ORDINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING

FEBRUARY 7, 2017

Committee Chair Mr. Spotton opened the meeting at approximately 6:00 ­­­p.m. Members of the Committee in attendance were Mr. Meyers and Mr. Spotton. Present from Council were Mr. Zuren, Mr. Kasunick and Mr. Evers and Council President Ms. DePledge. Mr. Hoefle was absent and excused

In attendance from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Chief Reik, Chief Whittington, Lt. Drake, CBO Menn and Law Director Klammer.

Also in attendance were members of the public.

Members of the audience that were recording the meeting:

PROPOSED

1. Nuisance Abatement

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Zuren?

   Mr. Zuren: It is a re-introduction for the nuisance abatement review and it was introduced months ago but the thought behind it was…this was emailed to everyone earlier today. South Euclid updated their nuisance abatement ordinances and specifically what some citizens have shown interest in and I am interested in discussing criminal activity nuisances that affect the ability for the Police Department to respond to issues in a timely manner. South Euclid actually added a deterrent to their nuisance laws where if citizens are abusing the system with excessive calls on the same issue the Police Chief has the right to impose a fine after a certain number of calls. The two big ones were dogs barking and domestic violence. When you look at the actual ordinance from South Euclid they discuss not only issues with animals and a disturbance of the piece and a series of criminal activities…drug violations, gambling, health or safety, alcohol, sex offenses, littering, weapons, fire arms, hand gun violations, fireworks, waste container violations. I highlighted that because I know that our Police Department goes out repeatedly to tell people to put their trash cans away. I think that it is an issue that we’ve heard for the last six months. If they are out there telling people to put their trash cans away and they are going to warn people about their dogs barking multiple times a year. If there is a serious issue in the city like an accident or something else for the Police Department to be better used we are taking away from their response time unless we address this issue. The way that it is written with South Euclid is that it’s completely up to the Police Chief as to what is nuisance and what isn’t. For instance if it is a domestic violence and it’s not deemed a nuisance that is completely understandable, but they have been warned over and over and it has been going on for years then maybe that is a nuisance. It is taking them away from the ability to do their job in a timely manner. I think that it is something that we need to look at. There are two different articles one if from 2012 and the other is from 2014 that the Police Chief from South Euclid was quoted in and it pertains to a bar. It was violating the hours to sell alcohol and I believe that the bar finally closed down. Initially the bar kept serving alcohol after 2:30 a.m. and they didn’t have the ability to fine the bar. I think in 2012 they could fine them $76.00 and it made no difference and eventually after these laws went into affect the fine was much greater. I think that the bar eventually closed. It gives the Police Chief more authority to control abuses and nuisances. I think that it is something that we need to look at. If anybody has any questions I would be happy to answer them.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers do you have a comment on this? Is there anyone from Council have a comment on this? Chief Reik do you have anything on this?

   Chief Reik: A majority of the time when we get called to go somewhere…during the first month of training you tell a guys if you are going to go up and tell someone that you can’t do something you better know if the tell you to…off what the next step is. Because if not then that is what you are going to have to do, you can’t tell someone to bring in their garbage cans unless there is an ordinance that says that they are in violation of it. You can’t tell someone not to park on the lawn unless there is a violation for that. All of those things topically the first yard parking complaint or infractions like that we do take a document friendly type of approach. After that a $25.00 parking ticket or the minor misdemeanor ticket that we could write for garbage cans. They are already in place. I don’t know if the end of the rainbow solution is more kind to handle other things for more money or a combination of both. But we have the device in place for…by reading South Euclid I’m envisioning and I know a couple of guys out there that could get some more information. I am envisioning more under age or early twenties party houses that you keep going back to. We have dealt with a couple of those in the city and we dealt with them a little aggressively within the bounds of the law that we already have in place and so far so good. A lot of it is how we apply it and I will work with Council if that is what they want to look at. But I am confident right now…Mr. Meyers has contact me a couple of times about the same problem about yard parking. Guy has already paid $75.00 now and the guy on Roberts Road has paid $169.00 twice. I don’t know if we are going to actually fine people beyond that. Then if they don’t pay we will have to write it as an unclassified misdemeanor so we don’t have the…

   Mr. Klammer: It’s not criminal and I don’t know…what it is saying is…going to be South Euclid but what we already have or what we already can do. What this is saying is that you can provide notice to them that they have constituted these nuisances. But I suspect that you’re not going to want to provide notice unless there has been a guilty fine or a plea on some body’s right.

