catchy okay you are good
now i have to mute my phone
all right
[Music]
i think we're recording now
ladies and gentlemen welcome to our uh
city council budget meeting to talk
about our schedule and assignments for
the upcoming budget process
um i would
like to
have bill harvey call the roll at this
time
ms feibold here
mr klingler here ms lamke here mr
markham here ms robinson here
of the united states of america and to
the republic for which it stands one
nation under god indivisible with
liberty and justice for all
thank you you should have a handout in
front of you and it is double-sided or
it should be double-sided
anyway
and on one side we have the uh
2022 budget schedule at least the one
that we're working with right now
and on the other side we have the
responsibilities for the review of that
budget
we'll just start with the schedule for
the review i'll go over that pretty
quickly
[Applause]
you can see we have tonight september
28th the council budget strategic
discussion
and then we have a draft budget that
will be circulated to council members on
around october 15th
by the mayor let me check my calendar
here
and that will be done
uh
i believe via email most likely right
yes
um so you'll get a chance to look at
that and then uh we'll have an official
first reading of the budget on october
26th
and then on that time the mayor will
give us a budget presentation we'll have
some five and ten year projections
presented and then we will actually have
the first presentations by department
heads
we'll try and make those uh those first
rounds
um on october 6 sort of the i guess
we're going to say the
lighter
lighter is the word right
because you guys will be under the gun
or some of you will be under the gun to
do your reviews with those department
heads and we'll have
11 days since you'll have the draft
budget circulated
if that seems problematic please let me
know but hopefully hopefully that will
work out we can maybe rearrange some
things if that is is problematic uh
november 9th we have the second reading
of the budget
again department head
presentations
and then november 16th we will have the
third reading of the budget
and the third round of presentations by
uh department heads
please note on november 9th and november
16th we also have the first and second
readings of the pay ordinance
and you may remember that's where we go
over the the pay rates that we've set
for the various types of positions here
within the city
we can vote on the budget as early as uh
well we could vote on the budget as
early as
november 16th i suppose
but realistically i think we're looking
at possible vote on the budget uh
december 7th
assuming
how you all are feeling at that point
and how that process has gone
and then we also of course have december
14th as a possible date to vote on the
budget if we do need to table it and
keep it tabled
keep in mind that of course
servants of the city of bexley we would
possibly have all the way up until
december 31st to pass the budget if we
need to
any questions about our uh proposed
schedule at this point or any concerns
yes ma'am just help me follow you on
when we'll get assigned who we need to
follow up with and then the timeline of
like is it the 26th we have to be ready
by the the 9th you're gonna get assigned
uh right now so flip this over but you
will get a budget to look at some
numbers to look at on october
15th
that's a friday
so you should have the rest of the
following week and then the first
reading of the budget will be the
tuesday after that according to the
schedule
and um
oh good
can i benefit from more than that it's
successful still uh
so for example jess i think we're going
to have build a department budget
presented in the first reading okay um
which will be one that you review so you
can go ahead and schedule a meeting with
like me and kathy rose in that week
after the 15th so you can schedule a
meeting have a chance to review the
budget we can talk through it there will
be plenty of time i think for you prior
to that presentation
and i think that do you mind me saying
what we talked about having present no i
think yeah go ahead we talked about
technology which is monique
auditor's budget me which is troy and
then police
first meeting
uh troy if i may ben i assume you want
to be involved in these presentations
you want to let these so that they're
not just meeting with these people
without you
yeah that's correct so the
there's that little note at the bottom
just you can uh schedule the meeting
through me or
with the director that includes me it's
just um
that is not true of the auditor's budget
auditor maintains his own budget but for
the other
i'm i'm happy to sit in that meeting as
well
troy if you'd like to have me
but the
the other budgets um
would typically i would be there with
the director as we talked through it
just because i need to hear what you're
saying as well from a blanket
perspective
cool
so it sounds like we've already flipped
this over so we can do that if you're
ready then if there are no more
questions about the schedule
and it should look very familiar i don't
think there's been very many changes uh
