thank you
ladies and gentlemen welcome to the
tuesday
march 22nd
bexley city council meeting
it's good to see everybody here we got a
big crowd in the building tonight so
that's exciting
including richard sharp the return of
richard sharp it's good to see you out
there right
as always um
i thank all of you for your service to
our city
mr mcpeek how are you tonight
[Music]
i pledge allegiance to the flag
of the united states of america and to
the republic for which it stands one
nation under god indivisible with
liberty and justice for all
all right we got a couple presentations
tonight ms saad are you going to
introduce our first
group of people sure please yes
so we probably need to have them all
come in and we have the cross country
teams please come into council chambers
step on up if you like to run
or watch running come on into council
chambers
run on into council chambers if you
don't get in now we make you wait till
the end of the meeting
that'll be four and a half hours
[Music]
you guys can if you'd like to come you
can just come up and fill the area area
welcome to city council everybody coach
action and coach landis we'd love to
have you up here with the team as well
[Applause]
all right
how are you guys doing
thank you for coming this evening so we
have been looking forward to having you
guys here i know we've had some
logistical issues getting you to council
meeting i know that the season has
passed so we really wanted to have you
here to get you psyched for this
upcoming season when does the next
season start
started
we have a proclamation for you guys um
long overdue i understand that the boys
team is
four years in a row gone to states is
that correct four out of seven four out
of seven
girls team six in a row is that correct
awesome
so we have a proclamation here really
just honoring you guys for your hard
work your dedication your achievements
and going to states looking forward to a
great next year in the season sorry this
year season coming up
and we just want to tell you how much we
appreciate your hard work and and how
much uh we are frankly in awe of what
you guys have done so
congratulations
thank you for coming out and uh good
luck and the season to come and coaches
do you guys want to say anything yeah
that's right
so this is probably the first time he's
ever let me speak in a meeting so that's
possibly not good
uh it's been a long tradition here and
the kids continually always change but
it's a blessing to be able to work with
them and the kids make the program we're
just pretty fortunate to have worked
with them for a long time
coach and i post been around 30 plus
years
need 20 some plus years
and it's just a lot of fun and we're
grateful for the kids and their parents
that
allow us to work with them and
we hope to visit you for a few more
years
it's always fun
thank you
we're gonna get our official
photographer here
here you guys
one two
three
all right congratulations
these kiddos not only are they fast but
mike price
knows wow that this is the group that i
can always always always depend on as
volunteers for splash and dash if you've
helped me out raise your hand
some some a few of you
mr president yeah we got more coming
right i do believe it's a big night here
tonight
[Music]
it's it's not often that the entire
cross country team leaves and there's
still a large crowd here
[Music]
i think it's the first yeah in fact
all right do we have a barb grinder
she's out there all right she's big shot
bob griner please come to the office bob
griner
yeah we didn't realize that barb was
part of the cross-country team as well
it's a double proclamation
come on barb if you sit down
we're in toast
so
so this is a this is a proud day for us
and it's a sad day but it's a happy day
and we'll talk about that in a second i
love barb grinder so much that i bought
a house right next to her
so i want to say that first before
anything else
so here's here's our proclamation okay
as you all know barb is retiring after
33 years of service is that correct
to the bexley recreation parks
department
and as we also know her positive impact
to our community
is truly beyond measure barb was hired
in 1999 1989
i'm sorry i almost took 10 years off of
your service
i know yeah you got 10 more to go i
guess she's created and managed
countless programs during her tenure
including sports fitness and arts
programs for a variety of ages probably
cross country
the introduction of lacrosse and field
hockey programs
the launch of the very first
jeffrey summer camp program
barb has provided integral support to a
variety of large community events
including our beloved harvest festival
fourth of july john barr 5k
and her commitment wisdom and friendship
have been a gift to those who have
worked with her
barb service extended beyond the
confines of her work as an employee in
this testament to that today with our
friends from
developmental assets resource network or
darn
as a committed member of darn
barb has contributed to initiatives that
help families in need
with utility bills and household costs
and kids with coats and bikes and
connected students with educational
support services and advocated for
low-income housing support
and whereas our community has richly
benefited from barb's many years of
service
and her dedicated friendship
dedication and passion for providing
recreational opportunities for people of
all ages will continue to inspire
and influence the recreation department
for many years to come actually quite
directly i think
short short fourth width yes here two
four yes
that's not in here by the way
in case you thought this was the worst
proclamation of all time
therefore
it's a big party tonight march 22 2022
is barb grinder day in bexley ohio
hey look at that i don't know do you
have a speech ready um
not really you know
take care of the park
don't mess around with it
it's all we got
but
i know
i'm taking seven um
because um
you know we only got this park so um we
need a shelter house for the camp and
then we're probably done
a building on it so um and we're not
going to mess up the fruit
when we do it
so um take care of the park
when we ask for money
um
the wreck um
you know the street department you see a
pothole they fill it
you see your money at work um
what we do is feelings
so um
yeah
it's the kid who we gave confidence to
and um
the kid that we made feel inclusive
and you can't put a dollar sign on that
um you can't see that stuff
um
you know harvest festival and those
families and how much fun they've had
um
you know just give us our money when we
ask for it
that's it
and mike told me to say that so
griner is not going to waste a chance on
the platform
did you get that from the strategic plan
thanks mayor thank you let's get it
thank you bob come on and everyone
this is a group shot
okay
many many more years together
we're out of here
i forgot about that
nice
those are a nice presentation
that's a big night here
hey cole
taylor have you guys filled out your
public comments slip yet
all right we are now at the point uh the
agenda with public comments
mr mcpeek do we have any speaker slips
tonight i do not have any speaker slips
all right we will move along to the
president's report i have a very brief
report tonight
this week i met with
scuba president victoria powers a
pleasant person to meet with i always
enjoy talking to her
both of us newly elected presidents with
very talented groups of people
they had recently lost their deputy
superintendent
the
school has and they have
march 31st they have an open session
uh with their special education
committee an open dialogue for uh
anybody in the community that's had
experiences that wants to come talk
about that so they're trying to
invite people out to that session that's
march 31st
i also met with our library director ben
heckman
they're uh
you know always impressed with the
creativity going on at the library over
there uh coming up with new and
