REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES FOR SEPTEMBER 22, 2015
EASTLAKE CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
SEPTEMBER 22, 2015
The Regular Meeting of the Eastlake City Council was held at Eastlake City Hall, 35150 Lakeshore Boulevard. The Meeting was called to order by Council President
Mr. D’Ambrosio at approximately 7:01 p.m.
The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
ATTENDEES
Members of Council in attendance were Mr. Evers, Mr. Licht, Mr. Hoefle, Ms. DePledge, Ms. Vaughn and Council President Mr. D’Ambrosio. Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins was absent and Mr. Licht was absent and excused. Also in attendance was Council Clerk Mrs. Simons.
Those attending from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Law Director Klammer, Finance Director Slocum, Service Director Rubertino, City Engineer Gwydir and Fire Chief Whittington. CBO Menn and Police Chief Reik were absent and excused.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Regular Council Meeting–September 8, 2015
MOTION: Ms. Vaughn moved to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting of August 25, 2015. Ms. DePledge seconded.
ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
Motion carried. The minutes were approved.
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COUNCIL PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Mr. D’Ambrosio
Meetings Scheduled
Mr. D’Ambrosio: The next Council-as-a-Whole Committee Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. The Regular Council meeting will be convened immediately following the adjournment of the Council-as-a-Whole Committee meeting.
COMMUNICATIONS & PETITIONS
A communication from the Administration regarding the new enactment of City Ordinance Chapter 184 “Income Tax (Effective 01/01/16)”.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: We were going to put this in an Ordinance Committee Meeting but Mr. Slocum you wanted to do a Finance Committee Meeting is that correct?
Mr. Slocum: I need a Finance Committee Meeting to go over a couple reappropriations. There is an absolute need for this Income Tax Ordinance due to changes in the State law. If we do not adopt a new Ordinance we will not be able to collect Income Tax next year. We will not repeal what is already on the books in Chapter 183 that will stay in affect for tax year ending in 2015. This will cover the tax year starting January 1, 2016. It has new penalties and when people are required to file taxes with the City. Currently it is fourteen days now it is pushed out to twenty days by State law. If you only work nineteen days in the City next year you will not have to pay the City an Income Tax. Some of the big changes that are going to hurt the cities is that they are extending the loss carry forward from one year to five years and we do not have a choice on it. It is slammed down our throats and we say “Thank you Governor” and move on.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: We have to adopt it and if we don’t we will not collect any income tax.
Mr. Slocum: If we don’t we will not be able to collect income taxes.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: We will put that under Miscellaneous in the Finance Committee Meeting. There is one thing that I forgot in Council-As-A-Whole Meeting we talked about the gasoline pipeline easement and we are going to put that on First Reading for tonight because we need to have six people to pass it as an emergency and we only have five.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Mr. D’Ambrosio: No Committee Meetings were held. Is there anything that Council would like to report?
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 Barris 36706 Lakehurst Dr., Eastlake
Mr. Barris: In case you are interested the new exit and entrances at Wal-Mart are open. They are situated just west of the old right turn only exit which is now closed. They also closed the entrance by the Wal-Mart sign. There are two exits one is for right turn and the other one is for going straight on E. 340th or if you want to make a left turn. The only thing though is that you are going to have to sit there and wait for the cross traffic and for the traffic on E. 340th along with the traffic coming out of DrugMart. There is still the exit onto E. 337th which seems to be stress free. So all I can say is good luck Wal-Mart shoppers.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Mayor, is it going to be monitored once this is open?
Mayor Morley: I am going to do it under my Report.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Do it under your Report. Thank you Sir.
There was no one else who wished to speak.
LEGISLATION PROPOSED – First number will be 2015-078
Requested by: Administration RESOLUTION NO.: _________
Sponsored by: Council A Resolution approving a Gasline Pipeline Easement Grant with The East Ohio Gas Company, d/b/a Dominion East Ohio, an Ohio Corporation, for property situated in the City of Eastlake, Lake County, Ohio, and known as being a part of sublot no. 8 in Creekview Subdivision, Permanent Parcel Number 34B021G000180, and declaring an emergency.
There was no Motion to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full.
Legislation No. 09-22-(01) is placed on First Reading.
