REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES-AUGUST 25, 2015
EASTLAKE CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
AUGUST 25, 2015
The Regular Meeting of the Eastlake City Council was held at Eastlake City Hall, 35150 Lakeshore Boulevard. The Meeting was called to order by Council President
Mr. D’Ambrosio at approximately 7:04 p.m.
The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
ATTENDEES
Members of Council in attendance were Mr. Evers, Mr. Licht, Ms. DePledge, Ms. Vaughn and Council President Mr. D’Ambrosio. Mr. Hoefle and Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins were absent and excused. Also in attendance were Council Clerk Mrs. Cendroski and Clerk in training Mrs. Simons.
Those attending from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Law Director Klammer, Finance Director Slocum, Service Director Rubertino, City Engineer Gwydir and Fire Chief Whittington. CBO Menn and Police Chief Reik were absent and excused.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Regular Council Meeting– July 14, 2015
MOTION: Mr. Licht moved to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting of July 14, 2015. Ms. DePledge seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. The minutes were approved.
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Special Council Meeting with adjournment into Executive Session – August 11, 2015
MOTION: Mr. Licht moved to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting of August 11, 2015. Ms. DePledge seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. The minutes were approved.
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COUNCIL PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Mr. D’Ambrosio
Meetings Scheduled
Mr. D’Ambrosio: The next Council-as-a-Whole Committee Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. The Regular Council meeting will be convened immediately following the adjournment of the Council-as-a-Whole Committee meeting.
COMMUNICATIONS & PETITIONS
A liquor license request was received for Don Tequila Eastlake, LLC, 35757 Lakeshore Blvd., Eastlake.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: There are no objections and we talked about this in our Council-As-A-Whole Meeting Mr. Evers, will make a motion on this.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Mr. D’Ambrosio: A Safety Committee meeting was held.
SAFETY COMMITTEE – Mr. Hoefle, Chair
Mr. Licht: This was in regards to The Risk Mitigation Plan from Fire Chief Whittington. Chief Whittington?
Chief Whittington: We had mentioned that right before we went on break that we have been tasked to do the plan for the City of Eastlake and I wanted a chance to give the current plan to Council and to the Mayor so that they can review some points to bring back to the Committee’s as we are preparing for it. There really wasn’t much of a discussion other than getting this all on the same page. There may be some areas that we need to pursue.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Any questions for the Chief? Mr. Evers would you like to make your motions at this time?
Motions:
Liquor Licenses
Don Tequila, LLC
MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to approve and send back to Columbus, Ohio with no objections the liquor license permit request for Don Tequila Eastlake, LLC, 35757 Lakeshore Blvd., Eastlake, OH. Mr. Licht seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. The liquor license request was approved.
Alasali, Inc.
MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to approve and send back to Columbus, Ohio with no objections the liquor license permit request from Rishee Inc., dba Beverage and Tackle, 35579 Lakeshore Blvd., Eastlake to Alasali, Inc., 35579 Lakeshore Blvd., Eastlake. Mr. Licht seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. The liquor license request was approved.
RECOGNITION OF THE PUBLIC
Mr. D’Ambrosio recognized the public input at this time; he reminded the speakers that there is a 3-minute limit for their comments; all comments are to be directed to the Chair and not include any personalities or individuals.
