Regular Council Meeting Minutes from December 13, 2016

December 21, 2016 in Regular Council Minutes

EASTLAKE CITY COUNCIL

REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

DECEMBER 13, 2016

The Regular Meeting of the Eastlake City Council was held at Eastlake City Hall, 35150 Lakeshore Boulevard. The Meeting was called to order by Council President Ms. DePledge at approximately 7:09 p.m.

The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.

ATTENDEES

Members of Council in attendance were Mr. Zuren, Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick, Mr. Spotton, Mr. Evers, Mr. Hoefle and Council President Ms. DePledge. Also in attendance was Council Clerk Mrs. Simons.

Those attending from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Police Chief Reik, Service Director Rubertino, City Engineer Gwydir and Finance Director Schindel. Fire Chief Whittington, CBO Menn and Law Director Klammer was absent and excused.

Ms. DePledge: If anyone is recording this meeting as courtesy to the public will you please identify yourself so that the fellow attendees know that they are being recorded.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Regular Council Meeting –November 22, 2016.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting November 22, 2016. Mr. Hoefle seconded.

ROLL CALL: Six Yeas and One Abstain.

Motion carried. The minutes were approved.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

COUNCIL PRESIDENT’S REPORT – President Ms. DePledge

Meetings Scheduled

Ms. DePledge: The next Council-as-a-Whole Committee Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. The Regular Council meeting will be convened immediately following the adjournment of the Council-as-a-Whole Committee meeting. We changed the date of our regularly scheduled date due to the holidays and it will be a week from today. I would like to personally thank everyone for all of their well wishes and support over the last two months. Your cards, text messages and emails meant a lot to me. I am going to make a full recovery so beware. It was tremendous and our Fire Department…I wish that Chief Whittington was here…I can’t tell you how professional the 911 responders were and it was amazing and thank you. I understand that Mr. Hoefle did a fabulous job while I was gone. That concludes my comments.

COMMUNICATIONS & PETITIONS

A liquor license request from Maruti 2 Inc., d/b/a Discount Tobacco Store, 34722 Vine Street, to Geetashiven Spirits Inc, d/b/a Discount Tobacco & Beverage, 34722 Vine Street, Eastlake.

Ms. DePledge: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole and will be added to this evening’s agenda.

A liquor license request to 35652 Vine Street LLC, d/b/a Thru Mart, 35652 Vine Street, Eastlake.

Ms. DePledge: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole and will be added to this evening’s agenda.

A communication from Finance Director Schindel to reappropriate for the expenses for the period beginning January 1, 2016 and ending December 31, 2016.

Ms. DePledge: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole and will be added to this evening’s agenda.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Ms. DePledge: No Committee Meetings were held.

ECDC- Michael Zuren

Mr. Zuren: Thank you Madam President. On December 8^th the City of Eastlake held a joint meeting with the Western Lake County Chamber of Commerce for Eastlake Business Owners. The purpose of the meeting was to create an open forum, where business owners and Eastlake Officials could discuss ideas on how to promote to make our business more successful. I would like to thank Mrs. Tercek from the Chamber of Commerce and she discussed a variety of tools that small business could use to promote their business, including greater exposure, relationship building, and networking opportunities. I would also like to thank Mayor Morley, CBO Menn and Service Director Rubertino and they all spoke about creating an open and friendly environment in Eastlake for the business community. As community leaders we have a vested interest in the success of our business. Their success directly affects the future of Eastlake and opportunities for the residents. During the meeting we discussed a job fair with the local colleges to support the business, restaurant promotion, and joint meetings with the Lake County Port Authority, Land Bank and business interviews to be posted on Facebook. The meeting times and dates will be announced over the next few months. With that I am open for questions.

There were no further questions of Mr. Zuren.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to add Legislation No. 12-13-(01) to this evenings agenda an Ordinance to reappropriate for the expenses of the City of Eastlake, State of Ohio, for the period beginning January 1, 2016 and ending December 31, 2016. Mr. Hoefle Second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

Motion carried Legislation No. 12-13-(01) is added to this evening’s agenda.

Mr. Evers: I would like to add that we do have a Finance Committee Meeting scheduled for tomorrow night on December 14, 2016 at six o’clock p.m. here at City Hall.

MOTION

MOTION: Mr. Meyers moved to approve and send back to Columbus, Ohio with no objections the liquor license permit request from Maruti 2 Inc., d/b/a Discount Tobacco Store, 34722 Vine Street, to Geetashiven Spirits Inc., d/b/a Discount Tobacco & Beverage, 34722 Vine Street Eastlake, OH. Mr. Hoefle Second.

