welcome to the tuesday february 8th
meeting of city council i'd like to
extend some thanks as we begin tonight i
would like to thank each of the city
council members up here for the work
that they do and the service the
community i know you guys
pulled a little over time this week
and
i would like to say thanks to the
the good people in the community here
who have shown up as well tonight
who have
sent us emails this week weighing in
and who are tuned into our youtube
tonight
i think we uh it shows what we all know
is that we have a community here
that is worth investing in a community
that's worth preserving
we have a community that we see a future
in we see a future for our kids in the
next generation we want them to come
back we want them to build and progress
and that's why we're all lucky to be
here serving you and we're thankful for
your participation
mr mcpeak thank you for your service to
our city and would you call the role
please yes thanks um fibal
[Music]
absent klingler
here lamke here
marcelino markham
here robinson here inside here thanks
so that is uh five president two absent
and i know that ms fiable and mr
marcelino
would like to be here tonight but are
not and in their uh since they are not
here i would move at this point to make
their absences an officially excused
absence second
can i get a voice vote on that just uh
all in favor
all opposed
with that let's say the pledge of
allegiance please write
i pledge allegiance to the blood of the
united states of america and see the
republic for which it stands
[Music]
so i think we have a presentation
tonight
uh the mayor will lead us through the uh
the presentation as i mentioned we did
receive many emails this week on the
drexel avenue project and we'll be
learning about that
once the uh the mayor has concluded his
presentation
we will uh move to go to uh public
comment if you wish to uh
comment here tonight please make sure
that you have filled out a speaker slip
speaker slips are in the lobby if you
haven't
if you haven't done that you are free to
do that
are you are you waving at me to ali
uh yeah just one one one one thing of
clarification mr president is that um we
do have a presentation this evening of
the turkey track check to saint albans
oh i'm sorry i was not alone no and
which is also a presentation so i
thought maybe we we thought about doing
that first
in case anyone here wanted to clear out
before we talked about drugs the turkey
i know saint albans might want to talk
about drexel too so
it's all it's all very synergistic so
if uh if we could have the folks from uh
the mid-ohio food bank and st albans and
the turkey trout organizers
come forward that would be great
this is an annual tradition that we have
quickly come to love as a community
uh and we're so excited to have you guys
here this evening
to talk about this year's turkey trot
and uh
this is something i always look forward
to not only the running actually i look
forward to this more than the running
part so that's just me though so thank
you so much uh father devin and company
for joining us
sorry there's a light there's a button
right there to turn it on it's our bed
we should have done it got it there you
go better yeah okay um i'm carol
zimmerman mid-ohio food collective and
it's such an honor to be here this is
one of my personal
favorite czech presentations every year
um we've partnered with saint albans in
the city of bexley for so many years um
i think saint albans back in the early
2000s
and then as their event grew and they
brought the city in with your wonderful
support it's just been an amazing thing
to watch um
we had uh
a double your donation day that started
um back in the mid 2000s and so saint
albans was a donor of ours before that
ever even happened
but since double your donation day their
their giving has been increasing more
and more every year with the generosity
of the community
and um
total they've given us almost ninety
thousand dollars over the longevity of
our relationship with them almost 60 000
of that now it has been doubled or
matched by the community so um
so this year's gift will be 18 000
and we can't thank you all and the
people of bexley enough for the support
it means so much to so many people so
thank you
thank you very much
well i'm speaking on behalf of the
turkey trot i'm the next year's co-chair
but i do the t-shirts every year so i'm
the representative chosen but um we are
delighted to present this check to the
mid-ohio food bank not only on behalf of
the members of saint albans but
to the runners of the race who did it
virtually this year
but also to many of the local sponsors
that help make this race possible every
year
we really look forward to doing it again
hopefully next year in person um with
the support not only of the members of
saint albans but again with the local
businesses and organizations here in the
community so thank you so much thank you
thank you very much yes
[Applause]
before you guys step down cheryl while
we still have you here would you mind
just informing us a little bit i noticed
the name has changed from the ohio food
bank to the collective would you mind
just telling us a little bit about that
not to put you on the spot
absolutely sorry about that so we
rebranded to be the food collective um
two years ago right before coveted
um and the reason being um
we have five different assets within the
food collective one of which our
flagship is the food bank all of them
are geared around feeding people in the
community but we also have
a mid-ohio kitchen
which is a an after school and and
homeless feeding program we work a lot
with homeless families foundation and
such organizations to feed people who
don't have access to meals or a way to
prepare food if they had food so
so that's kitchen
we've got mid-ohio pharmacy which is our
food is health program
a number
many of our
customers have health issues that are
related to the way their diet has been
and so we really try to optimize
fresh food in their diets so that's
mid-ohio pharmacy then we have mid-ohio
farm on the hilltop which is
an above-ground um
hydroponic and um tower food
growing um facility that we've got about
five acres of land there that was um
deeded to us by the city of columbus and
we're doing um kind of the farm of the
future there which is very cool i'd love
to get for you to come out and see it
once we get everything back up and
running in the spring
um
and then um
we also have our mid-ohio markets and
the middle high markets are a concept
that um
at one point
about i don't know probably 32 years
into his um administration as our ceo
matt havash our ceo was talking to a
woman one day and she said
i can't afford to come to a food pantry
and he thought well maybe she needs
transportation or something and she said
i work full time i'm an hourly employee
this pantry is open
every other tuesday from eight to noon
so i have to take a day off work to come
and get free food
[Music]
so he thought okay we've been doing this
for a long time and really don't
understand our customers very well so we
came up with a concept called mid-ohio
markets and those are open at least 40
hours a week
into the evening hours and weekend hours
all of them are
we've partnered with columbus state
an organization called heart in
reynoldsburg
we'll be opening a new one in the
hilltop area later this spring we were
going to have 13 by now but covid
had a different idea
so we'll be opening the third one
finally
and we've got more sites on the plan but
those are really geared at by providing
access to people when they need it not
just when it's convenient for the
organization pantries will still exist
and many will still be volunteer
operations but these ones are more like
an actual store
experience so thank you for asking thank
you so much absolutely thank you
[Applause]
all right so for the second presentation
i'm going to turn this over the mayor to
tell us about the uh drexel project that
we've been uh thinking about this week
after his presentation uh again we'll
open it up to public comment and i see
we have some speaker slips still coming
in if you do fill those out and hand
those to
get those around we'll make sure that
you get a slot to speak on
thank you mr markham um
president markham thank you uh so
uh and thank you all for coming out
we're gonna we're gonna give a
presentation kind of on where where
things stand with the drexel avenue
proposal
um
and i'm gonna get this shared here on
our screen
so it's available online as well so this
is also attached to the agenda if anyone
wants to view this after the fact
but
before we get started into
sort of where things stand on the
current proposal
i wanted to talk about
the history and i'm trying i'm trying to
make this larger sorry one second
of where why we're all here talking
about improvements to drexel avenue and
specifically while we're talking about
the two options that were that we're
discussing this evening
and joining me here in the presentation
in a moment will be
our city engineer dave koch
our service director andy bayshore who
is on zoom right now and um our traffic
engineer from carpenter marty gina
balsamo so thank you all for being there
but
and also i think uh wanted to kind of
make it clear to everybody as we as we
come through this conversation
we're not necessarily making any final
decisions this evening
we're here for discussion and to hear a
lot of public feedback
so in 2019 the city applied for ohio
public works commissioner opwc is the
acronym that we use frequently funding
for improvements to drexel avenue
specifically we're looking for new water
line
improved sewer unfortunately this will
involve getting rid of the pond at fair
and drexel that occurs when it when it
storms
and sanitary line and roadway
improvements to drexel avenue the grant
full and in 2020 the project was awarded
with funding
now we knew going into the project that
we'd heard a lot of uh feedback from
residents
over the years that um the street was
uh faster than they might have liked and
in fact we had kind of started to craft
a policy internally that we're going to
try to figure out how to lower the speed
limit on draxel from 35 to 25. so as
part of the project we knew that the
street improvements might be more than
just our standard which is typically
when we have this sort of funding we go
through we replace the water line any
sewer work needs to be done some curbing
and then we grind down the asphalt and
resurface the asphalt it's just cut and
dry very simple
but we knew this time there might be
more to it
our engineering work began in 2020 that
has been focused to date primarily on
water and sewer infrastructure you guys
have all experienced the sewer line that
occurred
and then the waterline sewer work is due
to start next month on drexel avenue
throughout that we were also once the
funding was awarded started to to look
more purposefully at the street surface
and street work
so in the spring of 2021 we sent letters
to the residents on south drexel and we
invited them to a workshop to talk about
improvements that might go above and
beyond standard resurfacing
um specifically as
the feedback
at that meeting
mimics what we'd heard before talking
about lowering the speed limit to 25
providing for safer pedestrian crossings
and
generally calming and beautifying the
street and noting that drexel is the
only
uh street north south street that's 35
in the city of bexley
and one of two 35 mile per hour streets
in bexley broad street having a
different character
absolutely different infrastructure than
drexel
so those were the top priorities
so one of the things we know in the
research that we've done is that drexel
being a state route is not as simple for
us to lower the speed limit as it is on
other streets other streets we have
control over the speed limit we can post
the speed limit as we see fit within the
bounds of the law in the case of drexel
avenue it requires odot to agree to it a
high revised code says that that should
be a 35 mile per hour street but it does
provide some carve outs one of the carve
outs it says is if the traffic is
driving slower than 35 miles per hour
closer to a lower speed limit then we
could apply for a warrant to have a
lower speed limit
so it's kind of a chicken and egg
scenario you can't lower the speed limit
until
you create conditions that would cause
drivers to drive slower
that was discussed at the workshop
and
a road diet what's called a road diet or
a way to kind of narrow the calm the
street was deemed necessary to change
driver behavior
at the same time in 2021 and late i
think actually mid 2020 through 2021 uh
as you guys know we engaged in our
bicycle-friendly bexley bicycle plan
um had a series of public workshops
ride-alongs
uh council reviewed that and council
passed it in 2021
so in the draft plan
it recommended the installation of bike
lanes on drexel avenue but as we spoke
with the consultant about the plans to
calm drexel avenue that were arising
from this workshop that we'd had
conducted after the plan had started
the consultant opined that calming
traffic on drexel
could very well result in a safer
environment for cyclists in and of
itself but that we should still study
the concept of bike lanes on drexel
avenue
that plan was passed
and you can find on page six of the plan
language about drexel avenue talks about
um
it's it's it's a narrative so it talks
about uh
looking at some different scenarios for
drexel avenue considering the fact that
comer commerce street would be safer for
cyclists
um and and also exploring bike lanes
that's available also on our website by
the way under
documents um
bexley plans and studies is the bicycle
friendly baxley plan
so we talked about the pros and cons for
protected bike lanes
recommended further studying
and acknowledge that reconfiguring the
street to narrow the roadway and calm
traffic would also increase the comfort
of cyclists
so um because the plan
had been crafted
and
sorry my daughter was commercial making
sure i wasn't getting two calls okay
because the plan had been crafted um
and and it's adopted by council
we turned to our city engineering team
and asked that they also consider what
would happen if we added bike lanes to
drexel avenue as part of this project
the the project the plans that had been
drafted prior to that had showed
sheltered parking through bump outs
uh pedestrian crossings that at times we
would have landing spots if if possible
and adding additional crosswalks to the
corridor
and adding at least in one case adding
additional pedestrian-activated beacons
along drexel avenue
so one thing that anyone who reads the
bike plan
note is just about some sort of um
tactical urbanism where we
where we kind of
uh shut down parking in one side of the
street for a while study it and do some
other things to just see how well that
might work uh for a bike plan
um in the sen in this instance as we
were developing this and as we're
talking about it tonight we're halfway
through a process that is funded and we
have funding deadline we have completion
deadlines to meet the funding that we
have
so we were not able to do some of the
more extensive sort of test case
scenario studies uh of the uh project
so
2022 is a follow-up from our spring
summer summer 2021 meeting uh we held a
workshop for residents on drexel avenue
the workshop was advertised via
handle delivered letters delivered to
residences
along drexel avenue and we had about
20-25 households present on the workshop
and
i would characterize the feedback of the
workshop of being
largely if not all residents on drexel
supporting the concept of or what we're
calling option a which is the
the bump outs and sheltered parking and
not supporting the bike lane option this
is at the workshop
but we did have some some cyclist
advocates also attend and supported the
bike lane option
i think i just talked about it there so
at the workshop we committed to refining
those options one there's some really
good comments made about
the bike lane option if it were to be
considered
i think we drew it on the east side of
the street there's some good comments on
why it might make more sense on the west
side of the street
relative to where park and demand is and
so we shifted it accordingly
so at that meeting we also committed to
having a follow-up meeting where we
would further bring a home scenario and
i think most importantly because there
was such a
diversity of opinion throughout the
community about
whether or not bike lanes made the most
sense for the community
to such a degree that some of the
concerns of drexel avenue residents
might be overweight by a greater good
i really felt it necessary to come bring
this idea before city council ask for
your input and feedback on it
and
the public greater public at large so we
we committed to this date at the
workshop
and then we uh advertised this again to
the residents this time via mail
and to the businesses on drexel and uh
through the bexley blast and
i understand it's also had some good
coverage on social media so
um
with that i'm kind of setting the stage
for our engine
and if maybe gina and dave
you would like to
come forward
and then
sorry i'm trying to find our zoom
hold on
where did you go
andy is on here as well i'm gonna have
him uh
join us there he is
andy if you want to come off camera for
this
i will try to figure out where the
camera window went there he
is hey andy can we test your mic real
quickly just make sure it's working
yeah can you hear me all right mayor
sound great thank you
all right
um
so gina or dave andy you want to talk
about the different options yeah i can
go into it um so in these pictures uh
picture north is to the right right here
yep
yeah so north is to the right in all of
these pictures um and this is just one
snapshot of you know one block of the
corridor obviously it goes on a lot
further but just picture this block kind
of the same idea continued on
um so here we are with option a
as the mayor was saying we have bump
outs um and on street parking you know
where you can park now you can still
park in the future um we basically just
have these bump outs
around the intersection areas um where
people really couldn't park
much anyway before because of sight
distance for those intersections and
things like that so it's just defining
that further and like the mayor was
saying this kind of pinches traffic down
a bit more so instead of you know 40
feet of pavement that you had out there
before it's pinched down to more defined
traffic lanes in each direction so it's
11 foot
travel lanes in each direction
and then we have medians you can see
there in green where we can put them
so i will say you know you can't put
medians throughout the whole road
otherwise you would block driveways
you'd have some issues there for the
residents which we don't want to have so
we just looked at areas where we could
put the medians without blocking
driveways and then you can see there we
also added a crosswalk there and we did
that you know throughout the corridor in
locations that again made sense where we
could provide those safe crossings
yep and then here's just another look at
it you know kind of looking from the
street level what that looks like so
this is the same option but
again there are some areas where you can
have the median some areas where you
can't so that's kind of the top versus
the bottom there and then you can see
that ghosted out
um vehicle on you know either side of
the travel lane that's that just shows
the parking that could be in some places
as well
okay so then option b
this is our our cycle track option so
this is you know we looked at a lot of
different options of how can we
incorporate bike lanes in the area
and and really
the issue is that you're you're set by
the amount of pavement that you have you
know we don't want to move our curb
lines here
so
really you can't you have to compromise
a bit um you can't have parking on both
sides of the road and bike lanes in both
directions and a median and travel lanes
um you got to have some sort of
compromise in order to you know have all
of those different travel demands shown
here
so in this idea again north is to the
right and we have the cycle track on the
west side so that's one bike lane in
each direction
and then we're showing a median
