hi
everybody we're also excited um
to welcome you to um our first
march meeting of council please
note that we will not
have a meeting in two weeks but indeed
it will be
in three weeks i think that that is
march
the 30th am i correct everyone it's
march the 30th that we will have our
next
meeting so we welcome president fibel
yes i just want to point out that
richard sharp is here but he is an
attendee and not a panelist right now
right well we will ask
um mayor kessler to please switch him
over
that would be wonderful and we're so
glad you're here mr sharp
and um let's please try really hard to
remember that we're here for the good of
bexley
and i would ask that our good um auditor
please do local this bible
here mr klingler here
ms lamke here mr markham
here ms robinson here mossad
here mr sharp here
all right utilizing mayor kessler's flag
if we could please stand to do the
pledge
i pledge allegiance
to america and to the republic for which
he stands
one nation under god indivisible with
liberty and justice for all
believe it or not i absolutely love
listening to
all of us saying that even though we're
not together there's something so
beautiful about it so um
it's fun to hear all of your voices on
zoom
all right um don't believe that we other
than our
very special attendees i don't believe
that we have
anyone else that we need to introduce or
any special
individuals coming to give us
information or
any form of education so we will go
ahead and move on to public comment
this is a period where we allow anybody
in who is attending from the public to
speak
if they so wish on topics that are
not on our agenda we ask that you first
give
your name and your address
and then we would kindly ask you to keep
your comments to five minutes thanks so
much
um is there anyone in attendance who
would like to speak you simply have to
raise
your hand um your icon
if you would um
i am not seeing any hands up
so i guess we will move on if we could
please to our administrative updates
um and we will start with our financial
department update we did have a big
update last
um one
uh one raised up right at the last
second there oh okay
all right just a second let me get back
to that
and get to our attendees and
uh jv
two uh if you would like to speak
please give us your name and your
address and you may speak
hi my name is leah turner
um jb is my husband i live in 993
francis avenue
and i am just calling to talk
to talk to you about um the property
next door in which i
share 220 feet
and i know that you're all very smart
people
and i know that you've done a lot of
good work
but i want you to always consider the
impact on
the neighbors that's all i wanted to say
thank you leah so much we appreciate you
coming and sharing your
your words with us tonight thank you
madam president mr fishel did you
mean to skip the president's report and
city attorney report and go straight to
administrative update
i didn't i got really excited okay i
just wasn't sure if there was
a different order i wasn't aware of you
know what i think what happened was i
you know um the mayor does a fabulous
job
scrolling through our agenda but i think
my eyes didn't catch it the right way
he was scrolling so forgive me i um i
do not have thank you ben
i do not have a report this evening i
already shared
with um those in attendance and council
just my reminder
that our meeting is not until the 30th
of march our second march meeting is the
30th of march
so thank you all right um mr city
attorney
can we i did want to actually say
something it's not necessarily in the
way of a report
but it's something that um i just wanted
to mention and sort of send out an
appreciative
thanks which is redundant to the police
depart bexley police department
leadership and in particular
chief reinhard uh captain goff and
sergeant bricky
the mayor and i it's probably been
almost a month now
um spend some time and the mayor spent a
lot of work i did a lot of work on this
too
um meeting with the three of them in
order to make sure
that they were comfortable from a law
enforcement standpoint
and we were comfortable and everybody
was comfortable from both a law
enforcement standpoint
and a civil rights standpoint if you
will
so that our uh this the police
department's um
policy use of force policy has been
updated
with significant input from police
leadership
and is now compliant with uh the eight
can't wait um
requirement so again i just want to
mention how appreciative i was
and how serious and they took it and how
willing they were
to um hear how willing they were to hear
um others other points of view and then
again we have a policy that is
compliant with all best law enforcement
practices but also he can't wait
that's all thank you mr city attorney we
appreciate your report
all right we are now too sorry
administrative updates
so um the finance department gave us an
update last um
go around i do ask i did ask um that
our um finance department do that um at
least once a month prepare
a written report for us and and um
and and share with us their thoughts but
um mr auditor do you have anything
further that you would like to say
tonight
nothing else madam president all right
thank you so much mr harvey
um chief reinhardt you're up sir
ma'am i have nothing beyond my written
report tonight
um the written report was was um
fabulous as always and i shared that
with mr with uh sergeant bricky who um
who's charged with writing it i believe
and he does a really great job so thank
you so much for that does anybody have
any i'm sorry i forgot to ask if
anyone had any questions for for our
city auditor
council members anyone have questions
i'm not
seeing anyone having questions um
and um anyone have any questions from
um the pianist um for our chief
do know that there is a hand in the air
from our audience
um we will have an opportunity to speak
you will have an opportunity to speak to
council
at the end at the end of our meeting
during public comment or about any
pieces of legislation that you
you may have that we may have so
on our agenda um then i guess we will
move on seeing no questions from council
um about um our police department
will move on to our rec department i'm
wondering if
michael is done smelling like uh the
jeffrey woods
i hope so um nothing other than my
written report thank you madam president
thank you michael and thank you so much
for all of your work and everyone who
was involved with that really fun event
this past weekend anybody in council
have any questions for mr price
i have a question for mike mike can you
just give a brief update on where we are
for the jumper mansion expansion please
sure um uh they're continuing to uh
finish up the indoor space they have
um sealed up the carriage court space so
they can start building that out it's
now
basically waterproof so they're working
they're really focusing on the north
part of the building
the south part of the interior part of
the building is for the most part done
still some touch-up work
obviously they're focusing on the porch
and the exterior as well um they have
been
telling us that the building itself
there'll still be exterior work but the
building itself should be
uh completed um by
they've told us early april at this
point so we have events
starting in may we have rentals starting
in may so that's a very
hard drop dead point for us
and would you say mike or maybe you need
some time to think about it but
are we on track budget wise are we ahead
of budget
are we over budget generally speaking i
i would say
um we are really pushing the envelope on
the budget i mean it's really tight
right now
so we're having a lot of time to
conversations about whether we can do
certain things as they're finishing up
but there are some things that are
really pushing the budget
okay well thank you for being mindful of
costs and i appreciate your um
you're updating us thanks
great questions monique thank you so
much
um anyone else have anything else for mr
price
thank you michael i'm moving on to
andy bayshore andy bayshore anything
other than your written report sir
no ma'am not tonight all right thank you
do you have those mowers gassed up
we are ready for the mowers and done
with the snowplows that's for sure i
know
i know you are thank you so much for
your hard work this this
uh season any questions for andy
bayshore from council
i don't see any um all right then i
think are we to you
mr mayor
yep um all right let me
pull this up okay so a couple things to
highlight first off i noticed that
in the in the excitement of trying to
reformat the way i was doing the update
i
included some old dates and left out
some new ones so
in addition to what i have listed here
and coming up we have an architectural
review board meeting this thursday
evening and then tree commission which
is typically would be next
week has been pushed to the 24th because
of spring break
uh four to six and then b zap is on the
25th that's the thursday after spring
break
but a couple things to draw your
attention to the bike friendly plan
we have a final draft workshop for the
public on march 24th we'll be
advertising that that's where
the steering committee is coming back uh
they've looked at the draft they've
provided recommendations and then
asking for public recommendations before
bringing it to council for consideration
and adoption um the bmpa circle of
excellence
event is virtual this year it will be
happening on april 11th i believe that's
a sunday
so put that on your calendar it's in the
afternoon more information to come on
that
and we have several community events
coming up here this spring so i do want
to highlight
that we are planning on um
working on having a memorial day and
jazz in the park
uh main event on june 4th following
the public guidelines that will be in
place at the time we envision
probably for both of those events we'll
have
designated areas for uh households to
sit together
and some common sense guidelines in
place and and maybe some
registration requirements to make sure
that we can control the crowd
uh but we are planning on a main event
season and a jazz in the park season
and i know that there's a lot of work
going into the fourth of july as well
just to make sure that we have a robust
community fourth of july celebration
so i think we all have that to look
forward to i would encourage our
community to
uh get vaccinated when you're able to i
know that's something that
a lot of folks in the neighborhood are
doing and will help us
celebrate even more safely so
just wanted you to be aware that we are
considering those
items carefully with our coveted 19 task
force and looking forward to a summer
together as a community
there's a list of some stuff i've been
up to and then some things i want to
highlight
we did receive rfps for our electric
community choice aggregation for
renewable electricity
we have a board of control meeting
scheduled for 9
30 a.m on friday and that will be to
hear from
our legal counsel as to an analysis of
those rfps and discussions and an
opportunity for us to ask questions i
invite any of you guys to join
on that the next step after that there
might be some
further clarification requested from the
bidders um
and then uh wanting to probably would
have a follow-up border control meeting
before coming back to council with
whatever recommendation there might be
before having another border control
meeting to make any vote that might be
taken so
several steps along the way we're going
to be
making sure the community is aware of
those meetings um especially any
presentations to council so that
we can get as many voices in on that
discussion as possible
uh talked about the bike plan our sewer
remediation program um
went uh live
uh today we sent emails out to all of
the um
flood uh to all of those who had filled
out the flood form
and and i'm going to take a quick i'm
going to pause just for a second and ask
that maybe laura
ann could you text sam and i'm hearing
that
there might be a wrong link on uh the
website somewhere so
absolutely if you could please text him
and if he doesn't respond let me know
and i'll duck out and work on that
all right sounds great okay so the sewer
remediation program
um uh his okay sorry that's that's live
at bexley.org
flooding more information on that and uh
i know our
our sewer department's already fielding
lots of questions this afternoon so
uh we'll we'll monitor that and let you
know how it's going um
wanted to be aware of the rapid five
initiative it's a
planning process to combine the
greenways of the five
major water corridors in central ohio
alum creek is one of them
um so all the all the communities that
are fronting onto
big walnut and alum and sciota and olin
tangi and
forgive me for not having the fifth at
the top of my head we'll be
participating in a co-joined planning
effort there's some info at the
rapidproject.org
and i'll be as more info is available
you guys know about that it's early
early on in that process
i do have in a third page and i'm gonna
come back to the sheets thing i have uh
our cares act expenditure report has not
changed since the last report we have
not met as a committee since it
last was published but i just wanted to
make sure to keep that on the update
and then um that is natalie mullen who
is our assistant wreck director
at the uh maple syrup tapping and then
we had a kindergarten field trip
uh to learn more about tapping and we
had lots of fun at the jeffrey woods
festival so many thanks to andy and mike
and their crews
from the service department of rec for
making that event possible we bottled
112
bottles of syrup and i would be remiss
not to also thank
a couple council members who helped me
bottle
when we ran out of time on saturday and
had to do some overflow work on sunday
so
thanks to all who pitched in um
wanted to talk to you about uh sheets um
i was asked by columbus planning to
provide input into the development at
college in livingston
um i am unders i understand i was asked
the developer approached me at the end
of last year
um with just the this
having said the columbus planet asked
them to come
to me and get my feedback um i've spoke
with mark fishel about it
spent some time really getting to
understand the plan better and
and talking to um berwick civic
association
the mac um the jewish community center
in the jewish columbus
and some other neighbors just to
understand feelings about it and
understand
our role in that because it's it's a
unique request that
i haven't fielded before and wanted to
be sensitive to the fact that
um you know
we would certainly have some strong
feelings i think if uh mayor ginther
started giving us letters about how he
felt about developments planned in
bexley and
and maybe city council from columbus
weighing in so um i wanted you to see
a draft letter this is a revised draft
based upon some good recommendations
from mark
just to kind of make sure the context
was very clear on this
to the planning manager at the city of
columbus
just talks through the fact that i was
approached and
asked to share feedback on the proposed
development
and what i did in the latter is i looked
at the proposed development
in light of the 2017 southwest bexley
framework
and the 2019 livingston east area plan
which is the city of columbus's plan
that
is currently governing livingston avenue
to the east of downtown so
my ultimate feeling about this
is that it's a rezoning which you know
anytime we have a rezoning anywhere is a
pretty big deal
that's asking for a it's a legislative
process it's not a quasi-judicial
process it goes
beyond what the zoning district intends
or
anticipates and livingston avenue in
particular
obviously is a area of great concern to
us
we are concerned about the future
development of livingston that it be
increasingly residential and pedestrian
friendly in character
our own plans have asked for mixed use
and residential development
uh as have columbus as planes and so the
um the proposed use here is furthering
a highway-oriented retail corridor that
does not serve
either of our communities in terms of
stitching together berwick and bexley or
creating more of a pedestrian
and community level fabric so i
share that opinion in this letter but i
didn't want i didn't want to send it in
a vacuum
so i have
you know made it clear to the developer
that i intend to send
a letter like this and i wanted to share
with you guys
for your comments and then i know that
richard has also been thinking about
ways that council might
provide feedback directly and so
maybe this is best had during that
section of the of the meeting but i
wanted to present this to you during my
update and uh provide that as context so
i'll let maybe the president decide
how to contextualize that and um
well take any questions and then lorian
were you able to get a hold of sam
i was not able to get a hold of sam i i
i phoned him
actually twice and i and i texted him
so um any questions uh
about the update and i'm gonna try to
figure out what's going on on the uh
website end ready it looks like jessica
saad i think she had her hand up um do
you have a question for the mayor
jessica i do um thank you president
bible
mayor kessler was i saw in your report
just wanted to
have you touch upon um in your report
you talk about the pool bubble
concept
yeah so uh are you just asking kind of
what that's what that discussion is
about
that is what i'm asking yeah okay well
so we we've been looking at the idea of
a pool bubble since 2016
and uh more recently were approached
by um the
uh several uh swimming uh boosters or
parents of swim swimmers in bexley to
look into that again especially with
limitations from the pandemic
so um we uh
we have been meeting with those parents
to kind of bring them up to speed as to
our own feasibility analysis which in
the past has found that it would be
not a sustainable financially
sustainable argument to the pool
um and getting some feedback from those
parents
and trying to assimilate that feedback
into our analysis and see if there might
be some opportunity so
we're just keeping dialogue open and
continuing to explore
great mr sharp
richard sharp question
um i want i want to thank the mayor for
his work on that the letter regarding
the sheetz uh
program and um i think it would be
appropriate
for a council to have further discussion
um in under the first readings
section of the meeting and um did
the individuals who were trying to get
on did they try to link
in the actual agenda as opposed to what
might be on the calendar
that might be an option they can try
i would imagine there are probably
probably the header link that's
inappropriate because we have multiple
links
um that are correct so i'm trying to
find the bad one and we're gonna get
that fixed
all right thank you thank you mayor
kessler and thank you um
uh council uh and sharp i do think that
that would be a an appropriate time to
discuss especially since you have
legislation
um a resolution regarding um the sheep
project so thank you we will talk about
it then under first readings under your
committee thank you
um any other further questions from um
council members for the mayor
all right seeing none if we
could i believe we are to the consent
agenda
sorry yes we are all right i tried
myself on not talking before i unmute
but i always
all right so we have two items on the
consent agenda we have ordinance
06-21 to authorize a transfer from the
road and alley fund of five
thousand two hundred fifty six dollars
uh to the bond retirement fund and to
appropriate five thousand two hundred
fifty six dollars from the bond
retirement fund
to appropriate fifty two thousand five
hundred fifty nine dollars from the
water fund to
appropriate seven thousand eight hundred
eighty four dollars from the sewer fund
to pay debt
service related to the south roosevelt
and ash board improvement project that
was introduced by mr markham
and we also have ordinance 007-21 to
establish
a special legal fund designate i'm sorry
a special fund
designated at south drexel avenue and
grand
avenue comprehensive improvements fund
to record all revenue and expenses
associated with the south drexel avenue
and grandin avenue
project to appropriate uh five thousand
sorry five million one hundred fifty
eight thousand eight hundred seven
dollars
from this fund to pay for the cost
project and to authorize transfers from
the water sewer
and road and alley funds of one hundred
thirty four thousand one hundred eighty
one dollars
thirty one thousand five hundred seventy
two dollars and ninety seven
thousand three hundred forty seven
dollars respectively to the south drexel
avenue
and grandin avenue comprehensive
improvements fund
to pay the city's portion of the project
also introduced by mr markham
sorry i'm reading from another screen so
it's a little smaller
and before you go on debbie i signed all
those things today
all right thank you mr official
all right any questions from council
concerning
the consent agenda oh i'm sorry
we have another one i didn't read it we
also have approval of the 223
21 minutes it got it got buried in the
large
titles and for some reason i thought you
had said that already
all right forgive us all for the
confusion now council members
are there any questions from you
regarding the consent agenda
seeing none attendees are there is there
anyone in the public who
has any questions about the consent
agenda
seeing then do we have a motion please
so moved thank you motion is to accept
the consent agenda to pass this consent
agenda is there a second
second mr markham thank you for markham
there's a first in a second mr harvey
mr klingler yes ms robinson
yes mr markham yes mr assad
yes mrs bible yes ms lamke
yes mr sharp yes
consensus passes thank you mr harvey
um if we could move on i believe we are
to third
readings
so we have a third reading of resolution
01-21
confirming the mayor's appointments of
members to the citizen review
board uh introduced by ms robinson
uh yes so this is the third reading of
this ordinance uh but before we uh
actually get to council conversation and
any anyone here from the public who
might be interested in
in talking i just wanted to talk a
little bit about the process that we
went through
um when we were selecting the candidates
that were ultimately proposed i know
there were a lot of questions at the
last council meeting
and i want to make sure that not only is
council aware of what that process was
but anybody who
potentially has questions in the public
understands
so the ordinance to expand the
um the civilian review board uh that the
mayor
passed with or that we all passed um by
mayor's executive order
actually passed in october of last year
and
the mayor and council clearly felt that
this was something that we should
move you know with um in a timely manner
to
uh to fill those spots so in november
um a call went out for interested
applicants
um that call was then echoed by
information being posted
posted on the website and also in
several of the bexley blasts that went
out
um well those who are registered for uh
receive weekly
so in january mayor kessler monica
williams and myself
we began scheduling and the interviews
of applicants who
put their names forward and those um
interviews took place at the end of
january and the beginning of february
um the process was incredibly
collaborative and ultimately it led to
the list of candidates that
you see on this ordinance before you i
know there were some
um concerns raised about
um the the pan or the the group of
people that we put forward and i want to
be very very clear and say in
know uncertain terms that at no point in
this process
did we look or ask about anybody's
political affiliation
this process is nonpartisan as it should
be
and we took great care to ensure that
the the
candidates that we ultimately were going
to present to you were representative of
our city's population
and we're ready and able to handle the
task that is before them
we did have a brief discussion about two
of the candidates who both would
are employed by nationwide but
ultimately we agreed that their skill
set was valuable to the work of the
committee
and so we put their names forward in
this this ordinance
um i do also want to just end by saying
how fortunate we are that we have so
many passionate residents
in this community who want to get
involved and how lucky
are we that that is the case um and this
really wasn't an easy choice
uh listen i handle auditions in my daily
life and it is
when people say that this could have
been cast many different ways
it is absolutely true in this case um
we have a lot of really talented people
but ultimately
we were charged with putting together
the best group of people that we
felt would um would meet the the task at
hand
and so that's how we ended up at this
process where we are in this process
um with these five names presented to
you all
um and i just want to assure you that
the process was collaborative
and and that we are incredibly confident
with the
the five names that we put before you so
to that end if anybody has any further
questions or the mayor would like to add
anything
um to to that um i believe that we will
be
um voting on this tonight
right council or um or mr
um mr kessler mayor does anyone have
any comments or questions concerning
this
third reading of resolution 121.
