you have to unmute yourself celeste
here there thank you um jim wilson
here okay thank you uh linda zubnik is
absent molly o'donnell here
barb giller
i know barb you may have to mute
yourself
okay i know bar i know barbara's there
but let's go on and ellen bowden
here okay um so we are going to appoint
some some alternates to serve in three
commission roles so
we have uh three people absent and our
three alternates are here so we'll
appoint molly barb
and ellen to serve in their stead
and we have a quorum so i'm looking for
approval of minutes of september
16 2020 as sent out by
miss jordan uh i move that we approve
the moon
for last meeting in september 20th
thank you second second okay is there
any discussion questions
okay we have a motion in a second to
prove the minutes of september 16 2020
as sent all those in favor say aye
aye all those opposed same sign
okay remember you have to unmute
yourselves although
mayor i think there's a new system that
that is allowed by
um robert's rules of orders or the new
that if we
all accept when we call the role then
we do not have to unmute ourselves for
voice
votes are you familiar with that regime
i'm not but that sounds fun i like it
yeah it does sound fun well
susan you could simply ask if there's
objection to a pending motion
okay and and then not take the eyes
okay okay thanks jim all right uh
so ever i think everybody are there any
objections to the approval of the
minutes
if not they stand approved all right are
there any additions to the agenda
i will have to say i think this is a
short agenda today now i
hope that does not come as a
disappointment to you but
that's what i'm looking at under
announcements
yeah announcement small victories and
residents comments
um on behalf of ellen bowden i'm happy
to say
that um 500 letters
uh soliciting funds for trees for bexley
have been signed by the mayor
and myself and will go out after the
election day
and appreciate ellen's spearheading and
uh
and putting together a timeline that
makes us effective
and then i'd also want to thank molly
o'donnell and dave wakeman who
pre reviewed a plan of uh dan beers
for refreshing the vegetation at jeffrey
mansion
um on the south terrace and the west
terrace that will be part
of the i guess the designated funds for
trees for bexley and i know some of you
have given
funds for this year's tree for bexley
campaign through the big give
and we also want to thank you for that
so thanks to all
any and other announcements small
victories
all right if not we'll go on to review
of landscape
applications um eleanor do you want to
give us some updates on the
infamous hornbeams at 346
drexel north drexel
yes i do already so
um so with the infamous foreign beams on
north drexel we have been working
um and we have drafted a consent and
hold harmless agreement
um that basically just uh states that
the owners kathleen gravel and dana
short and any of their successors
will um basically hold the city harmless
of replacement maintenance um
and care for those trees when uh
grant and i went out on site and
actually found the pin and made sure
that the trees were in fact
in the right of way which they are um
and then i met the owner dana short
and explained to him what we were doing
and he was more than happy to um
sign the agreement and uh because he was
happy that we weren't going to make him
rip out all of the trees
so he is going forward with that the
mayor has
drafted up an ordinance that needs to go
then before
city council and it needs to have um
three readings for it and so we're
trying to get it on for the october
um session for this month so they can
review it and read it and then so that
right now is kind of working its way
through the system and through the
paperwork um if any of you are
interested in reading the consent and
hold harmless i can certainly share that
with the group
um and email it to you it's basically
just you know
a lot of legalized talk that says you're
planted 16 horn beans in the right away
and if any of them die you have to
replace them and you have to make sure
that they're taken care of
you and anyone who ever buys the
property from you in the future
uh eleanor since we're fortunate enough
to have a lawyer on the tree commission
maybe you could just send it to jim
yes that would be great jim was that
okay with you
as long as it stipulated that the term
legalized top was a compliment
of course i can't think of it uttered in
any other way
i mean rabbiting stuff all right
i i do want to call out um a thank you
to elena for coordinating this when she
said that kind of universal we
put this together that's untrue she took
a couple hold harmless agreements and
integrated them and
sounded good to me in that legal term so
thank you elena
yes and mark fisher the city attorney
has also reviewed it
made a couple of tweaks to it um and so
that's going to be um
moving forward so yeah gem i will
definitely send that to you and if you
have any thoughts or comments
let us know okay and then
elena has sent out a table of uh
reviewed installations
and um we might want to talk about next
steps grant can you get her table up on
the screen
i don't know that i'm in charge of that
right now okay is jordan in charge of
that
do you guys know so you see the share
screen button at the bottom it's green
little arrow yeah click on that
and then
click we want to share oh you know we
might not have had that
on the agenda and so jordan is scanning
it really quickly so we can have it
yeah i see there's not a live link to it
look at that you guys are sharing
screens
that's exciting we'll pull it up on the
email oh thank you
i just want to say that jim jim wilson
um
reviews that consent and hold harmless i
believe it was actually drafted by jim
gross
back in the day or his or his
predecessor it's it's a
it is an ancient legal document so uh
refer any comments to jim gross before
you send it to mark official
please i have jim gross's old desk in my
office here at work
oh there you go that's great
also while they're pulling it up you
guys might see on the top of your screen
maybe it says it live on youtube we're
testing our new a new um
live streaming alternative to granicus
uh so you guys are part of that to
test so great great well i'm happy to
have an alternative to granicus
there you go yeah um
while we're waiting here for a minute
jim the um charter review committee did
they meet last night or is it tonight i
forget uh we had a
public meeting um on monday night
okay um that
i think the content was good the
technological application left something
to be desired um but we got
some feedback from that and i would say
that um
we're mostly done with our work i think
that
the there's just a few loose ends um
but probably the largest is there been a
few folks that have asked us to revisit
an earlier decision that we made not to
tinker with the rules that city council
has for its meetings and there
some people that think that the ability
to speak for 120 minutes during city
council is not enough public access to
city council
you can guess what my views on that are
i could tell
i could tell it's too it's too bad you
know for all these meetings you're not
paid by the hour right
yeah so elena grant and jordan how are
we coming on the
there good work you guys can you see it
i can see it oh my god well done i'm
just sitting here like a bump it was
okay all right eleanor can you see it
i can okay it really is big
yeah great it looks great yeah so do you
want to lead us through
whatever it is that you want to update
us on yes so
um so i'm going to go through and kind
of hit the areas that you can see on the
screen right now that are are
highlighted
and so there there are some things that
are
still moving along and we're following
up um
but just to kind of go through the list
what we've been doing
is now things when they are completed we
take the plan
and walk the site and make sure that
things are installed
as close to plan as possible there are
there are some latitudes that i give
people understanding that things change
during construction
um and so we will ask for
um you know either an updated plan or
you know if there's
10 boxwoods instead of 12 i'm not going
to ding them on it
um so for instance when we're if we go
down the list at 291 south columbia
that's a new build
um that one had we had an approved um
landscape plan in 221 of 2018
when i was on the site i noticed that
the landscape plan that we had was very
different than what was
constructed and so i reached out to the
architect
and the homeowners and requested a new
plan
they sent it to me it is it is similar
enough and in a good way
they actually planted more plants and
shrubs than were on the original
and so i went through that reviewed it
and everything looked great so we went
ahead
and um approved that as is
so continuing down the list 252 north
drexel
that is also a new build that was
approved pretty much per plan
the camp bushnell storyboard that right
now just to give you an update on that
we were trying to get that out in
april and that right now is basically
the the
sign that's the sign that is going to go
in the northwest quadrant of drexel
circle
the sign is completed it is constructed
it is now being held in storage at
columbus sign and we are waiting until
we can have
um basically groups congregating more
than 10 people that have a little bit
more of a hoopla
in reaching out with all of the people