now we we've heard a lot of
issues with this median you know
come up since we've shown this and
so i think the idea is that this could
be a median this could just be a striped
out area again the idea is just having
some sort of a buffer between those
bicyclists and
the travel lane
um and then same thing as you have in
the other one with you know 11 foot
lanes in each direction
and then parking would only be on the
east side in this option
and bump outs where we can have them on
the east side
gina do you want to talk a little bit
about i know earlier on and i think even
in the last public workshop we discussed
cycle track for a bike lane versus
having bike lanes on each side of the
traffic and the pros and cons of that
yes yeah so in in the last workshop we
had we had some other options that we
showed where the bike lane was you know
you have travel lane bike lane traveling
bike lane um a little bit more
conventional idea and the issue with
that is that you have your bike lane
right next to your parking lane
and everything is kind of you're able to
accommodate everybody but those cyclists
are really squeezed in there and in the
cyclist community you have the issue of
door crashes so there's parked vehicles
you get out
open your door and it swings out and
hits the cyclist so that's a big issue
with that option
so that's why we kind of move forward
with this
cycle track options that way we push all
those cyclists to one side get them away
from the parking
and also away from the the through
vehicles
okay thank you anything that you want to
add dave to the oh sorry there's a cross
section as well oh yep so this is again
same idea here um you know we can have
medians
between the cycle track and the through
vehicles which is shown on the top and
then the option of just having the
striped out buffer
between the cycle track and the vehicles
as well and the parking on the east side
david anything dave randy anything you
want to add to the to that portion of
the presentation
yeah
ben gina i think you've done a great job
of explaining how we got here and what
we're trying to accomplish
uh one
one idea
that isn't hasn't been discussed or at
least presented is that
under option a which is the bump out
you laid out that microphone a little
bit option a which is uh i can hear
myself better now too that's good thank
you option a with the bump out in the
parking still provides for bicycle use
of the through travel lanes
that is not prohibited
and it can be it can be encouraged even
with striping and cheryl type markings
so that's not out of the question in
that in that scenario
so that's that still still should be
considered yeah and and to be clear that
was never i don't think we viewed that
as mutually exclusive so that certainly
was an option within option a
um andy anything to add
not not to this part then um
if we get down to the recommendations
you know i have a couple things
okay
so uh to to to andy just tipped his hand
so as we as we've kind of thought about
this and looked at it and
and received feedback via the public
workshop and additional emails and
comments
and our team has continued to explore
this we felt that it would be helpful
for council to have a recommendation
from staff
so i asked andy to prepare a staff
recommendation
based upon the pros and cons that we had
analyzed with that and andy do you want
to do you want to provide that
sure
um
on this project uh mayor and city
council and in residence i would
recommend
option a
the reason i say that
option b
does offer some challenges um not only
for the residents that live on drexel
but as far as the city service
department
um with maintenance issues
such as you know leaf collection snow
removal
and then there's some you know some
other things that would might be an
inconvenience for residents that live on
draxel but also as far as if there was a
bike lane there's also some uh safety
aspects i was looking at for
you know
the roof and some pump drains will drain
onto the bike path and also the leaf
piles i'm sure would eventually
you know get into the bike path along
with along with snow
so i would recommend option a
um so that it's clear to council and to
residents it's not uncommon for staff to
make recommendations in sort of any case
that we're reviewing facts and and and
uh
and concepts it's really similar to like
a or b or b-zap where we have staff
recommendation
certainly council has
and and we have every right to to think
about that and decide that's not the
best recommendation but we just felt
that it might be helpful to have some of
that guidance
to additionally in addition to that
we're recommending against if the bike
lane option were the one that uh built
consensus on council
that um physical barriers not be an
aspect to that for all the reasons that
andy just mentioned
trash and utility issues
the fact that this plan only really
allows for the narrowest possible bike
lane size and because of that
some of the concerns about a physical
barrier if you've got two narrow lanes
and cyclists maybe there's a crash a
physical barrier further constrains
motions by cyclists to avoid that and
could result in additional accidents
we actually received some good feedback
on that from
members of the central house cycling
community
and that while street cleaners could
access
narrowly that one section it would
really complicate street cleaning
especially with the two different curb
cuts
and we became increasingly concerned
about specifically leaf issues as we
thought more about the specific
geography of bexley
and we know exactly what happens to the
streets and the curbs during leaf season
much to the chagrin of many people
sometimes when it takes a long time to
pick up those leaves but leaves can
accumulate they do accumulate in the in
the tree lawn
you know on a windy day they spill over
into the street
and with bike lanes you would be pushing
you'll be keeping cyclists in an area
that is not safe to cycle with leaves so
that was an additional concern
um so that that's recommendation from
our staff
um the the purpose of the meeting again
is to gather as much information as we
can and feedback from residents we've
received i think over 60 emails which is
great i think it's a record so
good work um and really appreciate it
actually i know that there's been a lot
of angst about the fact that we have
some um two concepts that have had uh
have really driven some conflict at
least online
and um
i get that but
if we don't have feedback from the
public about what the best way to go is
then we don't know we don't we don't
have enough information to make the
right decision so as painful as that is
to have those arguments um having the
good healthy debate allows us to make
hopefully good decisions
so
in track with that i know that we have
some speaker slips here this evening
and if we would i think we have some
more speaker slips still ready to come
up if if you have speaker slips back
there
go ahead and bring them forward so we
can take those
thank you so we have a few things to
keep in mind as we go through the
speaker slips
so as we go through the speaker slips uh
we'll announce the name uh as you've
seen please step up and
lean a little bit into the microphone so
that we can hear you that you're you're
clearly heard please try and be
brief with your comments or as brief as
possible in consideration we have a lot
of people that are going to speak here
tonight
i would ask you to state your name and
your address
as you come up
and then finally if if your comments
contain a question please note that we
will go ahead and take note of the
question and then we will at the end i
will have the mayor address any
questions that come up so that we don't
get caught up in a back and forth there
mr mcphee could you give us the first
speaker slip please absolutely um for
hoffman please
[Music]
hello
um
yeah um obviously drexel avenue
improvements is very let's go ahead and
give your name and address oh yeah herb
hoffman um
2618 bryden road
let's see i've been here 60 over 65
years in bexley and uh grew up on north
drexel
and right now i have two properties in
the commercial district here
on drexel
um
i guess what really bothered me is is
the loss of one side of parking i mean
if we're gonna take back sleep to the
next level which is
um
if we take it to the next level we're
gonna need more parking and i'm afraid i
don't know if you've been here thursday
friday and saturday nights it's always
packed
for back to brighton
so
i was obviously concerned that any loss
of parking is not not the way to go and
plus the beautification
of drexel it's a main artery so we um
i i remember doing the trees on main
street and you see what what a
difference that's made back in the 60s
so
i i'm feeling that um a median
with you know foliage trees
um
[Music]
is the way to go
and it's such a main artery it scares me
that we could make a wrong decision
so um
and then i think about safety i i see
people going 45 miles an hour down
drexel um
uh somebody's going to get hurt
it's no doubt somebody's going to get
hurt um i think that you know if we
could scale it back to 25 i i i hear
your
your you know
what you say against i mean which you
might not be able to but
it's a real it's a real threat and uh
and you've got you know on things like
saint albans you've got um plummet
school for girls you've got the downtown
jersey
district they're all
you know you should be going 20 in those
and then they speed up to 40 and then
they go back to 20 40. i mean i it's
it's a joke
and it's scary
they come around this corner and i spend
a little time over here and they just
take off and uh
it's not good um
so i guess i really really have a real
concern with drexel i really do and i
hope we can make the right decision my
decision is definitely
for the medians and get rid of i don't
know who who came up with the bike path
and i'm a biker too
but you don't put it down to the busiest
street in bexley
i mean come on
anyway that's my opinion
thank you thank you
mr repeat can we have the next speaker
um
and i apologize if i mispronounce names
but deborah uh
lincoln
hi devorah lipkin um at 431 south drexel
go ahead and lean into that mic a little
more um i have four children we walk a
lot
and we can't cross the street as it is
and i don't know if you all are aware
that
the very tragic accident that happened
last year
um at fair and drexel but
nobody people don't stop the flashing
lights they make somewhat of a
difference but they don't really make
that much difference because it's out of
people's direct line of vision
um so
adding a bike lane to that would make it
even harder to cross the street and even
more
um and
also uh living on the street you see the
use of the street quite a bit and st
albans has many activities not just on
sundays and so does csg
and um so
we
as a family we're for option a
and anything we can do to take make
becksley that street safer for the kids
and at pedestrians in general crossing
the street thank you
thank you very much
mr mcp
that ashley brunner
hello my name is matt eshelbringer i
live at 225 south drexel um just wanted
to start off by thanking mayor kessler
and the entire team for doing the extra
research that was needed to understand
some of the differences for turning
drexel into a possibly 25 mile an hour
street
my quick background is that i have two
kids who are seven and nine we use the
crosswalk on every non-snowy day to
cross that street at drexel and dale and
in line with the comments that were just
made people fly down that street
i had reached out to mayor kessler a
couple years ago to talk about the
possibility of reducing the speed limit
and really think that that is most
important
in some of the online comments it really
seems like this has become a
parking versus biking issue but we
really need to reframe it and ensure
that safety is the number one priority
um
in listening to mayor kessler's recap at
the beginning it sounds like option a
gives us the most likely path to reduce
that speed limit to 25 miles an hour so
i really think that that is what we have
to do we have to make sure that safety
is the number one priority um so i think
that
is where we should where we should land
thank you
thank you very much
and katie
rottenberg
hi
hopefully i'm going to understand my
daily dose feel free to feel free to
pull the microphone down i could just go
like this oh that's better
hi my name is katie wittenberg i live at
215 south drexel right next to matt
so
i didn't realize that the
that it was switching sides so we live
on the west side of the street
and um i don't it doesn't change too
much as far as like my concerns but
the leaf removal
is a big thing because it already is
such a you know everyone it's a pain to
have your leaves there and i know they
perfectly don't stay on the side of the
or on the
grass between the street but one of my
biggest concerns though is the
additional parking that will start
moving down because elimination of
parking on one side so
for me when i leave
my driveway thinking that the
elimination would be
on the east side of the street there'd
be more parking on the west side
when it's parked up there it's so hard
to see pulling out of our driveway even
if i'm not backing up and so my concern
is if there's going to be more cars
parked because parking is only on one
side
um we're going to continuously now it'll
be the east side we'll have the issue of
pulling out of their driveway safely if
we have more csg parking that will make
its way down drexel so um in addition to
the comments before i have two young
children as well and so the speed is a
is a big concern for us um but not to
believe the other points that would be
my additional comment it's just that
it's already pretty dangerous enough
pulling out um and adding more parking
more congested parking is a big concern
[Music]
thank you
thank you very much
and daniel ferdiman fergelman
my name is
my name is daniel fernelman i live at
2550 brighton road and i was actually on
the bicycle committee that
produced the plan
uh i like both option a and b
in that they address the needs of
pedestrians along uh drexel
but option b is the only one that
addresses both bicycles and pedestrians
and we are tr you know part of the plan
is look looking at uh the possibility of
encouraging a network of cycling
throughout bexley and this is a key
point
is to have the bike lane on drexel so
you're feeding the network
thank you thank you
thank you very much
i'm sorry here um is it ronnie lehman
thank you
oh i know my voice has probably been
heard by most people but go ahead and
pull that microphone down just a little
bit you can slide it down drexel for a
lot of years never had any issues any
problems
i could honestly say and i left somebody
a comment the other day i hardly ever
see people on bicycles i see more people
walking on drexel than i do bicycles
and i think to take away
you know to take away the parking spaces
is terrible what you guys were supposed
to do i don't know if anybody recalls
is they were supposed to come up with a
parking plan on main street that was an
issue many many years ago
so people could park there that's why
there's so much there's more cars parked
because of the businesses
if you're going to talk about drexel you
go you go around during the daytime
you'll see cars parking a lot of those
people are using businesses on main
street it's not fair
it hasn't been as residential as it
should be and i blame you guys for for
ignoring it
i mean a parking garage was a major
issue many years ago and it just sort of
went by the wayside and i think what's
happened is it's
with all with the businesses and nowhere
for people to park on main street they
come up to drexel
so i think you still have the same
problem you guys need a parking garage
or a place where people can fire
that's it
thank you very much
bobik
good evening everyone members of the
city council it's honor mayor kester my
name is bobby jurupti i'm a resident of
bexley at 447 south drexel avenue i'm
not a city planner or an engineer i just
simply want to make an observation uh
having lived in washington dc for almost
20 years
the idea i believe
should be based on what escher brenner
said is safety safety for our children
safety for the elderly that need extra
time to be able to simply cross the
street a street that people are
either oblivious or something ignoring
the speed limit of um i believe that can
simply be reached by having a raised
platform where children i've seen
beautiful young children that are this
tall carrying their backpacks to school
they literally need to step up a raised
platform across that state would offer
them that safety it would put them in
the line of sight of any driver coming
down the street it would give them that
measure
of being able to also see the drivers as
far as the bicycle lane i think that's
an idealistic approach it's very um
[Music]
i i simply don't think it's practical
again
my experience in dc is the idea of
putting a bicycle lane in opens the city
up to an abundance of liability that
quite frankly and respectfully i don't
think anyone's addressed
um
this very simple one would be
an amazon truck or a ups truck parking
over for a second to be able to make a
delivery and a bicyclist needing to
either go through that tunnel or simply
go around the truck and being head
excuse me hit
head on by another car
that opens the city up to all sorts of
liability and i would urge you to
consider that unless the city is
planning on drawing bicycle lanes that
offer
very specific instructions for each
bicyclist to be able to yield at each
driveway to allow a homeowner to back in
or back out of a driveway
again you're opening yourself up to
liability that doesn't need to be there
one last thing i would urge
the city council to look up a very
simple image look pennsylvania avenue
washington dc bicycle lane and you'll
see what they did after a lot of
planning and trial and error they moved
both of the bicycle lanes in the center
of pennsylvania avenue it is a very safe
route
um there are i don't know what you call
them city engineers can speak up on this
there are um
little black and white
uh
dividers that delineate the bicycle vein
from the traffic bicyclists are able to
go back and forth with the um caveat
that they um respect the traffic rules
uh another option there would be to
simply do the same thing but raise the
bicycle lane give them a few inches so
they're in that median that everyone's
been talking about but actually using it
as travel space
but again that
that's a lot of money spent on concrete
and doing all sorts of things down the
main street i agree with a lot of people
who've spoken
especially the last person who spoke up
the idea should be based on better
safety for our residents better safety
for those who need it specifically the
children and the elderly who need that
extra time to simply be able to cross
that's it thank you for your time thank
you very much
john right shirt
i gotta follow that
yeah no it's a lot of the things that
have been said previously here couldn't
give us your name in it oh sorry john
riker 240 south drexel
um yeah so uh talking to my wife i'm
looking at everything and being here has
been fantastic to hear everything
we are in favor of option a for a number
of reasons but i agree
the idea of safety is really really
important and so i live actually
diagonally across you from matt and we
have have you ever driven down right in
the middle between broad and main
is one of those flashing light things
they have that sign there that says stop
have you ever seen it destroyed
a lot
it used to be bolted into the concrete
and then people ripped that out twice
now it's a floating thing
i've probably fixed that sign
my
it's going to look pretty because people
cross and they got to see it
and i if you could at the same time with
these mediums somehow address that
because people destroy it because
they're too fast they're not paying
attention and to hit something that
collapses like that and rip the bullets
out of the concrete that tells you a lot
so definitely i would think about that
so we are in favor i love the median
idea um if you could put trees that'd be
great if you could put lights like on
main street that'd be really cool too
because that looked really i liked that
