live i'm doing it
are we on mr mayor almost okay please
let me know
bye you're good
all right welcome council
mayor kessler auditor harvey uh city
attorney official department heads and
staff
and citizens joining us um for our
second meeting
of 2021 um as
we remember that we are here for the
good of bexley i want to piggyback on
words from mr sharp
last week urging for harmony and from mr
markham's convictions that it already
exists in our virtual chamber here
um so let us celebrate how uniquely
special our community is
and be mindful that we can choose to be
affected by the world
or we can choose to affect to the world
let's get busy showing the world
how the work of government can and
should be done
let's do it mr harvey ms fibel
here mr sharp
here mr klingler here
ms lamke here mr markham
here ms robinson here
mossad here
all right mr kessler you got a flag
behind you sir or a flag for us to see
yep all right i pledge allegiance
to the flags
all right
thank you everyone
so we are um to
one of my favorite parts of um our
meetings each week and it's when we
welcome special people here
for presentations you know saint albans
has been
is such an amazing part of our community
i used to be
neighbors uh three doors down from them
and i always loved how welcoming they
were
to our entire community our on drexel
was
always bloated with cars because they
always
welcomed so many people into their
facilities
um not only to worship but for
exercising
and and and i know that they are doing
such an amazing job welcoming our
um rec department these days as well so
i a big thank you to that
um so i i know that i saw some people
from st
albans online but i think i'm gonna go
ahead and ask
you all to unmute yourselves i'm not
sure who is supposed to be
um representing or at least speaking
first from st
albans about the turkey trot and the
presentation
of um bexley's fundings i'm going to a
much needed cause the mid-ohio food bank
great uh well thank you so much for the
warm welcome my name is uh father devin
rogers and i'm the rector
at st albans um i'm joined tonight by
jerry nadeau who was our
race coordinator for this year and uh
carol zimmerman was going to be joining
us from
uh the mid-ohio food bank but i'm not
sure if she's on uh
this evening quite yet um
i am father it says that i'm jerry but
i'm not okay
you're incognito under jerry yeah
well as i was reflecting on this year's
race um
a verse of scripture popped into my mind
um it's from the
second letter to timothy and it reads
like this
i have fought the good fight i have
finished the race and i have kept the
faith
this year uh more than any year that
many of us can ima
remember covet has been such a fight
um and our communities families are
fighting to figure out how to take care
of uh
their children and their family members
we're fighting to keep our community
healthy
um but there's also people who are out
there fighting to help
and that's where the race came in this
year um our vestry
was trying to discern how are we going
to have the turkey trot this year
and um jerry nadeau boldly stepped up
and uh
volunteered to help coordinate it
volunteers from bexley
helped organize and raise funds and
anne louder whose late husband the race
is named after peter louder
helped coordinate the efforts as well
and we were able to raise
8 500 to donate to the mid-ohio food
bank this year
um i have faith that the mid-ohio food
bank is going to use these funds
to help hungry families in our community
and i have faith that this is going to
continue
uh in the years to come and grow
next year we'll have the tricky trot
hopefully in person but we'll also have
a digital presence
and i have faith that its impact is just
going to keep going from there and
expanding
i'd like to invite carol to say a little
bit about the impact that
the race will have at mid-ohio
thanks father and thank you jerry for
changing my name from jerry to carol
um so i was sharing with father he
called me a little
a little bit before the meeting and i
was sharing with him some of the
information that we have uh gleaned over
the last
nine to ten months about the impact of
um covet on our community and the folks
the customers who we serve
and um it's it's really been
amazing i i think you know some of you
may have seen
on um television news coverage not only
locally but nationally the long lines of
cars
which we've also had at the food bank
and
and actually those started again um
not too long before thanksgiving and so
um
the need is great our demand across the
20 counties that mid-ohio food bank
serves has been up a full 30 percent
since
march they sent us all home for two
weeks on march
13th i recall and uh we were home
now they said take your computer and
everything with you and take enough
stuff to go for two weeks and we're
still home
so um we had to shut down all volunteer
operations because of course it wasn't
safe
many of our volunteers are retired folks
and so we were fortunate that the
governor
pulled in the ohio national guard we
trained
300 national guard on march 23rd
uh 20 and a couple of days after that
and then
of that 300 we deployed 200 of them out
to eight other food banks around the
state
mid-ohio food bank is the largest one in
ohio we serve 20 counties
about now 600 000 unique customers every
year it used to be 500 000 before covent
so we we sent those 200
national guard out to other food banks
we kept a hundred of them
and they have been amazing they
downsized our
um our ranks of national guard
to 48 in august and we still have them
which has been such a tremendous help
because they're super efficient
um they'll they'll take on anything we
ask them to do and they're
extremely humble about the service that
they're providing so it's it's really
been a great experience
um both for us and for them i think um
so yeah so our numbers are up 30
since last march um across all
20 counties our ceo matt havash says
that he anticipates that we'll continue
for another 18 to 24 months
as we try to figure out what recovery
recovery looks like for people i was
telling father
um across our 20 counties again
28 of the people of the families that
we're serving
have never been to a food pantry before
in their lives
which is absolutely kind of mind-blowing
to me
the need is is staggering it does not
seem to be decreasing
at all um i'm hopeful that once
people can start getting back to work
maybe we'll see some decline in these
numbers
um but i wanted to share with you
the impact of the gift that you made so
the 8 500 gift that you made we
have an arrangement where this turkey
trot every year
comes in at a time right before our
annual double your donation day
and so we take the gift from saint
albans
and we put it on the match pull side of
our double your donation day
um double your donation day is a time
when we build a match pool
with many corporate donors from
our community and and then also some
some individual donors and we put all of
that money on the match pool side and
then the community comes in
on the day and they all get their gifts
matched so everything's matched
so um the cool thing about that is this
particular gift
8 500 which i think is amazing that they
raised that much money at a time when
they couldn't even do the real
the real event right um so
um that gift then of course gets doubled
and it becomes seventeen hundred
seventeen thousand dollars
and then every dollar that's donated to
mid-ohio food bank
um we because of the volume of food that
we buy
we're able to turn every dollar into
nine dollars worth
of food and groceries so when you take
that
8 500 and you double it to 17 000
and then you multiply that times nine
that single gift became a hundred and
fifty
three thousand dollars worth of food and
groceries
so the other thing that i wanted to
share with you though that's really
exciting is
since uh 2014 when um
when the giving from um saint albans
became the the pete louder event which
is now the saint albans
turkey trot um we've
actually been able to benefit from 73
500 worth of donations
which we've applied to double your
donation day
so we doubled them 147 thousand dollars
times nine so you all have provided for
us
or for the community and and the
customers we serve
one million two hundred and eighty three
thousand dollars worth of food and
groceries
so thank you so much saint albans it's
um your amazing partners and we're we're
humbled
to be able to work with you um and we're
so grateful that you
that you put this together this year
even though it wasn't a perfect year
carol thank you so much that's that's
just what our community needed right now
to lift
lift our spirits to know that we're
we're in some way shape or form being
successful in reaching out and being
able to help
those around us um please keep up your
good work
we we know that the metropolitan area
needs you guys more
now than ever and uh father rogers thank
you for all the good
that you do for our community thank you
always for having that red door
open to everyone and um please
say a prayer please stand prayer for our
sweet city
thank you so much thanks for joining us
thank you thank you
thank you for starting my meeting off so
great i appreciate it
all right um now we are moving on to
item number five on our agenda
that was certainly a fabulous way to
start but
um this is a time when we welcome
individuals to come
um to speak to to us for
who those uh citizens um or individuals
who are attending
um first for those of you who have never
joined council
welcome we're thrilled that you're
sharing some time with your community
tonight for those of you who have
not been in a while we're glad you are
back
quick reminder for everyone on how
public comment works
throughout the meeting um please raise
your hand icon
so that we know you wish wish to speak
please share your name and address
for our records please keep your
comments to five minutes we want
everybody to have a chance to speak
um should your thoughts include a
question we will often allow
administration or counsel to respond at
the end of
public comments if your question
requires more lengthy
response or if you want further
information please find all our emails
on the city website all right so this
specific
section of public comment relates to
ideas that are not being covered on
the agenda so i am
struggling to see if we have anybody in
attendance who has their hand up
it looks like we do it looks like um
gabe schottenstein would like to share
some thoughts with us
can you hear me all right um first of
all can you hear me
we can gabe thanks so much for coming
oh yeah my pleasure um so my name is
gabe schoenstein of uh 2732 bryden road
i just wanted to tell you how
appreciative
i am of how uh you're telling people to
follow the covet rules uh
seriously and that you also tell
everyone
early on to wear a mask whenever they go
out and
wear it around other people since last
march
we've had to be really careful and very
safe
our activities uh were grounded
and we had to really stay home but i
hope
that it will eventually be safe again uh
to do uh activities soon and uh
go out places and
uh the most important thing is is that
i hope uh you still tell uh each and
every uh single individual
uh of bexley uh to wear their masks stay
six feet apart each and every place they
go
but it is even better to stay at home
but we've got to survive this virus by
washing our hands
and not get in anybody's germs wear a
mask every single time we go outside of
our houses
and not get too close to anybody around
us
then franklin county will go low and we
can receive our two vaccine shots
but if anyone doesn't follow these rules
it might make things a lot worse
but we're all counting on every single
one of you
in bexley to do the right thing to fight
this pandemic
thank you for your listening pleasures
and be well
okay thank you so much and thank for
thank you for that really
important reminder we we all cannot hear
that enough i know we are all aching to
wrap our arms around our loved ones and
it's very
it's very hard and we miss the ability
to do that
um but we need to keep we need to keep
doing
exactly what you've suggested and and
keep working hard
in our efforts thanks gabe so much
my own president all right it's my
pleasure
look richard madam president i'd like to
give a shout out to gabe
i miss seeing him and hope his advice is
well taken by the community
that's great good job yeah thank you
dave thanks so much all right
looks like we have two other guests that
would like to um two other attendees who
would like to speak with us tonight um
spencer cahoon uh hi
this is spencer cahoon i'm at 679 vernon
road
i wanted to give a shout out and thank
you to the city for the website update
the city of bexley websites uh looks
great easy to
navigate i know it's been a long time in
coming and there's a lot of planning
behind the scenes before something like
that actually
goes live and i i think it looks great
and i'm excited to
dig further into it so great job thank
you spencer we're so very proud of sam
metcalf he
is our communication director and he
he has worked really diligently on that
he
he is very proud of it we are very proud
of it it is beautiful we agree
and i will make sure that he listens to
this portion of the meeting so that
he gets your accolades thank you so much
for the positive reinforcement
uh aj uh garlipotty i am not sure if i'm
pronouncing it right please forgive me
no that's actually a great job by the
way most people don't get it the first
time
um first thing is actually but you know
it's okay
all right so is this for the record it's
ajay garlipotti
gotcha at uh 981 francis
well welcome what what would you like to
share with us tonight sir
yeah so my wife and i we moved to back
sleep recently in uh september so
just got here you know we really like it
we love the community it's going great
so far
love this area we came here from powell
and that was powell's a great community
too but
we really really really like it here so
i want to start off by saying that
for sure so in terms of the public
comments this is my first time on the um
on this on the city council you know i
mean not me on the city council but
my first time speaking on it obviously
so i guess the first thing the only
thing i really want to bring up is
obviously the livingston project
given the proximity that is to our house
um
so you know i did speak with the
neighbors today in the last couple weeks
just to make everyone aware
that we all none of us received any kind
of a notice about this
i understand on various uh very staff
websites and so on and so we did
we have not received notice on it and
you know it's being new to actually
we are very concerned about this very
very concerned as are our neighbors um
just i want to and i know there's gonna
be a zoning one meeting coming up this
week later on we can speak on it more
but you know we're very concerned about
this
to the extreme uh we've already seen
four sales
since it's been announced we've already
seen for sale signs in our neighborhood
um so there is some like i said big time
concern about this um
we really don't know what to think um we
are very concerned about anything from
crime which we do have crime in the area
you know a double murder recently across
the street on livingston traffic
isn't the best as you all know and
obviously property values now
but what's going to happen with this
thank you aj um if you if you'll hang on
for a little bit of time
um this is it during the city attorney
report um
uh uh mr fishel is going to
explain a little bit more about um
council's role
and this potential um
development so if you just hang on a
little for a little bit he'll be able to
explain it to you
but i would urge you to listen in
um to the next visa uh
meeting so thank you so much for joining
us
thank you for being in our community and
welcome we're so glad you're here
so thanks guys appreciate it thank you
so much
i don't see any other hands raised
unless i'm missing one mayor kessler
would you make sure that i am correct