who were involved with that project they
would rather
us wait to install it than um just kind
of install it
with no fanfare and you know because
it's it's a very big deal for them so
that's just basically on hold
i said due to kobe 13 and you know we'll
just kind of keep an eye
on what's going on with that um
continuing down one lion's gate
that was a new build as well that was
approved all the landscape is in there
as
asked for the ohio state bank that
is missing irrigation i have reached out
to
the landscape architects and the
architects letting them know
that the landscape was supposed to have
irrigation based on
the meeting notes and the video that we
had
um with that we've also started to loop
in
dave hertlerka with the did i pronounce
that correctly
with code enforcement so this is almost
like a first warning for them to let
them know hey
we noticed that irrigation you said this
project would be irrigated it is not
let us know what you're planning on
doing and so i'll probably give them a
week or so
more for them to respond back and if not
i will just follow up with them
and then we'll have to kind of see what
course that actually takes in order to
get the irrigation
in for everyone's information
what had happened is the um the findings
of fact
for the approval requested um
a couple of small items irrigation was
not one of them
that was written in that findings of
fact however at about minute 28
of the meeting when we asked um
the people who were presenting is this
going to be irrigated they said
yes it is and so our understanding is
that since you know we
said it's approved as presented since it
was presented that yes we are going to
irrigate it we just haven't gotten that
far yet
that the it should be irrigated and we
are going to
hold them to that then if we keep
scrolling
to the next page so 280
south columbia this is also a new build
the house looks great the plants look
great they are missing rear plantings
in the kind of the northeast quadrant of
the back part of the house
and in reaching out to both the
landscape architect
and the owners they said that they are
planning a future pool
and so they're not sure where the pool
100 is going to be located it will be
located in the rear yard they're not
sure where the pool equipment is going
to be located
so the back kind of two corner
elevations of the house
has no planting along the foundation of
the house
it has fine screening around the
property line and so
i don't think that there's necessarily
any kind of issue from the neighbors
looking in and saying well this looks
really bad
but it did have foundation plantings in
both of those areas
now i wanted to bring this to the tree
commission's attention
susan and i have talked a little bit
about this but i would like to have a
discussion about
um because i don't know since this is
the first time we've kind of gone
through all of these processes
what our response should be when someone
has has a new build a landscape plan is
improved
or approved and then they do not install
a portion of it
and they say well we're doing it because
we're we're waiting to do a future pool
but now because of covid we're not sure
financially
when that's going to happen what are the
next steps like how long do we give them
that grace period to figure out what
their next steps are
do we say okay you've got a year to you
know kind of get back to us with a new
plan or do you have to install it for
plan i would hate to be
obnoxious and make them plan something
and pay for it and then have them rip it
out
later but i also don't want it to get to
a point where
it's an approved plan they say oh we're
going to do something in the future and
it never gets built and it never gets
installed it just kind of
goes away i think that that's definitely
not what anyone wants to happen
so we wanted to kind of open it up for
discussion and see
what everyone's input is on what are the
next logical steps that as a
commission that you guys feel that we
should take
to you know kind of watch these projects
as they as they develop because projects
change and i understand that projects
change and people want to do things
but i also want to make sure that that
doesn't become a precedent of oh
do a landscape and then just say you're
going to do a pool and then you don't
have to
pay for the rest of your landscape
because you know they're never going to
check it again
so any comments for elena to
consider susan can you hear me now yes i
can barb
okay okay good finally
i i would think that it should come back
before the commission
and uh and put it in some official
uh approval status either uh we agree to
kind of holding back for that area or
revise the plan
or do something but i think we probably
should come back and talk to us
i agree and i like the idea of a year
um one of my friends who had a tragedy
in their life they ended up
putting other social and other business
commitments on the side
in a year when they spoke with these
other businesses
they they had a year to respond to
decide whether or not they were going to
continue and what they were doing
i agree i think a year is reasonable and
particularly
not only in the covid but because
there's a lot of things going on it's
hard to get people
to do the work even if you wanted a
swimming pool
and and if we present it to them
as don't you think this is fair i mean
don't you understand where we're coming
from you know not
like we're the the rule
makers but more like let's work on this
together and you know when you
if you can't do it any year then throw
in a landscape it's cheaper than a pool
comments would you for clarification
would people like
for them to come back and say hey we
would like to kind of
have this on hold and then from the time
that they come back
they have a year from the date of that
commission meeting
to then return with the design plan or
do we want to ask them to
come back with a plan that we then
approve i mean i guess it's two
different courses i mean basically
they're saying
because of kova they're kind of
everything is on hold
so would they come back and just let us
know hey everything is on hold can we
have a year to kind of figure it out
this is what we're thinking
and then we just follow up with them
every couple of months just to kind of
check in and then just let them know
that at the end of the year
unless they are able to come back with
a landscape plan that says here's what
the pool is going to be and here's what
the revised landscape is and we're doing
this for approval
that they need to revert back to what
the original approved
installation was does that make sense or
provide something else
larry what was your thought when you
mentioned them coming to the commission
well i think first to get clarity in
second to make them official
right so that they're not in you know
they're not
in uh the fault here uh and so i i don't
know exactly what we should do i think
we get them in
and then we decide that what's the right
thing to do
and i i feel that since the planting
season is only twice
two seasons that actually a year is not
too not a long stretch to ask
for them i agree
right so um but why don't we take a
motion on this larry if you would um
if you would make it because again i
think to your point that we want to be
official we want to have some sort of of
chain that they can follow and that we
can refer to it would probably be
helpful
i moved that the landscape plan at 280
south columbia
and the applicant be returned returned
to the tree commission
for a review and update of the plan
is is there a second oh no
okay any discussion
okay emotion has been made and seconded
that we asked the applicant
for 280 south columbia to come to
the next tree commission meeting and
review with us the
state of the plantings and future plans
for installing the approved landscape
plan are there any objections to that
motion no no
hearing none the motion is approved
okay thank you elena now do you want do
you have any others to go
on a couple small ones um 2399
commonwealth park south
this is actually the plants that are
along drexel avenue in front
of the tennis courts screen there um the
majority of the plant material
has been installed they did you know i
mean it looks it looks really great
they've got very mature size
arbs and holly's there they are however
missing a handful of
um you there and i've reached out to
them
just to ask them are they going to
change it are they
planning to put it in um because it does
look like
the original design intent had almost
like a layered effect of having some
lower shrubs and the taller
shrubs behind it um so i'm just waiting
to hear back
on them with that i'll keep you posted
and then
um with the south community gardens the
landscape
has all been installed for planned and
improved um looks great grant thank you
so much
the there are still some final beds and
some final tweaking that needs to happen
but again all of that got kind of put on
hold
uh because of covet and all the
employees being furloughed and
everything
so um we've approved kind of half of it
um in saying that the landscape has been
approved and then we're just waiting for
the final beds
um uh both the raised and the small kind
of circular bed to actually be
installed with that um on the bottom
where you can see sort of my chicken
scratchings
um two things to kind of let all of you
know about one we've already talked
about 346 north drexel the consent