too so you look on my window and see
that but option a please
thank you
thank you very much
bill benedict
good evening bill benedict 484 south
drexel avenue
i'm going to address a couple tenants
here of the project
calming the speed safe cross and
beautification so my comments are around
those
similar to others
with the bike lane you're limiting
parking even if it's on the west or east
side i have the east side between
sherwood and bryden
it's an interesting stop there's there's
five driveways between
main street and fair
for the homes that live on the east side
in our first block we have one which is
romans
um and as if you compress the drive or
compress the parking to one side
what i've seen is
it's just going to come down further
it's going to go out to the side streets
as well so having my parking in the
alley any guests i have over typically
park in front of my house
like was mentioned before thursday
through saturday there is no parking on
drexel so it's relegated to park on
bryden which is also a challenge for my
elderly grant my mom and my aunt to come
over it causes problems with that
um similarly with the safety
as i saw plan a
i don't know ben if you can pull it back
up i saw a couple things here that
caught my concern
so when you look at the crosswalks and
where they're placed so if you look on
bryden going west
for those that are turning left
they turn into the crosswalk it's
difficult to turn left onto drexel from
many of the east-west streets
because you have parking here cars are
hard to see around so my recommendation
too as you see at sherwood it's it's
even more difficult because the street
narrows as you go
south
so when you're trying to cross
drexel
to come over here as an example
oftentimes i have to look
not only to the right but the left as
people turn left they can't see people
crossing so my recommendation is to look
at where you're placing the crosswalks
in consideration of turning traffic
because it's a lot easier to turn right
and see somebody than it is to turn left
um
aside from that i also appreciate your
comments ben on getting it right so i
appreciate the time you've given us here
this evening and i'd be in favor of a
with my comments around where the
crosswalks are placed thank you
thank you very much
ken rubin
thank you members of the council mr
mayor my name is ken rubin i live at 228
south drexel i want to address three
reasons why uh my family's in favor of
option a uh the first is
um
option b doesn't accomplish the goals
that it sets out sets out to accomplish
when i was walking here today i was
thinking in my mind what a bike lane on
south drexel would do and i was paying
attention to the traffic a bike lane is
not going to slow down traffic on south
drexel moreover from a safety
perspective if you're trying to increase
safety for cyclists having cyclists head
ride at each other where the cyclist on
the right hand side of the lane is
headed directly at traffic coming down
the road at 35 plus miles an hour is not
a safe situation you're going to
increase cycling accidents and cycle car
accidents on south drexel if you uh
if you um enact option b
the second reason why we're opposed to
option b is for every homeowner
church
business school on south trexel they
have a social contract with the city
that enables them to have
access to safe available parking in
front of their house
church
business and school
taking away half the parking on drexel
changes the social contract between
those people businesses
churches and schools
and changes the sense of community in
this town
and the final reason and mr mayor you
talked about the
um
the the south drexel
uh group that got together and you said
overwhelmingly every single the person
on south drexel was opposed to a bike
lane this is predominantly a south
drexel resident issue and so far you've
heard from a lot of people who live on
south drexel not a single one of them
has been in favor of option b
just like with liquor licenses where
only a certain subset of the city gets
to vote on whether a liquor license
should be enacted this council should
predominantly pay attention to the
positions and views of the people who
this project will overwhelmingly impact
the residents of south drexel to the
extent there are people here who don't
live on south drexel and there are
people here who don't even live in the
city those
those points of view should be
discounted in favor of
the people who this will through this
project will actually impact thank you
thank you very much
evan williams
uh my name is evan williams i live at
492 south drexel mr rubin took a lot of
the words in my mouth um i thank him for
that
i have
two young kids i've been on drexel for
about seven years now i live near bill
who spoke about being between bryden and
sherwood in an area that already uh has
a lot of spill over parking from the
main street businesses um it already
becomes congested at many hours of the
day um i'm very much opposed to option b
which would make that situation even
worse
i'm going to try not to belabor too many
of the points that were already made and
hopefully touch on a couple others but i
would second again the parking situation
um
cannot get worse than it is today and
option b certainly would make that
happen
i am very much in favor of slowing down
traffic speeds on drexel which option a
i believe is a much more effective path
to do so i also think that that
increased effectiveness would make it
that much more likely that the speed
limit could be petitioned to be lowered
later i think one of the worst things we
could do is proceed with a path that
doesn't allow that to happen or that
questionably would allow that to happen
um
and then there's uh the safety component
that was brought up before i have
another safety item i want to bring up
regardless of whether parking would be
eliminated on the east or the west side
of the street it certainly would create
a need for more pedestrian and cross
traffic across drexel avenue
so you know i think i have elderly
parents that love to come over and see
us and the kids and if they had to park
across the street
and then cross back over drexel to come
to my house that clearly is a safety
issue and that scenario would exist
whether it was my house or somebody
else's house um regardless
of whether or not parking was east or
west side
being removed so
i'm very very much in favor of option a
clearly it's been communicated that way
from the residents on south drexel whose
voices i believe are the most important
in this matter
here tonight
mr mayor you've mentioned social media
that same message has been projected
through multiple posts there as well
so to reiterate
i'm very much for for option a which uh
is an alignment with the staff
recommendation as well so thank you for
your time thank you
jenny hoffman
hi i'm jenny hoffman
i live at 2618 bryden but we own two
properties on drexel south drexel we own
uh
a um
property at 513 south drexel and 548
south drexel 542 uh where the bexley
chamber of commerce is
so i'm here to speak uh because i spent
a lot of time on draxler in the last
seven years since we acquired the
building and also working for caldwell
banker
um and as the mayor knows i mentioned
him many times about the speed at which
people traveled so i definitely believe
in the cause to reduce the speed on
drexel i myself had an accident leaving
the drexel barber shop one day
not blindsided by someone probably going
50
but i was sighted because i pulled out
in front of them but regardless people
go too fast they also do a lot of
u-turns down there as well so
calming the traffic is
of utmost importance but in my mind the
only way to do that
is option a
um adding a bike lane in my mind one is
against my morals i think an important
need for every city particularly bexley
is our parking we are lacking parking i
was late tonight because i couldn't find
a parking space but
we cannot afford to give up parking on
one side of drexel it's not only for the
commercial area for the
apartments and graders and that
commercial area in that area but also
for csg and uh saint albans which we
rely on drexel for parking um i also
worry about the residents and i'm so
glad they're such a good representation
here
and secondly the safety factor has come
up multiple times and i agree that it's
not going to be safe for bikers on the
busiest road going north south in the
fastest road in bexley if we really want
to find a
safe harbor for them put them on another
street but don't put them when their
speed limit is not
25 miles an hour
um and there are 40 driveways on one
side of the street
herbie counted them for me i think it's
the east side so backing up with a bike
lane is just not a safe issue won't be
good for the drivers it won't be good
for the bikers so
i am strongly opposed to be and i do
hope you consider a as a safe way to
reduce the speed on drexel and support
the community
thank you
pregnos
there we go hi
i'm craig ness i'm a bexley resident i
live at 2576 brighton road
and my wife is a small business owner
her business is located on main street
at drexel
and i also volunteered over the last
couple years as part of the bexley bike
plan steering committee
and during that time
we had some workshops with local
residents
and we had some feedback from residents
about biking and back sleep it was both
encouraging and unfortunate
the encouraging part is a lot of people
said i would love to bike more it would
benefit my health it benefits the planet
but unfortunately i don't feel safe
biking and vexing
that's the unfortunate part
so what can we do for those people
bikers are not a fixed number of people
in the community there are people that
would do it more if we built for that
as a lot of other cities have discovered
if you build streets that are designed
for cars people will drive
if you design streets that are for cars
and for bikes
and offer sustainable transit
alternatives it induces demand so that
people will use those other forms of
transit
so the people who have a real or
perceived danger of biking in bexley are
not being accommodated right now
so option a does not support them
uh i would argue that you cannot say
that you support viking and also support
option a
right now we have a street in bexley
that's very well traveled
it's 25 miles per hour and it has
medians it's called main street
if you've ever biked on main street you
probably realize it's not a very
pleasant experience
why should we repeat that on drexel
i'm asking some of the residents tonight
who have given feedback in favor of
option a and have talked about safety
i want to say i have the same goals of
making safer streets but my question to
you is
if cars are so dangerous
then why are we
making us an option that's only
accommodating cars
for the people who bike or have families
on drexel or live on drexel would you
allow your families to bike on option a
so what would it take for option b to
happen
we'd have to change some habits
we'd have to make some trade-offs
we might have to get a little
uncomfortable
and change often does
involve being uncomfortable
so what i'm asking for is can we all
work together on this
city leaders
residents
the administrators of csg and small
businesses if we know this is the right
thing to do as many other communities
have discovered
if it's better for the greater good then
it's worth it
people look at bexley as a an example of
sustainability
we have many examples of that
unfortunately when it comes to bike
infrastructure we don't have much to
show for it and this is a chance to
change that and my last question is if
we don't do this now then when will we
thanks
thank you
mark seuble please
mark subo 661 south cassingham a street
with parking on one side only
i was also part of the bike study
and learned a lot throughout that whole
year of doing bike rides
so i share a lot of the sentiment of
what craig just said
however i'd like to come back to the
residence i think there's a
misconception that the people in favor
of a bike lane option b
are not in favor of the resonance i
actually feel that option b will be
safer than option a and this is why
people drive the speed of the road that
they're driving because of the way it
looks
a bike lane on one side effectively
narrows that road
so that there's nowhere for them to go
except for straight they can't bump out
into the unus underutilized parking area
so i feel like on the one side it'll
slow traffic even more and make it safer
for everyone there
option a
still provides parking on each side
and in the bike planet identified that
the the street was underutilized parking
wise of course down by main street
that's not the case in csg
uh you know during school but for the
most part the majority of drexel is
underutilized parking there's not a lot
of people parking there so when you
still have parking there even if you
have bump outs the road becomes wide
from that bump out to that bump out so
it's it's going to encourage people to
drive faster from the bump out to the
bump out they'll slow down from the bump
out and then go faster again so i
actually believe option b is going to be
the safer slower option for traffic
i also feel like the parking situation
that was also identified as there's an
abundance during certain hours so
uh you know the case of main street that
is just a certain finite period of time
not all the time
so i feel like option b will be the
safest for both residents
and the greater community as well
additionally bike riders will take this
road they will take drexel
and they will stay in the center of the
lane
they will go 10 to 15 miles per hour
and they will get nervous because cars
will be behind them so they'll get over
to the underutilized parking where
nobody's parking
and then have to dart back into traffic
once they get to the mops so i feel like
that is also a consideration here it's
not going to be that safe for bicyclists
like it is with the bike lane option
thank you
jerry sturman please
good evening
i'm jerry simon 314 south drexel
over 40 years
so i've watched this community grow
i don't know if you know that about 23
years ago this exact topic came to city
council
it was an issue should we put a street
light on drexel and fair
the city the odot came in did the study
determined that there wasn't enough
traffic to warrant the street light
odot recommended speed bumps
nothing happened
one question is did you consider speed
bumps as a viable way to slow traffic
i'll let you answer that later
the
that's the main concern i have i'm not
going to repeat what everybody else has
said
and take up extra time thank you
thank you
[Music]
it in sync
good evening my name is aaron sink i'm
the vice president of ea bikes
we are a non-profit based in central
ohio that works to help people safely
and comfortable ride bikes for
transportation and recreation
i first want to begin by commending all
of you and mayor kessler's leadership
for embarking on that long process to
create the bexley bike plan um we as an
organization were very proud to support
that work from its inception
um and i will say you know that plan did
incorporate through all of the workshops
a wealth of resident feedback really
laying out a vision for a bike-friendly
bexley
and calls out reasonable actionable
steps that the city can take to achieve
that vision
today we're here you know talking about
implementing part of that plan on drexel
yay bikes
fully supports
uh option b with the bike lanes on
drexel avenue
and while creating a high quality bike
lane would necessitate the removal of
some parking um it has already been
noted that uh the contractor that uh
helped through the bexley bike plan did
note that it was revised many hours of
the day
and when that happens uh as has
commented it makes the road appear
visually wider and induces speeding
so really looking at how we can narrow
that down and create those those uh
visual cues to slow drivers is very
important
it will also and doing so will make the
road much safer for everyone whether
they're driving a car
walking down the street or riding a
bicycle through that corridor
this type of high quality bike
infrastructure is likely to entice more
bexley residents to travel by bike
at yay bikes our surveys show that
nearly 60 percent of people in central
ohio are interested in using a bicycle
to make some trip that they're currently
making by car
they also tell us that the most common
barrier preventing them from doing that
is that they don't feel safe that there
are not safe and comfortable bicycle
accommodations what we sometimes refer
to as low stress bicycle infrastructure
so if we are install this kind of
infrastructure and shift even a small
percentage of those trips that are
currently made by car to bicycle we can
have a big impact in the city things
like reducing congestion
and reducing greenhouse gases which i
know you know bexley is a leader
in you know green
initiatives in central ohio um finally
uh numerous studies show that bike
infrastructure has a positive influence
impact on adjacent businesses so
bicyclists uh by these studies are shown
to spend more time in local mom and pop
businesses and spend more money while
they're there
so implementing the bexley bike
plan will not be just good for cyclists
and bexley residents but also for your
thriving business community
so in conclusion on behalf of the
members of ea bikes and those who ride
bikes in central ohio
we strongly support the implementation
of the bike plan and uh prefer option b
as you look at what to do with drexel
avenue so thank you very much
thanks for your participation tonight
michael
geier
i'm michael guyer i live at 389 south
drexel which is
on the west side between bexley park and
brentwood we've lived there 42 years so
i'm familiar with drexel
i don't want to repeat what a lot of
people have said but
option b is absolutely unworkable
you have up at csg
i would encourage anybody who thinks it
is to go up there at three o'clock
and see all the buses parked on one side
all the student cars on the other side
and then south of pal
the
where more students are parking
if we put a bike lane in and we're going
to take it where the school buses can't
come or we're going to take away csg's
parking it doesn't work
number two
we have the church
that has not only services the funerals
weddings
other programs
number three we have the commercial
district down at bexley anybody who's
gotten down there knows that people park
on both sides of the street
that's where the people from drexel
for
giuseppe's for the craters
that's where people park if you're going
to take away half of that parking
two things will happen one is
it'll probably reduce the foot traffic
to those commercial
building businesses and the second thing
is that
people are going to be have to walk a
lot further just to get to those
businesses
so i don't see how
that benefits anybody at all
in terms of a bike lane
i ride my bike all the time
i ride down drexel to bryden to parkview
and get on the
three creeks bike path which is totally
safe and you can ride for 20 30 miles if
you want to we're just talking about a
little strip and that's not going to
bring a whole slew of bikers just to
ride this little strip back and forth
it's not going to happen
so i don't think
that a bike
lean on drexel
accomplishes anything really
but taking away parking is really
detrimental
and then the other piece of it is
400 feet to the west you have columbia
that has no traffic i ride my bike up
there all the time
uh and you didn't have to paint a bike
lane
it's perfectly safe to ride on columbia
uh so why do we have to put a bike lane
at the busiest street in drexel in
north north south street
in bexley
so
for those reasons i would strongly
encourage that we do away with option b
and not even think about it and say just
go by csg at three o'clock
and figure out where are we going to put
the bike lane
one other thing or two other things
the consultants
mentioned the problem median and
driveways
every
house
on the west side of drexel has a
driveway
so
i don't know how you're going to do the
media because
there's no
uh alley
between brexit between draxler and
columbia
so everybody has a driveway
and
the last thing
is mary you mentioned it was a state
route and i was under the impression
that drexel was a federal highway
route 40
units route 40.
