Regualr Council Meeting Minutes from March 8, 2016
EASTLAKE CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
March 8, 2016
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 Ms. DePledge at approximately 7:02 p.m.
The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
ATTENDEES
Members of Council in attendance were Mr. Zuren, Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick, Mr. Spotton, Mr. Evers, Mr. Hoefle and Council President Ms. DePledge. Also in attendance was Council Clerk Mrs. Simons.
Those attending from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Law Director Klammer, Finance Director Schindel, City Engineer Gwydir, Service Director Rubertino, Fire Chief Whittington and Police Chief Reik. Former Finance Director Slocum was in attendance. CBO Menn was absent and excused.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Regular Council Meeting –February 23, 2016.
MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting February 23, 2016. Mr. Hoefle seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. The minutes were approved.
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COUNCIL PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Ms. DePledge
Meetings Scheduled
Ms. DePledge: The next Council-as-a-Whole Committee Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. The Regular Council meeting will be convened immediately following the adjournment of the Council-as-a-Whole Committee meeting. I have a flyer for the Boulevard of 500 Flags Annual Fund Raiser and it will be on Friday, April 29, 2016 at the Patrician Party Center. Tickets are $35.00 per person. Mr. Evers and Mayor Morley have tickets. If you would like to get your tickets ahead of time please do so. It was a packed event last year and we had a tremendous turn out and it was really great and hopefully everybody will show up. Tell your friends to come and have good time they always have great prizes.
COMMUNICATIONS & PETITIONS
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A communication from The Walter Drane Company regarding the February 2016 Codified Ordinances replacement pages.
Ms. DePledge: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole Committee and it will be added to the evening’s agenda.
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A communication from CBO Menn for the issuance of a Conditional Use Permit to Shaun R. Bosko, agent for SBCB LLC, dba The Captains Club.
Ms. DePledge: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole Committee and it will be added to the evening’s agenda.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Ms. DePledge: There were no Committee Meetings held since our last meeting. Is there anyone on Council wishing to address the public? Mr. Spotton?
Mr. Spotton: On February 24, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. there was a WPCC Joint Committee Meeting with the City of Willoughby and the Superintendent of the Water Pollution Control Center Mr. Gorka. This meeting was hosted here at City Hall but do to the knowledge and assistance at this time I would like the City Engineer Mr. Gwydir talk about what was discussed at the meeting.
Mr. Gwydir: Good evening we had a meeting of the W-E WPCC Committee as Councilman Spotton has indicated. We discussed plant operations and right now the plant is operating within parameters. It has been reported as usual that the W-E WPCC staff continue to make major efforts within the plant to replace heavy duty equipment. It is something that is not usual and at some point that is going to go away and it will have to be contracted out. Right now those efforts do save both cities significant sums of money. Under the new operating permit there are a couple of very significant projects. One is underway and one will be underway shortly. First is the installation of the Equalization Basin on Quentin Rd. adjacent to the existing pump station. It was estimated to be approximately an eight million dollar job and right now we have managed to get it down to about four million dollars. We are working on some property acquisition that we spoke about that is next to the pump station that is assisted in getting the cost of that station down. The costs for that station will be split 50/50 with Willoughby and it is a system improvement. Coming up a little bit the plans are due in 2018 it seems like a long way off but it will be here before we know it and they are the Waverly Rd. relief sewer. It is part of the equalization basin once we build that we will need to build a relief sewer up along Waverly Rd. That is approximately a three point six seven million dollar job. Those costs will be born solely by Eastlake because it is an improvement in Eastlake and not part of the system. We have already applied for a low interest rate loans the EFA. We are actually talking about how to best put in those sewers because between the Equalization Basin and that sewer we can get some serious economy and that is still under way. And there is other miscellaneous work that is going on in the system which I would be glad to talk about at length but I am sure that you don’t want to hear that and if you have any questions I would be glad to answer them.
Ms. DePledge: Thank you Mr. Gwydir. Is there anything else Mr. Spotton? Is there anyone else wishing to address the Chair? With that we will move on to our Motions and Mr. Hoefle I believe that you are going to make the Motions this evening.
Mr. Hoefle: Yes I am.
MOTION:
Mr. Hoefle moves to approve and send back to Columbus, Ohio with no objections the liquor license permit request from SBCB LLC, dba Captains Club, 34820 Vine Street, Eastlake, Ohio. Mr. Evers second.