Michelle Wittreich, 601 Waverly Road, Eastlake
Ms. Wittreich: Thank you for allowing me to address Council and Administration. I am here to address S.O.S Eastlake. You know that we were out there trying to get signatures. I would like to thank all of the people that worked with me and gave up a lot of the precious family time and worked very hard for a City that they love. Even though they are not here I would like to publicly thank them for that. I failed and I am sorry. This is very hard. I said that I would get you signature and that I would do it. I am not used to failing not personally or professionally but I apologize for that but this is what I have learned. I have learned a lot about our City by going out and talking to the people in our City. There is still a lot of mistrust in our government and the people in the City have a right to be in that position. However, they are letting that go and starting to believe and they are ready to move on. I think that we are heading in a good direction. I have heard many times that part of the problem was misinformation, lack of information, or information that was presented to strongly. They took personal offense to all of those things, so part of the solution would be to be more informative. I don’t know how to do that, but I will help. I have learned that a majority of the people supported what we were doing and I talked to a lot of people and they support and love Eastlake. They wanted us to accomplish our goal. I feel that we let them down, but they told us that if we weren’t successful in accomplishing our goal that the next best thing would be that when decisions need made in the future that Eastlake would stand strong in making good decisions in leading us forward. They want to move forward. For me I never wanted to be the spokesman for S.O.S. However, it just happened and here we are. I am passionate about my City, where I live, and about what I believe this can be, and I want to help bring back the services that we have lost. With that being said S.O.S. isn’t going anywhere. We’re here to help the City. To do what we need to do to partner with the Administration to get the word out when it is necessary. Personally I hope that when the time comes for Council and the Administration to make decisions about where the City is going that you realize that a lot of people are behind you and that we hope that as City Council and the Administration continue to lead the direction of the City before you allow the State to come in and dictate our direction. Thank you and just know that we are there.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Michelle I just wanted to tell you that in my opinion you didn’t fail. Look at what you’ve accomplished. You know now is that so many people have heard about S.O.S and the result may not have happened the way that you have hoped it would, but you have accomplished a lot and you should be proud of the efforts that you put into this. I wouldn’t have wanted to go through what you did you went through a lot of it on your own, and you started it and you’re the last person standing. You have accomplished a lot and you didn’t fail.
Mrs. Wittreich: Everybody stood by us and we did fail in our own hope, but we didn’t fail in getting the information out. I think that’s our strong point and that’s a good thing remember.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: You did a good thing for the City of Eastlake.
Mr. Wittreich: That’s because I love the City.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Mayor?
Mayor Morley: Michelle you didn’t fail. I look at it every day too and I look at us every day. We try every day to make our City better and we are moving forward. Like what we have done with the Library and the swimming pool, and we are looking for new things to try to get some more revenue. As Councilmen and as a Mayor they are two different positions. Sitting in the Mayor’s chair every day and talking with our residents about the issues that we have daily, the mistrust is there, and it may not be with all of the people in this room. The stadium is a wound that a lot of people do not want to let go and its thirteen years later- everyday we’re not paying for the stadium. I read the blogs and I like to see what information is out there too and I agree that there is a lot of misinformation. After the November ballot I know that people thought that the letter that I came out with was a little strong and after the levy failed I thought that the people thought that I was punishing them. The first letter that people thought was to strong was the reality and we’ve done all that was in that letter. We laid off people and thank God the Chief’s men got us the grant to bring back the three firemen and we continue to get grants for the roads. Mr. Gwydir can explain in his report about the two new road projects through grants. Every director is doing above and beyond for this City. We are going to continue to just go forward. In our Administration we talk in our staff meetings all of the time that we can’t just listen to the negative and sometimes that’s all that we listen too. Especially for myself, and we don’t hear all of the good, and there is a lot of good going on. There is a lot of business going on that people don’t see. Everyone looks at Vine Street and says we’re not growing, but I look at it and—I was just at a Suburban Manufacture on 337th Street and they put millions of dollars into a new addition, along with Empress just did a new addition worth millions of dollars, and Best Supply just made us their head quarters. Those are the place that we are getting better at and we are continuing to work on Vine Street. I have met with Brixmor and Wal-Mart to get those buildings full. That is a personal goal of mine and we will continue to do that. This November we will have two new Council members for sure and possibly others, but we will see how the elections go. As I have told a few of them that I have meet with along without current Council members that I am going to work with the people that are here, I just hope that people want to work with us and move forward. Thanks again for all of your efforts.