um oh we do okay
oh sorry go ahead monique and richard
i'll let you guys speak
sorry um i i don't know whose hand when
at first so i'm i'm going to call on
who's
on the top i believe that that would be
richard sharp mr sure
monique on my screen but um thank you um
i i think it might be helpful if there
are resident
comments that might be um
that want to be heard before council may
indirectly
give an opinion on what they're thinking
on this ordinance so that
it doesn't look like um things have been
predetermined
without input thank you thank you
richard
um hearing um richard's suggestion um
monique would you be willing to wait
until after the attendees um
speak before uh you um ask your question
or make your comment
i can certainly wait richard that's a
great idea thank you ms lamke
um uh mayor kessler would you like to um
would you like to speak prior to um
individuals
um in attendance speaking no i would
love to speak
afterwards thank you all right then i'm
going to turn um
this over to those in attendance is
there anyone in attendance that would
like to speak
um to this third reading
i'm not seeing any hands from those in
attendance
who want to speak on resolution 121
confirming the mayor's appointments
all right then i will take it back to ms
lamke
monique um thank you so much i just
wanted to share my
thoughts that i have reviewed the
backgrounds and
um skill set that each of these proposed
candidates brings
and i think that they will be fantastic
additions
to our citizen review board i certainly
appreciated meeting miss hunt
at the last meeting and i think that
these five collective members
will bring an objective and fair
approach to our citizen review board
that's needed
and i intend to support this resolution
thank you ms lamkin is there anybody
else that would like to speak
about this piece of legislation
um it looks like somebody in attendance
would like to speak on this so i
i will jog back over to them
uh looks like joel griff would like to
speak mr graf
yes it's actually not so much about this
particular issue
um but uh
i'm getting chatted by other people and
emailed from other people and other
groups that i'm on
that people are still not able to get on
the meeting
in fact uh one gentleman that said he
was gonna for sure speak about the
this particular reading i'm not but he
is
has been trying for i don't know how
long to get on
and is trying to do the wrong link so i
am
feeding people the meeting id hoping
they can get on the meeting that's all i
wanted to share
thank you mr gruff
um so i want to madam president if i may
first off
i want to thank joel mr graf for sending
the
where the wrong link is uh it looked
like the
direct link was correct there was a
error on the time and and
the phone id was wrong so i think we
fixed that
and the banner that pops up at the top
of the website was providing the right
link so
we're going to have to we've got links
all over the place but i think
we repaired incorrect links and and uh
if you want we could maybe uh come back
council um i i it will be my suggestion
then because i do know that there were
people that wanted to speak um on this
third reading that we will um
we will move it down further in our
agenda that's okay with everyone does
anyone
um have any opposition to
that nope i think it's great that we can
wait okay all right all right
um let's postpone the third reading till
um
after uh the second reading and we will
we will see where we are at that point
see if we've
we've um added on attendees
um so i'm going to ask that mr fishel
go ahead with the second reading please
okay
so the second reading is an ordinance
eight zero eight ah it just disappeared
um okay 0-8-21 to certify special
assessments for the repair of sidewalks
where the work was not done by the owner
after being ordered by the city in
accordance with bexley
code section 1490.15 b4a or bexley code
section 1492
0.04 b1 and it was necessary to do the
work
and assess the owner that was introduced
by mr sharp
hey i have no um additional
um comments regarding this order
ordinance excuse me um in summary for
those who may be attending that didn't
attend the last time
this is basically two years worth of
sidewalk assessments many of the
residents
asked to be billed on their
real estate taxes as a way to finance it
and with the covet considerations last
year
that's what one of the reasons that
there's multiple years
included in this ordinance
if anyone is on this ordinance
incorrectly
please contact the city if you
feel that you have made a payment it
might be in transit
or if you are planning to make a payment
and your name is on here inadvertently
then
um you just contact the city
and that will be taken care of before
the third reading
there will be amendment note and changes
made to um
i don't know why i'm getting feedback is
everybody else getting that feedback as
well
i'm not sure what was happening you're
you're better you're better now
okay okay you're good now um good okay
well um
we uh i talked about this i i believe
with um the mayor and he suggested that
there would likely be
um um changes to this um so this is not
an appropriate um
item to go on the consent agenda because
there will be changes to it
mr fish are there any questions from
council on this
um item any
anything anyone would like to ask
concerning this
this a second reading all right i'll
toggle over to
second readings is there anyone who
would like to speak
on the amended ordinance 821
mr graf your hands in the air would you
like to speak on amended ordinance 8 21
sorry that's a mistake no worries no
worries
anyone else in attendance who would like
to
speak to 8 21 seeing none mr official
would you please move on to 9
21.
uh mr fishel you're uh i'm muted i know
and
you know what prayer prayer to you um
reading this if you don't mind please
forgive me
i just want to add that we we will go on
we will
do the third reading and and you know
towards the end of our
agenda um i do want to add though that
if there is anyone who is not
in attendance because they're having a
little bit problems there is public
comment at the end and
any of these ordin any of these other
ordinance that are first or second
readings
you can certainly have we can certainly
have conversation about those ordinance
um
at the end of our meeting all right all
right so i'm
reading sec it's the second reading of
ordinance 09-21 to unappropriate
nine 86 seventy one dollars from the
urban redevelopment tax increment
equivalent fund more commonly known as
the city hall tiff fund
introduced by mr markham thank you mr
fishel um this
is second reading for this ordinance and
this is simply a
correction of revenue versus expected
revenue
for the tif fund
anybody have any questions on concerning
this for or
for mr markham for the mayor or for
perhaps um the art
auditor no one from the panel
anybody in attendance have any questions
about ordinance 921
no in attendance does but i do believe
that it looks like we might have a
question
from our one of our council members jen
robinson you have a question
actually not a question i just wanted to
publicly thank troy markham
and bill harvey for um giving me a
this is your tiff and welcome to it uh
lesson today
um i'm i'm all the wiser for it and i i
do want to just say thank you for
answering what i thought was a stupid
question
and actually wasn't and led to some
really um
some much better insight so thank you
good teamwork tiffs do great things
and it's wonderful when we get them
and when you do get what it's doing it's
awesome but it does take a while and it
was one of my first two thanks ms
robinson
and thank you everyone for being willing
to uh make sure we
we we get all the financial um things
straight so that we could be good
stewards of our
of our city um i don't believe that
anyone else has any comments or
questions
um mr markham do you have any
suggestions about
ordinance 921 uh i think we could
probably put this on the consent agenda
i was hoping you might say that everyone
okay with that
anybody against that all right
then i will ask that we put that one on
the consent agenda miss maynard please
help me make note of that um and then we
will
uh look at ordinance 10 21 mr fishel
all right second reading of ordinance 10
20
but are you just screwing with me ben
sorry yeah you just moved it that is
okay i'm gonna look at my other screen
it's okay
it's right there it's right there
ordinance 10 21
no it's not um not on my screen i can't
see that there you go
now you can see it okay ordinance 10 21
creating a designated outdoor
refreshment area
in a specified portion of the main
street district and enacting regulations
and declaring emergency introduced by mr
klingler
thank you mr fishel this is um
an ordinance to establish a designated
outdoor refreshment area along our main
street
uh corridor districts this is the second
reading
of the ordinance the application um
that was put together by the mayor
is attached to the uh meeting agenda you
can see
the table of contents and the
introduction and the boundaries of the
dora
um all of the the retailers and
establishments and restaurants that are
located within the dora
um mayor kessler do you have anything to
add
yeah so by way of update um
i spoke with capital and they would like
to not have their parcels included in
the doris so what we're going to do is
redraw this exhibit without the capital
parcels and
but make sure it's clear that the
sidewalks are included
which they're totally fine with so we'll
have the sidewalks included both in the
north and south side of
main street so that there is continuity
among the district
that way we mark
if you could work with uh debbie please
and myself we need to publish
in a paper of general circulation uh
notice
of a uh public meeting on this topic
uh for i think march 30th was the plan
so we need to publish that um in uh
paper next week and the week after um
it only requires one but i think two
would probably be wise
just out of preponderance of caution and
um especially because spring break is
next week um
or we could you know i don't know if
that's the dispatch or whatever maybe
it's later on this week either way if
you could help us
work on that that would be great and and
march so it would be
the the public hearing would be in
conjunction with the next city council
meeting
yes yes so i would anticipate if it's
okay with the
madam president that it be uh something
um noticed for the council meeting and
be on the front end of the agenda
just to specifically discuss it
think that putting it in that section
that you um you've
um designated for special guests etc
i think that's where we should put it
thank you
all right looks like um the dora has
some questions from
our council team um
jen robinson do you have a question or a
comment ma'am
i do have a question and i will um cease
from making a map joke but i'm super
tempted to
um this is a question for you um
matt and for you mayor kessler um do we
have an
update as to the the um
resident or the the restaurants along
that dora um are there any new additions
from
uh the last time we met and addressed
this
i i tried to glance briefly through the
the packet but i didn't see any new
restaurants that had agreed to be a part
of it
matt do you have any i don't have any
new ones but um
that i i haven't been out investigating
uh going door to door so i'm gonna do
that before spring break
okay so matt and i have divided and
conquered so i've i have one or two to
talk with as well
and uh market district is going to get
back to me they're
they're analyzing it i guess they're
just looking at it a little bit but
we're at the um good news is we're at
the uh required number
but we're we i think that we'll end up
with pretty much every restaurant
on the district involved once we've had
a chance to
finalize that socialization of the
concept
okay great thank you thank you for your
work on that matt
and um and then thank you so much for
going door-to-door
and asking um mr sharp do you have a
comment or question
yes and um i'm gonna if i'm
look like i'm a deer in headlights i'm
gonna be switching
to my copy of the dora agreement
so i'm just reading through this
timeline
if we have a notice of the application
published um whenever that date is that
starts the 30-day um
but not more than 60 days
period whereby council must approve or
disapprove the application by ordinance
or resolution
so um even though the next meeting will
be
the third reading uh it will be tabled
then
for most likely at least
20 days 25 days depending on the notice
date is that correct mayor
i'm sorry richard i didn't read it that
way and i think maybe mark should
review this um
it it's oh i see you're saying not not
to vote on it
until 30 days after the initial
publication of notice yes
that's right yeah okay so i just
wanted to call that to everyone's
attention so we keep that in mind
and then um where it says
city council shall review the dora every
five years from the date
the dora is created um it's a reason
why um it's so long like uh when we had
the
alcohol use um the first time
there was like a shorter period of time
at the mansion there was a shorter
period of time for
um council to revisit the issue
to see if there's any issues
or like a public hearing or something
like that for
public input instead of um
waiting for five years richard could you
cite the section here is that on the
planner and the ordinance i can't
remember
it's in the introduction and some middle
application page uh fourth
third bullet point from the bottom in
that middle section the city
of bexley is guided by state law those
of those bullet points
third one from the bottom city council
shall review the dora every five years
is it is that something that's statutory
required by the state or is that
something we can
change maybe the first maybe council
review after the first year and then
every five years after that
uh the the ordinance i'm sorry the ohio
revised coach that
five years after uh the legislative
assortee
authority shall review um that doesn't
mean that the legislative authority
could not review it
at some other time earlier i don't think
mark
could correct me that's right i mean the
the the five years there is in there
presumably to
make sure it's being reviewed at least
every five years but city council has
the right to review it
at any time and if the period
and modify eliminated or just
so that's something we can talk about
before the ordinances pass
possibly uh seeing if there is
in adding the the one-year review is
that what i'm understanding
it can be you can be at it i would
suggest adding it in the
um in the document here in the ordinance
not in the
actual plan
okay we can talk about that as long as
um
at another point in time and i i would
like to um
uh call out i don't know if everyone has
heard on the
the news hillyard is um
had a door last year for special events
and
um recently was considering extending it
for the
for a longer period of time during this
summer so um
i think it's it's something that um
bexley would be beneficial to bexley
as well to to encourage visitors similar
to what hilliard's doing
that's all i have thank you for your
comments mr sharp we appreciate it um
ms lamke has some um as a question or
comment
monique thank you president fibel
um my question is really more for mark
mark given that my reading of the dora
means that
you would have some adults with open
containers i believe on the sidewalks
and correct me if i'm wrong about how i
read that but
could there be any additional legal
liability to the city
for putting together a dora if someone
is over
served or alcohol plays a use in any
sort of
accident or injury at all
i mean the mere fact the city has a
development doesn't change that
doesn't make the city any more liable
than to sit then somebody might be
liable for granting a liquor license or
not you know
yeah we're fine okay thank you
what's that that's not actually accurate
information
uh i think that
um we have someone who's
on our panelist that's supposed to be in
attendance
as opposed to a panelist
mr kessler is that possible no i'm sorry
madam i
had enabled talking on the first public
hand that was raised but i know we're
not yet a public comment so i i changed
that so whenever we get to public
comment i'll re-enable the talking
sorry about that thank you so much i
appreciate it and then mayor
my next question is for maybe you were
for mr klingler i noticed that the door
application has some
good information regarding safety plans
including a minimum of one officer would
you be able to
just briefly recap the safety
enforcement that we could put in place
if the store does pass
get to that um so
i i spoke with the chief who spoke with
gahanna because gahanna recently enacted
dora
and has had some experience with this um
i don't think that we're saying that
there is a dedicated officer to the door
and that's why i paused here because i'm
trying to understand where you're
getting that from
um but rather that we have adequate
staffing
uh to cover the dora and the chief felt
satisfied to that after speaking with
his uh
counterparts in gahanna um who
you know have had enough experience with
this that they've found it to be not an
additional burden on the public
safety forces there and i think that's
consistent with some other cities we
talked to as well
okay great i think what i was i may have
misspoken but
the part where it says there are a
minimum of one officer who will patrol
the door that's i think what i was
referring to
my apologies if i wasn't quite yeah
that's fine that makes sense so i think
the
the intent of that language is to say
that we we would have
uh eyes on the dora um which is
a pretty straightforward task for our
police department since it's uh we do
have eyes on main street
today so it's not gonna you know we
don't anticipate a change in the
in the way that we police or in the uh
burden on the police department
but that is one of those things to mr
sharp's point that if
we should find this to be a different
experience than we expected
or different than other jurisdictions we
spoke to have experienced that we would
have
the ability to come back and make any
changes necessary great
and then my third and final question was
i assume sidewalks even though they may
be more occupied by
people participating in the dora the
sidewalks are still open
folks who are walking or pushing
strollers would still have
full and free use of the sidewalk and
traffic would still be
um open as well yep
no change to that that's correct okay
all right thank you mayor
thank you great questions ms lamke thank
you so much um
ms saad has her hand in the air jessica
yes
thanks president bible um my kind of
follow-up just came from
hearing um richard's comments and
questions and
following up with uh what um
councilwoman lamke had said
