EASTLAKE CITY COUNCIL REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES JUNE 10, 2014
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, Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins, Ms. DePledge, Mr. Hoefle, Ms. Vaughn and Council President Mr. D’Ambrosio. Also attending was Council Clerk Mrs. Cendroski.
Those attending from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Law Director Klammer, Finance Director Slocum, Service Director Rubertino, City Engineer Gwydir, Police Chief Reik and Fire Chief Whittington.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Regular Council Meeting – May 27, 2014
MOTION: Mr. Licht moved to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting of May 27, 2014. Ms. Vaughn 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, June 24, 2014 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 communication was received from the Administration requesting an ordinance to permit bee keeping in the City of Eastlake. This was referred to Ordinance Committee.
A communication was received from The Walter Drane Company regarding the May, 2014 Codified Ordinance replacement pages and an invoice for services rendered.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: The acceptance of the replacement pages is a housekeeping matter. If there are no objections this matter will be placed on the June 24, 2014 Regular Council meeting agenda.
A communication was received from the WPCC requesting expenditure from the Capital Replacement Fund. This was referred to Finance Committee.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Mr. D’Ambrosio: A Service/Utilities Committee meeting was held.
SERVICE/UTILITIES COMMITTEE – Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins, Chair
Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins: We had Mr. Tim Miller come to talk to us about the storm water management program that the County has. He will be returning to discuss this again at our June 17th Committee meeting because Mr. D’Ambrosio and Ms. Vaughn were not present and we felt we needed their input. We will rehash this again. It was a great discussion and we had a few questions. The minutes are the size of a book.
There were no questions of Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins.
Eastlake Port Authority – Ms. DePledge, Liaison
Ms. DePledge: The Eastlake Port Authority will be meeting tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m.
I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for their support with the Retriever for Ryan benefit. We raised $12,000 at the event and have raised another $2,000 since. Our total contributions at this time are $14,000. We just need another $4,000 to get to our $18,000 and Ryan will get his dog. Thank you for your tremendous support on behalf of my family and me.
Legislative Recommendation
Legislation No. 06-10-(03)
Ms. Vaughn moved to add Legislation No. 06-10-(03) to the evening’s agenda authorizing and directing the Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Contract with T.C. Construction Co., Inc., the lowest and best bidder, for the 2014 Concrete Road Rehabilitation Program, in the amount of One Hundred Ninety-Eight Thousand Eight Hundred Dollars ($198,800.00). Mr. Licht seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. Legislation No. 06-10-(03) were added to the evening’s agenda.
Additional Comments
Ms. Vaughn: I noted the scheduling of a Service/Utilities Committee meeting on June 17th and I doubt I will be able to make it. But, I will give you in writing my feelings on the matter. I have sat through that presentation twice already. I don’t think members of Council need to sit through it as many times as several of us have already. I am well versed on the situation and I will submit everything in writing so you will have a copy.
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.
Ted Taubert, 371 Northcoast Pointe Drive, Eastlake
Mr. Taubert: Does the City have any plans regarding the flooding problem at Lakeshore Blvd. and Erie Road? Now that the City has permission to clean Corporation Creek what does the City plan to do since that is our drainage line from our complex? Is the pipe under Lakeshore Blvd. big enough for all the water in Corporation Creek at flood time?
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Mayor, I know you have been working on the flood situation on Erie Road and Lakeshore Blvd.
Mayor Morley: Regarding the second question – we have not been in Corporation Creek but the plan is to go to all the areas and remove the debris that is impeding the flow of water in the creek. Mr. Gwydir would have to answer the third question – do you know what size pipe is under the road?
Mr. Gwydir: Presently the pipe along Lakeshore Blvd. is a 39” storm sewer and is at its design capacity during a moderate storm. During the kind of storms we have had in 2006 and then a couple of repeats since it will not handle those flows. At the same time neither will any other pipe in the City.
Mayor Morley: In regard to the first question about Lakeshore Blvd. and Erie Road – as I have said before we have started discussion with Willoughby to work with them on some other outlets off of Erie Road to try to help that out.
Mr. Gwydir: The City has authorized us to study Corporation Creek along its length from the river into the City of Willoughby – which the Mayor was speaking to. Right now we are gathering the records of past drainage studies and putting those together. At the end of the day we will report what can be done upstream, in the middle of the stream, downstream and under what conditions those particular items will work. It will probably take about 2-3 months for that to come out. The work is ongoing as we speak.
