thursday
where our our storm drains didn't have
anywhere to go they were they were
stopping at the border
there was there was no capacity so
capacity increases are going to be
increasingly important um
i think that you know
a lot of people are saying this it feels
true because in the past 10 years i
haven't we haven't had issues like this
until the past two
that as the as climate change continues
as there's a change in some of our macro
trends in the climate that we're going
to have to be more and more concerned
about these sorts of events because
we're dealing with what was it a 25-year
flood twice
in 2020
and if if i don't know 10 or a five-year
flood twice in the past two weeks so it
feels like the definition
maybe is off and it feels like we need
to
capacitate our infrastructure a little
bit differently
yeah jen
have we had any flooding issues i
haven't heard but in the last couple
weeks now
yeah i mean um
not to the extent of 2020 right but
uh for sure there were there have been
basement basement flooding a lot you
know right now it if you have any sort
of
exposure to surface flooding or your
foundation drains aren't in good shape
the water is all around your basement so
you know it doesn't even have to be a
city issue at this point but there was
there was city surcharge that occurred
last thursday
i'm not yet aware of any today but
they're actually as i was looking here
the alum creek
line was continuing to increase even a
little bit because this drainage
continues um
i think another thing that i just
you know i don't i don't know how to say
this in a way that's compassionate and
caring and i and this is not judging but
like
we we live in a community close to a
creek and it's not
a great idea necessarily to invest a
whole lot of money into a finished
basement and i i don't
mean to discourage people but i think
that we should
we're probably going to beef up a little
bit of our disclosures when people pull
basement permits just in terms of like
this is at your own risk um here are
some issues
one many of them are outside of our
control they the reality is you're
digging a hole in the ground and you're
you're putting a living space within it
so
we're in a we're not in a flood plain
but we're pretty we're in a river valley
right so we're close to low-lying areas
and we're susceptible to uh
saturated ground conditions which is
exactly what's happening
right now i have a lake in my backyard
and i know many people probably do as
well so i had to go out the front door
because my back door literally i
couldn't wade through the water to get
to my car
twice you know twice in in two weeks so
i think it's just something for us to be
cognizant of and um
we will don't get me wrong we're going
to continue to push forward with more
and more work on our sewer
infrastructure and we'll be talking
about some of that our strategic retreat
even how are we using arp funding
um i believe that sewer should be our
top
funding priority
and we'll continue to work on it so i
just wanted to give you guys that update
yes mayor kessler
i think it's also because we have homes
of um
that require a lot of nurture
and getting to know your home and we
have a lot of new
residents that have moved in from other
states and municipalities due to coven
so i think any education too is a city
that we can remind on the gutter
cleaning four times a year how do you
get water away from your home because i
know sometimes
there are
the nurture aspects of an old home that
you can do to upkeep to keep the water
away some things are out of your control
but some are
and
not all property owners have that
education so i like that as people are
reaching out for basement permits you're
gonna help with that it sounds like the
city's gonna help a little bit without
education on what that means in old
homes but i think
you know any kind of
workshop or public works or something we
can do
to kind of give that education i think
is helpful
and
[Music]
i know i've learned a lot about my 1929
home in the last seven years
yeah so
and i wish i would have known some of
that first year
like you said every home has a different
personality so
the amount of ways that water can become
an issue within your house system is is
pretty remarkable so there are plenty of
ways that water can enter that basement
okay
uh then we have some photos we took a
trip to the uh the
quarry
trails metro park mike price ellen
andrews grant archer and myself and some
of our kids and we took note of some uh
some of the improvements that they have
there the brand new metro park i highly
encourage you to go check it out it is
not yet fully open open
but it's open enough that you can see
some of the
improvements they've made and we're
taking a look at the bridges we're
taking a look at the staircase the stone
work as we continue to work on the
schneider park trail
we had the ribbon cutting the senior
center this was just the cutest the
polar bear run at maryland elementary
was one of my favorite events of the
year so far
so uh
it turned out to be a great polar bear
run because i think it was sunny in 50
or something in february so they lucked
out and i believe that's one of the
price boys uh rallying up the crowd
right there
um and then
we took us we had our own little city
hall retreat a couple weeks ago and we
took a bus tour around the city and
looked at that's the bus driver right
there okay
uh looked at all of the uh projects that
we've been working on it was really neat
to to show city hall staff some of whom
had not seen for example schneider park
or some of the stuff we've been working
on and we talked about our own mission
as staff at city hall and
some of the things we want to work on
this year and some of the training we
want to prioritize so that was a really
great event and i'm sorry again very
wordy update uh happy to answer any
questions
any questions for the mayor
all right
thank you very much
we can move on to number 11 consent
agenda or as mark fischer refers to it
the start of the meeting
that was bill harvey referring to it but
i'm not going to argue with them all
right the consent agenda has the meeting
minutes from 282.