i believe you're correct okay administra
anybody in the administration or any
members of council like to um reflect on
anything that anyone um any questions
that that individuals might have
may have had i'm not sure that there
really were i think they were just
comments
okay thank you then we will um quickly
then
um move along if we could and i believe
we
are to my report um and i just
wanted to share with council um
two items very quickly um as most of you
know each quarter
either the mayor or i organize a meeting
between the city and bexley city schools
the rec department and the library and
the
and the police department join as well
this is such an amazing opportunity
to relationship build to exchange
information and to strategize our
communities a future
we had this meeting last friday
um and our focus was what is consuming
all of us
an effort to get through these dark
winter days and be healthy and
productive when we get to the other side
of this pandemic
each organization is working hard to
serve
serve our community's needs as well and
and there were some really
fun ideas of how we might be able to
continue to
work together to to serve our community
it was a really productive meeting and
it was
just really nice to to see how
lovingly this group of people um
cares for our community and how
seriously they take
service to our community
second thing that i wanted to share with
all of you was a quick reminder that
tomorrow night council will be having a
special meeting in conjunction with the
charter review committee
they're done with their their big task
and um
our agenda for that meeting is posted
online but the primary purpose of the
meeting is for
charter review to present their proposed
charter changes and additions
to council after charter review
presentation they will hand off the
document to a special committee of
council
headed up by councilwoman lamke and
matt klingler and i will be joining her
along
with the uh city attorney and
um the auditor the committee will be
charged with making recommendations to
council on how to bring these changes to
our community
for a vote in november um
those are my um two
updates for you council does anybody
have any questions about tomorrow
night's meeting
council i am
not seeing my hands okay i don't see any
hands raised
so i am going to assume that we can go
right ahead
um to mr official city re attorney uh
report mr fishel so glad to see you sir
thank you um it's good to be seeing this
in a while
so couple things uh just as a reminder
something i meant to mention
last week um and this is just a reminder
i'm assuming
but i guess it's not so reminding that
city council pretty good with this
which is keep in mind that you know to
the extent that you are using any
personal
emails other than your bexley.org email
or your text
function to do texting on a phone to do
any city business now i'm not saying hey
you want to meet for lunch or anything
like that
but anything even close to being
substantive that you need to keep
maintain those and actually we should
probably figure out along with the mayor
the
central repository for that because they
are all potential
that's all potential public record so
just be careful about that
relates to what president fibel just
indicated
um relating to the
uh project proposed projects at 420
north cassidy
and at the corner of livingston and
francis
so as i think folks know here uh well
certainly a city council knows
there is a specific process by which
both of these
um projects need to get approval um
from the uh architectural review board
and bees app
and there is as we noted as was noted
earlier a hearing
before bees app on thursday evening i
think the mayor just put on chat the
link to
that and you can also find it on the
bexley.org website
um the the special concern or issue for
city council
is that it is very logical and
understandable for citizens either
meeting
formal meetings or or on your own you
know individually
in the community to um want to
share their thoughts with the um
with you about the good and bad or
concerns or uh lack of concerns somebody
might have for this project
and that's fine but i would remind you
that really all you can do and you
really
you can feel free to blame me all you
can really do is listen
because ultimately you may have to sit
in a quasi-judicial capacity
regarding the um any action that
be zap or arb specifically b zap really
would take on these projects that could
ultimately
be appealed uh to city council either by
homeowners who have standing
in the area if they don't like a
decision to be zap made
or by the project's proponents um if
they don't get what they want before b's
app so
as we go through that pro and and of
course what when you're sitting in a
quasi-judicial capacity
you need to make out your decisions
based on the facts presented at that
hearing
and nothing extraneous so again i'm not
saying you shouldn't listen
but i do think the listening needs to be
accompanied by a reminder
of citizens because this is an odd not
odd in terms of what
that bexley does something different but
it's odd in terms
of what people view city council there
to be
to do or not to and so folks it's just a
reminder and you know feel free to
remind
um people who are talking to you about
this that
yeah you're listening you can't really
comment on it
because there could be a hearing that
comes before you down the road
thank you mr official anything else that
you'd like to share with us
that covers it counsel any questions for
mr fishel
thank you mr fishel um then we are going
to move on if we could please to
administrative updates
um finance report update um
mr hale or um mr
um city auditor harvey no report ma'am
no report thank you sir so much um
chief the police department update sir
do you have anything
other than your written report to share
with us
no ma'am i do not nothing beyond my
written report
i do want to ask you um
chief reinhardt and others may have
questions as well i have
um really since before the holidays and
and
really before that too i have been
getting
regular phone calls from individuals who
are incredibly concerned about
the uptick of crime um
it really felt this summer like it was
around us um in areas
adjacent to our community it has clearly
clearly in the last month or two
infiltrated into our community and i
would love for you to speak to that
how we might be able to um support our
police
and and what you think of this in
this uptick and and and perhaps a bit of
an explanation
of that yes ma'am uh madam president you
have been watching the numbers
uh for quite a while now and several
council members have commented
yeah we are seeing an increase in crime
and it's got a lot to do with what's
happening in columbus
and what's happening in the prosecutor's
office as you know
our officers are busy and they're making
good arrests
they take drugs and guns off people
every week especially on third shift
during the night
our detectives are traveling all over
this county tracking down people who
commit crimes in bexley
our detective sergeant uh was in all day
sunday doing just that and making great
headway
uh on a couple cases but we keep
arresting the same people
over and over again and a lot of them
are juveniles
apparently the prosecutor's office is
just simply overwhelmed
several weeks ago i was able to attend a
chiefs meeting on the east side of town
where a representative from the
prosecutor's office came to brief us on
their situation
at that time he said they had a backlog
of felony cases
that exceeded 5500 that's a lot of
felony cases for a backlog
and juveniles aren't even being held
the uh the juvenile detention center our
office
or officers will arrest the juvenile
taken down to the detention center
and because of uh of they're just so
busy
or because of covet our officers often
spend the rest of the night
trying to find a parent or guardian to
take possession of this juvenile
and it's almost always juveniles who
we've arrested before
uh they're just not being prosecuted
uh the um i'm also told
that there is a significant rise in
juvenile criminal gangs
uh which is a disturbing trend but
here's
here's a significant issue with columbus
we talked to a lot of columbus officers
a lot of columbus supervisors
as you would imagine we work closely
with them
but one of the issues is columbus
officers are being very careful
of the situations they allow themselves
to get involved in
they're trying to avoid use of force
situations
and the reason they are is because
there's a general feeling in that
organization
that their chain of command simply is
not behind them
perceived or real that's a perception in
that big police department
this all spills over on the city of
bexley
i think we all know that and understand
that
at the same time because of this central
ohio all of central ohio
is seeing a rise in carjackings of
elderly people you know we've seen that
in bexley and that's that's incredibly
disturbing
uh this is a product of the environment
and we're working with other agencies to
address it
uh and and we're we're working with them
very closely and there are several
meetings scheduled
and i have more information about that
but i'm just not clear to release that
at this point but we're talking about
juvenile gangs in large part now i can't
speak for the columbus police department
or for the prosecutor's office but i can
tell you that your police officers are
working very hard
and are very busy and and i stand behind
the statement that i've made
that we are the model professional
agency in the state and maybe far beyond
the state
um but it's a critical time for them
and it's a critical time for them to
know that their chain of command
stands behind them and you have all
worked very hard
to convey that to our officers and
that's one of the keys
to our success one of the keys that
keeps our officers
working hard nose to the grindstone
i will say this to our residents to
anybody who's listening
now's the time to be vigilant keep your
eyes open
trust your intuition call your police
department when you see something
suspicious
lock your cars houses and garages and
keep your valuables
out of sight now is the time to harden
the target
and make safety a number one priority
for bexley
we're brainstorming ways that we can
multiply
our force every day i tell people and i
i
talked to a resident just today and i
said we put our shift minimum
is four cars there you'll you'll be
hard-pressed to find any other
two and a half square miles in franklin
county that always has
four cars in that area so it's not that
we're not
funded correctly because as you know we
are we have great equipment
we have infrared cameras on our cars at
night it's just
what's happening in columbus is spilling
over on the suburbs
and we happen to be one of the suburbs
that's nestled
right down in the heart of it all uh
we're aware of our crime numbers
and and uh it's a it's like it's a front
burner topic for us
every day and i don't even have to tell
you madam president
it's certainly been a front burner topic
for our mayor
for quite a while it certainly has it it
has been
it's been on the on the front burner
for all of us and i just have to share
um some gratitude as i wake up every
morning
and read what our police officers did
running to danger and trying to take
care of
um individuals not only in our community
but those just outside
so i i know those faces that are doing
it
and and i have so much gratitude
for them um and i really appreciate you
reaching out today
to the resident who called me and was
concerned
i have a few other individuals on
council who would like to ask some
questions
if you don't mind ms lamke monique
thank you chief i recognize that the
report that we're currently looking at
was
likely prepared uh before this weekend
when a violent robbery unfortunately did
occur in bexley
my concern is with
the numbers and the trends going in the
direction that you just described
that many of our residents are doing
what
is being asked of them which is to
harden the target which is to lock their
doors
to be alert but given that some of these
recent activities are
current occurring early in the morning
now broad daylight mid-afternoon
afflicting people of all ages
i would really like to challenge you and
challenge
our city council and our mayor and and
other city leaders
to maybe think long term about what kind
of strategy that we can deploy to make
sure that we are providing
our police department and our officers
with the resources that they need
whether that be staffing equipment
other resources other community
suggestions i'm so pleased to hear that
you are meeting with other
departments and putting your heads
together but please know that i
would love to continue this conversation
so that we continue to protect our
residents but we also
rise to meet these numbers that
unfortunately
i don't think they're going to get lower
anytime soon so
please strategize i don't know if that's
something that perhaps
i may or i'll probably reach out to you
as well
but i would love to to continue that
discussion so that we continue to
protect our residents and to
continue to support the department thank
you ms lamke
mr sharp richard
yeah um i don't really have a comment
for the chief i just want to share some
research that i was looking at today
that um
relates to things locally and nationally
according i i periodically go to the
washington
post police shooting the tracking site
that goes over police killings and
details them
by race gender state um whether a person
was armed or unarmed
and um clean or not clean etc
that number has stayed constant for the
past five years since
2015 when the washington post
uh started doing it i think nationally
there's the impression that there's
a rapid increase in that number but it
stayed about
a thousand per year of which
approximately
300 were uh per year um were
um black and 400 were white with
other races making up the balance and
that rate for african african-american
black
um americans is 34 per million
but the key statistic that we need to
look at is in columbus ohio
there were 173 murders this past year
of which approximately when you take the
ratio of an 86
um six on your side news report on
october 16th
which was the most current information i
could quickly find
76 percent of the homicides were
african-american black
um citizens of the metro area um
so that translates for in an annual
basis of 130
um black columbus area
residents of which that translates to a
524 per million
um death rate per
our friends and neighbors in the
community
who are um black this increase in
murders
in columbus was approximately 50
american
um black americans here in the columbus
metropolitan area so these 50
black lives do matter and that's why
we need to be very careful in um
throwing out the baby with the bath
water and
how we handle
dealing with crime situations that's my
uh comments so thank you
thank you mr um jessica has her
hand um raised i know that the mayor
would like to speak to this as well
jessica yes thanks president fibel
i am just wanted to touch upon what
monique said
um to the chief um you know i wanted to
thank you
for being so transparent this past year
in a new position for me
on city council i know anything that
i've ever asked
as far as being a fact finder for the
community you
and your staff have been extremely
transparent and getting me
in information at any point in time that
i've asked for it
um and we have as a council as a group
collectively we've been watching the
statistics that you deliver
um in our you know meetings
and we've watched how these calls for
service
how it continues to be down where our
thefts and
burglaries are up um and then our
arrests are down so
i just think that this is a message to
our community to just remind i've
received those same
requests from residents as laurie anne
has whether i've been walking my dog
or even from residents who are visiting
our community about questions as far as
safety right now
and i continue to feel extremely safe in