Angelo Trivisonno, 34186 Waldmer Drive, Eastlake
Mr. Trivisonno: I would just like to thank the Mayor and the Administration for working on the contract and lease agreement with the Library. At the Safety Committee Meeting it seemed like all of the issues were thoroughly discussed and I was really happy to hear that City Hall is getting a fair market value for the space, which I think is very important to the public interest. I would like to thank the Finance Director for joining the Ohio Checkbook and making that pledge in making it more transparent. To springboard off of what the previous speaker spoke about was some people having the lack of information so I think that is one possible program that could improve. The last thing that I have is a question about the garbage ordinance that was recently passed at the Special Committee Meeting—that is presently law now?
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Yes
Mr.Trivisonno: I was just wondering if there was a previous discussion on that ordinance before that vote.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: We did have a discussion on it and you know what the biggest concern is that people weren’t paying to have their garbage picked up and they weren’t picking it up.
Mr. Trivisonno: I know that there is an issue with the Auditor.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Yes, we can’t certify them anymore.
Mr. Trivisonno: I think that the questions that I heard immediately out of that were a lack of information of why that happened and I’m not sure if that went to Ordinance Committee.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Yes.
Mr. Trivisonno: So there really wasn’t an opportunity to comment on it? I was able to see the proposed changes because I reached out to the Clerk to get the proposed legislation so I was able to walk into the meeting and knowing what was happening. But I don’t think that any other person would have known when walking into that special Council Meeting. Maybe one suggestion is that before meetings post pdf’s or Word Documents of proposed legislation at the least. I’m not saying that every document needs to be posted. I think that having a copy of the Lease would be interesting to some people and especially ordinances–the ones that add criminal liability to actions in the City. If there is a way to upload that to the Website at least a day or so before the meeting just so people can come in…
Mr. D’Ambrosio: It is on the agenda as far as Communications and Petitions and if it was put on the website I don’t know how many people would look at it.
Mr. Trivisonno: Than maybe a special case for me just so I don’t have to keep emailing the Clerk.
Mrs. Cendroski: We do post our agenda’s for the Committee’s and the items for discussion are on there and if someone needs a copy they can always call us. The website sometime doesn’t print off the format that I like it to be in. We do put the agenda for committee meetings and everything is listed on that agenda. I have no problem with someone calling me or emailing me and asking for a copy of the draft legislation. That is not an issue at all.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: It is on there for the people. It just depends on the effort that they want to do and you do which I think is great. A lot of people don’t and it’s all on there.
Mr. Trivisonno: That was just a suggestion because I have seen other City’s proactively post it. If there is any way I know that there are many citizens here that are happy to help. It is figuring out how to get it on the website. That’s it and thank you.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Mayor?
Mayor Morley: I think that some of the things that weren’t in The New-Herald article when it came out —we have a garbage contract and that is how the fees are set up. The fees were set up on a certain amount of garbage which was $98,000 worth of delinquent garbage fees that wasn’t stated in the article. The agreement right now between us and the County is that the County wants us to do what we’ve done with the lawns. That we pay the contractor to cleanup the properties. For us to take $98,000 out of our General Fund —-that’s how the County wants us to do. We pay the $98,000 and go from there and Mr. Slocum can explain more. That contract that we put with Republic Waste was put together by every household. How many people do you think would opt out of garbage if we said that you didn’t have to pay for garbage and you could go with your neighbor’s? Or if everyone isn’t doing the garbage then okay I’m not going to do my garbage I’m just going to throw it on Chief Whittington’s lawn. That’s all the parts of The New-Herald article that people didn’t see. You come to all of the meetings and you are asking question which is great but a majority of the people don’t do that. It goes back to what Michelle talked about. We had five Town Hall meetings for very important issue and we had ninety people out of eighteen thousand five hundred show up for that meeting. We’re the most transparent that we’ve been in many years with the Checkbook and everything that we have online. Our finances are on there every month. We are trying to show our residents everything that we have, but we can look into certain things. When I had an Assistant she was doing everything for the website. I would try to get some things on there but we’re just trying to keep up.