innovative ways to bring people in and
involve the community
so get this
like miss america
but they're like they're like mad
scientists over there and with arbor day
coming up the library so we're giving
away a bunch of trees
giving away a bunch of trees heritage
trees
landmark heritage trees
there's a big president's report coming
on that klingler you just wait
anyway
the library will host a informational
area on how to plant those trees
and they will provide
shovels these square shovels that you
are supposed to use to make a square
hole
to plant a tree and if you didn't know
that you were supposed to make a square
hole to plant a tree then you can visit
the library and learn about it
the other thing this is kind of exciting
though the second thing is
they are setting up and i forget what
they call this natalie you may have to
remind me what the name for this is but
if you have some old
uh
media of your home movies or or whatever
some vhs tapes or any of those you can
take those what's it called
the memory lab they will open up the
memory lab you may take your old media
in there and convert it to new digital
format
isn't that exciting yeah how come my
wife works at the library
and i mean i have a box of all that
stuff too so that's that's exciting
anyway
that's my president's report and i'll
turn it over to the city attorney yeah i
just wanted to mention again i emailed
it to everybody house bill 563 which
would prohibit local jurisdictions
including bexley from regulating airbnbs
or other short-term rentals we could
still do noise things and things like
that but you should take a look at that
it's my understanding that there
actually have been
a lot of proponent and opponent
testimony offered on that so it may go
someplace i know other jurisdictions are
passing resolutions opposing it
you know at least from a local
regulation standpoint and a
home rule standpoint so it's possible
maybe city council wants to consider a
resolution or that the mayor maybe wants
to write a letter that city council then
just says here here on so we can get
something in front of the legislature um
while they're still debating this thing
it's it's crazy it's terrible
thank you for keeping an eye on that for
us
mr mike peek we have that auditor's
report
um no waters report this month this
meeting we are super close but my
commitment was that when beecher reports
our february financials it'll be focused
on him and then those off weeks i'll
have it together but we've got it i'm
ready to go but uh this month or i'm
sorry this meeting features up to time
here the anticipation i just
um
perhaps he's here so nonetheless
no report thank you mr mayor will turn
over to you for your administrative
update
thank you mr president markham um first
up we have andy bayshore
service director who is
going to pop up here on your screen
andy good to see you hi mayor
um and i'm going to pull your update up
here andy
there you go
floor is yours
i've attached there my report the mayor
has up on the screen but i do not have
anything to add to it tonight
um the only thing i might add is
i'm sure everybody's seen all the
construction and all the work going on
on drexel um
please be patient i promise once it is
done it is going to look amazing but it
is a work in progress at the moment
thank you andy and i know we're working
in front of the csg campus right now on
their spring break are do you know if
we're gonna be cleared out of there by
the time they're back in session
um
the goal is we will be
starting south of powell tomorrow so we
will be out of the csg main area by the
time they come back
great thank you
any questions for andy
mr quinoa
um that drexel project are they doing
water and sewer simultaneously
uh we're doing water at the moment we
already have most of the sewer work uh
done matt we did a lot of lining on the
sanitary and the storm
um the work going on right now is the
water line
awesome
what's that
groundbreaking on the dog park i saw
that in your report we are
in the very very early stages
grant met with a fence contractor
and hopefully we'll start to have
some more activity up in the upcoming
weeks
getting that project out and rolling
would council be interested in uh maybe
before our next council meeting we could
i could show you guys kind of where it's
at and
it's very rough but we could kind of
talk about what it looked like if you
guys want to do that
all right uh you got to bring your dogs
and then you have to bring them to
council afterwards
is very rough at the moment very rough
rough yes and it's very rough
where where are your
aha
where we're your muks
we're your wellies your hunters
okay thank you mr bashor anything
anything else okay thanks andy thank you
captain chief
goff
is with us via zoom this evening
[Music]
in theory there you go fine here
i think
[Music]
uh are you trying to enable video or is
that uh
something i did
well trying to
okay there we go here
there we are
thank you captain chief sorry um
any uh
anything to anything to report in
addition to what's in writing
no sir nothing additional just uh what's
in the report
i will probably be adding something
myself on the next council meeting
concerning the new ccw laws that's going
to take effect in june but i know we
talked briefly about it earlier but
i wanted to gather some information and
put in a statement out for the council
to to read and consume
but uh nothing tonight
thank you chief
um
i i am so in regards to the concealed
carry legislation that i believe the
governor has now signed
um
i think we're going to talk about that
at our comma meeting next friday just to
see if there's interest among cities and
somehow pursuing something
okay good luck thank you i'm all away
there is
yeah well i think that i think that you
we're not alone in that so right
absolutely see if there's any ideas
about
how to approach that so
any questions for the chief
all right
thank you very much sir i appreciate it
good evening
thank you
mr price
i i do want the record to reflect i i
did not coach barb on any of that
it was all from her heart so
um
no i just wanted one thing i did want to
point out just to keep uh council in the
loop is is hiring and
difficulties we continue to have with
hiring uh which i mentioned as it
relates to summer camp we're also
reviewing it as it relates to preschool
um for next school year
uh so you know again what we're seeing
is jobs that we might have hired at nine
to ten dollars an hour we're looking at
twelve to thirteen dollars an hour and
maybe more
um that's gonna be our first initial
approach um with camp we we did some
studies and looked at what some other
camps are offering
in terms of their pay we're going to
bring ours up to reflect that uh just so
everyone's aware our pay ordinance
allows us to do that so
there's enough range within our pay
ordinance that the numbers we're talking
about are still within uh what you you
all have approved from a payordance
standpoint
as it relates to camp um
we do think we should be able to do it
within our existing budget but i want
council to be aware just on the front
end that there's the potential as
obviously our biggest cost for our
summer camp program is wrapped up in
staff and so if we're going to be
increasing it by
20 to 30 percent in terms of our salary
or payroll uh there may be a potential
down the line that we have to come back
um again i think we're gonna be okay our
initial sort of analysis of it uh
indicates that we're gonna be okay but
it's gonna be a lot tighter than than
maybe we had hoped um i also i don't
have this on here but uh preschool we're
going through that same analysis process
uh with what other preschools are paying
uh we are now seeing uh starting pay uh
around twenty dollars an hour uh for
preschool teachers which one could argue
that's probably even not quite enough
for the work that they do but um it's
more than what we have generally paid to
our preschool teachers so we're going to
sort of look at what that means