our community but i think it's important
right now to be transparent with where
we're at
and what we need to do to support each
other and i just wanted to remind our
chief
and our police officers that we support
you so continue to let us know how we
can help to make sure as monique said
that you have what you need to get the
job done and i just wanted to to remind
you and our department that we are here
to support you
thank you thank you miss sod good words
um real quick mr mayor before i
um i ask you to speak i just want to let
the attendees know
that during administrative reports we
don't um
we don't take questions or comments but
we do
take questions and comments about each
piece of legislation
and then at the end of the meeting there
is another opportunity
for attendees to speak to us about
anything they're interested in sharing
um so thank you for for being with us
mr mayor
okay sorry thank you madam president i
just wanted to share a
conversation that i had today i was uh
at a
central ohio mayor's and managers
association executive board meeting
where we were planning
for our next monthly meeting and uh the
mayor of a
local suburb brought up this exact issue
and and said are you guys experiencing
this issue where we're having recurring
crime
the same same folks getting arrested
coming back and recommitting
um and other mayors and city managers on
the call
we're all not in our head yes we're
seeing the same exact thing so
i want to i want to be clear when we
talk about solutions when we talk about
support
we are looking at a regional problem and
the problem is we are not
you know the prosecution of crime of
serious
hardened crime is not adequately
occurring right now and because of that
we're seeing a cycle of criminal
behavior
same cast of characters coming through
and it's it's increasing over time so
we're going to continue to do what we
need to do in our police department and
as you know we have a well-staffed
detective bureau that's doing a
fantastic job of
determining who is responsible for crime
and
making sure that charges are pressed we
also
need to be especially focused on that
regional approach and coordinating and
making sure that
what currently is not working properly
is working properly
i also want to address one thing um
when we as a community face this sort of
uptick in crime that we've seen and i
want to contextualize it first off
in no way am i going to to minimize
what's occurring we've seen an uptick in
crime i also want to point out to
council that in 2019 we saw the lowest
crime stat we'd seen in 20 years in our
community
when we see a little bit of an uptick
from 2019 into last year as we did
frankly it was expected regardless of
any of the macro conditions beyond
we were coming from the lowest crime
stats across all three categories that
we've seen in 20 years
what we've seen however within these
same crime stats is an increase in some
of the alarming
random crime that we've just addressed
the robbery issues the carjackings the
car theft
and um i want it to be clear to
residents
and to all of us as we think about this
consider this
it's alarming that we've seen an
increase in trends and it should be
alarming and it reminds us to
to take it seriously and to be vigilant
but on the other hand
it could become all too easy to simply
say something suspicious means
somebody walking down the sidewalk that
i've never seen before i want to remind
residents that is not suspicious
behavior
suspicious behavior is specific behavior
it's uh
casing a car trying car doors it's
knocking on a
front door going through a window and
walking around the property so let's be
really careful when we talk about
suspicious behavior that we're
continuing to be
a welcoming neighborhood we understand
that we have
visitors from all over in bexley and
that's one of our great great attributes
let's make sure that we retain that
charity but when we do see truly
suspicious behavior
that we report it promptly and by doing
so and by helping
us really determine true suspicious
behavior we will further harden that
target
and uh and further clamp down on crime
and bexley
thank you madam president thank you
thank you everyone um great discussion
actually i i i'm sorry um jen robinson
has
her hand up as well ms robinson sorry i
almost i almost neglected you
i'm sorry okay um i'm not going to
um you know restate what everybody else
has stated other than to say
when we get these bi-weekly updates from
the the department
and see what our detectives and our
officers have been doing um it really is
remarkable and i encourage
those people who are listening to to
make sure that you check out those
reports um
directly when they're posted to our
agenda um but in the spirit of building
community which is that one of the
things that i think is really important
that we do
as a body i wanted to share with you an
event
that the um the citizens police academy
alumni association
um i can never say that without saying
it slowly because there's too many a's
um they are actually hosting a food
drive and i i told uh sergeant overley
today that i would make sure that i
mentioned it during
this report they're holding a food drive
on
friday february the 12th at montrose
from 11 to 1.
so in the spirit of serving those who
are in need and building community with
our police department
please grab your mask and some
non-perishable food and head on over to
mantras on february the 12th
thanks so much chief for the work that
you do and please pass along to
the department that we are incredibly
appreciative of
the hard hard work that i know they're
doing
thank you i will please do chief not
only those are in
in the cruisers making their ways but
but also those that are
um doing the background stuff that we
don't even know those detectives that
are working so so hard
to figure things out thank you very much
um council if we may i'm going to move
on to
wreck our wreck director mr michael
price
thank you madam president uh i just want
to take a quick second um
to publicly again thank saint albans
obviously for their
fundraising efforts with the turkey trot
but also
them opening their doors dr uh dr
deborah father devin
opening his doors to our jeffrey care
program
we could not be running that program
without all of st alban's support
uh in providing a space for us to do
that and it has been vitally important
to
the many families of this service so i
just want to in addition to my written
report i want to
again publicly thank uh father devin
and as well as um saint albans for all
their support
and the report thank you michael
any questions for michael
seeing none i'm going to move on next i
believe we have
mr bayshore our service director
yeah madam president i don't have
anything to add to my written report
tonight
thank you sir for keeping those streets
all clear from the ice this week
they were sidewalks were bad thank you
does anybody have any questions for mr
bayshore
ah we do ms lamke not so much
not so much the question but andy thank
you so much to you and your crew
um the other day my ring doorbell went
off at 2 a.m
4 a.m and i looked and it was because
your hard-working crews were assaulting
our road as the rest of us
slept so please thank them and for me to
you thank you
will do thank you that's how
we do it in bexley the right way all
righty
i think uh are we to the mayor's report
i think maybe
thank you madam president um i know we
have
quite a few people here to speak with us
this evening so i'll try to make this
quick but i want to highlight a couple
things coming
up we do have a our holiday lights
recycling event so if you have a holiday
lights uh string that you've been
holding on to
uh hoping it will suddenly resurrect
itself this is an opportunity for you to
uh
recycle those lights and there's info on
our website on that
our virtual state of the community
address is february 18th
we will have our friends from the
library and the bexley city school
district there
as well as other organizations in bexley
i want to
circle back very briefly
to a concept we talked about back in the
spring and that
councilman klingler has been doing a
fantastic job of keeping on the radar
uh which is a designated outdoor
refreshment area so
um attached to the agenda this evening
is a draft application to city council
um feel free to take a look at that and
and peruse it
but essentially uh the way that this
would work uh and just to refresh
your your memory as to what this is a
designated outdoor refreshment area
would allow
businesses who participate in a certain
district in this instance we're
proposing the main street district
to provide cups for
alcoholic beverages beverages to be
enjoyed beyond the
traditional confines of the patios and
the interior spaces of those restaurants
we first started talking about it as a
covid 19 related concept it continues to
be that so
this we're hoping that this spring and
summer we'll have a way for
people patrons of businesses on bexley
to
spread out a little bit a little bit
further
and to provide a safer environment but
also of course it's a way to help
support businesses in general and to
bolster bexley's main street area as a
destination
location so you'll see in the draft
there are lots of different concepts in
terms of
times of when the dora might function
the locations the
overall safety plan this is all in draft
draft stage right now and the next step
for
councilman klingler and myself and
matt's been doing a great job of
uh pitching in and helping volunteer to
move this forward or
to be or for us i'm sorry to approach
restaurants that have those liquor
permits in the district and make sure
that they're
on board to participate it's a
fairly simple ask they would simply say
yes they'd like to participate and then
they would have some expanded rights
and some accountability measures but
primarily just expanded rights
matt do you want to add anything to the
this this concept
uh you said i think everything i was
i could say i would just add that um
you know beyond you know covet 19 and
the issues we're having with that it
really gives us a chance to
um highlight our main street districts
and those businesses
um both that serve alcohol and that
don't um there's
a lot of studies show that increases
foot traffic um
in in the business that's that serve and
the businesses around that area as well
so i think it's a it's a it's a good
thing for our main street district
and i'm looking forward to
to the progress that's all i have
thanks matt so the the next step here
would be to as i said
we're going to approach those businesses
make sure that we have a list of
businesses on board
and then um per ohio revised code i
would formally file that application
with you guys
we're shooting for our next meeting
february 9th and then there's a timeline
here in my update that kind of tells you
how that would
how that would go from there there would
be an ordinance to approve the
application
um certainly could tweak any details we
wanted to tweak at the time
but please take a look at the draft and
if you have any questions let us know
[Music]
and one more thing on my report i wanted
to highlight that
since our last meeting we have selected
a vendor for the joint livingston
avenue plan nbbj will be our our
planning consultant uh helping us
through uh this plan they've engaged
carpenter marty as the traffic engineer
um it's it's going to be about 11 or 12
month process
and you'll be hearing about that in the
coming weeks as we start to
jointly through columbus and bexley
determine uh how to put together a
steering committee
and how to get started so i'm happy to
answer your questions from council
mr sherman mr mr kessler will you just
clarify what you mean by the livingston
plan
i know that there are some new
individuals who have never been
on a meeting before and i don't want
them to confuse the livingston plan with
the potential livingston
development thank you madam president
good point so
a couple years ago we approached the
city of columbus about engaging in a um
a joint plan for livingston avenue in
the area that borders bexley and berwick
but we've since incorporated portions of
eastmore and driving park
as well into that and the idea is to
encourage and increase the safety
environment on lamixin avenue from a
traffic safety perspective
to help stitch the two sides together
with some um
unified development standards and
streetscape standards and to find ways
for us to co-invest
in the corridor uh to really take it
from what it is today which is
in many ways especially the commercial
district is sort of a drive
past a very highway-oriented retail sort
of
space into a space that's more
reflective of the neighborhoods of
berwick
and bexley driving park and eastmore
that border onto it where we have
strong residential neighborhoods very
walkable neighborhoods with a whole lot
of very active pedestrian activity
so it's hard to imagine but a vision
being that livingston avenue becomes
safer
eminently more walkable and community
serving
and so that's that's where we're at uh
columbus has
agreed to partake in that which is
incredibly important because they uh
obviously control the right-of-way and
they are the southern portion
of the livingston avenue uh
jurisdictional lines
and so we are jointly going to work
together on this and
really looking forward to making some
progress columbus is also i should point
out
has become increasingly um invested in
this process
and and they're taking it incredibly
seriously they've heard
and seen from residents they've seen the
the issues with traffic safety along
with
avenue they understand the urgency and
it's been um
really rewarding to have their support
as we work on this
thank you mr castle i was just concerned
there might be some confusion
and um thank you mr klingler and um mr
kessler for the
dora exploring that you've been doing
i was especially happy to see the map
the map it was all about the map so
anyway
that was for you jen robinson monique
lampke do you have any questions
i don't know if i can follow dora in the
map exploring but
uh mayor i was just gonna say that uh uh
given
um you know a few meetings ago we
invited the representative from columbus
to come and speak with council regarding
livingston
and i'm so thrilled that uh that
we are moving forward so i applaud you
please pass on my thanks to
um the representative for um for
following through with this
one brief question what is your best
guess on when this phase one
would likely begin first week in
february
is my best guess so um that's
information gathering so the
we're gonna engage the planners they'll
get launched into their background info
um we'll be working on putting together
a steering committee but the they'll
start their work
in the next week or two great and i know
that our residents are going to be
very excited and wanting to participate
so thank you again
thanks monique mr sharp has his hand at
the air
richard i want to thank matt and the
mayor for their door of the
explorer concept and also
to thank council the mayor and
anyone else who's been involved
including the residents
several years ago we as
council and the mayor made a commitment
to
working with the neighboring
neighborhoods
of bexley and we met with
mayor ginther at one of our strategic
planning meetings at the start of his
term and that
all those efforts have started to bear
fruit
residents will see work in
coming months on cassidy avenue which
was
one of the first results of that um i
think we're seeing
um continued efforts with the
relationship with the eastmore civic
association and their main street
program so this is um exciting to hear
about the southern end of our um city
also giving some
love so to speak so thank you again
thank you richard so much anybody else
have any comments or questions for the
mayor
all right i believe we are to
um our um consent agenda
and i'm going to turn it over to mr
fishel
okay on the consent agenda we have the
city council meet
meeting minutes of january 12 2021.
