FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING

OCTOBER 4, 2016

Committee Member Mr. Evers opened the meeting at approximately ­­­6:43 p.m. Members of the Committee in attendance were Mr. Evers, Mr. Hoefle and Mr. Zuren. Present from Council were Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick, Mr. Spotton and Council President Ms. DePledge.

In attendance from the Administration were Mayor Morley and Police Chief Reik.

Also in attendance were members of the public.  

Members of the audience that were recording the meeting:

John Farwell

Todd Vogler

PROPOSED:

Discussion of a Mayor’s Court.

Mr. Evers: I will now turn it over to Mayor Morley.

Mayor Morley: As I have said in previous emails I am okay if you guys want to set up a task force for the Mayor’s Court.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Zuren?

Mr. Zuren: I am also requesting the creation of a Mayor’s Court task force. I think that Mayor Morley spelled out the parameters of it.  I believe there were seven people that suggested.  One Council Member and I believe…

Mayor Morley: Two Mayor’s choice and two Council President’s choice, one Council Member and I believe that it was two from Council. So it is two Mayor’s choice, two Council President, one Council Member to be on the committee and two from Council.  The majority will be from Council and two from me.

Ms. DePledge: Do you want anybody from the Administration on there?

Mayor Morley: No. Once the task force…I would on it to just ask what I’m looking for.  What I’m looking for is costs.  Start up costs would be one and that they contact the other surrounding cities to see what they are doing.  Obviously Willoughby Hills is a big one and I’ve Mayor Stevens in Perry and she is willing to sit down with someone and talk about how much it costs the Village of Perry for software.  It is not going to be a fan favorite of Willoughby and the surrounding cities, because if we go with a Mayor’s Court it is going to add cost to Wickliffe, Willowick and Willoughby.  I have talked with Mayor Anderson a little but not a ton on it, we have to survive and if this is something that is going to survive us and bring us some income then we have to do it.  Or look at it at least.  Till we get all of those numbers we can’t really say that we are having a Mayor’s Court.  That is part of my thought process and would show up to the first meeting and talk to the committee.  I would say that this is what we need.  I am open for whatever else Council wants.

Mr. Evers: I will go with Mr. Zuren first then Mr. Hoefle.

Mr. Zuren: I did some research on a Mayor’s Court. I did reach out to Mr. Plecnik from Willoughby Hills and I talked to him about the Mayor’s Court.  He said that it was a great idea for any city.  He also made a comment to copy the blue print.  Come over to Willoughby Hills or Perry or where ever and copy the blue print of creating the court.  The software that they use and how they have theirs set up.  It would be a great way just to not reinvent anything just copy what’s working.  I did print off a few things about Mayor’s Courts.  There are 260 in the State of Ohio.  There are six in Lake County and seventeen Cuyahoga County.  Specifically on Willoughby Hills in 2015 it reported that they made over $1 Million.  This is a News-Herald article from March 2016 quoted by their Mayor “Revenue stream of $1.2 Million and they had 6,800 cases” this is from 2015. I know that we will probably not have that many cases, but it just shows the potential surplus that we could have from the Mayor’s Court.  There was concern the last time when we talked about this that a Mayor’s Court could be eliminated and I believe the initial legislation…I looked it up the initial legislation was a Mayor’s Court could not exist if the municipality had less than a 1,000 people.  Well that’s not going to apply to the City of Eastlake.  So the concern over what was proposed in 2013 should not be there.  I would suggest creating the Mayor’s Court so that we can investigate sir costs, visit some local courts and send people out to get all of the information.  We could have several different people so that we have various opinions and just research it.  I think that it is going to take awhile to create it but I think that we need to start.  The Council person that talked to in Willoughby Hills said that it doesn’t matter if it takes you six months or six years.  He says the best things for your city is increased revenue and a surplus from this type of endeavor and just too get it started.  