i think that great language to kind of
for all of us to look at
is in that safety plan piece that the
mayor and monique were just discussing
to kind of speak to when richard asked
will council be looking at this
um less than a five-year period there is
language in here that we can refer to
i like this language it says beginning
under the safety plan beginning with the
commencement of the dora and continuing
for a period of 12
consecutive months the chief and other
members of
the city of bexley staff as directed by
the mayor shall meet monthly
to review the safety plan i think that's
kind of important to note that
um as the mayor just spoke they'll be
they will be
looking at that um
and so
monthly you know in the in the 12
consecutive uh
that first year so this will be i feel
good about the fact that we will have uh
we'll be taking that into account on how
this goes for our community and probably
making adjustments or or extending it
um as needed so i i think uh that
piece and the safety plan is important
and i'm glad that that language is in
there
thanks for pointing that out mossad any
other questions
or concerns um that council might have
prior to me
toggling over to our attendees
looks like uh motto g7 play has their
hand in the air i think
that is ms lewis but i'm not 100
sure um
talking is permitted and you just need
to
um unmute yourself and share
with us your thoughts
i think we will come back to motto g7
play
and we will see uh charity justin
has her hand in the air if charity would
like to speak
you've been allowed to talk as well i
wanted to comment
on a couple questions earlier
uh mayor kessler had said he wanted to
do a publication
um about things that were being cited in
this
meeting is there a specific place
where people should always look to be
getting these notifications
as to expect them
charity i'm not sure what your question
i'm not i'm not clear on your question
um mr mayor i'm not sure are you
are you understanding ms justin's
question i think i am
uh if i could try um charity the um
the bexley blast our weekly email is
probably the best source of
ongoing information and there's a link
to how to sign up to that in my report
on this
agenda or at bexley.org blast so any
sort of meetings like that would always
be published by the city
the newspaper requirement is an ohio
revised code requirement that requires
cities to publish certain types of
notifications in what they call
newspapers of general circulation
so that's a newspaper that gets
circulated throughout the entire county
and in columbus that's or in our region
that's the columbus dispatch or
the daily reporter which of course we
all read the daily reporter
so that's that's uh compliance uh for us
to do that but
for day-to-day uh anything throughout
the city the blast
is where we try to get any any important
information out to the community that we
can
so i guess in clarity i just wanted um
to say
if if there's a requirement that you
have to do
a publishing for the general public are
you always using the same
newspaper
like are you always using the
uh columbus dispatch hey mayor
yep that's uh some specific
the short answer is yes so whenever
there is a mandatory
publication um like the mayor just said
the publication is required to be at
least
required by state law mandatory
publications such as this
it's required to be done in a uh paper
of general circulation
and as the mayor indicated there's only
two in franklin county the dispatch and
the daily reporter
and i can't imagine the circumstances
under which we'd use the daily reporter
instead of the dispatch thank you miss
justin can you
i i don't know that you gave us your
address when you
when you popped on um to speak i don't
remember ms maynard our
um the mayor's assistant has to have
that for our records
sure my name is charity justman
midtenant 936 college avenue
and i had a second question um that was
in regards to the dora
somebody had spoken said that there
wasn't going to be any
additional liability if there was a dora
and i
and i know for a fact that isn't the
case so
if that could be fact checked the state
of ohio does have
pretty strict requirements on
insurancing
and who the providers can be
when doing such things
thank you we will have um mr official
unless you want to speak to it now would
you like to discuss that
next go around or would you like to
speak to that now no i can speak to it
real quickly
um yeah obviously there are specific
legal requirements that the city has to
and will be meeting
um when i was answering the monique's
question in terms of additional
liability my understanding
of that question and i think monique can
correct me if i'm wrong
is that would there be any additional
liability if somebody got real drunk and
fell on the sidewalks
or something like that and the short
answer is no um that was
that was the question i was answering
certainly the city has to comply with
all of the legal obligations uh
regarding the dora
and stay in compliance with that
all right are there any further
questions um from
uh members and anyone who has not yet
um spoke about uh the dora that has
further questions about the dora
um looks like
no okay so we are going to go back to
our panelists
um anybody else have further questions
about the dora
all right it looks like we can um
move on um let's go ahead and go back to
our third reading
we've already read resolution 121
confirming the mayor's
appointments to the citizen review board
via our city attorney
um i'm going to pass it back to ms
robinson if i may please i do believe
um we have lots more people in
attendance and i know it was super
frustrating for those of you who were
trying to um figure out this zoom with
us
so thank you so much for all of your
efforts and
being patience and making it happen to
get back on
ms robinson please um if you if council
will indulge me because i know we have
people who
um in the audience who specifically
wanted to to speak to this
ordinance um and if you guys are this
resolution
i'm gonna restate kind of my recap of
the process that we went through so
those who were not able to kind of jump
on
at the beginning of the meeting um are
privy to
um my comments on the process of putting
forward these five candidates so um all
of you are aware
um as i stated earlier and as we were
all part of the process that the mayor
uh through executive order and are
passing that uh
and in support of that put together a
civilian review board that consisted of
three people
and troy marcum um working with several
um
other members of council put together an
ordinance that would expand that to five
members and that
ordinance passed in october of last year
and
after that point the mayor and council
felt that it was really important to
kind of begin the process of filling
those
um additional spots in a timely manner
so
beginning in november mayor the mayor at
um various council meetings
mentioned that this was happening um
that
that call for um applicants was also
echoed on by being posted on the city's
website and
also announced in several issues of the
bexley blast so that brings us to
january when
the mayor monika williams and myself
began scheduling
interviews from those applicants that we
received and those
interviews took place at the end of
january and february
of this year i can state
with 100 confidence that this process
was
incredibly collaborative and
we had a number of really great
conversations about who we felt
um would be the best candidates to put
forward and
ultimately that led to the list of five
candidates that you see
before you on this resolution i do want
to make a couple things really clear
though because i know this was brought
up
in comments over the past several weeks
that at no time absolutely
never did we ask or discuss anybody's
political affiliation
this process is nonpartisan as it should
be
and that was never anything that we
addressed with either
in conversations as as a committee or
with applicants themselves
um we also took great care to ensure
that the candidates that we were going
to present to you were representative of
our city's population
and were ready and able to handle the
task that was before them
we did have a brief discussion about two
of the candidates that
ultimately um being presented to you
were
were employed by nationwide but we
agreed that their skill set was
incredibly valuable to the work of this
committee
and so we decided that we were going to
put their names forward
um and i'll end again by saying how
incredibly lucky we are
to live in a city where people are so
engaged and want to participate
um i think bexley is incredibly unique
in that way
and um i appreciate that um
so many people wanted to be a part of
this
and and put their names forward it
wasn't an easy choice
we could have put a number of names
forward but ultimately we believed that
these five
uh were the best candidates for you all
to consider and so that brings us to the
third reading of this resolution
and um the five names that you see
before you
so hopefully that gives you a little
more insight into the process
um we um as i said
and and we'll say to anybody who asks it
was such a collaborative process
and i felt like it was we were all very
much engaged in
who we felt would best serve the city in
this way so
um i believe president fibal at this
point we can
if you want to have public comment or
counsel conversation
um that's all i wanted to say but i
thought it was important that i
addressed the process so people
understood
thanks ms robinson i know there were
some members of um
our group who did want to um share some
information
um but um richard's uh sharp's
suggestion was that we have those in
attendance first speak
and then we will go back um for to
council members
for questions and then i will call for
any action
um by ms robinson on this piece of
legislation
and we will um if there is a first and
there is a second we will vote
so i'm going to toggle over to our
attendees and i know mark abramson is on
to speak and i also know that
mr abramson is um it does have a
prepared
um what he he has prepared what he wants
to speak and he
believes that his um
what he has to say is probably going to
exceed our five
minute and so instead of interrupting
him
to to ask that he may have an additional
two minutes i am going to ask if there's
anyone on council
who would object to going ahead and
giving
mr abramson a little bit more time
i don't if you could just raise your
hand so that i know
no one is objecting so mr abramson
welcome we're so
glad that you're here to speak with us
your talking has now been
permitted um although i just did give
your name i would ask you to
um reiterate your name and please make
sure that we know
your address just for our records please
can we hear me we sure can go ahead sir
my name is mark abramson i live at 243
south stanwood road
i believe it's appropriate for me to
respond to the mayor's previous comments
comments and also reflect on the
information i received in response to my
public records
request i want to reiterate to the
community and members of the city
council
my only interest is to ensure the five
members who eventually serve on this
board
are selected in a manner that is
consistent with the stated criteria
with no bias in addition i'm asking you
to remove my name from the application
process
since i was not afforded an interview
nor as i asked for any references
this community expects integrity from
our elected officials
as stated by councilwoman monique lamke
in the november 7
2017 edition of this week community news
where she stated she attributes her
election to
quote the bexley residents making
informed decisions about candidates that
have integrity
end of quote i wholeheartedly agree with
that statement and i would like to
remind council that it's their
responsibility
to the community to follow the selection
criteria that the mayor and city have
set
i would also like to reiterate that i
believe that the three current members
and the two newly recommended
individuals would individually be an
asset to most
boards but it should be readily apparent
to all council members that as a whole
these five individuals do not meet the
city's stated
sec selection criteria nor are they
representative of the city
i will remind you of the city's stated
selection criteria
ensuring a balance across the board had
less to do with any one individual's
merit
and member helped round out the board by
ensuring a diversity of perspectives and
backgrounds
after my presentation the mayor stated
that he did not consider the political
affiliation of candidates
as he correctly announced that this is
not a partisan board
from a partisan political perspective i
agree 100 percent
however i would be raising this issue if
four of the five candidates were
registered republicans or democrats
it's common knowledge that people join
groups and organizations because they
have similar beliefs and interests
the point here is that having too many
members from the same organization
political or otherwise totally conflicts
with the city's own selection criteria
this is further exemplified by
recommending three of the five
individuals
who currently work for or have worked
for nationwide insurance
i was provided with two internal emails
both dated february 9th
one addressed to the mayor from a
current member which states
quote that is too many members with
nationwide insurance experience
end quote and the second from the mayor
himself which states
the only negative to too many members
with an insurance
i'm sorry the only negative is too many
members with an insurance background
so everyone was aware of this concern
before i even raised it
another internal member from mem email
from the mayor to selected officials
dated october 30th
stated deadline for application
applications are asked to express
applicants are asked to express interest
and provide their resume
by december 1st but the records reveal
that after these the december 1st
deadline
one resident resident sent an email
dated january 12th
to the mayor's office stating and i
quote
i appreciate you encouraging encouraging
me to apply
well another email from the mayor to a
nationwide insurance employee
dated february the first stated
quote i've continued to brainstorm ways
to rope you into being
involved with the city and i wanted to
reach out to see if you would
might have any interest period
it is clear that these candidates did
not apply prior to the deadline
but instead were recruited by the mayor
one only seven days before he made his
recommendations
these emails were both received and
generated after the deadline
while one of the two who the mayor
reached out to on february 1st
is one of the new appointees
this conflicts with the mayor's
statement after my presentation
and i quote pretty much anyone who
requested membership on the board could
do a fantastic job
so then why weren't those individuals
who applied before the deadline
and who were employed outside the
insurance field appointed
if they could do a fantastic job i also
received
reviewed several documents referencing
the oxford
citizens police review board since the
bexley police department is one of our
larger departments in our city
government
and because this board has no legal
authority to issue discipline
but was created to review complaints
someone on the board should have
on-the-job experience
with what these first responders do so
the board can thoroughly review a
complaint and ask the right questions
if you have not been there you really do
not know what it is like
in addition i contacted the oxford
police department
and they stated that their city manager
and the city police chief attend all
citizens police review board meetings in
closing i would again
ask that based on the integrity that our
community expects from city council
that city council not approve the two
proposed members
and instead come up with two new
candidates who truly reflect the city's
selection criteria
it would be a travesty for council to do
otherwise thank you for your time and
consideration
thank you mark
is there anyone else in attendance who
would like to share any thoughts prior
to
counsel um speaking
i do know that the mayor wanted
to see anyone in attendance nope
i know that the mayor did want to share
some thoughts
and i believe that ms lamke had
her hand in the air as well
when we decided we would move the third
reading
down so either one of you who would like
to
to speak are welcome to
um madam president thank you i just
wanted to address a couple things that
mr abramson said i want to repeat what i
said to him in the past and to you which
is
i have the utmost respect for mr
abramson and uh
i've enjoyed uh getting to know him over
the years i wanted to clarify a couple
points that were raised um
he did have the chance of course to go
through uh
many many many pages of public records
uh as a
as as they were responsive to his
request and
i feel that some of his uh comments were
taken out of context so i wanted to
provide a more well-rounded uh
perspective on some of this especially
because there was some misinformation
also
um in a recent newspaper article
president fiable and i interviewed mr
abramson on july 13
2020 and we spent at least an hour
discussing
the citizen review board among other
subjects with mr abramson
spent more time with him than i spent
with any of the other applicants
that we concurrently interviewed or
subsequently interviewed
um he expressed continued interest in
the board
when the the blast and the website
posting went up
and um i reached out to my assistant
several times to make sure that he was
invited to those follow-up interviews
and
to my knowledge we did not receive a
response and i double checked that in
fact the record that you saw shows that
as well
but i double checked that multiple times
prior to making a final decision
which i was comfortable making because
we had had such an extensive interview
with mr abramson before
and i want to be clear about this
process there's only one thing that the
charter requires
of the appointment process for uh
residents which is that
it be posted at least a month in advance
of making a decision
and we we definitely met that criteria
we took our time
and part of taking that time and any
board
or commission process is thinking very
carefully through the composition of the
potential members
and if you're aware of other people in
the community who have expressed
interest
in the past maybe on similar boards
you have in my opinion an obligation to
reach out to them
make sure that they're aware make sure
that they're considered
it's it's the only thing that it's at
least what we owe our community
and so mr abramson referenced me doing
that literally
reaching out to residents who in the
past had expressed interest in city
service