all right is there any um conversation
about um the minutes
from council
any conversation or comments from those
in attendance
seeing none is there a motion on the
minutes
on the consent agenda
i'll make a motion that we approve the
consent agenda thank you mr klingler
is there a second i'll second the song
thank you miss sod and thank you for
saying your name um
mr harvey mr klingler yes
ms lamke yes miss saad
yes ms robinson yes ms fiable
yes mr markham yes mr sharp
mr
all right um so
then okay so the consent agenda passes
minutes past
thank you ms maynard for such a great
job on those um
so now we're going to move on to
ordinances that
um have special guests and dylan is here
with us again today and i'm going to
turn
um the reading over to mr fishel and
then we will turn it
um over to mr sharp
mr fisher apologize can you remind me
what reading number reading this is
it's 63 20 no with one to second
third what is it this is the third
reading of
events ordinance sixty three thirty sir
thank you
okay so we have a third reading of
amended ordinance 6320
to support the creation of the bexley
electricity aggregation program the
issuance of
issuance of requests for proposals and
to authorize a process for the board of
control to award a contract
to an electricity aggregation supplier
introduced by mr sharp
mr sharp
okay um i believe i believe we have a
guest
from breaker and echler that's here
um dylan borchers um
dylan would you and or the mayor like to
give an update on the uh proposed
amendments that are
attached and be available to answer any
questions from residents
and council
uh sure thank you thank you for being
with us
i want to real quickly provide a very
broad overview
of what we're talking about tonight i
see several residents who were not here
at previous meetings so this ordinance
is proposing the creation of an
aggregation program in bexley which is a
a way that the city can go to market to
bid
on an electrical supply for residents
and small commercial users of the city
at a uh at a program that we would agree
on in this instance we're looking for
competitive pricing
a pricing that's favorable to the
current
price to compare for aep customers but
that
consists of 100 renewable energy
specifically local
ohio based renewable energy that will be
added in the next coming
few years this is a program where
residents would be added to the added to
this
program but they could opt out at any
time if they should find that they don't
want to be participating in that program
so
with that in mind dylan from bricker and
echoler is a energy genius
and is here to answer any questions that
we might have
uh also talk about some kind of minor
tweaks to our ordinance
as well as the draft rfp which has
changed slightly since our last council
meeting so
dylan welcome thank you
mr mayor and good evening uh everyone
uh it's good to be here again uh mr
mayor you did a nice job
uh setting the stage um the
first um update i'd like to orient
um counsel to as well as
listeners is the rfp which is really the
the meat of the next step in this
process
so the rfp is just that it's a request
for proposal but
we did make it a point to structure it
in a way to really
guide suppliers and providing proposals
that
meet the key objectives again that's
first and foremost to
provide a competitive retail energy
supply
for participants in the aggregation
program
the second objective is to procure
renewable energy
produced from projects located in ohio
and finally to ensure that energy
suppliers
provide quality reliable
service and first-rate customer service
so that's really front and center in the
rfp and the
details of the rfp align with those
objectives
i'm glad the mayor went ahead and
scrolled down the section 2 the scope of
services
because this really gets to the point of
what we're looking for in proposals
so first the product is a standard
retail electric supply product
but with the requirement that it's 100
renewable and by no later than
uh june of 2024 that that renewable
supply be
uh entirely ohio based meaning that the
renewable supplies from projects in ohio
as opposed to just renewable energy
credits
from you know any market in the country
that in some ways aligns with some of
what
columbus's aggregation is achieving and
aligns well
with the increased
development of large-scale renewable
projects that we're seeing
in the state of ohio the term
we've provided that it has to be a
minimum of three years which is
lined up with the opt-out period within
the aggregation
but allowing it to be up to 12 years in
proposals
that reflects some of the development
cycle here in ohio
there's a big pipeline of renewable
energy projects slated to be developed
in the next handful of years and frankly
a longer term contract uh can provide
uh for lower pricing at least
potentially and so
we have a fairly broad window that we're
allowing suppliers to
[Music]
present their ideas for for how to meet
the objectives within that window
[Music]
again one other thing i did mention
that a primary objective is price
competitiveness
uh we have some express provisions in
this rfp
uh that outline what the expectations
around competitiveness
um will be in particular
uh the rfp requests that suppliers
outline potential uh price adjustments
or reviews or mechanisms to
[Music]
modify pricing especially in the context
of a long-term contract
um the benefit of a long-term contract
again is that it can help
better support renewable energy projects
and also
uh provide for lower pricing
uh but nonetheless a longer term
contract
does create the potential for there to
be a delta
between what the market price is and
what your contract
long-term contract prices and so we want
suppliers to provide some opportunities
for
there to be adjustments if there's a
significant deviation from
the utility price to compare
other than that the rfp is pretty
standard
uh for this kind of program
[Music]
we've tried to be fairly detailed in
order to help
hone in on the city's objectives
but there is enough flexibility that i
think suppliers can really come with
their best proposals to the table
after this rfp is issued we expect
about a month give or take for
suppliers to respond and then there'll
be an evaluation process
uh in early uh this spring we
would hope that a supplier
could be selected and then there will be
the process to actually negotiate that
contract
if the objective is to get the supply
um two customers
by the summer of 2021
then we would want to have this contract
with the selected supplier
negotiated and finalized sometime in
mid-spring so i'll pause there
and see what questions about the the rfp
uh
or objectives uh might be
sorry i was muted counselor are there
anyone who has questions
i see that richard does mr sharp i'll
defer to bill i see his hands up
first thank you mr sharp mr harvey
uh dylan uh under the section about bid
price requirements
you talk about the city getting
reimbursed for its expenses
but i'm not sure i understand the exact
wording of that last sentence
when you talk about i'll wait till you
get there or ben gets there
right there ben the very bottom uh dylan
um
the last three or four words the amount
paid by the city i assume that means
the amount paid initially by the city
because otherwise it should say the
amount paid to the city i would think
yeah that would be a reference to the
the initial amount
paid by the city to help okay the the
program set up
all right okay that's it thanks thank
you mr harvey
mr sharp okay
um i had some questions for
from some residents um
probably directed to dylan um
they were wondering if there was any
long-term cost or obligation
to the city and any
by entering into contract if
companies are building
sites for the city and
a number of people may be opt out
because the market changes
yeah so under ohio's
aggregation statute will be an
opportunity for
people to opt out both at the beginning
of the program and then every three
years
so that's one of the dynamics that
will occur if if a longer term contract
is selected
uh that participants in the program will
have the opportunity to opt out
okay is a city responsible for trying
for the marketing cost of trying to
encourage
additional opt-ins
uh that that will be uh typically the
obligation of the
supplier dylan can you also clarify from
your first answer
the the three-year opt-out it's called a
period it's really
it's a notification period where
residents are reminded they can opt out
but they can actually
add at any time i believe is that
correct you verify that
yeah there's the the there's
the uh notice that goes out and they
have the opportunity
to uh opt out uh
within the window provided in the notice
that will be
something that can be uh expressly
provided for
in the plan of governance that will be
included
with these aggregation program that plan
of governance will be something that
a council will have to review in advance
of the supplier being
selected and any
uh going to customers and that can
expressly it will expressly lay out
what all the rights and um obligations
are
of participants in the aggregation
so council can't expect something that
we
need to approve even before the contract
signed then
yeah there are a number of steps in the
in this process still so there will be
as i said
um the the issuance of this rfp
uh and the evaluation of
uh proposals uh in a recommendation
council there will also be
um a plan of governance that has to be
updated
uh there's an existing plan of
governance from the
um original formation of the aggregation
but it
it frankly needs to be updated um
and lay out some of the again some of
the
some of the rights of customers some of
the overall objectives
of the city uh that will be something
for city council
to review and approve uh as well so
one of the multiple steps yet in this
process
okay and then um is there a formal
evaluation worksheet
that the team and will be using to
evaluate
the rfp and
do we know who the team is going to
comprise
be comprised of and that'll all be
public information after the
the opening of the beds correct
yeah i can dylan i can turn
i was gonna yeah thank you yeah to
remind council the way that this
ordinance is structured
the board of control is the group that
awards the rfp so the board of control
would analyze the rfps and select the
winning rfp
based upon the requirements of the rfp
and the language in this ordinance which
is the i believe it's the
most qualified and responsive and
responsive means responsive to the
request of the rfp
that will that is the auditor the
president of council and myself
um but per this ordinance that uh
selection is going to be
pre-communicated to council pride
prior to being made um
a scoring sheet is typically made when
we look at rfps based upon the
requirements of the rfp and
there is not one yet crafted for this
but there uh there would be one there
will be one crafted prior to its uh
selection
okay thank you uh richard um jen
robinson has
her hand in the air jeff dylan thanks so
much
um i have a quick uh question i'm going
to ask you to revisit
the time period for opting out i'm not
sure i clearly understood
um so every three years there will be
kind of a reminder set
that you know there is the ability to
opt out and then there is a window
every three years that people can opt
out or is it that people can opt out any
point along the way
uh it's the former okay so there'll be
there'll be an initial period for
anybody to opt out
before uh the supply becomes effective
and then there will be
uh windows every three years along with
reminders
great thanks for clarifying that for me
i appreciate it
editor harvey yeah um
thanks um i guess that's your answer to
that question dylan
was different than what i understood and
i think different than what the mayor
understood
i thought that's what the mayor was sort
of asking i was under the impression
that
residents can opt out at any time
in addition there will be every three
years a notification of a specific
opt-out period
ben was that not your understanding that
is actually my understanding so i
i'm i'm i don't i don't need to put a
spanner in the works but uh
that is a uh we have a minimum three
year opt
out period but as we've talked about
this over the time as we looked into
this i thought it was pretty clear that
um that was an advertised period but
then there would be an ability to opt
out on a rotating basis um
that was my understanding which i think
consistent with our past aggregation
experiences as well
so i don't know if that's a question of
us needing to change the rf
terms in order to reflect that dylan
yeah so i was just going to bring that
up we
could provide in the rfp um
additional opt-out notice windows and
have a proposal from a supplier in terms
of what those windows would be
but it's not uncommon for there to be
an opt-out period every three years and
then an opt-out window
and that really aligns with similar to
what
people have with their electric supply
contracts if you
shop with a supplier and you enter into
a contract
you're in that contract for a period of
time until it ends
then you have the opportunity to renew
that contract or to enter into a new
contract
but many of those contracts excuse me
for interrupting
many of those contracts allow people to
opt out at any time
potentially with a penalty but many of
them don't have a penalty
in my life yeah okay so i
i i think in terms of
whether there's a penalty or not we can
highlight in the rfp what the
expectation is for the ability to opt
out and have the supplier
present the most flexible opt-out option
that they can
include in their proposal
yeah i would feel that that's important
um so i as as we
you know finalize this rfp i think
that's going to be an important aspect
to us
in a in a part of our decision making
matrix i think
if we decide to ultimately reward the
rfp
yeah i understand this is this is uh
helpful to hone in on on that issue
uh of importance for from council
we have another um another question from
mr sharp richard
it's um not so much a question but i
think it relates to the interaction
between the rfp
that's attached and the ordinance the
ordinance is worded
that the rfp would on um
substantially similar requirements
so that um if there are any minor
changes it looks like
that our ordinance would allow those to
be made
after we pass this ordinance so some of
the things we're talking about that
need to be tightened up a little bit and
maybe terminology like instead of
putting
using the word team in the rfp
specifically stay the board and control
so there's no
confusion and some other and all the
dates have to be filled in and whatnot
so
that's a fabulous uh comment richard i
would like um
our city attorney to speak to that just
just or dylan i'm sorry i
i you you could speak to it as well um
can the ordinance be passed without us
having some of those
items buttoned up on the rfp
attorney for for your your process on
this
sorry don't mean to punt but uh it
sounds like a city
process first and that would be up to
since everyone's planning council to um
have a consensus of whether they would
be
comfortable with the the proposed
amended wording
that uses the word substantially similar
or
if they would rather
a final rfp be presented prior to
passing the organs and i guess
now that i think about it a little bit
more i do think
substantially similar um certainly gives
the city some flexibility
um so that something is not exactly the
same
you know that's not uncommon in the rfp
process overall
whether it's this area the law or
something else that
we expect substantial compliance not
exact compliance
as long as it's not a substantive
difference
okay then let me just kind of um get a
feel from councils
um after listening to what mr official
had to say is anybody