   Chief Reik: Even if it is a repeated noise complaint…did it the best I thought. He would warn them to keep the music down and if I come back it’s going to be a disorderly conduct. He goes back writes them a minor misdemeanor for disorderly conduct. For a fourth degree misdemeanor you put someone in handcuffs.

   Mr. Klammer: This seems to with all of the respect to South Euclid it seems like we already have this authority. It lists all of these things as what it declares as a nuisance but I mean we have under the statutes most of these things would constitute a nuisance anyways. Drug abuse is in the statute as a nuisance, gambling is in the statute as a nuisance. Health and safety….

   Chief Reik: We have some prostitution issues in there. That what makes me envision more of a…

   Mr. Klammer: This doesn’t stop it all this kind of gives us that ability to do is to go file our losses. I think under the Revised Code we already have the ability to do that. In a sense I appreciate the idea of having an objection to it. I think that it already states that we already have the authority to do. I don’t think it…it’s not a panacea in the sense that it’s going to solve the problem quickly, because all it basically gets us is a law suit. Which is why you enforce a nuisance and a nuisance would be a civil law suit to declare something in a nuisance and to abate it. Then you could pursue the collection, which we can do by statute anyways. I don’t have any fundamental objection to it I just don’t want anybody to have their hopes up that it is any type of panacea. I am a little anxious though whenever we talk about the 9-1-1 calls I don’t want this to apply to the 9-1-1 calls. That is the anxiousness that I have.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Evers?

   Mr. Evers: My question to Chief Reik would be are these calls the exception or are they the rule? Is it a constant problem?

   Chief Reik: Like any police agency we definitely have that list of names that more calls come from. Typically I would say over the course of my own career and my own experiences typically those people get less of a gray area to operate within. When they commit infractions it slowly moves towards a no tolerance policy and you just go over there and deal with the problem and move on. As far as a bar issue and I have three close friends from South Euclid including the Chief and I’ll make some calls over the week and get something back to everyone as far as what they are doing. I would feel what would apply here and how it all works because right now our protection for a loud party and underage consumption is that we make the arrest. They go to court and the court is now administrating our punishment through fines, jail time, and whatever. We are out of the mix unless they don’t show up for court. Then we go and pick it back up and take them back to court.

   Mr. Klammer: For instance back in the day…we don’t have a lot of these public nuisances in regards to bars that I could imagine. The one that we did was the Vine Street…it took a while but ultimately we did abate that a public placenance law suit. That is the model I guess if you needed an example to look too. There was criminal activity but then we filed a nuisance law suit to shut them down.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Zuren?

   Mr. Zuren: I think that the vision of this of expanding the nuisance law for Eastlake, because when you look at the penalty section in our ordinance. Either they are not listed…the dollar figure or they are very insignificant. When you look at the articles that were written about South Euclid they were getting…their penalties of $76.00 was where they started before 2012 had no impact. People would just pay it and they would continue to let their dog bark or whatever. They actually have some significant fines in here escalating fines based on the Police Chief to determine if they have already exceeded two nuisance calls. That would be your determination and they start off at $250.00 and the third one they go to $500.00 then to $750.00, and they stop at $1,000.00. If someone doesn’t take in their trash can ten times in a year at some point you can start imposing an escalating fine, which has a lot more bite then $25.00.

   Mayor Morley: Do you know what the opposite effect of that is when the residents start calling that we are fining them $500.00 for garbage cans? We will never escalate and we have had this discussion are we going to put one of our residents in jail because of bushes? We’ve had that discussion. That is the opposite and I understand what you are trying to do but the opposite effect of that is when they call you and say am I really getting fined $500.00 because I left my garbage can out?

   Mr. Zuren: If the police are out there multiple times.