Motion carried.
Mr. Hoefle moved to add Legislation No.: 03-08-(02) to this evening’s agenda an Ordinance to revise the Codified Ordinances by adopting current replacement pages. Mr. Evers second.
Motion carried Legislation 03-08-(02) is added to this evening’s agenda.
Mr. Hoefle moved to add Legislation No. 03-08-(03) to this evening’s agenda an Ordinance amending the Conditional Use Permit issued to Shaun R. Bosko, agent for SBCB LLC, dba The Captains Club, 34820 Vine Street, Eastlake, Ohio. Mr. Evers second.
Motion carried Legislation 03-08-(03) is added to this evening’s agenda.
RECOGNITION OF THE PUBLIC
Ms. DePledge recognized the public input at this time; she 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.
There was no one else who wished to speak.
LEGISLATION PROPOSED – First number will be 2016-010
03-08-(01) RESOLUTION NO.: ___________
A Resolution authorizing and directing the Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Lease Agreement between the City of Eastlake, (“Landlord” or “City”), an Ohio municipal corporation, whose address is 35150 Lakeshore Boulevard, Eastlake Ohio 44095, and the Board of Trustees of the American Croatian Lodge, Inc. (“Tenant” or “ACL”), an Ohio corporation operating in Lake County, Ohio, whose address is 34900 Lakeshore Boulevard, Eastlake Ohio 44095, individually referred to as “party” and collectively as “parties”, and declaring an emergency.
Ms. DePledge: It will be Placed on First Reading tonight and it will go Three Readings to give the public an opportunity for input before it is adopted in full.
03-08-(02) ORDINANCE NO.:___________
An ordinance to revise the Codified Ordinances by adopting current replacement pages, and declaring an emergency.
MOTION: Mr. Hoefle moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full. Mr. Evers second.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
MOTION: Mr. Hoefle moved to adopt. Mr. Spotton second.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2016-010.
03-08-(03) ORDINANCE NO: ______________
An Ordinance amending the Conditional Use Permit issued to Shaun R. Bosko, agent for SBCB LLC, dba The Captains Club, 34820 Vine Street, Eastlake, Ohio, and declaring an emergency.
MOTION: Mr. Hoefle moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full. Mr. Meyers second.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
MOTION: Mr. Hoefle moved to adopt. Mr. Zuren second.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2016-011.
LEGISLATION PENDING
There is 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, Madam President. Welcome everyone to this evenings meeting. Everyone knows that Mr. Slocum’s last day is Thursday and we are going to miss him. Throughout my years as a Council member and especially these last two years as Mayor he has been a very big part of the things that go on in Eastlake. Mr. Slocum always has to be the bad guy because he crunches the numbers and we look at him saying where is the money Mr. Slocum. Why is there more money Mr. Slocum? Again these last two years I have appreciated everything that he does and we have had conversations in the past on…I may get all of the calls with people being upset with what is going on in the City and the roads and all of that. Mr. Slocum has to make the numbers work for all of us. Between Mr. Slocum and the Directors and we have said this before thank God for who we have here to keep our numbers good, solid, and our audits have been good. I wish Mr. Slocum and his family the best on his retirement and hope that he stops in to see us now and then. We have the Easter Egg Hunt on March 26 at the stadium and the gates will open at 10:30 a.m. The hunt will be from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and we are going to have 10,000 eggs. We are working with EPAL and The Captains. Tomorrow morning I have a meeting with the surrounding Mayor’s and the County for a retail consultants and we are going to meet with them to see what we can do to try and get some of our retail alive at this end of the county. There is also a meeting at the end of the month with Colures which is the broker for Wal-Mart. We are going to meet with them and the County because in May there is a retail convention in Las Vegas and we are going to try and get the people from the Vineyards to come in and meet with us so that we can line up some appointments with some retailers. The Colures are taking care of the Wal-Mart building and they have gotten back with me and they will be here at the end of March. We are waiting Brixmore to schedule that information. I think that between the Chief, myself and CBO Menn these last three or four weeks we have been handling the issues of the non-payment of the garbage. If you know someone who is on the list just talk with them to try and get it paid. We are down to 361 I believe but it is still a problem everyday where we are getting phone calls. Finally regarding your candidate please get out and vote next Tuesday, March 15 the polls are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. It is your right use it and I know that a lot of people that don’t use it but I believe that it is your right and you should use it. That concludes my report and I am open for questions.
