everyone nice to see all of you for our
last october council meeting welcome
everyone who has come to join us
[Music]
nice to see you
everyone nice to see all of you for our
laughs
all right please remember why we are
here we are here for the
effectsly we'll call mr auditor
here mr conglomerate here is lamke mr
markham yes robinson assad mr sharp
of yeah
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under god indivisible with
liberty and justice
all right item number four presentation
set we are waiting to applaud our
architects until next week to make a
show right right okay so that will
happen next week so we get to the point
of public comment um
i
know that there's lots of speaker slips
i want to remind everybody that our
rules in this in
in the chamber is that you need to give
us your first and your last name so that
it's recorded on the speaker and your
address please okay again so that it's
you know on our recorder
mr auditor several and
i was asked to put him in a certain
order and i have peter white first all
right
thank you well madam president
thank you for having me back again um
uh so um and then i said i'd love to
talk to you more about it i'm sure
through the issues we try to understand
the data and we try to understand
solutions
we absolutely agree with you manchester
united uh let's go shout out obviously
over the last year and a half members of
brad had multiple meetings with you by
members of city council as highlighted
in our report under manchester's
leadership problem operation profiling
appears to be getting worse
to share our data to request a meeting
with city council go over our reports
he suggested giving a slide presentation
and having a discussion
um
which would allow you guys to ask us
questions
however we've denied that request and so
we would have to limit our to public
comment and that there should be no open
vote
we push back on the council's decision
by starting our presentation on
september 14th
and then again on september 28th
with our hope
[Music]
um
by comparison the traffic
that citation
but what was complicated was actually
getting the data
the city uses a functionality dispatch
system called tritec inc
and that utilizes a back end of the sql
database
the
the system is perhaps not as complicated
so if
[Music]
yourself results and i agree with this
explanation
um
so according to the bpt policy
bpd policy manual section 504.2
so to explain our data collection
process
we simply made the topic wrapped in this
request
over the course of several months we'll
receive 23 batches of citations
in the first place we receive them
received the race payment was missing
in the second batch
both citizens raced an address were
omitted
when we asked why both citizens faced an
address would missing this is
[Music]
minutes
does anybody object to the two minutes
um for those citations not following
their jurisdiction
from their cmc
these citations including the race that
address that
citizen can be retrieved
using their system
these
[Music]
attorney general's office the reform
were informed that there is no legal
president could not include race
as members of the city council one
question you should be asking
is why was the member of his self
devised to react with the information
furthermore why is the use of racism
increased
attitude
in both locations and warpings
in just a few
failing years
accurate accurately capture from race
data
failure to release citation reports
we've raised data puts the lines of
latitude
that perpetrates discriminatory policing
[Music]
a team of eight social justice
anti-racism warrior presidents
with me tonight
another license data over several
hundred episodes
although we took considerable care over
our work budgets
now we've heard the details of the
complexity of the process we're forced
to take
it is perhaps not surprising we may have
missed some expectations
can you finish up the next second two
seconds please um
okay
um
for at least six weeks prior to
presenting it and let me share the
citations
he said we're visiting we would have
corrected it so how do we move forward
from here i'm sure you agree that our
preliminary study warrants an expanded
investigation of the data and speaking
with the company that makes the
computer-aided dispatch software used by
the police department
it discovered that the data created as a
simple exporting system that would
totally avoid the potential for error
and save all the extra work we have to
do to determine the risks of the person
cited learning this on friday october
22nd we made a formal public
records request
for all traffic citation accident and
arrest status for the tritec imc from
the past seven years we have provided
the mirror of the simple steps that
tritec imc support gave us to prepare an
immediate export given the best system
is the original system of record for
race data and is mandated by the ptt
police department policy manuals
this new data export will allow us to
expand our analysis beyond the six
months and resolve any questions as into
as to the integrity of our analysis we
hope to have this data within the next
week and we will be back to city council
to present those extended finances i
trust that the members of city council
will do everything we can to encourage
the mayor to release the data to us and
then
ready to grow
and i'm also here to just uh address
some of the comments that
may have made
uh i wish that we could actually
have a talk about this so we don't have
this back and forth
matt
in our analysis
there was a chart
that showed that some officers were
citing up to 90 blackboard black
citizens
we intentionally left off the names of
these police officers to protect our
identity
because we did not want
to blame a handful of officers for
failures of the entire institution
this is not a condemnation
our police officers are now breaking the
law
that are enforcing the laws enacted by
city council under the direction of the
security director manchester united
in our role the mayor is the ultimate
authority of the ohio police force
the chief and everyone
under the chief reports up to them
we support our police
when they are doing right
but it is our responsibility as citizens
who pay their salaries
to hold them accountable when they do
wrong
particularly
when the mayor refuses to do so
it is important to understand that all
those good things our officers do
and we all acknowledge those things
are all overshadowed by one bad thing
all it takes is one bad thing
to mess up the whole thing to mess up
all of them
and in this case it's russian profile
a famous poet by the name of maya
angelou once said that at the end of the
day people won't remember what you said
or did they remember how you made them
feel
and it should be a tragedy of ever
proportioned and completely unacceptable
for any member of our society to leave
an interaction
the mayor stated we turn as a society
increasingly
to toxic social media sparring
productive dialogue and productive
dialogues and impossible when it's
permeated by gotcha culture that focuses
on condemnation
slander is the action or crime of making
a false spoken statement damaging
to a person's reputation
i actually had that to happen to me a
few months to go there
and if this statement is directed to
brett this is an egregiously false and
dangerous statement by the way
the mayor wants to paint the picture
that prayers against the police
we are not against the police
we are against discriminatory policies
we are against institutional assistance
racism
we are appropriate
accountability
we have social justice and anti-racism
anti-racism-minded police officers as
members of prayer
providing us with expertise on police
policy and the need for this family who
practices discriminatory policing
we do not believe that this is
ultimately followed by police officers
this is an institutional problem
and if all of our officers were good
if the institution is bad that makes all
of our officers
our officers are acting under the
direction of the safety director and in
this case the safety director is
[Music]
there's no reason to deny this problem
exist
other than to continue
it is that places not only
not only the at the base of the
community but cities across the country
just recently the city of philadelphia
passed the driving equality bill to put
it into discriminatory policing policing
practices that punish this
to do something like this requires
humility
and compassion the basic level of
humanity for play
this bill seeks to accomplish the exact
same thing that our good neighbor
ordered and seeks to accomplish which is
an end to
criminalizing poor black people
now you all say that you're working to
build a more equitable and inclusive
community
i find this hard to believe
because you have not done the necessary
research to find out where there is a
lack of equity included
and if you will completely dismiss a
report that shows where there is a lack
of equity including
how on earth can you be working to fix
the problem
thank you
thank you mr do we have any other
several
yeah kevin acting i have and i
was told i could speak in any order
[Music]
whatever that was uh
summer breaks i came home worked at the
summer camp for years so i've lived in
vegas 37 years
and as a 37-year veteran president i am
here tonight to request that the city of
best and bexley city council in
particular enact the good neighbor
ordinances as proposed by prayer at the
last day of counseling
i really just want to say before i
conclude i'm a fourth grade teacher
and it's all about in my classroom
number one thing
treat others
that's what it's all about we all have
dreams that start a school year with
dreams
dreams to turn them into reality all the
protestants take a whole lot of self
determination dedication discipline and
hard work
they also take an opportunity for an
environment
[Music]
matthew rieber
hi my name is matthew rieber i'm a four
year vaccine resident at 810 in south
casting
i'm here as a resident of bexley to
request that you enact the good neighbor
ordinances this
proposed by rare at the last city
council
thank you
mr auditorium
yes good evening my name is brian
blansky i am a sixth year varsity
resident residing at 98th north
remington
i am also here this morning
support
and i
have sure
um
thank you thank you
um
i do not have anything um madame
president i have a point of order real
quickly sure i just feel like when when
we have a situation like this where we
have
uh public comment or actually any any
comment directly
going towards one elected official i
think it's fair that we just have a
brief
opportunity to respond and i just want
to briefly respond to say that
there was a lot of inference that i
somehow
manipulated the way that data was or i
had a role in data presentation or
preparation i had absolutely no role in
that just to be clear on that
um
it's okay i don't i don't need it i just
i listen listen
there were many things said just now
that
there's a whole lot of inference
and a whole lot of
jumping to conclusions and a whole lot
of bridging logic
attributed
actions to me and inferred actions or
statements to me that were not accurate
and so i just wanted the record on my
perspective to reflect that and i
appreciate and respect that you have a
different perspective perhaps
that some of those comments were
mischaracterized and
um i would just encourage anybody who
hears any of this to
look at the record and reach out to
anyone
if they have questions thank you
i appreciate that
um
i will make one other note that
citizens are more than welcome our
emails are listed
[Music]
to meet with individuals
we have we would we will
need to reach out to each other
you had your opportunity to speak i am
speaking
and we're going to we're going to move
on
if this is not helpful
um
i
[Music]
i think it was
like an ordinance
all right i do not have
anything specific to report um
i attended with
many of you the harvest festival which
was
another great
um opportunity for
our community to gather together and
to build the strong bonds that we're
used to and it was really nice and kudos
of course always the right department
so um
[Music]
so actually i just received a couple of
emails before and just now during the
meeting indicating that the attorney
representing the homeowners challenging
back up as council knows but for anyone
listening the court of common police
issued a decision on a procedural matter
relating to the appeal of the livingston
avenue um connie donald you listen
um of the
issued a procedural order regarding the
um
livingston avenue appeals specifically
as council you know as as everyone knows
here that that council uh enough council
members to accuse themselves for various
reasons um and uh therefore just
sent the appeal to kind of a police
court or allowed her to go there common
police court judge ruled that the city
council is obligated to
hear the appeal
and that is scheduled of course as you
know for november 8th um i want to make
a specific comment now we could then put
it on the record later on regarding
those members of the cic who had
indicated that they were concerned
during the appeal in my opinion and i
spoke cunningham in her opinion
those reasons are no longer
the fact that you sit on the three of
you sit on
the cic is not a a reason not to hear
the appeal that there is no conflict at
least the way i read the court's
decision again the court didn't come
right out and say that but the court did
say that city council should hear the
appeal um again we can talk about that
in more detail between now and november
8th but the other thing that was the
context the other thing i wanted to just
report to you is that
the attorney for the
challengers the homeowners who
challenged the visa decision
has a conflict on november 8th
pursuant to our rules
uh and the ordinance uh
the only way to continue it is that both
sides uh agree to the continuance i am
hopeful that we don't have to get into a
battle over
and pretty optimistic that although i
don't know for sure that the attorney
for
uh tcp would agree to a continuance and
if so then we'll just work on another
date sometime between november 8th and
the end of the year but that'll be able
to beat her
just a heads up that's all
if they waited if they waived the 30-day
requirement you know
if again if the attorney for tcb does
not waive that requirement and again
[Music]
so just that's the update thank you i
also want to um i know
asking for a continuance catherine
emailed him back and said that's great
both sides have to agree that both sides
agree that we'll start looking at
another date as of now we have the
hearing on the aid and again that
hearing as a reminder is includes griefs
to be submitted by even both sides and
so choose seven days in advance and of
course if that happens we'll make sure
they get out to all the council members
and then 20-minute oral argument that
evening
and then a decision to be rendered at
some time thereafter
so when will we know
we're getting close now because we're in
right november versus
that's right
but i would hope in the next couple days
that we'll know that there's a
continuance and basically
it would be my recommendation to go
ahead and grant that continuance i don't
think you need any formal action to
grant the continuance
i'll figure that out with council
president about her formal how to do
that and then we'll just everyone will
put their calendars together the lawyers
first and let us know when they're
available and then you know work on
getting a new date for the hearing if
the continuance is agreed to by both
sides and the next this would have to be
concluded though by the end of the year
no it doesn't technically yeah
the hope that yeah that was the email
from katherine
we'll look at day 2.