MOTION: Mr. Spotton moved to approve and send back to Columbus, Ohio with no objections the liquor license permit request to Vine Street LLC, d/b/a Thru Mart, 35652 Vine Street, Eastlake, OH. Mr. Hoefle Second.

RECOGNITION OF THE PUBLIC

Ms. DePledge recognized the public input at this time; she reminded the speakers that there is a 3-minute limit for their comments; all comments are to be directed to the Chair and not include any personalities or individuals.

Frank Cipriano, 35720 Lakeland Blvd., Eastlake, Ohio

Mr. Cipriano: I have been in Eastlake for 21 years out of the 23 years in business. It is kind of ironic that Mr. Zuren is promoting small business. What I want to say today doesn’t promote small business in Eastlake. I’m not here to complain about my taxes I pay very little it is $6,000.00 a year in payroll taxes to the City of Eastlake. I have here my R.I.T.A letter that is from June 15^th stating that July 1^st we are going to pay R.I.T.A. I have my R.I.T.A book and what we are going to do with R.I.T.A and I happen to pay monthly by my payroll. It says that penalties, interest and late filing…interest charges as required by the local income tax ordinance, which I am assuming is the City of Eastlake. Last month I got a bill for a penalty of $270. 24 for the month of August and my payment was $490.08…that can’t be right. Two hundred and seventy dollars is more than half. Are you familiar with this? I don’t know. So we call them up and the check was dated on the 19^th and I may have been five or seven days late. I expect a penalty. My penalty was $0.20 interest, $25.00 to the City of Eastlake and $245.04 to R.I.T.A. Now is that promoting business? That had to be Okayed by the people here. I don’t see how they can do that. How can you charge 50% penalty? If you want to see it, it’s right here.

Ms. Schindel: I would be happy to look at it.

Mr. Cipriano: Are you aware of that? That it’s a 50% penalty.

Ms. Schindel: I am not aware of your particular situation but I am happy to look at it.

Mr. Cipriano: Could you imagine Astro Model paying a 50% penalty if they are five days late?

Ms. DePledge: Mr. Cipriano if you want and this is the first that I think that the Mayor and Finance Director are hearing about it. R.I.T.A…or local Tax Department is no longer located here and they moved out about a year or two ago. So if you want to get your information to our Finance Director I am sure that she will help you straighten this out. The way that you presented it does sound like the numbers are a little off. Again this is the first time that we are hearing about it so if you….

Mayor Morley: Just give your information to Ms. Schindel she deals with R.I.T.A and will handle it.

Mr. Cipriano: Another gentleman that I went to school with has a business here and he would like talk and he didn’t know to sign up. The same thing happened to him.

Tom Nazarak

Mr. Nazarak: I have Bulls eye and I have been there since 1996. I’ve been paying taxes since 1996. The same situation happened in different terms and in different months. The penalties are exactly what Mr. Cipriano has explained. It doesn’t matter if your one day late or a month late. In some circumstances they come and you go online and pay it. In my circumstances the bank didn’t release the funds due to the fact that I had a large in there and they don’t give you the money all at one time. Instead of R.I.T.A coming back and re-depositing it back in like most business would they sent me a letter a month later imposing that 50% tax. It does add up and it does hurt. It’s hard enough to pay the taxes that there are and it’s hard enough to catch up on all of the different rulings. They send you one letter and you’re supposed to know everything that is going on. It is just something that both of us can’t afford to keep on giving people jobs that we can’t afford to give them. It’s a ridiculous amount of penalties for something that maybe as far as an oversight. Maybe in one month time you forget to hit the button to send. There is no talking to them.

Ms. DePledge: If you want to get with our Finance Director. We will make sure that we look into it and see if there is anything that we can do.

Mr. Nazarak: Thank you.

Ms. DePledge: Thank you for coming this evening.

There was no one else who wished to speak.