uh rope you in refers to a resident who
had expressed
past interest it was a very casual
comment another casual comment was a
joke that i made to mr dreary
on february 9th about insurance
personnel
mr drury himself works in insurance
industry and made that comment
you'll note that mr nathan's uh who has
a
wealth of experience in it with our
police and the police community
has an insurance background that's
really what i was referring to
uh it is uh sort of an interesting uh
uh perspective here but we work again
with who
we have apply and who we know who have
interest and who we think will create a
well-rounded
board so to the point about a deadline
for application it's not uncommon
uh to have a deadline so that we have at
least known that people who have
seen it out there have provided some um
provided their names and then it's
certainly within my right and i expect
to continue to exercise this right
and i've shared with you in the past to
continue to recruit
applicants uh from the community who
might not have been reached by the blast
posting or by the website
posting um
i respect mr abramson i want to
reiterate that
i think he is a fantastic resident
who brings a lot to our community um
and also i was very careful and
proffering the five names to you that i
had a
robust diversity of
backgrounds of ages
of perspectives to bring to this board i
think it's critical
and i thank you for considering the
names tonight
i thank jen robinson for uh sitting
through those interviews and providing
her insight and perspective
i think monica williams and i want to
tell the community this is the first
time i've ever
invited other people in uh to each
interview
uh as much as possible uh because some
of those interviews weren't all be
able to be made by the panel uh to
provide perspective and feedback and i
think that was vital
and super helpful so thank you for that
i stand by the five names i've submitted
i think they are fantastic
residents uh as were again all of our
applicants
but their their perspective will bring
our fantastic
mix to the crv thank you very much
thank you mr kessler um is there anyone
else on council who would like to
speak to this
um mr sharp
richard is is my computer locking up
um i'm not noticing noticing it
right this minute so okay it was
it was locking up that's why i couldn't
i didn't answer right away so i
apologize
um i i just want to make the comment
that um
similarly to presidential appointments
the mayor has traditionally
had a wide latitude in
administrative appointments and those
are
generally at the pleasure of the mayor
with council approval
so um while i did mention
at um i believe the first reading
of the resolution that i thought it was
unusual to have multiple
appointees with the same employer
unless there's a specific problem with
the um
the a specific nominee
i i am reticent to um
vote against the the mayor's um
recommendation i i do uh
wonder what the mayor's plan is for the
terms if the staggered charter review
appointment is
is approved by the voters um you know
are the what his thoughts are on that
are members already um being
notified that if that change goes
through that they'll be
on a specific class uh
or is everyone gonna just come do again
on in three years or
two years from now and then um
what mark and the mayor can you remind
me what the
deadline is for seating the new board
it was there a deadline in the ordinance
i can't remember
without looking at that i don't believe
so
okay mayor would you like to address the
uh
the plan terms if the charter amendment
um is put on the ballot and approved by
voters
yeah so just to clarify your what you
brought up richard it's that
um the charter calls for three-year
appointments to boards and commissions
and so when you start a brand new board
or commission
everybody needs a three-year term which
means
everybody expires at the same time
whereas in our other boards and
commissions we have staggered terms
so it's very clear from the past that
while the charter said three years
past administrations and councils have
staggered terms in order to allow for
not having full turnover of a border
commission each time so
um even if the charter doesn't pass i
think the intent would be to
have a reappointment at a future summer
basically so that you would build in
staggering automatically
i have not notified members potential
members of what that plan might be
for several reasons first off council
hasn't confirmed those names
and secondly i'd be curious to see what
happens with the charter review issue
because that would change my
my strategy but regardless i hadn't
already raised with you guys that
these terms aren't staggered for the
reason of the charter and that in the
future will accommodate staggered terms
and i would like to raise another point
um
the terminology regarding diversity
that may be an issue to consider in our
charter
consideration of the amendments because
there are a large
number of ways diversity can be
interpreted at various points in time
they may not always be consistent
and so we probably should
consider potential pitfalls
that we might be creating for future
mayors
and councils if um
if potentially um
changes are made to the charter so i
just saw they'd
throw that in since it's germaine to the
issue right now
so no dude thank you thank you so much
mr sharp um
mr official make sure that you keep that
juice that one
over as well okay please tell you it's
being discussed
i know you committee meetings are we are
indeed i'm just making sure that you've
got that
on your on your radar and um i'll ask
that ms zlamke and and
and mr um
oh matt my brain's not working today
sorry
matt will also keep it on his radar mr
klingler please and thank you
let's make sure we keep that on our on
our radar all right is there anybody
else um any any other members of
our um council who have
conversations or suggestions or um
questions regarding this um resolution
all right are there any um uh
is there a motion a judge of emotion i
do
i motion that we pass resolution 121
confirming the mayor's appointments of
members to the citizen review board
is there a second i'll second miss assad
okay any for any final questions or
comments from council
i note that there's a hand raised our
attendees
and normally we do not um
allow a person to speak again on the
same topic but mr abramson would you
um like to briefly uh share
what's on your mind
uh thank you mr president um
i'd just like to let everyone know i'll
be submitting another
public records request because i don't
believe
what the mayor said is correct um
i'd also like to uh point out that i was
not
contacted for an interview last year i
contacted the mayor to inquire about
the uh board itself and i was never
asked for references
or anything else after that that's all i
have to say thank you very much
thank you mr iberson
all right mr auditor mrs robinson
yes assad yes
mr markham yes ms lamke
yes miss fibel yes
mr klingler yes mr sharp
yes resolution passes
thanks everyone um madam president if i
could
if you would allow me please i was told
that i was not being honest just now and
i'd like to
i'd like to at least provide a rebuttal
to that
uh miss mr mayor i would i would ask
that you keep it very very brief
i i i will be it will be brief i just
like the back and forth
i understand that but i feel that when
any elected official is being told that
they're not being honest or truthful
that it's a
it's something that we should have the
opportunity to address
um mr abramson has in his possession
from his public records request
a string string of emails between myself
and my assistant where i was making sure
that he had been contacted for the
interviews i will
look up the date of that and i will
email it to him to make sure that he
has read those i know there are a lot of
records in that
folder that he was provided with to make
sure that he has seen this thank you
very much
we move on to um
uh can we please move on to our uh
first readings certainly we have a first
reading of resolution 0-2
i'm actually i should be 0-21 supporting
the mayor's concerns about the sheets
proposed gas station
convenience store development at college
avenue and livingston avenue
intersection
that is not in the best interest of
bexley residents
and to declare an emergency mr sharp
sorry i hit the wrong thing when i went
to meet
um so if the mayor can pull up the
resolution that i'd like to introduce
he's had and we'll just briefly go over
some of the con the recitals
that for those who don't know the sheets
is proposing
a new location at college and livingston
avenue
that's the main southern entry point to
the city of bexley
it's at the southwest corner where
there's currently the lipstick house
a little strip and the bexley motor car
company and if you look at
sheetz is coming dot com slash locations
you'll see that
they're opening as many as 14 new
locations in the region for
which have already been approved and
announced within five miles of the city
of bexley
one's on cassidy another proposed one is
on stelzer just north of the airport
cassidy's um near the speedway
mcdonald's and the new hotels that are
going up
on just north of the city and
there are currently four gas stations
within a mile of the proposed locations
and at least three gas stations with
two miles and given the saturation of
gas stations
the proposed development i don't feel
aligns with bexley's
environmental values which sometimes i
disagree with but in this particular
case i i
do do agree that um
it it seems out of place as we're moving
from
fossil fuels onto electric but
and bexley has been working for a number
of years on plans to encourage
redevelopment
in the southwest plan in general and
livingston avenue
specifically that complements the
residential neighbor
of nature of the bexley as the mayor
indicated
actually in the city of columbus had
entered into a bexley berwick joint
livingston avenue
plan to address existing and future
development
in the corridor and the city of columbus
has experienced a marked increase in
high
profile crime incidents in urban area
gas stations
including recent murders at the gas
station on livingston avenue within a
quarter mile of the proposed sheet
station
there's a school playground the
preschool playground outdoor pool summer
camps youth baseball and softball fields
at the jewish community center
directly behind the proposed development
of which
have security issues that the proposed
development
potentially could exasperate i want to
mention also that
bexley teams sometimes use the baseball
field there's a lot of bexley
residents that use the pool and the
preschool
so it directly directly affects
our residents security issues and if the
screen can be
scrolled down a little bit because i
can't see online thank you
and there's significant traffic and
congestion and speed issues along the
entire court
corridor so a high volume in and out
business such as the proposed
development will significantly add to
that contract
congestion in contrast to the limited
amount of congestion that the current
businesses there generate
the berwick civic association has voted
against supporting development
and at south bexley's neighborhood
association members
also uh voiced concerns about the
development
last week one of the reasons we're
i'm bringing up this resolution to
council and
after speaking with the mayor i'm
pleased that he
um unbeknownst to me
was working on the letter to the city of
columbus
development department um
excuse me i lost i briefly lost my uh
train of thought
okay um next the one of the reasons
we're bringing it up now
and to um stated as an emergency is
because the mideast
area commission is going to be voting on
their recommendation
now the date's going to be march 16th
and then from then it goes
on for
mayor can you tell me can you remind me
what the next step of that
is i think it goes directly to their
zoning appeal
columbus development commission yeah and
then
from there to columbus city council okay
so there's
a limited amount of time between those
steps
um that the city would have to make
its opinions meant so um i'll
open it up to questions to the mayor um
maybe the mayor first to give his input
as to
how he feels um this resolution whether
um it by
stating that we're supporting the
mayor's letter whether
um he feels that it's problematic a good
idea
or um
some something else said thank you mayor
thanks richard so much um mr mayor do
you
have any comments or questions
concerning this
you want to further discuss
no i feel like i covered in my report
and i'm happy to i'm i'm curious to hear
what council has to think
or thanks nice to thank council members
looks like mossad has her hand in the
air jessica
yes i i just wanted to thank um
council um and richard uh sharp
for taking the time to you know
look into this and do the due diligence
and he gave me a call to kind of bring
me up to speed after speaking to
members of the jcc and south bexley
association
and you just i think you've done a nice
job and putting this together and
working alongside mayor kessler and this
initiative
so i appreciate uh i appreciate your
time on this
i would i would like to correct a
comment
um that you made i didn't actually speak
to members of the gcc
official hierarchy it's just residents
who are members of the gcc
so thank you
i don't think that i have anything um
further to add to
what um miss sod uh said so i will just
echo her comments
and um and add my thank you as well
uh mr sharp uh ms robinson jen
mayor maybe you can speak to this um do
we know
um how the city of columbus is viewing
this project are they
supportive of this do we because
technically this is outside of our
boundary
so um you know i'm just curious as to
kind of where they fall on this and and
if you think they would be
um open to hearing um our concerns
about them about what's happening at the
entrance to our city
yeah thank you jen so um that's a
complicated question the columbus
planning staff
has issued a staff report in support of
the development
um and the
berwick civic association has issued a
vote against it
and i i believe that the back will
probably defer to the civic association
so it's it's hard to characterize what
the city of trump
uh per se is saying um i'm getting some
feedback so
one second i'm gonna mute some of these
sorry guys um
so the um i think that it's hard to
characterize it but you asked how how it
might be viewed
i i drafted my letter carefully
considering that
i had been asked to provide feedback by
the planning staff
it was i wasn't quite sure who to direct
it to so i spent some time
going back and forth with planning stuff
trying to understand who had asked the
developer to reach out to me what the
intent of that was
um and uh so i don't
i don't know i think it's delicate i
think you know we
if we're asked then i think it's fair to
provide feedback i just don't
i have never had this request before i
haven't known exactly how to handle it
um just in all in all transparency
and candor um i do i do know that the um
from jewish columbus and i don't know if
this speaks for jcc or not
um they have told me
uh from their leadership that they're
concerned from a safety standpoint uh
similar to what mr sharp was saying some
things that have occurred at other
convenience stores along the corridor
they have told me that their plan if
this were constructed would be to
construct
a masonry wall to divide their property
from that property
which as you can imagine is a pretty
extensive change
and it's a i think it's telling to
um you know if we're aspiring to
help foster uses that are building up
residential base and creating more of a
pedestrian friendly environment
then clearly you know one of our major
stakeholders in the corridor wanting to
put up a
non-penetrable wall between that use
is a is an indication an indication and
to me that was one of the things that
kind of
um has cemented my feeling that i should
uh provide and i'll candor my
perspective to
columbus staff uh on the uh
basis that it was asked for i guess
richard i i also want to thank you for
doing all this great work um
you know when it comes to environmental
issues and
and really building that corridor too as
the mayor
just mentioned to be that kind of
connected
connectedness between bexley and
columbus but also
um you know east and west along that
corridor um
i i fully support this resolution i
think um you did a great job
um giving us the facts that we need to
uh to
give voice to to some of our concerns so
thank you for doing that and thanks for
answering the question mayor
sorry i'll recognize you okay thank you
thank you mr sharp
troy mark thomas would like to speak
troy
thank you very much richard i will uh
echo a little bit of that sentiment uh
thank you for uh expressing this i think
uh this has been something that's a
concern to us especially
as we really focus and work on
livingston avenue and that gateway to
the city
we spent a lot of time these last few
years on the gateways to our cities and
working with city of columbus
livingston avenue is especially
important to us right now
my i have two comments
uh and maybe they're a little picky but
i'm gonna go ahead and
make them one is it hurts my editor's
eyes to see
the numbers written as numbers and not
spelled out i think which is
uh the correct way so i'll just throw
that out there
and then the
third recital is the one that i probably
have some disagreement with
there are currently four existing gas
stations
saturation of gas stations i guess
i don't think of that as being something
that we as a city council should be
concerned with
the nature and how many of types of
businesses uh
we often get asked about how many more
sub shops you know what we allow in
bexley
uh this kind of comes along the same
lines uh
i i am however concerned like the rest
of you with
uh safety aesthetics uh those sorts of
things
and so i have no problem with the rest
of this letter and would be
happy to support it
this lamp has her hand in the air now
monique
mayor i just wanted to ask that
intersection of college in livingston
it's not just a four-way i'm thinking
that there's kind of a fifth
a fifth road do you know if there's any
plans in the near future by columbus
or by bexley to consider changing
that light signal and the roadway and
the traffic patterns
so that you don't have cars coming from
five directions
uh near this proposed development
other than the roundabout that's going
to take out all the properties and uh
that's that was a joke that was a joke
uh no so i don't i there are no no
concrete plans but i will tell you that
the joint living stability plan that
we're about to embark upon
is the expectation that there will be
concrete infrastructure recommendations
that result in
changes to you know potentially lane
counts potentially
you know where traffic signals are