uncomfortable um entertaining a vote a
vote on this without the rf
with the rfp reading the way it does
i don't see anyone raising their hand um
i would assume that it's okay um with
council
um mr kessler did you have something to
add yeah
i pulled up the amended ordinance and i
added this little
section right here which i think helps
ease any questions on that point
potentially
yeah yeah that's a good point ben
because i was going to comment on that
so specifically addresses that there's
an expectation the rfp
gets changed along those lines
dylan is that worrying okay
that gives us a clear instruction to um
flow through into the rfp and i i think
sets
an expectation for the suppliers okay
great
thank you everyone um does anyone have
any further questions on this piece of
legislation
madam president if you could um if you
don't mind
censors attendees sometimes i feel
awkward when we make a motion to amend
and
and um approve an ordinance and then ask
for comments afterwards if we
maybe can ask if there are any prote
attendee questions at this point
i would be happy to entertain questions
from attendees um thank you mr sharp for
suggesting that
um ladies and gentlemen who might be um
sharing their evening with us if do you
have any questions
about our ordinance concerning
aggregation
we would love for you to raise your hand
and speak to this now
council i don't see any hands from our
attendees
so council does anybody else have any
further questions or comments
about this piece of legislation
mr sherman president madam president i
would like
to make a motion to amend
ordinance i think it's 63 20. um
based on the blue wording on our screen
as the recommended amendments and the
line outs
thank you mr sharp do i have a second
i'll second miss lamb thank you miss
lamke
um before we vote on the amendments
are there any is there any conversations
comments or questions from
council on the amendments
any from those on in attendance
mr harvey mr sharp
mr sharp ms lampke yes
ms fibel yes mr markham
yes miss sod yes mr klingler
yes and ms robinson yes
the amendment pass the amendment's
passed
mr sherpa
if i'm if i may make a motion to uh
pass amended ordinance 63-20
thank you for your motion is there a
second second by death
i thought i heard jen robinson thank you
jen
uh any questions from council
on uh this piece of legend amended
legislation
any from those in attendance
mr mr attorney i mean i'm sorry mr otter
please
ms lamke yes mr sharp
yes assad yes miss fibel
yes ms robinson yes mr klingler
yes mr markham yes
motion passes dylan thank you so much
for your patience and walking us through
this we are grateful that you were here
with us tonight
um mr kessler thank you so much for
always trying to make our city a little
bit
more green we appreciate that too
council thank you for your support on
this one
thank you dylan thank you and thank you
for the good discussion
have a good evening thank you thank you
all right mr city attorney will you lead
us into
our don't believe we have any third
readings
um but we do have some second readings
would you lead us into those please
absolutely we have a second reading of
ordinance 0-21 to approve the collective
bargaining agreement
between the fraternal order of police
capital city lodge number nine
and the city of bexley um is robinson
introduced thank you city attorney i
said those words backwards sorry
did you i didn't catch it um
yes this so this is the second reading
of our
um proposed fop contract with uh for our
police department
um i hope everybody has had a chance to
look over
the the document itself there are
several changes
from last year to this year um
and i believe that we have some people i
think i just checked the list a couple
people in attendance
tonight who would like to speak to this
so i want to make sure that we
have time for that as well but does does
council have any questions that either i
can address or
the mayor or the city attorney
i don't see any oh we do have a hand
raise
um miss robinson um richard sharp has
his hand in the air
mr sharp please uh yes
mayor or um mr official
could you explain to
council um the uh
citizens review board interaction with
the um provisions
the grievance or other provisions within
the document where how they specifically
relate
since i didn't see those words used in
the document or
couldn't tell exactly where the
interplay would
hit that document
you want me to go mayor yes please all
right
so you're absolutely right mr sharp
there is nothing in the document
discussing the citizens review board
because
our position has been all along that
the citizens review board
should be as of impacted as little as
possible by the collective bargaining
agreement
leaving it to the mayor city council and
ultimately the citizens to have the
proper review board
in place so they're the last
so that was not a topic of bargaining we
didn't ask the union for approval on
that
they did not bring up the concept as you
recall we previously met with the union
to at least inform them what we were
doing from a citizen's review board
standpoint
so there is nothing in the collective
bargaining agreement that would
impact the um way that
the current citizens review board is set
up by ordinance of council
and furthermore there is nothing in the
uh collective bargaining agreement that
would impact
any of the citizens review board
language that you've seen and we'll be
just hearing more about tomorrow night
uh concerning charter review so so for
that reason now
now again for the i i want to emphasize
that's the citizens review board that we
have um
set up in bexley so um certainly there
are other thoughts about how to do a
citizen's review board
um that might be inconsistent with the
collective bargaining agreement so i
don't want to ignore that
but i also don't want to get into the
weeds on it bottom line is
everything you've already approved stays
in full force in effect
and is not negated in any way by this
collective bargaining agreement
thank you mr official um richard did
that answer your question sir
so um i'm just
trying to mentally think through the
process so
when the police contract refers to
actions by the mayor the mayor
uses the citizens review board to
do the investigation process
sorry i was having enough time i was
having a hard time on muting
so the way that works there's a couple
of different ways that the invest
that an investigation could occur or
that a matter ends up with
with the citizens review board again our
our
the citizens review board um provisions
that you passed in an ordinance last
year
at city council at the mayor's sign
it has an expectation that the initial
investigation would be done by the
particular
board i'm sorry the particular
department where there's a complaint so
you know let's focus on the police
department so if an
if a complaint is made through the
complaint process online
excuse me with or without the assistance
of one of our complaint liaisons
that complaint would be reviewed by the
mayor and then sent to the police
department
for an investigation that investigation
would
proceed consistent with the collective
bargaining agreement
if after that investigation is concluded
the citizen
who made that complaint is dissatisfied
then there could or would be an
independent review
by the citizens review board
um but again discipline itself is still
going to be
continues to be um within the bailiwick
of the chief in recommending something
and the mayor in his role as
a safety director
thank you thank you richard for the
questions
council are there any questions that you
might have concerning
um the um the contract that we will um
be voting on next time around
potentially
i don't see any comments and i and i do
also know that there were
slated to be individuals who wanted to
um attend our meeting specifically to
discuss the the contract um
and so i would open the meeting now
to individuals who might be interested
in sharing um
i see that tom tim hoffman um would like
to
would like to speak mr hopman
yes good evening and thank you for the
opportunity to speak
um first want to point out that
i'm speaking but i'm actually
representing a group of citizens who've
been
discussing equity issues in the city of
bexley
for a number of months now and in fact
we are
partnering more and more with other
groups who are also interested in equity
issues in
in bexley and expect that we and others
that we're working with
will be uh coming back to you from time
to time with additional
uh concerns and and opportunities for
the city to improve on
on equity within our borders
we're here to bottom line request that
approval of this contract be tabled
pending
investigation of several issues which
i'll get to in a little bit
but i want to give you a little bit of a
preamble this is our first time
speaking with you on an issue of this
nature and i wanted to give you a little
background on on
where you where we're coming from what
our perspective is on these issues
first of all it's it's important that
you know that we
deeply appreciate the work that the
bexley police do for us the safety that
they afford
our citizens and the many good things
that
that are actually police do on a
day-to-day basis
i listened with interest to the police
report earlier in the conversation
around it
clearly they have a lot of challenges
and we want to be part
of helping them address those challenges
to the best of our ability
at the same time we know that there are
issues with
with equity in baxley there have been a
number of concerns expressed by
various citizens and we hope that
the the police department and the city
would join us in developing a vision for
greater equity in the city with policing
in particular and more broadly
and it is our als it is also our hope
that as we raise issues such as the ones
we're raising tonight
that armed with a shared vision for
doing the right thing in bexley we can
create a constructive dialogue for
shared problem solving
as opposed to a positional dialogue in
which we're lobbing things
back and forth trying to reach a
more difficult middle ground so it's in
that spirit that we're going to offer
these things tonight
again in hopes that what you'll agree to
do
is to table the contract for the moment
and participate in that kind of exchange
where we together
find the best possible solution to the
issues at hand
and again well i expect that there will
be further issues of this nature coming
down the road
if we can develop that kind of
constructive collaborative
approach to solving problems i think
there's really nothing we can't do
as a city
relative to the police contract the bulk
of what is written in that contract we
believe is very good and we
support it at the same time there
are various groups around the nation as
i'm sure you're well aware
who are working to develop
improvements to policing
policing contracts policing practices
and we think it's important that the
city of bexley follow the lead that we
see
in other parts of the country to ensure
that we have the best
possible equity environment in our city
so the issues that we're going to bring
in a moment
are all based on uh on various
inputs from organizations around the
country
you may be familiar with nicksthesix.org
which has developed a set of
concerns around policing and
recommendations on how to improve upon
those
we're also referencing the naacp
legal defense and education fund
which is a highly respected
group of people that has been dealing
with issues like this for years starting
with the work
of thurgood marshall many years ago
so we have we've looked at the contract
and compared it to the recommendations
that we've seen from these organizations
and find that there are several things
that that can be improved about
so specifically there are three issues
the first issue is not an issue with the
contract per se
but is instead an issue regarding how
the community works together with the
city
to support the contract negotiation
process
as some of you know those of us in our
group
and others have been in conversation
with the mayor and and
members of city council as well about
issues with policing
i know that there was some open comment
period and yet even those of us who've
been
much more involved than the average
citizen were unaware of the formal
comment period i don't know all the
details of what that common
comment period may have entailed i
understand that it did include
the ability to comment on the
pre-existing contract
i don't know if it also included the
ability to comment on the new contract
but certainly i would expect that an
excellent process would include that
other communities have also gone further
than
community review and invited community
representation or observation during the
contract
contract negotiation itself and
so while this is not something that
affects the contract per se
we feel this is the right time to raise
the issues so that city council
can consider ways to improve this
process in future years
the second issue that we wish to raise
regarding is regarding the investigation
of officer misconduct
you know surely we have many good
officers and we hope this
this kind of thing is not needed on a
regular basis
at the same time if if regulation or
excuse me
discipline of officers is needed
we want to make sure that the best
possible practices are in place
the process in the contract involves
a rather elaborate process to protect
the officer which
we understand and and to the degree that
such protection is needed we certainly
support it
but the but the delays involved can be
significant and with delay
you also enter into an issue with
potential for loss of information
the potential for information to be spun
in ways that may not accurately
represent
the situation in question mr hoffman
i i i don't mean to be to be rude but i
would um like to let you know that
you're well over your five minutes
if council um has no objections i will
allow you another
two minutes to finish up we just we do
have rules in our
in our council um for five minutes as i
stated in the beginning
so certainly i understand thank you
please continue does anyone have any
objections to mr hotman having another
two minutes i didn't think so all right
thank you
so i'll make this pretty quick and if i
don't get done we do have other members
here who can speak to the rest
um so uh we're looking for uh compliance
with
naacp ldf recommendations i won't get
into
further detail given the time but an
email has been sent that includes this
information and finally we we believe
that
it's important to follow appropriate
practices for retention of records in
disciplinary cases
for the reason of being able to see
issues
that may advance over time or to be able
to report on issues that
may affect an officer who is not with
the department any longer
so again we've got an email with more
detail on this
i will yield at this point uh perhaps
there are others on our team who would
like to comment further
thank you mr hoffman and thank you thank
you for the extra time by the way yeah
thank you for understanding our rules i
appreciate that
um do we have others i do
know we do have others um in attendance
who would like to speak
um mr um cahoon would you like to
speak sir
thank you madam president uh this is
spencer cahoon again 679 vernon road
and just to pick up on the same topics
that tim hoffman was just speaking about
so sort of the two provisions we see as
as ripe
for change or renegotiation modification
whatever term you might like to apply
are those as he was quickly noting
surrounding investigations regarding
officer misconduct
and then disciplinary records retention
the investigation surrounding officer
misconduct currently the way our
contract is phrased in the tentative
agreement and in the prior agreement