the mayor has simplified the format from
the
big table that we had last time so that
it looks a little bit easier to find
what you will be looking at and who will
be looking at each thing uh as mayor
kessler has indicated please uh schedule
with him and the
the uh
the appropriate department uh when you
do a review for these so that he can
kind of stay involved with that
any questions
concerns
if not we'll move swiftly into our
budget discussion item six
and at this point i think we can kind of
open it up in an organic matter to see
what your concerns are and have a
dialogue with the mayor about
maybe what he's thinking what we're
thinking what sort of items
we are thinking about focusing on
yes mrs fibel
sorry what richard shared with me but um
were part of our
part of the retreat when we i don't know
how
and way back then
those two major goals
were to try to
um
do something with the reaction you know
to whoever onto the man so
check
and i think it's a really great shape
and
um
so please tell me you got some great
help with that um the other thing was
to concentrate on fundraising
and i know that that area has been
something that
the cic has been
i think part of their ideas for
investing and moving on
i'm wondering if there's anything we as
a council can do to
accelerate
to
[Music]
thank you
who else
assad
thank you mr markham um
i wanted to kind of i knew that this was
in the last meeting notes with uh park
and rec and mike price a strategic plan
that's coming up for park and rack so
i'm super excited about that and um i'm
assuming that we'll have some consulting
that we're budgeting for to put together
that strategic plan
possibly
uh for park um yes
yes putting money aside for that um
i know i've heard since i
before i was running and then running
and sitting in the seat that um
exploring a plan like that and a sports
park similar to
bevelheimer or burliner
is something you know a turf field and i
think we kind of touched upon this
during the pandemic that we rely so much
on the space at our schools
that we learned a lot through that and
um
i've looked through a different lens
when i'm driving around the fields now
that i have a middle schooler and seeing
everybody on top of each other um for
their for outdoor just enjoying the
space of the school from the playground
to every sport on top of each other it'd
just be great to start looking at
exploring that
i concur i agree with lorient about a
senior space
i've heard that
also and i think that was another covid
you know when you looked at mental
health of our seniors and i um also
experienced that with my parents and my
in-laws who live here in bexley um
having places for them to get to and go
out but i
i think that something we might be able
to look at and ben and i have
had some conversations i think that the
mental health of our teens with places
to go in the community too is important
so i don't know that we cannot maybe
look at exploring senior space shared
with teens and i think there's so much
these teenagers these days
when given the task of giving back
are a whole new generation of how
important it is to give back to
community and i think maybe mixing
those generations in our community could
be really beneficial so maybe that space
is shared space with the senior center
teen center
the dog park every resident
mentions the dog park so i'm looking
forward to as lorianne said that
and some implementation
of the
uh bike strategic plan that we we
already have our
the strategic plan for the city with the
bike plan i would love to see some of
those things within that strategic plan
get implemented
i.e bike lanes
and a lot of other great things that
came out of that strategic plan
i would say
and i would
ask jen to maybe elaborate a little more
on this but resources that are needed
for the police department
always in favor of that
obviously we have commonwealth that
we're getting ready to
start working on commonwealth west
and just wanted to make sure that uh as
we just discussed turf fields and more
space for
our um rec and sports activities that we
keep working towards
making sure that we implement
the resurfacing of commonwealth east and
west looking forward to that
and the livingston when we were talking
about the livingston corridor
recently at just the small thing of
plants going up and that beautification
of flowers
um i had a bike ride along there and i i
come off on that ramp a lot and it made
me smile
and it made me think that people are
going to be less
likely to
you know um
not take care of that area now because
we're taking care of it so
when lorianne said you know what else
can we do i think sometimes it's those
little things that we can control while
we're waiting for the bigger things that
cic
may be working towards
every month for us those little things
are going to go a long way so i think if
we can continue to maybe beautify not
just that livingston corridor but
cassidy as well
um keep working towards those things
that we have a little more control on to
implement more quickly to make that
space
be something we're really proud of
robinson
so i'm going to echo several things that