Mr. Taubert: I know one time I went to the trailer park behind the Mexican restaurant – Corporation Creek goes around there – the kids had built a little dam with ladders and old boards across so they could go from the trailer park to the fields to play. That dams up Corporation Creek. When you have a storm all our water has to get out of Corporation Creek or we flood.
Mr. Gwydir: That is correct. If you recall the Mayor said in the beginning that we have been working with the Illuminating Company to get access to Corporation Creek which is mainly on Illuminating Company property to address those particular matters. One of the first things we will do in tandem with the study is to see what else can be done other than just basic cleaning. We are trying to approach the problem from a number of different ways.
Mr. Taubert: I don’t know whether I understood an answer on whether it will be cleaned or not.
Mayor Morley: It will be cleaned. When we get over there it will be cleaned in that area.
Dennis Lann, 1039 Eastlake Drive, Eastlake
Mr. Lann: The reason I wanted to speak tonight is pretty much two-fold. It is a main concern about families in Eastlake. As we are aging in the Community it is a major concern for our Community. With events this last year we had a lot of concerns about the pool not reopening and several other things. It is great news and we were shocked as a family to see that the Council and City were able to open the pool without taxes. I was shocked and very complimentary. We all complain but would like to compliment you on that because that was tremendous – along with the use of the stadium and more family events there – I think that is wonderful. My family was very ecstatic and I think it was the next day when I saw something in the News Herald and I was not feeling so good about family values in Eastlake with the news there was an adult cabaret trying to open in the City. I compliment you – as I see everyone opposed this that it would not be good for the City. I read in the article that there was no public opposition to this business. I don’t think the citizens knew this was happening and I spoke with a number of friends, neighbors, families who feel the same way as my wife and I do. We are completely opposed to this opening across from our stadium recreation – seeing the bright lights all the children will ask what that is. I don’t know how many murders there have been in Eastlake but I remember before I lived here that there was someone killed at the adult bookstore – one store in the City and the worst kind of violence came to our community. I do not think it is coincidence and I don’t know why it happened but those things tend to happen at these kinds of places. I am in complete opposition. I know there is a Face Book petition and in just days or weeks there are already 200 signatures and I am sure it will grow. I just wanted to make sure the Council of the City knew there is strong opposition from the citizens and support to keep family values in the City. Again, we always complain but we do want to compliment you for what you have done so far this year. I am very surprised and happy to see what you have accomplished over the last few months.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Thank you. Keep an eye on Face Book because you can never tell – if it does surface again chances are it will be on Face Book before anywhere else- probably before we hear anything. Tell you neighbors and everyone and fill the room. You will have the opportunity.
Mr. Lann: We will give you any support we can because we know how you feel.
Ted Beres, 36706 Lakehurst Drive, Eastlake
Mr. Beres: First, I want to say that the hearing assist is wonderful – thank you. Secondly, I wanted to give our new Mayor an A+ for public relations. I know it has already been mentioned but if you click onto the Eastlake web page you will see a lot of announcements about the activities that are going on or will be going on. With our former Mayor you had to turn on Channel 12 or Channel 99 if you could get it to get his report. Usually he did not have much to say because he did not do much. But a lot has changed since then and I applaud the Mayor and Council for your efforts in getting our Community involved.
Gary Radovanic, 280 Plymouth, Eastlake
Mr. Radovanic: I was here before about the gardens. I found out today that they are closing down half the gardens – people are trying to save the other half. The City came in – they screwed up the fence, the posts – they did not fix nothing. Now it is up to us to try to get people in there and if we do get it looking good again in two years is the City going to come back and take it over and destroy it again? The City has never been since they plowed – they have been nothing but a negative. When Andrzejewski was here he would hide from me. I don’t know why – the garden was here for almost 30 years and no one ever had a problem, never had a flooding problem, never had any problems except trying to get $8 -$10 for water – that is a great thing. But why does the City have to come with big machinery and tear shit up and not fix it? It is beyond me. Why does the City care when I plant? If I plant in April does it bother anyone? Why do I have to wait until Memorial Day except that I am taking away someone’s power. Because he wants to do it on this day? Before you used to get in early. Who the hell cares when I plant? Anybody?
Mr. D’Ambrosio: I know you brought this up at the last meeting. Has there been any changes? Did we close half of the garden, Mr. Rubertino?