located um in order to help calm traffic
and help create a more pedestrian
friendly environment
so that's vague because that plan has
not yet been
cast but i know that to my knowledge
columbus does not have any plans to in
any way restructure
the intersection at columbus and
livingston at the moment
okay and the proposed development is
strictly commercial business
it's not residential whatsoever right
correct it's a
gas station convenience store and
restaurant a sheets development
and it would occupy the area that's
currently occupied by the
bexley motor car company the car
dealership there
and the lip sync house and the uh
the music lesson and office building
area
uh just to the south of the uh
car dealership great thank you i've
driven by a few times today and based on
what i've
read given the materials that you sent
to me and my observation
i'll i will support this this resolution
thank you miss lamke mr harvey your hand
was up for a minute
no no
okay thank you um anyone else on council
that has anything
further with this piece
it looks like we have four people on um
maybe three people on who would like to
share thoughts about
this resolution
um mr abramson do you have something to
share about this specific
um piece of legislation
your hand is in the air no i'm sorry my
i lowered my hand sorry no worries no
worries mr gruff's hand is in the air mr
graf
oh yeah i want to thank richard uh for
bringing that forward
i find a little bit of irony in the fact
that the concerns
for safety and aesthetics at that corner
we're not taking
into consideration uh when we went ahead
and decided to put
60 new residents potentially within 50
yards of the same
uh intersection and um
the other comment i had is
do we have does the city of bexley have
control on the
north boundary of livingston or we don't
have any jurisdiction on livingston
avenue at all
i don't believe we have any jurisdiction
on livingston at all mr
um mr kessler can you um confirm that
clarify that the right of way we do not
so anything from this north sidewalk to
the south we do not but the property
obviously
north of the sidewalk is city of bexley
jurisdiction
it's not right away yeah i didn't know
if the street level was
okay that's it thank you mr graf did you
give your um
your address sir i can't remember uh 834
francis avenue
thank you so much thank you miss maynard
needs that thank you
um dustin has his hand in the air dustin
can you hear me now we can justin thank
you so much
go ahead
oh now we can't that was just muted
again
can you hear me now we definitely can go
right ahead so there's snow at 990
francis
um i was just going to say that 100
agree with these
concerns um these are very important a
lot of us
have concerns about these as well
here in south bexley
i just wanted to kind of say what jeff
just said and point out that it's
important
i think for city council to consider
these concerns
for projects that bexley actually does
have jurisdiction over
as well so as we move forward and
talk about other projects and properties
along livingston here
uh i i would say these all apply to
those as well so
uh just encourage you guys to consider
that
thank you thank you dustin
um and we have um we have
motto uh g7 play talking is permitted
if you would unmute yourself please
hi this is constance lewis at 663
euclair
and i'm in full support of this
resolution
i think it would be wise to complete the
joint livingston corridor plan
before any large developments like
sheets
would be put into place um having seen
the plans for sheets
if anyone has followed that the
um the exit
of the to the
from the sheets property uh on to
college avenue only goes south
it just it's not very well
thought out the only way i could see it
happening and being
something that would work would be
putting a light at sheridan
to allow people to go
east on to livingston
or to turn west onto livingston
it's just a very poorly planned project
especially for that particular
intersection
so i'm in full support of this uh thank
you richard
thanks miss lewis anyone else from
who are any other members who would like
to speak
um
no okay um i don't see anyone
else who wants to speak to this um so i
will
i keep thinking that larry and jenny
christopherson want to i
see their hand and then i don't see
their hand um christophersons are you
there
there they are your talking's permitted
if you would like to
unmute yourselves okay here we go
thank you um we have been attending
meetings
about particularly our um
livingston and francis avenue
development
and we are all horrified at the sheetz
proposal again we don't need more cars
more traffic more everything
at this intersection it's just awful
and uh and when people start getting run
over then
maybe somebody will listen but until
that happens
we'll just go on building building
building and we don't need any more
gas stations right there i i take a
i forget who's who mentioned that or
troy i think
disagreed with saying that we don't need
any more
gas stations i think excuse me
i think the city should have some idea
of what kind of businesses we want to
encourage at least
so we don't need any more gas stations
in this vicinity
so thank you thank you miss
christopherson could you please remind
us
your address on um francis please and
thank you
885 francis avenue thank you so much all
right um
laurie has her hand in the air and i
believe talking is
uh permitted um lori if you'd like to um
speak
just unmute yourself give us your full
name and your address please
i'm laurie scoblionko katz 299 south
roosevelt
thanks go to everyone here who is
working so hard
um to make our community even better
i just wanted to point out that this
situation with sheets
is an example of how we have to work
with columbus
on the livingston corridor and i'm one
of those people who are very concerned
about adding to that um
when we don't have actual control
over what we can do to make it safe
i hope that that will be taken into
consideration
um when we when we look at all the
projects
we don't have control so i hope we
wait until things improve before we add
to that
thank you thank you so much lori
um anyone else um who is in attendance
that has a comment
i don't see anything um so i'll move
back to
um council and oh i'm sorry
um uh rp burke
you're talking permitted go ahead
hello my name is bob burke and i live at
917 pleasant ridge avenue
nice welcome and well i am well known to
a number of members of the council and
to the mayor
i would just like to make a very brief
comment and that
is the a very large development anywhere
on livingston avenue without
a comprehensive plan for
what we're going to do on livingston
avenue is
uh is too far ahead of the game uh
i worked long ago for a city planning
agency and this was always a hard thing
to do somebody has
they've got a site they've got money uh
the city of columbus will benefit from
this
we don't see we aren't going to see any
of the tax dollars from the sheets
development there
size and scale a problem but the without
a plan
uh without a comprehensive plan for both
the city to agree to
i think the project is badly premature
that's my two cents worth and i will
answer questions if anyone has them
thank you mr burke it was nice to hear
your voice
anybody else um in attendance who has
any comments don't see any
all right i'm going to toggle back over
to the panelists
um do we need to take action on this
tonight
madam president i would like to take
action on
this this evening
mark the comment troy made about
the numeric versus alpha
character of the uh the numbers below 10
needing to be spelled out uh that that
can be
changed without emotion can it correct
and inserting the the resolution number
at the top
and inserting the date of the mayor's
letter
on page two yeah i think
clerical in nature okay
so um it would sorry if it facilitate i
can just
unless you guys have objection with the
draft that i shared with you i could
just use that
that date and that would make it uh
easier so work
yeah that's fine
and um
in deference to troy um i'll recognize
his concern but i
would like to still leave that whereas
in
i think um my esac
uh liaison group might be upset with me
if we didn't refer to the environment
somewhere
and so um i would like to keep that
in there and um it could be a marketing
idea for sheets if they do do any
development
to um partner with a sit a true sit-down
restaurant
um and make a multi-use
facility there with a number of
electric car charging point ports the
sheets website does indicate that they
do have
ev charging points at some of their
stations but
it would be a coup i think to
central ohio to have so close to bexley
a 100
electric um charging point
station um right next to bexley
and um it would encourage people we have
a shortage of nice sit-down
uh restaurants in the area and it would
encourage people to
stay longer and charge so that's just my
marketing idea for
anyone who might be listening and wants
to invest in
something like that but anyway um
the uh so the next
point here i would like to make a motion
to suspend the three reading requirement
for resolution 0221 thank you richard
you hear a second
mr clinton thank you mr klingler
um anyone on council that has any
um conversation about the suspension
of the additional two readings
anyone in attendance have any comments
or questions about the suspension
of the additional two readings um
mr burke your hand is in the air i'm
guessing it's still in the air
but i don't thank you thank you um does
anyone
um else in attendance have
um a comment about the suspension
all right i'm seeing none um mr auditor
ms lamke yes miss fibel
yes mr markham yes ms robinson
yes mr klingler yes miss saad
great work richard yes sharp
yes suspension approved
all right thank you further action mr
sharp madam president i would like to
make a motion to approve resolution 0
2-21 thank you
thank you thank you mr sharp for your
first and thank you mr
klingler for your second anyone and
counts on council
um or any other members of our panels
um who would like to have a comment on
the actual
adoption of this resolution by council
seeing none anyone in attendance who
would like
to share their thoughts about
the adoption of this resolution i see
that ginny and
larry christopherson have their hand in
the air if you will
mute yourself your talking is permit
permitted
it was kind of a mistake that it went up
this mouse is very sensitive
but anyway we certainly support it
as and make it as strong as you can that
this is a very bad thing for our city
thank you miss
mrs christopherson it's nice hearing
your voice take care of yourself
all right panelists um well back with
you
we have a first we have a second mr
auditor
mr sharp yes ms bible
yes ms robinson yes mr klingler
yes ms lamke yes ms assad
yes mr markham yes
passed okay
yes mr sharp there was a comment that
was uh
raised by several of the residents and i
would like
if mr fishel could
just explain a little bit of the
council's involvement and the uh
or the lack of statutory involvement
at this point with the um
other project on livingston avenue as
opposed to
the rezoning project that the city of
columbus is doing that has to go to
their city
council how those processes are somewhat
different and the reason why our council
is not currently
have a say in our residents concerns on
in our area
yeah sure so i don't know what exactly
what city council's
process is it's certainly more involved
than ours is because they're a much
bigger city
um but with regard to the livingston
proposed livingston avenue project with
tcb
there's simply just there's simply no
legislative role
for city council in regards to
passing an ordinance saying go forward
with that project or passing an
ordinance that would potentially stop
that project
um again it's going through an
administrative process and it may end up
in front of
council in a quasi-judicial fashion or
may end up in court um
depending upon what how rulings are what
rulings
are made so while it's perfectly
appropriate for
members of the public to voice concerns
or opinions regarding
that project or any other project again
to be clear
as you point out richard city council
has no legislative
ability to lawfully do anything to
stop that project or make that process
go
project go forward or go faster and
mark if i could expound a little bit
that one another procedural difference
is that
columbus is considering a rezoning of
the site
so rezoning is not as it's not a
quasi-judicial zoning hearing it's a
legislative action on the part of the
columbus city council to change the
underlying zoning of a property
which would be necessary in this
instance to allow this use so
that's a very different process that has
a very different
procedure than a standard
zoning hearing through a board
so thank you but both gentlemen i
thought it was important to
clear the air on those issues thank you
you did i was trying to thank mr sharp
for bringing those
for asking for that clarification um mr
klingler has his hand in the air matt
yeah mayor kessler touched upon one
thing i was going to ask earlier so it
is
so this sheets development goes in front
of columbus city council
correct yeah it's been they're asking
for a rezoning from
c4 district to cpd commercial plan
district so it would
behoove our residents to maybe email
columbus city council their opinions as
well
um you know i think uh
i think that would be appropriate if
residents be allowed to do that
i think that um as with um
a re-zoning and bexley to the extent
that it impacts adjacent
users you would be in a position where
you would be considering testimony from
berwick residents if there were a
rezoning
on livingston that was coming before
city council
thank you thank you mr klingler i am
noting that there are individuals who
have their hand up on uh who are in
attendance
um this is not an opportunity for public
comment at the moment
but there is a there is an um an agenda
item at the very end of
our meeting um where you can speak about
any item that you
you wish to share your thoughts about so
we will hope that you will stay with us
for a little bit longer
and speak then um mr fishel
ordinance 11 20 please sure we have
ordinance 11 20 to amend chapter 12 30
definitions chapter 12 52 point 15
accessory uses and structures
and chapter 12 23.05 demolition in order
to provide for additional regulations
and criteria
related to construction and demolition
of accessory uses and structure in the
city
accessory structures in the city is what
it should say
and i didn't see that i think right
right
yes thank you mr fishel um
as we dive into this council the mayor
and i have
um been speaking on behalf of this
ordinance and
the last few meetings um that we have
had
a special um garage group
meeting so i wanted to give a shout out
to those wonderful bzap and arb
um committee members that have been
working overtime
on very late evening meetings and also
giving their time
to help advise on ordinance 11-21 so
thank you to the following volunteers in
our community from the bees up and arb
william heyer ryan scheck mike paplow
larry hellman um our wonderful mayor
kathy rose and karen boker you guys have
been wonderful in taking extra time out
of your busy schedules to make sure that
we get this right for the city
so with that being said um as we dive
into ordinance 11-21
this is a garage and accessory structure
working group
for this ordinance compromise of members
as i just spoke of of the arb and b zap
they have been meeting to facilitate
amendments to bexley's code regulating
the design
placement and specification of accessory
uses and structures
the amendments um incorporate in the
ordinance below are intended to ensure
preservation of bexley's architectural
fabric
and to provide design criteria for the
development of new
or replacement accessory structures and
uses
this ordinance below that you will see
that we have some
new definitions and language defined
i am since this is a first reading i am
um
going to i'm sure council some of you
might have
read through this a little bit some of
you might be seeing this for the first
time
we will have two other readings and the
mayor has advised me that
on this special ordinance this will also
go
we will also hear from our bees app to
weigh in
before we have a third reading on this
so i think that's important
for counsel to know that we have some
time
on our end to discuss this you know take
this first reading to um
to let it all sink in i'm sure like
myself many of you will never look at a
garage the same again
um in section two story is defined did
we get on there
and then section three is really um
is what this group has done such a great
job on
really defining um the lot sizes
maximum maximum building footprint
maximum building height maximum eave
height
the finish accessory structures the
functional dormer special permit
requirements
they um karen voker did a nice job of
putting this together with the group of
breaking that out
per um the lot and how that all comes
together
if you go down to um under
accessory and uses and structures you'll
see under b the width
of accessory use or structure may not
exceed sixty percent
of the lot width and the instance of
detached garages
um and then it goes down to forty 40 of
the lot with in the instance of other
accessory structures or uses
no accessory structures combined may
exceed 60
of the lot width special permit for
functional dormers
shall be based upon the following
considerations talks about to the extent
of proposed dormers would face
onto adjacent adjacent property window
dormers that face inward or on
to an alley are preferred over window
dormers facing onto adjacent
property we go into setback and
in some of these um and some of the
language here
i'm gonna also point out and again i'm
gonna leave this up to you guys to ask
questions and and dive more into it
but some things that have stood out to
me and and being in these um
multiple meetings would be like dormers
not occupying more than 50 percent
of the eve length on either side of the
gabled structure and must it
be recessed a minimum of two feet behind
the first floor exterior walls
if you go on down under f a garage must
be able to
functionally accommodate vehicles
with operational garage bay doors and
adequate depth for standard sized
vehicles
that was discussed a lot because we want
the intent of a garage to be a garage to
be a garage
and i think it's important to point out
the very end section 4g
demolition of detached garages again
this is
this ordinance is for the integrity and
uh preserving the historic value
of um the vision of bexley
so i think this is an important um g is
important
it says in order to preserve the
historic stock of enclosed off-street
parking spaces within the city
no garage accessory structure shall be