we'll get to questions
okay thank you thanks thank you
reverend j devin rogers please
good evening i'm
breaking the microphone
i'm uh father james evan rodgers uh the
priest at st albans on drexel avenue
um
my major concern with drexel avenue has
been for the last three years since i've
been in bexley the safety factor um as
many of you know last winter one of um
there was a resident who was hit in the
crosswalk at fair
in drexel and since then i've been
paying attention to the traffic on
drexel avenue and it is very dangerous
aside from the safety which
the i'm happy to see the city council is
addressing
is also the issue of accessibility
uh saint albans has been in bexley for
100 years we are celebrating our 100th
anniversary this year
and for 50 of those years um the slogan
of the episcopal church has been the
episcopal church welcomes you
we've added to that at saint albans the
episcopal church welcomes you no
exceptions
which means that it has to be accessible
to be welcoming
unfortunately being that we are on the
west side of the street all of our
handicap accessible parking is also on
the west side of the street
and that just does not affect
parishioners to attend worship at saint
albans it affects at least five or six
12-step groups that meet there
it affected the jeffrey care program
that met in our education building
during the pandemic it affect affects
the harmony project
and we want to make sure that our church
is open and accessible all people who
use it
thank you
dennis howard
good evening everyone my name is dennis
howard i live at 267 south drexel
i've been there for 25 years
a lot of people have brought up issues
that i
had intended to mention but one question
that i present to the council is what's
involved in getting a stop sign at the
corner of fair and drexel
it's it's a mile from maine to broad
and
having lived there for 25 years
i've seen people going well past 45
miles an hour down the street
and if you have some
reason to stop halfway that may begin to
slow speeds down to the 25 you want to
get to
i'm very much support option a and
i would propose that there is an option
c which someone had already mentioned
which would be
if i'm visiting my daughter who lives on
sherwood and drexel and i'm riding a
bike i don't ride on drexel i ride over
to columbia and
why such efforts are being made to
accommodate
bikers on what is truly probably the
fastest street in bexley for the longest
distance
i think could easily be addressed by
suggesting people right on columbia i
walked it yesterday from
abroad to bryden there were two cars
that were parked there
and only two cars drove by in 15 minutes
it took to walk
thank you thank you
robert ferran
mary kessler members of city council
good evening my name is robert ferran i
live at 147 north merkel road in north
bexley
first i think there's two things that i
should that
i've seen tonight that is really makes
bexley special
one uh the fact that this council and
this mayor is so accessible
that doesn't happen often so i commend
this whole team on the diet on the dice
here that has been very responsive to
all the of the
stakeholder input
into the fact that we can have public
discourse in this community ranging in
various
sides of the table here um and have it
um have it really
um
be uh
really have a fruitful discussion here
both online social media and person
those are things that we should not take
for granted um my wife and my wife and
twin nine-year-olds moved to bexley just
over four years ago and have enjoyed
living in a progressive and open
community where we feel we can get
involved and make a difference
we love using our own two feet whether
walking or biking to explore our
community and the many resources it has
to offer
this led me to personally participate in
the development of the bexley bike plan
the bexley bike plan called for a number
of enhancements to the transportation
system to not only make our community
safer and more accessible for cyclists
but all road users as was mentioned this
plan was commissioned by mayor kessler
and was unanimously approved by council
back in august of 21.
when the drexel
avenue project came up i was really
excited because it was going to be one
of the first implementation measures of
that bike plan it was to create that
network i won't go into more detail the
mayor
well laid out what was in that plan
to the credit of the mayor as we looked
at the different options the option of
the bexley of of the of these bike lanes
came into play and i commend him as well
as city's consultant team for looking at
this option
i agree with a lot of folks to support
option 8
the stated community goals
where i differ from folks who who uh
look at option a
is that the best option of these two is
option b
to install vertically separated two-way
protected bike lane recycle track
this vertical separation is designed to
be four feet wide and presents a great
opportunity to not only protect cyclists
and offer superior pedestrian experience
but also beautify drexel avenue with
plantings and other features
i appreciate director bayshore's uh
challenges that may come with
maintaining it that being said there are
plenty of cities around this country
that
can maintain those bike facilities and
it will provide again a superior bike
um
certainly a cycling experience and
safety experience but also also for
people walking
the plan notes however that parking
parking loss is certainly
cars parked on the street when a
gentleman walked up and down the street
the plan the bike plan notes that
parking is under utilized on drexel
that increases speeds
and increases cycling safety issues
with the exception of parking demand
your main street as well as csg
you've heard from stakeholders tonight
that parking is important to residents
along the corridor option b preserves
parking on one side of the street
supporters of option b have collected
data on the corridor and have found that
every home
has access to either a driveway
garage or side street parking
parking should not be the reason bike
lanes are not installed on drexel
option b puts people first
option b prioritizes all road users
in my opinion option a will not slow
down traffic effectively
option a prioritizes the privatization
of a public street this is a public
street a community asset
for the purposes of storing vehicles
option a will have a detrimental effect
on cycling safety by creating pinch
points at every intersection as is
illustrated above
and again with limited demand for
on-street parking
these and with installation of medians
you're effectively providing vehicles
even more space to travel
drivers will not reduce their speeds
drivers have only been shown to reduce
their speeds when you physically
constrain the space in which they drive
option b presents the best option
drexel avenue between maine and abroad
is unique street in bexley it's the only
north south street that does not have a
stock controlled intersection and is and
is also signalized it's also a state
route
the uniqueness of drexel has been its
downfall motorists using it to speed
through our city you've heard that from
folks who have been in support of option
a or option b we need a unique creative
solution for a unique corridor like
drexel we need to slow down speeds with
option b we have a great opportunity to
improve safety and access for all road
users in our community
as was mentioned before there are folks
that want to ride their bikes in this
community and feel unsafe to do so
i'm gonna go back to my nine-year-olds
this morning i reminded them i was going
to city council to fight for the bike
lanes and not take them to swim practice
we've had many discussions about this in
our family i told them i wasn't sure the
bike lanes would be agreed to
my daughter looked at me and asked why
people don't want the bike lanes
everyone loves bike lanes
my response unfortunately people like
their parking more it's not just
bexley's all across this country
i ask that council put people first
support option b
and lean in to implement
a progressive and sustainable
transportation solution that bexley is
known for
let's prioritize people over parking
thank you for the time this evening on
this important community decision i
appreciate it thank you
larry golden
hello my name is larry golden um myself
and my wife are attorneys and we're
located at 542 south drexel avenue
first i agree with everybody's concept
that safety is paramount and first and
no matter what that's our first concern
now to the other points i presume
bexley's idea at the southern edge of
drexel is to have a mix of businesses on
the ground floors and apartments above
the current state of affairs
from personal experience
from many times that i've been there
there's generally a shortage of
on-street parking in this area
if the final plan is to eliminate
parking on one side of the street plan b
and or to have very extensive bump outs
which we see in the plant up there which
would again eliminate parking spaces
the current on-street parking situation
in that area will obviously get worse
if that
actually in fact happens the only option
for me my wife's law firm
as the situation and the parking will
get worse
is to vacate our current commercial shy
and with that it's related tax yet
revenues
besides my wife due to her physical
condition cannot walk long distances
also it is my opinion the idea of the
medians in the street are quite
questionable
how does this work well
when fire trucks or ambulance have to
get to an emergency while there is
street congestion say to capitol
university or the drexel theater please
think about this
accordingly please carefully rethink
your position as it relates to the
southern end of drexel avenue
with its bump outs or more limited
parking as such will result in field or
relocating businesses with the related
result of loss of tax revenues in
storefronts
in a nutshell in closing
i do prefer option a
but please minimize the length of the
bump outs and really think hard about
the street mediums thank you for your
time thank you
[Music]
ruth ellen weaver
i live in
bexley as well as have a law office at
542 south drexel
and i have a large glass window and i
have the pleasure of looking out
on a number of people who are not here
tonight because they're probably working
uh shearboard burke bakery
bexley barbershop drake's framing art
access
even giuseppe's i don't know if they're
going to be here or not speak after me
but i can tell you they need the parking
i need the parking because i don't walk
so well i meet a lot of nice people who
offer me help and encourage me
but
i park in front of my law office
seven days a week briefly to load and
unload files and on the weekends to work
i'm an essential worker i work with
abused children i can tell you that
child abuse domestic violence has not
gone down during the pandemic
and i am very proud when in court they
say
she's a bexley lawyer and i've heard the
judges say that from the bench multiple
times and it feels really good
i'm proud to live here i'm proud to work
here
i don't want anything for myself at the
price of one of the businesses at the
south end
um i do have my offices on the east side
um i will adjust to everything that i
have to adjust to to keep them in
business because they were closed down
and it gives my heart great joy to see
like sherborg bakery
expand
to see people having their coffees with
their dogs out front and also tell you
what miss hoffman said u-turns oh boy
are they happening all the time people
park
heading north on the east side of the
street you turn to go over to the giant
eagle
ambulances fire engines multiple times a
week i'm probably the only person in the
room though that's been passed on a
regular basis
uh on drexel because obviously i follow
the speed limit or below for safety
reasons i've seen a number of kids
nearly get killed
well i won't say killed but they could
have been hit because they're small that
people aren't looking for them they're
about to bicycle into those crosswalks
they're used to crosswalks
i am so grateful to you all for
listening to us
i know how much you care
i've been in other communities where we
have gone through this with the bump
outs i will say please be careful on the
south end not to eliminate any of the
parking
think about what it would be like if
there were no sherburg mercury if there
were no bexley barbershop
if there were no greg's framing or art
access these are the things that make
bexley a unique community i love the
residents on drexel they are wonderful
they smile they wave i don't want
anything to hurt them either so i think
we can do this if we all listen to each
other thank you
thank you and thank you for your
important service
i'm jay westner
[Music]
jay leshner
um jennifer cicarelli
thank you very much
good evening mayor kessler good evening
city council thank you so much for uh
your time this evening um as so many
people have said i'm grateful to all of
you for
being willing to listen to public
discourse
my address jennifer ciccarelli my
address is um 80 south columbia is where
my residence 65 south drexel is columbus
school for girls of which i am the head
i'm here to um support
safety always
i care for 542 girls in bexley
one of them is my own um she loves to
bike on south drexel
with me because i don't let her go alone
csg supports option a
i won't repeat the things that have been
said except to say
we try really hard to be great community
members
we have students who come from over 50
zip codes
they drive in they park um we also have
buses that come in um to try to
eliminate some of that need for parking
and they park twice a day
right on backs on drexel so um thank you
again for your time
we want to be safe we want to be good
community members and
have a great evening thank you thank you
for contributing tonight
rebecca ness
hello everyone
i'm rebecca ness i wasn't planning on
being here tonight i was actually
sitting at home
listening to the meeting and
giving my boys dinner and i wasn't
hearing my my views being shared here so
i got boots on my kids i don't think
they're wearing socks and
and here we are
um so
and i also don't do things like this i
don't scribble on paper when i'm
when i'm going to talk somewhere i have
my thoughts
so please bear with me
uh if if this plan were proposed on
bryden or fair or any other street
residents in those streets would show up
to protect their interests um
and we would hear how they're being
inconvenienced
but considering the state of the planet
and the climate i think we need to think
bigger than ourselves
i think that's an inconvenient truth
i think we need to put ourself in our
ourselves
we need to put our self-interest aside
and think about each other
and think about the community and think
about the planet
this is bigger than us
my business is on the corner of
um drexel and maine
and um i have bigger concerns than
parking spots for my patients i'm an
acupuncturist i see a lot of people
coming in with asthma people who have
been um hit by cars
both cyclists cyclists pedestrians i see
people who have been in car accidents
and have years of pain as a result
and i think
more important than having parking spots
for those patients
the best that i can do right now is
protect them from being injured and to
protect their air quality and i think
the more cars we get off the streets and
the more bikes that we get onto the
streets
that's the best that we can do
i think if we build it they will come if
we build
that that bike lane we'll have more
cyclists and less cars on the street
so i'm obviously in favor of the bike
lane that's all i had time to scribble
down in between getting boots on for my
kids
and um thank you for listening to all of
our concerns
thank you
thank you okay
we appreciate you making the effort to
come in tonight
thank you thank you to the nest children
for coming as well
um
uh carolyn harding please
hi good evening
i'm carolyn harding i live in
north
roosevelt with roosevelt
so
i don't live in drexel
and i'm hearing
what the majority of drexel people are
saying
um
they want their parking and safety
and
i can respect that very much
um
it was important city council
to hear it um
what i did really like was i i don't
really like option a or b
i'd like an option c
and i don't know if there's possibility
that you can
keep
having a conversation about this but
i thought the gentleman that talked
about having a bike lane in the middle
i don't know if that's practical or
engineering-wise possible but it
wouldn't take away the parking spots
and i really do agree with
folks that maybe want to
stop stop light
or bump or bump you know speed bumps i
live on near maryland i go off to
maryland to james and there's new speed
bumps and then we don't go fast on those
speed bumps they're such a pain
so um i'm all about sustainability you
guys
bexley's really ahead
of a lot of communities in
sustainability
we're progressive and it's exciting
and so
i think
whether we do a bike lane on drexel or
if we do
interesting bike lanes on other streets
i think it's important that we
really
go ahead and get a bike plan and get it
set i'm not sure why drexel was picked
out because i don't know
what feeds into drexel and where it goes
from drexel or is it just this
you know
one little block that's a
bike lane
so
maybe other streets can work better
than drexel
but i really love the fact that you're
doing a bike lane and also
another thing someone said was it is a
main artery into
the city of bexley and it's beautiful
and perhaps if you did put a bike lane
in the middle it would show
[Music]
our community and all communities around
that we value this that this is part of
what we want to do we want to move
protect
what we've been
but add to where we're going
so
i just think there's some great ideas
here
and i i don't think we have to make a or
b quite yet unless there's a time frame
and we have to
but i think the bike plans really
important i understand
how people feel
on drexel
and
and i think the safety
and listening to the voices
and
doing the bike plan
is the way we got to go
thanks
thank you
okay this may be our last speaker slip
um whitney car please
hi i'm whitney car i live on 799
montrose so again thank you so much
for giving everyone the opportunity to
give feedback i really appreciate that
and and you know drexel is an important
street because it is a major north south
artery
um
so a couple of years ago my family
decided to go down to one car and we are
fortunate that we live close to where we
work but it was an
you know an experiment we were trying we
were also fortunate to live in bexley
where most things are you know a mile or
two miles a lot of amenities are
so we really use our bikes as a mode of
transportation and not just
recreationally
um and i think that um
you know having this this bike lane a
protected bike lane
um is going to make it convenient for
people to use bikes and i think it's
that convenience that's going to get
more people
um to use them you know it's that ease
um you know i i've biked my daughter to
jeffree mansion preschool and um
eat cobbling together side streets and
it just would be a game changer to be
able to have a major roan with a
protected bike lane um to be able to go
to jeffrey mansion and go to different
festivals i think it would you know more
people would go and use the main street
businesses you know on their bikes um
and i and i do think you know this is a
good thing for the future i mean the
city of columbus is
planning um you know transportation
initiatives on main street and on broad
street and so to be able to have a
protected bike lane in the middle
linking those um i think it's a good
thing for the future also as a driver
i i prefer a protected bike lane instead
of bikes darting in and out of traffic
and acting unpredictably so i support
option two but ultimately i think both
options are gonna help slow down traffic