LEGISLATION PENDING
There was no Legislation Pending.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
There was no Unfinished Business.
NEW BUSINESS
There was no New Business.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS:
MAYOR/SAFETY DIRECTOR – Dennis Morley
Mayor Morley: Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome everyone to this evening’s meeting. As Mr. Barris had talked about and as Council President had eluded that there have been a lot of rumors out there on social media about the old Wal-Mart parking and the driveway. I just wanted to read a letter that we received from Wal-Mart as we were going through the Planning Commission it reads as follows:
“Dear Mayor Morley,
As you know Wal-Mart is working on changing the access of Vine Street from one right in and one right out entrance to one full access entrance to alien with E. 340th Street. It is our understanding that the City will not issue a permit until it receives this letter regarding a traffic signal. Once the new entrance is constructed and in operation. If the City of Eastlake determines that the traffic has been negatively impacted on Vine Street and the Wal-Mart entrance than Wal-Mart will pay for another traffic study at the request of the City of Eastlake. The traffic study will be done by mutually agreed upon traffic engineer. If the traffic study determines that the traffic study is warranted than Wal-Mart will pay for the design and installation of the signal.”
In working with our engineer and the engineer’s from Wal-Mart we told them what this letter says. We are going to monitor it and we will go by the calls that we receive from residents that shop and live near Wal-Mart. Some of the residents that did show concern live off of E. 340th Street and they want a light up there. If we put a light there we are going to have ten other people in line saying why we shouldn’t have a light. We will agree and have our engineer along with Wal-Mart to take a look at this and we will have the Police monitor it. If we need to do another study we will do it. If it warrants a light a light will be installed. We aren’t going throw a light in just to throw a light in. I think that is what gets lost on the social media pages. We are going to do our studies and we are going do due diligence and our homework. We are not going to say here is a light and put a light up. That is one of the Wal-Mart issues. A Wal-Mart Corporate personal came out and met with me at the old Wal-Mart site and I explained to them from the cities point of view we need to get some movement on this. They need to work on pricing and they need to sell that building. It’s been on the market for three years and they have not moved on the price. It started ant $3.25 million and it continues to be a $3.25 million. There has been some interest in the store unfortunately a few of those stores would be competitors to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart owns the building and we cannot force them to sell the building. On the other side where the grocery store was we still have the issue with the deed restriction on selling the food. We have been talking with Brixmor and they are talking with Giant Eagle about some issues that are over there still. For those that do not know Giant Eagle still pays the rent in that plaza. The Loan Max that has not opened also pays rent for what reason we do not know but they are paying on the lease too. The last discussion with that was that they were trying to work on putting something else in there besides Loan Max. Once it gets to attorneys sometimes it takes a little longer than usual. Once a week I try and touch basewith all of the people that are involve. Our goal is to fill those up however on the other side of business there is another business that is going to be expanding and that is Easy Pull along with T & D Fabricating. This will be heard in Planning Commission on Thursday. I received a letter from the board of elections in regards to the people that will be affected with the new polling stations and a letter will be sent out within the next week. City Hall will be for Wards 2A, B and C. The other ones that have shut down are the Surf Center and they will be voting at Eastlake Middle School and the other three will go to the Community Center along with 1C. Ward 1A and B will be at Taft. Just as a side note if anyone has seen in the paper about the two Eastlake residents that were in a car accident and killed over the weekend. One of the occupants the passed away was Mr. Davis’s son and the other occupant was Mr. Hoefle’s neighbor. Our condolences go out to both of those families on that tragic accident. That concludes my report and I am open for questions.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Ms. Vaughn?
Ms. Vaughn: Mayor, where are they going to have the polling places are they going to be in Council Chambers?
Mayor Morley: They are going to be inside Council Chambers.
Ms. Vaughn: Right in Council Chamber because I was thinking about the employees getting in and out and parking. Is there going to be enough parking? I don’t think so.
Mayor Morley: I told Jane and they looked at it.
Ms. Vaughn: They’re going to be sorry.
Mayor Morley: We will see.
Ms. Vaughn: I was just curious because I know that they have a parking problem at North High School all the time.