unfold harmless
um i wanted to just add this even though
we're not kind of necessarily
we didn't review it as a project i
thought it was important to
add it to the list just so we can kind
of keep track of it and say okay when
did we talk about it and when is it
moving forward
um the other one is 2730 east broad
street
um many of you might have noticed that
is a new build that is
um on broad and it
was approved through bsap and the arb
on the condition that there be a staff
approval of the landscape plan
um when it started to go under
construction um susan
you know kind of flagged it and said you
know have we reviewed this and i said no
i didn't even know that this was
happening
so we are working through and we are
hopefully going to have a meeting
between
kathy myself and karen voker just to
talk about
coordinating efforts of if there's a new
build like that
that the landscape plan needs to come
before the tree commission
since it is a new build i don't feel
response i don't feel
that it is the responsible thing for me
to do a staff approval if it's like you
know
putting in a couple of boxwoods in front
of a fence i think that that is
something that i'm i'm okay with
but as a new build i think we need to
have parity across
all new builds within the city that that
landscape plan does come before the
commission i have reached out to the
homeowner they do have a landscape plan
but it is missing
the size of the trees um some of the
botanical names of the trees
proper elevations of what it's going to
look like we were hoping to get it ready
for this meeting
we weren't able to get the material in
time
so we're hoping to then have it for
review on our november
meeting and we have let the homeowner
know
that their occupancy permit is subject
to
um being withheld until the tree
commission reviews the plan
so they cannot get final occupancy until
the landscape plan
actually is reviewed now one of the
reasons why
it didn't come before the tree
commission earlier on
is that there were no major trees on the
site that were going to be impacted
and so um the arb and the zoning
commission kind of felt that
there were no trees that we needed to
kind of review it literally was just
basically a vacant blank slight site
with a couple of large shrubs
that might need to be removed but there
was nothing that was going to impact any
city trees or any mature large growth
trees
that their removal would be something
that the tree commission would really
take an interest in
but we do think that the tree commission
will take an interest of what the final
plan is going to look like to make sure
that um you know all new builds are
actually reviewed by us so we wanted to
give all of you an update as to
what is going on with that particular
project
uh larry is there anything you want to
add because i think you
were at arb when this the design was
approved
i i'm not sure it's it's city policy
that
uh that or it's the city ordinance that
had come before tree commission
so i'm not exactly sure uh how the step
maybe it was meant to be staff review so
i don't
it has to come in front of us so that's
fine with that
two other quick things one just it's a
great list and the city overall should
do this
on the arb as well but
i don't think on the list i don't know
the address three the
the the new build it's the very south
end of columbia
the one that we're having some problems
with because there's been a considerable
amount of construction
it's taken forever still under
construction considerable amount of
construction
that's taken place uh not to the
approved plans
um i don't know whether they ever did a
landscape plan i doubt it
i know there's been a wall put up that
was not approved stonewall funny-looking
thing
uh so that ending up being and i know
there'll be a special hearing of arb
uh to figure out how to handle
that situation no i think we
reviewed that we reviewed the landscape
plan for that
is that let me jump in in terms of there
was some um
some information that was going back and
forth between kathy and i yesterday and
today
the landscape plan at 424 um
that we did approve it we approved that
back
in june of 2018. the landscape plan that
is approved is very different than what
the landscape plan is now that has been
submitted um they were originally
thinking about having a circular
driveway they no longer have a circular
driveway it's just
a straight driveway and the landscape is
quite different and so
um i've reached out to um the
the contact for that project who i
believe is with the construction company
to ask them for an updated plan and just
be able to see if that plan has changed
significantly enough that it needs to
become
to come before back before the tree
commission um
but larry maybe i'll circle back with
you if that's okay online
i mean offline after this meeting to
kind of get a better understanding of
what the arb is going through so make
sure that we're all on the same page
um i was aware that they were doing some
other things as well that had changed
i would contact uh karen boker uh okay
but it is coming back in front of the
beas uh uh arb again because i think
there's been
substantial differences between the
built plan
and the approved plan and i'll assure
you we are heavily attuned to the issues
that are occurring at that property
okay other questions for elena
well i guess my point is let's let's add
that project to this list as well
yes it is on the um first page
um so if we scroll up
right there underneath the capital
screen sheridan screening 424 south
columbia
so we have it on there um i have that
it's under construction
so um i will make sure that um you know
obviously we're tracking that
thank you anything else
well ellen it's great to see the lists
it's um
you know and it's important that we have
the
the dates that we approved and the dates
installed
so um i appreciate your work on that
pleasure okay so uh if there's nothing
else
on that part before we go to your staff
report let's mayor i think you have a
couple things you're going to share with
us
i would be delighted to share some
things with you guys go ahead
um eleanor would you mind
uh enlarging that part of the agenda for
me please
yes i will i'm i'm telepathically making
grant do it
you guys are doing a great job thank you
yeah the mayor's report so um
i apologize if this is repetitive from
the last time uh we talked through some
of these updates but the uh
the ordinance is in front of council for
plantings and installations the
right-of-way it received a second
reading some more detail
it seems to have acceptance from council
members from what i can tell so i'm
expecting that to be passed
next tuesday installation of broad
street media and at st
charles we are
i believe moving forward with the curb
work and i've seen samples of the uh
granite cobblestones and uh
the sub curb work underlying um
concrete and cobblestone work uh
as part of this construction season just
so that we can get everything in place
uh in order to then plant
and grant can you give me a little bit
more of a specific update because i
haven't had any i haven't heard
the past couple days where i was all
that
uh yeah i don't have any more
information
i saw the granite cobblestones as well
they're pretty cool looking
other than that i don't know where
they're at with it
i know that there was some question
about i think ellen you had asked
i think we had kind of a little bit of
an email interchange about
it was a commitment from the
beautification fund but yet
i don't think we'd actually come up with
a funding amount from for that is that
correct
right that's what we were looking for
for it to be
yes so uh you know we have we have those
estimates i think
there was a pretty big electrical cost
that dave was trying to get down but
what what our what i directed him to do
was to move forward
on the concrete and uh cobblestone works
at least we get that infrastructure in
place
uh so that we can continue to move
forward on the project
you know as the weather turns colder hey
uh cleanup day was a success we it was a
little bit lighter than um
years past i feel like did i not give
you guys this update i'm i'm getting my
meetings confused no
no because it was the end of september
we haven't seen you we haven't seen you
since
fantastic yeah i i mean i honestly
this was um of all the cleanup days the
one in which i was least involved
i was involved in the planning phase but
not on the day of
some family in town but grant was very
involved and he rock started
he supervised that and it went pretty
smoothly
pandemic or no pandemic or pandemic be
damned
we got a pretty good crew through we got
lots of
you know batteries and recyclables
plastic bags goodwill donations bicycles
books
and drugs to be disposed of properly
and uh so i think that was successful
grant to you
metrics wise what did we ever decide how
that compared to years past
i love putting grant on the spot uh
i mean yeah we haven't had a meeting to
recap yet but
uh yeah there was less significantly
less people
for sure yeah actually which actually
in a way it made it a little bit
smoother so like
nonetheless how many bins of shredding
did we fill up
for example any idea
i think there was 84 trash cans filled
up
one one truck full um 18 bins of
goodwill
wow we have not got the numbers back
from the batteries
but i would guess you know 150 to 200
pounds
in that
and then electronics that was a huge