um
so yeah option b thank you
well done mr auditor
i'm to turn this uh
week three and you are in fine form
i'm going to turn this back over to the
mayor to respond to any comments or
questions uh before we uh go to uh city
council for discussion thank you mr
president and uh
gina and dave
and andy if you can prepare to pitch hit
on this a little bit
um
points of clarification based on
comments that came up
there were some questions about business
district parking
and it's clear that
it was true that the the option b the
bike lane schematic has not
been completed that there was showing a
cross section of what it might look like
but in discussion with um our traffic
planners
the the concept had been that
essentially south of sherwood
they would transition into a share row
on main street and bikes would be
transferred to that arrangement so that
commercial district parking would be
preserved
and
our own studies have have indicated that
even in the most
overflow situations with parking on
drexel
it's unusual to have
commercial parking on the west side of
drexel north of what we call short
brighton
so that just wanted
to offer that as a point of
clarification
um
mid-block crossing signs getting hit
yeah they get hit everywhere
so that is true that is an indication of
drexel but just rest assured uh that is
not an unusual uh condition throughout
the city
let's get it and it's part of our budget
that we know they get hit uh when we are
ready to replace them every time they
get hit and uh i just wanted to to
to clarify that somebody mentioned that
i mentioned social media that's true i
was not endorsing social media i want to
make that very clear i think that this
discourse is far superior and i
appreciate and thank all of you
and we're honored to have you here this
evening
um
speed bumps were raised by several
different speakers
i'll make a quick comment and then i
would like the team to also add to that
columbus does not put speed bumps on
streets that they plow routinely
uh you might notice that so
while um
they might plow in in extreme severe
weather you know that one of our things
that we do we pride ourselves on is we
plow
all the time so we plow all of our
streets thoroughly
speed bumps our enemies to plows
there's also some liability associated
with speed bumps and distracted driving
so
i didn't know if andy or or dave or gina
you want to add to
the limited utility of speed bumps in a
setting like this
yeah one thing to add to that is that as
residents along that road speed bumps
can be
noisy
for those living right outside that um
so that's one thing to think about you
know we don't like to
put them there unless it's a last resort
i would say so you know you can it's
always something that you can think
about in the future you know if we have
the bump outs um we have the median you
know option a option b either one
if that doesn't work to slow down
traffic like we intend it to
um it's always a last resort option that
can still be on the table and discussed
in the future sure and gene don't don't
get too comfortable because i have a
couple more questions that will be
targeted towards you and to clarify last
resort but specifically within a context
of our community and the way in which we
plow and maintain the streets it's it's
more problematic than in some other
contexts
um state route versus federal highway
that was brought up yeah so it is it's
technically a u.s route
they're correct but as far as what that
means to the city of bexley u.s route
state route it's
tomato to motto to the city okay yeah
thanks for saving my face i appreciate
that
um stop sign it fair and drexel uh
there's a question about adding a stop
sign i know there there was i actually
learned something i love learning new
things i did not know that there had
been a previous community conversation
many many years ago about a light so i
know we've looked at it though so yes so
um a few things to answer with that so
we did a you said there was a signal
warrant analysis basically done by odot
in the past and we
did the same thing again so we collected
count data at that intersection
and in order to put a traffic signal you
have to have
traffic volumes that warrant the need
for that signal
and we do not have those volumes on the
side streets of drexel
so
traffic signal is not an option
and the other option of putting a stop
sign on drexel
in the traffic engineering community we
do not like to put stop signs as a form
of speed control
because basically what people do is you
travel the speed that you want to travel
you get to that stop sign you stop
and then you
go right back to that high speed that
you were traveling
um and if if not that you try to make up
for that lost time that you had at that
stop sign um so stop signs are are not a
form of speed control
in the traffic engineering community the
real form of speed control is the bump
outs the medians
those vertical barriers that
narrow the traffic um the traffic lanes
and make you feel like you need to drive
slower
okay thank you gina um
and i think
the
you might want to add to this i'm not
sure the crosswalk visibility
there was a question
about
i'm going to bundle this with another
question
there's a question in
option a about
would the bump or a comment that the
bump outs would further reduce parking
um
that is true it will further reduce
parking a little bit on drexel avenue
much less so near the commercial
districts and csg because that is the
option we've studied more
more so in the middle where there is a
lot less parking in general
um the reduction is relatively minimal
uh in especially on the south side but
it comes at a great uh at a great
benefit which is to have extended bump
outs answers a lot of the concerns that
people have had in talking this evening
an extended bump means that the
pedestrians that are about to enter the
crosswalk are eminently visible to
traffic there are no cars on either side
to distract that you would see a
pedestrian in that tree line
also as you come into the intersection
and you're looking to
take a right or left-hand turn you as a
driver with the bump out scenario all
you have in that section is grass you
have a much clearer view of who's coming
and who's not so
it has a lot of safety benefits it has a
very marginal cost in parking because
there is already a fairly extensive no
park zone near intersections not always
followed but it'll be much much more
followed with the bump outs there
we also have spoken at length with the
fire department about medians
our our fire department columbus fire
department
is um
is actually
not not only are they neutral they are
advocates for medians
um while there are situations where
drivers might be blocking flow around
medians
the guys who drive the trucks
and girls feel very confident about
their ability to navigate around the
situations and more importantly
find that they result in safer
conditions they are making less ems runs
as a result of having slower traffic and
a safer pedestrian interface so
we've consistently had that feedback
from the fire department as recently as
two weeks ago so that's that is
continues to be their perspective on
medians
um
anything else gina dave or andy
i think you got it
okay
yeah ben i i think the uh the point on
speed bumps are probably
not not reasonable to expect on a on a
street like drexel with the volumes of
traffic
and the
the volume of traffic
slowing up and speeding up again slowing
down and speeding up again or hitting
the pumps too fast
causes more noise than a steady flow of
traffic and a lot of people who live on
streets
and who have experienced that
would uh would be able to verify that in
particular
the gould road
where we have uh
not speed bumps but a better design
speed table
which is
if we did anything at all in the future
that would be more likely what we would
do that allows a moderate slowdown not a
complete slowdown but a moderate
slowdown
in it and say 20 25 miles an hour so the
the speed bump is turned into a table
which is longer and it doesn't have as
sharp as a rise
however that in itself would be
something uh that we'd pull out at the
very end if we didn't achieve our goals
through other other methods that were
easier to maintain and caused
less traffic problems
uh less accidents people who hit speed
tables or bumps too fast generally lose
control of their vehicles and they hit
other vehicles or go off the roadway so
that's not it's it's not a it's not an
easy solution it still has a cost plus
it's hard on equipment for this for the
snow plowing and uh
and other street maintenance so
thank you dave
okay
thank you at this time i'm going to uh
call an end to the public comments
section uh of this and turn it over to
city council i would like to thank
everybody for coming out i mean i
speaks well of this community have such
turnout here
uh such passionate debate and also such
respectful debate among people who feel
very strongly one way or another
at this point i'll go ahead and take
comments questions from city council
uh just please
miss assad i wanted to come back to gina
yup question for you
again we're learning tonight from the
residents as we go which is a great
thing um and some of the things that
people have brought up i hadn't heard
before
the um stoplights that we were just
talking about on drexel you mentioned
that the traffic studies show the volume
isn't there what volume what's the
number
oh uh i don't know those numbers off the
top of my head um there's eight traffic
signal warrants um that are options to
be met
most of them deal with
the volume of traffic like vehicle
traffic um some of them look at
pedestrian traffic and cyclists
and other safety issues
and i will say that
and some of it is the peak hour warrant
so you know you have heavy am traffic
you have heavy pm traffic but then maybe
not that much traffic throughout the
rest of the day um other warrants look
at all of the volumes throughout the day
collectively
so there's a lot that goes into it but i
can say with certainty it did not meet
the traffic signal warrants
and we also
grew those volumes into the future as
well so you think about how the area
columbus in general is growing traffic
is growing um so we projected those
traffic volumes into the future
and again did not meet signal warrants
um so i think that can say with
certainty uh traffic signals not
warranted
i have just a second question for gina
if i may troy
um
so from what we're kind of hearing
tonight it sounds like the goal of a lot
of people in the room is the 25 mile per
hour speed limit on drexel
so what exactly
would we be looking at as far as the
traffic study to prove and petition odot
to be able to become a 25 mile per hour
street on drexel
yeah so
historically odot's guidance is that you
have to have um 85 of the traffic
needs to be driving
at or below
the speed that you want
so basically you need people to be
driving if you want the posted speed
limit to be 25 you need people to be
driving
25 miles per hour they've lowered that a
bit so that instead of having to meet
what we call the 85th percentile it's
now the 50th percentile when you're
considering the fact that there's
pedestrians there's cyclists in the area
so those vulnerable
road users need to be considered as well
so basically we need fifty percent of
that traffic to be driving
that desired speed um and
and like the mayor was saying it's bit
of a chicken and egg situation we can't
just go out and put
speed limit signs saying drive the speed
that we want you to drive because the
truth is that people don't follow the
speed limit signs you know
so you need to put the infrastructure
out there to make people feel like they
need to drive the speed limit that we
want them to be driving
um and then we can post the speed limit
that we want
and and then
people will be driving 25 miles per hour
and it's debut and gina's recommendation
that in doing that to get the best
results to achieve what
the majority of the room was talking
tonight about the 25 miles per hour
would be
your recommendation as
the mediums over the bike lanes
i think you're right i think
the bike lanes there was a good point
one of the
presenters made that the bike lanes
would be more continuous
and perhaps
perhaps there would be some
consideration there but for the most
part i think the the combination of both
a median
and a bump out in close proximity
are going to create a traveling for each
direction that is
narrower are approximately what we're
going to call 11 feet
lanes much more effective than a wide
open roadway
without the medians in other words if
you have
20 30 feet on one side of the bicycle
lane
that isn't going to be as effective
if there's no
traffic on the roadway versus a actual
physical constriction of down to 11 feet
so that's the that's
now it won't be continuous for the whole
length of the roadway but where it is at
intersections is particularly helpful to
have vehicles slow down where there is
cross traffic coming on the street
ms lamkin
gina sorry to call you back up or maybe
dave as well um i had two questions as
well
um the first is
do we
have the ability to ban u-turns on
drexel given that it's
a
state or federal
road
uh yeah i believe i mean city of
columbus has their own rules against
u-turns in the city so i think bexley
can do the same thing if they want to
um and yeah we did do what we'd call um
like vehicle turning movements where we
have it kind of looks like a stencil of
a vehicle trying to make a u-turn
because this was a conversation we had
with the mayor in the past you know can
vehicles make u-turns around these
medians if we just made the medium
continuous
um and and just the width of drexel does
not allow us to have u-turns um you
could maybe do it in a very small like
miata or you know some vehicles could
pull it off but um your standard vehicle
would have a really difficult time
making you turn around that i asked that
because i a resident mentioned it and i
i have seen a good number of u-turns on
drexel so i assume that with either
option one or two
given that we would be changing the road
diet some it would make it harder but
if it doesn't
what i hear you saying is that we could
ban your turns on drexel
right yes yes absolutely okay my second
question was
the medians and the bump outs for either
option
what materials would that consist of
it's hard for me
as a lawyer to kind of imagine what that
would look at and how high they would be
and what would they be comprised of
yeah i would i would say that
the minor details of those i don't know
that we've gotten into specifically yet
um you know the the whole idea is that
we would make them
nice and and but beautify the street and
everything like that um so the idea is
the bump outs would you know be some
type of
grass and you know i i don't know
whatever you want to put in it to make
it look beautiful i would say that we
would maybe have some restrictions in
the height of that just to make sure
that we have sight distance for vehicles
turning from the side streets
you can see pedestrians standing in the
bump outs you know we don't want to have
any sight distance issues but i would
say the the minor details of that i
don't know that we've worked out yet
i'll let you
yeah
mr lamke
really it's just a changing the curb and
and all the bump out is is uh as a
concrete curb so the concrete curves
that line the street currently are in a
straight line
and if you can imagine them coming in or
bumping in
versus bumping out it really they're
bumping in
we just change the alignment we remove
the current the current curb and then
move it into the street
so that's that's typically what it is
and behind it
is uh is going to be a combination of
sidewalk and grass and that that's
basically what it is and we could
easily provide
you some photos of similar things to
to take a look at so
really simple right thank you both
the side of the room ms robinson
thank you president martin um first of
all i'd like to um ask robert farin if
we could um trademark the people over
parking i thought that was such a great
great comment it made me smile
um
and i think you know
we live in a city that we have i mean
clearly we have people coming who
can and want to share
their thoughts about what what we're
doing and we're so lucky uh that we live
in a community where people feel free to
to share
and i i don't think that people it
should be people over parking or people
versus parking i think we can have both
and i think this conversation will
ultimately lead us
to
a solution that doesn't
affect the parking for businesses and
schools and other things on drexel but
also allows us to create that
connectivity between north bexley and
south bexley
biking um i do have a question for andy
bayshore if your
lovely face could show up on our screen
um
he's coming i was gonna say is the mayor
going to let him back in
andy you there
i am
um andy uh my question for you um i know
when we spoke earlier um you started to
talk about you know what those bike
lanes would mean in terms of services
for the city and i wondered if you could
clarify for us a little bit what that
you mentioned earlier the resident
obligations i just want to make sure
that residents here and for people who
you know are interested in this issue
they understand like for example the
snow removal what does that mean and
what does that mean for the residents
who are on that side where the bike
lanes are
yeah uh
miss robinson it would mean now um
after this last snowstorm i think every
resident in the city has had to shovel
their driveway approach um
if the residents lived on the side of
the bike lane they would have their
driveway approach and then plus some of
the bike lane to clear
you know after the plows go by
that would be one
one issue then the other
major concern would be leaf collection
okay
all right thanks
mr klingler
i'm not sure who's
able to answer this maybe our engineers
but mr mcpeek and i and other parents
often ride through old town east from
bexley to downtown columbus
and we ride on i think it's bryden
and they have large i mean large
bicycles
for like a bicycle boulevard
with cars parked on both sides of the
street
my question is if we and i heard from
the bike group um
that that if we if the median if we went
the median route
um you'd have bicyclists um
kind of going over into the unused
parking space and then and then coming
out into traffic if we went the median
route
and we we made it a bike boulevard as
well
does it make it more dangerous
for bicyclists or
or would that be it would that be a good
solution it's kind of i think mr coke
you you were kind of alluding that right
um in the beginning
as far as i don't want to put words in
your mouth i thought you mentioned that
but
mr mr klingler i i don't
know the exact
configuration on bryden road
but
i will i will say there has been some
discussion and ideas and their good
ideas about
you know locating a
either a bike lane in the center of the
road
or
to provide sharos which are bicycle
pavement markings
that go down the road and i think maybe
maybe you're talking about shiro's i'm
not sure i don't know what they're
called i just know they're huge and they
like everyone can see them cyclists and
cars going down the road and i think
here that it's a bike boulevard
you know i've i've heard a lot of of
preferences and i don't know if the the
lady from yay bikes is here who can who
can really talk about cheryl's and we
had discussions with uh with them when
we uh
talked about broad street and
and
an opinion at the time
when we talked about sharrows which are
just pavement markings that look like a
bicycle yeah with two chevron arrows
okay
basically they're there to indicate that
the motor should watch out for bicycles
and share the road with them and the
bicyclist on the other hand should look
at that and say i need to take the
center of the road and not the edge of