i think everyone's sort of aware that's
sort of the environment we're all
dealing with in terms of hiring but
we're going to we have to deal with that
regularly as we hire seasonal and
part-time work so i want to make sure
everyone's aware of that we'll do the
analysis about whether we think
our budget will be able to handle that
or whether there'll be a request down
the line for an increase in that as well
so any questions on that
have you guys talked about maybe i mean
one of the beautiful things about
preschool and bexley is
compared to
many others it's it's reasonable
comparatively speaking has there been
any discussion about a need to
maybe charge more
yeah and and at the last rec
or one of the last rec i'm not sure who
was at that one
yeah i guess it probably was in december
wasn't it um there was an increase
it
i don't yeah there was an increase
and it was probably more than we
normally increase but not at the same
level that we're seeing increases in
expenses probably
um
i do think as we as we sort of talk
about camp in preschool i think
preschool of the two has a little more
capacity for
increases above maybe a normal three
percent um based on sort of where the
price point is in our preschool relative
to other preschools um
but we've already set we've already set
it for this next school year right so
people have already registered under the
you know under that the rate but that
was increased
but we're seeing even a higher increase
than we would hope for in terms of from
a salary perspective so
it may be one of those things that's
sort of tight for a year and we try to
make it up on on the following year
sam just a quick question regarding that
staffing itself are you having any
trouble
filling the positions that you need i
know that you said there will be an
increase in cost but are you running
into that issue at all
so we have
yes and that's why we're looking at
increasing costs so we haven't really
sort of gone out into the market so to
speak with a new pay scale
um you know right now to give some
information on camp we have uh we have
20 to 25 spots that we need to fill and
we've got a total of 12 applicants
um and that's 12 applicants that's not
even to say whether they're going to be
good fit or not right so we don't even
have enough applications to fill the
positions that we we need so
hopefully
going back out and saying here's our new
pay range it's going to help with that
um you know it's not it's not
necessarily always about the pay there's
a lot of other factors that go into it
but i know our team has worked hard to
try to get the word out about the need
for this position uh there's
conversation with the schools there's
conversation with the local colleges um
um so
you know this is sort of the next step
we this wasn't i want to be clear with
counselor too this wasn't sort of step
one to try to address an issue that's
been ongoing this is sort of the last
step when we've tried sort of all other
avenues to bring you know good
applicants
thank you
mike i had three quick questions for you
first is there any
flexibility on the ratios for either
summer camp or preschool so that you're
still above
the state minimum but maybe less than
what you have great great question um
uh so our camp
is um
uh we're aca accredited which has very
specific ratios that we have to keep uh
it's six to one with our youngest age
eight to one and ten to one with the
three different age group of camps so
we've had conversations about making
sure we're maxing them maximizing that
so in the past for example our director
we wouldn't
internally count that in our ratio we're
allowed to so we're going to count that
into our ratio so there's different
things that we're going to do to try to
maximize the ratio same with preschool
with with uh you know with covid you
know heading in the right direction
there's some things that we had to do
with both camp and
in preschool that required us to have
more staff because we kept them in these
pods they couldn't combine at the end of
the day into one classroom because they
had to stay in three steps so they're
things that we're looking at making sure
we're reducing the number of staff as
much as we can given some of the
flexibilities we'll have hopefully going
forward um
preschool is you know there's different
things that we've had discussions about
about reducing hours understanding that
our pay is going to have to go up and
that's sort of end of day start of day
how many staff we need there what covet
allows us to do and doesn't allow us to
do but yeah those are things we're all
looking at
my second question was what kind of
timeline are you are are you on to hire
enough staff for the summer i mean it's
already almost april yeah we generally
want to have in a normal year we'd have
pretty much our staff wrapped up by the
end of this month
um
so
as we talked today we're in position to
move forward with these changes without
having to have a specific action taken
it might mean action might need to be
taken down the line if there's a
financial impact to that
so we're ready to move forward from a
camp standpoint of going out and saying
hey we're going to start at 12 an hour
um but we need to
we need to get them as quickly as we can
and just
hope sorry you said one more said one is
that okay okay uh last question um i
know obviously you want to recruit new
people but it's also important to keep
returning
staff and campers
is there a
creative financial incentive or a
referral program that you can do to
reward people who come back and also
might bring some friends
another great question a discussion i
had with the mayor and i and that's
something that uh maybe to have with
matt as well we have had a discussion
about you know a referral program where
there's maybe a 50 bonus for a
current employee that refers another an
employee you know another staff member
that we end up hiring
i
the question is the mechanics of that
you know how we can do that um
how what what sources we can pay out of
can we pay out of salary and wages and
do it as a green what we'd call a vendor
check so to speak
so there's a h that's something we had
some we've had some early conversations
on that uh the other thing i'll convey
which i sent an email out we just got
information on this today is
our staff also has worked hard uh
to look at grants that over the last
couple years frankly but we've received
uh this week we just found out
via checks not because they told us they
were coming but they uh we're going to
get about
seventy thousand dollars in support from
ohio child care
resource association something occ rra i
think is what it is but i'm missing an r
in there um
and so that's great but how we can use
that to maybe offset some of these costs
um from a staffing standpoint whether
some of that money could be used
to
pay out a bonus soda
bonus isn't the right word but money for
um
helping us get other staff in those are
all things that we're going to look at
jess
um
have has this been announced on the
blast has it been on one of the friday
blasts yet saying that we're hiring we
have a we have a if we have an increased
rate or just in general i think we need
to do a push on that so yeah it's i just
made that note we have generally had the
hiring there's been some blasts
occasionally about the hiring process
starting out this is a good opportunity
to say hey
we're up in the ante yeah that's right
what age
do we start
what age do we hire our counselors
um i think technically it can be 15
there's there's different restrictions
so like the youngest age group they have
to be 18. uh the play camp age group has
to be 18 and over and they have to have
their high school diploma or ged
um fourth graders
fourth graders
yes yeah what are you guys up to this
summer
um
but obviously we want is
you know this is a it's a important job
from a safety perspective and we want to
get the most uh experienced staff that