Mr. Hoefle: I have two questions. Do we want to look at the qualifications of any of the members that would be on the task force?  So that we’re not just having some residents that really…who knows what their background is.  Do we want to make sure that we have somebody that has some technical experience?  Maybe someone like Mr. Komarjanski?

Mayor Morley: He is going to be one of my choices.

Mr. Hoefle: So you get someone who had the legal background. Somebody with different…

Ms. DePledge: A technical background.

Mr. Hoefle: A technical background. So that we make sure that we have certain qualifications of the individuals who would be on that task force.  The other thing that I was wondering…the fees that we are currently collecting from the city…when we write the tickets and we get our cost on what we get back…has anybody approached Willoughby to see if maybe they would adjust any of that to give us….

Mayor Morley: We lost revenue. I had a meeting with Judge Harry Field and the Chief has the report that we were going over.  Part of it is that’s out there is because we’re not writing as many tickets and the Chief takes offense to that and I agree with him.  We have lost all of the officers that we have so again we are not.  We are doing our fair share to contribute to the court.  The parameters of the court have changes also.  From their end and Ms. DePledge is the lawyer, it used to be you could threaten people by sending them to jail, but now you can’t send them to jail anymore.  Because if they don’t have any money you can’t use that as what Judge Fields told me is it’s discriminatory now, because they don’t have money to pay for the fines.  That has changed also and that is hurting the courts also from what he has told me.  We need to look into it and to see if it’s going to be…the only thing tout of Willoughby Hills and you can check with me.  Obviously we all know that Route 271 is their …that is where they make a majority of their money.  I would like to see how much is from there.  We’re not going to go do this Mayor’s Court…it’s going to be about safety.  But if we are just going to sit on Route 2 and Route 91 and ticket everybody that’s not how I want it to work.  I want it to be for safety and at our discretion.  We set up the fines and all of what we can.  The different cities that I’ve looked up some may have…they don’t do the DUI’s but I think Willoughby Hills may drop a DUI down to a reckless operation.  We don’t want to do that either or at least I don’t.  I don’t want to say… DUI and let them go and say that it’s reckless operation, because we are going to pull some money in.  I want it to be that the safety is part of it too.  Those are things that can be discussed in the committee.

Ms. DePledge: You mean the task force?

Mayor Morley: Yes the task force. Like I have said I am good with having it.

Mr. Evers: The names should be turned into you or the Council President? How do you want to do it?

Mayor Morley: For me I have some people that after the one posting…I have ten I could forward you all of those people’s names. We can all share if anyone of us gets it.  Basically I already have one of my two picked.  Like I said Mr. Komarjanski who was a magistrate before.  Actually he went to Columbus on his own and took some classes and paid for it out of his pocket for the Mayor’s Court already.  He was going to go do a renewal.  I think that if he is involved we will go from there.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: Mayor you mentioned with seven members do we need seven could we cut it down to maybe just five good quality people? I am just throwing it out there do we need seven and you are trying to hunt around to come up with seven?  Could we go with five good quality people?

Mr. Evers: I will interject there. The amount of investigation that is going to go into this you are going to need seven people. 

Ms. DePledge: You sat on it before.

Mr. Evers: You are going to need it. This is not…go ahead Mr. Hoefle I am done.

Mr. Hoefle: I just want to see it was either five or seven I was just throwing it out there. I want to make sure that we know what the qualifications of the individuals who we are going to have in here on it.  We just don’t want anybody to say “oh I want to be a committee.”  You know and then we say go ahead but what is their background?  Are they…and really put some good work into this.

Ms. DePledge: Do we have to do a public posting? Do we want to ask for people to submit their resumes?

Mayor Morley: We can do that. I think that some of the surrounding cities do that and I know that Mentor does that for everything.  Willoughby also does it.

Mr. Evers: Can we get it put on the sign out front?

Mayor Morley: Yeah. I think though…but we need some parameters of what you may think you want.  We can’t just say hey we want this and people send in resumes and we just look at resumes.  If there are certain things that you want this person to have then you needed to put that out there. 