the road so that
vehicles don't try to pass
and
actually you can occupy the road you
have that right legally in ohio to drive
in the road as a bicyclist
and so the shero is a is a communication
tool that's what it is
and in option a
with the bump out in the median
bicyclists are still allowed legally to
occupy the roadway to use the lanes the
same lanes
that
that vehicles use with it with the
addition of shareholders that's
communicated
that they should be in the lane and they
with training they should occupy the
middle of the lane and not try to go to
the side
and then create a situation where a
vehicle tries to pass them without
sufficient buffer which is in ohio now
defined by law i think it's three feet
that they're supposed to allow but
how do you gauge that as a vehicle you
know as a driver of
so so the shiro idea is that
it's a it's a tool to communicate to
both drivers and bicyclists what what
the nature of the roadway is
to expound on what mr koch is saying a
bicycle boulevard is used in a low-speed
environment where there's like ample
room
um so
we have in our bike plan the
recommendation to create bicycle
bullwide rats and we've started working
on that
those the streets that were identified
are um you know sherwood
uh sheridan and mound and maryland and
in those sorts of streets we've talked
about columbia or parkview
it's not a change to the infrastructure
it's those prominent signs that are just
designed to encourage the comfort of
cyclists going on the street and and
alert drivers that is a designated
route drexel the the development chair
on a bicycle boulevard is that if drexel
continued to be a
a busy street that with high speeds it
wouldn't be ideal for bicycle boulevard
but if the plan is successful in slowing
traffic and calming it so the drexel
feels more similar to other residential
streets in bexley
that that could be something that gets
considered down the road
and i i if mr president if it's okay if
aaron from yay bikes would like yeah she
has something to contribute here i think
it would be helpful
thanks for the input
well thank you mayor kessler did a
wonderful job describing the difference
between the two i would say you know
drexel as it currently is and i will say
i'm not a traffic engineer or urban
planner but would seem to be
inappropriate for a bicycle boulevard
just based on the speeds and the traffic
volumes
one of the big differences i think
between a separated bicycle facility so
a bike lane and a shero
really has to do with the comfort of
those
carry those people who i call bike
curious they want to ride but they
really need something
that feels low stress to them and riding
with cars simply doesn't get that done
um you know i think the the families
that we talked about riding with their
kids who came in here are really the
types of folks that we're talking about
and when you're thinking about the type
of accommodation that's appropriate for
them and who you're wanting to ride so
as you're weighing the different options
i think those are really what we see
kind of are the differences and impacts
of those different types of
infrastructure design
thank you
mr klingler anything else
um
no thanks for all of your
wisdom i appreciate it mr mayor the only
other question and you may have answered
it if so i apologize but i know mrs
harding was asking about our deadline
what sort of hard deadlines do we have
on
deciding and and starting this work
start with mr cook because he's the
master of the opwc grants uh and then
i'll talk him down off the cliff if he
gets too dramatic
it's uh
thank you mr markov for the question uh
originally my
it's all goals it's all gold driven
right now and and i'm the one that's
been trying to set goals and and move
everyone towards a goal
my goal originally was to do the
underground work which we're going to
start here shortly
and then follow that with paving
and in between the two i would have
liked to prefer to construct some of
these
improvements that we talked about on the
concrete curbs
so that we could try to compress all
that into one season and what's what's
occurring to me and what's being
reinforced
is that
the this other activity the
the decision regarding what to do with
surface improvements to
promote safety for pedestrians and
bicycles is going to take a longer time
so at the end of this season we had
scheduled and arranged and coordinated
with odot to come in and resurface
drexel avenue
and we have a
now we've
kind of softened our schedule to allow
for more time
for this discussion and the construction
to take place
so now it looks more likely in what
we've informed them
being myself informed odot is that
likely that won't be until next year
and so but still
you know that the exact timing of it
is going to depend on when when we can
actually come to a consensus
and then develop plans and put them out
to bed and get the work constructed if
we take too much time now it seems like
it's early in the year because it's
basically not the construction season
hasn't started yet but we need some time
to
prepare plans and then put it out to bid
and then get a contractor on board and
then actually do the work
the best case scenario is that
and this is a goal again
my current goal is to start the
construction sometime this year which
means
if you back it up
from let's say construction season ends
on thanksgiving typically traditionally
the weather
concrete for concrete goes below
freezing and we can't
we can't do a whole lot of more asphalt
concrete work after that time
so if you
and i have a construction window of for
these improvements just talking about
the roadway and the concrete curb and
and some of the curb ramps and sidewalks
and things like that that are needed
or whatever whatever fashion it's going
to take
i would say probably four months
we need for that so if we back it up to
july
and then it takes us another
one to two months typically for bidding
and contracting
that takes me back to
may
that means that we need to be
out to bid in may
so that means if i back up from mid-may
on a period of time to develop plans so
i'm going to need
another
maybe three months
to do that
so that takes us back to
tonight
so so you know likely what will happen
the most likely scenario is that we
won't get started in
that time frame and it'll the
construction of these improvements will
start this year but overlap
in the next
year and and to kind of further
expand on that i think there's an
important no matter what happens option
a b or c
c is the theoretical you know third
option floating out there i think it's
going to be important for residents on
drexel avenue to have a chance to look
at schematics so we've talked about like
well what happens
at the corner of this so-and-so street
and right next to my driveway
um i think that that would i would like
us to have those schematics developed
circulate it to residents and businesses
impacted
get their feedback on the specifics so
that we can hone anything that we might
not have thought about
um so
um
it would be it would be important for us
to make this decision in the coming
weeks
um
to answer that question
thank you
any other uh comments or questions from
city council
mr do you have anything to add to the
end of this
well i was kind of hoping to get a sense
from council from bringing this before
you kind of what what your perspective
is on having been presented with the
options
so that that helps us inform the
decisions as you guys know typically
roadways are our projects infrastructure
projects in general are funded through
council through our budget
and then
myself as the administrator and our team
is tasked with completing those projects
from time to time we have projects like
this that
are just a little more a little
different rise to a higher level of
focus
and um i think it's it's best for our
residents to this be a team decision
that not just be left to me it's also
best for me that it'd be a team decision
and not left to me so i would really
like to have council feedback that's a
little bit more definitive at this point
if that's possible and if not knowing
from council members what more they need
to do that all right how about we throw
that out there then uh who mr klingler
um yeah so i'm very much in favor of
bike routes and boulevards
throughout our city as well as
continuing to explore what we can do to
make biking and walking safer in bexley
i want to i didn't know them before
tonight but i want to personally thank
the bexley biking group specifically
mark subal and robert ferran
for educating me more on the bicycle
lane concept
for their passion for this and their
expertise on this matter it was very
very helpful to me
in this particular instance i'm in
support of the medians with the
sheltered parking for drexel
i believe that limiting parking to
parking to one side of the street on a
highly
traveled route and expecting residents
that need to park
on the opposite side of the street to
get to their house
or visitors
to them is not a safe or prudent
solution
i wish that we could keep parking on
both sides while incorporating bike
lanes
on both sides but we are limited by
space
i want to continue
to look at incorporating north-south and
east-west bike boulevards throughout the
city of bexley
i appreciate the resident feedback
and passion on this matter
your passion
is the fuel that propels us
to improve
our city so
i really appreciate everyone coming
tonight thank you
thank you mr klingler who else mr uh ms
lamke
i too wanted to just share a couple of
thoughts and reassure everyone who's
either listening or is here tonight that
i i did reach each and every email
that was sent to me i tried uh as
quickly as i could to respond to them
but please rest assured that
i i did read them and took into
consideration what was being shared with
me
i did hear some inconsistent information
and data tonight from our residents but
i did hear one common theme emerge and
that was that we do want to slow down
traffic on drexel and that safety
truly does matter
i too will share that i am leaning
towards option one
the dual bike track on option two
greatly concerns me because even though
i would love to have more bikeability in
bexley
i do live close to drexel and fair and
when my kids were younger
and we would be turning left onto drexel
to go to graders
what would happen is that i would
venture out on my bike
and then safely wave my kids onto drexel
and then quickly get them onto the
sidewalk so that they could bike safely
there
and i did that because if a car was
going to hit one of us it needed to hit
me
i worry that with the bike track
proposed in option b
that you will have maybe a pair of
ten-year-olds biking to graders
and if they're biking together they're
not going to want a bike single file on
their side of the bike track
i think they're going to want to ride
side by side
and that may be fine until you've got a
biker coming in the opposite direction
and then i'd be concerned for the safety
of them if they don't remember if
they're supposed to bike on the right
side
or the left side
i also thought you know would it make
sense to put in an additional barrier
within that bike track
to separate oncoming from going bikes
but my concern there is that's yet
another barrier that a cyclist
could potentially hit
i also worry about the many driveways on
drexel
when residents and visitors are backing
or driving and pulling into the
driveways as well as backing out you now
have
additional cyclists
to
to look for
i think that before we send more bikes
to drexel
we need to make sure that's safer for
all of them
um everyone who's going to be using
drexel
there are some additional tweaks that i
think that we should explore for option
one
the the diagram that was up earlier for
option one concerns me on where some of
the location of the crosswalks were i
think that if we are truly gonna go for
option one i would love to make sure
that anyone who's pulling onto drexel
the first thing they have is not a
crosswalk
but i'm sure that we can further flesh
that out
i think a more detailed schematic once
we've agreed on which option we want to
pursue
would be great and finally i know that
the mayor is working on his 2022
strategic plan
i would love to include a bikeable
bexley as one of the priorities in that
strategic plan
and whether it's
colombia or other streets that we don't
lose sight of the
need that we have in our city to keep
encouraging everyone of all ages to want
to bike
more places in bexley so as of now i
would lean towards and support
a more fleshed out option one
thank you miss lampke ms robinson
um we're going to start to sound a
little bit like a broken record first of
all thank you to all of the record the
residents who came out today to to share
your thoughts with us what is incredibly
clear to me is how important biking and
bike safety is for our residents um but
for a number of the reasons that have
been mentioned earlier and
with the addition of uh you know
additional obstacles for our service
department i too am leaning toward
option a
but i would like to say that while
leaning toward option a i think it is
incredibly important to your point
monique that we address this
strategically in our plan for the city
as to where we will put that north-south
connector for bikers so that we can
address
bike safety and bike accessibility and
connectivity in the city as we look to
our strategic plan for the next year so
um but that said i do support option a
thank you ms robinson miss sod
yes i am i wanted to also just say thank
you to everyone who put pen to paper and
reached out to the city and the
responses we got
a week ago i had been hearing from
residents and i was a little worried
about it actually getting to pen to
paper to reach my other six council
people because i'm one of seven
and you guys did that um wherever you
fell
on each side of uh what your opinions
were you reached out and
i really appreciate that
i want to kind of speak quickly to
when
the scope of work was done on the bike
plan for the city of bexley
i was running for council i attended
those because i'm not a cyclist but like
a few people in the room for years my
kids were behind me in the chariot and
before front bike seats were a thing i
strapped you know my kid into that front
bike so i looked like a minivan
as a biker across bexley
so i again i pretend to be a cyclist in
the summer with pelotonia but i i'm not
but i know how important getting out on
your bike and teaching your kids that
and how you feel like how it makes you
feel healthy you avoid
cars and traffic
it's a wonderful thing
i want to say to robert ferran
to mark
subal and dara to craig and rebecca ness
when i went to the strategic bike
meetings there was a lot of things that
i didn't understand that you had a
passion for and i was just simply
listening at all of those meetings and
you gave me quite the education
and you continue to do that so if
tonight you're feeling a little defeated
i hope that you do not
because showing up and educating
everyone that was in the room tonight
with all of those who were passionate to
be here you've done just that
i also wanted to point out there are a
lot of things in the strategic bike plan
that has happened in the city of baxley
the fix-it stations
the mini um
um pieces of the drexel plan that we had
on here talking about the
traffic calming initiatives we are
looking whichever option that we go to
we are looking to do that
um it also speaks in here to bike
parking availability design placement
bike parking installation programs and
bike parking for special events in just
a short amount of time when this was
approved in august by council
we've done those things so we should
feel really good about that of where we
are and where we're going and i know
that tonight
people were listening whether they were
with option one or option two they were
listening and receiving that edge
i think are really great things
where i fall tonight
on uh the drexel plan
is that as i asked for gina
and dave's recommendation on what they
felt was the best way
option to petition odot for all of
drexel to be a 25 mile per hour street
you gave us that recommendation
and so that is where i'm going to fall
tonight with where your recommendation
was to get that street to match with
what our plan says
um for the city of bexley and then what
i heard from the majority of the room
let's first start with traffic coming
initiatives and i think that you guys
spoke to that so tonight i would fall
with option a
thank you miss sun
for myself i'll start off by thanking
our engineers for hanging out with us
tonight
hanging out late in the evening talking
engineers reminds me of my college days
and
i enjoy every minute of that sort of
thing
for myself i wrote down three things
when we were talking about thinking
about the drexel plan and one is to slow
down the traffic on drexel
i have somebody mentioned being passed
by a car on drugs so i have also been
passed by a car drug so the speed is uh
and the look of druxell is uh as pretty
uh it's it's not a great thing it's kind
of horrifying kudos uh to
mayor kessler and the city and engineers
and everybody for taking the opportunity
here
to improve drexel while we do these
structural
structural improvements to also
hopefully make an improvement on that
city for the rest of for all of us the
community so it's slow is number one and
attractive is number two i think it has
to be attractive drexel is a
well-traveled street it's you're on it a
lot it's a showcase street for our city
really what we do needs to look
attractive
and
i would love to wrap my hands around a
really great improvement in bike
infrastructure in the city because i
think it's the future i think it's the
future that we would like to see in a
city like ours
as we as i wrote down these notes
ms harding mentioned i said
what she said usable for a bicyclist
bicyclists that would use it be able to
use it easily while also not causing a
hardship for drexel residents and that'd
be number three for me and i know that
you mentioned option c
and uh that's something that i think you
know i would love to uh hope is maybe
out there is uh making this usable for
drexel residents making it safer more
attractive for all of us and if we can
keep our eye on that bike plan and
work toward that if there are any
solutions there i would love to see
those as well
i hope that's given you something what
you're looking for mr mayor
thank you um yes i i feel that uh what
i'm hearing from council is pretty clear
and i wanted to to just
offer some thoughts before we move on to
the next section of our meeting
and talk about next steps
first off u-turns are illegal in bexley
please do not do them okay they might
happen on drexel you will get cited for
that if you are observed
to
to pass this along however to our
council whoever's judiciary these days
is that uh
no one's going to raise their hand for
that
no i i think okay is it finance
whatever okay anyway to pass along uh we
probably should store up that code
because we know bexley park bryden and
fair where u-turns are not only
commonplace but really necessary for uh
residents and driveway access for the
record i think we eliminated the
judiciary okay
we'll talk about that um so when we
started our bicycle betsy friendly plan
we worked with katherine jervis um
who is a uh well well-known regional
bike advocate used to be with ea bikes
is now with tool design and um
one of the things catherine said at the
beginning of the bike plan was this is
gonna be hard
and i said why why is that and she said
bexley is already very bicycle friendly
bexley has slow calm streets which talks
about in a report
plenty of ways to get from point a to
point b
and we're not restricted some areas are
where we have only one way you know so
um that was a challenge early on in the
development of the plan
there was really mixed feeling about a