Mr. Rubertino: Absolutely not. I am unaware of what he is referring to. No one has closed any part of the gardens. We have not destroyed anything. It is a fact that nothing has been closed. We have not destroyed the gardens. Unfortunately there are more than just a couple of people there that don’t agree 100% with what he is saying and we have people who can’t plant early and who don’t have rototiller accessible to them. We have a service to put out there and we are doing it. I have been here 23 years. The gardens are not run any differently. We have issues at the gardens – absolutely but we are not creating any of it.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Drainage issues?
Mr. Rubertino: Yes, there are drainage issues. We are trying to correct them but it is hard to go in there in March to fix something. It is hard to go in there in November to fix something. There is no timeframe between for the land to dry. We can’t do anything. If I let one guy in there to do his garden then the people who don’t have that equipment – we have to work around that and it is impossible to do that. So, as a whole, we try to accommodate everyone. Twenty-three years – the garden has not opened before Memorial Day weekend. Mr. Radovanic has been there for a few years. I understand that but we are still trying to run it the most efficient way we can and we will continue to do so. We did not put fence up so when it came in that made it harder for us to get in there – absolutely. Rather than take the fence down like other communities who mandate that the fences are down we try to accommodate them by working around the fence they installed. We could easily have had the fence removed. Every other community does not have fence around their gardens twelve months a year. All the negative is not necessarily true. We are trying to accommodate them but we cannot accommodate everyone.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Perhaps next year we could have some kind of written policy listing the date the gardens open, etc.?
Mr. Rubertino: We do have a policy.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: So everyone who signs up knows ahead of time.
Mr. Rubertino: They absolutely do.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: So, if you are signing up for it and you get the criteria the City wants people to follow….
Mr. Radovanic: Until four years ago the City did not plow the gardens.
Mr. Rubertino: That could possibly be true because we abandoned them as an Administrative matter.
Mr. Radovanic: We did them and no one had a problem getting in. It is like a little community down there. People take care of each other. If someone has problems we all pitch in and help someone get planted. There are solutions to this problem but no one ever asked. I got three or four in my mind. But, when you take away someone’s power I think they get pissed. There are too many people who want to be in during April – leave a few lots for the people who don’t. They will probably ask us to rototill them and we probably will because everyone gets rototilled even after the City because you have to. We never had ditches around the garden. We never flooded until the City started.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: I will talk with the Mayor and Mr. Rubertino and see what is going on because I don’t know everything that is happening.
Mr. Radovanic: There have been gardens there for 25 or 30 years and there has been no City there taking care of them – just the people who want to be down there.
Linda Fulton, 2990 Marcum, Willoughby Hills, OH
Ms. Fulton: I am here to basically inform everyone and hopefully I will have your support. The North Coast Lions service Eastlake, Willowick, Wickliffe, Timberlake and Lakeline. We are possibly starting a project to supply safety buckets to all classrooms in the Willoughby Eastlake School System. Chief Whittington, did you receive my email? Can you respond to it?
Chief Whittington: I am not sure what you are asking. The way I read your email was that you were putting the buckets together for the classrooms.
Ms. Fulton: Correct, Safety Buckets which means these safety buckets are in case of an emergency of any kind – disaster – shootings – where they are in a lock down situation. One of our other Lions Clubs in Stow/Monroe Falls – they included things like a hammer, blanket, paper towels, toilet tissue, etc. It is only to be used in a disaster type thing. This will make the students even safer. There is no cost to the school system. Hopefully we will get everything donated that we need. I am asking for the support of the City. Anything you can do as far as maybe – at the time – help put them together to pass out to the teachers – any information you can give me as to where we can go for donations – like the buckets, hammers. We are looking for everything to be donated. Any suggestions you might have I would appreciate. I did send a memo to all the police chiefs and fire chiefs in each particular city in the Willoughby/Eastlake School System to go over the list I provided and make any suggestions – either deletions or additions.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Are you talking about 5 gallon buckets?
Ms. Fulton: Yes.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Chief Whittington, can you forward the email to us?
Chief Whittington: I can do that. I thought your email was to just let us know you were doing it. To put something inside of a school class room should be something that goes through the school district. That was my thoughts on it. I thought you were just letting us know what you were doing – I apologize if I did not get back to you. I thought your email was just informational.
Ms. Fulton: I need more of suggestions because we do not want to put anything into the buckets that will create more of a problem.
Chief Whittington: I know since school shootings have become a bigger deal in this country that we have worked with the school district. The problem with putting things in classroom is that the teachers have to find a place for it and there would have to be some kind of instructions on what to do with it and that type of thing. It is a very expansive thing and is definitely out of my realm. I will follow up with your email tomorrow but I think that the School District needs to have some kind of say in this as far as putting something into the classroom.