i just want to mention what amazing rock
stars you guys all were trying to help
figure out the dates so thank you for
your flexibility thank you for being
honest and saying that date really is
powerful i'll try and um thanks for just
being totally flexible no matter what
the date was
we all have our strengths well and i
have to apologize because
we were looking at these dates to fit it
women's of 30 day and if but also give
us 15 days so we're looking at the 11
11th and 12th and then all of a sudden a
knee jerk with elbows weren't available
the fourth or fifth in the morning and
said what about the eight i said
and i'm like of
course blew that so i'm sorry he said
amazing
[Music]
i have no life i can do any and all
those notes
[Laughter]
[Music]
we need to shake these guys up a little
bit turn them around
yeah yes we started leaf season
yesterday and as of right now second day
into it uh we're doing okay all the
equipment is running and
that's really all i have i don't have
anything to add to my written report
well tonight thank you thank you and
thank you anybody have anything um
um
i just wanted to say a huge thank you to
the indian team last monday it seems
like a month ago now um with all that
we've done recently but for coming out
and having some guys uh work extra the
morning of ashley's last tuesday to
install the backgrounds in front of the
library in front of michael garcia's in
front of gramercy um you guys were
amazing to get that done we got it done
to honor um our local artists and their
artwork and it all went so smoothly and
i knew that
um a million other things so thanks for
making that a priority and um
thank you
be healthy
all right
reinhardt is up next cheers
hello madam president
how are you
good thank you how are you doing
good
detective ricky never
thank you um
for sharing all that uh i told uh
i wrote to keep it his uh reports are
always so wonderful that you know what
he has some seriously good material so
good good
all right anybody have any questions for
the chiefs
all right keep up the good work we're
going to see you in a whole minute
yes ma'am thank you all right we'll see
you in a bit thank you michael price
on location or in
[Laughter]
[Music]
nothing to add to my revenue
i have nothing to add to my written
report anybody
we're all gonna give you snacks for that
great harvester it was amazing
[Music]
yes thank you uh thank you mayor and
thank you mayor and tim pitts for all
the chili it was delicious
our pleasure
[Music]
i guess that's a good
question
yeah not a question just a way to go
mike um they uh had an official back to
the nfl flag football season and parents
cheerleaders everyone was having a great
time and the weather was not great on
sunday and mike was definitely working
overtime and syllabus trying to get
games scheduled
um between very committed coaches and
teams so just uh just want to remind the
community how much
extra mike price puts into our community
and making things work and getting it
done um many extra hours so thanks the
community loves the flag football and
being out there so thanks for all your
hard work as always
thank you well thank you jess i would be
remiss to say that that that program
works because of all the volunteer
uh volunteer coaches and uh really
appreciate all that they do the time
energy they put in uh to support the
kids and give them that opportunity so
but i appreciate that thank you
rain or shine enough and and the hardest
time is birthday
all right
can we get some doilies for those chairs
[Music]
um
i was kind of guessing that when the
community foundation had done meeting
that might have
been
uh
dedication
celebration but that's been first until
march
yeah um
richard yeah the intent was when they
were going to do that and i think early
october
uh it was going to be here but due to
the resurgence of covid and the delta
variant they postponed that
um and that was going to be sort of the
the grand opening of the space so we're
going to look at trying to do that i
think i think as you mentioned i think
that's rescheduled for march
and hopefully uh we'll be able to do
that come march in a you know safe
environment uh but that is i think the
plan at this point
all right thank you guys for mr price
thank you mr price
all right um
mr auditor
hi two things um
just before i forget it we have from the
ohio division of liquor control
a request for a renewable liquor
permit or
speedway
unless somebody tells me otherwise i'm
just going to post this harassment post
violence i don't think there's any
action there
okay moving on um
you have the uh
september report
uh looks still good we're getting more
money than we
uh expected i did after our conversation
uh
last time
[Music]
asked beecher to rerun some of the
numbers
one of the reasons that this is up is
because we
our income tax we suggested
a possible decrease and i asked feature
to rerun it
with an increase and even with that
increase
we still are collecting more money than
we had budgeted so
we're
in even better shape and assuming this
holds
we should be fine but
i'll have to wait and see um money
bill the only reason why the grant first
is
actually i think grants are down but i
think the spending is also down
i don't have that up here but
grant revenue is
we vitre and i talked about looking at
that again because like for example the
community foundation grant revenue
should be coming in there and
we've received a lot more than that so
i'm not something's maybe not being
boosted
yeah
we need to
cross cross-check that
yeah you see the grant
revenue that would also grant expenses
but we'll look at that okay
richard
i'm sorry to
borrow a phrase of the year
daily um can we circle back to
the speedway
sure i can circle back to it
circling back what do you want to know
generally there's a period of time where
so these are given that reports
any issues relating to
establishments which
um
let's see
we have to have a hearing
uh
[Music]
response must be no later than
november 19th we have to respond
whether or not we want to have a hearing
just before that date if the mayor's
office can provide some police
so you want me to hold up on this i'm
sending it back
[Music]
did you hear that
no sir i did not can you say it again
yeah richard was just asking if we can
get statistics from police activity at
the speedway on livingston prior to
sending back her permanent response
yes uh i've had statistics for the past
12 months
is that good enough
got it
uh
i'll send those through the mayor to you
richard
anything else for phil
no
okay um
sir
madam president
ma'am
maureen
um
so my uh my report is attached
uh was to kind of some of what i've been
up to in upcoming events
in
the city
uh i want to call attention to a couple
of stuff a couple of things sorry
i can
speak um have a little budget update you
guys have the budget attached to your
agenda under the budget ordinance we're
about to talk about that so i won't
believe that too much no electro i don't
want to steal your thunder troy
intern legend's coming up i did want to
say um
i've been involved in the climate
mayor's action group for for many years
and
recently was asked to join other cities
in a
commitment to attempt to
significantly reduce carbon emissions by
2030 and then past 2040. very consistent
with things that i have committed to
working on in the past and that we have
been working on
so i i signed up as mayor to do that but
uh i wanted just to use that opportunity
up to you guys that the climate action
plan that we've been talking about
is being worked on we received that
grant from um
the
uh shoot i'm gonna use i i'm blanking on
the organization to give us the grant to
work on the climate action plan but when
i remember power clean future ohio bam
that's what it is
so uh
we will be uh hopefully having a
presentation and update from them in
coming months elizabeth allen has been
very active with that
um
the community center update just want to
let you guys know that we are uh we've
cleared the space out
um we're looking at some quotes for
flooring and painting the roof looks
like it's in good shape to handle a
temporary use so we should have a pretty
low cost of uh getting in the space and
we'll be providing more information
upcoming meetings
and as you can tell i didn't quite
finish my report as i was writing it so
i will finish this narratively which is
that uh
we have been talking um
with
some consultants that help us with the
state capital process and of all the
different kind of projects that we've
looked at
one one jumped out
as a potential for the state capital
something that would appeal kind of
talked about all the different things
we're looking at for the state capital
one thing that occurred was the bridge
we've talked for many years about
potential pedestrian bridge
over alum creek and the schneider park
area around kind of like in the astor
area somewhere between maine and
livingston is a way to connect residents
to the bike path so we have a couple of
them
i guess one in north bexley courtesy of
st charles in terms of pedestrian
bridges one in wolf park but nothing
on the south side of the city so
that seems to be kind of within the
sweet spot of what the state capital
budget
would help fund and at the same time
there's simultaneously odnr funding that
might be available for that so there's a
chance we can couple
funding
and
fund fully the bridge
and so we're sort of looking at that as
a potential i wanted to make you guys
aware of that
and if you have other ideas or things
you'd like us to target
alternate alternatively
it's a um
we've
we've successfully gotten between a
hundred thousand and two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars over the past
several rounds
recreation projects seem to be ones that
would do well
so just throwing that out there looks
like richard has a thought question
richard
um
so the main street entrance is uh going
to be ada accessible in terms of slope
but it'll still be a crushed uh gravel
uh path it's basically it's a natural
path along the creek
there is ada accessibility at aster
which is where that so you would have
paved access between
aster and going over to the bike path
but we've
so you you're seeing the main street
access to it
there's now going to be ada
accessibility
are you out to the trail itself along
schneider so it's it's
yes so i'd say you can actually see it
today if you want to go look at what it
that is correct but as we've as we've
been working on that project
two things happened
a the stairs were incredibly expensive
and then b as we looked at it further
and we cleared out space to be able to
start to do better engineering around
the stairs
we started to just do some site work to
see if we could create a
slope that wasn't didn't create too much
retention too much cost of that
and
through that over the past couple months
we've gotten what looks to be a path
that is going to work and it is it's
slope
it slopes at a rate that is
compliant with ada okay
it's a little messy right now but please
take a look at it you might want to wear
some muddy boots or something but you
can kind of see how that's how that's
coming together
that's a big shout out to
grant archer and his crew who have just
been
working on that as they've had time to
do so
um
i'll do a year of the parks update in
the future but we've talked a little bit
about some of those park projects and
there's been some coalescing around some
of those ideas so i have some photos to
share with you we had a great livingston
avenue workshop
um there's a all the slides from that
workshop are online at bexley.org
livingston
um
that was like my favorite photo from the
marathon of this kid dressed up as yoda
with the
and darth vader was there as well
where's darth vader
there's darth vader this was at the mile
4 i think right in front of csg
and uh
myself and some band mates had the
opportunity to close out the farmers
market last thursday which was a
highlight for me
but not as much of a highlight as the
bike rack ribbon cutting so
snaps all around for just sod and our
service cruise
and uh
yeah you know chili cookout was awesome
as usual so that's my update any
questions
all right then let's
move right along into
our
any questions or comments
from citizens
on the minutes
right
is there a motion to accept amendments
is there a second
[Music]
mr official when you read the title the
one on the screen right there is
actually the correct title it's the one
attached
so it is the first reading is 46-21 an
ordinance authorizing appropriations for
calendar year beginning january 1st
to confirm the employment of mark
fishel's city attorney to create
an infrastructure development fund and
to authorize transfers to the capital
improvements
infrastructure fund and budget stability
fund at 500 000
1 million 100 000 and 100 000 just
respectively and to be fair to the
preparer of that excel does not
auto-correct as as that that's built in
excel so
there you go
all right we are going to turn this over
to
mr
thank you very much and also i would
like to thank city council members uh
this week who showed extreme dedication
and
nimbleness
getting the pre-budget draft and meeting
getting their meetings done
those of you who did and i think and
appreciate that very much i know it's
not
an easy thing to do
to get in time for this first reading
with that
i will turn it over to the mayor and i
think he's going to
give us an overview of this and then
we'll have our presenters
thank you mr markham so um attached to
the
agenda this evening is our what we're
calling our first draft i know you guys
saw an earlier version a week and a half
ago
we've had a couple things changed since
then
um
but
generally speaking it's a very similar
budget
um i want to review with you some of the
overarching assumptions that are built
into this
with the auditor's office we
put in an income tax
uh increase in terms of receipts of 2.6
and for those of you who haven't heard
the magic behind the number 2.6 that's a
that's a number that we
arrived at after looking at um
an analysis in the past where we were
spanned kind of two recessions
and looked at the average uh increase in
income tax receipts and arrived at that
number so it's a number that's supposed
to kind of represent good times and bad
times on average
and has served us fairly well
over the years tends to underestimate uh
in our experience over the past 10 years
or so
so that's one of our one of our
assumptions another assumption that's
sort of
globally baked into this is uh a
a ten percent increase in health
insurance costs
uh we we expect that it will be a little
bit lower when we finalize our rates but
we always try to err on the side of
caution
just understanding how
health costs can inflate quite a bit
speaking of inflation
we have built into this budget a four
percent increase for most of our wages
those that are not in bargaining units
um based upon cost of living increases
uh and what we have seen uh you know
we've seen cp cpi growth depending on
kind of which index you're looking at
anywhere in the range of uh
four to five point six percent or
something that was recently so
um we'll try to factor that in with that
with that increase and then uh
we're assuming a five percent increase
in the fire
contract
which tends to course
over time with columbus unfortunately
so those are some some kind of global
assumptions
that
craft this budget
another thing um
some a fairly large
idea in here and we have we have a
couple of them but i want to present
some of them right off the front end so
that we can all be chewing on a little
bit
is the idea of the creation of this
public infrastructure
fund or infrastructure development fund
i'm sorry
and if you turn to the
second page of the summary
and
you look at
other financing uses capital
expenditures
you'll see
that this budget invests
pretty substantially
in
capital fund
infrastructure development fund
um and uh sets aside some additional
money for road and alley which we'll
talk about here in a second
also starts to put in place a sinking
fund factor for the pool we talked about
accruing funds for the pool replacement
someday down the road
with the transfer to the pool fund
as well as contributing to the rainy day
fund
all in
um what that means is
we're able to invest
in all of these
long-term
capital and infrastructure items
and still present a budget that balances
with