dedicated bike lane on drexel avenue and
in fact it had been rejected earlier and
then some workshops suggested is a good
idea
before going on to being a studied a
recommendation to study it as opposed to
a recommendation to place them
in place we've had emails from
bicycle advocates
and experts that have suggested the same
thing that dedicated lane on drexel is
not necessarily the right solution and
indeed when we look at summit or fourth
or pennsylvania avenue in dc those are
radically different contexts
to our
residential neighborhood fabric context
i'm not trying to pretend to be an
expert on bike infrastructure
but i am passionately
and irrefutably an advocate for safety
in our community and i to my core it is
it is the number one objective that i
carry
as your mayor um
i believe that in in safety not just for
pedestrians but also for cyclists i
think it's incredibly important
and we have the advantage we do have a
plan we have a bicycle bexley plan that
does have bike boulevard routes mapped
out and in talking with the bike
advocates that so passionately and
amazingly advocated this evening we've
talked about additional routes or
it's come up that the alleyway to the
east of drexel
is is a what relatively sheltered way to
make progress between main street and
onto dawson and some other areas north
so maybe that becomes a more highlighted
multi-use path the point is i think
option c exists in a universe of ideas
not just in our bicycle bexley friendly
plan
which is being fortified in our 22
strategic plan
but also in continuing to be creative
about ways to find safe travel from
point a to point b for cyclists and
bexley
so to that extent as much as i like i
don't want to call you out craig because
i expect craig ness to the nth degree
but to say that the to say no to bike
plans on drexel says you don't support
biking i'm not sure that that's
a construct i agree with but i
understand why you feel that way and i
see how you how you feel that way
another another point was made about
environmental sustainability
and that is near and dear to my heart as
well so
i do believe that we need to be so
conscientious about crafting our climate
in the future and the ways that we make
policy decisions that are either
supportive or not supportive of that so
i think it's incumbent upon us that
while
dedicated bike lanes might not be the
best solution for drexel specifically
that we are um
earnest
and sincere
and fastidious and moving forward with
the recommendations in the bike plan and
for additional opportunities as if we
see them and find them and so my
commitment
in
not just tonight but in general is to
continue to work with our bike community
to continue to develop develop out that
infrastructure and find those
opportunities
i really
i am so grateful for tonight um because
and and the ins the the days and weeks
before this when we've received feedback
it is so meaningful to get considerate
feedback from the community to come
directly to us with your thoughts and to
take the time
and and give up your evening with us to
explain how you feel and that human
interaction that we get here is is
priceless and it is
information and data that you don't get
over email you don't get on
social platforms you get only in this
person-to-person interchange so thank
you so much for your honoring us tonight
with your presence and your feedback
um
to me it's fairly clear what council is
telling me and what my staff is telling
me and what as we have developed all and
by the way there's there is there were
options c d e f g h all the time as we
work through all these different
scenarios not to suggest that there
aren't other ways to go
i think it is clear that um for now
today 2022 given the current traffic
patterns given current law given the
geographical constraints of a 40-foot
street
that the option a that we have
considered is the is the one that we
should move forward with
so i intend going from this meeting that
we will work on developing that more
fully
that we will work on distributing that
to residents so that the in businesses
so they have a chance to take a look at
that and understand the particulars
we will try to
work with every single property owner if
you have concerns that are specific to
your property
i'm not telling you that you're gonna
get everything you want but we're gonna
work with you to try to accomplish that
just as we have with any other project
where we get you know eventually you end
up with a magnifying glass and a ruler
and
some highlighters and post-it notes and
you end up really kind of digging into
exactly what does this mean and through
that we learn a lot so
that's my intent but also my intent is
to continue to work if they'll if
they'll have me if i have us to continue
to work with mark and robert and and
craig and rebecca and those who are
working hard to continue to encourage
biking in bexley and building out the
infrastructure that we've called for in
this plant
so thank you all for participating there
was another slide i think we all kind of
said it already in terms of timeline and
next steps
um this was a this was a
agnostic in terms of what might happen
but that the final option would be
selected that we're going to work for
the next one to three months for that
final scroll the draft scroll plot
to get back to you we will send
notification via letter to
uh those addresses and we'll make sure
to include tenants and not just
landlords because that was a concern uh
that
came forward uh over as i talked i
talked to lots of tenants who hadn't
gotten the letter
um and then after that construction
drawings would be completed project
would have bid and based on where we
were it would be fall 2022 or spring
2023 start on those improvements
so jess yes um i loved your idea about
having the plan um here at city hall
for um
people who have been engaged in this
process to come in and and provide
feedback with you know post-it notes and
whatnot so i look forward to that i
thought that was a great suggestion
tonight okay thank you
so thank you very much thank you all of
you for coming out this evening we've
got a fascinating docket ahead of us
welcome to stay or you may go if you
wish thank you
thank you for coming out everybody uh
you should be
oh my god it is 8 33 i am gonna call a
five minute recess right now
who are we missing
jen robinson
we are good to go here right back from
recess all right
item number six the president's report
first of all
i think uh
we probably i think we can go ahead and
say that we established a record this
week for most
citizen emails and most public
commentary at the meeting so write that
down i'm sure
good and good work to all of you too by
the way and uh
digging into those emails and and all
that uh all that material
really impressed
in truth this was just actually us
trying to generate some practice for
matt mcpeak
you know
[Laughter]
item number two that i have here is just
i know jen robinson's gonna talk about
the retreat a little bit but i would
encourage you to throw any ideas toward
her
um most of you have been here for a
couple years now and hopefully at this
point you might have some ideas about
what you'd like to learn about during a
retreat or what you'd like to talk about
or anything like that be very very
creative and send those her way
third
item
i met with our uh library director ben
heckman
asked about how the library is doing he
said the library is doing great
a few uh bullet points here
said steve wilson has been recommended
to the school board as the appointee to
the open trustee position on the library
board
and he is anticipated to join the board
at the february meeting
which will be on february 17th
the library also has a refresh and audio
upgrades underway for the auditorium
and so patrons can expect fresh paint
and carpet along with some new lighting
and much needed audio upgrades
the upgrades will also allow for better
streaming of programs and events
the library is also in a timely manner
sponsoring several programs regarding
censorship which has been a hot topic in
the literal literary world
libraries and schools so patrons should
keep their eyes open for that
and now the city attorney report
no report this evening
on to the auditor
no report this evening
and then now to mayor kessler for
administrative updates
thank you mr bayshore
your service
department update
yeah uh mr mayor and mr uh chairman and
counsel i have nothing to add to my
written report tonight
we not though he's not so fast sorry as
much as we're trying to get through this
quickly andy um
i think that i speak for everybody in
this room and in our community for
thanking you guys for your outstanding
service
[Applause]
uh
over the past
snowpocalypse
um i think
we went into uh last thursday
um having already pulled several uh like
multi-shift crews with some snow and ice
events uh leading up to it in the weeks
prior
so you guys were out from
early thursday morning through
uh saturday am if i recall correctly and
then continue to do touch-up uh
throughout this week and uh
their their work is just
was phenomenal and uh i know that our
residents really appreciated it i know
there are lots of stories of of service
crew members helping uh cars that got
stuck
police officers helping cars that got
stuck
um so thank you for all of your service
andy and please pass it along to your
guys from myself and all of city council
everybody here is nodding emphatically
if you can't see them but that's what
we're doing
and yeah even checking on jeff's side
who was just
being super mom waiting for her kids to
sled on miller's hill
so thank you andy no problem i will
definitely pass along to the crew we are
very lucky we have a excellent staff of
the service department
thank you
um
mr markham shall i move on to
yeah who do you got next
the
police department update um
a seat chief goff is on the call still
but i also know that he's fared in kit
ferry ferrying not ferreting faring kids
between
hockey games and some other obligations
that he has so
um was not able to make it in person
this evening um
thanks to sergeant hannah who who
covered much of the meeting so far but
there's a written update here
and uh if you have any questions about
it let me know and i can pass them along
or there i may be able to answer them
what about mike price do we have mike
price here with recreation mike price is
on vacation today and not able to join
us
correct and
uh nonetheless
yeah it happened wait is he is he really
on vacation he's not yeah he's that he
is yep well he's having a meeting with
him have a meeting with him in the
morning he'll be he'll be here in the
morning
okay i'll be happy to meet him wherever
he is on vacation though uh so
i i can tell you one thing that needs to
happen is that the cooler the cooling
tower replacement project is a
sort of a straggling component of the
mansion uh project we've received a
grant
of a hundred thousand dollars to help
with that
project
and i think we talked about this already
but there's a we've bid it to
three different uh
entities it will be our first board of
control meeting under our new
uh system um
we need to schedule that board of
control meeting
um so
and i missed it's my fault because troy
asked me about it and i thought he was
talking about something else so i said
we don't need that
so um we will probably schedule it in
the coming days if that's possible uh
and then i'll we'll just let you guys
know when it is and you can participate
as you like
but uh spoiler alert we're going with
the lowest bid so
as long as the border control agrees
with that we like to hear that um kudos
to the rec department for
the ice rink i think we talked about it
at the last meeting but it's been super
fun and the tent got a little collapsed
by the snow but you know
if we can rebound we will
sorry jess you had something digital
cards at the pool
i when we discussed that the reckoning i
knew you would get excited about that as
i was too good yeah on your apple wallet
make it easy awesome right to the other
kids in your family yes because i had
them on my phone and that wouldn't scan
so yeah that's gonna be awesome that'll
be great
anything else to highlight um
the 11 30 pool opening
you know it used to be noon now it's
going to be 11 30. all right march 1st
is the early bird registration
i was going to say it is hard to be in
the pool mode right now but i'm here i'm
trying oh honestly let's do it did you
say march 1st to pool no early
also in my update but it's the the
ribbon cutting is the 13th that is super
bowl sunday but don't worry you'll be
out of there before today
but you know who won't be out of there
before the super bowl
our senior citizens who are going to be
watching the super bowl that's awesome
from the community center uh march is
that the inaugural event at the
it is so that's pretty cool
i shouldn't say that quite so
well yeah surely because i'm not
actually positive but it's the
it's the we'll just say that it's enough
sure it is jeffrey woods festival march
5th uh get that on your calendar start
growing your beards
or
your hair out i don't know um
have you did you did they did they tap
uh
they tap maple syrup this year did they
have a thing happening has happened in
the week prior so it's the saturday
which is like the end of february okay
yeah and
there's registration i'm not sure if
there's any openings but if if as a
council member you would like to come
along to any of those you are more than
welcome to observe
uh just don't expect a free bottle of
maple syrup yeah you never can't expect
that
i know
okay um oh shoot i just shut down the
whole sorry
it's the whole browser
yeah sorry i guess we can't meet
um finance
director i don't think features with us
yeah there's nothing attached
um
and that brings me to my update which
i'm pulling up right now actually i was
here
wow
my
teacher where did it come from
everybody's hearing that right it's not
just me i've been i've been here
for all
the whole time
i would like to say that i have no
report one second feature we can't hold
your there's too much laughter right
now okay
[Laughter]
here you are beach
okay i just wanted to make sure
everybody knew that i had no report
tonight
thank you thanks beaster
julie noted i apologize i didn't
all right bc any questions for beecher
thank you sir appreciate you you're
welcome good evening have a great day
take care of yourself
thank you
all right so uh moving on to my update
um
i wanted to highlight a couple things
here we talked about the ribbon cutting
chief of police search update
our community engagement form has been
firm has been connected with some
community stakeholder groups
and i haven't finished all those emails
but i started them this afternoon
uh
the
first we're gonna have two community
forums that they lead one will be on the
17th at 6 00 p.m
i believe that's next
third no wait
i don't have the date in front of me
it's the 17th
thursday there we go and then the 23rd
which is a wednesday
at noon
um so we're trying to you know capture
some people who might better participate
during the day versus the evening
that will be there will be a community
survey launched on this friday
um the community forums will really
cover the same topics as the survey
it'll just be a little bit more of an
interactive format
led by the saunders group
there will be some real-time polling
going on
and some other devices to gather
feedback it will be virtual through zoom
and
surveys will be put out online we're
also going to mail surveys to
some some addresses that don't
necessarily get some of our traditional
communications infrastructure
and
the
consultant group is going to work with
saunders once they have created that
that community study
to create the candidate profile they're
also working on an internal climate
survey with the pd um
over the next several weeks so
that's where we are with that um
i want to talk real quickly about covet
19 and emergency orders update i spoke
with director mazzola today just to kind
of see where what their where their head
was with the trending downwards of of
the virus with omicron
cdc continues to recommend masking in
public spaces in high transmission areas
we continue to be a high transmission
area but what i'm interested in thinking
about is like okay so as these numbers
decline
what is our strategy to
lift the orders
and what tools will we provide for
people to keep them safe if they are
vulnerable and feel
uncertain or feel at risk in public
spaces so we're working on we've already
made can 95 masks available with
community we're now working on n95 masks
as well
and this kind of idea that we we will
not just at city hall have the have the
ability to pass up masks but also
provide them um to retailers to provide
them to people who are feel vulnerable
and would like to have those masks
with the idea that down the road um
you know we're trying to get into more
of an endemic mentality as opposed to a
pandemic mentality so
i would like to have a a clear blueprint
for that or it's clear-ish blueprint for
that at the next meeting
um still waiting for any kind of change
and guidance from any of our health uh
departments that we're turning to right
now we've we've stuck with their
recommendations throughout this i intend
to continue to stick with them um but i
think they're also cognizant of the fact
obviously that now this the hospitals
you know are half of what they were
before a week even a week or two ago
numbers are declining throughout the
region including in bexley
all very encouraging signs and i think
the point where we can start to
treat
this is more of a long-haul endemic
situation as opposed to pandemic so
look for that at our next meeting
not to tease you but that's kind of
where i'm at with it and i'll take any
questions
what time did you say that meeting was
on the 17th 6 pm 16 yeah
and we'll be announcing that with more
detail it's like links and registration
that sort of thing in the blast on
friday
that concludes my report mr president
consent agenda
all right two items on the consent
agenda the
minutes of 125.22 from city council
and ordinance 1-22 to amend chapter
220.01 rule 8 of the codified ordinances
of the city of bexley that was
introduced by mr markham thank you any
questions or comments about the consent
agenda
do i have a motion on the consent agenda
so moved
um what is that motion ms ronson
to accept the consent agenda thank you
do i have a second second second by mr
klingler
uh do we voice vote on this or do we i
forget you can voice foot on anything
but you normally you do real power yeah
uh let's keep matt busy
thank you
um miss
yes
i am assuming for those in absent i just
skipped over okay
uh
miss robinson yes um mr markham yes mr
klingler yes and miss lamke yes consent
agenda passes five to zero
all right we have a third reading
ordinance 2-22 to authorize fifteen
thousand dollars in supplemental
appropriations for calendar year 2022
we're paying his expenses associated
with the chief of police search process
introduced by ms lamke thank you mr
official uh as everyone knows we're
currently engaged in finding a new chief
of police
and 15 000 is the money that the mayor
has opined we need to further
devote to
do that search mayor is that still
accurate
any questions or concerns from council
i think mayor kessler if you could just
address again um i am in favor of this
but if you could just address again the
15 000 and why we came to that number
thank
you let me pull up this
spreadsheet real quickly so i didn't i'm
not
what's that
oh yeah
okay
um
so
the the search firm
sorry i don't want to just make these
numbers up as i'm going i normally do
that
we have a
new auditor and i want to press him with
search firm is a 35 000 contract
the
community engagement contract is going
to be in the mid teens
we have
funds that we had put aside from prior
to this year's budget from last year's
budget of 23 000.