we can but technically we could hire a
15 year old for some of the age groups
okay
good to know and when we have these
teams in here we just need to be handing
out resumes yeah that's your application
and at that age actually at that age you
actually have to get approval from uh
the principal in schools in order to
work at a certain age too
yeah at 15 they have to get it i think
after 16 they don't but
anybody else
thank you mr president appreciate it
good to see you
so i'm disappointed we're not going to
see the floating beacher
head no he actually tried he said i'm
going to just zoom in from my office i'm
like no yeah
i did that once the beacher name
yeah
so you got the uh february numbers
before you
um of course the number we all home in
is right at the top the most important
one that we um track every month and
that's income tax and as you can see
income tax is right about right on
target
um for budget
and above last year i will say i do
believe march is going to be a little
light i i looked at some rita numbers
and i could be only could you know
timing it
but i could have you know be causing it
to come in late but i do believe march
is going to be a little a little light
um other revenue numbers to look at that
are kind of interesting that might have
caught your eye um franchise and
right-of-way fees
those are under budget
partly because we just haven't received
right-of-way fees yet no the mayor can
talk about that
and then we've also
uh
we've also
received some of our
um franchise fees from our three cable
providers and you know
um late i haven't well we've only we've
received one right of march about twenty
eight thousand dollars and i'll be
looking for the other two to come in if
not i'll contact the companies
and cic revenue we see it's still behind
however i believe we received an eighty
thousand dollar catch-up check which is
from last year so all of a sudden that's
going to be way over budget but it
really won't be it'll just be catch-up
from last year if you combine the two
years
um
so that's on the revenue side
not too much of note on the expenditure
side except for just down future can i
pause you just for a quick second i see
there's a big increase in all other on
the income side you know yes i just saw
that too and i thought wow i wish i
would have noticed that
what it was thanks for pointing out yeah
i will that'll still be high next month
and i'll try to make a note to check out
and i'm there's something in all of it
and i i remember i forget what it is
that because we it was something new um
building permits as well seems odd that
we haven't collected any building permit
revenue
is that
um
right i'm sorry i was i was you're
correct my bad sorry i was looking at
the right of way
so
i will tell you that we we sent out the
right-of-way fee bills invoices within
the past several weeks okay i knew there
was we had some work that we had to do
to get that done
um
then
just i just drop right down to the
middle of the second page or towards the
middle total operating expenditures 227
84844 under budget we're typically
always under budget because we never
spend
we can't go over and so we typically
never spend um all that we appropriate
but the big number that is keeping us um
so far you know a million and twenty
thousand dollars above budget for ending
balance is our prior year encumbrance
carry forward we carried forward a lot i
don't believe we're gonna end up
spending them all the mayor may tell me
yes we are but uh
as you can see we have not spent that
much year to date and typically since
most of these are operating accounts you
would think we'd have the envoy the
invoices should be coming in within i
always budget in the first couple months
cause you expect the invoices so we send
out an email to find out which ones we
can close
i don't believe we've heard back from
everybody or maybe even anybody um
but uh but i imagine we'll we will
finish way ahead of i'm going out on a
limb here but i think we'll finish way
better than spending 941 thousand
dollars could you tag that for a cabinet
or cabinet meeting just to talk about
yep if that's okay thank you
and that's
my report
[Music]
any questions
thank you beecher
thank you beecher all right oh my
goodness
what are we doing here
um
okay
it's the moment you guys have all been
waiting for
i always say i'm going to keep it short
i'm still going to try
i know
so uh this saturday at 9 00 am
i am going to be doing a trash talk
i have not selected the location so i'm
open to
suggestions my personal favorite is
livingston avenue but uh i'm open to
suggestions also if any of you like guys
would like to be a a special guest
at 9am on saturday i would love to have
uh any of you so
all of you for that matter but let me
know and we'll advertise that
one hour
it's it's the most high adrenaline
litter pickup you've ever experienced
it's like the iron man no that's not the
right analogy it's like
the micro iron man of litter pickup i'm
not sure what we would call it
kids love it
bring your whole family we have 10 out
of 15 signed up already so we've got
some pretty good turnout i think a lot
of cap students are coming to this one
so
if uh if you like to
hang out with cap students i guess then
you come to that um bravo is this
saturday after you've picked up some
trash
join me at bravo uh the big rock and
blues band will be rocking out providing
us back backup background music for that
and then next thursday is the state of
the community address at jeffrey mansion
hope to see y'all there if you can make
yeah
uh april is
earth month
and also
arbor month in bexley it's really
technically arbor days in in april but
we've decided that that's not good
enough for us so it's arbor month
so we're calling earth and arbor month
which kind of rolls off the tongue we
need to like brand that for next year a
little bit more um
also in april our so we've been i've
been talking about our recycle bikes
program and a lot of the folks that
helped out with it were here today from
darn
um
this set the april 2nd open workshop is
a saturday morning is going to be our
first
mobile open workshop at a playground i'm
not sure which playground we're going to
but we'll have that out there so the
bike trailer with all of the with all of
the tools
will be out in the community for people
to bring their bikes and and either help
grab a wrench and help
fix up some bikes for donation or learn
how to repair your own bike so
yeah it's gonna be fun um
and
our community yard sale free cycle day
is set now for may 14th so i wanted you
guys to be aware of that date that's
we've gotten quite a few phone calls at
city hall about when that date is so
the excite the anticipation is building
um
remember that is a registration based
yard sale that we put out a map people
put out what's on there and if you're
smart you can search
you know
yeah
smart
so free cycle is the second half of the
day so the morning is the yard sale in
the afternoon people put things out in
the
curb
our chief of police search update is
progressing where i i have
just received a very rough draft of our
community uh
survey and i think we're gonna have
something more final later this week i
will pass it on to you guys when it's
been i think a little bit more ready i
think
it's taken a little longer than we
thought but it's coming in we're going
to be using that
ralph anderson will be using that to
inform our candidate profile hoping to
list that position formally and fully
next week
i have
finished 20 officer ride-alongs i have
nine more scheduled in the coming weeks
so that's been very enlightening and
interesting
i'm just hearing from officers what
they're looking for in the next chief
and there's a lot of overlap between
what we're hearing from the community
and what we're hearing from officers
aggregation update uh you know we've
contin we have been continuing to meet
with aap and think about how to get this
program off the ground
but as you guys are all aware the energy