Ms. DePledge: I don’t know that we…

Mayor Morley: Why don’t we ask Willoughby Hills how pick theirs?

Ms. DePledge: I don’t know that we need to pigeon hole ourselves either. I think that you know if Mr. Komarjanski is going to be on it you have somebody from the legal.  I think that it is pretty clear that we would want someone with IT.  I think that the remaining five members…let’s see what we draw in.  Maybe we will get somebody with an insurance background.  I don’t think that we should limit ourselves to someone who may be interested in stepping forward and participating….

Mayor Morley: I will forward you their names. I already have about ten.

Ms. DePledge: I would like to leave it as open as possible and get the greatest variety that we could pick from and we could make an offer if they want to participate. Instead of saying we only want…we don’t IT people then that’s you know…I would rather see it a little more open.

Mayor Morley: Got it.

Mr. Evers: Are there any other members of Council have comments? On this area I will open it up to the public discussion.

REGOGNITION OF PUBLIC

There was no one wishing to speak.

Mr. Evers: Members of the Committee move it forward?

Mr. Hoefle: Move it forward.

Mr. Zuren: Move it forward.

Mr. Evers: Move it forward.

There were no objections.

Ms. DePledge: Just so we are clear and so that it is on the record. We will move it forward to Council-As-A-Whole or Council and that we going to vote to approve the formation of a Mayor’s Court Task Force.

Mr. Evers: We are going to approve the addition to the task force and we will accept applications. It is a 3-0 vote.

Discussion on a proposal for a city operated impound lot.

Mr. Evers: I will now turn it over to Mr. Zuren.

Mr. Zuren: Also for this issue I am asking for a task force to be created. I think that it is a big undertaking.  I think that there is a lot of upfront cost, annual maintenance, and location.  I looked around in the city and there only two spots that I could think of that are potentially suited for it.  A lot more investigation has to go into it.  There is one that is kind of behind City Hall.  There is a lot there and I am not sure if it is big enough.  It seemed to be big enough.  There is also maybe CEI.  They have a fenced in area that is not being used and I am not sure if they would consider leasing that land to the city for a $1.00.  But I am sure that there are other locations that are available out there.  The task force…the same thing with the Mayor’s Court they can look into revenue expendatures.  I briefly reach out to Chief Reik on the subject and I am not sure if he has anything to add.

Mr. Evers: Chief Reik?

Chief Reik: We would have to make sure obviously that it is a secured locked fence and lite. You have all of the…not all but you do have liability with the cars that you are bringing in there.  We could find out probably from the tow companies with this change…the bidding contract.  Obviously they are making a good protion of their money when they tow all these cars to their lot.  If they are left their then they go through whatever in transferring the title and all of that stuff.  That’s their back end for the tow business in general.  I get that we need money and there is no reason not to look at.

Mr. Evers: I did speak with Vitalone’s. There are a couple of things that concern me and one is EPA regulations.  They do come into play you are going to have oil and gasoline fron cars that have been in accidents being spilt on the ground.  That needs to be looked at before we form a committee.  Item two the Chief just brought it up abandonded cars.  They spend quite a bit of money and effort to get those cars retitled to their name so that they can junk them out.  A lot of time and that would be another concern.  So with that I will go back to Mayor Morley.

Mayor Morley: My one concern is I don’t know if we could get a towing contract. If Vitalone’s, O’Connor, ABC or Terry’s Towing…are they gong to just bid to just get tow’s for the $80.00.  I am sure that’s where they are making their money is the inpound lots.  Especially on the DUI’s or the wrecks…especially on the DUI’s I will say that the cars may be sitting there for awhile.  I think that I told Mr. Spotton today that if there is a major wreck….I remember the one a couple of years ago with the fatality that we had we kept that car here on site, because it was for the investigation.  We could talk with Ms. Schindel a little and get the numbers but you know we were pulling or 18,000 to 20,000 a year from the tow company for that.