before that
it allows time for the officer to
receive all of the facts relating to the
investigation in which they're being
questioned
time for them to have a union
representative
come into their case as a criminal
defense attorney i certainly understand
the value of that
as we often find ourselves in that
position
and then finally they also have the
right to have
copies of all public records that are
made relating to the investigation
and while i see how something like this
can be achieved
or might be brought to the table through
bargaining
it is really an outlier when you look at
investigations in sort of all other
contexts
anyone who has worked in corporate
america
i myself have worked in government and
non-profit sectors primarily
if you are called in for an hr
investigation
generally they don't say but before we
ask you any questions
let us tell you everything we know what
all of our concerns are
let us provide you with all of our
records let's get your representative
and then let's go because frankly that's
a recipe for
facts changing over time memories get
weaker as time passes
as people understand the facts the other
person is working with there are
incentives
for people to change the way they
describe situations
and the facts they choose to present
during an investigation
and that's the main concern around
delays in investigation
and that's why the naacp legal defense
fund
as well as nix the six which is a
campaign
zero project much like the eight can't
wait campaign
also a campaign zero project have both
indicated that this is something we want
to try to get away from
and the naacp has put out model language
for this section of fop contracts that
investigation should take place no later
than two hours after the incident
with the possibility of extension of up
to additional four hours
and that includes time for the union
representative to come time for there to
be some briefing
but not so much time that facts start to
get lost memories start to fade
and people are improperly incentivized
to
possibly change what information they're
sharing
now regarding disciplinary records which
is the other part
we in many ways we have a very good
disciplinary records retention policy
compared to many departments
so i just want to start by saying that
although we do have a few places
that could use some improvement we
would like to see longer retention
periods
um to allow uncovering of repeated um
disciplinary misconduct something that's
been a problem is officers running into
misconduct in one
department leaving there going to
another department and there being no
record
to warn that future department of what
problems that officers had
while we don't think there are specific
problems that a particular officer in
bexley has
this is more of a best practice not only
to protect bexley
but all of our surrounding communities
where our officers
live and act and that would include
requiring that discipline that results
in resignation
or termination be maintained currently
if it results in termination it's
maintained
but if somebody chooses to resign before
that termination becomes official
it never goes into their permanent
record it will never follow them to
another police job
so that's a relatively easy change to
help protect other communities
the other piece which i think is also
modest
is that suspensions or demotions
regarding sexual misconduct
domestic violence and excessive use of
force
be maintained permanently as opposed to
on the schedule that's currently listed
in the contract
obviously domestic violence and
excessive use of force
are particularly concerning regarding
people who are in a position to use
force with communal approval and that's
why it makes sense to keep them to a
higher level of scrutiny for that
same concern with sexual misconduct
though we don't see it as often with
police officers
one has but to look around to see
stories of officers misusing
their power in ways that relate to that
as well
so these are all areas that relate to
concerns that future police forces might
have
looking at that officer considering them
for position and ways we can help make
sure that the public is protected
not just here but in all the communities
around here
and ultimately nationwide if someone
chooses to leave
and those recommendations are mirrored
both by the naacp legal defense fund
and campaign zero and we have provided
those citations to the council so you
can look at that on your own
and i appreciate the council for all the
time you've provided and i think that
wraps up everything i have to say right
now thank you for your important work
and to mirror mr hopman's comments we
certainly do appreciate the important
work that police officers do in our
community
and the fact that we're saying a few
things are important to change
should not be seen to take away from the
very important role
that the police have in our community
and the important service that they
provide both for us and all of our
citizens
thank you thank you mr hoon um
is there any are there any other um
individuals in
attendance who would like to
speak to this piece of legislation
i don't see any um i would
um turn it over to
any comments our city attorney might
have or perhaps the mayor
in regard to um this piece of
legislation
mr city attorney yes so i i mean look i
i appreciate where
what we're hearing here and i do also
appreciate the fact that
um this was sent in an email in advance
of the meeting
so um i could look you know understand
where folks are coming from so the first
part was you know
we want essentially more community
involvement with the collective
bargaining process
and i'm not going to say that's
impossible to achieve
but i will tell you that
under ohio law chapter 4117 of the
revised code
collective bargaining is a private
process
by law between the union and the
employer
and within reason and again there's some
exceptions to that
but well let me step back the chief
executive on the employer's side
is responsible for conducting the
bargaining
sometimes that chief executive is at the
table sometimes they delegate that
function
um it is extraordinarily uncommon i've
never even heard of it
in ohio that doesn't mean it can't be
done or we shouldn't look into it
to have citizens attend um collective
bargaining
meetings again those collective
bargaining any anything that goes on in
those collective bargaining
meetings though would need to me
everybody would be subject
to making sure it stays private until
after the collective bargaining process
is finished
now obviously council is allowed to be
updated and of course state law provides
for
us to go into executive sessions again
to prevent
protect that privacy and that bargaining
strategy
so um so again that that
that that's my response there now
in the on the discipline side of things
there's a couple of things
first i want to talk about the process
and then i want to talk about
the retention of records so
um look i would certainly acknowledge
that any collective bargaining agreement
is going to create
hoops that an employer has to jump
through that don't
normally exist under the law whether
it's state or federal law
when it comes to disciplining or
investigating employees
however in ohio over and above what's in
the collective bargaining agreement
there are some specific requirements
that would be would be
100 percent impossible to meet any these
the naacp legal defense
groups recommendation regarding two to
four hours
in ohio many years ago a decision was
issued by the ohio supreme court called
in ray piper so piper was a
dayton police officer who went to
uh was called in to
[Music]
um answer questions about an
investigation
that he was the subject of and
he long story short he was fired and he
ended up getting his job back because
the ohio supreme court
interpreted a section of the ohio
revised code
i'm not going to remember the exact
section but the sec
the number but the section says i'm
paraphrasing anytime someone is
questioned by a government entity
they have the right to be represented
and advised by an attorney
now normally that that everybody thought
that that only meant if you're called as
a witness
at a trial or if you're called as a
witness at an administrative hearing
but the ohio supreme court back in the
early 2000s
might even be in the late 90s said nope
it applies when you are when a
government entity is questioning one of
its employees
now that ended up getting modified by
legislation
to limit that right the right to be
represented by an attorney
only to those individuals who are
suspected of misconduct
and the suspected of misconduct part of
it so any
officers suspected of misconduct
is we the city is required to advise
that
officer or any other employee of the
city
that they have the right to be
represented by an attorney
and basically what they say is you have
the right to be represented by an
attorney
today's tuesday on thursday at noon
we're going to be doing this internal
investigation and questioning you
and if you can get an attorney there by
thursday great and if you can't we're
going forward
with the caveat that sometimes you have
to be flexible if somebody says i can't
get an attorney there
but on thursday at noon but i can do it
friday at noon you're probably gonna
have to say
delay until then uh if somebody says my
attorney's on a two-week cruise my
advice is
to tell them they need to get another
attorney because we're going forward so
it depends on the circumstances but the
bottom line is
we cannot avoid that even if we didn't
have a collective bargaining agreement
so that right applies no matter what on
top of that right
employees in bargaining units are
entitled to
be represented by a union representative
any time that they are in a meeting with
the employer that they
reasonably believe could have could
result in discipline
so and our collective bargaining
agreement of course recognizes that and
even if it didn't
they'd stop that right and i'm not aware
of
any circumstance outside of a large
large employer where there might be a
multitude of
um union reps running around who are
employed by the agent that particular
employer
so i there is there is absolutely no way
under
as i understand ohio law that we could
comply we could get that done any
quicker
in terms because the employee also has a
right to have his or her union
representative and that applies
to the police officer contract the
afscme contract and the dispatcher
contract as well it does not apply to
non-bargaining
unit employees so those i understand the
concerns
and look i'd rather do an investigation
right now as well
but i think we're illegally our hands
are somewhat tied
and i will tell you that again uh you
know i i understand some of the
frustration with article
9 which is the internal review procedure
but i would also say to you
that for what it's worth and it may not
be worth that much to some folks and
that's fine
this is a scaled-down version of what's
in many many many
collective bargaining agreements um so
the um yeah and again i appreciate what
spencer had to say
because i i've done investigations and
i'd much rather call somebody in
and say you're going to answer this
question now these questions right now
but we can't do that
under ohio law or or ohio's collective
bargaining law or that piper decision
then the third point relates to the
discipline records which is set forth
so the um duration of records is set
forth in 10.5 of the agreement which is
on page 12
of the document that's attached to your
um
to your uh to the agenda and
so what it says is that you know first
of all you have to have just cause to
discipline somebody and just cause and
again i'm sorry i'm getting if i'm
getting too much into the weeds
but just cause means that among other
things you have to look at the severity
of the offense you
also have to look at the person's
history of uh
work record and so our collective
bargaining agreement like
every other collective bargaining
agreement sets forth time
frames after which the city can no
longer consider
the prior discipline for purposes of
progressive discipline
those records are never ever ever
destroyed
and they are always available to
subsequent employers because again
the the the informa that the concern
that was
related by our two speakers is a hundred
percent on point
that there has been a history maybe not
with bexley
but there's certainly been a history of
recycling
bad officers who get fired or resigned
before they're fired
and therefore think you know are able to
get another job
when maybe they shouldn't so in our
collective burdening agreement and again
this hasn't changed from the old
contract
documented counseling which is the
lowest level of discipline
can be considered for up to a year
unless there is something
same or similar misconduct written
reprimands for two years
suspensions of less than 30 days can be
considered for purposes of progressive
discipline
four years out down the road again all
this state
unless there's similar same or similar
misconduct and then
suspension of 30 days or more um
is six years now again all of these
sections say
that the that after that period
that it's removed from the personnel
file if the member requests it and again
it's removed the personnel file it's
kept in a
separate file and it is not destroyed
unless it's
destroyed consistent with the city's
records retention schedule
and i believe off the top of my head the
city's record retention schedule for all
personnel map
documents is it's not destroyed for
seven years after the person is not has
left employment with the city
so what would happen if another police
department was doing it
a background investigation or a citizen
i mean it doesn't have to be another
police department they would make a
public records request
for the personnel file and all personnel
records including but not limited to
records of discipline etc etc etc and
they would have a copy of
all of those documents so again it's
they're not hidden
and they shouldn't be hidden is the
bottom line and that is
also true of almost every aspect of
a an investigation so for example
if there's an investigation that's being
conducted and the employee says
i'm resigning before i get
fired all those investigatory documents
and again there's minor exceptions under
ohio's public records law
but all of those documents are public
record
and can be reviewed viewed by anyone who
makes a request
so again i understand the concerns
but i think we've addressed them at
least for right now
to the extent we can't address them
doesn't mean we shouldn't be working
on improving things going forward but
some of that improvement i do think
comes from outside the collective
bargaining
agreement you know kind of going back to
richard's question earlier on
thank you um mr fishel we are sorry i
talked too loud
no we are just fortunate that this is
happens to be your
well into your wheelhouse i mean you
know that you are a union
union expert so thank you so much um
for that um
uh i think that jen has her hand in the
air i
will say to um the members who are in
attendance
with us that there will be another
opportunity for you to speak at the very
end of our meeting and if
you um have not had your answers
uh your question the questions too um
or or have not had enough of an answer
um please please um know that all of our
emails are
on the website um jen robinson
thanks president fibel um i just wanted
to take a second to uh to thank tim and
spencer for bringing their concerns
forward and for agreeing to send
your questions to us beforehand it
really did give us an opportunity to do
i know i personally did a deep dive into
the naacp
and the legal defense education fund and
then nix the six
and uh feel like i have a better grasp
about what those organizations