There were no further questions of Mayor Morley
FIRE CHIEF – Ted Whittington
Chief Whittington: Thank you Madam President. I have just a couple of things. I will be giving you guys a memo request for the Council Meeting that is on March 22nd and I spoke with both the Mayor and Chief Reik. Lonnie’s retirement will take effect on April 1st and I would like to get the new firefighter that will be replacing him sworn in on a Council Meeting. There are also a couple of promotions and I will be promoting the new Fire Marshall and potentially a new Lieutenant and I would like to get those done. I will probably do recognition of a firefighter of the year and I know that Chief Reik will probably have a couple of things to add to that list. So expect a memo from us and again we did speak to the Mayor and he was gracious to allows us to approach you guys with that. I continue to move forward in the drill planning and it will take place on April 11th, 12th and 13th. We have expanded the participate so we are getting a lot of participants right now I am trying to find some people to serve as victims for us. That will be pretty important as far as being able to try and accomplish our objectives for that day. Finally I just want to wish Mr. Slocum the best of luck and this is a very tedious place to work most of the time because we have our backs up against the wall and a knife to our throat. I know that for all of us those can make for long days if not for some long years for all of us. I have always appreciated his efforts with myself and the Fire Department. I wish you all the luck and I look forward to the day when I can retire. I am open for questions.
Chief Reik: I look forward to the day when Chief Whittington can retire too. You caught me off guard calling me before Chief Whittington.
Ms. DePledge: I won’t do it again.
Chief Reik: I usually have ten or fifteen minutes to prepare.
Chief Whittington: Just to note that his report was much longer than mine.
Ms. DePledge: I was surprised at how long it was tonight.
Chief Reik: I do wish Mr. Slocum the best unfortunately for the five years that I have been Chief our budget has been basically flat line. We have done the best that we can with the numbers and I know that is the one thing and I am sure the Fire Chief and the same thing with the Police Department it is just part of the job. Working with Mr. Slocum he was able to help me out a lot and he always tried to forward information to us about other opportunities that are out there. We were able to squeeze a couple cars out of our seizure fund and things like that. Just trying to scrape by to keep the things in the community that we need and I appreciate all of the help.
There were no further questions of Chief Whittington
SERVICE DIRECTOR – Nick Rubertino
Mr. Rubertino: Good evening everybody. Pot holes are the words of the day and we are on the pot holes. We are out there every day trying to get caught up with them the best that we can. Warm weather brings excitement to a lot of things that are need and things that are wanting to be done. We are aggressively moving forward and we have a couple of catch basins that we have already started on. Actually finishing one on St. Lawrence and we will be starting another one on St. Lawrence. There are multitudes that we have to do on those. Mr. Slocum again like everybody else I thank you and I couldn’t have asked for a better guy to help me out along the way when I first came on here. I appreciate that and I wish you luck and I would be very happy to represent the City of Eastlake at the convention. I am open for questions.
There were no further questions of Mr. Rubertino.
CITY ENGINEER – Tom Gwydir
Mr. Gwydir: Thank you Madam President members of Council and Mayor. Just a few quick things we are moving forth on the Galilean pump station design and sewer phase one. E. 344th and Ridgewood Dr. are both in design for this summer. They are OPWC funded 50/50 and with that I am open for questions.
Ms. DePledge: Mr. Evers?
Mr. Evers: Mr. Gwydir when we plan on restarting and finishing up on Willowick Dr.?
Mr. Gwydir: I anticipate that they will probably start somewhere towards the end of the month. Right now the completion date is May 23rd. We’ve add a whole bunch of extra work to the contracts so they would have a right to ask for a time extension and thus far they have not asked for it. I anticipate about four weeks of work left. Really it is seventy today nice and warm and everybody thinks that it is going to be this way for now till next October. What is going to happen is they will hold off until about rains and things stop it is just a piece in work. It is my guess sometime between the end of this month and beginning of May that it will be done.
Mr. Evers: Thank you.
Ms. DePledge: Mayor Morley?