Chief Reik: In this year we made…with more driving under suspentions there are more tows and the court has spread that out to child support and not compliance. You get…verification letters in the mail.  We are already over 300 tows this.  I think that we will make a pretty decent amount of money through that, which is something that we have to do anyways.

Mayor Morley: That is my only concern is that we may not get any bids just for tows.

Mr. Evers: Ms. DePledge?

Ms. DePledge: My only concern is that our tow bid would go up. Then again our…will take a hit there in cost.  My notes on it were the insurance, EPA violations, the lot, the fencing and the employee’s.  Who is going to run it?  It is going to have to be open 24/7 and you are talking at least five employee’s.  Because three employees working eight hours a day seven days a week is not sufficient.  Are they going to be trust worthy?  Who is going to be taking the money? Is it going to be the dispatcher?  Are they going to go to the Police Station and pay their tow fee?  Are we going to put more of a burden on our workers again?  So what is going to happen with the money and just how many…do we get and the title work and the legal work associated with the title work.  It is not that simple it costs hundreds of dollars.  That is just filing fees, BMV background searches on the VIN numbers, the OSB has to come in and they have to do some sort of verification on the car.  It’s a lot of title work to look into and that is something that all things of the task force can look at.  Maybe I am wrong about the title work but I have done titile work myself and it is not fun.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: In one of our meetings we were talking with the inspections and stuff like that. With this kind of impound lot can we actually do it to make a profit?  Or are we supposed to be breaking even?  Just like if we were doing inspections we’re not a city that is in the business to profiting to make revenue.  Are we going to be catching ourselves in a mix here?

Mayor Morley: That would be a question for…

Mr. Hoefle: It would have to be for Mr. Klammer because like they said if your fines for property issues. We can’t really be doing it for profit.  That was discussed so if impound are going be whatever our costs are you can’t be…I don’t know.  That is something that is going to be up to Mr. Klammer.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Zuren?

Mr. Zuren: There is some information that I found regarding that specific subject. Niles in June of 2016 autioned off cars that were left in their impound lot to purchase new cruisers for the police.  They also break down their charges for…they charge a $75.00 administration fee, $25.00 daily storage fee; they charge a higher amount for trucks.  Which are dump trucks, garbage trucks and semi trucks in which they charge $100.00 a day.  Another article on Middletowns coffers that is what it is called.  They added $252,000.00 and it was from selling impounded vehicles.  So possibly the charge for putting on the impound lot is one thing but actually selling the abandon car is different.  They had $252,000.00 to the general fund.  Their Finance Director is quoted as saying “This is a pretty good idea.”  That is their quote.  The administrative fee they charge $175.00, $20.00 a day for a car.  I believe they have a number here of cars that were towed.  Their city is twice the size of our city and there were 1,000 tows.  If we are going to average 400 that is more than double, but they added $252,000.00.  It does seem possibly the money is from the abandoned car, but it is something that I think we need to look at.  I think that there are a lot of issues with it and really a task force to owness on seven or five people instead of one would be a better way to go.

Mayor Morley: I am good with that too. The task force…works and there is nothing from us.

Mr. Evers: A question for you real quick. In those two cities who does the towing?  Is it the city or is it a private contractor?

Mr. Zuren: No the towing is done by a private company. It breaks it down in one of these…

Mayor Morley: This one is Mark’s Towing.

Mr. Zuren: Mark’s Towing and they get $50.00 a vehicle and the city nets $125.00. That is almost the opposite of what we are doing.  I think that we are getting $25.00 a tow if I am not mistaken.

Mayor Morley: I think $45.00 or $40.00.

Mr. Zuren: So it is almost a flip of the revenue.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: If we are going to be creating these task force could we have one task force that would be looking at all of these issues?

Mr. Evers: No.

Mr. Hoefle: Okay.

Mayor Morley: We will more people involved in it hopefully. I am good.

Ms. DePledge: I’m good.