total unencumbered reserves
of around 5.5 million
which is in excess of the moody's
recommended 25 resource
for our budget so
i think that
the long the long and short of this
budget at least
from a
endpoint perspective is that we're
holding
we're holding steady on a conservative
and on a responsible
track
so back to infrastructure development
fund what is that
the way that it is worded in our budget
ordinance
i'm going to read it verbatim so i don't
mess this up
is
for it
the infrastructure development fund
would
help acquire and improve property for
public infrastructure improvements
included but not limited to right-of-way
improvements public parks public
utilities and public facilities it's
assisting the acquisition and
remediation of environmentally impacted
sites within the city
in the event of a fiscal emergency the
financial services on auxiliary budget
stability fund
in accordance with section 232.08 b2 of
our code what that means is um
it's a pretty broad array of things that
it could fund but if we have a financial
emergency it would serve as a secondary
rainy day fund
so it's a little bit more flexible than
the capital fund in that
regard um
there are
uh
several projects
that come to mind when i think about the
need for an infrastructure development
fund
the one that i think is
i'm not going to prioritize there are
several pressing projects that i think
come to mind when i think about the need
for infrastructure development
one of them is our long-term commitment
to environmental remediation
of the former landfill at ferndale
mayfield
and we have been setting aside funding
to the cic to assist with
[Music]
that project but there may come a time
as you guys enacted an ordinance
recently but about public nuisance
that the city has more of an active role
in helping to
um acquire property and help to clean
property so i could see an
infrastructure fund coming and helpful
in that instance the other one that
really inspired the creation of the fund
was some of the preliminary results from
our livingston avenue study
have indicated and i strongly support
this idea that we would create a much
wider tree line along livingston avenue
that would allow for mature trees and
would allow for a wider sidewalk so that
when you walk down livingston avenue you
have a buffer of you know 10 feet
between the curve
but that interface is more
more like our other
pedestrian friendly streets
maybe even a little more set apart in
terms of from the curb than many of our
streets
for a safer pedestrian interface and
also to provide some safety
to some of the vehicular accidents that
we've seen
that right away doesn't exist today so
we require acquisition
in order to acquire it we need the
funding and so
one of the inspirations behind this was
starting to set aside funding
for potentially that those projects down
the road
um and then we've had additional um
plans in the past such as the south
prospecting master plan that talked
about ways to better stitch together the
community provide better cross
connectivity with pedestrians and
cyclists so
none of this is specific in the or in
the budget it's these are just the sorts
of projects that could be funded under a
infrastructure
fund
in addition sorry richard
a few years ago we heard from beecher
and leonardo about the creation of funds
meaning um state approval
so i just want to
highlight that fact
so that
that's done before we set it up
good point
and this is that you know you guys this
is a proposal so you know this is these
are thoughts and i i'm really excited to
kind of hear
what you guys think of them
for or against and there's so many
different ways to do this so i think
hopefully we just released a gender
conversation
the other big idea in here
um is this what seems like a relatively
small transfer to the right and alley
fund but what that
is really uh suggesting is that
we see our income tax revenues
increasing we see them increasing
above
our projections and above
um
even you know beyond what the economy is
the pace the economy is increasing at
and and there are probably several
reasons for that could have to do with
resident turnover
some of it could have to do with uh
declaration of residency um or sorry a
place of work as people are potentially
working on other houses but we've seen
more of a trend even beyond that and
some of that has to do with the fact
that some of our economic development
incentives
associated with the uh
especially the gateway south development
are starting to roll off and as they
roll off we're
at least two hundred thousand dollars
stronger in terms of our income tax
receipts
um as we
as i have talked internally with staff
about ways that we can take some of that
additional funding that we have now and
return it to the community one of the
things i've kind of had on a wish list
in the background for a while is finding
ways
to fund um
sidewalk maintenance
and instances where today were
requiring residents to pay for sidewalks
that have deteriorated
so
that 200 000 would accommodate that in
today's dollars
um
it's something that i believe that we
can afford not just today but in the
long term
and so it's it's uh it's a it's a
concept that i would like us to
potentially or i would like us to
consider in this budget and i would i
would support
the history behind that
is that uh the way that we do it today
is the way that we've done it for a very
long time
until the early 2000s when we had a
street
alley sidewalk levy and my understanding
is that we had
some residents that after the passage of
the levy felt that the levy indicated
that the city would take care of all the
sidewalks that wasn't the language of
the levy it wasn't what was advertised
but
council at the time
was i guess they were maybe threatening
legal action or something the council
agreed to take over the sidewalks the
problem was
the street lodge didn't have enough
money to do that and so our sidewalks
deteriorated the city wasn't doing what
we had said what we would do
um and council
reversed that reversal and went back to
the old way which is where we are today
um the street levy still does not fund
adequately our streets and the sidewalks
but we do have this additional
i believe potential in our budget and
this is a proposal i think if we do it i
want to be clear that
you know to the extent we can't bind
future councils but this is the sort of
thing that i think we would change
and into perpetuity move forward this
way so i think it's while anything can
be reversed i would
i would think that it would be really
extra confusing if we tried to go back
on this but i i think the time's right
and i would really love to see us
accomplish this
um
so those are some big picture kind of
thoughts and there are lots of little
things with throughout the budget or
smaller concepts that we'll kind of
tackle as as we get to them
um but i wanted to highlight those and
answer any questions at this point about
any of those things we just talked about
yes
uh a couple of things um
where do we stand with them
i think that we're good i haven't
heard anything of you
okay
i believe that we're done
with appropriations for the project
i didn't know if you're asking so
the lines that are up there are there
any times associated with it they're all
going to be funded through that
department they're within the rec fund
now obviously
we're not going to see a full
not only not a full year's worth of
revenue in this year this past year but
going forward we're expecting softer
revenue from events next year
as we have additional sort of pandemic
soft and softening
[Music]
yeah so we have not yet
so there are a couple things not in this
budget that's a good point
the capital fund transfer is shown
showing money going to the capital fund
the capital fund budget has not yet been
finalized
so that is not in our current budget
uh that'll be a next council meeting and
i'll try to circulate that in advance
we'll be discussing it in the next
council meeting
nor is the american rescue plan
appropriation
so we've got some work to do still
before we we get to that finalize that
so if any residents were wondering
the money that's shown here
is coming from american rescues that's
correct yep this is just currently just
our clean budget okay if i may not
ask
additional um
does this is this ordinance
proposing 2.2 million 1.1 million this
year
from this current year's
funds yep and 1.1 next year correct so
they're 2.29
within the two years and
are you going to be asking council to
actually
just
does this budget off just authorize the
transfer into that fund or just
actually ask to appropriate as well so
currently it's just to transfer um
i'm i'm
i don't
believe that we should appropriate right
now because i don't think that we have
anything
firmed up enough to do that i think we
have many potential projects
and i think that would be a good
deeper dive session talking through how
we want to prioritize that okay because
i would not vote to appropriate right
now i might
be inclined to support the transfer but
um appropriately
[Music]
check
without explanation
i
agree although i mean
that'd be a lot of fun for the
administration but i wouldn't expect you
to want that
is there any other um
questions for the
mayor's team
uh
1.6 1.7 million i think has it never
been that high
no
um my second question mayor is a 200 000
uh proposed transfer little fund
is that
[Music]
so
um
that would be to start to build up the
balance in this woman full fund
and um
the pool fund today breaks even maybe
even is losing a little bit of money
uh so
what
it carries the balance so right now it's
it's funding it's it's light loss
so this would start to build up that
fund balance for the time when when a
pool replacement or maybe a major
capital project would be needed
um
council
controls the appropriations out of that
fund
so it would be up to you or future
councils how to how to use the reserve
that's built up in that fund
can you remind me about that
what's the expected life of the normal
community
it was build note seven
and the expected life is a hundred years
interesting um
yeah i mean there's
it was an o7 yeah so it's
wasn't the older one 40 years old though
at the time it got replaced yeah they
didn't have a lot of problems they had
some issues yeah
so 25 30 years
so that if we if we contributed at a
rate like that over the next 10 years we
would have built up two million dollars
um
it was a four point
three million dollar project at the time
uh which you know in today's dollars is
like 50 million dollars
after construction inflation so i mean
that would get you
started down the road but it's not going
to pay for a new pool
at that rate
i also want to say that there's you know
there's no indication there was a
comment made about the age of the poor
recently and it's you know it's about 14
years old
it is still a pool that you know
attracts a lot of people to it it's
popular it doesn't it's going to require
maintenance but it's um there's not an
indication that it's like i'm going to
be in need of replacement at the time so
i don't want to
suggest that we somehow think that's
happening
later i think we've got quite a bit of
life left in the pool
based upon my really expert opinion as a
pool
professional which i say tongue-in-cheek
continues
when we when it does
age itself out or just can't afford it
something that
yeah
this doesn't
require an answer right now but maybe
something to ponder
what
their
in
either in addition or in place of the
restructured development of
consideration
that the neighbor will be made to
like an economic development bond
large amount while interest rates are
still very very attractive
to lock
in some
um large sums of money that potentially
could
if there's
some
if we can
achieve
this council or the next council that
is able to have an opportunity to do a
if that would make sense
i'm just raising that panel to the start
of the budget process sure consider if
that's talking to the bond
yeah
one one
thing point i think i didn't make when i
was talking about the infrastructure
fund that i
you've sort of inspired talking about
that that i wanted to be i wanted us to
think about is that
you know
we've seen that spike in income tax
revenue
uh
it's been a little bit counterintuitive
with covid and some of the economic
issues that some people have been
dealing with
and so
i
i am
always reticent you know we've been
really good in the past 10 years and not
creating new debt that didn't have
defined source of payment
so i've always
reticent about that in general but also
i think especially right now
you know we could find out next year
that
things aren't as good as we think they
are long-term so i think this is
actually one one thing i like about this
is this is a good approach to
secure that money for investment and
infrastructure but also not commit
ourselves necessarily to long-term
debt so that we're you know if next year
for example
something happens unexpected or
maybe the theory about working from home
revenue pans out and we have a drop in
our income tax we can easily recover
within the budget that we have today
without
you know
hurting our finances that's just a
thought to think about as we as we look
out
all right are we ready to
move on um
yeah so um i i feel like if i talk a
little longer and make the chief wait
longer for his presentation he might
appreciate that so i'm gonna
just checking chief
if i haven't put you to sleep with the
macroeconomic discussion
no i found a very interesting mayor very
educational
we can move on to the uh we'll start
with the police budget
um
which i'm scrolling down to of course i
don't have a key with where it is
okay thank you sir uh
not not a lot has changed most of our
budget is flat i'll start at the
at the top portion
the personal services
and and i'm very thankful that the
finance department does most of the
the intricate number crunching on on on
these items which is a great thing for
us
uh and i know beecher has to put a lot
of hours in to get this right he has to
look at the contract and a lot of other
things and i'm very appreciative of that
a couple of the items that we do manage
of course are overtime
and
we
we certainly will remain flat on
overtime we're not requesting any more
money we're not using as much of that
right now for off-site training as we
will as soon as uh
as soon as the covid issue is is
more manageable
because a lot of classes are just doing
things via zoom or different technology
but our understanding is i'll open up
very soon and that's when our overtime
kicks back in we actually have to send
people to resident courses
working on down the next item that we
actually budget is the uniform allowance
and there is an increase there and that
is all contractual that's because of of
officers rotating into the detective
bureau
requiring different clothing and
equipment and
some new officers so those numbers are
simply contractual that we don't really
have much control over
i'll move down to the second area the
other expenditures that we do typically
budget operational type items
the uh
the contract leads in 9-1-1 you'll see
there's an increase in that and that is
because of a of a pretty sizable
increase twelve thousand five hundred
dollars for a nine one one upgrade uh
that's that seems to be a constantly
evolving
technology and and and again uh uh eric
mcginnis our ip director he spearheads
that for us and those numbers came from
him and i am equally appreciative
of his contribution his help to the
police department in all matters
technical i.t
especially the 9-1-1
moving on down you'll see that the other
items have remained flat as they have
for the past few years we've been able
to do that
i get down to
building maintenance now the building
maintenance and utilities line item what
were combined and we simply split those
out this year a little bit easier to
explain a little bit easier to budget
and that indicates that the building
maintenance went down forty point eight
percent well it did not
that's the utilities line item above it
and it has it's remaining flat the
dollars that we're asking for
uh
moving on down i think uh
i think we're remaining flat for the
rest of it and again finance
manages and budgets the transfer to
police pension number
and uh
but that's the rest of it that's that's
my one page
very basic
uh mostly static budget that we're
asking for for 22.