success
for the most part for recycling
electronics
great um so new bexie website
is uh still under development uh we're
working on
specifically public documents technology
there's some technological stuff the
design is largely
uh set on it and in fact i'm gonna see
if i can't
share that with you guys here real
quickly let me
let me do a little computer magic here
so you get a feel for it
and
um wait
for it okay
let me see if i can
do this so the the new website
looks kind of like this well it does
look like this this is the new website
um and uh it's you know just a little
bit more
a little graphical a little easier for
people to edit this is it
if on a cell phone it's you know much
more cell phone friendly so that's what
it would look like on a smartphone
um so it scales intelligently which is
nice
um the the funny the not funny i
honestly don't even know where we are
right now with any arboretum
aspects whatsoever so we're we're kind
of in the getting some of the most
you know critical stuff um
in place um and then
well let's just let's just put ourselves
on the spot here and type in arboretum
and see what happens
um so yeah we're not we're not there yet
we've got we have some mentions of
arboretum but the content is still being
populated on the website and uh
do you have a timeline for this mayor
uh well yeah uh end of september so
there you go
um i we the
the thing that we've been spending a lot
of time on is making sure we get our
public documents interface
really solid so uh i our coder who's
doing that
has been a little slower than we would
have liked um
it obviously i mean it takes you to the
arboretum website but it doesn't
have uh its own arboretum content
and i i'm a little i mean i do want to
point out that when we did the arboretum
website the intent of that was so that
we would have a single depository of
information and we wouldn't be
creating you know duplicate information
or
obsolete info so
but i mean we can certainly have a page
on the website and
and any any additional info or changes
to the actual arboretum website could be
certainly uh talked about it at any
given time
at least we were already mentioning it
though so that's a step in the right
direction and we'll continue to update
you guys on that
so if uh mayor if we were to put
something in
the website once a month to suggest to
the neighborhood what to do to protect
their
lawn or their trees or how to close up
their yard
for the winter or prep it for the spring
would the arboretum be a good place to
put that
information yeah so we could um
this is uh that's been designed so that
you know we have like news articles on
here
and um you know some of this stuff is uh
obviously a little old because we just
kind of had it in place as we were
working on what it would look like
but um you would have the ability to
have a category that would be arboretum
based
and then we could have an arboretum page
for arboretum news articles that would
be
populated from our website that would
just auto auto fill
auto populate on the page based upon
that tag on
on the article so yeah there are lots of
different ways we can make sure that we
integrate it
uh integrate it well great any questions
for the mayor on the website development
and
featuring arboretum
i have one um this is richard hi richard
i'm sorry for being late um i was
wondering
can the mayor the mayor can still link
the old
site to the new site
right the arboretum pages to the news
site
yes so that it already is so the the
arboretum
on the old our existing site and i
could be wrong about this but so maybe i
shouldn't say this too quickly but my
we had moved to having our arboretum
info on this external website
actually arboretum.org so there is a
link already on the new site
to that uh arboretum website
um what else do we have we're not losing
anything
pending all the revisions
no and in fact if if we're going to keep
the old site alive in the background
if we find that we not only can we
export the whole thing but
still for a while it's pretty cheap for
us to do that if we find that we've like
missed something it's easy for us to
populate it over
okay
okay you can share again or grant yeah
thank you thanks mayor it's great to see
that um
any anything else on your updates or
your review for us um
you know house bill 242 passed that's
the
ban of the plastic bag fee
um we're we're having some conversations
uh myself and city council members about
how to respond to that
um it's a temporary band but i think the
reason i bring it up to you guys is
because one of the ways that i see
plastic perma waste uh manifest itself
in our community is tangled up in tree
branches
[Music]
it it's a environmental issue it's also
a community aesthetic issue and the two
are obviously co-joined so
um look for uh look for a response of
some sort from from us in the coming
weeks or months on that issue good also
we've been really occupied recently this
is not
i don't think tree related but this is
uh pertinent for you all as residents
and leaders we've been
pretty occupied with uh cares act
obviously coveted in general but cares
act funding the city received our
allotment of
act funding over the past couple months
we have until the end of the year
to decide how to best
compensate ourselves and help other
help households and individuals in the
city and businesses in the city with the
carers act funds we received we received
just over a million dollars to date
expect to have a total of 1.5 million
um our costs as of yesterday
richard what did i say a council like
500 000
roughly uh internal um
and uh and that you know that that
includes
staff that have been reallocated to
doing work associated with covid so it's
not like uh you know those are not
like new necessarily new dollars but
they are covered costs
and so with the remaining funding um
we're looking at
uh assistance with rent utilities
mortgage for people who have been
impacted by covet 19 business assistance
you know we're double checking to see
how we can help our schools uh
if uh if they've had any uh if they have
additional need beyond what was
allotted to them with cares act dollars
so if you hear of any needs in the
community or you have any questions
about that let me know
okay any and and if you hear actually
more specifically a business
organization or individual that's been
impacted by covid can go to baxley.org
cares and they can fill out an impact
form for the there are a couple
different impact forms they can fill out
the one that's pertinent to them
um so that we have our who we have that
information in hand as we're trying to
to mobilize quickly around uh providing
resources where needed could you
use that money to hire more staff
uh yes if they are providing direct
covet 19 related
assistance over the next uh two months
okay okay so uh you know to the extent
that maybe we could find a that coveted
is impacting the health of trees
then uh you know maybe there's a
temporary arborist position
yes grant has been trying his darndest
to figure that out so far
no epidemiological link but you know
that doesn't prejudice against this
future determination to the contrary
well we know people feel better when
they walk under trees so maybe that
is the way to cure some of the angst
from the pandemic
uh yeah two questions um one
you know putting on another hat the the
bef
is trying to raise a lot of money to pay
for the chromebooks and the school
i don't know whether there's any ability
to tap into the funds you're talking
about to help that because that's a big
stretch a million bucks
and then number two any update on the 5g
towers
yeah so good good question so first up
thank you that's
we assembled a few weeks ago i guess or
maybe
more a quick working group of all the
organizations in bexley included the bf
in that so we've we've gotten a good
tally from different organizations about
what the needs are
the current thinking on that is that
that's actually a
it's a bef task but it's a city of
bexley's it's a special city school
district expense
actually the bf is committed to helping
them with so probably we would provide
funding to the schools and allow the
schools to determine how they would want
to best apply that
that could that could be the one-to-one
program it could be other coveted 19
related expenses that they have
and then cell towers richard's just
really dragging his feet on that
ordinance
um i'm joking
uh we have uh gone into right-of-way
hell
in terms of our right-of-way ordinance
where we just have gotten down a dark
rabbit
trail of a what is what's a 30-page
document or something it's it's a pretty
extensive
i might have exaggerated but the
ordinance itself is pretty long
um our legal counsel has helped us to
amend and modernize our right-of-way
ordinance
we are i think really close to having
that in front of council and
talking through it we have not had any
additional
interface with the uh with the cell
phone uh providers though
the carriers so we haven't had any
applications in yet um
there's there was a lot of motion prior
to covid that kind of went
silent i wouldn't be surprised if with
the release of
a particular piece of technologies
touting 5g over the past
week or two if we're not seeing a little
bit more action um
occurring soon for you know and the
tools are in place so we we do have the
cell phone uh design guidelines or sorry
5g small cell design guidelines in place