Mr. Evers: Do you want to do five or seven on this one?

Mayor Morley: Let’s do five on this one.

Mr. Evers: I would say five. Are there any comments from the public for this item?

REGOGNITION OF PUBLIC:

Jim Trueouski, 219 Erie View, Eastlake

Mr. Trueouski: I have been in the towing industry for 34 years. I do it part-time now.  It is not a money maker.  With all of the EPA stuff you hold on to the wrecks.  With the company that I work for now and I talked to Mario and third of the vehicles go unclaimed.  You have to submit affidavits five, fifteen and thirty days, because if Mr. Smith gets arrested and the car is owned by somebody else that person doesn’t know that their car is in there.  You have to try and notify him.  All of those affidavits cost more and more so the vehicle sits and sits and sits. By the time that you go to get rid of it…now lets say we use Vitalone’s they towed it in and they are getting $40.00 now they have to tow it out to the juck yard.  Who is getting paid for that?  The company that I work for now…scrap is not paying anything.  You are getting $100.00 or $125.00 per car and that is it.  There is nothing and what is the city going to get a cut on that?  You have to watch selling the vehicle’s, because you do not have a title.  If you get a salvaged title you have to watch it.  What happens if you get a semi that flipped over? Vitalone uprights it and tows it in you have all of the produce from that semi that you have to store, cover it, and it has to be indoors.  You have to collect tax on storage as well as tows.  Now you have to pay the state their state tax.  There is a lot.  Mario is towing for $80.00 or $85.00.  He is giving the city back $40.00.  He is making $40.00 on a tow.  These trucks cost over $100,000.00 now.  He is making nothing.  The state changed things you have to release 24 hours a day.  If you have an officer…Cleveland Heights has their own impound lot.  They tow their own arrests and accidents during the day.  The company that I work for does it on the weekend.  They are losing money and it was the prior Police Chief that implamented it.  They are looking to get rid of it.  Former Chief Bova form Warrensville Heights looked into doing this.  When he talked to the owner of my company and told him what was intailed.  He fould out how do you make any money and he goes we do thirteen different Police Departments.  That is how he makes the money.  It has to be staffed quite often…especially if the Police Department goes up there and does releases or lets people get their property out.  They want to get their property out now you come back and they forgot something you go back and let them out again.  Mario Vitalone has let people in the lot three different times for the same vehicle.  They want to get pictures and then you have insurance guys coming to look at the vehicles.  It is a very time consuming.  People nowa days don’t into the towing business to make a lot of money.  Most of the people who are in it it’s in their blood for years.  Again I have been doing it for 34 years.  I’ve done it full-time for a long time.  I enjoy driving but it is not a money maker for the city.  Not at all because if…you used for example CEI property.  You are that close to the lake you get oil or antifreeze or diseal fuel and it starts getting in there and it gets into the lake.  Now you have opened up a can of worms with the EPA.  There is more into it that…they clean up for an accident scene and there is oil that they sweep up there is a proper way to get rid of it.  You have to document it.  That is why they are charging so much for a small bag of oil and they charge them about $40.00.  It has to be disposed of properly.  Now all of a sudden it is leaking in…and now you have to clean it up again.  The car is already gone or being towed out now you have to clean it up again and dispose of it.  You have to police the impound lot quite a bit.

Chief Reik: I think that the tow companies make and I am sure some money because when we go to places if we don’t need a police tow people ask us who do you guys use. We don’t recommend even though the ones that we have the contract…we just don’t get into recommending the business.  We do know that we have priority with Vitalone’s now and O’Connors in the past.  If we call they have to give us priority over Mr. Blow.  I am sure that helps them a little bit as far as keeping the bids coming in.