demolished
partially demolished or removed until an
application with respect to such
demolition
or removal has been submitted to and
reviewed by the board
and the board has issued a certificate
of appropriateness
in no circum circumstance shall
demolition of an accessory garage
structure be approved without
a replacement plan if said demolition
would reduce the number of enclosed
parking spaces below
two enclosed off street parking spaces
mayor kessler would you like to weigh in
on this as well
um i think you covered it very
thoroughly jets i think the um
one thing i would say is that karen
bokers our app designer
has worked with us on this and creating
exhibits
that uh sort of take all that language
and
put it into drawings so that there are
various examples we can contextualize
what this actually means
and so i think that's an important that
having heard a future meaning to present
that
would be an important um piece of this
conversation
now this because this is a change
towards zoning code
uh it requires beezapp uh to provide a
recommendation
they don't have to recommend it but you
guys need to hear that recommendation
and then also there needs to be a 30-day
publication
in a newspaper general circulation
for a public hearing so a public hearing
would be scheduled in a future council
date typically
all right thank you mr kessler thank you
miss sod
um is there anyone who has any comments
um on this i um would just like to say
this is this is a
a welcome cleanup um we struggled
with um this information
as a council um not so long ago
and i'm happy to see this happening and
i think we would think mossad thanked
so many other people but we need to make
sure that we thank you
zoning has been incredibly incredibly
busy and i will tell you
it has been much busier than it normally
has been
so you just you know
right into the frying pan and i am
and i'm and we are blessed
to have you in that frying pan so thank
you so much for all your work
um and thank you for urging um all of
our staff members on to
to to make this happen so thank you and
thank you mr kessler
um does anybody else if i could provide
sorry there are two things i forgot to
say that are
absolutely clear um
one is that this um you know this took
some time to draft so
this group has been meeting since
earlier in the fall i think
september-ish maybe
or october so it's been a while in the
making but also
understanding this is a pretty
complicated piece of text so it's going
to require a lot of review a lot of
careful consideration
and i think it's well felt and
understood by the group that has helped
bring this to council
that there will be additional amendments
to this based upon feedback received and
considering
scenarios that might not have been
considered before because
essentially they're trying to codify a
form-based code that scales based upon
lot size
so um i just the council can understand
that and be patient
i think it'd be all the more important
than to get community input and feedback
as that evolves let's get those
amendments in
let's get it right we need it to be
right so we will be patient
and we will listen to our volunteer
experts
um i don't see any of
my colleagues with their hands in the
air so i'm going to see
if there's anyone in attendance who
would like to
share their thoughts on this subject and
i do see
um that charity
justin does have her hand in the air
charity
uh i'm a resident 936 college avenue
thank you so much
to clarify and ask mayor kessler again
as you are speaking about a publication
that should go out to the city
that the city should be aware of to
regularly
stay tuned and be looking forward to
when you do such publications
what will you be using
mr kessler can you please um miss justin
um
the bexley blast email as i stated
before is
uh where we post uh routinely
um any any uh items or news that the
public might be interested in but all
that information is also available on
our website at bexley.org in the form of
articles on bexs.org and calendar
entries
the discussion again of the paper of
general circulation
is in addition to so that's just a it's
a statutory requirement to the state of
ohio
it is not by any means our primary
source of communication
i was just pointing out the timeline
that's required by the higher vice code
our primary means of communication with
the community is our
our weekly emails for the bexley blast
our website
um and those are those are where to turn
to uh for
upcoming meetings thank you
okay um mr graf has his hand in the air
um sir uh yeah joel graph 834 francis
avenue
uh jess great ordinance uh you guys have
worked really hard on it and
joel i think you might have accidentally
muted there you go it said the host
muted me
that's how you probably wanted to
continue please
um i don't know what you heard so just
great
ordinance let me try this again um i
know
speaking with other residents over the
years the garage thing comes up all the
time
um if i have one suggestion
it would be and i don't know how uh i
guess it falls into your
uh baileywig is could we see
council introduce an ordinance um for
what it would take
for a example a three-story
58-bed residential property that has no
commercial
use
be zoned or conditionally used
rather than just arbitrarily picking a
code
that may work such as multi-use
commercial when there's no commercial
i think an ordinance would be great that
would handle a property
fitting on 0.7 acres or less than two
acres because i couldn't find anything
in the ordinance so
that would just be a recommendation um
something else you guys could work on
thank you thanks mr craft anybody else
in attendance who would like to
um speak to this specific piece of
legislation as it stands
now
all right seeing none um assad is there
anything further
that is it president bible all right
thank you so much then i believe we can
move on
do we want to set a date for the public
hearing the formal public hearing
yes we do want to do that
it it might if you wanted to have it
concurrently with the council meeting
you might want to do at the second
meeting in april so we have
enough time to get that statutory notice
out
i think that would be great um president
bible
are you suggesting that's that's going
to happen within um
the um the general meeting that
at night yes yes okay i'm i'm
i'm fine i'm certainly fine
so that would be the 27th of april
yes miss maynard if you would please
note that that would be wonderful again
that was
april i'm sorry 27 7.
it would be tabled at the early april
meeting and then
uh removed from the public april 27th
all right thank you so much all right
assad with your permission we'll move on
to ordinance um
uh 1221 please yes please okay
we have a first reading of ordinance 12
21.
to adopt and approve the city of bexley
electric
aggregation plan of operation and
governance and to declare an emergency
mr sherp
okay um this is an ordinance separate
from the um rfp
aggregation ordinance that we passed
last
month um and i'll let the mayor go into
the details on this
okay thank you mr sharp i'm actually not
if it's okay with you i'm not going to
go into the deep weeds on this one
because this was provided to us by our
legal counsel as an
update to our 2002 plan of operation
governance
and what it would really accomplish is
should we opt to move forward with
electric aggregation it lays out how the
plan functions
and how it works so i would defer to a
future meeting
perhaps our next meeting to have legal
counsel from bricker come and present
this and provide
a holistic overview and answer any
questions
emergency language that was referenced
um
so that's just for the
um immediately effective
upon passage and not subject to
referendum
not suspension of any readings correct
yeah correct we're targeting three
readings but
if the if everything lined up with the
aggregation
the provider would would start mailing
literature and information to residents
properties on april 15th
and so would need to have awareness by
uh you know we would have to have a
passage by april 7th i think that's our
first way 13th i don't have the dates in
front of me
i think april 13th is that our next
council meeting in april so
um it that would allow
third reading process but then the
emergency language would allow that to
get
they get going
if it happens all right
um anything anything further
on this does anyone have any questions
um looks like the plan might be good
bedtime reading to help you fall asleep
great suggestion richard anyone in the
in attendance that has any questions uh
concerning this piece of legislation
okay i don't see any um so richard with
your permission we'll move on to the
tabled ordinances
and um i believe that this is yours and
i believe you have action
on it sir adam president i would like to
make a motion to remove amended
ordinance 30-20 from the table
here's the first thing there's a first
from mr
uh sharp in a second by 36-20
it's 36-20 okay
um if i didn't say it correctly
all right um there's a first mistake on
all those in favor please signify by
saying aye
all right same sign
and i i would like to bring this amended
ordinance 36
20 um to say that it's brought to you by
our our local grouch who asked for it to
be tabled again last
i believe it's an inside joke and we're
all okay with this inside joke
he's a lovable grouch okay and we will
allow the tasmanian devil to
have a word if he'd like his hand is in
the air mr marcum
i uh oh there we go thank you
i appreciate the extra meeting time
to be able to look this over and and
now that i have i want to support it
and say uh i think this is really good
work i think it's a really
important issue i think it's an issue
that we don't
either understand or think about
probably until
maybe it's uh until we
we have extraordinary circumstances and
so with that being said
um i really do uh appreciate it and i
think it it looks really great
i have one question for mr official it's
kind of one of those
foolish legal questions what
legally is involved what do you have to
do what does one have to do to declare a
state of emergency
so i i not
a lot but a lot so a state of emergency
simply can be declared
when one of these things happen in
648.09
so when i say not a lot i mean it's in
the mayor's judgment
again obviously city council can meet if
the mayor is
if it believes in the mayor's exceeding
his authority um
and say hey that ain't happening um
but that that's what it would take and
again it just takes a proclamation from
the mayor
the extra the other question i have is
probably just as
odd but uh the line of succession here
looks pretty interesting
the mayor the president of council the
chief of police
is is there a logic to that is there a
uh extension of that
so it's obviously current language that
doesn't answer your question though i
think the logic
is that after the two elected officials
if they are both unavailable
the chief of police is arguably in the
best position
to be able to take an action necessary
to handle the emergency that is
occurring
so i think that's the theory behind it
the la or the logic behind it
whether folks agree or disagree
obviously is up to you
and um mayor correct me
and mr fisher as well
the chief does have a copy of the
emergency
plan documents and and their
the police department in any natural
disaster
is one of the first responder
groups and so i think that
leads to knowing what needs to be done
and how to direct people to assist in
that emergency
i would agree with that richard
thank you all right um
i thought that i saw another
member yes ms lamke your hands in the
air man
um i too wanted to voice my support for
this i think it's
essential that we have checks and
balances on each branch of our city
uh city council checks the mayor the
mayor checks us and bill harvey checks
all of us and we check him so to the
extent that this
is a good balance of checks and balances
for our city government
i do intend to support it
thank you ms lamke
i love the cooperation that mr
mr sharp and mr kessler
had together making the changes to this
this document and working through it and
getting to this point
and um i i too am happy that there are
um plenty of checks and balances and i
do
um however appreciate very much
the collaborative work that this city on
all kinds of different levels uh need in
getting
um getting us to the point where perhaps
we're seeing
an end to the current um state of
emergency that we are in
and um certainly i felt like i had a say
in some of the things that um were
issued i know that council members were
brought in to have conversations
about um for example the mask
mandate that we um
that the mayor put forth in bexley and
um i'm ever so grateful for all of the
volunteer experts who meet
at first they were meeting every
thursday for at least an hour now
they're meeting
every other thursday our covet task
force is filled with
um again amazing volunteers we are
always blessed with so many amazing
volunteers in our community
um mr sharp has his hand in the air
richard
yeah i i just had one other point um
because i know
some people may be concerned about an
unelected official
um being in the chain of command i look
at that
as being a a
very temporary position because
the second and the chain president of
council
can actually there can be actually six
other people
that can fill that spot if for some
reason
um lorienne is out of the country and
totally
indisposed and there's been a
electromagnetic wave
attack or something like that that um
as soon as council can get together
they'll
always be another president of a council
that can be
elected um to take
take the place thank you mr speaker and
our charter
our charter also um
has a provision of the council pro tem
in the charter
so that would fall under under that uh
chain as well i believe mark is that is
that correct
a point of order mad president it was an
electromagnetic pulse that took down the
city helicopter
oh it could but you're right richard it
could
all right okay i just hope it doesn't
take me down
but thank you everyone um any other
further questions prior to me asking
attendees um if they would like to weigh
in
and then i am going to ask for um
uh mr sharp to take additional action on
this uh piece of
piece of legislation all right uh we do
have a hand in the air um charity just
been your hands in the air
can you hear me now yes thank you you
have a clarity question
um with my experience with the city
of columbus and declaring things to be
an emergency
um when such powers are given it allows
there to be a by not only bypassing the
normal legislative process
but then also being able to forego
in situations where there's money
distribution
so it bypasses the bidding process
is that the case with what we're dealing
with right in front of us
um it could be i mean that that's a
possibility in terms of
an ordinance that if if the chief
executive the mayor decides that that
needs to be
um suspended temporarily i think you
would have that authority
it's possible okay
mr burke has his hand in the air mr
burke
hi there um yes i would like to just
raise one comment here as i read that
the
state of emergency and executive order
may be rescinded by council ordinance or
resolution
now it would seem that that's not too
much of an issue with this mayor
and this council but the proposal here
is of course to
put make this law here in bexley
and what if we have a mayor and a
council that don't get along remember
that the mayor
does not come directly from the council
it's a separate election
and what if there is an actual emergency
and there's a political fight
and the council let's say in 15 minutes
after the mayor declares the state of
emergency
that council knows it for whatever
reason
so it would seem that we would want
it would seem logical to add a buffer of
some kind
that if the mayor does consider we have
to trust the mayor i mean at some point
we have to trust
assumed in here that the elected
official the mayor
will be will know what he or she is
doing
uh but if it becomes apparent over a
period of time let's say 30 days
that it is uh the state of emergency was
unwarranted
then the council can overturn it because
otherwise if we assume the mayor is
going to act responsibly and emerge
will assess the emergencies happening
and now the emergency is over
uh there would be no need for council
action but
i think that in order to have a
reasonable amount of time
to have an actual assessment of whether
there's an emergency or not
and yet to not have the simple political
back and forth which this would permit
i think putting some kind of a time
period in which the
uh council could not act to overturn
state of emergency
uh that makes sense to me speaking of
someone who spent
part of his life in in working in the
mayor's office
mr fisher do you have comments on that
one
may i make a comment oh certainly mr
sharp
yeah in the original iteration we had a
quite
liberal uh at least in my viewpoint
liberal um
timeline that was uh established
um this is part of the legislative given
take um
previously the this particular section
did not refer
to council having the authority to
override
anything during an emergency so
in order to uh and that's one of the
impetuses
of this um change is to specifically
state
and to um not
cause there to be an additional issue of
contention
that council does have the authority to
rescind any emergency or executive
orders by
that might be made now it does take some
time
we have notice requirements for special
counsel meetings and so it won't
so something um wouldn't be in a 15
minute period
and i think if there was um
a real issue that council
did do that there would be a real issue
with the um
the emergency room and i think the
citizens would support
the um party that was um
best responding to the emergency
mr official would you like to add
anything to that
no i think richard covered it all right
thank you
is there anything madam president real
quickly just to clarify because i i'm
not sure it's clear to the public this
is an existing right the council has
uh this ordinance is just stating it a
little bit more blatantly
uh it happens today i think along the or
could happen today along the lines of
checks and balances
similarly a ordinance or resolution
could be vetoed by the mayor
and then would require a super majority
of council so there are all sorts of
complicated scenarios that we could all
come up with but i think
this is restating what is existing uh
today uh making it very clear to
counsel the public and the executive
branch what the various rights
are in a situation like this
thank you mr kessler is there anyone in
attendance
um that hasn't already spoken who would
like to
to speak all right then i am going to
ask mr we do have this is amended and
ready to
for action correct mr sharp
yes it is um we do have one