   Mayor Morley: I get it but really when he goes out it’s not multiple times. Over the last month we have been doing…I wouldn’t call them nuisances but again it’s…don’t forget the other side of the coin is that we have people that don’t have anything to do all day. All they do is call in because they don’t like their neighbor. That is a big part of our problem too and it isn’t about this person continues to leave their garbage can out. It’s if someone looks at the ordinance and we go letter to law on every ordinance about the time frame from noon to then and someone puts their garbage can out at eleven a.m. and someone calls and says that they put it out before noon. I get when people don’t like each other but that’s part of our problem with this. I’ve talked with both of the Chief’s and I know that Chief Whittington is going to talk about some things. That is the flip coin of that isn’t just that we just fine our residents because we can and I think that you need to look at that. We haven’t really unless either one of them tells me differently. We haven’t had the problems that we are talking about with the nuisances and I don’t know where those have come from. We have to go to a call regardless. I think that he is going to talk about it more than this Chief.

   Chief Whittington: I really wasn’t because this really doesn’t address stuff on the fire side. I was prepared…I thought initially by the invite that maybe we were looking for some fire stuff on there. The one thing that I will say is that I would be curious why this was formulated. It looks like a lot of the references that they actually reference are ordinances that were passed in the 1960’s for this organization. So it’s not like they had a lot of this in place and maybe the fine structure was something that is new for them. Are you seeing something that I’m not seeing as far as that goes? The one thing that I know that we have a lot of things that we rely from the fire side is and we haven’t had it in a long time. We had it in the past where the fire alarm systems malfunction a lot and that is where I send it to Lt. Drake. He then goes in and he works with them. The other thing that we see a lot of during the summer is the open burning complaints, where the neighbor’s will call in and my guys try and interpret that ordinance the way that it’s written. I think that Lt/ Drake is going to address it tonight. Part of that is if we do see someone that is continuing to burn then we will call the Police Department up and go site them. From my perspective I’m just not sure…are you seeing something that I’m not seeing. I think that a lot of these things are some pretty significant offenses. If you took drug abuse I think that we prosecute to the highest level that we are allowed to if someone is using drugs or a drug call. Again I’m not a police officer and I don’t interpret the law like they do but most of those things are significant issues that they have…felonies and drug issues.

   Mayor Morley: What are you looking at that I guess is going to help from their view on going to too many calls or whatever we’re looking at?

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Zuren?

   Mr. Zuren: I don’t think that the issue is going to too many calls. I think that there are people that abuse the system where they can’t take the trash can in or they let their dog bark at all times. It doesn’t deter them when a police man goes over there and says that your dog is barking or your music is too loud at two in the morning, or you don’t ever take your trash can in. At some point isn’t there a mechanism that we can put in place that has a bite to it. This actually has it spelled out what the cost is after you determine that enough is enough. There have been multiple warnings and this is after two nuisance calls. I think that is a little bit…that is lenient enough. At some point there should be a significant fine to deter their actions. So if there is a major problem in the city they are not over there telling them to stop the dog barking they are addressing the accident that is on the street. Sixty seconds is a big difference in police or fire. If they are over there on something like this that you have been at seven times in a year there should be a mechanism to deter it.

   Mr. Spotton: Chief Whittington?

   Chief Whittington: The only thing that I would…the big cautionary thing would be is that the Mayor…we get open burning complaints as an example. The ordinance clearly states that if someone is cooking and keeping warm they can burn as long as it doesn’t create smoke. They have the defined what they can cook in. Ninety percent of the time when we go to an open burn it is a neighbor complaint. We will find that the person who is burning is in compliance. If they are in compliance or we go to the house several times because of a neighbor dispute does that count against that person who we are going too? I hear these guys go to a dog barking complaint at ten in the morning. Someone calls and says that my neighbor’s dog is barking…well okay the dog is outside. I guess that would be the thing that I would be concerned about is that the interpretation of the person who is angry on what is really happening. Sometimes it is a huge gap and it ends up being more of a neighbor dispute. If that is the case and you and I live next door and you don’t like me and my dog. When it is barking at ten o’clock in the morning and you call the cops and they come to my house. Yeah my dog is outside playing and that is what he does at ten o’clock in the morning. Now I’m put into the system where he has the ability to fine me high rates because you don’t like me. I think that some of these things…outside of the serious ones some of them I feel like they will end up being more complaints.

   Mayor Morley: That is my point because if Chief Whittington doesn’t like me and he is calling on me and I’m in compliance. But they went to that house five times who do we fine? Do we fine the person who is calling, because he doesn’t like his neighbor because they are in compliance? That is the other part of this and the other part is that Mr. Klammer will talk about it and I just talked to Judge Field about. We start putting these fines higher and they can’t pay the fines and then we are going to start going through the court system through the prosecutor.