LEGISLATION PROPOSED – First number will be 2016-058

12-13-(01) Ordinance No.:___________

Requested by: Finance Director Schindel

MAYOR/SAFETY DIRECTOR – Dennis Morley

Mayor Morley: Thank you Madam President and welcome back. Welcome everyone to this evenings meeting. A few things to report on is that Chief Whittington and myself will be going to the Lake County EOC the Emergency Management Group tomorrow to talk about our reverse 911. These will especially affect the people in the Chagrin River area with the flooding during ice storms and the thaw outs. Right now they have a list that is on Excel and they are going to go to digital and internet. I am going to get all of the information tomorrow and put it out there on what you have to do to sign up online to continue to get those alerts when I call for the reverse 911. Obviously this weekend we had a lot of snow and I would like to thank our Service Department for being out there with our five member crews. I believe that they did a great job and as usual we will have our comments and our calls of displeasure. Again everyone we have is in the seat and every truck that we have is out there and we continue to do the best that we can during these storms. I know that another storm is on its way. I believe that we had a good weekend of getting the snow. I have driven through the surrounding cities and I believe that we did a good job. One of our businesses had a fire early Saturday morning. The Fire Chief and I were out there with the surrounding cities along with Mutual Aide and they got the fire out. There wasn’t a ton of damage to one of our businesses and they were up and running later that afternoon. I want to thank the surrounding cities as well. The Habitat for Humane House is done and the owner with get the keys on Saturday and we are looking forward to that. Just a reminder for people who have contractors that does their snowplowing to remind them to quit leaving the snow in the middle of the street. A majority of our complaints this last week were that the contractors were leaving the snow in the middle of the street and/or on other resident’s driveways. I would like to add to tomorrow and I don’t know if it is on the agenda that we talked about the Task Force…I sent an email out last week and I haven’t received a response from anyone if we have picked anyone from Council.

Ms. DePledge: I meant to mention that in my report too that we will add that to the Finance Committee Meeting agenda.

Mayor Morley: For tomorrow…so if we are going to get these Task Forces up and running.

Ms. DePledge: We are short on resumes for the Mayor’s Court. The City Council hasn’t received any resumes for the Impound Lot. So we are going to have to figure out what we are going to do.

Mayor Morley: I thought that we had about ten that I sent over.

Ms. DePledge: I never saw ten. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It just means that I didn’t see them yet.

Mayor Morley: We will discuss that at tomorrow’s meeting.

Ms. DePledge: We will add it to the agenda.

Mayor Morley: Ms. Schindel and I meet with another business today that wants to expand in the city and stay in the city so that is good. As I have said over the last few weeks we have meet with some businesses that are expanding and staying here. There is still nothing more on the Vineyards about anything going in there. I have emails that are out to Brixmor Corporation to see where they are at and where we are at on the Wal-Mart building. Wal-Mart did have someone looking into something but again it stalls and gets really slow there. That concludes my report and I am open for questions.

There were no further questions of Mayor Morley

FIRE CHIEF – Ted Whittington

Chief Whittington was absent and excused.

There were no further questions of Chief Whittington.

POLICE CHIEF – Larry Reik

Chief Reik: I would like to thank Madam President and Council again for the use of the facility to do the swearing in ceremony. I think that it’s important for the guys to be able to do that. The County got hit real badly on Thursday with the big accident on Route 90 and on Friday it was Wickliffe and Willoughby Hills. Unfortunately between the plows keeping up pretty well and think that we ended up hitting a good pocket with not a lot of hills and we had some good luck for a change. I know that Wickliffe had about forty accidents on Friday that they responded too. They were busy on Friday but nothing to the extent of some or our neighbors. Besides that I think that the Service Department did a nice job. Living on a cul-de-sac at the end of a dead end I know that I am one of the last to get it and I think that they got there in a reasonable amount of time. The people who have complained on the forums that I am associated with I told them pretty much the same thing. Go to some of our surrounding cities…because some of the cities that used to be really quick and have a lot of salt don’t seem to be as generous with the salt and their crews. Especially with the personnel I thought that they did a nice job. There is nothing else from the Police Department and I am open for questions.

There were no further questions of Chief Reik.

CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL – David Menn

Mr. Menn was absent and excused.

There were no questions of Mr. Menn.

SERVICE DIRECTOR – Nick Rubertino

Ms. DePledge: I neglected to say what a tremendous job your men did on Friday. I appreciate it and I know that they work long hours. When you sit in the cabs of those trucks and you get that jarring motion it takes a lot out of you. They really hung in there and did a great job.