uh what questions do you have
i have a question about the operating
expenses they're really
down way down
can you share with us that
while the let me see the operating
expenses
oh i'm glad you i meant to cover that
dag on it uh sorry about that we
actually had to move money to that
account it was 20 000 this year it's
remaining flat we had to move money to
that account uh from other places to pay
an unexpected expense and that's the
only reason it looks like it was 37.5
actually it was 20 we started with we
moved 17-5
into that account to pay an unexpected
expense that we had earlier this year
and real quickly chief if we could
i want to explain the police attention
fund because it makes it look like
there's a drop
in the budget
which is
there is but there isn't and that is
that our police pension fund
is funded from a
property tax specifically for
that's the pool fund
[Music]
so
if you look at it and i'm
if you look at the handout that you have
here
you'll see there's a a bump in property
tax revenue 2020 actual versus
year to date 21. so
that's uh that that police pension fund
is actually inside millage which is um
long story short it goes up as our
property values increase
and so it's actually more productive
than it has been in the past so that
coupled with that helped us to build up
more of a balance than we need to carry
in that fund
so we don't we're spending down some of
that balance you can see net increase
decrease in the left column to the
bottom 149 we're spending down some of
that fund so that that expense will come
back next year
not necessarily to the
tune of 190 000 bucks like it was last
year but it will come back a little bit
so that's a one-time savings
uh for the most part just to help that
make sense
and then um
one other thing uh that
i think
chief since you and i last talked you
you're aware of this but i think it's
been added to the budget which is the
community housing stipend concept
so
that's up in the
personal services section a 36 thousand
dollar allocation
for
community housing for officers who wish
to locate in bexley that's a concept
that's been
talked about in the past but it's been
more recently resuscitated by some
residents who have expressed
uh
understandable interest in finding ways
to incentivize officers to live in the
community
we're still working on the particulars
of the program but we are potentially
looking for some grant support from the
community foundation for that
there's been some encouraging
conversations about that
and also a program around it that's
um not simply a stipend to help uh
officers who wish to live in back sleep
but also some community service sort of
community interaction component to that
so
um
encouraging living here and also being
involved in
outside activities and volunteering in
the community so
it could be successful who knows
um
and i
i uh
we don't have the exact details of the
program
totally hashed out but we didn't want to
put some set aside
something in our budget so that it was
clear we had some funnels
sorry chief if i interrupted you no i
was done sir i'm waiting for
[Music]
let's get questions
000.
in 2020 it was 104 and for the budget
for two
2022 was about 215 000. so just wanted
to ask a little bit more about that
uh the uh
why the why the budgeted number's so
high when apparently we're not using
near that much
it's uh
i don't know about that 114 000 number
right now uh
i think there's a lot in the pipeline
and uh i think our our use is probably
higher
probably considerably higher than that
right now it has not made it
uh from us to the finance department but
uh
i'd be hesitant to lower that money and
we've had these discussion discussions
uh over the years
for a small police department
that is our
that our that's our emergency operations
plan
uh some of the things we would do if we
ever had to go to an emergency
operations but we've come close
this year just because of staffing
uh would would really
require that money be available
and and be available immediately
and uh
honestly
just for day-to-day operations uh
we we spike
overtime use at any given time
to the point that it's it's practically
worn our officers out this year
so i i would recommend leaving that
number where it's at because again
that's part of our emergency operations
plan
and uh
it could very quickly
be critical to maintain our police
coverage
i'm really struggling to hear
uh a few of the microphones that i hear
she asked if we get the numbers for 2009
for 2019
and i'll have to get all except for
again
uh
i would recommend that you be very
cautious about cutting that that
line item but that's up to you
i'm just looking forward to support the
number i'm looking to support the number
so i think uh that might just help
but i totally appreciate
that feedback
ms robertson
america and chief reinhardt i'm
it's closer to
and as i said earlier uh as as resident
training opportunities open back up
probably
right at the beginning of the year we
will be sending more officers to
resident schools that haven't been
available because of the pandemic
so
that'll have a dramatic change in
how we have to use those dollars
i'm i'm not hearing a sound so i'm
assuming nobody's speaking
i'm speaking chief can you
now i can't yes
um i think this is more for dylan that
you mentioned the
uniform allowance was increasing and
it's the numbers are the same and when i
add your detail in the description i
come up with 44
350 so that may be a number that needs
to be updated
uh richard i suspect that's a that's an
error in the comments section
because we i'm pretty i'm pretty
confident with uh
with the numbers
but uh but i will go over that again and
verify with the mayor
but yeah i think he said because
contractual arrangements that the
uniform allowance was going up a little
and it shows yeah good point good good
point thank you
any other questions
never have on these but
mayor you said before that the health
insurance is going up 10
but the transfer the transfer from
police shouldn't go up 10 as well
sorry chief i didn't mean to take 10
percent
yeah it should i mean it should so i
have to ask beecher why that number has
not okay i just noticed that that's why
there's always a little
there are often little surprises in
these budgets
that we find and then learn from and
then
hope they don't totally change all of
our assumptions chief are you having an
easier time here and i think we had an
issue with our
microphone
yes i am and in fact i have to turn my
volume down now on my computer yeah
thank you thank you
oops
crickets i'm hearing nothing
[Laughter]
you must have unplugged me
hey
no oh my goodness now i'm sure
i think it was my microphone
all right and i'm always so loud anyway
so anyway
we're good
um
so thank you so much for the extra time
this evening we appreciate it
okay be safe
my pleasure president thank you all
right to you thank you
who do you have
um up for us and it's from here
so uh we're gonna cover
two other budgets uh this evening
um
and i don't
i don't believe kathy is still in the
building i think we might have run a
little lengthier than
suggested so there's the uh
she oh great
yeah that'd be great so we're going to
do building
and zoning okay
and
that is page
13
nope
uh 15.
building and zoning department
so as kathy makes her way in
i will
i will gloat on her
and let you know that kathy has been
serving with the city i believe 36 years
oh my gosh
and uh she has talked about potentially
retiring in the future
so
in our budget we do have accommodation
for
some cross training and that personal
salary and wages section
uh so that's in there
yes please thank you kathy
thanks for staying tonight to be with us
i'm loving it
i'm always here
um
so that's reflected in the um in the
salary and wages line item as is
continuing and continuing our seasonal
part-time code enforcement program
that was a position we were able to fill
this summer
really successful i think um
sorry to those of you who may have
gotten some letters about your alleys
but uh
we had a lot more we were able to do
more proactive and uh sort of
systematic work with the help of that
seasonal code enforcement officer
kathy do you want to talk
uh
any about the budget in particular or
answer maybe some questions or there is
one thing we changed this year we we
kept the number the same but similar to
what we did in the police department we
broke out
kind of a major line item that could
easily be divided
so building official inspection services
and design review and planning
used to be called building professionals
we broke that into two same dollar
amount
but um they are two sort of different
functions so build an official
inspection for services we contract for
our chief building official who
inspects plans and then does
on-site inspections for construction
permits
some efficiencies in that and then
design review and planning
as you can see in the budget notes
a whole slew of different uh
professional services related to
our review process
and having that broken out we
mike who's our chief building official
which we have to have so by that's
covered by having a contract with him on
that
and a lot of those the permits cover the
costs that we incur for uh the
inspections and such so that kind of
balances out nicely
code enforcement i do appreciate you
guys letting us have the part-time
help we had this past summer that was
very helpful because david get out there
and really do a thorough job on what he
really needs to be concentrating on
other than grass and weeds
um
i don't think we have anything to
oh sorry
i don't think we have anything
for like streaming here that we've
changed
does anybody have any questions
you i don't see the revenue thing in
there if you look at
revenues what you should be doing with
revenue or any opportunities to
increase revenue through additional fees
or anything
it's been a while
you know i haven't done a
an increase in the fees
since
2009 like the overall review of all of
the fees i think we reduced like maybe
the fence permit application which was a
little steep but that might be something
worth investigating
just to keep up with all the other
minutes of how you spend 10 years 15
years almost it's certainly time to
spend looking at that right bill and i
were talking about that earlier today um
and and wondering and he said it
it probably is very time consuming and i
suggested that
um maybe that would be a fabulous job
for an intern right to make some of
those phone calls for you so that we
could get that it's worthwhile to make
sure that where we need to be to keep up
with everybody it's really and
and
leaning on
for example a cap student to do that
it's it's you know as a parent of a
college kids it's nice to have that
bullet point you know
on their resume to do it and you know
they'll learn something and then we'll
learn something and you know potentially
so
i think that's something that you and i
should look into
in the near future i think we even had
an intern who just did it for
the experience this past summer sure
yeah so kathy's being kind and not
telling you that she has a boss who
constantly rails against how excessive
permit fees are but
he does
but that's just for certain things that
what you said well yeah and it can be
there's a there's also the flip side of
the coin which is the permits can really
since especially at homeowner situations
can can discourage people from
working within the system which you know
then things fall between the cracks so
well we very well could find out that
perhaps we're
too expensive compared to other yeah i
don't think we are i don't know
i doubt i think it's worthwhile checking
into it absolutely all right
yep
honey
well kind of the follow up on that i
noticed that um in bill's report earlier
tonight permits uh revenue was up almost
29 000
over our budgeted amount
um and given that
we're still in a pandemic and i see 2022
being a year where people are still
going to be doing home projects adding
onto their homes pulling permits
should there be a corresponding increase
in this budget to match
the
increase in revenue from those permits
it's it's been a busy busy year i'm
amazed how busy we have been i if you
wouldn't know there was a pandemic it
was based on permits
so
um
i guess you know it's helpful with the
consultants that we use also for certain
things that that help out but um that
might be something worth it checking
into
with the mayor we did forecast that out
and we feel that we're we're okay with
the allocation here but if if you know
that's a good problem to have so if we
find ourselves with even more of a bump
next year than we might have expected
then we can certainly come back for
further appropriations
as long as it's been thought about
because i i see it kind of staying
the same at the great level or even
going up for the next year or so yeah i
was doing something comparisons and yes
it's definitely up because i just
thought are we just getting
are we getting busier it's hard to
believe we're getting busier just
doesn't make any sense but when you
start crunching the numbers it is
so everybody sat home and decided they
wanted to do something with their houses
they're home all day long they get a
change of scenery they run out a little
bit better
yeah
yep they're still rolling in
anybody else have anything from mrs
rose this might be a question more for
the mayor um
and i could have missed this but
on the salaries and wages our original
budget we were at 5.9 now we're at 14.3
increase was that remind me was that we
just had not included the step increase
for those
okay no it's because um the budget note
did originally say includes cross
training allowance for director position
but when i cross checked whether the
cross chaining was actually included
it turns out it wasn't so we we added a
20 000 allowance
to allow for some midnight
cross-training might not be the right
word basically concurrence
between positions got it
so kathy would have like a month or two
to offload
36 years of institutional knowledge into
a new position but she's not going
anywhere anytime soon right i'm having
too much fun
we're just giving her the option she
said as long as i'm on zoning she's
staying around
did you hear that
she's loving zoning
i look like a volunteer
[Laughter]
uh
anything else from his rose
thank you listen
for being with us we appreciate it
guys have a great night see ya go
snuggle with elvis
that's your dog
all right
moving on
is that it guy here
eric is uh is not with us this evening
but uh he is happy to answer any
follow-up questions we had we
come through his budget and he i said
you can come or you don't need to come
he's like
but he passed along and he adores you
all and he
would love nothing more than spend the
evening with you
i'm always curious and you can so you
can pass this question on to him i'm
always curious
about
what
he thinks that we might need in the
future what we need to start planning
for the future
is there
and along with that is there anything
techie that we should be doing now that
we're not doing yep
and my other concern is always i
and i'm not techy enough to even
remember the verbiage and and what you
call it but
i've
other
other government entities are
held like
captive by i don't know if it's spies or
whatever it is
so and i'm i'm curious
and i think i asked this last time and i