   Mr. Klammer: They are trying to impose a civil…I don’t want to want to say fine, because fine isn’t the right word. They are trying to define it as a cost of the action. You guys still get it from these people, which mean that you have to file a law suit to get it from them. All it’s inviting is a law suit.

   Chief Whittington: If I could add one more thing and then my time will be up. If there is a priority call…he sends his guys over for a dog barking and a priority call comes up they peel of to that call. I think that some of your concern is that if he goes to the same guy’s house eight times because the dog is barking and in the middle of it there is a bank robbery those guys are peeling off of that. I’m not committed to…they would just tell them “we are not going to stay.”

   Mayor Morley: Like today we were at the river and there was a car that got stolen at Wal-Mart.

   Mr. Spotton: Chief Reik?

   Chief Reik: I could get the fine schedule for a number of other offenses. I know that it is $169.00 for the unlicensed, because we just wrote a second one to a guy. All of those are $100.00 fine plus court costs, which are normally going to be higher. You’re talking $100.00 to $200.00. We do have a mechanism in place for the false alarms. Everyone gets free false alarm a month but if they have their second one they would pay $50.00 per alarm I think. This year I think that we have collected a lot of money off of it. Typically we give…if they are good business they had one issue one month with an extra alarm and we might waive it here or there. But for the most part…Dollar Bank who has been a great partner with the city. They had an issue with their own Alarm Company and phones. We went there at least eight or nine times for hang up 9-1-1. At a bank involves two officers bringing someone out of the bank because of the same procedure. It’s important because God forbid you don’t respond correctly the time that it’s happening. When that fine came in they paid it and they delivered warrants because they felt bad…but they handled the problem. Typically a lot of the businesses…if you keep going there they are going to keep allowing you to go. A number of times it takes a personal visit for our smaller businesses to say that we sent you the letter. The next thing is a minor misdemeanor ticket and the fines. Typically we work something out right there. Finally on…just a text to one of the South Euclid guys he responded that they use it usually on rental properties. That is the only way to get the landlords to do…they bill the landlord on the rental property and attach it to the property bill; which obviously at the sale of the house would be…that is the time we could get that money. That was a quick response that I wanted to share. I will get some more information on that and provide some of the other fines that we are getting and that we could get for if we had the same guy not bringing in his garbage cans. Or just being in total defiance of living in a municipality and usually that conversation entails that you decided to live in a municipality. So you follow these rules and your property is within the confines of our city and this is what you have agreed to. If you want to shot out in the backyard and have seventeen dogs and not bring in your garbage you move into a township or a place that isn’t going to be as controlled.

   Mr. Menn: I was going to say that the area coming from University Heights and Cleveland Heights is all rentals and colleges up there. A lot of that was probably put in place to deter the rentals.

   Mr. Klammer: If that is something that you want to we should talk with…Lake County is giving us a hard as opposed to some other counties on what they will let us certify to taxes. If that is something we could do they gave us a hard time last year and they say that we are not like the other counties. We should double check that if that is something that we want to consider having it certified. Ms. Schindel would probably have to have that discussion.

   Mayor Morley: We had an issue with the garbage.

   Mr. Klammer: they would let us put those…

   Mayor Morley: They wouldn’t let us certify that anymore. We are still working on that somewhat.

   Mr. Menn: Mine go on the taxes.

   Mr. Klammer: But yours are for the cost of some fine.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: Just real quick on the garbage. I know that Cleveland give them two or three warnings then they come out. Again it’s a larger municipality…it’s a $150.00 fine. They come out and they have a camera and take a picture. It spits out a sticky ticket and they stick it right on your garbage can. It is $150.00 for them.

   Mayor Morley: Ours is $100.00 a day for garbage.

   Mr. Meyers: But they have someone and that is all they. Again it’s a nuisance type of thing where the neighbor’s are calling.

   Mayor Morley: I think that we need that because again if I’m going to your house and you’re in compliance who are we going to fine? The guy who keeps calling on you because they don’t like you? I don’t think that we can put that in the ordinance.

   Mr. Evers: A good example of that is we had a neighbor war. The guy would park is car on a public street and the neighbor didn’t like it. I was getting calls, he was getting calls, and he was getting calls every single day. They are parked in the street. Who are you going to fine? The guy has every legal right to park his car in the street. He wasn’t blocking a driveway or a fire hydrant. Who the nuisance in that case? Yeah the street really isn’t wide enough to be parking there but he’s allowed.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Zuren?