but we hope to have a smoother more
streamlined right-of-way ordinance
uh soon here hey questions about that
um just an update um mayor we're still
planning to have
that attorney at our next council
meeting so that is
the table uh that's the plan
she's last last email i saw was a few
days ago where she said she was a little
delayed in getting that draft
so i'm gonna i'm probably have something
from her that i just haven't seen but
yeah that is the
that's the plan richard and i have
noticed uh 5g towers popping up
multiple places around the columbus
metro area
have any of you been approached at your
door from an att
rep to uh sign up for their service
as we have what's
are you talking about fiber optics or
what
for our service inside our house with
everything from the phone to
television and wi-fi
am i the only one who had somebody
i celeste i was but i told them to go
away i don't
love att so i don't want to get into
that one
yeah me too all right we've had them
come how inexpensive it was
compared to what we do now um
i think the reception is going to be far
superior and i wish that we could have
done that but they don't get
you have to i watch pbs more than any
other station and for me to
use they don't carry pbs i'd have to get
another handset
and turn one thing off and turn another
thing off and come back to it and that's
just crazy making for me
i don't like the old things from the 70s
you just push a button
to 60 there it was
well you know you could i could still do
that celeste we'll we'll i'll put i'll
i'll lash an intent onto your roof for
you if you'd like we'll teach you how to
do it
thank you so i'll hold on to your your
your cuff i do want to clarify that uh
that this is not the same thing so the
ap t fiber to the home is not the same
as the 5g
cell phone tower right okay but that's
correct
i understand the uh yeah it's exciting
though
i mean to have fiber in your house
that's fun yeah that is fun
except for pbs yeah the 18 tpp yeah on
up and down our street and
we i can't hear you i'm sorry we
previously had a t
and the problem has always been um
they their prices changed every month
and so the guy said
one price and then i called up to
confirm and
none of the five people three of which
hung up on me uh could have
established the price so i said no a t
no okay so
any discussion about a second generation
5g
supposedly tesla's working on that and
they're only going to be boxes
significantly that are supposed to be um
pretty revolutionary
so i i haven't heard about tesla that
sounds fun though but the
the the reality is that there that is
this is a technology that's
um moving pretty quickly so like you
know there are chips out
that as of a year ago were probably
throwing the signal way further than
the the current ones that were out the
antennas that were out that were you
know requiring this really close spacing
and requiring them to be in front yards
and not alleys so
i think one of our strategies here is to
[Music]
buy us a little bit of time while that
technology matures
because i think we're going to find as
the technology matures there are options
that are much more compatible with our
built environment and that's why we put
in our
design guidelines that uh tree canopy at
maturity was a uh
it was a valid use of the right-of-way
and therefore couldn't have conflict
with these
with these towers and that prohibits
their installation in a whole lot of
areas in the city
and we expect that to be challenged i
wouldn't be surprised if it were
but nonetheless we could you know we can
handle a little bit of challenge
we can hand a little bit of time on it
on the other hand we're going to have
residents that are clamoring for better
cell phone signals as because we know
those dead zones and bexley are
expanding um uh and
uh so in fact you know linda i think you
live right in front of one my phone's
always dropped right where you guys are
i think larry hellman's gone gone
somewhere and put some
surface interrupter out there
[Laughter]
on everything cassidy and broad you'll
always drop your call
yeah so um you know i think it'll be
interesting to see it develop
uh and to see how the that whole
conversation
uh unfolds well i think your delaying
technique is perfect
can maybe add an additional comment um
well first for the folks that are really
clamoring at fort maybe the poll can go
in front of their houses
uh but uh on other matters with our with
our tree lawns
and future tree replacements um and
maybe a question for the mayor and grant
you know take broad street for example
of course i don't know we're pretty big
right-of-way uh there but
when it comes time to replace big trees
will we actually have spots along the
streets to put trees back in
uh when there's such a demand for
cabling and everything else uh in our
tree lines
so our our right away ordinance um
provides us with today the ability to
charge an annual occupancy fee for the
right-of-way that's reasonable
in order to assist with our expenses
associated with the management of the
right-of-way
now we have not done a fantastic job
historically of managing our
right-of-way we really don't have
personnel
uh tied to it like many cities do and so
one of the things that i intend to look
at
as part of this is creating a position
that
helps with the management of the
right-of-way because it is
it is a full-time job i mean like to
actually look at all the different
applications that are coming in to
assess them relative to occupancy of the
right-of-way
um and you know say yes or no and
and give guidance intelligent guidance
to the the users of the right-of-way is
something that we need to be doing
better at
um there's a project that's going down
richard street right now
that's uh occupying uh the
right of way with the fiber project it's
the area behind the curb so it is area
where
where trees are vulnerable um and
grant has been working with it's
actually mci right grant
who knew mci was still around uh as they
as they as they work on that um but you
know i think
these are the sorts of things that with
a little bit more
aggressive and knowledgeable front-end
work we can do a better job of
shepherding
that'd be great mayor i think you know
we'd all be for it
for sure yeah actually ben
street now because he's a seniority
yeah okay thank well mayor thanks for
your report and let's go on to elena and
the update she has on the
brick detail protection
speaking of right-of-ways alrighty so um
with the brick details i spoke with or
emailed back and forth with
um dave koch the city engineer
and asked him what his opinion was for
protecting
the brick herbs and gutters during
construction
and you know because we had gone we had
a note in it in
our um right-of-way
pre-protection detail that we reviewed
um a couple months ago
and we just had a sentence in there
saying you know obviously preserve
all brick and curbs and gutters we
wanted to
make that a little bit more robust and
actually have
some guidelines in there for uh
contractors for them to understand what
we should be doing
and i wasn't sure if you know what is
the best way to actually
protect them and in talking with dave he
said really the best way to protect them
is to take them out
and stockpile the bricks someplace else
and put in like a temporary ramp out of
gravel or plywood or whatever
and then put the bricks back in after
the project is completed
there is no way to reliably protect
the bricks in place either with kind of
burying it underneath gravel putting
plywood over it burying it with dirt
because
the weight of that construction material
very well might collapse and crush all
of that brick
so that is most likely that will be the
direction
of we will be telling people that if
they for whatever
reason need to have a temporary access
into a site
that we're going to be asking them that
they actually remove that area of brick
protect it and then bring it back in
place
we also um dug up and found
the details for what we would like the
brick and curb
gutter details to actually look like and
there are some old drawings that i will
cat up and kind of make them look a
little more
spiffy and kind of match with the tree
protection detail
that we've already drawn up and then
that will be included
within that two or three page document
now that will go out to
um be a part of the application process
and so everyone will actually
be able to see that um
somewhat related to that i am going to
be walking um
the city streets with larry and susan
and we're going to be looking at all of
the current areas where we have the
brick and the curb details
you know potentially even just taking
some photographs i think sometimes
having maybe photographs or better
than having an autocad drawing that we
can include in that
information just so we have a better
understanding of
where are those located and you know
when projects potentially occur on those
streets
is there a way that we can kind of flag
it as this is something that we need to
be
more aware of so like that
yeah thank you elena and might you um
send out the brick details that you
uncovered
and so you know perhaps some of our
landscape architects could review those
and see if they still think they're
appropriate again the the other thing we
might
consider i don't know how far out the
city's capital improvement
planning goes but what
as as funding becomes available and or
what's most appropriate to receive a
grant for
what streets will be paved what streets