um and we have 20 000 available in our
current appropriation
so
um the supplemental of 15 gets us to a
point where we
where we have enough appropriation for
those two processes which are important
yeah and i think you know as we
initially thought about it i had a very
small
budget for just search installed and um
started to delve deeper into what that
process might look like and felt like a
more robust
community engagement process would be
really helpful and that while we are
perfectly capable of doing that on our
own in many situations we thought this
situation was one that having a third
party would be really helpful so real
value-add so i don't anticipate us doing
this sort of thing with
a whole lot of other things in the
future but i think this is really
helpful here i'm really
um happy with the team that we've lined
up for it
but i'll say i think that the track
record of gail saunders uh north theater
the city of columbus is really
something i think we feel pretty happy
about having as part of this process
yeah
any other questions or comments
ms lamke do you have a motion
motion to adopt ordinance 2-22 thank you
and is is there a second second second
by mr klingler
and again mr mcpeak
miss lamke yes
mossad yes
sorry miss robinson yes mr klingler yes
and mr markham yes
motion passes 5-0
all right moving on to a first reading
since there are no second readings for
reading ordinance 3-22 to appropriate
two thousand seven hundred dollars from
the friends of jeffrey preschool fund to
pay preschool-related expenses in 2022
ms lamke introduced by ms lamke thank
you i'm going to throw this over to the
mayor for maybe a brief explanation
given that it's only a first reading
yes so uh thank you
um the friends of jeffrey preschool fund
is is
that was set up to receive gifts and
donations to help essentially as a
scholarship
for uh preschool students jeffrey
mansion who wouldn't otherwise be able
to afford
i guess whose parents would not
otherwise be able to afford uh their
tuition
um so we received a check from odjs to
assist with that programming especially
because our operation through the
pandemic which is amazing
um and that's really just an aside that
the key here is that 2 700 is
being provided in scholarships um for
2022 pay preschool expenses
so it's
appropriating that money out of a fund
dedicated just for that purpose
to be used to um pay for those expenses
any questions or concerns from council
all right i think we can move on then
that's all the ordinances this evening
well we have no action on table
ordinances that i'm aware of so we will
move on to committee reports starting
with
strategic committee jen robinson
the order changed you caught me somewhat
off guard i try and do that yeah okay
paying attention um yeah i hope all of
you saw that um natalie sent out an
invitation to our council retreat we
have landed on
what was um somebody asked which option
it was it was actually option d
on all of the options that i gave you
for uh times it will be thursday march
3rd from one to four at the new senior
center
as uh president markham mentioned
earlier i'm still
open to any suggestions that anybody may
have for things that they'd like to
cover um although i did meet with the
mayor today and we put together
a draft agenda for for that and i'm
actually very excited about some of the
things that we're going to be talking
about and
and looking at the next year or two um
in terms of a strategic plan for council
and for the city so
um
if you could maybe give
take the next week to consider what you
might want to
uh make sure you've marked your
calendars um the only other thing i have
to mention is that um
matt and monique and i attended this uh
cic meeting last week which was or was
it last week yes it was last tuesday a
week ago yes um it was very informative
um what an amazing group of people
um i did spend most of the time writing
down acronyms and then looking them up
to try to figure out what the heck
people were talking about so there
clearly is a bit of a learning curve but
i mean how lucky are we to have a group
of people who are so knowledgeable and
and um you know really can help us in in
ways that are really important to the
city so i think the next meeting um is
um in early march and i will update the
uh the public at our next um
arnox council meeting other than that i
have nothing more
thank you my report mr president i have
something for jen and you if it's this
is an appropriate time uh that we had
tried to see if we could get the search
consultant to the strategic retreat
um those dates didn't work but i was
wondering we talked about maybe
they could come to a council meeting and
just kind of have counsel provide
feedback and ask any questions or
we could schedule a separate meeting
just to meet with with them
um like zoom based and uh what is
council's thoughts on that do you guys
have any thoughts on how you would like
to interact um
initially with the search committee yeah
i actually do one of the reasons i
thought it was a great idea to actually
invite uh robert berg to our retreat is
so that we could have an allotment of
time
to talk to him about you know his
experience and then we could share
things that we felt were important
i like the idea of him
maybe coming and speaking before
a council meeting but i actually prefer
setting up a separate meeting so that we
have a dedicated period of time where
that is the focus i think this is really
important to the city and i need i i i
hope that we all feel very comfortable
and engaged in this process so i would
lean toward a separate meeting um but i
think that we talk to him is more
important than in what you know format
that takes i'm going to agree with jen
on that uh i think
we especially look forward to our first
encounter with them having a big block
of time to maybe sit around and really
really talk it out without maybe the
distractions of a city council meeting
here
jess i would recommend since this is an
important engagement to do it non-zoom
i'd like to be in person
if possible
okay uh do are they not are they doing
any non-zoom yeah mr berg is out of
state um so he would have to be on zoom
um we could be there
so
you could be in person sometimes i don't
know it's your call sometimes if you
have one person on zoom it's more
effective if everyone's on zoom it's
really your guys's call i think it's
there's not a vote that they're allowed
to do that but mr official will tell me
yeah we're not going to be able to do
that the council can't be on zuma he can
be unzoomed a guest can be in zoom but
console cannot be in zoo well that makes
it easy unless the legislation goes
through that they're talking about to
extend zoom
reenact zoom
authorization through june 30th but who
knows but the numbers coming down i
don't think that'd be a problem though
to you i think we meet we put him on
zoom and we and we can ask questions
great yeah
yeah
good
uh service
may i just it should would you guys
like me to you know work with the mayor
to find some dates that work for him and
i can throw those out to to council and
uh
you'll have more options
to choose from it'll be great
i see we have another visual aid here i
was going to say service environmental
committee i think we were really looking
forward to this report we're
anticipating it because as the snow fell
friday lorianne fibel was riding around
in a
yeah and it had a plow truck and uh i
assumed they brought her back
i believe so now i have to
stay in advance lori asked us to watch
this as her report tonight
i have not seen it so anything that
happens on this video i do not take any
okay good
similar videos
[Music]
it's a beautiful day in this
neighborhood
and my chariot has arrived
this is our special person in our
neighborhood introduce yourself to us
hi say hey how you guys doing we're good
we're so glad that i get to do this
today you're one of our special people
in the neighborhood that makes it
possible for people to get out and about
and i'm so excited to be with you today
how long are you gonna
how long are you gonna be doing this
we're gonna do 12 hour shifts so i get
off at 3 30 and the other shifts will
come back here
wow
what's your favorite part about this job
he also is very fun when council members
come along with him
especially
what's your least favorite part
tucking up corners you know i accept a
lot of times what does that mean to tuck
up corners so you go to your islands how
you have the little intersections in
between all your islands you gotta get
away
going southbound on cassingham um
i was going uh east there but those
things haven't been hit very well so
starting there we
i'm in the snow go today
how are you
you're looking good in there buddy
okay well i won't tell
but i love you
bye princess
too funny all right tyler thank you so
much for taking me for a trip around uh
the arboretum today
i loved being with you all i've learned
all about you and all about your job so
thanks next time i'm going to come in
the middle of the night so i can keep
you awake
all right
take care and you'll be safe all right
be well bye
bexley is so lucky to have people like
tyler and our neighborhood
the service department is really amazing
they work really hard long hours and we
are ever so grateful for all that they
do
i'm so thrilled that tyler let me get a
peek of what he does
on snowy days like today to make sure
that
all of our neighbors of bexley can get
out and about thank you tyler for
sharing your day with me i appreciate it
and um thank you service department andy
bayshore you've got an amazing
so did they just leave her out in that
field is that what happened
that was fun oh my goodness monique you
you have to follow that
i hope you have something here
yeah it is going to be hard to follow
that but i'm going to be super super
quick um february 19 from 10 to 1 in the
rubino's parking lot the bexley citizens
police academy alumni group is holding a
build a cruiser pet supply drive you can
donate new or gently used
items such as food collars
treats water bowls
if you have any questions talk to
sergeant don overly
february 19th
10 to 1 in the rubino's parking lot
and if we have residents who can't stop
by then
you can also drop off an item to be
donated at pet people on east main and
they will get it to
sergeant overlay
second the bexley area chamber of
commerce is launching their local leader
series with deontay johnson
february 16 12 to 115 be a zoom
for more information contact the chamber
he is a former ohio state football
captain he's now an entrepreneur and i
believe leads a non-profit so that's
super cool
and then finally the bexley community
foundation has all sorts of it
going on
some of you know that the first grant
cycle of 2022 is currently underway they
received 11 grant requests totaling over
110 000
and those grant requests are currently
being reviewed
um
they funded the bexley ice rink which
was a big success
and i will leave the majority of that
report for another meeting given that
it's a little bit late in the evening so
end of report ms lamke your report is
incomplete
yes what are you missing
citizens police academy accepting
please we have some new applicants for
the bexley citizens police academy
alumni group in the fall please join me
if you would like to drum roll please
it's my understanding that uh patty and
troy markham are going to be part of my
wife will be doing that i will be doing
that i urge all of you if you are
interested to reach out to sergeant
overlea
class is capped at 15 although now with
troy and patty now at 13.
we do have to pass a background check
first though so i should
announce some part of it thank you uh mr
marcelino was also absent uh tonight
with the excuse absence he did not
unfortunately leave us a fun video to
watch so we will move on to mr president
he did leave us a fundamental within
within finance committee i'll put it put
it in here because it it didn't make it
in my update and should have my god i
thought it was we have a rule that if a
employee is going to travel out of state
as part of work but it needs to be
approved by voice vote of council okay
please we have um
okay
eric mcginnis and sergeant bricky
who
and maybe one more who would be
traveling to a tech conference for
our police cad and rms
software which is usually in
massachusetts is that is that still the
case
orlando
but it is uh it is police technology and
uh
and uh the the
it's a useful conference for them
because they learn a lot of skills on
how to use the software which you could
imagine is important
so i would i would like if you could a
voice vote to approve that out of state
travel
it is within the budget uh covers the
police training budget
and they typically go to massachusetts
was but i think actually that company
was bought so maybe this is why they're
now talking about orlando
any uh questions or concerns about that
if not can we is it i'm sorry did i hear
one
if not can we have a uh
voice vote all in favor of
i think there should be emotion
oh well
technically i mean yeah just as a motion
to approve the out-of-state travel as
mentioned by can i get a can i get a
motion to approve
a motion to approve the out-of-state
travel thanks described by mayor kessler
thank you mr klingler i have a second a
second thank you second by miss sod and
now we need to do a role no voice is
fine okay all in favor say aye hi hi all
opposed
thank you
one more
which is uh the police appreciation week
national police week uh training
in washington dc from may 11th to 16th
we have applied for a grant for
to help offset those costs
it would be so if that happens it would
be grant funded but it technically would
require a similar motion
i do not know who would go on that
that's a that's a process where they
determine which officer would want to go
but just authorizing that travel from
somewhere in the may 11th week time
frame yeah
any uh comments or questions
sounds like a great opportunity to
send our officer an officer to to that
can i get a motion to approve
move to send a bexley police officer to
the conference in d.c during
the may time frame the mayor mentioned
in a second okay
take a second by ms robinson and all in
favor say aye
aye aye all opposed
thank you and
mr klingler
uh just a couple things architectural
review board meeting this thursday
february 10th at 6 pm
and lorian wanted me to share
something else video
please share on behalf of esac visit
bexley.org
holla hayes and click on the heart to
find some wonderfully romantic ways to
have a sustainable
valentine's day
suggestions include how to purchase
sustainable chocolates
and flowers
happy
heart day remind ben about video if he's
not oh sir
it's not even
yes i'll be quick um
we're hoping this saturday joel
rossenberg he's the fan engagement
coordinator from the columbus blue
jackets will be at our local ice rink
cross your fingers
for the weather and michael be following
up on that tomorrow um but hopefully
maybe don't get too excited but maybe a
surprise
um visit from stinger i forget really
nice
so weather looks good it looks like
we're freezing at night and
days are like 35 40. so if that works
out for saturday that's a great day to
be on the ice yeah so stay tuned
you're gonna see mike in the morning
remind him to call me all right
i'm gonna ask him about that yeah
uh they'll come up with the time it's
it's supposed to be a window so it could
be like
i'm going to tell mike i pushed for
board of control
and then to give you a call
i'm sorry did i cut you off are you
here
all right uh this is where we have
public comments
and unfortunately we outlasted everybody
guys this has been way too much fun but
i will take a motion to adjourn
motion to adjourn motion by matt
klingler second
second by ms lamke all in favor say aye
aye all opposed