Ms. Fulton: Definitely.
Chief Whittington: If you give something to a teacher like a hammer in a bucket the teacher will need to know what to do with it. If the point of the hammer was to ward off an offender then I think that is something Police Chief Reik would have an opinion on. If it is something to use to seal off a room – I think there needs to be a lot of discussion on something like this. On the Fire side and the Police side there are a lot of things we have them doing in the event of an emergency. I will put my thoughts together and respond to your email.
There was no one else who wished to speak.
LEGISLATION PROPOSED – First number will be 2014-035
ORDINANCE NO.: 06-10-(01)
Requested by: Administration An Ordinance amending Section 183.0501,
Sponsored by: Finance Committee Section 183.0502, and Section 183.1302, of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Eastlake, changing the rate of the Municipal Income Tax to Two and Seventy- Five Hundredths Percent (2.75%), and declaring an emergency.
MOTION: Ms. Vaughn moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and
reading in full. Ms. DePledge seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
MOTION: Ms. Vaughn moved to adopt. Ms. DePledge seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Ordinance No. 2014-035.
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RESOLUTION NO.: 06-10-(02)
Requested by: Administration A Resolution providing for the submission to Sponsored by: Finance Committee the electors of the City of Eastlake, Ohio, the question of whether Ordinance No. 2014-035 passed June 10, 2014, amending the City of Eastlake Income Tax Rate shall be approved, and declaring an emergency.
There was no Motion to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full.
Legislation No. 06-10-(02) is placed on First Reading.
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RESOLUTION NO.: 06-10-(03)
Requested by: Administration A Resolution authorizing and directing the Sponsored by: Council Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Contract with T.C. Construction Co., Inc., the lowest and best bidder, for the 2014 Concrete Road Rehabilitation Program, in the amount of One Hundred Ninety-Eight Thousand Eight Hundred Dollars ($198,800.00), and declaring an emergency.
MOTION: Ms. Vaughn moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and
reading in full. Ms. DePledge seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
MOTION: Ms. Vaughn moved to adopt. Ms. DePledge seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2014-036.
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LEGISLATION PENDING (Placed on First Reading 05/27/2014)
RESOLUTION NO.: 05-27-(06)
Requested by: Administration A Resolution Submitting to the Electors of the Sponsored by: Council City the Question of the Renewal of an Existing
0.5-Mill Tax Levy for the Purpose of Providing Fire Apparatus, Capital Improvements and Equipment
for the Fire Department, and declaring an emergency.
There was no Motion to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full.
Legislation No. 05-27-(06) is placed on Second Reading.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
There was no Unfinished Business.
NEW BUSINESS
There was no New Business.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS:
MAYOR/SAFETY DIRECTOR – Dennis Morley
Mayor Morley: Welcome, residents and thank you for coming out this evening. I know everyone’s schedules are usually busy – I appreciate the amount of people we have this evening. Thank you for passing the concrete road program. After I sign the legislation tomorrow Mr. Rubertino will call T.C. Construction to see when we can schedule the road repairs. We are also looking into advertising for bid – I spoke with Mr. D’Ambrosio about this – the asphalt road program. Usually we did the asphalt in-house but we are trying to utilize the people we have here for different items and one of them is for the flooding issues because obviously we know sooner or later Mr. Gwydir’s 100 year rain will come two or three times this year. We are looking at catching up on the catch basins, cleaning out Corporation Creek, going out and cleaning the areas and flushing drains that may be plugged up. The Flag Retirement Ceremony is here Saturday at 11:00 a.m. with the American Legion and V.F.W. The pool opening is Sunday with the ribbon cutting taking place at 11:30 a.m. The pool will be open its regular hours from noon until 7:00 p.m. I do have to say that the YMCA has been phenomenal with the short three or four weeks to get the pool open. They have been there every day for 16-18 hours a day. After yesterday, we can finally see there is a bottom to the pool. The pool was closed for the last two years and there was a ton of algae. We are looking forward to the opening. Thanks to Mr. Small from Best Supply for donating $15,000 so we can have this pool open. As Mr. Lann said there is nothing taken out of the General Fund to operate the pool. Again, thank you. The Building Better Neighborhood’s from NewsNet 5 will be here on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. to put the street that won the competition on TV. I will not announce the street that won until Thursday. Safety Town has been great this week. The parents are bringing their kids and the kids are riding their little motorcycles. They are very excited and glad we could start Safety Town back up. We have been receiving a lot of calls from residents about road repairs by the Lake