Jim Trueouski, 219 Erie View, Eastlake

Mr. Trueouski: Theft…if somebody hops a fence now the city is responsible because they maintane the lot. Somebody stole are radio, cell phone or whatever…especially if it’s a lit up lot that is locked up and no body is there 24 hours.  At most towing companies somebody is not actually there and they do as much as they can.  If Vitalone would tow a car to a lot and you had it in the back here…somebody comes over there and steals a radio or damages it the city is responsible, because Vitalone left it in the cities care.  Vitalove has it it’s on his dime.  In You who we’ve had people break in the lock or cut the fence and get back there and they take a bunch of radios out or they cut the converters out. Now people come to get their car and start it up and their car is loud.  Because, someone came in and cut their converter out in the middle of the night and now the owner of our company has to pay for it.  It’s not worth the $5,000.00 deductable to his insurance company so he pays it out of his pocket.  There is a lot of theft that goes on in the impound lot.  The City of Cleveland has an interm and people working there are stealing out of the cars.  I’ve been doing it along time and I have seen a lot working for different companies.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: After all of those comments do we really need to have a task force? Basically you said that we shouldn’t do it.

John Farwell, 36823 Lakeshore Blvd. , Eastlake

Mr. Farwell: So we may or may not have a good idea here. I don’t think that we know yet. Obviously you have been in the business and very well and knowledgeable on it.  It may not be in the best interest to do this.  We obviously don’t want to do anything that is going to cost us money.  That is not what we are here for.  What we are here for is we are trying to figure out new ways to generate revenue for the city.  These are ideas that are being brought forward and I would ask that all of the members of Council to talk to their resident’s and talk to the people in their ward to try and figure out additional ways that we as a city find ways to increase revenue.  My suggestion is that City Council look at ways to increase the property values of the homes in the City of Eastlake.  Look at instituting laws and ordinances that are going to drive up the property values of our city.  Everybody in the city wants their home value to go up.  The value of our homes is what drives a lot of the revenue that we receive as city to keep everything operating.  The City Council Members need to come up with ideas that are going to help generate revenue.  If this idea doesn’t work and it’s a gutter ball then it’s a gutter ball.  We will call it what it is and move on to try and figure out other alternatives.  If it’s the Mayor’s Court or if it’s XYZ or whatever it is we can re-negociate the contract with the towing companies I don’t know.  I think as leadership of the city I think that it is the cities responsibility to find alternative ways to generate additional revenue for the city.  I took a survey pool of pretty large audience of individuals in the city this past week. Eighty percent want our City Council to do that.  The citizens of this city have spoken and they are asking for alternative ways for us to come up together as a city for alternative ways to generate new revenue verses city taxes and reciprocity. 

Mr. Evers: Any idea and I think I speak for the entire Council would be looked at? That is all that we can ask.

Mr. Farwell: All I hear is one or two people coming up with ideas and a lot of people….

Mr. Evers: That is totally untrue. Some of these ideas have been investigated more than once in the past.  They have been looked at more than once by me and other members of this Council or other citizens of this city.  We are going to look at them again, because there are different circumstances.  I think that we are all in agreement with that…really I do.  At that point five members to be proposed to be put on the investigation task force.  Move forward?

Mr. Hoefle: I have no problem moving it forward.

Mr. Zuren: yes.

Mr. Evers: 3-0 move it forward. With that there will be two from the Mayor, two from Council President and one from Council.  I don’t think that we need a Council Member on that committee.  That would be my suggestion.

There were no objections.

PENDING:

There is no Legislation Pending.

MAYOR’S COMMENTS:

Mayor Morley had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

LAW DEPARTMENT

Mr. Klammer had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

FINANCE DEPARTMENT

Mrs. Schindel had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

MISCELLANEOUS:

Discussion on video taping of Council Meetings

Mr. Evers: The recording of Council Minutes there was a resolution typed up and everybody got it in an email. I am going to turn it over to Mr. Zuren and please be quick.

Chief Reik: Do you need anyting else from me?

Mr. Evers: No Chief we’re good thank you.

Chief Reik has now left the meeting.