Mr. Rubertino: We definitely appreciate the complements and I will pass them on to the drivers that are out there. In regards to the situation of this past weekend of four days of snow our complaints are always the same. It is a matter of being able to get to where we need to get to in a timely manner. The main and secondary roads are obviously first and everybody on a cul-de-sac has a problem with getting their roads cleared. That is going to continue to be a problem when we staff five people on a shift. We are trying to continue to keep these roads clear. We need help out there. We had four trucks go down on Saturday and one went down on Sunday. One of them was a new truck and the other ones are antiques in the line of work of commercial working. Our loader is done it went down over the weekend. It is an $84,000.00 quote to fix that loader. We are not going to invest money into an eighteen year old loader. They are averaging ten years. In some way we have to find a way and as hard as it is to get the equipment and the personnel in here that we need. I know that it is a sore subject but on my end of it I have five guys on a shift. I have communities around me that have twenty guys on a shift and they can’t keep up. And yet we are beat to a pulp. These guys are going to be back out this weekend again. We are looking at a four day again. Our trucks go down there won’t be service out there. I’m not treating people. I’m just telling you from the bottom of my heart we have an issue that needs to be addressed. We’ve got to find a way to address it. Levies aren’t doing it because they haven’t done it yet. Reciprocity might have helped and I don’t know if it would have gotten us there now. Somewhere along the line we’ve got to find a way because we cannot continue to run our Service Department with the equipment and the lack of personnel that we have. I have a gentleman off on injury and vacations coming up. These guys are entitled to their vacation. They are running out of time and they have been putting it off so that they can serve the public and serve the residents here. Now we are at a dead end where they have to use it by the end of the year. Like anybody they are not going to want to give their vacation away. They are entitled to their vacation and that is going to short staff us even more. I appreciate the complements. I have been beaten up a lot in the last couple of days and it’s nothing that I’m not used to. I take it with a grain of salt. I’m looking for somewhere along the line…that other than residents being dissatisfied with our service and blaming myself and my crew for not doing the job that they are supposed to do. It is a lack of personnel and a lack of quality equipment that needs to get out there. With that I am open for questions.

Ms. DePledge: Thank you Mr. Rubertino we hear you.

Mr. Rubertino: I know that you do and I appreciate that but I have got to express that.

Ms. DePledge: As you should. Mayor Morley?

Mayor Morley: Just to add on with the equipment we have been talking about this in all of the departments. We are going to look into seeing if we can lease equipment instead of putting in the $85,000.00 out there. We are going to start looking at that and I know that Ms. Schindel…Solon has a ton of money but they lease everything. We are going to look at that and see if we can do that through monthly expense. That is where we are at right now. Just like we don’t $230,000.00 for new ambulance and we don’t have $85,000.00 for a new loader. We need the loader obviously to get the salt in the trucks. That is something that the surrounding cities aren’t going to lend us. We just went to Willoughby Hills one of your leaf boxes…because we have that amongst the cities. No one is going to give us a loader to use or their plows or any of that. We are lucky enough that Willoughby will lend us an ambulance when one of ours goes down, because they have some spares. Most people don’t have spare loaders or anything like that. That is what we are starting to look at with the leasing and see where we go from there.

Mr. Rubertino: If I could add one more thing. I also put in eighteen hours this weekend clearing driveways, clearing our driveways and sidewalks and plowing streets. I’m not looking for accolades but it just shows you that I’m out there doing it. It needs to be addressed. Somewhere we need to find a way. I’m not against it but union wise…could very easily file a grievance. I am not allowed in a vehicle. But the graciousness of these guys over here knows the situation that we are in and it gives a couple of them a break when I can step in there and give them a hand. It would not have happened in the past and it wouldn’t have been accepted.

There were no further questions of Mr. Rubertino.

CITY ENGINEER – Tom Gwydir

Mr. Gwydir had no report this evening.

There were no questions of Mr. Gwydir.

FINANCE DIRECTOR – Carol-Ann Schindel

Ms. Schindel: Thank you and other than the discussions that we’ve had that we need equipment and I have to keep telling them no. That is the end of my report.

There were no questions of Ms. Schindel.

LAW DIRECTOR – Randy Klammer

Mr. Klammer was absent and excused.

There were no questions of Mr. Klammer.

Ms. DePledge: Mr. Evers?

Mr. Evers: I would like to send out a special thank to a group of people here. One of which is the Service Department you guys did a wonderful job. Secondly I would like to thank Chief Reik, Chief Whittington, Mayor Morley and the Victims Advocates for their involvement in the Eastlake Community Christmas. For the tenth year in a row they were able to serve about one hundred families in the City of Eastlake. In making their Christmas just a little bit bigger and a little bit brighter. The dedication from our Chief’s and the Victims Advocate for this program is just tremendous. I can’t say enough about it. Thank you.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:35p.m.

_________________________________________

LAURA A. DEPLEDGE, COUNCIL PRESIDENT

APPROVED: ______________________

ATTEST: ______________________________________

TRACY M. SIMONS, CLERK OF COUNCIL

City of Eastlake Ohio

Regular Council Meeting Minutes from December 13, 2016

Meetings Scheduled

COMMUNICATIONS & PETITIONS

MAYOR/SAFETY DIRECTOR – Dennis Morley

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April 24, 2024

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April 25, 2024

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April 26, 2024

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April 27, 2024

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