County Department of Utilities – when there is a water main break the Lake County Department of Utilities is the one who fix the repairs. There are a few streets – East 351st Street has five or six repairs – they do a little patch until they can come back. The patches in some of the areas are getting worse. I spoke with them and they are going to try to schedule repairs. I spoke with them about Erieview and they are going to talk to the Commissioners – that will be fixed with concrete but I do not know when – I am waiting for a time. The Captains have announced that July 17th will be Cleveland Brown’s Joe Haden’s softball game at the stadium. The SummerFest is June 27th, 28th & 29th and we are hoping for a good turnout. This will also be at the stadium. Regarding the gardens – as all my Directors know I do not micro manage. Mr. Rubertino has been taking care of the areas just like the Building Department takes care of theirs. Hopefully, there can be some kind of resolution on the gardens. Council placed the income tax ballot issue on First Reading tonight. As I have been saying and it will be in my next Gazette article – we can’t continually rely on volunteers and on people to donate money. My next article is about – if you look around City Hall we have volunteers who did all the gardening here – we have volunteers at the stadium doing gardening – to try to have our City looking better. I believe we are on the right track in trying to become more family oriented and trying to show the families that we are working but we are going to need help. As I am putting in my article – I know with the stadium too many in this City still think is a strain but it is there – there is nothing we can do – we can’t go backwards. This year we are paying $755,000 on the stadium. We have to decide as a City do we want to continue to say we are not going to do something because of the stadium? If that is the case we have no more people to decimate here. We are down to 101 employees from 156 a couple of years ago. When we had more employees – like Mr. Radovanic talks about – 20 years ago we could have taken care of that. That is not the amount of people we have now. We have our priorities set. Right now the roads are continuing to be the number one priority in this City and we are working on them. The sewers are right up there with the roads. We continue to work. I will not sit here and complain. I knew what I got into when I took this job. Whether I am sitting here or Mr. D’Ambrosio is sitting here or the Chief is sitting here we still do not have money. I am working every day trying to go out to get new business to come in here. The good thing is some of the businesses we have are putting $1 million or $2 million into their businesses to grow. It is time – we have to help ourselves. I know no one wants tax increases. My final example will be – I just did my final taxes today – $3,125.88 and out of that amount of money the City of Eastlake receive $259.98. I think a lot of residents don’t understand that. I get it -$3,100 is a lot of money but out of that $259 goes for the services we do provide. I will try with my Directors and Council to go a different route this time. No one is here for scare tactics – we will take this away – we are not going to have a pool next year or we are not going to have free runs for our Fire Department or we will not have more than the officers we have right now to answer any rescue calls. They are hard facts. They are not scare tactics. And everyone in our City will have to make that decision – what they want their City to be. Thank you. I am open for questions.
Ms. DePledge: I heard a rumor that Juke Box Hero was going to be playing at the RiverFest.
Mr. Evers: I can look at the schedule.
Ms. DePledge: It is a great 80’s band. If they are there the place will be packed.
There were no further questions of Mayor Morley.
FIRE CHIEF – Ted Whittington
Chief Whittington: Again, I apologize to Ms. Fulton for not getting back to her. I will handle that and be sure her email is forwarded to you. We have been monitoring the gas well issue on Admiral Drive. This past week Steve Tomkins of the ODNR worked with the person who actually owns the plot where the gas well is leaking and contracted a company and capped the line. The odor nuisance that has affected the people on Admiral Drive should be resolved. The guy who actually owns the well was home at the time ODNR was there and he has been put on the orphan well program to actually cap the well itself. There were a lot of people who had something to do with this – the Mayor, Steve Tomkins – I was the liaison – we worked real hard and it was resolved. I am open for questions.
There were no questions of Chief Whittington.
POLICE CHIEF – Larry Reik
Chief Reik: As the Mayor said the Safety Town is underway. We will evaluate at the end to see if possibly we can get a class in the end of the summer – to see if there is a want, need and availability. I was able to forward Ms. Fulton’s email to Mrs. Cendroski for distribution to the rest of Council. I, along with the Fire Chief, thought this was what the Lions Club was already doing so there was a little misinterpretation. Between the police chiefs and fire chiefs of the district we can definitely help you get something set up as far as a meeting to make sure the school is comfortable with what items are in there along with the police and fire because we all have a different vantage point. I am open for questions.
There were no questions of Chief Reik.