Mr. Zuren: I emailed everyone a proposed legislation for video taping the meetings. I believe that it addressed in there all but one major subject, which was Channel 12.  Trying to get the videos in Channel 12 and I have tried to track down the person who handled Channel 12 for the city.  They are supposedly at the School of Inovation and I have not been able to get through to him.  I am not sure what the cost is going to be to actually use equipment that will be able to put it on a cable system.  I think that video taping the meeting even if it just reaches the internet and YouTube would increase the scope of who we reach and who could watch the meeting.  Even if it gets to 60 or 70 percent of the people I believe it is an improvement that the city could make at very little cost.  I believe Mr. Farwell said that he purchased the tripod and a recorder for $65.00 total from Wal-Mart.  I would be more than happy to purchase and donate that to the city.  My suggestion is that we adopt or at least move forward the legislation so that we can proceed with it.

Ms. DePledge: There has to be a mechanisim in place for record keeping and going to the Historical Society. I believe that there has to be a retention program in place.  We have to have the ability here to store the minutes so if someone comes in and asks for us we have to be able to produce it.  The other item is that I do not support being on YouTube I support it being on our city website.  I feel very strongly that YouTube and I understand exactly what it is and how it works.  I think that when we post our minutes on our city website they are just as exessable for those people who are looking for information.  I think that it gives it a degree of credibility and authenticity and that I would support 100%.  There is no retention program or anyway and the Historical Society hasn’t been contacted either to see what they want.  I don’t know if Mrs. Simons knows exactly all is entailed but Mrs. Cendroski certainly would.  I know she might be an excellent resource for information about what needs to happen with that.

Mr. Zuren: What was the ladies name?

Ms. DePledge: Mrs. Cendroski our former clerk. She was very knowledgeable about records retention and public records retention policies.  She is probably a guro on it.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Spotton?

Mr. Spotton: The only thing that I would look into is how much storage we have on our website. If we are going to put a lot of video on it of every meeting it is going to eat up a ton of storage space.  If we have it great but that is something I would have to look into.

Mayor Morley: Then you have to find a spot to archieve it. That is what you would have to do.

Ms. DePledge: You could put up a year’s meetings and you can take them off and that is where I am talking about retention and archieving.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Kasuncik?

Mr. Kasunick: YouTube videos can be embedded on a website so if you do it that way it would be both on YouTube and on the city website. It wouldn’t take up any…little to no space on the server so that might be the best way to do it.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: My question is and I know that it was brought up before is who would be operating and setting up the cameras for each and every meeting? I know that we talked about in case somebody is grandstanding or if they have their coats on…is it going to be set up in spot just panning over the whole room?  We have no objections to any resident who wants to video tape our meetings.  If we already have the audio I’m not sure why we can’t just take the audio that we have when it is completed the next day and go through it to make sure that everything in the audio is clean.  That there is nothing before the meeting that was on there and nothing after the meeting and if there was anything that the recorder didn’t get shut off.  You redact that information but then get that onto our city website.  The audio is out there I think that as long as they can hear it right away…because it is taking Mrs. Simons a long time to condence these minutes and going through these things verbatim.  It is a lot of work and I am thinking that as soon as that meeting is over the next day or within 24 hours or 48 hours let’s get the audio out there.  I think that would cover everything. That is my opinion.

Mr. Evers: Has Mr. Klammer reviewed your resolution yet?

Mr. Zuren: No.

Mr. Evers: I would ask that he review that.

Mr. Zuren: Okay I will email him.

Mayor Morley: Mr. Hoefle has something there with the audio.   I don’t care if someone sees me or not the audio’s…if you want to hear it that’s the main line about the audio instead our faces.

Ms. DePledge: It comes down to records retention, responsibility and a custodian of how that is going to be recorded. Maybe it is something that we can teach Mrs. Simons to do.

Mayor Morley: I think that covers us though if we have these little tapes or whatever. That is what we are going to store.  So we will have that and we put the audio on.  She doesn’t have those little ones like you had before?