are proposing and um definitely
think that they are worth uh looking at
for those of you on council who have not
had a chance to
to look at those yet um and um i also
want to thank
our attorney who uh has answered my
questions
and then answered my questions some more
and um
really does give us kind of a really
great insight into
what um this contract negotiation and
the collective bargaining
um agreement and and process is and i
appreciate everybody's input on this
and to those who spoke today and to
those who are included on that email
please feel free to reach out to me
um whether these are things that we can
put into this fop contract or the things
that we can consider in the future i
know we are all very much committed to
making sure that we
are being as equitable and fair-minded
as we can
and really paying attention to the
concerns of our citizens when we
address these kinds of things so thank
you guys for for sending us the
information beforehand and for being
here today and and thanks to mr fishel
and i think i see richard sharp has his
hand up
yep richard i'd like to uh thank mark
for um
clarifying some of those issues and for
tim and spencer for bringing up their
points uh
some of their points were um background
questions of mine especially the uh
retention of records i was a little bit
confused by that i hadn't really thought
about it that much
um but i'd like to make a suggestion
that
um federal council woman lamke might
consider some time under her committee
maybe reviewing if there's anything in
our record retention
policy that should be addressed
that would make sense um
especially with regard to domestic
violence and
sexual issues that at least it's
reviewed
in accordance with uh
current cases that have recently come
about in the past few years so
thank you thank you mr schwartz as if
she doesn't have enough to do sometimes
she's always willing to take something
else on lucky yes
all right um counselor are there any
further comments or considerations
um of this piece of legislation before
um
i asked ms robinson if it's okay if we
move on
mr robinson it is okay to move on thank
you president fibel
all right thank you mr city attorney
okay so we are on uh second reading of
ordinance 02-21
to appropriate 100 000 from the grand
reimbursed
expenditures account of the general fund
for the purpose of paying for expenses
associated with the jeffrey mansion
expansion and accessibility project
after the receipt of 100 000 from the
2020 state of ohio capital budget
introduced by mr markham
i want everyone to notice something this
is the first time we're hearing from mr
markham this evening
we knew we were missing something
it won't be the last mr fisher
that sounds ominous thank you
uh so we're back to ordinance uh 0-2-21
which simply allows us to accept a 100
000
grant from the state ohio capital budget
uh and get it uh
earmarked for the uh get into the
general fund for
uh for the jeffrey mansion expansion
project um are there any
questions or comments on this
i don't see any mr marcum if there are
none
i would uh suggest we move this
consent agenda for next time i think
that sounds great
is there anyone in uh well looks like ms
lamke
has a comment on this piece of
legislation
um i just wanted to say that i am so
appreciative of
mike and his efforts to get
some additional i guess additional money
amongst
the pandemic when we at least i thought
that
there was probably no chance of getting
additional money so mike if you are
still on and you're listening
thank you for being diligent and for uh
obtaining this additional hundred
thousand dollars
thank you thank you monique i would just
add that really mayor kessler was
instrumental in making this happen but i
appreciate that thank you mayor
mayor that's for you too thank you
thanks a village thank you
all right mr klingler you have some
comments sir
just a question i'm sure mike would have
said it or that may we don't need to
suspend and adopt this
for the purpose of paying for anything
for the project mike shaking his head
no okay no thank you
thank you mr klingler good question um
before we uh go ahead and sign this to
the consent agenda i would like to see
if anyone in attendance
has any comments or questions about this
piece of legislation specifically
this piece of legislation i don't see
any hands so let's please
um designate this um for consent agenda
and
mr markham with your permission we will
move on to your next
ordinance sounds good all right
second reading of ordinance 0-3-21 to
unappropriate 210 000 from pool
operations personal services and to
appropriate 210
000 from the swimming pool fund into a
pool
management contract line item of the
pool
operations account mr markham
yes but nothing inappropriate so uh we
got the two good ones
um yeah so uh as uh mr price has told us
uh the rec board has uh voted to uh
recommend
uh this uh contract with the pool
operations
uh service uh so this would uh just move
that money
from uh from the uh swimming pool budget
into uh fund to pay the uh the pool
operations
all right thank you mr markham um mr um
mr price do you want to give us any
heads up about this at all any
i know that council had a lot of
questions for you
um pertaining to this is there anything
you'd like to
say in summary you know the only thing
i'll add is i think at our last meeting
the record had yet to have review and
approve
and as as troy had mentioned the record
did unanimously approve
moving forward with the swim safe
proposal for full management i will
i will reiterate what we've we've said
in the past and
we'll continue to say one of our most
important
points through this process was is was
working to ensure that our community
feel
with the community pool was not
adversely impacted by
um by having a third party vendor
administer the
pool management and so there were a lot
of provisions
put in place a lot of discussion around
that with swim safe
to make sure that while
while the intent of this is to be a
really smooth
positive experience for our residents
that there wasn't any negative impact on
the community aspect of the facility and
that
that includes things like um
access to employment for residents
through
their hiring process obviously that
would only be
to the extent that we have qualified uh
lifeguards that's the priority one but
all things being equal that our our
community and our residents have
opportunities to
receive uh to be to be considered for
jobs and positions there
as we we feel uh as a department that's
a one of our missions
uh is to provide job opportunities for
the youth in our community and so we
want to make sure that that was insured
and then just to ensure that we had good
oversight that allows us to address
issues
on a day-to-day basis as needed so those
things were really well addressed
through this the next step will be a
contract
which outlines
the rfp that will will be reviewed by
mark i believe
before any signatures occurs but um
we're excited to move forward it is
we appreciate the board considering
suspension adoption because there's a
lot of work to be done
obviously a big part of the contract
will include
covet provisions so as we are
we're moving forward as if we're going
to be able to run the pool uh the way we
have always intended to run the pool but
we understand that
the cova pandemic may alter those and we
need to make sure we protect the city
as we think about what those changes
might be so that'll be a big part of it
as well
as all things wreck i know that um
service and safety are always your
priorities so it sounds like
that is the case uh with this one as
well i see that matt klingler has his
hand in the air mr klingler
uh just clerical um we we're missing a
zero
in section one on the 210
000 on my copy at least
thanks matt that's actually been fixed
on a subsequent uh
okay or just a typo correction sorry
that's not attached
thanks matt keeping our numbers straight
uh ms lamke
you have a question monique um
my question's more for mark and these
might be actually premature questions
but
uh whatever contract if this does pass
if we go into a contract with a
third-party vendor
would those that manage
the program mark would they be
independent contractors
for purposes of the city absolutely
yeah nobody's an employee of the city
that's part of the benefit
of this contract they're all the the
it's a contract
it's a pool management company that is
contracting
with the city to operate the pool for us
as an independent contractor
and then they will hire all of the
employees okay
and my second question is is for mike
and this
too may be something that gets addressed
in any sort of subsequent contract but
is there a chance that the city would
potentially lose money or
be contractually obligated to provide
money if at some point you determined
that the pool would not open this summer
say worst case scenario we have a third
wave of covid later in the spring and we
can't open the pool
um is there a chance that the city would
then be contractually indebted to
this third party vendor here's what my
expectation is and i'll let mark maybe
jump in on this as well is
is there will be work done in
preparation for this pool that will
start almost immediately upon
uh completion of a contract in our
discussions with them it's sort of the
understanding was
is that that work would get done but if
at some point along the way we decided
we had to
pull the plug so to speak on the pool
because of a third wave or second wave
of covet
um we would probably could be
contractually obligated to deal with
funds uh or expenses that they incurred
leading up to that point
um but that would be i guess just to
clarify that would be the same instance
we
that's the same thing we would deal with
internally if we did not have a third
party vendor right we would have staff
that would be working on preparing the
pool
and getting it up and operating and that
would include salary and wages for
maintenance and other other current
staff
but the intent is to have language in
there that does
protect the city to the extent that
we're not obligated
to expend funds that are not expensive
that they've occurred on their end
that would be the goal
okay thank you both yeah and if i can
chime in as well
a lot of that of course as you know
monique depends on the actual language
of the contract
and i would expect that we will have
some language in the contract
that specifically gives the city a lot
of discretion to say hey
we're we are not operating the pool
anymore because it's too it's not safe
or it's not fiscally um sound to do so
then the question really becomes um then
the question really becomes what is the
vendor willing to agree to
or what expectations will they want in
the contract to recognize that they had
an outlay of money
and you know they're they're going to be
hurt as well so that's part of the
negotiation process i presume
got it thank you all right any other
questions about this
um council uh
mr klingler your hands in the air i'm
guessing it's just still in the air
um
all right um
for anyone in attendance who has any
comments or concerns
about this um ordinance we
are i am going i am just about ready to
ask mr markham
if he has a motion to suspend and prior
to that i would like to see
if anyone has any comments
all right i don't see any so mr markham
do you have a motion sir
yeah this time i move that we suspend
the three reading rule for ordinance
zero three dash twenty one
five seconds thank you mr sharp any
conversation about
suspension from council any conversation
from the attendees on suspension
mr city attorney mr city auditor please
mr klingler yes ms fiable
yes mossad yes mr
sharp yes ms robinson
yes ms lamke yes mr markham
yes passes thank you suspension passes
mr markham this time i move to adopt
ordinance 03-21
thank you mr mark on a second please mr
klingler a second
thank you mr klingler any questions or
comments
counsel attendees
mr harvey ms robinson yes
mr sharp yes mr klingler
yes ms assad yes mr markham
yes ms fiable yes ms lamke
yes passes
thank you council thank you all
all right if we can please move on to
first
readings mr um official please
okay first reading of ordinance 0-4-21
to allow for a vacation time buyouts for
unused vacation time in excess of 10
days
in the instance where a staff member was
unable to take vacation leave
due to extraordinary circumstances in
their job impacted by the city's coven
19
pandemic response introduced by mr
markham
we have a uh unique payroll circumstance
uh that was uh somewhat caused by
covet 19
that we need to
work around here uh do we have um
mike or uh mr mayor do you want to say
about this
yeah so um as you mentioned troy it's
this is a unique circumstance but there
are some staff members who
to date and who knows if this might
continue
in some shape or form in the a little
bit in the future here
have been in situations where they
haven't been able to take time off
due to work demands specific to covet
19. so that's pretty unusual that we've
had such a sustained essential hold on
schedules
um you know we try to obviously
encourage employees to have a strong
work life balance to try to make sure
they do
get to have time off but we've had some
pretty
pressured situations specifically i
think you called on mike
because a lot of those or i don't i
shouldn't say there are a lot of them
but those that have
occurred have occurred in part in the
rec department so an example of that
might be
our before and after care employees who
are supervising that program and have
been working
throughout uh an extended period of time
and have not had an ability to take time
off so this gives
us the option to extend additional
to extend buyouts for
excess vacation leave that was not
allowed and i think we'd also talked
about potentially additional just
carryover we might want to work work
that into this ordinance as well but uh
just giving flexibility to staff who
really just obviously deserve it
this wouldn't apply to situations where
a staff member
you know chose not to take time off for
personal reasons but did not was not
related to their work demands and that's
um a fairly cut and dry you know there
are there are only a few circumstances
where it's been very clearly linked to
work demands
thank you uh uh mr mayor i i do think
that we have
a hand in the air mr sharp's hand um sir
you have a question
richard uh yes there's a provision
of the cares act that
applied to private employers i
thought i don't know whether it applies
to public employers as
through 2020 and then it was extended on
a voluntary basis
through the end of the first quarter
that
companies are too to automatically
provide for code time
up to 10 or 14 days code time
then that gets credited on their
quarterly tax returns there's a credit
that's available to offset that
because i can speak to that
if you want madam president please do
thank you
yes so that that provision which
expired for public employers at the end
of 2020
um was extended into until march 11th i
believe of 2012 or mark
april maybe of for private employers
and it only applies to situations where
an employee
has to be off for a covert related
reason it wouldn't apply to this
circumstance
although fyi there is the bind
administration is
considering extending that to september
30th
for public and private employers but
that doesn't affect this 10-day thing
that's something separate okay
thank you um mr official
um we do have yet another hand jen
robinsons
has a question jen just a quick one um
america so do we have a
dollar figure that goes along with this
i'm just curious
as to um i know you said it's not a lot
of people
who would be uh who would qualify for
this but i'm just curious what that
looks like
uh great question jen i'll i'll get that
to you um