   Mr. Zuren: I think that the Chief would determine what a nuisance is and what’s not. So in that case there is no nuisance.

   Mr. Evers: Well in that case I don’t see why we need the ordinance. We already have everything there. The fines are there. If you want to look at upping those fines I would say get with the Building Department and the Chief. Maybe go through ordinance to say up the fines. Do we need a whole new ordinance is my question.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Zuren?

   Mr. Zuren: I think what I read about for South Euclid is the fines that they had in place were not deterring anything. When they raised them in 2014 that is when they started to get a reaction when a lot of it stopped. A lot of it was bars and rental properties. That made an impact so maybe it is to higher fines.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers do you want to hold this in committee until Chief Reik comes back with his information?

   Mr. Meyers: Yes.

   Mr. Spotton: I agree to hold it in committee.

2. Amend Chapter 1511 Open Burning of the Codified Ordinances

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: I am going to turn it over to Lt. Drake. I spoke with him yesterday and he has some more information.

   Mr. Spotton: Lt. Drake?

   Lt. Drake: thank you to the board of entertaining this idea. Basically open burning complaints are the definition for open burning was always anything that was burning was open burning. Then they would have exceptions later on stating what was a recreational fire verses what was a pit fire. Such as throwing all of your leaves in a ditch and lighting them on fire. Or if you have a bunch of brush that you need to get rid of on your farm and that you could burn it. Those kinds of things were basically always historically open burning. They kind of got all lumped together and at our last ordinance basically tried to use that definition. On top of that definition it also referred to a couple of the thirty-seven hundred codes, which are basically going to be EPA Codes. I will look into EPA Codes when I offer a burning permit for someone to do something. Other than that fire prevention and the Fire Department forces Fire Codes. So for us to go to EPA is deep for me. I am sure…for our fire fighters to also enforce this code. As far as an ordinance I thought that it was more appropriate to mimic the Ohio State Fire Code and to remove some of those other codes referring to the EPA laws. So what you see in front of you is basically a re-writing of the code, which includes in 2011 they updated the definitions for what a recreational fire is, what a fire pit is, and what open burning is. They are three different pipits and they took it out of the exceptions rule and put it right in the definition. So that it is clearer for anybody trying to read the code. This will help our fire fighters to enforce the code evenly across the board. It will help our residents to understand what is expected of them so that they may have recreational fire or a little fire pit in their back yard; as long as they safely attend to it and to abide by the laws. One of the biggest concerns whenever we had these fires was the smoke emissions. Smoke emissions become a health hazard and again we as fire fighters we are safety police and this becomes a safety issue. So if the emissions as well as the size of the fire and the location of the fire are spelled out very well in the current code that the Ohio State Fire Code has. All I did was mimic those so that our public knows what is expected of them. Can I have a four foot fire ring? No. It needs to be a three foot ring or smaller. It needs to be clean seasoned wood and not the junk that they want to burn. The fire itself can only be two foot high. Those are the parameters that we are looking at. So when we have somebody that wants to say “hey my neighbor down the street has a fire and I was once told that I couldn’t have a fire. So I am calling on them so they can’t have a fire either and they didn’t invite me to the party.” The you can actually have a parameter that our fire fighters if called to can go that is a legal fire, that’s not a legal fire and basically allow people so freedoms within our city. That are safely attended to and taken care of. That is what I am trying to get accomplished here. I am open to questions on those things.

   Chief Whittington: I think that what Lt. Drake is trying to do is that our interpretation as to how the ordinance is written now is unclear. We do get into debates with people saying “that my neighbor is doing this or I was doing this.” I think that what we really want to try and do is to firm it up so that everybody has the ability to enforce it in a consistent manner. Then if we have someone that contests it we will be able to prevent it and say “here are the rules and the parameters.” You will probably be shocked if I tell you how much we actually deal with this in the summertime. It is something that happens quit often in the summer. A lot of times we get there and it end up being a neighbor dispute. Every once in a while the smoke gets in this house and they have respiratory issues and stuff like that. I would just like to add to that this gives us the ability to not only enforce but it gives us the ability to present it to residents that have questions about what we are trying to get done. That is all that I have on that.

   Mr. Spotton: Are there any questions regarding that? Mayor Morley?