Mayor Morley: Just to add on and Mr. Gwydir can talk about it a little bit more. We also have the Lakeshore project which has been funded…one project for resurfacing Lakeshore Blvd. for the Willowick border to Rt. 91. We are going to send you over the resolution from the County for the next Council meeting to take a look at it and to pass it. They County is going to be handing it to the Engineer office is going to be handling that project for us.
Mr. Gwydir: If I am not mistaken there are actually two Lakeshore Blvd. paving projects going on. There is one from the Willowick border to Rt. 91 and I believe that is a local cost and ODOT is handling that. It should be a $15,000.00 cost to the City. I believe the one that you are referring to and in the agreement it refers to the one with the County and that is from the Eastlake border here to the Corporation border of Willoughby if that is pending unless I’ve missed my guess there.
Mayor Morley: That is what I thought that they were doing that one from what we had today in the email. I will check on that again.
Mr. Gwydir: The one in the email today that was going back and forth with the agreement that is pending is from paving within the borders of Eastlake. It is from in front of City Hall to the Willoughby border. It will be designed this year by somebody the County chooses and it will be constructed next year. The one that you were speaking to will actually be done this and it was put off for a number of years because of the Lake County waterline coming across Lakeshore. That is the one that will be done. I know that there are two of them and they were all right together.
Ms. DePledge: Mr. Hoefle?
Mr. Hoefle: Mr. Gwydir I am not sure if this is directed towards you or the Mayor but the Bidler Rd. project…I think that it starts on…
Ms. DePledge: The 10th.
Mr. Gwydir: I would understand that it is going to start on Monday the 10th and it is a Lake County waterline project. It is from approximately the north side of the CSX tracks and going south to Rt. 20. It is supposed to take about two months and it will be a one way north bound detour on that.
Ms. DePledge: Chief Reik?
Chief Reik: They do have the flashing sign on 361 and Lakeland today. It is saying that it is still scheduled to be closed on the 10th.
Ms. DePledge: It was up yesterday. It is going to be a longer trip to Starbucks now.
There were no questions of Mr. Gwydir.
FINANCE DIRECTOR – Carol-Ann Schindel
Ms. Schindel: Thank you Madam President and Council. I wanted to make sure that I thanked Mr. Slocum because he really did…and taking the time to explain and to go through the processes. He was patient and kind in explaining many of the procedures even though I had to ask like I don’t get this just one more time. It was a pleasure working with him and I wish that it would have been a little bit longer.
Ms. DePledge: I am not sure who is going to answer this but I was kind of saving it for you but it might be for Mr. Gwydir and it may be for the Mayor Morley and it is about the funding request that we did for the repairs to Lakeshore Blvd a couple of years ago where we approved some much money. Now they have come back with an increase demand. I just wanted to have you talk about that a little bit because it is going to end up on the agenda in our meetings that will be coming up soon. Whoever is best prepared and I am not trying to put anybody on the spot.
Mr. Gwydir: That is a project that ODOT started approximately five years ago. They were going to do a maintains over lay across Willowick, Lakeline, Timberlake and out in front of City Hall. At that time the cost was estimated to be at about $9,600.00 and at that time ODOT actually cut the City a break. That was when we were in fiscal emergency if I’m not mistaken. Topically they were going to take 20% and they lowered it to 10% which worked out to be about $9,600.00. Right at that time Lake County was planning on putting a water line down the side of Lakeshore Blvd. with cut across into Timberlake which just happened to be completed now. At that time ODOT delayed their project they didn’t want to have to put a new over lay down to have it dug out. So now that it has waited so long I am gathering that cost has probably escalated as their inflation cost is my guess. I don’t know that for certain but those costs escalated a little bit from that $9,600.00 to the current $15,000.00 value and that is just for the small amount of work in front of City Hall that is actually property. So that is why for that little increase in cost. Now next year similarly ODOT came along offered the City 80/20 money for paving within the City which is what the next agreement is what we were talking about. Those are more substantial sums and that is for paving within the City of Eastlake.
Ms. DePledge: Then there is a timing issue with getting that approved.
Mr. Gwydir: Sooner rather than later. Because the County is going to act as the Administrator for the money there is a longer explanation. They are going to administer the contract for the City and they need to get the project into design to meet deadlines that are really towards the end of this year so that the paving can be bid and awarded next year before the fiscal changes for them.