Mr. Slocum: They were in here today when you were meeting with the other Mayors and they indicated that for November that they are not anticipating much of a turn out. They are concerned about next year being a presidential election both for the primary and general elections.
Mayor Morley: They are going to bring the machines in on October 27th and I will get with the Service Director on a couple of things that they sent me that we need to work on.
Ms. Vaughn: Are they going to bring them in on the day of the next Council Meeting I mean the last Council Meeting in October?
Mayor Morley: They are on wheels and they will put them in another room. I told them that we had a Council Meeting that night.
Mr. Slocum: If they are having a Council Meeting how can they be voting in here?
Mayor Morley: Not on November 3rd. They want to bring the machines in on October 27th. There is no meeting on November 3rd.
Mr. Slocum: Ok.
Ms. Vaughn: This should be interesting.
There were no further questions of Mayor Morley
FIRE CHIEF – Ted Whittington
Chief Whittington: Thank you Mr. President. I do not have much to report however I’m not sure if anybody got any calls but on September 11th we had significant power outages in the Vineyards and Melinz Parkway it really affected more of the businesses then it did anything. I’m not sure if anyone from Council had received any phone calls on that. They lost one of the phases up on Vine Street. We had to evacuate some businesses and some of the businesses actually closed for the day. I wasn’t sure if anyone had received any feedback. We had touched base with them and the Mayor was on site with us. I think that we handled it and we were able to talk to the business owners along with the managers. I’m not sure if anybody had received any calls. If you do or if you have any questions about that you can just let me know other than that I am open for questions.
There were no further questions of Chief Whittington.
SERVICE DIRECTOR – Nick Rubertino
Mr. Rubertino: Good evening everybody there are just a few things. We have completed the asphalt on the north side of Glen Drive yesterday. We did half of E.351st Street today and we will finish that tomorrow. On Thursday we anticipate that Iris Lane will be done. That will take care of the three major asphalt jobs that we had. We did some major concrete repairs on E. 346th Street in two different areas and we will continue on the opposite side of that. Thanks to Stormwater Management we are able to aggressively attack the catch basins that we have been working on. We have approximately fourteen of them done this year so far and they were done by a one man crew. He is vigilant and he gets it done. Stromwater Management is going to help us to attack it more and we probably have about sixteen that have major issues with collapsed catch basins. We will be able to attack that now with a little help from them. Other than that I am open for questions.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Are we getting reimbursed for some of that?
Mr. Rubertino: Yes
Mr. D’Ambrosio: That’s nice.
Mr. Rubertino: With joining them and getting their help it is allowing us to get in there. We have some overtime on it and they afford us that time. It gives us a better shot at putting a few more guys out there to get the major ones done before winter comes. We continue to move forward with the potholes and they are an ongoing issue that we have. I think that over all we are doing pretty well.
There were no further questions of Mr. Rubertino.
CITY ENGINEER – Tom Gwydir
Mr. Gwydir: thank you Mr. President and members of Council and Mayor. First as far as TC and Willowick Drive goes we’ve gotten all of the materials submittals in and they have been approved. We are just are just waiting for them to mobilize and come into site and they appear to be rather close. In terms of Storm Water we are putting the finishing touches on Glenn, Iris, Bertha and Freed, Lakeshore televising and light cleaning specification. We have also surveyed the Galalina area in preparation for the pump station and storm sewers phase one which we had discussed some time ago. I believe that I had discussed it with you earlier in the year. I am also working on the final applications to the OPWC in anticipation for their call for E. 344th Street and Ridgewood… I believe that we will get grants for 50% and in concert with that I am updating the Capital Improvements Plan for the next five years going forward for info structure improvements that I turn in with those applications every year. With that I am open for questions.
There were no questions of Mr. Gwydir.
FINANCE DIRECTOR – Mike Slocum
Mr. Slocum: Thank you Mr. President. Just a couple of items to report on first of all we have been informed that the State Treasurer is going to bringing his site alive with our financial information later this week. I believe that it will be on Thursday. They invited us to come down to Columbus to be introduced and we are passing on that.
Ms. Vaughn: You’re not going to dash down there?