have already been
been said ferndale mayfield um
is certainly something that is has
constantly whether it's been in the
forefront or in the background it's
certainly something that i've been
thinking about a lot over the last
couple of years and i'd be curious um
president bible i don't know if it would
be appropriate at some point to have
somebody from the cic come
and talk to us at council about you know
what you know kind of the history of it
and where we are now and kind of what
next steps might look like so we have a
better idea where we might be able to to
plug in dollars in a really effective
way
to make sure that we're
being supportive of the the the plan
that's there and and are as
knowledgeable as we can about how we're
we are thinking about how we can be
supportive of that so that would
definitely be something that i think
that would be great i think as far as
the history is concerned i think that mr
kessler's been you know thinking about
that that area before
the icd that you know was
a thing
um and uh and in fact i think that it
was the mayor who really
um passionate about taking back me and
then
i remember sitting on the cip and being
very passionate with people uh jeff
walker i know that i've hit a nerve with
him when we started when i started
talking about this
so um
it would be nice to hear from um
and nate green if you wanted to come and
just tell us you know give us kind of an
idea of what the barometer you know is
but i also think that we have three
representatives
um from council that can
give us three different views about
where they are but again
always
love to
[Laughter]
excuse me
maybe it makes sense for
this council to set up a true
subcommittee to figure out what to do
with that to work with the cic and work
with the mayor work with the neighbors i
mean if that's
a hot button for everybody that's the
way to make something happen is you guys
you know this is the group you get three
or four or three of you whatever the
number happens to be and and work with
those people and drive it because it
i mean
ben knows probably better than any of us
how hard you have to do that and how
slow that process is
but having you guys
whatever group of you meet once a month
and call the health department and call
the cic and call the neighbors to to
keep moving on that i mean that's what
this process takes i think
so go ahead and i'm sorry no i think
it's
that's true um you
we just recently passed an ordinance a
few months ago that gives us powers we
never had before as we were waiting for
the board of health to act so i think
the cic has a role
and there they have a place
but the city has a place that's going to
probably be sooner rather than later
that will
create a condition by which the cic can
can do work so i think
uh maybe like an update presentation
after mark and i we need to meet with
our environmental council that's our
next step uh in terms of how we're
moving forward but we could have a
meeting where we focus on that and we
have nate green there from the cic
perspective i can help augment with
history on it and
um talk about how counsel could be
helpful as part of our budget process i
think that'd be really helpful i think
that would be that would be great
um i have two more things um
tori if you don't mind
um
one um and and jess i don't have
specifics about you know needs for the
police but certainly that will be um on
the topic of conversation with the chief
and the mayor um but one of the things
that i think is important and this
doesn't just um apply to the police but
our city as a whole
i can't tell you how many times over the
last year that implicit bias training
that we did with the woman whose name
i'm completely forgetting
um thank you yes how many times i have
fallen back on that training and how
incredibly helpful it has been
as we've navigated the last year since
that training and i want to make sure
that we have a line item in our budget
not just for police but for all of the
departments that we have that kind of
training on an ongoing basis
and then police specific
you know what kind of training could we
bring in that would augment the training
because i mean our police officers are
really really well trained police
officers but how can we augment that and
support that so that they are
um getting kind of the social and
emotional training that they needed as
well as the nuts and bolts of of you
know being successful and good police
officers for our city so um always
something to fall back on i think and to
consider
lastly um i've been so thrilled over the
last couple months to see how main
street has picked up and
the dora thank you man
[Laughter]
i won't sing the song
but
you know how it really has brought
people out in to main street and one of
the things that i'm always thinking
about i live right on maryland avenue
you know i cross broad street to get to
um
to
main street and you know traffic and
speeding is always something that you
know we are concerned about as a city
and one of the things that i noticed is
that when you come into bexley
from um on main street from outside of
bexley the speed limit goes down from 45
to 35.