follow-up resident i don't know whether
you wish to
um recognize that question or not i i i
i don't like to do that but i i will
allow it since you've drawn it to my
attention miss
um justin do you have um another comment
on
this piece of legislation yes mr
president um i'd appreciate not muting
me
i was still in the middle of talking
last time you meet with me but
i was asked i'm asking about what
happens when you allow for
the legislative process to be bypassed
and while the mayor is talking about how
this is already something
that's in existence it's actually a main
concern
of the majority of the community members
that there's a lack of transparency
and in all things with all the changes
that are being made which is why keep
asking
about which route people should expect
to see
notifications when it's statutory and
mandatory
um because you can't really follow the
trail there's multiple avenues
and it's like slipping information in
there and then it's like oh nobody
nobody said anything even the the small
gesture of you saying anybody else
who has not spoken yet if they would
like to speak
this is very important so if you're
actually listening
to the residents of your community and
you sincerely care
about their concerns having
attention bringing to attention um
this is very important the state of
emergency because there's not a lot of
rules and regulations
as to what it would take to make
something a state of emergency and i
attend the columbus city
meetings quite regularly and almost
every
everything at the end is listed as a
state of emergency and this basically
allows
for you to kick out the community's
input and
fast forward and make decisions more
quickly and
and that's evidently already happening
there's a lot of people in our community
who are upset with the lack of
transparency so i don't think just
just like muting me so i don't talk
about it it's it's kind of a big deal
it's allowing the legislative process to
be bypassed
there's no accountability in that it
does have to do with money
being spent and with all the upcoming
projects and plans
that everybody's so unsure of or how to
even get information
and the current bexley website being so
difficult to follow and find maps and
plan proposals
and finding out it's been in
conversation for years
but it's just emerging to the community
is quite frustrating
thank you miss justin i apologize um for
toggling
incorrectly on on muting you and i
i did that incorrectly to mr griff as
well
i it was not it was simply um
my lack of experience with zoom so
for whatever reason so um if we could
uh if there's anyone else who would like
to speak to this
i would be happy to allow that
don't see any so moving on to our
panelists
um i would ask mr sharp if he has
um action on this piece of legislation
madam president i would like to make a
motion
to approve amended ordinance 36-20
seconds it was the first that was mr
mark
had the second mr klingler i'm sorry mr
klingler had the second thank you so
much
um for the clarification um
no it wasn't it was just it was true it
was
troy it was it was surprised yeah try on
it i don't know about anyone else
all right i'm really done with the zoom
would you guys all get your uh we all
need to get our um
vaccine so we can we can do this live
again it makes my job a whole lot easier
i hear you all right so we
we have a first by mr sharp and a second
by mr klingler
um mr uh harvey please
mr sharp yes mr markham
yes assad yes
ms lamke yes miss fibal
yes mr klingler yes ms robinson
yes passed
all right thank you so much so we are
through with our table
ordinances so we are going to move on to
our committee reports
um we are going to um
continue with mr mr sharp
okay um reports i have a report from the
esac
some information that they that
elizabeth wish
me to share and i'm trying to
find where it is here on my computer
so i apologize for this delay
[Music]
um
okay the eastec's next litter pickup
will be march
20th 1pm locations to be announced
there'll be more information on the
green bexley facebook page
and i assume that information would also
be linked
on the city website
and
[Music]
there's a large amount of litter
everywhere i don't know if you noticed
on the highways
throughout the metro area
so and it's extending into bexley on
quite a numbers
uh business streets and neighboring
areas so so
please look for to participate in that
hopefully it will be nice and warm and
then they're also
planning the green bexley cleanup day
april 24th
and yard sale day may 15th and they'll
need volunteers to assist
with that and you can help out with just
a minimum of two hours
that's all i have to report
thank you markham
i have no report i am going to refer to
ms
saad to give the cic report thank you mr
marcum
moving on to safety and health um jen
robinson
i just have a couple uh announcements
like richard i got an email from
elizabeth today too with some
updates on some things that are
happening um
i have a flyer that i will be sharing
mayor kessler you may have it as well
that hopefully we can send out on the
um this week's bexley blast about the
um testing site for the the 20th at
st charles um she did check the weather
it does look like it's going to be a
nice day and they're looking for
volunteers to serve
in two hour shifts um i've volunteered
both times before it's actually
a lot of fun elizabeth's hysterical and
you get to be outside and talk to a
bunch of people in the neighborhood so
um that's happening she also wanted me
to let you all know that
um we have 506 at-home testing kits
um and we're looking to um have those
distribu
uh distributed um and
she wanted to let us know that bexley
city schools also has
kits so she's she met with cindy tyson
and harley williams
and a name that i don't recognize um to
work on how weak
they can create a plan to get those um
tests
uh distributed throughout the city um
lastly i wanted to
let um our council and any
uh listeners still hanging on know that
the
bexley and minority parent alliance
is doing a three-part literacy series
um the first event was actually tonight
um although i do believe that they
are recording those and um you can catch
up on the one that was tonight but there
are two more forthcoming
and you can find out more information
about those on the bexley minority
parent alliance website which
is bexleyminorityparents.org
and that's it wear masks stay safe and
get your vaccine
thanks so much jen um we are moving on
to
matt klingler recreation and parks
committee
i skipped jess sorry jessica assad
zoning and development committee please
jess yes um thank you president bible
all right so this thursday is the next
arb
meeting uh march 11th at 6 00 p.m for
those interested in
in attending um bzap will be meeting
march 25th
this month at 6 pm the cic
just met last week on march 2nd
they will meet next on april
6th but just as troy said i was the note
taker
last week right troy so um just a little
bit of follow up on
what the cic covered for the group here
ferndale permitting the ferndale
mayfield area that gets
asked about a lot so where are we at
with that the permitting and demolish is
moving forward
um the properties there have been
condemned and
i'll let the mayor speak a little bit
more on that but i believe we're just
waiting um
we're just waiting for people to uh
to be moving forward on that um and then
it looks like friday march 12th
uh this friday we hope to close on 420
north cassidy
and that's all i've got unless the
mirror wants to talk about
um anything more on the ferndale
mayfield demolish
permitting and that those properties
have been condemned i don't know if
there's any new news since last
no i've overheard i've overheard some
discussion with the contractors but
so i know that that's in process but i'm
not sure where it is exactly
thank you okay thanks jess is that it
that is it thank you thank you ma'am
now mr klingler thanks justin
parks just a couple things i was
fortunate enough to sit on the
parking direct board meeting um last
week
the elena andrews presented the
commonwealth park landscape and
installation presentation for
uh potential future development at
commonwealth park
also they're looking to update the
jeffrey park
plan and um as mike said earlier we're
narrowing in
on the jeffrey mansion expansion project
completion
other than that they didn't have a whole
lot else and that's all i have
thanks so much mr klingler um monique
lamke judiciary and strategic committee
please
okay i've got uh four things um the
first is the mayor indicated
the bexy minority parent alliance of
circle of excellence event
is being held virtually this year april
11th
i've got down 4-5 p.m it would be great
to have all of our city council members
attend so i hope you will join me then
over the weekend uh myself and my newly
licensed driver
in the house had the opportunity to
learn about road safety and
actually change attire ourselves under
the
careful eye of bexley officers fleming
and chapman
they had i believe over 22 participants
half of which were youths
learning with their parents about road
safety road safety and
it was a very eye opening and slightly
back breaking
exciting programming is coming up in
april sometime it's going to be a
combination of an event with the bexley
activities club and the bexley citizens
police academy
councilman councilwoman saad and i had a
chance to meet
with sergeant overlea and
a few other folks and we are putting
together a
event for our seniors regarding some
common senior scams
so please keep an eye on that in the
near future
and finally our council committee on the
charter review proposed amendments
uh met recently so i wanted to just give
council a brief
update on where we are because i know
that members of our public are extremely
interested
in what our committee is considering
we are currently in the process of
reviewing all of the proposed amendments
so that we ultimately can make
recommendations to all of city council
our committee has not yet made any
recommendations
as our work is ongoing to date our
committee has met on february 17th
and again on march 3rd and our next
committee meeting for anyone listening
is scheduled for april 7th at 7 pm
and the agenda and zoom link will be
available closer to then
on the city websites public comments
will be welcomed then
as they were at the first two meetings i
also anticipate that the committee will
hold
additional meetings beyond april 7th and
i'm currently preparing some updates
and additional information to be
distributed versus
via the city's communication channels
please note that our committee has also
discussed the possibility
of presenting our recommendations to
olive council on may 11th
during which a first reading of an
ordinance to place issues on the ballots
would likely be introduced
a second reading would likely be read at
the may 25th
city council meeting and a third reading
may occur
at the june 8th city council meeting it
is possible
that city council could vote on the
ordinance on june 8th
or table the ordinance for further
consideration
public comment will be welcomed at each
city council meeting
especially at each reading of the
ordinance
and in addition the committee and or
city council
could decide to hold a public form
regarding the charter review
commission's proposed amendments
and as with any ordinance an ordinance
could be amended or tweaked or revised
prior to any vote so that is my update
on the council committee on charter
review
any questions from council on those
dates or the anticipated process
i don't see your name is lamke thank you
so much
thank you thank you this leads us to
our um our last um
piece of um work for this evening and
that is
um item 21 public comment um
and i do see that there is someone in
attendance who would like to speak
um motto g7 play is connie lewis
please hi i would just like to see if we
could have an update on the
schneider park's connection to main
street and an update on bexley's dog
park
all right mr um kessler are you the
right person
for that quick update yes uh quick
update
the connection to main street is a
priority for this year and we are going
to bid on the staircase
we've already bid the re repaving of the
asphalt
between astor going south and connecting
to the athletic fields
and we'll be rewarding that actually the
border control meeting is
following the meeting here at council
that's part of it
and then um started the clear cutting on
the
path north of the bridge near the
capitol apartments
to reach that main street connector so
staff has been making some good progress
in the past couple months on that
and we expect to make a completion
this year on that trail and then um
the dog park just had a meeting
yesterday about the easement
on that recreational easement and i
think uh mark official has cleared the
way with some language that
we're seeking we're just making sure
that everyone's on board before
executing on that as well
thank you all right thanks miss lewis uh
jewel graph your hands in the air
sir uh yeah thank you
joel graff 834 francis um i just wanted
to uh i wanted to refer back to what mr
sharp
had brought up uh following that
last discussion with the resolution on
sheets i guess it was
um and i want to say we're speaking from
a residence standpoint i've spoken a lot
of residents
at least in south bexley about this
resolution was made about a project that
was in the city of columbus
um with what mr fishel said yes it's
true
uh that council would not play a role in
any ordinances etc
regarding projects because it follows
process however um
i don't think and this is where some of
the city comments have come in
or the residential comments have come in
the cic
is uh in essence the city and a 43
percent
owner in these projects so there is a
material
um arms length deal that does bring the
city involved
and i think what most of the people were
talking about and i know the thing i was
talking about
we brought up the issues of a resolution
for safety and traffic was
it would be nice that if council had
such concerns for
safety and traffic on projects that
aren't in the city
regardless of where they are in the
process
that there might be a consideration to
bring up resolutions that have the same
concerns
50 yards away for safety and traffic
issues
when we're overpopulating the for
example the livingston corridor
um and i know resolutions are not
ordinances and so i i think a lot of us
don't understand why uh those go without
any comment
or concern and like i said there is a uh
clearly by design the cic has three
sevenths of counsel on it
um so i doesn't seem likely to say
there's absolutely no
relationship between the two thanks
mr graff um it looks like aj uh
garlopotti has his hand in the air aj
yeah this is igarlapadi 981 francis
are you all able to hear me we sure are
go ahead audrey
we're going to start with so basically
we were just made aware
of an unfortunate event a few weeks ago
regarding a bullet
missing in school-aged child and bexley
this is a stray bullet
this occurred at a home in bexley that
lines with livingston
however it was not on livingston if this
isn't a priority like apparently sheets
which we are glad to hear that the
bexley leaders believe that is a
priority
i'd like to ask the council how the hell
do you expect residents
at the livingston project the people who
will live there to remain
safe if you cannot keep the current
residents safe
your residents come from all walks of
life
all colors all socio-economic status
backgrounds
how are you going to keep it safe you
all and this is a priority
and i would like a response
uh is there anyone who would like to to
respond
to this one mr mayor if you don't mind
yeah sure uh aj is bringing up an
instance of a um
i believe a bullet that came through a
window in a house
um in south bexley
uh didn't come my understanding is that
the bullet was not
shot at the house but it was a bullet
that was shot up in the air and came
down and we've had that occur
in all areas of the city in the past so
i'm not sure that i would conclude that
that came from livingston avenue but i
do think
the point is well taken and important
which is that the safety of the
community is paramount
and i know that there has been
extensive conversation at council
at the cic with the police department in
relation to
the safety environment not just along
livingston avenue but along the entire
community
in the entire community of bexley
safety's
uh at the top of our minds with any
decisions that are being made
um i don't think that this is the forum
to
litigate a a proposed use on livingston
avenue but we do have commercial
property on livingston avenue
and so as commercial users come into
play
making sure that a lawfully zoned use is
as safe as possible
is incredibly important and i know that
um are all of our boards and commissions
feel that way i've heard
uh very thoughtful consideration of any
of the plans that have come before them
and i know that we have our we have our
own processes here where we are
thoughtfully considering
as well so i think all of these things
are true these are all playing together
and um madam president is there anything
else that you would like me to address
no i don't thank you mr mr um
kessler um brian newman has his hand in
the air brian
brian brian you're permitted to talk if
you
would unmute hello i apologize don't
worry this is
brian newman 953 francis i want to start
out then very concerned with
uh mr mayor's blase answer about the
bullet
um last night alone we had gunfire right
at livingston in college the night
before we had a murder
livingston in college the gas station
down on livingston
um very concerned about the sheets the
sheath plates going in because you know
what if one of those bullets
accidentally hits a gas tank instead of
the
54 bedroom um or 58 bedroom
apartment complex that's going up there
i find it incredibly
um i find it incredibly sad that we
would choose a location
so unsafe for our economically most
vulnerable
that we're trying to invite into this
community and we keep hearing with every
place we go that this isn't the forum to
discuss this oh you don't
have standing you only live five houses
down and
when when do we have standing when is
the appropriate time to
um to discuss this uh you know mr mayor
you're on cic
three of the council members you're on
the cic um
the zoning committee is appointed by the
mayor
uh it's just it's just very very
unsettling what we're doing here
when there are so many places that
something like this could be built i
mean you can take really any
any nice size lot north baxley over you
know
um columbia any of those areas and and
clear away one house and build that
and it would be perfectly fine and safe
there but you're choosing to put those
residents in harm's way
that's all i have thank you brian
um dustin you have your hand in the air