   Mayor Morley: I would just like to add that Mr. Klammer looks through it and anything for Lt. Drake…you can move it forward for Tuesday just make sure that all of the verbiage and everything is good.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: Move it forward.

   Mr. Spotton: I am fine will moving it forward as well.

3. Amend Chapter 1501.01 Ohio Fire Code, Section 1501.01 “Adoption”, Subsection (a) of the Codified Ordinances

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: I will turn it over to Lt. Drake.

   Lt. Drake: This was a little simpler and it probably should have been done first. The current adoption code states that it is a 2005 Fire Code. Our last adopted Fire Code was 2011 and we are about to do another one. In talking with the Law Director earlier it was his suggestion that we update this. What I would like to do is to update it to the adopted code from the State of Ohio. So anytime they update it we automatically update ours as well. Just so there is no confusion if we are using the 2005 standards, or the 2011 standards or the 2017 standards. That is all that I am trying to get accomplished here and to not have to repeat this in the future.

   Mr. Spotton: Are there any discussions? Mr. Menn?

   Mr. Menn: That is the way the Building Codes are the same way. We just put the latest addition instead of changing it every three years.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: I am fine with moving it forward.

   Mr. Spotton: I am also fine with moving it forward.

4. Amend Chapter 1305 Architectural Board of Review, Section 1305.05 “Powers; Rules or Procedure”, Subsection (d) of the Codified Ordinances

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: I will turn it over to Mr. Menn.

   Mr. Menn: What this is that we had three people on our Board of Zoning and one person retired. The way that our ordinance is written is that I am supposed to be at every meeting or a representative for the Building Department. Since I am there I would like to be able to have a vote if we don’t have a quorum so that we can keep projects moving forward. Mayfield Village also put this in for their Building Commissioner and I know that there are some other cities that are the same way. We are at the meetings anyway, we handle the projects, and I have to approve all of the plans and everything. I would like to amend the ordinance where I would have a vote if there is not a quorum so that we can keep the project going.

   Mr. Spotton: Are there any discussions on this? Mayor Morley?

   Mayor Morley: Just a clarification Mr. Menn said BZA it is the Architectural Review Board.

   Mr. Menn: I am sorry the ARB.

   Mayor Morley: We have the schools that will be coming in and any of the other businesses that are going to build. Mr. Menn is probably one of the first CBO’s that has made decisions. A couple of the other CBO’s that we had before would send everything to Architectural Review and a couple of time Mr. Klammer and I had to over ride them. Mr. Menn or whoever would be a great fit for this. It is great for our end on that.

   Mr. Spotton: Are there any other discussions? Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: Should the wording be changed on this instead of the Building Commissioner to attend all meetings to something’s like the Building Commissioner or his representative?

   Mr. Menn: Yeah either way that could be possible. I will have Mr. Klammer look at the official verbiage. This was a late addition so we had to get it in.

   Mayor Morley: That’s been our problem the provision said that we had to have an architect and they had to have ten years as an architect. That is the biggest reason why we can’t find someone. As I have said Mr. Menn is on there and it will be good for us.

   Mr. Klammer: If the final one that makes it to you may take out that requirement that the person a licensed architect. When you see it, you will see it in there and I will talk with Mr. Menn if he wants to do that in one fell swoop or not.

   Mr. Spotton: Are there any other discussions? Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: I am fine with moving it forward.

   Mr. Spotton: I am fine with moving it forward.

   PENDING

1. Deer Control

   Mr. Spotton: Everyone saw the legislation that Mr. Hoefle sent out a little while back. I am trying to see where everybody stands on that. I sent Mr. Hoefle an email and I have some concerns about the legislation that is written as its usefulness to almost anybody in the city. I sent Mr. Hoefle an email with some language to be added to have the distance and all of the parameters that are set in the legislation right now, but also a clause that says and or cleared by the Police Chief and or his or her designee. I don’t know anything about hunting and I am sure that the Chief would know more or the person that he designates and works with ODNR knows more that I do. That would allow some flexibility to it. That is all that I have. Are there any other discussions? Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: Perhaps we should wait on this until Mr. Hoefle is back and discuss it further.

   Mr. Spotton: Mayor Morley?