so um could we have a line item in the
budget for um signage to make it very
clear you know we want people to come
out to main street we want people to be
walking and enjoying that can we make
sure that we are being responsible to
people who are driving and visiting um
our city that um that we're clear that
that speed limit drops
as you as you enter the city
you still have your big flashing sign
that yeah
you put out there right now man
well we have the ones we we rotate
through but you're talking about
permanent it's something that would be
permanent yeah
it doesn't have to be a big flashing
anything even just assigned reduced
speed ahead you know just so we're we're
being responsible to those people
driving and making sure that they know
that that speed limit does um slow down
there
um
um i echo the the senior center i think
it's interesting jess you're um
thinking about how we can combine kind
of multi-generational programming i
certainly do that in the work that i do
with harmony project a lot and i see the
value and i can certainly
see whether it's a dedicated team space
or it's a senior space that we you know
use to do some multi-generational
programming i think that's really
interesting
and because i walk around commonwealth a
lot you know let's just make sure
because we have so many kids who are
playing sports and who are outside and
who want to use those those places let's
just make sure that we have the dollars
to make sure that those projects get
done well and um
as quickly as possible for all of those
kids who want to get out and use them so
that's that's my list thank you i'm
gonna tag on to to jen's thing there
because she's i think we're on the same
thought process here on a couple of
things uh one of the things that i will
also echo is the
implicit bias trading um i am actually
right now onboarding for a new job and
so this morning i had a three hour
implicit bias uh training session and
you know i have to be honest with you i
was not super excited about you know
dialing in for three hours on that and
the uh the training was really really
good i i just i found myself really
really engaged with
with the topics that were coming up and
and so i i just and and i've been
through a lot of implicit bias training
you know over the past you know three or
four years so i i think
it's interesting that you know you think
i think a lot of people think that
that's something that well you do this
you learn that and you're done with that
but you know as i did it this morning i
thought what there's there's really it's
an ongoing education really for
everybody so i do i do think
it's helpful to continue that i think
it really does pay to look for people
who have some dynamic
you know interesting you know programs
to present to us too uh so they don't do
a lot of time
you know being repetitious with the
training but maybe learning
uh new and important things
the second thing that
jen talked about was uh the police the
police department and and i just want to
say again
we probably have one of the best funded
and equipped police departments in the
united states and we we have uh
an area with a community that's fairly
low crime
um
but
i i think
what jen said about training there i
think is important as well
we are especially in our environment
asking our police officers to do
so many more things than they've ever
had to do before and especially in our
community i think you know uh we're
asking them to do a lot of community
outreach one of the things that uh
you've identified is uh
the changing landscape with police
officers dealing with juveniles and so
we have a working group right now doing
that
i guess i would say in anticipation of
that work group wrapping up with some
recommendations
may be a good idea to have some
consideration in the budget for
implementing
either training or additional
position or additional whatever
resources that that group comes up with
to to aid our police force
um and transitioning you know into those
responsibilities and that shifting
landscape where we're dealing
proactively with with youth in the
community and also the growing number of
youth
crime activity that they're seeing as
well because we know that that is very
difficult
it's a very difficult
role to take
even for you know seasoned trained
police officers uh and so i think in
consideration of that i would i would
suggest
that maybe we could consider having
something
in anticipation of what that that group
comes up with
all right some of my ideas have already
been mentioned but the ones that i
jotted down that i thought would be
worth emphasizing as being important for
me to