to the best of my ability and again
it'll be based upon our experience to
date
and try to do our best to estimate if we
can
any future associated costs
okay great thank you i appreciate that
mr harvey a question sir ben correct me
if i'm wrong
this should be covered by our cares act
funding is that not correct
that is correct i was about to i had a
feeling you're gonna say that yes
yeah we discussed that this is a cares
act eligible expense we do have
additional uh
reserves in that uh fund so agenda would
be no cost no additional cost to the
city
nonetheless i'm uh jen happy to quantify
it obviously it matters
uh so we can we can get that well i'm
glad it can be whatever what number it
wants to be now
i don't i don't know about that yeah
me either but we get your or we get your
point
it's well taken jessica has the question
as well jess yes thanks president bible
um
as just as we just discussed the cares
act can we get an update on
where we've allocated um for the city of
bexley
that money yeah
um there hasn't been a substantial shift
since the last report but i'll make sure
that my next update
has that all broken out for you jess and
we'll have had a uh we'll have had a
another appropriations committee meeting
between now and then
thanks thanks mayor it's a great
question jess
thank you any other questions before we
move on to our next
um ordinance
okay mr future please
okay we have a first reading of
ordinance 0-5-21
to unappropriate 35 000 from the salary
and wages line item of the vehicle and
grounds maintenance
and urban forestry accountant to
appropriate 35 000
into the turf maintenance line item of
the vehicle and grounds
maintenance and urban forestry account
mr markham
yeah uh i kind of lost track of what
this one was specifically for
it's so self-explanatory
if yeah if you'd like so uh this relates
to
our our we're always trying to innovate
um
within the way that we provide our
services obviously but especially with
our landscaping
and the way that we deal with that so as
you can imagine we have seasonal peaks
in need uh for different services one of
them being
landscape and grounds maintenance
and we use seasonal employees for that
but
um an idea that uh mr archer has
has put forward and i need to fill out
this blank but it's probably around
twenty thousand dollars or more
and savings is that we currently have a
vacancy
in our um grounds maintenance department
it hasn't been filled because of our our
freeze
we're coming up on our next mowing
season uh we were preparing to fill it
and grant uh did some work and he
he bit out uh certain certain areas of
mowing the boulevard streets
some of our gateways some other some
other areas of mowing that are a little
bit more predictable
you know unlike for example athletic
fields which sometimes at a drop of a
hat you need to mow
and found that he could uh for about
thirty five thousand dollars
pick up enough mowing that he felt
comfortable
for going that employee position so the
employee position with benefits is
is at least 55 grand once you add in
health insurance and pension and all
that stuff
uh so we're looking at at least twenty
thousand dollars an annual savings look
at that exact number
uh providing the same service by
outsourcing
some of our mowing and that's the
concept there so it's a
it's a neutral transfer in the in the
budget from a personnel side to a
expense side but it will ultimately be a
savings in excess of that
so hooray grant archer exactly
we would look for this to persist uh in
the coming years then is that right
yeah so you know i can't promise you
that next year we're not going to have
some other
concepts but uh yeah i mean ultimately
this is not designed as a short-term
solution it
it should be perpetual obviously we
learn every time we do this sort of
thing and and we pivot as we need to but
that would be the expectation or that
and in the future if there's a change
it's you know obviously incorporating
our new our new cost burden
um is there anyone who has any questions
about this
um uh mr archer's agility and trying to
save our city
funds uh anybody in attendance have any
questions about
um your tax dollars being saved
alrighty i'm seeing none um
mr markham with your permission we're
going to move on to tabled ordinances
i think we've got one there too i do
have one
all right um do i need to
no yeah special here that uh i would uh
move uh at this time that we remove
ordinance 43-19 from the table for
is there discussion second on there
thank you mr
um klingler um with the voice vote all
those in favor please signify by saying
i
i um those opposed same sign
all right let's discuss
excellent yes this was introduced i
introduced this when i was safety chair
and my
uh my hair was a deep brown so uh
it's been on the table for a while and i
think we have some updates from the
mayor and we are ready to uh maybe move
on this i think
yeah so um
so in front of you is the uh
long worked on long discussed
right-of-way ordinance
it has been through uh many lives at
this time
and to i'm just double checking that
we're looking at the right version here
because the one last one we presented on
i think
is uh
slightly different than this one i'm
sorry hold on
let me pull that up
so the last change since since we
had lindsey miller come in there was
a uh a change to the restoration section
section of the right-of-way that's the
only thing that has changed
uh restoration of the right-of-way so
we've bolstered that
uh providing additional protections uh
for right-of-way restoration
um uh that the right-of-way needs to be
restored
and it kind of walks through how that
would be done um
we have after making those changes we
have circulated
the changes to the providers for review
and we're now at the point in time where
i think we're ready to vote on this
ordinance
right with that i think i will ask um
our council members um
if anyone has any comments or questions
about this we really have
been uh
diving into this deep um on occasions
and it's been sitting on our table for
quite some time
i don't see any questions from council
are there any
questions from those in attendance
um actually i see matt klingler just
raised his cnn
mr klingler it's a question for mayor
kessler
were we gonna hire or were you in a
higher position to
oversee this and was that in 2021
is that when that's going to happen yeah
so
the right-of-way coordinator position um
was
is in our 2021 budget uh we have held
off on posting it until we've passed
this ordinance but i want to make it
clear this ordinance actually has
nothing to do with that position
the the mechanism for recovering the
costs associated with that position
already exists our current right-of-way
ordinance
um it continues with this one so um
while that's true i guess it's not uh
this ordinance is not necessary or
it doesn't tie right into it if that
makes any sense for the right-of-way
coordinator
but we did want to wait until it was
passed so that you know whenever we
you get somebody spun up that they know
what right-of-way ordinance it is that
they're coordinating
and uh we have a little bit clarity
but we are budgeted for that yes
any further questions from council on
this matter
uh any from those in attendance
mr markham this time i move that we
adopt ordinance 43-19
i think we need to oh do we need to
amend it
yes sorry at this time i moved that we
amend
ordinance 43-19 as shown
thank you mr markham is there a second
mr clinton
i think i heard jessica before mr
klingler although mr klinger might have
been louder
um
any any questions from council on
the amendments any from those in
attendance
mr klingler put your hand down
assuming you don't have questions put
your hand down thank you
thank you mr harvey mossad
yes ms robinson yes ms
fibel yes ms lamke yes
mr sharp yes mr klingler
yes mr markham yes
passes thank you amendments pass um
so now um now mr markham
adoption i move that we adopt ordinance
43-19
thank you mr marcum a second
mr klingler come on robinson
would that be to adopt second amended
ordinance 43-19
it has been amended uh
yes uh uh i don't know
yeah he just changed yeah i'm second
amended
it's second commanded okay all right so
we have
we have a motion to adopt we have a
second by jen robinson any questions
from counsel
any from those in attendance
seeing none mr harvey mr sharp
yes ms fiable yes mr markham
yes ms lamke yes assad
yes mr klingler
yes ms robinson yes
passes all right that's nice
to get off of the docket ladies and
gentlemen thank you so much for your
patience on that one
all right if we could move on to our
reports our service and environmental
committee
and mr sharp
no report tonight thank you mr sharp
finance committee mr markham no business
out of finance tonight
thank you mr markham safety and health
ms robinson
no report tonight thank you jen for
volunteering
i actually do have a report i just
wanted to give everybody a quick update
on our pop-up from last saturday i
completely forgot we did that i was
just gonna thank you for volunteering
thank you it was a chilly saturday at st
charles uh but we were able to test 123
people
um throughout the course of the morning
numbers were down from the last time but
i have to say there were so many people
who were like
i'm so glad you're doing this i just
found out that my neighbor
or my you know so and so um was
exposed and people were able to use that
pop-up
last minute as an opportunity to get
tested so we are
incredibly grateful to saint charles and
uh to of course the queen of green
herself elizabeth ellman who coordinated
that
um and uh just a shout out for ever to
everybody for a job well done and
primary
uh primary one health um who was uh
the uh who provided the the testing so
thanks to everybody and um
here's to not ever having to do another
pop-up test again
although if we have to we certainly can
amen from your lips to god's ears thank
you jen um i think jessica has a
question potentially for you
yes um jen just a quick question did we
administer flu shots this weekend too
no it was just um just cova testing um
it got a little complicated last time
you had to pay for the flu shots and not
for the
the test we just decided to streamline
it and trust me it was cold enough that
i think people were really glad that we
did
got it well we want to be beautiful if
we have a future of actually giving out
vaccines
in that same format i wa nothing is of
course
ever certain but that certainly is a
conversation that we were having
around the heater on saturday morning so
that would be really amazing
pretty amazing thanks jim yeah
absolutely thank you for weathering the
cold jen
um it looks like richard might have a
question also richard
yeah do you think it'd be worthwhile to
try to get um a pop-up scheduled
uh following a bexley spring break
i think that would be an amazing idea
and i'm happy to reach out to
um to elizabeth ellman and see what we
can we can get cooking
thanks guys all right jen is it okay if
i move us on
please please please thank you thank you
it's zoning
um miss sod yes um just a quick report
uh much anticipation over the thursday
meeting for bees app that's coming up
um that is this thursday january 28th at
6 pm
um 2300 east livingston and 420 north
cassidy will be discussed at that
meeting
i also want to remind the community that
they can refer back to the arb meeting
that took place on tuesday january 14th
if they were not able to make it
we have done a nice job on our new
website our bexley.org website
that allows you to go back and watch us
via youtube
on any of our council meetings oh look
at this a little tutorial this is
wonderful
um right there it is i love that great
sam metcalf
yes and look how easy this is to do
so um i have been encouraging residents
who reached out to
to do just that and i know you know that
we're interested but maybe we don't
always have the time but it's it's a
great way to go back and listen to these
meetings
um i encourage the community that wants
to participate
this thursday that just like our council
meetings
we give public comment at the beginning
of the bzap and arb meetings
and then as each item is addressed you
will have an opportunity for public
comment
and at the end of the meeting you will
have an opportunity for public comment
so all of our boards and our council we
are
here to listen to our community but we
do respect that you respect the time
that we all give
to our community as volunteers and
elected officials
with that being said i also wanted to
remind the community that you can reach
out to us at any time
we are happy to get emails from those in
the community that
would like to hear from us or speak to
us about a
a concern or or something that they
think has gone on
and well in the community you can reach
out to us at city council
at bexley.org that's all i've got
thank you so much richard question
comment sir
another resource for residents
that are interested hearing the mayor
speak a little
more about the cic project
was at our tuesday january 12th meeting
and that's towards the beginning of that
video as well
for maybe some additional information
that wasn't
expressed at the arb hearing
thank you richard i'm noting that
there's someone in attendance who has
their hand
up um i am just going to mention that we
do not take public comments
during our um council updates
but item number 20 is really coming
soon and that is when we will take
comments and we
are anxious to hear what you have to
share with us thank you
for the update from zoning and
development miss sod
with your permission i'm going to move
on to mr klingler and
uh recreation and parks committee mr
klingler
nothing to report just a pro tip uh you
can go to youtube
and search the city of bexley and turn
on notifications
so that you can get notified every time
something is posted to the city of
bexley youtube account
which is helpful so that's all i got
all right thank you for your tech advice
we appreciate it
thank you mr klingler um and last but
certainly not least
the queen of judiciary and strategic
strategies
is monique lamke i think that's a legal
term strategy
i know it is i just had two quick things
first tomorrow
at noon is the state of the chamber put
on by the bexley area chamber of
commerce i know that the mayor had it in
his mayor's report but that's at noon if
you'd like to attend
if you want to email elaine peltz and
she will send you the zoom link
they are also kicking off an exciting
exciting leadership series with
vex his own amy acton so look for more
details on that to come
and finally uh we delivered hard copies
of
the proposed charter amendments and the
existing charter to
um i believe all of you so uh hopefully
you've had a chance to look at that
and we'll see you tomorrow night and
thank you so much for doing that for us
monique it really
it really did come in handy for me to
have those side by side to look at
so i appreciate it very much
all right weird a public comment ladies
and gentlemen
um and this is for you um those of you
who have stuck with us
the entire meeting for two and a half
plus hours and if there's anything that
you would like to share with us any
comments
um that you have um and it can be about
anything you're concerned with that
you'd like to share
anyone in attendance have anything to
discuss with council
council i don't see any hands raised i
thank you so much for your hard work
tonight
i do believe that uh harmony and and and
hard work and
beacon for the rest of the world was
what happened tonight thank you so much
for everything
always you are a thrill to work with do
i have a motion to adjourn
so moved thank you monique a second
second bye mr sherp
thank you mr sharp others in favor
please signify by saying
aye aye aye opposed
same sign all right council is
adjourned thank you so much everyone