dustin
can you hear me okay yes we can okay so
yeah
i kind of want to reiterate really what
he just said and
and um that's that we keep hearing that
it's not the platform
um but at the same time we hear hey we
want community input
and i can say that i am in standing for
this project that keeps
getting brought up but put a lot of time
and effort into it
put a document together breaking down
quite a bit of things
submitted it to bees app um
and so so what did bexley do when
the neighbors in standing had an
opportunity and you were
forced to listen to us we got limited to
three minutes
which was unprecedented for that
[Music]
and this document didn't even get shared
until during the meeting i
called in to city hall talked
to people there was told to submit it
the way that i submitted i emailed it to
kathy rose
um you know it's interesting because
we keep hearing we want community input
but then you silence us when when you're
forced to hear
on an important project that you're
pushing for obviously your proponents of
it
it's been clear um
i just don't understand um
it's really frustrating i've only been
here for about a year and i would have
never expected
this out of bexley i know people who
have lived here longer
i i expected more and it to me
feels like it's intentional i listened
to tim's
um comments on the last city council
meeting how questioning was taken away
during city council it just seems like
a purposeful move on behalf
of city council here in bexley to
silence
us um i don't think it's acceptable
to not have an opportunity to speak out
fairly
um and not get answers when we email
and we're trying to figure these things
out this isn't our job we don't know
so we have to refer to you guys and
to elected officials to tell us and help
us
get our voices heard
it's disappointing thank you justin
um lori uh you have your hand in the air
uh okay go ahead i know everyone
who is an elected official or an
employee of the city
is working very very hard
and that with this last year it was just
must have been crazyville and
so i think what's happening is the
website's not working
people are hearing things and um
right or wrong people don't feel heard
don't feel like they can know what they
what what is happening i uh there are
two things on that that may help the
first
is if you put more information out
in the bexley but but yeah the not the
bexley buzz
the newsletter or if we can get
information
in a timely way especially the way these
housing projects were introduced
um again we know you were working on it
for a couple years
and and it must have been a you know a
decision that all would be for the best
to wait to
introduce that and engage in public
dialogue but i think it's very
troubling to people to have that part
the other thing is we are all concerned
about livingston and the hope that it's
going to improve
i think will happen one day but
certainly not in time
for more residents to be
on there so i hope that it will be
reconsidered
in light of what we've learned in the
last year
and the fact that the city already has
so much on its plate the police sound
like they're totally exhausted
and franklin county is not going to be
changing soon
the catch and release looks like it's
here for a while
how can we handle one more thing thank
you thank you lori
i think mr official wants to address the
individuals who have spoken so far
yeah i just want to clarify a couple of
things first of all
again i know that and i can't put myself
in anybody else's shoes but i know
people feel like they're not being hurt
i mean again as this council meeting
is indicative of what's going to happen
at the last
four five six council meetings or more
is that people have been hurt constantly
on the uh the livingston avenue project
now again i understand
people don't like the answers or they
don't like to be told that it's still
going forward
or that it's in process or that it's
going through the bzap
process but there are rules to be
followed and the city is
has complied with all those rules again
just tonight even on the
even on the discussion of the sheetz
project we heard three or four people
talk about the livingston avenue project
so
so to say that that folks aren't being
heard or begin
being given a chance to speak on this is
just inaccurate and i want to dispel
that
for um you know for anybody else who may
be listening
i also um want to just respond to one
thing that
one of the people said about being only
given three minutes
um to speak at the uh be
zap meeting that it was unprecedented
it's not unprecedented
they have rules in place just like city
council does for public speaking
when i go for before a court there are
rules in place
for how long i can talk and the fact of
the matter is that if we don't have
rules in place
then the discussion gets to be dominated
by just a few people
finally the last thing i want to point
out is that comment was made about
and and have been made before that city
council doesn't ask
answer questions that questions can't be
asked i i didn't count how many
but throughout this meeting comments
were made
questions were asked the mayor me and
city council members can sit
consistently answer those questions when
there were answers to be had
so again i just felt that that
everyone's entitled to their opinion and
i'm glad
so many folks and bexley are so engaged
but
um you know i just want to reiterate
that city council is
handling this the way that you legally
should be handling it
and of course be zapp is going through
its process that ultimately will be
subject to appeals
to common police courts if folks think
things have been done wrong
um and madam president i i want to make
this
absolutely clear to anybody who has
spoken tonight or is listening
there is nothing blase about the way i
take safety concerns of our community
i am deeply concerned about safety
issues that
bexley is experiencing and that frankly
every other community in central ohio is
experiencing
and i know that those conditions are
impacting
certain areas of our city more than
others but that's happening throughout
our entire county
we've been reaching out as mayors and
city managers to our judicial system
we're currently i'm just joined into a
task force
with other central ohio mayors to
address something that laurie scoblianko
just
alluded to which is that we have a
broken system right now and it's failing
us
and what's happening today all around us
is a deep and grave concern and it's
something that's keeping me
up at night and that i am working
tirelessly to address
so to suggest that i don't care or that
i'm sensitive
as we speak about a separate issue
altogether which is how do we provide
compassionate
and safe housing to residents in our
community
that are currently some of them living
on top of an
unlicensed unregulated landfill that has
been deemed hazardous to human health
we've looked all over our city for sites
and we're going to continue to look
but to somehow conflate these two
concepts is
certainly anybody's right but i want to
be on the record
that i am not blase about safety issues
that i care deeply
and that i'm the neighbor of many of the
people that are speaking today
that my kids live in my house with me i
understand these concerns i feel them
deeply
i care deeply and i work tirelessly
along these lines
i just wanted to say that thank you all
right i
i do not see any new hands um
um to speak yep charity justin does
have her hand in the air uh charity
so as far as like um somebody saying
like that the livingston avenue project
has not
completely gone through yet what is the
actual process so
those of us like holding our breath and
waiting
know kind of like what all this is going
through i hear
bzap and then it goes to counsel who
whose votes matter in this
uh mr fisher official i'm going to allow
you um
to briefly um go over that
so what bee zap has approved
has has voted to let the project go
forward
um with some conditions those conditions
require
that and so be zap at its next meeting
will presumably be approving its minutes
which trigger an appeal right to city
council city council is going to there
are some real questions as to whether or
not city council
has
has um can hear that we'll be able to
hear an appeal
the arb architectural review board will
have to go through
um we'll have to approve some of the
conditions that bees have placed on it
um but ultimately if if
if the ultimately after city council
makes a decision
in response to any appeals then the boar
then any party who doesn't like that
result
can appeal to the franklin county court
of common pleas and have an independent
review of the process
there there is um a place on
the website um that that answers a lot
of questions pertaining
um to this specific development um that
has been created so i would i would
um guide others to there too um looks
like we have
doesn't look like we have anyone new who
wants to speak
so um i am
uh tracy bump had her hand in the air
i don't know if she still wants to speak
tracy
nope i'm okay thank you all right i
don't see anyone else who would like to
speak
um
so i am going to there's a panelist i'm
sorry
my my computer just froze up um
richard sharp does have his hand in the
air richard
mark am i correct that there is also a
financing
consideration involved with the project
that remains to be resolved you are
correct
you're absolutely correct richard that
now that bzap has approved
um going forward with that project
tcb is in the process of applying
for financing uh for this project
[Music]
all right council there is no one new um
on
asking for for to to speak so i am going
to ask if there is a motion to adjourn
i will motion to adjourn ms slampy will
second
thank you there's a first in a second
all those in favor please signify by
saying aye
aye aye those opposed same sign
thank you goodbye everyone thank you so
much for your hard work we appreciate
you
um thank you thank you and we do need we
have a border control meeting madam
president so members of border control
need to stay on and then
anyone who wants to observe all right
he's welcome to join
thanks everybody good night all right
guys take good care
all right
i am who do we have okay bill
do you guys have border control um
information i'm trying to see if i have
an email here
from like you sent something
yeah i don't recall seeing anything
unless it came out in the past
couple of hours
mayor yes deb um i wanted to let you
know i did send uh
there was a new attachment at the last
minute the current attachment is in the
green folder
on the left side uh
that needs to be signed as far as
signatures but the attachments itself
is attached to the agenda
i have it on um our website ah got you
i'm sorry you're welcome what's the
green oh you're talking about the
physical greenfield the physical green
yes
my back all right the special way
okay so on our website under um
border control control yes okay
i think as we're learning how to use
this new system dub i think it has to be
published as a packet in order for it to
be visible
don't know so that's okay let me pull it
up guys if you could just bear with me
for a second
um i'm going to very quickly just
if the agenda's on there it's just not
the uh
the packet so let me
very quickly generate that
take two more seconds
you guys have as much fun as i did
i was on mute thank goodness because i
was eating wheat bins
we're still being recorded debbie yeah
don't tell anyone about your weekends
debbie oh sorry
um okay
all right here we go sorry guys
i'm pulling it up right now okay
okay here's our border control meeting
documentation
and we have a recommendation from our
city engineer
for
columbus asphalt paving company i know
that i've spoken with our city engineer
about this
um it was a little bit of a different uh
analysis than normal because you'll see
that there's a
budget proposal
this is the original one i'm sorry
there's a lot to review now we had
strauser paving company columbus asphalt
and decker and shelley and sands they
all bid on it
the lowest bid was dependent upon which
alternates we
exercised it is our intent to exercise
both alternates
which places columbus asphalt paving
at the lowest bid amount
the alternates are
schneider park multi-use path which is a
sidewalk that will
be it's going to pave over the existing
asphalt
pavement which is in poor shape and
requires resurfacing
and also extend the asphalt to the
schneider
athletic fields parking lot so that
there's connectivity from there to the
aster connection
and then the jeffrey mansion south
parking lot which is a part of the
jeffrey mansion project is alternate too
which is below
the figure that was provided by the
city's contractor on that
so for the mansion so we were intending
to exercise those
if if we don't exercise those who's
lowest
if we don't then
the lowest bid is only a six thousand
so it's straws are paving at that point
at 806. 806 with
columbus asphalt at 8 12. so they're
very close to each other
you can see those at the very bottom of
that page
and then the others are
quite a bit higher than that um
up to 961 for shelling sands
so if we do exercise those columbus
asphalt was
at a million seventy three and straws
with a million eighty nine so it's it's
at that point it's a difference of uh
sixteen thousand dollars roughly
in favor of columbus asphalt
and and if we don't exercise them who's
the cheapest
straws are paving at 806
with columbus asphalt at 8 12. so
they're and do we have an issue
selecting
them
because the the single bid is
lower understand my question yeah i do i
do i think in that we've had this we
faced this issue in the past and the
opinion we've been given is that if we
intend to exercise the bid and it is the
lowest
then obviously we're also looking at the
lowest and best bid
and so from the perspective that we're
intending to exercise those
alternates then that would be the lowest
and best bid
so mr mr coke is saying this is who he
wants to work with
he is recommending
um
i was about to try to synopsize as many
comments but uh
yep i get it we've worked with them in
the past
um been satisfactory
and we are we've also even explored
where
where our overall project man is maybe
getting rid of some of the base bid and
even when we do that
they're still the lowest that was his
next long paragraph that says
they're still the preferred bidder
under that scenario because we are
intending to exercise alternates one and
two
i'm comfortable making a motion but you
have more questions mr harvey
i i do is this a pricing issue or a
quality of work issue
or do you not want to answer that or do
you not know
you understand my question well i think
that we're
satisfied with either columbus asphalt
or with
um frankly yeah strouser or decker or
shelley we've we've had
good experience with all four of those
contractors so from our perspective
it is not about picking any of them
based upon past performance all of them
are
are satisfactory on past performance
it's that we're picking the lowest bid
from four contractors that we've had
good experience with
uh based upon um the intended extra
exercising of the alternates
mr harvey do you have a concern no
okay
okay so um i guess
technically i'm sharing this aren't you
can i actually call this order
sorry i don't mean to be i understand we
need to call it
richard i want to answer your question
um what you saw the 795.
i just i just sent you a note i saw it
okay all right uh yeah we should call
this order i guess huh
yeah let's okay i'm going to call the
border control meeting to order um uh
ben kessler laurie
lorient fibal and members would you
please uh can we please enter into the
record the conversation that we just had
leading up to calling to order as
part of our meeting i'd like to make a
motion to do so
second all in favor say aye aye
aye okay so here we are um is there
a question richard had richard asked who
was a
he asked about a number that he saw in
the bid tabs
and the answer to his question was that
was the engineer's estimate
that was not a bid correct yes the 795
yes that's right
engineer's estimate so all of the bids
were
above engineer's estimate not not too
the two lowest we're not too far above
but a little bit above yeah
we have what a 10 leeway i think we have
a 10
leeway and um you know the
so we're okay we're talking about uh two
percent differential between
the two or three percent between the bid
and the lower ones
so any other further discussion on the
recommendation of the city engineer
all right can i entertain a motion to
award the bid to columbus asphalt paving
summit second
okay motion made by lorient bible and
seconded by bill harvey
uh any further discussion all in favor
say aye
aye aye opposed name sign
uh motion carries uh and the bid is
awarded
and um i will entertain a motion to
adjourn
wait wait a minute wait a minute debbie
you sent something out
earlier that said we had to sign
something different than what we had
signed before
what was that yes it's a hard copy that
i'd printed off and put in the
mirrors folder um i just received a new
one today from dave coke
okay because i signed one the other day
that we need to print off
this is new yes and i can you guys
please clarify what you're what are you
referring to
it says this this doesn't have to do
with this project
are you talking about someone else i
don't know what it is
i was talking about the recommendation
letter
from dave coke i think there was an
there was some change
jordan sent it to me today jordan andy
what's the what green folder are you
referring to then oh okay i'm sorry
ordinance folder on the left that's the
original one
and then there's one that i sent to
everyone that we need to print off
before
when you guys get together to actually
sign okay so the one that you're
referring to
is the new one is the one we just
reviewed just i want to be clear for the
record
yeah march 9th the old one we'd not have
not discussed at all was dated march 4th
the difference between the two is the
march fourth one which we did not
discuss
was suggest was recommending columbus
asphalt based upon
exercising uh one and two alternate bids
this one added a paragraph here where he
discussed what would happen if we
reduced some of our baseline scope if it
would still be the best bid because i
had asked dave to do that
so he was being responsive to my request
to make sure
that it's still the lowest bid if we
didn't exercise
the uh caroline section instead did that
part it was part of a water contract
and it still was clumps asphalt so uh
just to clear up any confusion we took a
vote based upon the current letter not
the old letter the old letters
right okay perfect
all right uh motion do adjourn
uh motion by bill harvey adjourned
second
seconded by lorient fibel all in favor
say aye aye
aye we are adjourned thank you good
night all right