Mr. Slocum: We are not going to dash down there but we do appreciate it. It does give us a vehicle to share with the community and who ever how we handle our finances with the City. I am happy to be able to take part in that. Earlier I gave each of you a memo on the state eliminating electric deregulation and personal property. The gift that just keeps on giving and giving and we just found out that there was another effect to the new budget that was adopted by the state. Where there are direct payments made to the city of local government funds. We had budgeted at $64,000 this year we have been told that we should anticipate probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $47,000 to $48,000. We are going to lose seventeen to eighteen thousand. By the way next year budget instead of $64,000 they said to only budget for $24,000. The good news from them is that this money is going to the villages and the townships. When the state said that they are going to increase to the villages and townships they sort of low balled it and didn’t say that we are going to do it by taking it from the cities. But that is exactly what they did. What can I say it’s the gift that never quits giving. Other than that I am open for questions.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Why don’t you announce the good thing you got today?
Mr. Slocum: Well the good news is and I know that the Council President is aware of this. I just learned of it and it is about the salt bid that came in from the State. Last year we paid $79.79 a ton for salt. We had a chance of buying salt during the summer and the price came in at about $62.00 to $63.00 a ton. We choose not to bid and decided to see what the winter salt price is. The winter salt price came in for cities in Lake County at $50.85. So we are saving close to $30.00 a ton salt compared to what we paid last year. It’s still $30.00 more than what we paid two years ago. It’s better than last year.
Ms. Vaughn: Maybe it won’t snow.
Mr. Klammer: Did the Service Director say thank you to you?
Mr. Slocum: No he didn’t.
Ms. DePledge: Apparently he’s not going too.
Ms. Vaughn: He’s not going to either.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Mr. Slocum, thank you for sending us those emails on the finance stuff.
Mr. Slocum: If I could just say one other thing…I did is between the local government fund and the electric deregulation that they cut away along with the property tax reimbursement that they did away with…. Back in 2009 we collected in all funds or all sources a little over three million dollars and next year we are going to budget just a little over a million dollars. So that’s two million dollars a year that has been taken from our budget. So if you want to know where a good part of our cuts are coming from it is right there. As I said in my memo next year it is going to cost us about $140,000 a year on just the deregulation and property tax reimbursement.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Ms. DePledge?
Ms. DePledge: For the record when this money is taken from us where does it go? Where does it stay? Who gets it? Who gets the money?
Mr. Slocum: The State is able to have a bigger budget surplus.
Ms. DePledge: For the record.
Mr. Slocum: For the record they are doing a nice job in creating surpluses.
Ms. DePledge: Exactly and at the expense of the local community.
Mr. Slocum: That is exactly what is happening.
Ms. DePledge: Absolutely and I just wanted it on the record from our Finance Director about where the money was staying since we weren’t getting it back or getting it however.
Mr. Slocum: The Governor characterizes this as a legacy cost of the State. We were settled with this except that they forget the history and that they did away with the taxation. They created their own form of taxation which they kept and they told the cities that they would keep them whole. When this governor took office he decided that he wasn’t going to honor those legacy costs that were promised to us. We are on the short end again.
Ms. DePledge: Thank you.
There were no questions of Mr. Slocum.
POLICE CHIEF – Larry Reik
Chief Reik was absent and excused.
CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL – David Menn
Mr. Menn was absent and excused.
There were no questions of Mr. Menn.
LAW DIRECTOR – Randy Klammer
Mr. Klammer: Thank you Mr. President, members of Council, and Mayor. I have nothing to report just that when I see five people on Council you always notice that I go run for the big book because I can’t figure out what three quarters of seven is and two thirds.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: That is why you have me Mr. Klammer.
Mr. Klammer: I have my notes in here but I noticed that there are some Council candidates in the Chambers I think…Article 5 Sections 11 and 12 talks about the procedure for three readings and emergency. Other than that I am open for questions.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: Mr. Evers?
Mr. Evers: I think that somewhere in the shuffle we lost the date for the Finance Committee Meeting.
Ms. Vaughn: October 6th.
Mr. D’Ambrosio: October 6th.
Mr. Evers: October 6th at 6:00 pm just so everybody hears it.
There were no further questions of Mr. Klammer.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:25 p.m.
______________________________________
JOE D’AMBROSIO, COUNCIL PRESIDENT
APPROVED: _________________________