Mr. Slocum: I would just like to clarify one thing and expound on it. Fortunately I was the Finance Director for the City of Maple Heights which is located in Cuyahoga County. The reason that I say fortunate is at that time and to this day they put the garbage bill on the tax duplicate each year for all residents, they don’t require them to go to a provider to do the billing. When I took over the position here I approached the Lake County Auditor about them doing the exact same thing and he refused. He doesn’t want to collect any garbage assessment and he doesn’t want to be supportive to the City’s. For someone to say why don’t we put the delinquencies on, they have refused to do what other Auditor’s in other Counties do. What we’ve had to do is just the minimum to keep this City from becoming the mess that it could if the garbage is uncollected.
Mr. Trivisonno: Will there be a notice sent to residents about the change?
Mayor Morley: Republic has sent numerous notices. They don’t get to us…
Mr. Trivisonno: So everyone that they give supplies too.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: They know about it.
Mayor Morley: They are well aware of it.
Mr. Trivisonno: I just wanted to bring the issue up
Mr. D’Ambrosio: That’s good and thank you Mr. Trivisonno. Ms. DePledge?
Ms. DePledge: Just to address one more issue that you brought up in your commentary about the transparency and how we joined the State program for posting our financial information. Our financial information has been available for years online through the City website and at the Eastlake Public Library. So this isn’t anything new to us, this is something that we have always supported that the Finance Director has always done here. It is part of our wish to be transparent and to try and build trust with our Community members. It isn’t a new thing that just happened here and has been going on for at least a decade that I am aware of.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Ms. Vaughn?
Ms. Vaughn: Just as a matter of comparison to another nearby City. If you don’t pay your garbage bill they take your garbage cans away. They physically come and take them away. Therefore in those cities you have to put everything in a container no bags, no boxes, just in the container’s that they provide. Therefore, you don’t get your garbage picked up. We haven’t gotten that far.
There was no one else who wished to speak.
LEGISLATION PROPOSED – First number will be 2015-067
RESOLUTION NO.: 08-25-(01)
Requested by: Administration A Resolution authorizing and directing the Sponsored by: Council Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Lease Agreement between the City of Eastlake and the Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library for use of certain premises on the west end of the Eastlake City Hall, and declaring an emergency.
There was no motion to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full.
Legislation No. 08-25-(01) is placed on First Reading.
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LEGISLATION PENDING
There was no Legislation Pending.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
There was no Unfinished Business.
NEW BUSINESS
There was no New Business.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS:
MAYOR/SAFETY DIRECTOR – Dennis Morley
Mayor Morley: Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome everyone to this evening’s meeting. We have discussed the Library and like I have said some of them will be moving in around the middle of September. They are leasing some buildings in Mentor and the rest of them will be moved in by November 1st. We are have a 9/11 ceremony on September 6th at 11:00 am at the Boulevard of 500 Flags. September 7th is Eastlake Appreciation Day at the Captains Stadium and the tickets are $2.00, you can either buy them at the Box Office or go online and use the Code: COE. Usually we don’t put that out there, but the Captains have approached me and said that they have only sold forty nine tickets and at this point they are just hoping to get people in the Stadium. If someone puts it on the site and goes this is for Eastlake residents they would like to have some people at the game. At this point they told me that it is only forty nine people that have bought tickets. We have had some polling position changes and that will be in my next Gazette article, Ward 2 which is normally at North High will be here, Ward 1A & B will be at Taft, 1C will be at the Community Center, and the only other changes will be Ward 4 will stay at Eastlake Middle along with 3C. There used to be six polling place and now there is four. The Board of Elections will be sending out notices in the next few to those that will be affected. That concludes my report and I will let Tom talk about the OPWC when we get there and I am open for questions.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Any questions for the Mayor? Mr. Evers?
Mr. Evers: Mayor, do you want to talk about the Blood Drive moving?
Mayor Morley: You can do that if you like.