market has gotten pretty crazy recently
so with with prices for energy
fluctuating wildly we're just going to
take a pause so
uh it just seems like in the coming
months there's really not going to be a
market that we would feel comfortable
engaging in with all of the uncertainty
that surrounds energy pricing obviously
energy pricing is very high right now
it's not good timing so we're going to
take a pause
uh we'll revisit once markets have
stabilized we might even do a new rfp
when the time is right so
i know there's been a lot of talk about
it i appreciate you guys being along for
the ride but that's kind of where we are
right now with with that and if you have
any thoughts or questions obviously
please let me or laurie anne uh or troy
know
um
talked about the state of the community
earth month so at
green bexley oh that's not the right
window
dot org
there is
a whole lot of information about earth
month
with a calendar of events coming up
um we were doing a trash talk at
landfill on on on wheels at the landfill
i don't know if we're gonna pick up
anything of the landfill but uh that's
apparently what we're doing
with the green bexley fares on the 23rd
arbor day festival is on the 30th it's
not on this calendar but it is
also the greenback's cleanup days on the
30th april 22nd to 30th is our walk week
we're encouraging residents to bike
scoot or skate
wherever skate
uh where wherever you want to go or walk
for that matter since it's called walk
week or bike scooter skate um
i will be i will be enjoying walk week
my goal is to walk bike scoot or skate
everywhere except for i think the rumpy
murph tour because i think i'm
participating in that
maybe i'll beg to it we'll see mr mayor
i'd like to point out that the city
council meeting falls right in the
middle of that week too so that's great
yeah that's great
so we have all sorts of stuff going on
we have some eco challenges you can sign
up for you can sign up and participate
uh we have the field trips green bexley
fair litter pickups
all these great graphics prepared by our
team
and
this is awesome so if you've been around
town and you've seen the posters for
earth month
there is not a single
identical poster they're all around
they're all made by our third to sixth
graders
montrose elementary and middle schoolers
um that's my favorite it looks like a
kind of an alien earth face
uh it looks really cool
right so really great uh fun to see
around
the whole collection
the whole collection can be yours for
i don't know i've got nothing
isn't that beautiful those are great
um so
big props to elizabeth for helping
organize that and for the kids who
participated
um
don't forget i did mention arbor day
festival on the 30th correct
there were a lot of things that didn't
make the cut on our newsletter i think
you guys have hopefully received the
newsletter
now there are some that haven't gone out
because of the way we deliver them they
go to a
every door direct mail like district so
about 400 of them are still yet to be
hand delivered uh next week along with
recruiters we're gonna do this together
um but there is a uh there is more if
you go to bexa.org newsletter you can
you can read even more i do also want to
say i met with mayor jadwin from gahanna
a couple weeks ago
um
i asked her just directly like how had
the feed on the street program gone in
the community what was the feedback um
and it was
she said it was very positive she said
she was really worried about people
being concerned she was worried about
when somebody had been i don't think
that they didn't even do warnings when
they had you know
the the tag and they didn't get service
she said she really didn't get that many
complaints so
um
i found that a little surprising and
yet that's awesome so
um
she was positive at least so we're
continuing to assess that and as you
know the grant is
has been applied for so we'll see how
that goes
um
we are about to send out
the draft layouts for
drexel
avenue uh road improvements
and this is attached to your agenda but
you can get kind of a feel for we will
have a link to a full
scale of this it's a little bit fuzzy
but you can get a feel for um
and by the way there are some slight
tweaks we're gonna make before we send
this out so for example i don't think
we're gonna have yellow markings in the
middle we're gonna get rid of that
um but this shows where
uh driveway cutouts are it shows uh
where those bump outs are that's all
those green the new green spaces
um it calls out
specifically where there are the rfid
the it's not rfid our rr
fbs rapid flashing beacons
so at fair avenue
at dale those exist today
there's one that's called for also to be
added at powell which is a common
crossing for csg
some changes over here at csg which will
prohibit a left-hand turn out of the
circle which is a concern of csg
um so you get a feel for how that will
you know narrow the street all along the
different stretch stretches of drexel
some dedicated handicap parking for st
albans it's designed in here
so take a look at that um we'll be
sending it to property owners
encouraging them to provide feedback
specifically
as it pertains to their frontage if
there are concerns that they have
we
were very careful to try to preserve
parking
nearby every single individual
residential property so as you see many
of these bump outs are corner properties
those corner properties have access to
on-street parking on the side streets
and we'll continue to hear that feedback
and hopefully go to bid soon on
finalizing that project
one more thing and that is for our
directors and for you guys to know we're
going to we're going to tighten up our
seating here a little bit and bring
directors back up to the dials at future
meetings so you'll just notice that your
name tags are placed a little bit
differently so don't be surprised when
that happens
uh
so that they have a seat here as they
used to
and
happy to take any questions
mayor kessler um your conversation with
mayor john one did i say that correctly
okay
did
did their feet on the street program
select
was it selective of certain residents or
was it all residents
was there an opt-in
it wasn't an opt-in it was piloted in
certain neighborhoods so it had it's
just because they couldn't
they didn't have the budget to do the
whole community
so
you know how many people were included
out of there
i remember elizabeth said but i don't
remember off the top of my head what
that number was i feel like it was a i
mean columbus was a sliver of their
population as a total genus was more
substantial
my
my memory is not i'm just wondering
yeah
i thought
remember it being like in the 25 30
range of the overall residential base
but i could be wrong about that
very wrong i could be totally off
i remember it being
some it was it was a it was a chunk of
the community um now we are proposing
all of our community but it wasn't
opt-in at all it was neighborhood based
two things could you
i might have missed this update on the
hr coordinator
full-time part-time position we have an
ordinance yep tonight
is on it okay yep coming up oh i missed
it and then the columbia gas
you met with the columbia guy with
columbia gas on site um
we explained to them that arizona
doesn't allow for us to tear down houses
and
um
not replace them with homes without a
councilmanic variance um
so we we
you know ex expressed that there might
be some other options for them
encourage them to look even like maybe
there's an underground option
uh which apparently they don't do but um
we're asking them to think a little
harder about some other options
okay
so we have not heard back from them
since that was about a week and a half
ago
unless andy andy's still on andy have
you heard anything from columbia gasps
i have not mayor
anything else
thank you
thank you mr mayor
this is the point in the meeting where
we turn it over to
mark official all right consent agenda
we have the meeting minutes of 3822.