will be just
surface coated what streets will be torn
up and then how does that
impact the inventory of brick curb
streets
yeah all right that's a good point and
that's certainly something we can keep
communication with you on
especially now that grant is the
assistant service director
right we tend to cement those no pun
intended
uh plans for the year in early
in the early part of the of the year so
2021 that'll be
you know we'll be going uh between now
and early 2021
to to bid on those projects so we'll
know and we know
we have our opwc projects lined up a
couple years in advance
so for example drexel south drexel
and grandin are the streets that are
coming up
i think next summer elena i have a
question for you it's celeste
uh when the brick is put back
is there going to be a um some
instruction as to
what it how to set that i know that some
people
i've seen
businesses leave it as the best they can
but it's not
it's not up to the standards at which
they it first started
when they yes and that that is what the
details are that we will be
i'll circulate out for everyone to kind
of review um
and then that's what would be attached
to the documentation so to sort of say
hey this is what we expect it
to look like and this is how you need to
install it
and so it can actually you know we have
something to fall back on
if it looks bad we could be like look
this is the detail that you know
the city standard expects you need to
replace it and make it look like this
okay and it's all done curious or they
just dig out the angle and leave it
what is the preferred way do they is
there a certain sand base you put on
there or
you just mostly lay it on that angle and
build from there
it is right now how it depends on where
it is
so um there's some areas where it might
be close to where the concrete is if
it's closer to an apron
if it is just basically around the um
on the street it is essentially just
over gravel and so they just build up
the angle over a compacted gravel base
you get that angle certain grade of
gravel okay
you know the great news about having the
detail and elena review
reviewing the landscape installations is
that she can check
to see if you know the brick has been
installed correctly instead of maybe
just laid in
with no mortar so
that's a that's a real step real real
step forward i think in protecting the
curb
yeah any questions for ellen about this
okay eleanor we'll just wait to get it
and and see how it looks
grand i i think you probably have a busy
fall
actually it's going to be not very busy
um oh i'm so glad it's uh
all hands on deck on leaf pickup so
my crews will all be out picking up
leaves with the rest of the street
department
okay do you want to yeah so
i i mean do you want to explain that a
little bit more
uh so normally we hire ctc
seasonals which are from lancaster
they're
you know just out of prison and looking
for work
so we bring them in we bring about 15 of
those
people in and they do the leap pickup
with the street department
um having the kogit restrictions we've
decided not to do that
this year and so we're just going to use
all the service employees to pick up
these
okay any questions for grant about that
so what does that mean as far as like
the tree take down stump grinding
that kind of thing those will all be put
on hold until
we're done picking up leads which is in
january
okay okay i have a question about
it's a combining um our survey our
canopy survey that we've been doing in
the right of way that we feel that
really needs to be taken down should we
be checking with grant to see
that it is on his list i found a big old
maple that hardly has anything in the
interior of it
and i feel sorry for the people whose
car is going to get smashed
not that i'm in the position to choose
what comes down
right i just want to make sure it didn't
get overlooked some of these trees are
really bad
well why don't we're going to get to
that in a little bit under old business
celeste so
let's hold that question very good okay
any
questions for grant we know where we'll
find him
okay grant you want to move down to the
next page where we talk about old
business
okay so um i have asked
jeremy cantor from planet geo to give us
a price on doing a tree canopy study
their assessments usually involve the
tree canopy study and then
three or four other type of
i guess numbers and so he he is going to
get that to me by the end of october and
i'll circulate it to everybody
so you can see what it is i did tell him
that we knew
arlington's cost twenty thousand dollars
and we were not as big as arlington so
we expected ours to be
less and he wrote back and he said we're
one quarter the size of arlington
so up rarington so we'll see what that
means
and then you know i wanted to follow up
we talked about grant i think you talked
about how
you found the volcano mulches
contributing to the demise of
many of the trees you're scheduled to
take down and we talked about
putting something in the blast are we
still thinking that's
a good course of action
uh yeah i mean i think timing is the
best
option for that i mean right now people
aren't going to be thinking about
volcano
mulching so um it would be more like
late
winter early spring okay okay let's put
that i'll put that in then
uh grant just as a just internally
you probably know this already but sam
keeps a document about when to put
things in the blast and you can tom
right now that you want it and
whenever you want it in the future and
it'll be there for the future
as a reminder okay
okay um so we we're going to talk about
just
just a quick overview of surveying the
community how are the tree walks coming
any impressions today
any help needed i know larry has done
some i know molly and
and she's gotten her dog and her husband
out walking with her
barb ellen and i uh have done some so
any thoughts about what you're finding
or if you need some help discerning what
is
you know what you need to keep track of
i'm a little bit overwhelmed but there
are so many maples i would love to have
a greater variety
of right-of-way trees
um larry do you have any any impressions
first impressions
uh yeah i uh first i think it's a great
thing for us all to do it it didn't take
it scared me a little bit because i
thought it was going to take a lot more
time
it doesn't uh you just stay with it you
can knock it off pretty quickly
um yeah a couple things i think
some of our big streets parkview
columbia drexel
are in good shape but with drexel we
have
and i'll have the numbers in front of me
maybe 15 to 20 volcanoes
to where you know kind of the whole
upper crown of the root ball
is above above gray and
if we lose all of those trees drexel is
going one of our
probably one of our premier streets
because the drexel circle
uh and in some places we have kind of
the double candidate
canopy where the trees back from the
street trees to
create kind of a colonnade that street's
going to substantially change in
character
so um i i am no expert on the volcanoes
but if having a substantial amount of
the root ball above grade
uh is the long-term demise of the tree
drexel is going to be a
a big change okay molly do you have any
you know kind of first impressions
well you know my first impressions are i
mean there's there's some great mature
trees
then the one streets that we did south
bexley and
north bexley you can definitely tell the
difference when you have
narrow right i mean small lawn strips
and wide wall on strips
the one thing i notice is like on um
a couple streets where we have right
away behind the sidewalk in front of the
sidewalk it was mixed i mean
some trees were in front some were back
i think if we could go every other one
one on the street one back
it would kind of alternate those we
might have a better chance for trees
when we have that kind of room um
it's just it wasn't consistent but you
know it's still
the trees are the trees are there and
they're fine i didn't see many volcanoes
and larry you know
when the third of the ball or quarter of
the ball is above ground that's actually
standard
planting practices now to plant high
because of our clay soils so
i think that's normal i guess those are
my
my my um
my thoughts your takeaways they say yeah
yes my takeaways i guess
um our how how far have we gotten
do we know i mean are we 25 50 percent
of coverage
you mean how how how much has happened
to the city have we done
oh um well i i don't know because not
everybody's reported back in
i have sort of set november 1st as the
target date
and it's kind of it's kind of like you
know getting your term paper done i
haven't asked
anybody if they have completed their job
yet because i don't want to put them on
the spot
well i agree with larry though it's very
quick
i mean you know you just i i
again and the other the other thing i
guess i do want to say
is you know on uh the mayor's list which
is great
where the utilities are there's a lot of
times you just can't tell you can see
um a drainage cut and maybe
you can see a little uh
cap of a meter but that's about it
there's a lot of guesswork on utilities
and celeste i'd say to your point you
know
that let you know write down as many
things
as you can if you see a tree that's you
know
coming to a quick end write it down i
i'm i'm
i'm assuming i'm betting you know ten
dollars grant has it on his list but
you know we're we as a city are asking
him to do lots of things that don't give