   Mayor Morley: I will put my two cents in once again. I think some of the disruptions with our resident’s are that if Council doesn’t want to move on this then just tell them that you don’t want to move on it. I think that would not make them happy but again I believe that when we had the Division of Wildlife in here I think that it was spelled out on what they can help out and how we can do it. If we decide that we want to move forward with this we can bring them back in. I don’t think and I won’t speak for Mr. Farwell or Mr. Vogler…as Mr. Farwell has said that we just keep kicking the can. If Council doesn’t want to move on this I think they should just make a decision and say that we don’t want to move on this. I think and the Chief was there and the gentleman from Wildlife was here and he spelled it out on how it can be done safely. If Council chooses that they don’t want to do that I think that they just need to make that decision. We’ve been doing this for six or seven months, so either say yay or nay or move on. If we bring the Wildlife guy in again…I thought that he was very well that he would come and help get us through it. I told the Chief that if Mr. Vogler was going to be the one handling it then we do that. If we don’t want to do that I think that as Council you just need to say that you don’t want to move it. It went to Council to be passed and it came back from Council to committee again and I think to either say yes or no and go with your decision.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Zuren?

   Mr. Zuren: I think that it is important for the city and I think that we do need to have deer control legislation. But the way that it is written I don’t know of anybody who would be able to hunt on their property because a thousand feet from a school and a church eliminates pretty much everybody. If we pass something that is just enough that no one can use why are we passing it? I think that we need to get it right and then move on at that point. If it takes an extra meeting then so be it.

   Mr. Spotton: Are there any other discussions? Mr. Kasunick?

   Mr. Kasunick: The only issue in my mind is whether it should go to the voters and I think that it should. I think that this is a matter that should be voted on by the residents as a whole not just Council. Because I think that it is rather controversial and there are going to be issues. They had an issue in…where a deer was shot and it ended up on someone’s lawn and they didn’t care for it. Those are the kinds of issues that are going to come up and I think that the community as a whole…this is a decision that the community as a whole should make not just us. A lot of people have strong feelings with both sides of this one. Also other cities that have implemented this it did go to the voters. I think that it is the president and I think that if we don’t let it go to the voters you will get a lot of complaints. Such as why did Mentor or Parma get to vote on it and we never had a say. Since it is typically the way that these ordinances are done that we should follow suit and continue down that path.

   Mayor Morley: I don’t believe that Mentor went to the ballot. I think that you are talking about Avon and the cities that way did go to the ballot.

   Mr. Evers: Mentor did.

   Mr. Spotton: Any other discussions?

   Ms DePledge: Just for the record I have stated publicly before that I don’t support it. I worked on the legislation and the changes to it. The reason why I work on those changes is because if for some reason Council did decide to pass it there are certain things that I would have wanted in there. However, I don’t think that our community…I just don’t think that it is appropriate in our community. I don’t support it. If it goes to the voters or not to the voters it doesn’t matter to me. If that is what Council decides to do I would support that either way but my vote as the President is no on this for us to pass it. I don’t want anybody to be suprised by that or anything else.

   Mr. Spotton: Mr. Evers?

   Mr. Evers: Even if we put it up to a vote of the people we still have to have an ordinance written, because it has to be put on the ballot. So it has to be written.

   Mr. Spotton: What is the cost of putting it on the ballot?

   Mr. Evers: We won’t hit May so it would have to go on in November.

   Mr. Kasunick: There could be a summer primary depending on how many at-large or mayoral candidates.

   Mr. Evers: It is about 18,000.

   Mr. Klammer: Will it cost…if it goes on general?

   Mr. Evers: If it goes on general…

   Mayor Morley: It is just a normal cost. If there is a primary in September and that is on us. We are the only ones.

   Mr. Klammer: If it goes on the general there is no additional cost for us on general.

   Mr. Spotton: Are there any other discussions? Mr. Meyers?

   Mr. Meyers: I am fine with letting it stay in committee until Mr. Hoefle comes back and revisit this next time.

   Mr. Spotton: I will also hold it until Mr. Hoefle comes back.

   MISCELLANEOUS

There was nothing under Miscellaneous.

RECOGNITION OF PUBLIC

There was no one who wished to speak.

MAYOR’S COMMENTS

Mayor Morley had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

LAW DIRECTOR

Mr. Klammer had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

FINANCE DEPARTMENT

Ms. Schindel was absent and excused.

There were no further questions or comments.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:45 p.m.

tms

APPROVED: __________________________

DATE: ______________________________