Mr. Evers: No this is a disc and she reruns this over and over and over because she types them out verbatim word for word.

Mr. Spotton: Space wouldn’t be a problem on a server if it’s just the audio. Video is going to take….

Mayor Morley: We could change over and get those little tapes.

Mr. Hoefle: Once we have the audio out there and right now we are doing it verbatim. I did look at like Willoughby and if you ever look at their Council Minutes they are not verbatim. If Mrs. Simons gets some more skill where she could understand to just condence it and you don’t have to go verbatim. It would be a tough task to make sure that we are getting everything approved and we would have to approve it. The audio is out there and once the meeting is over we could get that out there. Let her go through and a condenced…like Mr. Klammer made a comment to us the other day. We don’t have to be verbatim. If it is our meeting and we approve it then we get back to her and say yeah this is the condenced from that you did and we agree with it and we tell her yeah that’s good. Let it fall back to us and whoever was the chair of that meeting. So we don’t have to have…there was one from Willoughby were their Service Director and all it said was that we have a lot of road projects going on. They didn’t go throough and spell out each and every road and what was going on. They are very condenced. Look at Willoughby’s…I talked to the clerk from Willoughby and she even said that if I had to do verbatim for every meeting…she said that’s crazy.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Zuren I get the transparency thing I have no and I am speaking for myself. I have no objection if anybody wants to video tape a meeting. They have every right to under Ohio Sunshine Laws and put it where ever they want. My question to you is what is the purpose of your thing? Is it for us as a city to say that we demand they be video taped and audio taped and put out on YouTube? I do not understand what you are after.

Mr. Zuren: I am looking for a greater reach to the public. I think that we are missing people under forty which is half of our population. They don’t come to meetings and they won’t read seven to ten pages of transcripts but they will watch a YouTube video. I just think that we are missing a segment…and this is a way to reach out to them and get them more involved. I think that YouTube videos is a way to reach them. I just think that this is…we are behind the times.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Meyers?

Mr. Meyers: Just to touch on Ms. DePledge’s concerns I had talked to Council Members from the City of Sandusky and what they have done is they created a city YouTube channel where they had control over it. Like Mr. Kasunick said I believe they link to it directly from their city website.

Ms. DePledge: I just want to see some authenticity from us associated with it. So that it is not just out there.

Mr. Meyers: It wasn’t just an individual posting it was like the City of Sandusky YouTube or something like that.

Mr. Evers: I guess at this point is my suggestion is going to be this from Chairman of the Finance Committee approach the Administration. Talk to them about purchasing the video equipment…them in Finance. If it under $12,500.00 it does not have to come before this committee. Then we would just have to finalize it and work it to who is going to run the equipment during the meetings.

Mayor Morley: I will throw out a suggestion on that…we could just have the Sergeant-at-Arms do it.

Mr. Evers: The Sergeant-at-Arms Mr. Rydzinski which is a good possibility.

Ms. DePledge: I think that if you are calling them minutes and they are going to be minutes it is probably going to be the Clerk of Council responsibility.

Mayor Morley: It is whatever you guys want.

Mr. Evers: I would defiantly approach the Administration and Finance. I would put everything together as far as they type of camera, tripod and sound system whatever. Show them the prices and go from there. I would still be very very interested in whether or not this could be reproduced over the public access channel, which is Channel 12. You may try reaching out to a guy name Mr. Alford he was going to do it for and due to personal reasons he moreless left the city.

Mr. Zuren: Okay.

Mr. Evers: Members of Council and members of the Finance Committee move forward or hold it in committee for further answers?

Mr. Hoefle: I say hold it in committee for further information.

Mr. Zuren: Hold it in committee.

Mr. Evers: Hold it in committee. 3-0 to hold it in committee and it is for the purpose of getting futher information on how to do it, where to publish it and who is going to operate it.

REGOGNITION OF PUBLIC:

The meeting was adjourned at 7:29 p.m.

tms     

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