think that the answer was that we are in
really good shape in that regard but i
guess i want to hear that again yeah so
actually in the capital budget we have a
line item this year that you don't have
in front of you because we'll be
presented at our next meeting but we do
have a line item for a secure network
security audit
which we do from time to time so
we have a
i'm looking it up right now
of course now i
don't see i don't have the number
plugged in yet but we have a
he eric has a quote uh to
get an updated network security audit
you know we've increasingly been moving
a lot of our systems to cloud-based
systems that are off-site
so our network environment is actually
becoming more a little bit simpler but
um threats are changing too so i think
it's important for us to stay current so
that is in our but that will be in the
budget in the in the form of a capital
item
um
also i mean you
the the trending in general within the
tech budget is
greater use of software software as a
service a greater use of cloud-based
solutions so you're seeing growth in
those items and in general i encourage
eric he's been running
pretty tight on hardware and software
over the past several years and i
encouraged them that this would be a
good year for us to kind of staple down
some of that investment
we are bringing two new online services
online online in the next uh
the next month one of them is a water
department
billing change which you guys have heard
about allowing for a better online
experience for bill pay for
the water department and paperless
billing and then also our mayor's court
online payments of citations which will
now
bring i think most of all of our major
you know pay portals online with
the addition of our online building
software last year so
all that stuff shows up in software
licensing
it's why our hardware dollar amount
stays relatively low we're getting a lot
more service life out of our computers
a lot of our investment in
individual laptops last year through
cares act
is going to carry forward so you'll see
um that line item being a little lower i
know i'm kind of jumping around but i'm
not explaining it it'll make sense
you know telecom is pretty static um
we are
uh obviously there's like you know it
seems like there's always a new reason
that we have an ipad in the field
whether it's for our tree workers
keeping track of their databases or
water department with gis mapping in our
right of way
but so we have a little bit of expansion
in our telecom utilization which is
reflected in this budget
and i also encouraged an additional uh 5
000 in our technology consultants line
adam we are a it's a department of one
with eric
so
when he goes on vacation
uh sometimes he gets a little stressed
out because he gets inundated with texts
and calls like oh my gosh the server's
down what do i do and he's in you know
italy like vpn and in and fixing stuff
so
um we really do need for lots of reasons
uh better support somebody who cannot be
around when he's not around
and provide some help desk type support
and also
have enough
sophistication to be familiar with our
network and be able to assist with a
little bit more rigorous
um or at least knowing who to call
because because a lot of our
a lot of our network uh work is
outsourced to people who are experts in
networking eric sort of manages all
those contracts so that would be like a
service as opposed to an actual
individual correct yes a service
[Applause]
and we used to have a pretty extensive
use of some microman back in the day
bill do you remember that
um and it was
uh
you know it was it was it was somewhat
helpful i think it really matters that
we have a
really custom competent help in that so
that that'll be something that we are
going to be looking at
please um
the rest of the budget is is fairly
straightforward uh i believe and i'm
happy to answer any questions or make
sure that they get answered
you have a question yeah i'm sorry
you're all good it's all good mayor
which of these items would uh
protect our system from hackers and
everything else that we hear about who
may want to uh
infiltrate our government
so under tech consultants most of that
spend right now is network uh consulting
so the the network consultants that we
use to help
with um
you know
keeping on top of our firewalls keeping
on top of our network security
environment but like i said an audit for
next year is also part of the budgets in
the capital budget it's not in this
budget
all right does anybody else have any
questions
that potentially the mayor could answer
or that we want to make sure that we
document to give to
mr mcginnis
assad
when we were talking about um
paperless billing and
um
having things more online i don't know
if it would come out of here
for community events but to make sure
that we're kind of also going cashless
i don't know if it comes out of this
area or more park and rec but for
community events like uh the harvest
fest or
uh main event so because that's kind of
where the world is heading um yeah
that's not really that's actually
probably if anything in the auditor's
budget under bank fees okay because
it's easy to get a free scanner from you
know square or whatever but it costs us
money to do it
so we have to factor that in
and along with my reticence to you know
charge a lot for permit fees is also not
loving to pay seven percent on a
transaction but
and one of the things that
we council need to think about is
as you probably know most communities
when
they you pay a fee a tax bill or
anything
with a credit or debit card they pass
that fee on to you unlike a merchant you
know so they got somebody who pays our
water bill pays the extra two point
whatever we charge them 2.5 or something
i know most communities do that it's
one thing to do with your water bill so
it's offered yet you're charging you
know eight dollars at the
whatever
so it's something you guys need to think
about is that a charge we're willing to
accept
or do we want to keep passing it on
because i mean that's it
a lot of people ask
us
i mean that's we talk about that with
the with the water bill issue it's as
you know if you pay your credit card
with a credit card
charge
most communities do you put your irs
taxes that way or your real estate taxes
franklin county they do it but and it's
one thing when it's a
2.9 percent of you know a thousand
dollar tax bill something else when it's
2.9 percent of an eight dollar charge so
something to think about
sorry didn't mean it get off thank you
that's a good point by both of you and i
i too
have been at events
where we have uh collected funds for
hamburgers and hot dogs
in the labor day event and people would
come up i don't have any cash i don't
carry cash on me either so good news is
we sold out in both
still both of our first events that's
true
enough people
yeah enough people still carry cash i
have found out that venmo is a lot less
expensive than credit cards um yeah
that's what uh
yeah and they're the
chamber of commerce for their event did
we're done
as well good to know we discourage
people from paying bill harvey's
personal ven though
[Laughter]
well that's right
right right and when i pay real estate
taxes i don't i pay i use the direct
bank option online at 11 p.m the night
it's doing
good to know richard thank you that's
right
mr klingler has a question
matthew do we have cyber security
insurance
uh yep sorry yeah we did yeah okay i
didn't think i didn't it must be
somewhere else
yeah it's on the otter's budget it's
part of our overall uh insurance policy
okay and i'm not sure how much it is i'm
not sure i'd want to answer that
question in the public anyway but
um
yeah you won't see it
it's not a separate line item we also
yeah and and
to add to that and and i can
eric could say this as well maybe with
more uh acronyms associated with it but
almost every piece of software that we
have is not on site right
so there's a security vulnerability with
those vendors that we're
you know they have certain protocols
that they pass in certain tests but and
that's that's different when it comes to
the data
we have multiple modes of preserving the
data
so that if if there was a situation
where
somebody hacked our system and seized
our servers we have other ways of
getting that data we help
in theory and that's part of that audit
but those are lots of things we've
considered in the past because you know
ransomware's been around for a while and
cities were targeted several years ago
and beyond and um
my my vision for that was that if
anybody ever did that to us we would say
we would gesticulate in a way that i
can't in a public meeting and we would
say
see you and that we would just start all
over again with information that we
already had wow in theory
that's the goal
as opposed to shelling out money to some
okay are there any final
questions for our i.t guy or any
overarching questions
because if not i'm going to turn it back
over to mr markham and um
i would love troy for you to remind us
who's up next time so we can review
more thoroughly and um anything else you
need to tell us about the budget sir all
right i've got a couple things here and
the first is i'm going to
pivot and direct that question to the
mayor who do you wish to have
at the second reading present to us
please
so on november 9th we have scheduled uh
the service departments
so that that's a pretty expansive list
andy bayshore is still with us so i know
that he's getting nervous just thinking
about it
auditor's department
and then our capital budget initial
presentation
with the expectation there may obviously
be changes to that from you guys or us
and then november 16th rec and parks and
the remaining
i'll call them nikkinaki budgets which
is the slew of city hall mostly city
hall budgets
we um
you know how i feel about the
last few pages of the budget will we be
getting that ahead of time before
november 9th
uh yes
yeah i'll try to get this to you by
by november i have plenty of time to
harass the mayor for these pages so
don't worry since they don't have a
hearing on the 8th
early 8th night
yeah we were figuring on the eights no
uh so november
like a week ahead i'll try to do a week
ahead of time so uh capital budget
perhaps around november wait are you
hold on
you're saying a week ahead of november
9. yes a week from now basically okay
capital budget and so the second the
tiff budgets are straightforward they're
just
yeah yeah it'd be right uh around 7 00
p.m on november 2nd then we'll get the
tip budgets out to you guys
um an arp
although i really feel like i could use
i'm not even sure we can talk about arp
might benefit from work
conversation
right
please note then um
your assignments again if you're unclear
on your assignments uh let me know i'll
be happy to send that out
yeah do you have that electronically me
yes i do do you want me to reach them
i'd love that
all right i'll make a note to rescind
assignments thank you thank you please
note that our schedule is
november 9th for the second reading of
the budget which is two weeks but then
the third reading is only a week after
that so
we're looking at the next two readings
in three weeks
then uh we do have some time in december
we have december 7th 14th
21st
28th absolutely 29th
30th
and 31st available to us yeah let's that
is all true not do that if we can help
it
all right that's all all right thank you
mr markham thank you so much for
organizing
us and um
mr kessler thank you and your um your
great
[Music]
team of
leaders
everyone else's permission bless you
we're going to move on to third readings
all right we have a third reading of
ordinance 41-21 accepting the proposed
donation of the columbia place
in the columbia place subdivision by the
city of betsley republic street miss sod
yes thank you mr official um we
are
looking to uh make a motion to table
this ordinance um
to give us a little more time
so i would like to make a motion so
again you table this ordinance thank you
troy and troy seconded um there's no
discussion uh
voice vote all those in favor of tabling
ordinance 41 21 signify by saying aye
aye aye any of one opposed same sign
all right tabled thank you thank you all
right third reading of ordinance 40-21
to specify overtime pay provisions for
city employees who work community events
in july 4th 2021 and september 5th 2021
mr markham
thank you i think we are waiting for
some additional information tonight uh
on the
cost
yeah i've been sure and might spend some
time and the estimate is in the five to
seven thousand dollar range
for both nights both each
so
can anybody have any questions um about
uh that about the end or the ordinance
itself i had one i had one question the
chiefs included in in this as well no
because he's already covered this is
only
non-bargaining unit
personnel okay it's because section one
says all salaried and otherwise
over time exempt employees
shall be entitled to pay
this section does not apply to the mayor
and i knew the chief
the july 4th was not one of his holidays
he was expected to work that and
as part of his contract i thought
i'm not sure what your question is
they can use making sure that you've
calculated the chief and other
well i'm i'm verifying whether the chief
is included in this over overtime pay or
whether it's intended that he'd be
exempt from it
and if he
i don't see that it reads that he's
exempt from the number i just gave you
did not include the chief it's my
understanding that chief is already
going to get compensated because of his
normal pay doesn't the chief
if that's an overtime
action for him he would get that through
his normal salary but the way it reads
he would still apply it would still
apply to him
well then the chief wouldn't get it
no it does
it does read that the chief would get it
if it turned into overtime hours for
them that week and i don't know the
answer to that it wasn't actually
something i thought about
no but yeah you're absolutely right
richard this is the way it reads it
would apply i think it should happen
also essentially work that event i can't
remember i think i imagine they both
work the event at july 4th but they
don't that's not a normal that's a
normal work day for them is it not
not really
is robinson question uh yeah would this
not come out of the overtime budget the
police overtime budget if this was some
if these were
this was time accrued that needed to be
paid
it wouldn't necessarily need to be
covered by this ordinance because police
have their own
overtime budget
i don't think that's i don't think
that's correct because whether they have
the overtime budget or not
this authorizes people to get paid who
aren't normally authorized your point is
that there's adequate appropriation to
pay for it it still all comes from the
same pot still general funds so it's
like you know whether or not it's
allowed if that's helpful
but it's yeah
this this doesn't necessarily
appropriate it it's already appropriated
there's funds available
and um this doesn't necessarily have to
state the amount that
that we're getting we just needed to
know the amount for our mental
but we don't have to specifically state
the amount in this ordinance so should
this in some way shape or be amended
but my but my main question is whether
the chief will be getting paid and if
there's anyone else that any it wonders
if they are getting paid well that's a