thank you mr fischer uh any questions or
comments
on the consent agenda
any comments from the audience no
speaker slip required
[Laughter]
yeah
uh can i have a motion to approve the
consent agenda
motion to approve
motion made by mr klinger
and a second
second the second by ms fibel mr mcpeek
marcelino yes liam key yes robinson yes
sod yes markham yes
yes and klingler yes
incentive all right you say it do you
say something that we passed it or is it
just implied it's just implied perfect
past pat thank you okay
[Music]
um third readings and ordinance 5-22 to
protect the rights of individuals to our
face coverings in places of public
accommodation introduced by mr marcelino
mr marcelino do you have some
comments or action or do you want to
open it up for questions i believe last
time there were questions excuse me in
regards to how the chamber felt about
this um a couple things on that first it
did hit this week
for bexley online
after our last meeting so it was pretty
widely disseminated throughout the
community we didn't receive any feedback
or at least i did not if you did please
speak up tonight moreover we did send it
to the president of the board of the
chamber of commerce um and uh after
reviewing it and speaking with a few of
his members um it was positive in terms
of their reaction to it there was no
negatives um that he heard back from at
that time um so i guess we'll take
silence as
no big objection to it at this time
and so i guess i'd rather just open it
up for questions in regards to the
ordinance itself but i want to provide
that update as i know it was on people's
mind last time thank you mr marcelino
questions or comments from city council
[Music]
any questions or comments from the
audience
yes we have a citizen
[Music]
please state your name and address for
the uh
my name is richard sharp 845 college
avenue and um
as you can see
being a prior participant in greenbexley
i use my computers till they totally die
okay
council i feel that this ordinance is
unnecessary divisive and sets the
groundwork for the future
institutionalization of face coverings
additionally because the ordinance so
broadly defines face coverings to
include cloth mask
which research has clearly shown as
being somewhat effective in a highly
controlled lab test
scenario but virtually ineffective in
actual public use
and the ordinance also includes the
phrase cannot can include but not
limited to sets up an environment which
encourages those with criminal intent to
wear ski masks and other forms of facial
concealment without fear of being
stopped or approached prior to the
engagement of their intended criminal
conduct
it is unnecessary in the fact that there
were far more cases of people of color
or lower income status or
people with health reasons for not
wearing masks being denied
service and intimidated by business
owners and many more times by other
customers when mass mandates were
required then people that are supposedly
being protected under this proposed
ordinance being denied service
during the period of mass mandates
people who had valid health reasons for
not wearing masks or who were willing to
take the health risks to themselves were
told that there were other ways of
obtaining service curbside service home
delivery and etc
that that those people could avail
themselves to even if there was a
completely irrational business owner
that chose to adopt an extreme anti-face
covering policy
wouldn't they have the same defense of
offering alternative forms of service
if they do i think it sets up a bad
precedent that we're
institutionalizing alternative forms of
service as being acceptable
because that gives different levels of
service to different people
i believe this ordinance
is not necessary so thank you
thank you mr sharp
it's good to see you again
[Music]
mr marcelino do you have any action on
this
i uh
do you do you wanna
go ahead and move
uh to uh to pass ordinance 505-22
motion to adopt ordinance 5-22 by mr
marcelino can i get a second
is there a second i'm sorry
second
that's a second by ms robinson mr mcpeak
fibel
yes markham
yes side
i do not believe we need a legal
mechanism to enforce the existing mask
optional i believe that the city of
bexley businesses are honoring mass
optional and respecting the choice of
the individual therefore i do not i
cannot vote in favor of this ordinance
tonight
robinson yes lampke yes marcelino yes
no
thank you
oh passes
[Music]
mr president if i may
yes i believe this completes all of the
pieces of the executive order yeah
look at this no longer
thank you
[Music]
all right third reading of ordinance
4-22
to certify special assessments for the
repair of sidewalks where the work was
not done by the owner after being
ordered by the city in accordance with
beckley bexley code section 1490 point
15 b4a or bexley code section
1492.04 b1 and it was necessary to do
the work and assess the owner to assess
the owner of properties with unpaid
alarm fees in accordance with bexley
code section
643.03 to certify a special assessment
in accordance with bexley code section
1490.18 environmental contamination and
to certify
special assessments for code violation
abatements where work was not done by
the owner after being ordered by the
city in accordance with bexley code
section 1490 and it was necessary to do
the work and assess the owner introduced
by ms lamke
ms lampke
thank you
i believe the mayor has a proposed
amendment ordinance
mayor if i recall correctly you checked
names to see if anyone needed to be
removed and i think we added names to
section six is that correct
that is correct so
we did remove some alarm fees that were
paid under section
three so you'll see that's a
less
lengthy list
um and then under
section
five
okay we added the abatements
list
this is actually two years worth so this
is 21 and 2020
and
then
i think we properly numbered i think
there was a numbering issue that natalie
fixed thank you natalie
and those are the changes
awesome are there any questions from
council at this time we also uh allow
comments from the audience no speakers
oh first emotion
oh motion to a man sorry yeah i forgot i
moved to amend ordinance 4-22 as shown
on the screen
second
motion by land key second by matt
klingler
mr mcpeak
markham
yes side
yes robinson yes liam key yes marcelino
yes klingler yes and 51. yes
do we need to make the motion before we
extend that
well
you can extend it either way i mean
there's obviously nowhere near right wow
richard left
amended ordinance 4-22 motion to adopt
by ms lemke seconded
the second by mr marcelino
um at this time
i will open it up to comments from the
audience if there are any
seeing none
mr mcpeek please
i gotta
yes robinson yes lamke yes marcelino yes
yes fibo yes and
yes
motion passes
i have to practice you know like i gotta
get this down
it's all good thanks this is a good one
to practice yeah that's what i figured
yeah right it is all right second
reading of origin 7-21 to amend
682.22 disposable animal fecal matter
required to eliminate the requirement to
carry equipment introduced by mr marcum
thank you mr fisher mr mayor if you
would you click that little hot link
just so we can see the
couple changes that were made
as we talked about it last time i did
gender neutralize this
and then i did also