him a chance to be on the streets so
if we can provide a little you know
bibliography of
of dying trees for him you know then he
can go check them when he is
is able well the one tree i'm thinking
of in particular it's in the northeast
area uh just south i should say south of
the police department there are a lot of
nice old maples but and the tree
actually didn't look as
as the leaf that were left didn't look
as bad
but the interior my dog put her whole
head inside of
and yeah and so driving by it
i mean it is it is a walking jo it's
really important that we're doing this
because walking it and and looking on
all sides of the tree
really makes the job worthwhile
really gives us the important
information that we need and then some
celeste what species is your dog
there you go yeah she's not she's not a
hound
i do want to say one more thing as far
as
you know the streets that i were on so
much celtics and north packs there's a
lot there's crab apples here and there
crab apples look terrible this time of
year it's probably apple scab
so you don't know until spring how those
crabs are going to look
right well some of us have very strong
opinions on
on the viability of crab apples in our
community so
we're only restrained by good behavior
well
i agree they're not my favorite tree but
if they're
vibrant and healthy in the spring it
would be in poor
i think not great judgment take them
down when they look good i mean you know
if they're looking good
right i i understand that sentiment
i like to tell people tim wilson that
all of the
um sweet gums were in really fabulous
condition
oh no jim would not be happy with this
one
people that had to walk over the balls
in good condition
[Laughter]
i have been interested that you know in
a couple streets not that have been in
my territory but that i have
found a couple that seem to me to be
ripe for a lot of additional trees
a lot i mean how many does that mean
five eight ten
so i mean that's exciting to me because
i think that you know we could make a
big difference in a few areas
so again looking at november first for
target dates and let us know if uh
if you have any any challenges i'd like
to add one
more thing and and emphasize or support
molly and her
and her um statement that i think it
would be
a good practice for us to alternate the
front
by either side of the sidewalk i think
that'd be really helpful some of these
smaller properties and provide canopy
without blocking uh one tree out from
the other
molly were those mature trees
yes so like um let's say
here where were we on ardmore so you'd
have like
five trees on the street which gives a
great canopy
over the street but then half the black
or behind the sidewalk
so you don't have the canopy over the
street but you obviously it's very
viable for the trees to grow behind the
sidewalk so
if we alternated we would have some
street
canopy and then have solid trees behind
them
somewhat like drexel but alternating not
double rows
so green because that's a bit
surprisingly i thought we were working
on triangulating the trees so
yeah that's why i was curious grant you
may you may want to speak to this
but i i think when um
we started identifying recommended
street trees for
every street and uh we're working with
your predecessor there was some attempt
on ardmore to move the trees behind the
sidewalk
because they'd been planted between the
sidewalk and the curb so perhaps we
haven't
you know we haven't transitioned yet
because the trees between the sidewalk
and the curb haven't died to allow us to
have a
you know i guess a 100 percent look i
mean do you have any comment on that
uh yeah i think uh i can't remember the
last time we've replaced the tree on
ardmore
maybe one or two in the last few years
um
so yeah that transition probably isn't
happening happening very fast
um second of all some of the ride away
like the closer to main street or broad
street
they go away or they're angled so you
can't plant behind the sidewalk and that
might be
some reason why some are between the
curve and sidewalk
and then also
[Music]
trees could have been removed in the
front yard
years ago that you know prior to
planting
or after planting street trees that
they were put out between the curve and
sidewalk and now the homeowner has
removed the tree in the front yard
it's it's bare so i mean there's a bunch
of different reasons
why that it looks that way i know
remington north remington is like that
in some areas we have a lot of the
larger silver maples i think that are
behind the sidewalk some of the younger
lindens that are between the curve and
sidewalk
but yeah i agree with
grant i did do north remington too so i
agree with you
and uh if you go into south back so you
can't do behind side with too
tight it's i don't know what the right
of ways were it's very obvious when the
trees are lined up
what's behind the sidewalk city wise and
and what isn't
it's it was obvious so um but you know
on the whole i was impressed
bexy looks really good i can't walk
through columbus streets and it looks
like this
oh good good we like the compliments
i mean yeah there's always room for
improvement but
you know it's such a great community
good well take that do we leave notes at
people's houses
with the uh with the volcanoes to tell
them that
it's done improperly i don't think we've
come up with a plan for that yet
um i think that's a that's a good uh
winter project that
we should all think about i remember 10
15 years ago
in march we had a breakfast meeting with
a lot of the larger
landscape contractors that work in
bexley and reviewed
you know the requirements but grant if
you
um or you and ellen would like to come
up with some sort of plan for us
to address that situation either
leaving door hangers or contacting
landscape companies or both
you know i think again we could be
helpful
if you you know if you have some way for
us to participate
yeah we'll talk i don't i don't know
that anybody out there that doesn't know
volcano mulching is bad since the people
that are actually doing the work
being lazy um
and trying to get off the job quicker i
mean
yeah i was going to say but i you know i
maybe just again all we can do is try
and communicate i i
guess we can call companies
after they've mulched on the city trees
and and asked them to come back and
remove it i mean perhaps there's some
follow-up
um i don't know if we find them i mean
but i you know trying to communicate
maybe
first would be the best maybe that these
the homeowner requests it or does it
themselves you know
so um go ahead
i guess i have one other thing to add
because when i was walking around
um and some of the oaks need some
trimming because they're
in the sidewalk but despite dubecca
residents know because i've seen
two yards where they pruned their oaks
heavy
a year ago in the summer and they're
dying of oak quilt
and is there anyone to tell them do not
prune oaks
right now oaks shouldn't be pruned
unless they're dormant
totally dormant right well again no
i don't think so i don't i see some
massive oaks that are
going to die because of heavy pruning
right
um i feel bad yeah that'd be great
education for our our arboretum webpage
yep i agree um i would
grant i was looking in the last uh
last month did you say that there were
70 trees that were going to be coming
down this fall
uh 67 i think was a number
and with the money with the finances are
we going to be able to get to all those
eventually yeah okay that's great
we have to not till january says not
till january
there's a big one on broad yeah there
are a couple
okay okay let's go on to new business
um dave herlicka the code enforcement
officer uh
didn't have the time this week to get
the information to me on the
effectiveness of the tree stump removal
ordinance
so we'll hold that until november
molly had suggested i have to give molly
the
uh kudos here that we look at creating
a volunteer gardening group to help
with some of the aspects of
of tending the planting areas that the
city doesn't do
and that yard barbers doesn't do and so
we've talked about over the
the winter months maybe in january
putting some
loose regulations in place if any of you
would like to be part of that
group we'll probably meet offline from
this group and see what we can come up
with that we can be
of assistance but not be taking jobs
away from
city employees or from the contracted
people
and uh finding areas that grant things
that we could be helpful in
and again just starting with a small
number so we're not managing people as
well as trying to
manage properties and then um
april 2021 we talked about it being our
you know creating an arbor month
and having information in the bexley
blast every week
so um again i i think it'd be great if
we came up with the subject matter
you know in the next few months about
what we wanted each of those
those uh blasts to emphasize
so you know april seems like a long way
away
but it's it's not it's not
so again if anybody has any ideas what
they think are the most important things
grant if you do
you know it could be most volcanoes it
could be the pruning it could be
how much water do you put on a new tree
you know kind of kind of all those
things
and that's all i had for new business
what did anybody else have anything
additional
to follow up um after we talked about
kind of the long-running project of the
north cassidy improvements
i realized that um i didn't review