Ms. DePledge: So my request would be is what we will probably do is put it in Council-As-A-Whole and then put it on the next Council Meeting. We won’t actually put it into a Committee Meeting unless we absolutely have too. But if you could get us the information as soon as possible I can circulated it to all the members of Council and if they have any question we can address those ahead of time. Obviously if there are some stumbling blocks we will have to put it into a Committee. But if we could address those ahead of time and move this request along we will certainly do everything that we can to accommodate you. Yes sir?
Mr. Gwydir: for that $15,000.00 I have a whole bunch of emails on things and backups that I would be glad to send to make it apparent on what is going on. That is the one that they are pressing for.
Ms. DePledge: Just so the new Council members understand that any contract that the city enters into over an amount of $12,500.00 they have to come to Council for approval. That is what they are doing and they are going to explain to us why there is an increase and then we have to approve it so that the funds can be dispersed. That is just a standard procedure just so you know what is going on there.
There were no questions of Ms. Schindel.
POLICE CHIEF – Larry Reik
Chief Reik: Like the Mayor has said we have been trying to stay on top of the garbage issues. Unfortunately we started this in the winter and not in the summer so it gives us a little bit of extra time. Most people have been pretty understandable and we have gotten most of the issues taken care of. But if you have anyone in your Ward that has an issue just have them give us a call and we will look into it. We have been staying pretty active and we had a man accused of child pornography that has fled the country and ended up in Ecuador. We ended up working with the State Department and the U.S. Marshalls and he was delivered to the Lake County jail today after a two week around the world tour. We are fortunate to have him back and hopefully get him to face his charges and go from there. We have a couple of officers who are now trained in using NARCAN. As everyone knows that the heroin epidemic is getting worse and NARCAN give us the availability to give an overdose victim some immediate relief while the squad is in route. I think that topically it would be in the late night hours or when we already have two squads out and there may be more of a delay than normal. An officer did us it the day after we got qualified but it was on a day shift and a squad was there as quick as they normally are and the effects weren’t as noticeable as they could be if it were at night or in a fire. We are going to try and get the rest of the officers trained over the course of the next couple of months. It could only help to try and solve that and we have been trying to stay as active as we with drug investigations. Obviously that takes time and man power and have done some recent search warrants and we have made some arrests from them and we are going to continue to do what we can to work the problem.
There were no further questions of Chief Reik.
CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL – David Menn
Mr. Menn was absent and excused.
There were no questions of Mr. Menn.
LAW DIRECTOR – Randy Klammer
Mr. Klammer: Thank you Madam President members of Council and Mayor. You brought up a good point we have competitive bidding which might be higher than $12,500.00 so there will be times when you might not have to competitively bid a contract. We have a specific provision in our ordinances that require contract for $12,500.00 to be approved regardless of the bidding. It is kind of a unique scenario we had for some oversight years ago. The big things in the Law Department were the strip club litigation and actually just finalizing lease material for you guys and I think that I touched on everybody’s comments. It shouldn’t be that complicated at this point. Other than that just like everybody else I want to thank Mr. Slocum and for those who knew Mr. Slocum before he came here this is a small part of his rather storied career. He’s law enforcement at the bank and then he was special accountant forensics examiner for a lot of special prosecutions including the Chester Township and the Parma Police Overtime. Massive multimillion dollar government thefts that Mr. Slocum has worked hand in hand with our dear friend Richard Deseco God rest his sole. Hopefully it is a retirement where he enjoys himself but he has had a very distinguished career. It is a pleasure to know him and to work with him and I consider him a friend. Good luck Mr. Slocum.
Ms. DePledge: With that Mr. Slocum I wish you the best. Would you like to address everyone?
Mr. Slocum: I would just like the chance to thank everybody for kind comments. Everybody has said how hard my job was but believe me my job was not as hard as what the other Director’s…I have to move number add, subtract, divide and multiply and take everything down that is what I do. These guys over here they operate on far less money than what they actually need to run an operation. How they do it is beyond me. I have nothing but the highest degree of respect for each and every one of the managers in this City and I would just like to say thank you and it has been an honor working with you.
Ms. DePledge: It has been on honor working with you Mr. Slocum.
There were no questions of Mr. Klammer.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:33 p.m.
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LAURA A. DEPLEDGE, COUNCIL PRESIDENT
APPROVED: __________________________
ATTEST: ______________________________________
TRACY M. SIMONS, CLERK OF COUNCIL