remove the
sanitary requirement as well
[Music]
questions comments
saying well i would that was one of the
recommendations that was made it didn't
legally have to be a sanitary
item necessarily okay
this is not a good legislation for the
mature people
i know right
this is a good piece of legislation for
anyone with a sense of humor
uh seeing
no comments i think this might be uh
consent agenda item
oh we do need to amend it sorry yeah um
i'm okay with consent agenda sure well
let's amend it first
yeah motion to amend
sorry ordinance 7-21
2 22 2 oh yeah it's there's a typo there
it's 722. so i got it
let's just type on the agenda oh yeah
sorry yeah so motion to amend
ordinance
7-22 as shown
can i get is there a second second
i'm going to go with uh second by ms
lamke
and uh mr mcpeek go ahead and give us a
robinson
yes
yes marcelino yes klingler yes viable
yes markham yes and sod yes
much as i
would enjoy seeing a vote on this i will
concur and we can put it on the consent
agenda for next week thank you though
for entertaining
and move on all right we have a second
reading of resolution 1-22 confirming
the mayor's appointments of members to
the architectural review board the
citizens review board of the recreation
board and the board of zoning appeals
and planning introduced by ms robinson
um i have nothing to really
update you on other than um likely at
our next meeting we will have a number
of these folks present to speak to
everybody
and that's it
all right i guess that's it all right
now we are on to first readings
ordinance 8-22 to approve the collective
bargaining agreements between the
fraternal order of police or ohio labor
council inc and the city of bexley
introduced by ms lamke
mr city attorney will you briefly
summarize the uh negotiations that led
up to
this ordinance please sure there's so
there's two collective bargaining
agreements one
consisting of the one animal control
officer in her own unit although we knew
the negotiations together and one for
full-time dispatchers their contracts
expired at the end of the year
we weren't able to get together until
earlier this year
both of these agreements tentative
agreements have been approved by the
bargaining units
and they would the wage increases if
approved by council would be retroactive
to january 1st 2022.
um you have it attached to your um uh
this agenda that both of the agreements
if you want to read them you there's
bold and yellowed and various things
that show you the changes the really
there's really only a couple of
substantive changes the wage increase as
i think i've indicated before is a would
be a four percent increase this year
four percent increase next year and a
three percent increase in 2023 with an
expiration of december 31st i'm sorry
four percent 22 4 23 3 24. and with an
expiration of 12 31 2024 we can only do
a three-year contract that's the max we
can do we also agreed to um they
there was an agreement that the city
could hire dispatchers at it higher than
entry level if need be
which continues to be an issue for law
enforcement in franklin county because
everybody's stealing from everybody else
just saw an ad on facebook where
franklin county sheriff's office is
looking to
for lateral transfers
and then we
a small amount of uh basically 44 hours
of occasionally for employees who are at
attain six months of service it used to
be yet to wait for a full year to get
that so those are the only substantive
changes
and you know that there's no real need
uh you know three readings is fine with
this the wage increases would be
retroactive so that means beat your has
to do work
sorry
question questions or comments
anything else miss lamke
nope
all right move us on all right ordinance
9-22 to establish the part-time position
of finance and personnel coordinator and
to establish the pay range at 24.84
cents per hour to
35.87 per hour introduced by ms lamke
thank you mayor do you want to uh maybe
walk us through this including the
attached job description
yeah i have pulled up the
essential position functions um
and this could be this could still
maybe evolve a little bit as as we were
going along over the next few weeks but
um it's as you can see it's um
kind of a mixture of what we talked
about with some
routine hr tasks um as well as
uh payroll uh processing work and
reconciling reconciliation work anything
else you'd like to highlight on the
finance side
no not no i think this outlines it quite
well and you've outlined some of the um
the other items we've we've discussed so
nothing to add
um
there's a lot of overlap in terms of
enrollment in in hr programs
with payroll processing so there's some
logic in combining these two disciplines
um
[Music]
we
talk mark and i spoke with with matt we
spoke about you know mark's comments the
last council meeting about
having a more full full-time hr position
that's
certainly something we'll continue to
assess as you know we don't have anybody
so having something
is better than nothing and i think we'll
continue to assess whether or not it
makes sense to morph that into a
larger role down the road
i am i'm open to it i'm also aware that
you know we have a we're a small city
with limited date with limited budget
and i am protective of that as well so
try to balance that
msl
mayor will this
coordinate your position increase
uniformity
regarding issues of finance and
personnel across city departments
well yeah i think
there's scope for that um for example
and this is kind of nikki nakey stuff
but like our time sheets look different
between departments one of the things
we've talked about is going to a payroll
software that helps unify that um
so that that dovetails with this
position um our employee packets vary
from department department uh hopefully
there'll be some more uniformity as we
have somebody who has a little bit more
attention to that eyes on that um
so for sure i think i i could see
i could see enhanced uniformity from it
there are always going to be specific
needs for departments like for example
you know we're talking about this fop
contract it has
specific uh conditions in that contract
that apply only to that class of
employee not to everyone else so you
know there is some silo
siloing going on but it will help i
think
then my my second question was given
i guess hiring shortages that are kind
of nationwide is the
pay and structure
competitive enough to get
the best person we can for such an
important role
we think so and we'll find out
i mean we have a pay scale that we're
looking at here is is very it's actually
the same as
the pay scale that we have with
other
we have kind of a tier of employees
across the city hall function
our assistant manager of the building
department
clerk of courts
um some other positions are in the same
pay range so this is a range that we've
succeeded at getting qualified
candidates in the past these sorts of
job descriptions are not radically
different from what some of these folks
are doing so i think it's fair
matt do you have anything to add to that
no i mean to your point we will find out
soon i mean ideally we find um someone
who's in town who's looking for some
additional income um to stay active in
this space
um but um
you know
for contractors that are not on city
payroll um the rate is higher than this