for people the overall plan uh
and so i i want to take just a minute
and
and if people couldn't read that
information well
to mention quickly which buildings are
going to be torn down
acquired and torn down so the next time
you drive through that intersection
uh you can begin to imagine how
different it's going to look
obviously the big warehouse building on
the corner is gone
the junkie service station
repair shop that's gone the house that's
to the east of that
that's reuben's that's gone the two
apartment buildings that are directly
across from the church on cassidy
uh that are pretty ramshackled those are
both gone
and that northeast quadrant across from
the church
will become green space that's going to
be a retention basin i don't think
anybody knows
exactly what that's going to look like
so now you have to hope that the
buildings that are behind the retention
basin
are going to look okay but the point
being there will be a lot of visual
change
taking place at that intersection it'll
certainly be a lot more open
and visible and an improvement so
i i apologize we didn't talk about that
when it came up the last time
uh so i thought i'd take that
opportunity to uh to bring that up
is there any um is there any aspect of
the installation
that we need to try and leverage to
have a standard that may be different
than what city of columbus is proposing
i there there may be you know again the
the
the biggest issue with all of this it's
so long and drawn out
uh and you know the path to getting a
final
or or even kind of a design plan as
opposed to kind of just the acquisition
plan they have now
uh is still out there a bit
uh so once i we just need to stay in
contact with them
uh even if it is once every six months
and
uh i think we have a good or a good
sense of what might happen along the
street
in terms of planting areas for our for
trees
that's probably going to be simple
enough whether we'll have a say
or could cabot some on the northeast
corner
that may be a stretch but they're not at
that design stage left so i think we
just have to stay in touch with them
any questions for larry about that
great okay any other new business
uh one second real quickly if we can
talk about cassidy i just thought of
something
um if that's okay so yes that's great uh
the bike plan public workshop
was richard was the public workshop of
the steering committee i'm getting
everything
blurred in my head the steering
committee last week public workshops
monday night
yeah okay gearing up for the public
workshop so there's a bike planned under
wayne bexley
um there was discussion about the north
cassidy uh
project one of the members of our bike
plan
study group who is a bexley resident
is also an engineer with the city of
columbus or i think he's the head
actually of um uh
robert ferran molly do you know what his
his role is
i think he's he has he has a role in the
street department
i think planning engineering does it
doesn't ring a bell to me
i mean i don't know where he's at so he
was talking about the fact that there's
a multi-use
path as part of the north cassidy
project that will be on
as currently planned i think the
multi-use path is on the
west side of north cassidy terminates at
the railroad tracks
and then we're gonna our plan is to
create a little bit of a sidewalk
connector to get it
over there that doesn't impact the
gateway future but there is conversation
in that bike group like how do we pick
up on that multi-use path and create a
bike route along cassidy and bexley
and i don't know before everyone freaks
out
that could take a lot of different
iterations but um
that is a discussion i just wanted you
guys to be aware that that was happening
at least in very high concept and
there's a public workshop
on monday or next week
uh it's on a city calendar if it's not
monday it's i think it's monday
um so anyone who's interested that's
happening just let me know
so i guess mayor kessler i think you
know what's the regional plan to come
down cassidy and where does it connect
i mean could it turn down del mar and
then connect up to allen creek or
yeah so i think guess where can it go in
columbus
the east west like mountain vernon isn't
that right
long street so you could see clifton
would have something maybe so there's
that's exactly the top conversation
molly is how what are we tying into and
how are we tying into it and how are we
part of a network as opposed to just our
own little
internal i mean maybe it's broad street
and i don't know
mayor i was going to remind you that the
bexley beautification fund or the
i think it was the bexley community
foundation has already voted 18
000 to help with that design plan
so ellie and i were discussing it today
okay good job
good job that piggyback on that
uh when we did the medians we faced that
same issue
and and broad street became quote kind
of a shared
multi-use uh platform uh
cassidy right now is a major bike route
uh on the in the mornings and other time
there's just a ton of people going up
you know they're all dressed in their
stuff and they're doing it uh so at the
very least it's a shared
uh pavement um i don't think most
serious bikers get on a path that that
then stops at the street picks back up
so it's not like an expanded sidewalk on
one side
would be effective in our community uh
across the
the multi-youth past is exactly that
for the cassidy improvement as it goes
uh north of the railroad tracks
because they're not even any sidewalks
there and so that becomes the everything
that's the sidewalk the bike path
and then it becomes obviously the
connection at fifth where you're still
on the sidewalk as you head down to the
bikeway
right yeah and i agree i mean i know
that
um clifton in eastgate they have bike
paths
designated in eastgate but it doesn't go
anywhere
and it hits clifton and it's nowhere so
i don't
know there's it's kind of fragmented
yeah at least in vex i mean clifton
would take you to the bike
the bike trail that and on as a cyclist
sort of
uh as a as a seasonal
um lightweight cyclist that has
nonetheless uh completed several
pelotonias
as in training i can tell you that
cassidy in bexley feels totally
different than it does when you get
north obviously in johnstown road and
all those
all those other areas so of you know
as long as the service is in good shape
the safety environment and cassidy for
dedicated road
road cyclists is pretty fantastic so
i don't think the conversation isn't is
is
right now very open box and there's so
many different ways to create a
designated bike route it
you know a lot of us maybe go right to
like uh or sorry a lot of us go to like
a designated lane
or a separate lane but there are many
many other ways to treat
uh bike rats that have to do more with
markings and designations and that sort
of thing so
let's see how it goes and feel free
obviously to participate in any of those
workshops
okay anything else under new business if
not
we'll go to richard for a city council
report or
update or an overview
so um sorry i'm trying to
find which of my tabs have my notes on
it
um at the next council meeting we'll
have the third reading of the
of ordinance 42-20 the tree line
ordinance um and so
that will be finished at that time most
likely i don't see any oppo
i haven't heard any opposition to it
and then um as we
we mentioned earlier 43-19 the
the cell phone right away ordinance may
be discussed
brought off the table at the next
meeting
but i think the mayor talked enough
about that earlier
and that's about it i believe
um from council standpoint we did have a
finance committee um meeting last night
to preliminarily discuss
the 2021 budget
i just wanted everyone to
know that while this year bexley is
relatively
in a good position given the covet
pandemic
financially next year could be a
different story
the mayor in anticipation of that had
put a freeze on capital projects and new
hiring
for this current year once the pandemic
started
and it's going to be his proposal that
we carry over appropriations that we
made this year to next year
but not to appropriate any new capital
improvement
money to the budget
unless mid-year things look
better than we anticipate it might be
that doesn't mean that we won't be
looking at
projects or
keeping the discussion going about
previously approved
items such as the commonwealth master
plan which i'm
bringing that up to you and the bike
plan
so that there may be some things that we
can do within the budget
to keep those projects moving forward
as far as planning for future um future
years but
that's the way it looks at this point so
i know it was mentioned earlier about
a capital improvement budget
item idea so i i don't want
someone to get their hopes up and not
see it in the budget
well we're grateful for the forward uh
stewardship of the city's finances
we we know i mean we we know because
we've been living it
for six months and we thought it was
gonna be six weeks that
you know the pandemic is now i read it i
think in the wall street journal
they're looking at july of 2024
is sort of the end of this coveted
period
and the ramifications so it's it's out
there any questions for richard
okay any any other questions any
discussion items
any concerns any plot it's any
compliments
seems like it's a good time to say good
night then
and we'll see you wednesday november
18th at 2020
of 2020 at four o'clock thank you all so
much and good luck on your street
walking
thank