call for you
and we need to change this if you don't
intend them to get paid because this
does authorize don't forget to get right
so i read that yeah i don't disagree
with that i have two thoughts one i you
know i i had not
seen the number that you just told me i
saw the estimate of hours by
calculations so
um
i would like to
know the full number
which in
to richard's point includes the chief
might include the most likely includes
the captain potentially the service
director and some others so i think we
should uh get the true cost of that
so i would i recommend we table it until
we have that i don't think it's an uh
burning
okay ordinance
but
and uh and to your point about whether
or not we should you know it was an
unanticipated consequence
every single person we just mentioned
has you know worked extra hard through
this event so i i don't have an issue
with it but i think we should know and
quantify the cost and i don't feel
comfortable right on the fly changing
that potential benefit yeah my point was
i thought the chief worked the fourth
every year regardless and this was not
different for him or different from his
contract whereas other people
maybe
it wasn't traditional for them to work
on the fourth so
i just want to have that clarified
that was good
all right so troy do you have some
action on that then uh sounds like uh
motion the table ordinance 40-21
second okay all those in favor are
signified by saying aye aye
all those post names sign
all right thank you if we can please
move on to second reading
second reading ordinance 42-21 to
authorize the transfer from the road and
alley fund of 2 379 dollars to the bond
retirement fund and to appropriate 2 379
from the bond retirement fund to
appropriate 43 307 from the water fund
and to appropriate one thousand nine
hundred four dollars from the silver
fund to pay debt service related to the
south roosevelt nashborne improvement
project mr markham
again this is uh
appropriating money to pay the debt
services due on this project
any questions counsel
okay then with your permission mr
markham we'll move on to the next second
reading for the third reading i'd be
okay for the consent agenda let's
let's do it then all right please
consent agenda and filer for 42.21
all right uh second reading of 4321 to
authorize the mayor and auditor to enter
into a contract between the city of
bexley and franklin county public health
ms robinson
well hello we're back with this lovely
budget for the board of health um i did
want to point out one thing as i was
looking at the numbers that were quoted
in the contract itself and then what's
represented in the budget there is a bit
of a discrepancy it's a 15.40
discrepancy but we might want to look at
that but uh this just authorizes us to
enter into a contract with the founding
county board of health and the city of
bexley so
that's a good catch we're going to call
you mark official
motion to take that out of jen
robinson's uh
john robinson's paycheck
and i also want to update you that the
bexley boys are losing one to nothing so
can we all just have a moment of uh
give them some energy
energy let's do it
i promise i'm not normally on my phone
this much i'm just getting updates from
my family
any questions about the game or about
the specific ordinance
can this be consent agenda
it's fine with me as long as nobody has
pressing questions all right excellent
wonderful okay thank you
moving on if we may all right second
reading of ordinance 44-21 to authorize
a transfer from the general fund to the
city hall tiff fund fund 52 in the
amount of twenty thousand two hundred
fifty dollars mr markham so it was my
understanding that i think we've been
waiting for just kind of a thorough
explanation from mr harvey for this is
that true
then go ahead
i'm sorry no i didn't mean to hit it at
all um
the
we need this transfer because the
payments out of there will overdraw the
fund
and make it down because we spent more
money in the fund than
than we are going to have in there
because we thought we were going to have
more money
so we need to
transfer this money in there to give us
enough so the fund doesn't have a zero
balance at the end of the year
and and there's a the
the yes and to that is that um
the uh
i think it was last year
20 budget
there was an estimate or we we received
kind of two years worth of income so
like
um i think it was like 180 000 or
something as opposed to so we thought we
had more to spend so beecher forecasted
180 this year
the 50
000 of that we had allocated as one of
our sources of funding to help with the
jeffrey mansion project
um i'm i'm still working with beecher to
make sure that that actually happened
and he assures me that we really don't
have this money so somehow it got
overdrawn because he had estimated we
would have more property tax expenses
than we had to the tune of around twenty
thousand dollars
is my understanding but i'm still
cleaning that from him
any questions
on this ordinance
and
what i think would be helpful probably
for all of us is to have that kind of
laid out
in a in a sheet
which which we have in the form of the
tiff page of our budget
and one of the reasons it's not here
because it's i'm not firm that it's act
it's accurate right now so i just wanted
to make sure everything was accurate on
that
okay so put that in our notes of
something that we need to
look into
yes okay
all right anything else
regard to this one
do you have something mr harvey no
but you've got it just
we'll know what that is
okay
all right then um
can i move along i think are we ready
for first readings we're rolling right
along first reading of ordinance 45-21
to appropriate 23 000 from recreation
fund to pay for professional expenses in
the recreation programs department
0.5-520 introduced by mr martin
thank you um is
mike here to speak on this tonight or
should i give an explanation he's not
here
so that basically we have uh this year
the rec department has
needed to spend more money on their
professional expenses which professional
expenses
in their hiring
outside
outside help
typically so typically we're looking at
more uh
professional instruction and things like
that so uh
that is
is that right well the really good news
here is we're we're making more money on
programs than we expected so in order to
make that money we're paying it out to
the instructors
so this is allowing us to close out the
year
complete our programs make more money
pay the instructors
these are people like they have extra
people in to do certain kinds of craft
activities that are you know they
specialize in that or they um chair yoga
it's mostly chair yoga
yes whatever and then they have coach
chris comes in and does special
activities with with them and
um yeah
so anyway so yes we are we
the rec department makes money by having
these special people there
on the regular
is this something they need to suspend
and adopt i guess it is something that
it is something that michael needs it
tonight
that was my understanding
okay
so
that's up for to you guys to deal with
any any
questions on this any concerns on that
i'll make a motion to suspend the three
reading requirement
thank you is there a second well second
okay
uh any any questions from counsel any
questions
any questions from the citizens
uh ms lamke yes
yes ms robinson yes mr klingler yes mr
sharp
yes this is mr markham yes
basically three months any requirement
has been suspended i'll i'll make a
motion to pass ordinance 45 21.
we're the first is there a second well
second thought thank you jessica
uh questions from council on that one
questions from citizens on that one
mr auditor bible yes mr sharp
yes assad
[Music]
yes splingler yes mr markham yes
yes mrs robinson yes yes
all right first reading of ordinance
47-21 to amend section 408.01 d of the
codified ordinances in order to allow
for income-based fines for minor
misdemeanors introduced by ms robinson
i
want to make sure i brought up the right
notes hold on just a second
i didn't
here we go
okay so i did a little bit of research
just so i could give you some background
as to why we were
bringing this to you this evening
and um based on an article that i read
uh the constitutionality of income-based
fines from the university of chicago law
review
here is a
really good kind of encompassing
um
a summary of why this is an important
thing for us to consider
in america fines are typically imposed
without regard to income the result is a
system that traps low-income offenders
in cycles of debt and jail while letting
wealthier offenders break the law
without meaningful financial consequence
one-size-fits-all fines also failed to
meet the basic goals of our justice
system
to treat like offenders alike punish the
deserving and encourage respect
with the mayor's court reforms our city
has undertaken over the last few years
and our efforts to ensure that the
system doesn't disproportionately impact
those from lower income homes
this ordinance will build upon those
efforts and ensure that we are treating
offenders with equity and
proportionality
that's questions
yeah
i i just so this
to
to further uh add to what jen said and
and that and and great appreciation to
you jen for introducing this ordinance
this is one that
started as a spark when um i was going
through columbus's uh vision
zero
uh plan so their vision zero plan has to
do with drive driver
pedestrian bicycle safety
and um it's part of the livingston
avenue study in in a to a degree and i
was on like one of the
slew of recommendations at the very back
this sort of fine print
about exploring income based traffic
related penalties so as not to
disproportionately impact people with
lower incomes
by requiring them to attend traffic
court in order to get a reduced fine
and i just thought about how much that
was in keeping with the work that we've
been doing with um
you know potentially volunteer-based um
or non-fee court
uh courts and so uh david ingram who was
at the time our prosecutor set up a
meeting with myself and the columbus
prosecutor just to learn more about the
program and what they were talking about
and
in doing so we found that that this was
a
concept that they're interested in but
they haven't really advanced at all
because
they uh
it kind of interestingly ties back to an
earlier conversation we had this evening
all of their citations go through
franklin county so franklin county has
their own
ticket costs their own way of managing
those tickets and for columbus they
don't have the ability to
to make a change
like this without a whole lot more
long-term sort of work
at it so we started working on a model
ordinance just to see what it would look
like
um you know there are countries that do
this uh the country of norway
famous i think it's nowhere sweden if
you google it you'll find it was it's
you know the title is like the two
million dollar traffic fine or whatever
and the way they do it is they have a
direct tie to their version of the irs
and it's like basically okay if you
speed this much it's like half a day's
wage you know
and so for
some people that's you know
40 bucks and for some people it's two
million dollars it turns out in the case
of olaf
who uh
had a tough go of it when he was
speeding on the
yeah whatever anyway um so
this is something we've been working on
for a while and uh
working
initially with david ingram and then you
know mark's taking a look at it
i think that
what i find very compelling about this
concept is
it's a hardship for anybody to have a
traffic ticket
some people it's less of a hardship than
others
for some people it's dramatically more
of a hardship than others
and so i think this gets to some
proportionality
and i think it's a it's a concept worth
investigating and jenna i really
appreciate your work on this and your
encouragement i'm moving it forward and
uh
being like okay are we ready
are we doing this
but but it is
a choice they make to break the law
absolutely
and i don't is there an intent that
uh this happens one time or it happens
every time like if they get a ticket
today and get another one next week they
still pay a lower amount
so should i only get at one time
i believe that we had i didn't see
anything in there that limited it
i mean
maybe i could get that once
if you really have an issue but if i can
speed and it's only going to cost me you
know yeah this was definitely um though
this was one of the things that we had
discussed kind of as we were putting
this ordinance together um knowing that
you know we do you you make a choice to
drive fast you and
that ticket should be the thing that is
the detriment and if you continue to do
that
should you be eligible to to qualify
we didn't put it in here but certainly
something that we could
um as council continues to discuss this
um put a limit on on
you know how many times that could be um
this could be applied
um
you know i also know that there are
times when you're driving and you don't
realize that you're and it's you're in a
situation where you're speeding and and
when you're talking about this kind of
cycle of
of you know a ticket or an expense or
whatever that's a hardship on your
family i think that was really the
intent of putting this forward is being
making sure that we're being mindful
that we're being fair
um
in
in how impactful these these fines are
on on um you know on offenders
i would add one more thing to your point
which is that the way that this is laid
out is that it's the magistrate of court
that establishes the criteria with the
city attorney's approval so if the
magistrates find an
abuse of this somehow
then they have the ability to to work
around that and and to
maneuver to a different solution i think
the intent of this is not to say
oh you know i i have a restricted family
income in my household so i don't have
to pay anything
but the the reality is some of us get
not that i've ever sped but if i should
get a speeding ticket it's a hardship
it's difficult but it doesn't mean the
difference between me buying food for my
family
um so if if every time you get a ticket
and you're in a low income bracket and
it you know it is really
pinching and hurting
even though it's a reduced fee it's
still getting this it's still as a
proportional impact as it is
to a degree up to a higher income
household
absolutely not if you're a multi
multi-millionaire and then obviously
then there's
straight line
to make them stop speeding as opposed to
not penalize them as much well i think i
think our argument is that
it it makes them stop speeding as much
as it makes you stop speeding if it's
sliding along with the household income
yeah maybe and and i guess i'd also
back to the do i get this one time or
multiple times if i'm
texting and driving and i get caught
that's two
offenses do i get to waive them both at
a reduced fee or what's the i mean
[Music]
so i guess we need to think about that a
little bit
those are good oh i'm sorry i'm sorry
richard no you
what i was going to say is that i think
those things are valid and important to
think about but i would suggest that
they belong in the rules that the
mayor's court magistrate
comes up with with the city attorney's
review and approval as opposed to trying
to
again this is my opinion at this point
but as opposed to trying to figure out
every circumstances that circumstance
that could come up and trying to put it