consider including in our budget are the
following
the first is our infrastructure
i know that andy and the service
department have done a great job in
trying to finish projects
if there was any delay created when
kobut was really bad and we had to
suspend some things if there's any way
to
make up any of that those lost projects
or catch them back up especially when
our sewers
are still
sometimes at capacity to maybe overflow
pending an additional heavy rain that to
me would be
ultra important
the next is preserving our green space i
know that we as a council a few months
ago
approved an ordinance regarding
havenwood and we recently allocated some
money to
repair and fix commonwealth
west
havenwood
obviously needs a lot of love especially
given how many community events we have
there
schneider park is looking amazing but it
would be great to
try to
keep up all of our green spaces because
as we enter the winter months with covet
i think our community is going to want
to be outside
and as safe as possible so that would
also be important to me
the next thing i wanted to just
give you food for thought is i've
noticed that we've recently had
an increase in public records requests
primarily for police records
and
as a lawyer i totally understand and
respect the fact that
those records have to undergo a thorough
legal review for a number of reasons
but the other thing i want you to
consider is that usually it's a police
officer that has to assist with
redacting
that information so that the resident
that requested it
can receive it obviously our residents
have a right to the information
i want them to get it timely i wanted to
go through a thorough legal review but
my concern is if we're seeing an
increase in public records requests
the officers that have to spend the time
redacting are then not doing other
things
so if there's room in the budget to
reassess resources potentially add some
resources so that those records requests
can be dealt with timely while still
following the normal process
it would allow our officers to keep
doing
their other duties
the next i have just a few more things
on here
the next one is our senior center
a couple days ago or maybe even just
yesterday i asked the mayor and our
auditor you know how much money of our
feasibility dollars did we have um i
seem to recall maybe last year the year
before it was thirty thousand but then
covet hit so i'm not actually sure if
we've
spent any of that money but i think it
would be great to consider working with
community partners and getting some
additional input from our seniors
and seeing if we can finally after all
this time
take a step in the right direction and
work towards that goal if it makes sense
at least as of july we were almost a
million dollars over budgeted revenue
and i know with karezak money perhaps we
are on target to have a phenomenal
financial year even amidst a pandemic
perhaps this is his time to to take the
next step for a senior center
and then finally my last comment is
about livingston i would love some
financial resources put into the budget
as some of you may know i'm part of the
joint
livingston avenue steering committee and
while i don't get to vote as an
ex-officio member i've asked them
repeatedly to consider not only
long-term solutions but also short-term
solutions
at some point if we do come up with some
very viable short-term solutions
whether it's painting striping markings
additional signage
it would be great if perhaps the city of
bexley was in a position to offer some
financial resources to make those
short-term
solutions a possibility
that's all i've got
klingler
okay
with my with my recent change in
positions in life from contractor to
owner with the city of columbus i hate
to be the fun police
but i'm looking more and more at
infrastructure
now in my current position and and one
of the things
um speaking with mike that we we
definitely need to allocate funds for is
to improve
um the existing facility of jeffrey
mansion
there's quite a bit of tuck pointing
that needs done they have leaks coming
in
right now into the new space from the
existing space
the windows i think need worked on
inside and out so i think that's going
to be we need to allocate this year as a
sort of like a you know get some
preventative maintenance and get some
get some
work done on the existing part of the
mansion
the other things that i had um
i echo what everyone else says i'm
passionate about our seniors i i said
that two years ago when i ran and we
we've got it off the ground but
a senior community teen center however
we envision it um
i'd like to see that come to life in in
20 20 22.