so again i do think that there is an
opportunity to
to you know hire within this ban but
time will tell
any questions from rush to council
looks like we're done here and i think
it's pretty competitive too i mean for a
part-time position
features anything you wanted to add
um
there is a little bit of a
there's a variety there's some testing
a reconciling type stuff just kind of a
challenge
and then you have um
things that are more hr types
but i'm sure the person has the skill
set of the active
thank you
table door and then says do you
all right no action on table ordinances
committee reports mr marcelino you are
hitting lead off tonight
nothing thank you all right
mr klingler zoning and development a
couple things um
that was well timed considering baseball
is back it is good i know you enjoy that
uh next bezap meeting is this
thursday at 6 pm
and some of you driving down broad
street may have noticed a large
mound of dirt
next to saint charles
they have begun building their new
convocation center and the renovation to
the holy mary grotto so
look for that to be
ongoing over the next several months
some exciting stuff over there
that is all thank you ms assad
just a couple things here wanted to send
a big congratulations to marshall drury
he's a new hire to park and rock so
welcome marshall
um the mayor touched upon this but this
saturday night is bravo so please if you
are available come out mr saad and i
will be handing out nothing bunt cakes
and i know monique loves them nice
so uh
and i'm sure who doesn't right um it
will be at 7 p.m at st charles online
bidding has started so if you can't make
it please do go to the bex education
foundation's website and you can
register to start your online biddings
for some really unique and fun items
uh columbus blue jackets
completely signed
by the whole team hockey stick so i
thought you were going to mention
something else
go i thought you were going to mention
the first bottle of 2022 maple syrup
that you can and then there's that
we should have put it with the hockey
stick yeah signed by the blue jacket
sign
the blue jackets
um
and to go to that to register it's
a u c t r i a dot events backslash bravo
um
i also wanted to remind everyone that
the b m the bexley minority parent
association art auction
started on march 19th it goes to the
26th so you can um bid on 10 local
artist pieces if you would like
and that all those um all the proceeds
go back to scholarships for um
students of the bmpa so please if you're
an art enthusiast like myself um get on
and make a bid
and then last the bexley march madness
mulch sale a lot of m's there is
happening now it goes through april 9th
so it's that time to start thinking
about mulch please do support this
effort oakland nursery the reiner family
is a local family they are who are
supporting and providing the mulch this
year um delivery will happen on saturday
april 23rd
there is a 10 bag minimum
um
and
if you do not
want to if you're not around on the 23rd
for that delivery you can always buy
gift cards between 50 to 100 to support
this effort
what does this go towards it goes
towards the athletic all proceeds go
towards athletic uniforms equipment
facilities scoreboards and
transportation so um i'm hoping mayor
kessler that we might be able to get
that on the blast
it usually is okay to remind the
residents so thank you so much
always so fun to see those trucks roll
through the neighborhoods with the
athletes just
scattered and working it's it's amazing
what's the date on that that's the end
of march april april april 23rd yeah
okay ms robinson
i don't have a huge update today i i do
want to let you know that hopefully at
our next council meeting i'll have an
update on the communications plan that
we discussed at um our retreat
and um you will each of you will be
receiving a call email text or something
for me over the next week or so um as we
look at updating our code and seeing how
we might want to divide that out and
figure if you have some part of that
code that you're super interested in
matt klingler i see you over there super
excited
i love it yeah but listen troy's opened
the door with the whole uh updating so
let's uh keep that train going thank you
for moving that forward i'm really
excited that we're taking that on thank
you
ms fibel
real quick train garden is tomorrow
night um right here in chambers four
o'clock to six and ironically we are
going to be talking about saint charles
this landscaping plan tomorrow night so
if you wanna it's i'm sure it's gonna be
amazing
that's all
ms lamke
just a couple quick things
first of all i think all of us may have
received the may 12th invitation to the
bexley community foundation event at the
mansion it's the lead the way bexley
cares invite i'd love to encourage all
of you to rsvp and to attend
for anyone listening they need
children's books for all of the free
little libraries around bexley so if you
have some
uh feel free to distribute them or place
them directly into the libraries
and then
the chamber of commerce
is having a women in business event on
wednesday march 13th at the merchant
uh you can email the chamber for more
information
and last what's that
march 13th
they say march 13th i'm sorry march 30th
okay thank you
sorry
and then finally i know we have uh still
a few agenda items but when we adjourn
i'd love to invite taylor and cole
klingler to come up and pound to the
gavel and conclude this meeting tonight
it will be for a bit yeah
at this time we do allow public comments
with no speaker slip
i'm going to bypass that and then we do
have a
last item on the agenda which is an
executive session and
how i don't know how we do this
president markham before you do that can
i there's something i forgot to mention
that i wanted to make sure you guys were
aware of which is we will have a board
of control meeting following the next
council meeting okay
at least we will be reviewing two bids
for our
uh compost curbside compost program
um
and i just said the magic word two bits
so i will i have notified you now i will
also notify you next at the next meeting
um but i just want to make sure you're
aware of that and there's something else
too
the jordan
okay
okay so but anyway sorry i just wanted
to make sure thank you for letting us
know at this time i'd like to make a
motion that we retired an executive
session
went to
223.03 a to consider the appointment
employment dismissal discipline
promotion demotion or compensation of a
public employee or official or the
investigation of charges or complaints
against a public employee or official
second second by mr klingler um that we
just have voice vote
i would please
yeah that's
you're right
klingler yes bible
markham yes
yes robinson yes
yes and marcelino yes
thank you i'm going to turn this over to
mr mcpeak i think right at this point
from executive session
and we have to motion to exit executives
that's what i just did a second thank
you thank you mr klingler
no thanks to ms lamke
we do we have to voice vote on that too
yeah do a voice
come on come around
bible you know what sounds better
yes
yes robinson
lampke yes and marcelino yes yes hold on
to that for a second
motion to uh adjourn
second
and uh
[Music]
the only people that get to do this is
if you've stayed for the whole meeting