in legislation and then hamstringing the
magistrate
to make
discretionary decisions
on a case-by-case basis
my counter to that argument is that
the way
the ordinance reads right now
income-based fines are universally
available for any relevant violation
at the time of citation so that to me
that
does not allow
the magistrate to establish rules
that
would be more restrictive than
universally available for any relevant
violation
i'm sorry i'm sorry honey i'm sitting
here taking notes fever
i'm so sorry i had a a comment and then
a question a comment is uh jen thank you
so much for introducing this i know that
you and i both
have talked to residents and
sometimes there's a snowball effect from
one offense one fine which then grows
and grows and
uh you know worst case scenario ends up
in a warrant or some sort of situation
so thank you so much for having the
foresight and
wisdom to introduce this my second
question was it's my understanding that
we
already had or were thinking about
introducing
community service to work off fines so
if if that's correct what's the
interplay between these fines and that
community service so that's it's uh the
difference is if you want to opt for
community service you're coming into
mayor's court you're
letting the magistrate know that you
would like to opt for community service
and they're providing you with that
option
in this instance you would be issued a
ticket that would include with it
accommodation for an income based fine
you wouldn't need to appear in court to
do that you would have the affirmative
right to do it um
you know at the time of payment
so it doesn't require a court date it
doesn't require hearing
so it's not like you're trying to do
community service to pay off the reduced
fine it's it's separate it's a separate
alternative yeah that's a uh you know
that's a
it's an important distinction that would
i the intent was not necessarily to do
that so i think that's something that we
would need to weed out a little bit okay
so is the community service is that
actually
something that's part of our mayor's
court now or is it something we're it is
part of it
okay so and that's calculated at a
living wage already so i don't think the
two go together i think they're two
different options
you couldn't do you couldn't get a
reduced price
that was not my personal intent
but it's also jen's ordinance and i
don't know if
i'm madly taking notes on all of these
points
so right now if you had a fine of 150
dollars you i'm sorry no no i forgot
that you could you could be a mayor's
court
cover that by community service
uh you could yeah
but if there's no income reporting on
that right correct
i don't point our question what does
that look like i have to review the
exact language and the rules there might
be as far as hours because i know also
people have to return to work you know
so
150 dollar fine translates into 10 hours
10 hours
it's 15 an hour
mr klingler question
um can we get this
ordinance added to the
packet
online for those that just downloaded
the packet i know the link is on there
yeah yeah i downloaded the packet and i
didn't i didn't have the ordinance in it
my fault
i was i was uh i was preaching the
virtues to natalie of how when you added
stuff to attachments it shows up
automatically online i'm still in the
packet but
and i i would it's great to download the
packet i would tell you that we're
every now and then fixing things that we
find and whatever and it's much more
laborious to recreate the packet so
we'll attempt to make sure that's
current but the online clickable one
will always have the most current
information
does anybody have any other questions
regarding this ordinance and i would i
would assume that
jen and the mayor would welcome
questions via email should we have
questions between now and and then
i think that would make this a stronger
ordinance if we do have that
mr cleaning there it looked like perhaps
you had another
i'm just going to say something
just for like people who go
to that meeting and then download that
packet like next week or three days from
now that the package gets you know what
i mean not necessarily before the
meeting i know where to get it for the
meeting it's not for me i'm just saying
in you know right as a part of the
record somebody goes and downloads the
packet it won't be there as a first
reading three days from now natalie gets
it
right okay
she's our go-to person thank you for
being that person
um my fault i told her not to update the
packet so much so
okay
i suggest we stop talking about the
packets and move on to the next
ordinance
if we could that would be great okay see
i think we're at ordinance 4821 please
and thank you
okay first reading ordinance 48-21 was
this in the packet just check it uh to
amend chapter
434.03 j to amend the penalty associated
with the violation of
434.03 maximum speed limits assured
their distance ahead ms robinson hello
again
um
so this actually is an ordinance that
brings us back into
um
alignment with the ohio revised code so
back in 1987
bexley increased the penalty for
violation of maximum speed limits and
acda which is assured clear distance
ahead from a minor misdemeanor which
carries a fine of
less than 150 or up to 150
and no time in jail
to a third degree misdemeanor which
carries a fine of up to 500 and 60 days
in jail so this proposed ordinance would
actually bring us back into an alignment
with a higher revised code and make the
violation of those two of uh maximum
speed limits and acda
a minor misdemeanor so again brings us
back into alignment with ohio revised
code and um i did get a question
from a council member about you know is
this assured clear distance you know is
this you know what other cities around
us are doing and i did a bit of a deep
dive this afternoon yes i'm cincinnati
cleveland columbus dublin hannah
grandview whitehall worthington uh the
list can go on and on we
we were really outliers in making that a
third degree misdemeanor not even a
fourth degree so um you know this
definitely is
i think a timely good thing for us to
consider
thanks chen mr auditor
um this question for mark i guess if if
the high revised code says that we don't
doesn't that take precedence over our
ordinance
we could be stricter right i think we
could be stricter more
strict okay
okay okay
so this uh this ordinary we do need to
change this to being compliant well we
don't have to change it but if we want
it to be the same
right so this ordinance it looks like it
it's playing into the other ordinance
that we read and it isn't a sense but it
also
i want to give credit to marquan stewart
or clerk of course he brought this to me
and said hey
this is weird
because you know he was with franklin
county said
this is uh this is more than um other
municipalities now as an aside we tend
to charge less for those those tickets
for sure than other municipalities but
nonetheless the the third degree means
that there is the possibility of jail
time whereas with the minor misdemeanor
there isn't and
magistrate or clerk of courts
prosecutor are united in feeling that
that was inappropriate so
um
i just wanted to
thank marquan for for bringing that to
our attention great
anybody have any
further questions
ms lamke please
my question is more for mark mark on
that first whereas
is that a
typo like should minor be deleted from
that one
point
where is it oh yeah
there's
yeah it should be my yeah just just
dominated i missed that in my review yep
thank you
should be a misdemeanor of the third
degree
we need to
amend that yeah i think it's it's a typo
okay all right i type with it okay
that's the one advice i was given
by my predecessor and there's a question
on that it's always it's always clear no
that really is critical though
for our rules this is a first reading
so maybe
you'll write a thing next time around
or public comment
all right any uh anything further with
that one ms robinson no i'm i'm good if
everyone else is good i'm gonna move on
then to border control
all right first reading of ordinance
49-21 to create chapter 270 board of
control to specify
contracting procedures in accordance
with section 59 of the city charter and
to establish encouraging diversity
growth and equity edge
procurement policies mr markham
so we've done a lot of talking about
this uh recently and i think we've had
some
incidences not incidences
okay we've had some uh circumstances in
the last uh couple years that we've had
to uh be a little flexible with our uh
uh
contracting uh procedures in order to
get uh
um
my brain's getting too tired
competitive thank you that is the word i
was looking for the word is
competitive
and i know mr fishel and mr mayor you
guys have looked at a lot of uh legal
documents within the last uh few weeks
and so
since i could barely even think of the
word competitive it would be crazy for
me to try and talk legal here i will
turn over to you guys and let us know
what this is going to do
so uh
this does a lot of just does a couple
different things at once
to your point you know recently as
recently as right now we're in the
process of soliciting bids on an hvac
project
that we have a grant funder for
um that's you know
under 250 000 above 50
and the state bidding process is onerous
and provides a hardship especially to
small contractors and kind of puts them
out of the equation in a lot of
situations which we've talked about in
the past
so
this ordinance does
it helps to streamline a process where
we created a different threshold which
we have the ability to do between the 50
000 and 250 000 mark
we put
those
competitive price quotes in front of the
board of control for review and approval
it just so happens that our charter
section 59 calls for council to
establish rules like this
and as far as we could tell unless it's
an ordinance that wasn't codified at
some point in time
it's not there so there's nothing in our
code right now so this also
helps council comply for sure with
chapter 59 of the charter
in establishing
uh contracting processes for the city
it really what it does
is put
the board of control in having a more
supervisory role in more situations than
it does today
for example right now
we went to uh the the joint livingston
avenue plan we went out for multiple
bids
and under our current process because
it's a professional service it does not
require state bidding process or board
of control approval
this would take a process like that and
require board of controlled approval so
we're going for competitive quotes above
the 50 000 mark whether or not it's a
personal service
it requires board of control to review
that and approve of it so there's more
accountability more control more
oversight with this ordinance than we
have today
but it does also change things because
right now the current threshold is fifty
thousand dollars if any projects above
fifty thousand dollars unless council
specifically waives it it needs to go
through the state bidding process
this pushes that up to 250 which also
happens to be the same
benchmark for prevailing wage so for a
project over 250 000 we have to start
paying prevailing wage once you get into
that domain
that's a different animal and state
bidding and all that stuff it's just
kind of that's what happens with those
projects so this it's a logical break
point
um in no way shape or form does this
get rid of the obligation for us to
receive multiple quotes in fact it
explicitly makes it required and the
board of control would have to waive it
under some special circumstance like for
example
you know we need to buy a red widget and
there's only one company that sells red
widgets and therefore you know we didn't
have three different quotes
um additionally
uh last year we started putting edge
requirements in our street contracts
so we have a five percent requirement
matt klingler worked
really helpful getting us language that
we used to rift off of and and moving
forward with that
so this puts that in our code
and what it says is um
you know it's it's not a super hard and
fast
guideline it's a good faith effort
and that if it is a project subject to
the state bid process so essentially 250
or above
we are required to have some sort of an
edge requirement unless it's weighed by
the border control for good reason
so edge is um encouraging diversity
growth and equity it's a state of ohio
program there are uh
there are
vendors that are qualified and certified
through that state of ohio program um
minority so basically requiring a
minority-owned company
or a disadvantaged population owned
company
would be an edge contractor
in general we've
tried to be more cognizant of that
through our procurement this formalizes
that commitment
any questions
mr klingler
i'm sure it was but was did you give can
you was any thought given to a certain
requiring a certain percentage of a
contract over 250 or 150 or whatever
that might be
mandating
the use of edge certified contractor
suppliers and if
you can't if a contractor can't get to
the five percent you know submitting
some affidavit or something
signifying the reason so that's what we
do with our street contract right now
it's a five percent requirement and it
requires an affidavit showing why they
couldn't reach that and i think we
recently had a contract
that we had an issue with that
compliance but
um i left it i left it uh more
open-ended than that because i i just
know that there are so many projects
that could potentially just have aspects
that we don't
aren't thinking about like maybe it's
you know a one vendor bid and it can
only be one vendor like i so i just
i left it where it was to provide for
some flexibility but the spirit of the
intent was there but if you guys want to
put some more teeth on it and study
maybe some ways that that's more
rigorous then i think that's a great
conversation to have
how did you
[Music]
what did you say about the
over 250 has to be approved by the
border control
so over 250 would be the state estate
bid process
50 to 250
uh the way it's worded
is is right here i think
uh
we should demonstrate efforts made to
secure multiple price proposals for the
service to be procured
um in the event that the board of
control proves an expenditure based on
fewer than three price quotes there
needs to be justification for why there
were less than three price quotes
everyone
good on this
ordinance for now mr klingler
just curious in a given year
how many times
is a purchase made between 50 and 250
thousand dollars
in your estimation
um
so and i don't need exact twenty fifty
hundred
ten ish maybe okay what was the question
that aren't like i mean a lot of those
are under state bids so if it's a
if it's a
street sweeper for example
which may or may not have just fallen
this is state bid it's already state bid
so a lot of stuff i'm not including
those
but right now we have professional
service contracts that are not subject
to state bid
and therefore aren't currently going
before border control so this really
does introduce a lot more
review to the board of control than it
currently has um
but i don't have an exact number i would
say in that in the range of
a dozen or so i know bill if you have a
better sense for that
i can think like
two maybe two or three contracts in the
past year or two that we've asked you
guys to wave
this on that have been under 250.