SERVICE DIRECTOR – Nick Rubertino
Mr. Rubertino: The hot box is out and we are doing approximately 8-12 tons a day of asphalt in patching. Progress is being made. We started flushing – there were a couple of basins where they were filled with tree roots. We have already done one catch basin repair on Grovewood and that will continue as well. I think overall we are moving in a positive direction with the hot box – getting the roads at least patched at best we can at this point – where it is more of a solid and permanent fix so we can get to those roads for major repairs. This concludes my report and I am open for questions.
Mr. Hoefle: I wanted to thank Mr. Rubertino and his staff. I am a member of the Beautification Committee. We have worked around City Hall with your help with the mulch and everything else. We have gone around the City addressing different areas – at the corner of Hillcrest and Lakeshore where the clock is. The guys have been great as far as us volunteers helping out. I came in with my trailer and needed mulch – they loaded it up and we took it and spread it. We were over at Jakse cleaning up. We had residents donating flowers. We are working hard trying to clean everything up and will continue to do what we can. Thank the guys.
Mr. Rubertino: On behalf of them I appreciate it and I will pass it on.
There were no questions of Mr. Rubertino.
CITY ENGINEER – Tom Gwydir
Mr. Gwydir: The push this week will be to finalize OPWC pre-applications. The City’s priority project will be slab repair along Willowick Drive followed by a couple small ancillary projects we have put out for years past that have not been funded. I will be working with the Mayor and Mr. Rubertino on those projects. I am open for questions.
Mr. Licht: I know Mr. Taubert had the question of the pipe underneath the ground and I understand with the aging infrastructure it is not feasible to look at replacing it but I wanted to put things into perspective. Do you have an estimate of what it would cost to replace a pipe like that? Do you have a guess?
Mr. Gwydir: I don’t because it literally starts at the outfall and works backwards – the biggest pipe has to be at the outfall. Your system would be tens of millions of dollars. Enlarging any given pipe in the middle of a system would not have an effect because it would be constrained by what it flows into and there are limitations as to where it flows if it flows into the river and the river is above the elevation of the pipe.
Mr. Licht: I anticipated it would be a significant amount. For reference our current storm water management fund has $69,000 in it. I know we are looking at ways to increase it but even with the possible increases we may be able to do there is still nowhere near enough money to help with the aging infrastructure we have.
Mayor Morley: I remember seeing a number last year after the July 20th incident. Willoughby looked at something and I believe they were saying it was something like $68 million.
Mr. Gwydir: The numbers are substantial.
There were no further questions of Mr. Gwydir.
FINANCE DIRECTOR – Mike Slocum
Mr. Slocum: With a little bit of luck we will be submitting contracts to the FOP Unions next week for vote. In the event they do accept it we will be submitting it to you and we may request an Executive Session prior to the next Committee-as-a-Whole Meeting so we can discuss the contracts and possible approve them.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: If you get the information let us know – maybe we can come in at 6:15 p.m.
Mr. Slocum: The contracts are about 99.9% finalized and they have to be approved by all the Unions before you get them. We will know sometime next week.
Mayor Morley: We are waiting on some language changes. We are hopeful. We are pretty close.
Mr. Slocum: I am open for questions.
There were no further questions of Mr. Slocum.
LAW DIRECTOR – Randy Klammer
Mr. Klammer: The contracts Mr. Slocum talks about are sitting on my desk for review. That was a nice way of telling me to get them back to him. It should not be ignored the fact that the Mayor and Officers and all the employees who are subject to the collective bargaining agreement along with the Finance Director – by wrapping those things up not only has it changed the relationship but there is real cost savings too. You don’t have negotiators, lawyers or any of the stuff. Ignoring the give backs that sometimes go with collective bargaining and based just on those numbers you are probably talking $100,000 in savings. Those are very real numbers that the Mayor, Finance Director, Officers and staff have saved the City. I am working on some tree things on his property with Mr. LeMay. The strip club lawsuit is pending. I appreciate the residents’ comments in those types of things – they matter because there is a business component to all those things. I am open for questions.
Ms. Vaughn: How is the bee ordinance?
Mr. Klammer: I think the Clerk sent draft legislation.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: It is referred to Committee.
Mr. Klammer: I see no problem. I just wanted to make sure there was some way to make sure bee raising did not get out of hand.
There were no further questions of Mr. Klammer.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:52 p.m.
______________________________________
JOE D’AMBROSIO, COUNCIL PRESIDENT
APPROVED: __________________________
ATTEST: _____________________________
DEBORAH A. CENDROSKI,
CLERK OF COUNCIL