any questions
can i get a motion to adopt
so moved second
thank you moved by ms fiable seconded by
ms lamke
mr mcpeek you're up
miss lampee yes
you say oh i'm looking at you saying
lanky i am very you're allowed to do
that
what a compliment they're supposed to be
listening not watching your eyes
lampke is a yes
let's see if i can do this all night
miss fibel
yes
um
yes i'm getting myself confused um mr
marcelino
yes miss robinson yes mr klingler yes mr
marcum yes
consent agenda passes
all right well we're skipping no third
reading so a second reading of ordinance
3-22
to appropriate two thousand seven
hundred dollars from the friends of
jeffrey preschool fund to pay preschool
related expenses in 2022 introduced by
ms lamke
thank you mr official this is a second
reading as everyone is aware uh the
jeffrey mansion preschool previously
received a check for 6 900
of which the rec department intends to
use 2700 of that
as payment for expenses
are there any questions
no questions any uh
any possibility you want to put that on
the consent agenda um given the amount
i'm fine if everyone else's
no objections
all right natalie put that on there for
us thank you
all right now first readings first
reading of ordinance 6-22
to re-appropriate 236 thousand and
298.33 cents from the south drexel
avenue and grandin avenue project fund
to pay the city's matching share on this
project
that is introduced by ms lamke it
doesn't say and i don't have it in front
of me
is that okay it is um
right any any questions on this it's
just a first reading but it's to uh
reappropriate some funds for the drexels
and brandon projects
so mayor is there anything you wanna
just to any anyone who doesn't
understand what that language means the
money was allocated in last year's
budget
uh
there's still money to be spent uh it
was not carried forward it needs a new
po in this year's budget so
that's why they're appropriate
all right let's move on
all right on to a first reading of
ordinance
5-22 to protect the rights of
individuals to wear face coverings and
places of public accommodation i'm not
sure there's no name here either that's
mr marcelino mr marcelino hello thank
you uh yeah we actually just discussed
this as you all probably recall um any
questions in regards to this it's again
just uh protecting the rights of
individuals to wear face coverings um in
places of public accommodation um
should they so choose
first reading do we want to move that to
consent agenda yeah we need we need to
i've got two readings on that okay oh i
thought you wanted this past yeah that's
what by emergency oh oh do we want to do
that you mean suspension yeah suspended
um it's your call i don't i don't think
it's necessary but
i would like to recommend doing it on a
first reading
the other part of it was the order the
executive order you're getting rid of on
your own
correct yes never mind yeah i think this
needs to yep this needs to see a little
air
so it started with air in the tree said
you're back to air i like it that's only
legal
that's my legal term all right
i'm on a roll all right mr fishel
um okay oh i take a deep breath here
first reading of ordinance 4-22 to
certify special assessments for the
repair of sidewalks where the work was
not done by the owner after being
ordered by the city in accordance with
bexley
code section 1490
0.15 b 4a or bexley code section 1492.04
and it was necessary to do the work and
assess the owner to assess the owner of
properties with unpaid alarm fees in
accordance with bexley code section
64303 to certify a special assessment in
accordance with bexley code section 14
1918 environmental contamination and to
certify special assessments for code
violation abatements where work was not
done by the owner after being ordered by
the city in accordance with bexley code
section 1490
i think we need something more specific
there but we'll get there and it was
necessary to do the work and assess the
owner
i did it by memory i think that title is
pretty
self-explanatory
lucky mr official got a lot of time to
rest up that's right um i do see that we
may need some additional information in
section six you absolutely will need an
amendment sorry
i do not have all the information on the
code enforcement abatements yet
um but would you like me to quickly run
through this that would be great thank
you okay so this annual sidewalk project
is what is handled by sections one and
two
um
so section one is is any of the
assessments underneath the threshold of
six hundred dollars
section two is six hundred dollars or
more which
we've determined in the past will be
split over three years to lower the
burden to the property owner
well that's the second time we've done
this that's a newer innovation for this
section three
uh is when
alarms and this is also a new thing for
us we've had
we have five owners of
mostly commercial properties
actually it looks like all commercial
properties
who have
not paid their alarm
bills
and so this is assessing them for that
and we do need to double check that we
have all the necessary legal language
for that mark this is the first time
we've done that
it was just brought to my attention the
police department asked if i wanted to
place those in a collection agency
and i suggested that we had the ability
to assess so probably would be a lot
easier just to do that
and then section four is the
2761 east main which is the former
sunoco gas station at chelsea in maine
now that dollar figure if you'll recall
it's a two thousand dollar a month
environmental contamination fee so this
is
for most of 21.