um
revenue projections are going to be
challenging for our rec department um
our biggest revenue drivers are before
and after care preschool and the mansion
with covid continuing you know all
through this year and into next we're
just
i don't think we're sure
about the amount of revenue that's going
to come in
um
and
we we've had to pay
would in in with the current workforce i
think we've all seen it
you know there's there's people are
hiring everywhere and and demands are
being made for more money for certain
positions so i think
we're having to pay more money
to fill positions
within the rec department
so
i think we need to allocate some some
additional funding for for salaries and
for for employment
to pay people within the rec department
if we do
bring on a senior center
you know i'm sure mike could restructure
his current
workload amongst
his employees however you know you're
probably going to need to hire on
another position to help out not only um
with an event coordinator for
jeffrey manchin but also to help
facilitate whatever the senior center
looks like
so those are things to think about
um the one thing that i really like and
i agree
with with jess about
outdoor space but
but the before and after care they have
a hard time
uh with with the kids when it comes to
bad weather
um they have to utilize saint charles
sometimes they have to spread out they
have to go different places uh i know
grandview just built
an
awesome indoor outdoor shelter that's
four seasons
um and i know that when i would pick my
kids up from
before and after care we had a big tent
erected
and the kids were i mean they were hot
they were sweaty they they weren't like
looking like they were having any fun
um
so an indoor a four-season shelter is a
grand goal and that could be upwards of
a million dollars
but i do think allocating some funding
for design of one um you could
you know we have a lot of
we have a lot of good design people in
bexley um i'm sure we could allocate a
small portion of money for a design of
something of a four season shelter uh
where they wrecked the temporary shelter
at um jeffrey park
those are the main things oh and improve
you stole my thunder with the improved
infrastructure i appreciate it though we
think i like i would
i don't know if it's feasible
bill or ben but um
to get another
sewer lining i see vizu sewer about
visoo i don't know how to pronounce it
all up and down drexel and i love it
every time i see him i don't know if
there's some way
to fast track some more projects of
sewer lining and and
and get that moving um
it's it's essential it's essential
infrastructure
i think we've seen it by the way how
many people have signed up for our sewer
dry basement program
um
so
that's all that's somewhere that four
seasons golf dome is sitting around
probably ready to get snatched up for a
good price right
[Laughter]
can we adapt it to the vexilar pool
could we shrink the just bring it in and
sort of
yeah
any other comments or feedback
mr harvey
several of you have alluded to the covet
money that we're getting in
uh and i'm
not disagreeing with any of these
projects i think a couple other
high-level things you guys need to think
about is
uh this is an ideal time if we have
extra money to think about putting some
money into our rainy day fund
we've got a million six or something in
there today
it
throw another couple hundred thousand
dollars in there would not be a bad
thing and i encourage you guys to think
about that
i have also mentioned in the past once
or twice
in the next few years we're gonna need
to buy a new pool pay for a new pool do
something with a new pool it would not
be a bad idea to start a i don't know
what you call it pool anticipation fund
and you know think about putting a
hundred thousand dollars a year into
that for the next 10 or 15 years so that
when that five million or eight million
dollar project comes out
um we've got
some amount of money put aside rather
than have to come up and pay for all
that so just a couple things to think
about that are that would benefit the
whole community um that are big projects
and uh if we got some cash i think it
makes sense to put some of that in there
that's a great point
that's a great point mr harvey and i
think we have when we've met
strategically we've talked about uh
sort of our dedication to that rainy day
fund and i think that's a point well
taken that this may be a good
opportunity to kind of maybe even double
up for the year or increase that
contribution a little bit
all right anything else mr mayor do you
want to
i i appreciate the the ideas this has
been it's always really helpful for me
to take notes and kind of hear what you
guys are thinking i think that we're
gonna
we have a lot of dynamics coming into
this year
um
you know obviously we have arp money
coming in we have um
surplus this year
we
have uh pretty healthy projections for
next year so i think we will have enough
it's an important opportunity for us to
really dig deep into what are those
priorities and
and do some meaningful things with them
so it's it's really uh
it's great to hear these ideas thank you
this is your
best list you have some comment
thank you for allowing me to speak
i like all the ideas that you have and
i'm i'm
i'm
i'm pleasantly surprised to hear that
that you're looking at taking care of
this beautiful city that we own
our infrastructure is very important
and
the green space that we have is
important the people the lives of the
people the quality of life of the people
that live here
is very important
one thing that i would like to see is
historic preservation
and to somehow
educate the people the residents on how
to take care of the beautiful homes that
we have
and historic preservation committee is
working on a wonderful plan and i think
there'll be other facets to that that
you might want to consider and also one
other thing is maybe the possibility of
paying down some debt that we have
thank you
thank you for your comments
at this point i'll take a motion to
adjourn
motion to it jim second
all in favor
aye aye aye
opposed aye aye
thank you i'm in favor
you