and the only the only reason i
well recovery's about one of the mayors
asked is just to get an idea
of tracking edge
um
you know what what we spend on edge and
you know setting up setting some sort of
goal for the future
um
encouraging diversity and growth
enterprise
right
so
if i may
this is maybe a question for ben and
mark um
i sense that there's a
struggle's not the right word but not
necessarily a clearly defined
a clear definition of what the border
control is supposed to do other than we
take these things and we look at them we
do realistically very little of an
overview and say yep the slowest bid
we'll take it
this is a perfect time for making these
changes to
clarify what the border control really
should be doing and because the charter
is pretty broad in it and
mark and i have struggled i've struggled
i think mark has struggled with trying
to find a solid definition and
even in the ohio revised code
so
i mean
just something to think about i guess as
we're going through this it says approve
the contracts and record the voting but
that's
you know
[Music]
do you see in your you feel that the orc
isn't clear enough on what what it does
it's pretty vague
i was surprised actually when i went and
looked at it specifically how vague it
is now having said that though i i mean
i certainly you're right phil it makes
sense that if there it makes sense that
if there are additional things to add we
should add in this ordinance one of the
problems as you just heard the mayor
saying i had no idea nobody is that this
should there should be something like
this all along and there hasn't been so
obviously it could also be amended now
that we're going to have something in
place
yeah my gut reaction is
267.03
is all that we need because
now we're specifically saying any
contract in excess of 50 000 that's what
the border control has to approve but
i'm not saying there shouldn't be more i
just don't know what that might be right
now
and by the way today chapter 270 is
chapter 270 board of control and then it
says
this is a placeholder
and our sort of code so there's nothing
yeah the numbers are wrong too
oh yeah my bad sorry
we started out yeah
it didn't start
set up 2627.
it evolved are there any more question
non-clerical questions concerning this
piece of
legislation matt matthew is your hand up
i guess
yeah because if it's between 50 and 250
000 and it's only a dozen 20 i mean 25
i don't i don't see why it couldn't just
come in front of us and we all and we
all review it and approve it as a part
of normal business
instead of just going to board of
control
well one reason
is
that requires three readings and we get
a contract for
the sidewalk project for example the
board of control can approve it tonight
you have to do three readings or go
through a waiver process that's the one
well we could always suspend an adult
like we did tonight good i i understand
that
but that's
a lot more work i mean not i mean it's
what are they up to you guys and that's
because the funds have already been
appropriated
right generally yes right yes
i mean border patrol is the higher
revised code vehicle
for review of contracts and approval so
it's like a
it's the kosher
i don't know if that's the right word
that's right
it's the normal
it's it's the most common process that's
used because again as richard said the
money's already been appropriated
so so that that doesn't mean council
can't also approve the contract itself
but again this is the most normal
approach where the board of control then
vets you know reviews the the criteria
of those contracts i i would venture to
say that
it's similar to that that's true that's
a good point too richard um i would
venture to say that getting
seven council members and this is not i
mean this is not meant as any criticism
it's just a reality to start vetting the
ins and outs and aspects of every
let's say they're six beds six contracts
at a meeting even if it's even if it's
going to be suspended and adopted is
going to be a
laborious
tedious
lengthy process
and again the council can do that if
they want but
this is the purpose of the border
control and all those meetings are open
to the public i mean sunshine law
applies
and and we get a document with a
recommendation from our engineer
typically with a spreadsheet
a multi-page spreadsheet of you know
there are 40
bid pieces in this
contract and here's what
all four contractors been on every one
of them and we need to review those go
through that as mark said that's a slow
process
certainly you have the right to do that
certainly have the ability to do it
it
is
you know
[Music]
once a month it gets laborious
so
if you've got 12 contracts that we do
that's probably what we do 10 or 12 a
year
somewhere around that
any other questions before i move us on
yes so i guess uh
something to think about is um off of
matt's question that if it's 10 to 12
what are some examples of what those 10
or 12 have been this past year
so uh i'll think about what's coming up
if that's okay commonwealth park
uh
athletic improvements is going to come
up
actually for a
current
excuse our current process is the
council would need to waive
by voice vote the competitive bid
requirement for that because it's going
to be under 250.
or sorry over 50
and yet kind of in that sweet spot where
it doesn't really make sense to go
through the state bidding process
street projects um jeffrey
mansion um
[Music]
i need to get some water because
i inhaled a tavern from my plus i don't
think it's covered
unless
[Music]
jeffrey was more than
250 000.
right it was still approved by border
patrol
[Music]
any further questions
this this is for for matt since he had
some experience with the edge
considerations is there something else
like maybe other small businesses that
have
proven diversity in their hiring
practices or
anything like that
it's actually not
um in my contracting background
a lot of municipalities in small cities
don't have the
bandwidth
to
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not enforce it but you know make sure
make sure it's applied correctly if you
if you pass it into ordinance so
it's
you know in this in the smaller
50 to 250 window i mean i'm not i agree
and ask you know work in good faith ever
to
to try to get it um you know on the
state level it is they they mandate you
um and they have their goals that they
publish and that's public information
but they the state is a lot larger
entity than dublin worthington
i think we're currently the only suburb
that has an edge requirement based on
what
you and i have found talking a couple
people yeah we are yeah for edge for a
street project
but like columbus does
they also have
they also have like a department i think
dedicated to it compliance odi
there you go
all right
uh
mr markham is okay if i move on to
tabled ordinances
and
i'm guessing that there is no action on
the table ordinances mr
sharp
um i have no action
um i don't know if the mayor
wants
to share any timeline of what he's
anticipating with the surveys and we are
in any other consideration
yeah we're leveraging uh some
high school community service hours to
uh tabulate our
our paper ballots of which we have a
pile that's about that high right now
so that's good um
the findings of the paper ballots so far
it seems similar to those of our online
survey which i characterized kind of
loosely at the last meeting so hope at
our next meeting we can come back with
some metrics uh to talk about
but it looks like generally speaking
uh folks are supportive of the concept
of an opt-out aggregation and generally
supportive of even if that doesn't you
know if even if it's a five or ten
dollar extra cost per per household per
month
all right
uh
mr um is it too late for the surveys or
can we just drop this off that city off
it's not too late for the surveys
natalie is your person i think mine's on
my city you're on my kitchen table
okay
all right if we may i'm gonna move on to
uh committee reports service and
environmental committee richard sharp
i was just going to highlight some
things from the esac committee
as soon as i find it here i'm sorry
i lost it
the sac is working on a grant from swaco
for new trash receptacles that will have
better and more clear signage
um
the as far as the bexley single-use
plastic
no plastic straws or stirrers will be
allowed unless they're specifically
requested
and
there was
some discussion about
whether
legislation should be introduced to
extend the deadline for cutlery and
right now there doesn't seem to be
a major interest in doing that so
that will
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stay as the current ordinances allow um
and um
the
there's going to continue to be litter
pickups
um they uh
and
um csg is having a community service day
that's on november 20th that's going to
involve a lot of literary
cleanup in the
bexley area
they're going to be working on their
strategic plan update and um
the um
their their five year plans towards the
the um
the zero waste
policy updating so those are highlights
from
their last meeting
as a liaison report i'd like to
call attention to the fact that the
historical society had a special
um presentation with the
reynoldsburg historical society because
um somehow um
the bexley historical society had a
headstone of an infant son of major john
a coons who served in the war of 1812
and they um
and the headstone was dated september
29th in 1827
and so they were had a little ceremony
to transfer custody of that historical
item to um
the uh reynoldsburg historical society
so it's kind of a interesting
um
historical event that they um remembered
and participated in
so that's about all i have right now
thank you mr sharp um troy markham
finance committee
uh you know a few minutes ago uh mr
klingler expressed a desire to vote on
some of these financial things so i i
you saw i just left i dispatched a
bexley police officer to andy
bainshore's house to
rouse him and i told andy please just
pull up an invoice for us right now
and we do have andy live right do we
uh
this is late we do have a uh invoice
that does need our attention and i'll
let you uh
tell us what you need from us here
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thank you troy
this invoice was
missed in a personnel personnel change
and it was paid off the wrong po
and i need to get a motion to have the
funds approved to pay it off to correct
pio we do have the funds i just missed
it by the dates um
by the time i caught it it was too late
and
when i tried to open the po i missed the
the date
any questions on on
the invoice or what we're doing here why
we need this yes
what's it for and how much is it for
before our um
our project this year it's for 271
um thousand and zero seventy three point
twenty two cents
you're not actually asking for approval
you've already paid it we just you just
need to pay it
get a different
po for it
correct um we opened the po but by the
time i caught it we missed the invoice
state so it made us you know
feature caught me
it's not a new expense nothing that this
has already been approved so this is
part of our yeah part of our street
contract
it's one section of our overall street
contract which is a 937 thousand dollar
contract
that was uh
it was thought that there was the yo
that was open
was it op was it an opw cpo that was
thought was correct and it was not
correct and so
that's correct
uh we had needed to appropriate more out
of our street fund the money is there
it's just that the purchase order had
not been opened prior to the invoice
coming in
got it does everybody else
have it
okay
we try very hard not to have these come
and happen but this is
because it's confusing they used to
happen all the time okay troy do you
have a you want to make a motion yeah
make a motion to approve the payment to
columbus asphalt invoice for the 2021
pixley street improvements thank you
troy is there a second i heard mr
klingler second yes
mr auditor
uh ms lampke yes assad
yes mclingler
robinson yeah
yes mr markham yes yes
sir
yes
yep yep
yes all right we're back to that andy
thank you thank you so much
thank you
all right we are going to uh formally
excuse uh the mayor um mrs fowlder is
going to come
and take his spot so that we can she
will just
flip his bounce up and down all right
thank you mr kessler thank you talk soon
thank you for all your hard work
especially on the
all budget
moving on to safety and health committee
i have nothing to report other than a
sad sad announcement that the best of
the boys soccer season has ended
and on a personal note
cheers to all the singers he will no
longer be playing soccer anymore
and now i'm going to turn off my mic and
have a little moment that's all right
mom
it's hard to be a senior mom i've done
that twice and it's hard when you
know it's the last time that you get to
enjoy your baby
on a field so
um we're sad about the lions going down
but uh we know that they'll continue
roaring even though when they leave back
sleep so
all right safety and health committee
jen robinson has nothing so we'll move
on to zoning and development committee
jessica sod
just a couple quick things um ciac meets
next tuesday november 2nd at 6 p.m bzap
is meeting this week halloween night
they're working on halloween night
and bexley i know
uh thank you to all those who serve
so be zapped at 6 00 pm on halloween
night
um
remind everyone to get out and vote
election day is next tuesday november
2nd
and best of luck to those who sit among
us and work so hard and run a campaign
at the same time
thank you
um
and then last piece
is we have bright a bright future for
nick and megan is experiencing that
right now she was a graduating senior
last year
she
is really trying to target and um
and get uh
our alumni more involved um in the
community and it's a really neat thing
so if anyone on council would like me to
snag extra copies of this
i already know you
and i know a neighbor up the street
who's gonna want this as well um just
email me and i'll get everyone or if you
just if you're all like yes we'd like to
see it we would like to see it i'll
bring him to the next council meeting
thank you that would be wonderful but
it's really lovely and uh very well done
very engaging for our future alumni and
current alumni um
and i'm excited to share it with you
guys so good job bexley education
foundation
thanks jessica
all right recreation and parks committee
matt klumer nothing very important thank
you klingler
judiciary strategic committee monique
clampy chair ma'am nothing from me
thank you
i think there's someone who wants to
make a public comment
no
okay all right we're all good okay
well guys
motion to adjourn anyone
motion to adjourn thank you
thank you all those in favor signify by
saying aye aye
all those opposed same sign
all right
good work everyone thank you so much
giant things
yes
oh my legs
with my hamstrings