there was a period of time in early 21
where the property owner was potentially
pursuing
an environmental grant to help with
cleanup
they asked us if we would participate
we suggested that they needed to
come up to compliance with code
enforcement issues they're having
because they had been out of
out of keeping with code enforcement
violations for years and years and years
and we said if we are going to be a
financial partner you need to first take
care of your
low-hanging code enforcement
issues which included removing the
canopy and some other fixtures to the
site they still haven't really done that
to satisfaction but they've made some
progress which is good but in february
of 21 we sent him a letter saying it's
been a while since we've heard from you
are you still pursuing this
environmental cleanup funding
do you have anything that would make you
in compliance with section 490.18c
please provide that to us within 30 days
they had failed to do that so they've
made no progress on it so we we
long story short we suspended the 2000 a
month
while it seemed they were pursuing that
and then we put it back into place when
they were not responsive to whether or
not they were pursuing the cleanup so
tried to give them it's actually a
14-month grace period as they were
potentially pursuing funding
um
and so that would kick that kicked back
in then again in uh
in march of 21. now they are in arrears
on their other assessment so mr fischel
and i have started talking about that
and we're gonna we're seeking legal
counsel with how to pursue uh that as
well
section six is if
for example
you haven't cut your lawn and you keep
on getting code enforcement violations
after a certain period of time
code enforcement has the power to both
site into court and or
abate the problem themselves and then
charge it so these are unpaid abatements
and mr hurlika is going to be giving me
a list of those
uh it'll be for both year 2020 and 2021.
thank you mayor any questions from
council
[Music]
all right
no no action on tabled ordinances
tonight
let's go to the committee reports
recreation and parks committee jessica
saad
wow i don't think i've ever been first
um just a quick reminder update uh march
26 saturday at 5 pm mark your calendars
for our largest fundraiser for bexley
schools
the best education foundation will be
hosting
an in-person event bravo at st charles
that's all i got troy thank you very
much strategic committee jen robinson
uh yeah just two things real quick um
wanted to remind everybody um you should
have gotten an invitation from natalie
natalie thank you for your help
coordinating the dutiful results
for our
um a presentation by ralph anderson and
associates in the saunders group it is
next wednesday march the 2nd at 7 p.m
in council chambers i'm so glad to hear
that mike dewine has now let us do
things remotely after not knowing that
we could do that and having to send out
19 doodle polls to figure out a time
that worked for everybody but
i won't be too bitter um also then the
next day thursday march the 3rd from 1-4
is our council retreat just to give you
a couple quick highlights as our
wonderful new auditor said he will be
doing a presentation
as will elizabeth ellman
talking about sustainability um
strategic plan for
uh the upcoming year and um we also will
be talking about a potential new council
communications strategic plan for the
upcoming year so
just a couple of highlights to get you
all excited and interested in and what
we're going to be doing next thursday
other than that i have nothing
additional to report
thank you jen jen has been
working overtime to put all this
together and i appreciate all that we're
not always an easy group to corral and
so she has
successfully done that service and
environmental committee laurie anne
fieble
um
some really fabulous updates to them
about things that are going on with us
and in the city um
they are working now you just
are creating a strategic plan to improve
our organization so stay tuned esa is
meeting tonight
um
i will tell you that elizabeth ellman is
working very hard on
our first
month
so stay tuned and stay tuned for
opportunities for you to
be awesome
thank you lori ann
finance committee monique lamke
thank you president markham um you we
heard tonight from tracy baum who's the
director of the chamber of commerce i
encourage all of you if you haven't had
a chance to make it to
an event of theirs
i think she said the first beer is on
them at the next event in case anyone
here is interested
and also the bexley citizens police
academy alumni just had a very
successful pet supply drive they filled
an entire cruiser plus
and we'll be donating all that to
to local animal organizations and the
report
thank you monique safety and health
committee san marcelino thank you uh for
one i would like to address this piece
of wood that keeps on coming off it's
not very safe or healthy um if we could
i'm gonna stab myself moving on from
that uh just to note the mexican police
citizens academy again is accepting
applications you can email uh sergeant
overly at d overly at bexley.org i know
that council members have done in the
past it seems like a great opportunity
and additionally tomorrow there is the
chief of police workshop uh that's
taking place you are required to
register beforehand but i attended the
first one it was very informative and i
encourage the community to do so to see
what's going on and have an input on the
next chief thank you very much
thank you sam zoning and development
kenny mack klingler
nothing to report
thank you mr klingler we reached the
point where public comments are allowed
i see we have a couple people out there
they don't look like they have any
comments
i will now actually take a motion to
adjourn motion to adjourn
motion line matt klingler second second
by jen robinson all uh in favor say aye
aye
all opposed
thanks
thank you sir hold on