Mr. Evers: EPal is the proud sponsor for the American Red Cross for the blood drive that used to be here at City Hall. They will be moving out of City Hall since the Library is moving in. The first one will be on September 3rd from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm, and they will now be held at the Eastlake Community Center. We would like to see as many people donate and participate as much as they can and we hope to see you there.
Mayor Morley: The Red Cross is thankful that we could find them another spot because Eastlake is one of their biggest donor areas. It is good that EPal can take them into the Community Center and we appreciate it.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Thank you Mr. Evers is there anything else? We will now go to our Fire Chief Wittington.
FIRE CHIEF – Ted Whittington
Chief Whittington: Just a couple of things—I know that we have discussed about the Longfellow and Thomas Jefferson traffic changes and I would like to think that this past week or last week it went without many flaws. I was down there again today and they are still working some things out so I’m not sure if anybody got any calls. What we discussed at the Safety Committee Meeting was that originally most of those buses that leave Longfellow would actually go down 351st Street and during the week it was very spuratic so I don’t think that they saw much traffic on 351st Street. We had some contact with some of the parent and they felt that it was a safer atmosphere in that the kids were being monitored better. I’m not sure if anybody got any calls on those locations but I would like to think that it went pretty well. I would like to thank Michelle and I know that she is probably disappointed and I can understand that when someone is vested into the Community like that and to fall short that she is being hard on herself. I appreciate her efforts and the rest of the group too. We should probably mention that we got the information about our Community out in a different way. I know that in the past a lot of the Directors were doing different types of things to try and make ourselves available for the Community to talk about the same issues that they’ve talked about. I think for people to see it from a different group was very helpful and we just have to keep working towards that.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Any questions for the Chief? Chief I just got that one call that we talked about at the meeting but other than that I think that it was running pretty smooth.
Chief Whittington: I think that it was very good. Traffic was off of Stevens at Longfellow and I know that the Police Department was up at Thomas Jefferson and that was pretty seamless. I was with the Police Chief at Longfellow and it was much safer. If anybody from the audience was there before when school was let out all of the kids were around the building and into the parking lot to get into their parents cars and now the kids are put into monitoring positions with the teachers and aides. Now the cars actually come to a point and pick up the kids and it is very safe. There is even extra time for the families waiting in line and the kids are in a safe area with the teachers. If anything it just added some time off the pickup line.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Now to our Service Director Mr. Rubertino.
SERVICE DIRECTOR – Nick Rubertino
Mr. Rubertino: I have nothing new to report. We are at a status quo and we are moving forward with road repairs as best as we can and with chuck hole and catch basins. I am open for any questions.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: I see that TC Construction was out doing some of the road work. I saw them on Grovewood.
There were no further questions of Mr. Rubertino.
CITY ENGINEER – Tom Gwydir
Mr. Gwydir: We made application in the OPWC round 30 for two projects the Ridgewood Drive Improvement Project for $654,300 and for the East 344th Street which was $400,200 we received approval for grants for fifty percent on each of those, so the City will be getting $527,200 from the OPWC next year for improvements to those two roadways. In addition to that we are assembling the specs now for the sewer, televising, and cleaning in central Eastlake as part of the drainage work and we have done the preliminary survey work for the Galalina pump station and sewer phase one.
There were no questions of Mr. Gwydir.
FINANCE DIRECTOR – Mike Slocum
Mr. Slocum: had no report today.
There were no questions of Mr. Slocum.
POLICE CHIEF – Larry Reik
Chief Reik was absent and excused.
CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL – David Menn
Mr. Menn was absent and excused.
LAW DIRECTOR – Randy Klammer
Mr. Klammer had no report.
There were no questions of Mr. Klammer.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:35 p.m.
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JOE D’AMBROSIO, COUNCIL PRESIDENT
APPROVED: __________________________
ATTEST: _____________________________
TRACY M. SIMONS,
CLERK OF COUNCIL