EASTLAKE CITY COUNCIL

REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

FEBRUARY 23, 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 7:05 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, Law Director Klammer, Finance Director Schindel, City Engineer Gwydir, CBO Menn and Service Director Rubertino. Former Finance Director Slocum was in attendance. Fire Chief Whittington and Police Chief Reik were absent and excused.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Regular Council Meeting –February 9, 2016.

MOTION: Mr. Hoefle moved to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting February 9, 2016. Mr. Evers seconded. 

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.
 

Motion carried. The minutes were approved.

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COUNCIL PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Ms. DePledge

Meetings Scheduled

Ms. DePledge: The next Council-as-a-Whole Committee Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 8, 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. There was a Finance Committee Meeting Monday and we did discuss the American Croatian Lodge is a non-profit organization. They want to work in conjunction with the City of Eastlake to do some work on the property behind the E-PAL Center and Washington Elementary School. This will be going for three readings for the public and it is not on the agenda for this evening. 

COMMUNICATIONS & PETITIONS

Ms. DePledge: Are there any Communications and Petitions?

Mrs. Simons: No.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Ms. DePledge: A Finance Committee Meeting was held Mr. Evers would you like to make a report?

Mr. Evers: The Finance Committee Meeting did meet last week and our goal was to finally finish up reviewing the City budget on the expenditure side for the General revenues and at this point I will turn it over to Mr. Slocum.

Mr. Slocum: I am sorry what do you… 

Mr. Evers: Do you have anything to add to it? We do have a balanced budget. 

Mr. Slocum: The revenue projection…we will end the year in a positive balance providing that we don’t have anything catastrophic. Say if the Police Station falls down and are a lot of maintenance issues that were covered in the meeting and they are not being done.   Today we just found out that the gentleman who knows this phone system has just retired. They do not have anybody who knows this antiquated technology. We are going to try and reach out to him and see if we can independently contract with the gentleman. It is an issue that we are going to have to address here in the City at some point in time. This technology is 20 years old and it is not supportive anymore. 

Mr. Evers: On that note I would also like to add that all of our Director’s did a beautiful job again this year in controlling their budget. Without them it does not happen. That concludes my report.

Ms. DePledge: There were no other Committee Meetings held between our last meeting and tonight’s meeting. Is there anybody in Council wishing to address the Chair on any reports?

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. 

Bernie Lemay, 41 North Lakehurst Dr., Eastlake OH

Mr. Lemay: In the mid-eighties I had the good fortune to move to Eastlake and shortly after moving here my wife had the miss-fortune of meeting a deer on Erie Rd. The good news is that they may have been able to dodge trucks quite well back then. There was no damage to the property but the deer did not survive. This past January in a newer car she meet another deer down Reeves Rd. and sustain $300.00 worth of damage and the deer made it out just fine. This past Friday my mechanic was test driving my vehicle and a deer hit the side of the vehicle at the corner of Roberts Rd. and Rt. 91. The deer ran off and the vehicle sustained $3,600.00 worth of damage.   Unfortunately he has good insurance and I am not too upset about that and the car is running good. With that said where I live there are six deer that constantly bed down in my back yard. I know longer can enjoy the hobby of gardening because they eat everything. I no longer plant any flowers and as I look around the neighborhood neither do many of my neighbors. It seems like the deer are becoming a problem in the community. I don’t know of any other residents that have expressed any concerns about it. While I was driving home from a Council Meeting at about eight o’clock by the corner of Forest Dr. and Lakeshore Boulevard I saw the Police Department moving a deer carcass off of the road. It looked like it was just hit by a vehicle. That is also a school zone with heavy deer traffic maybe the Police Department would have some statistics as to how many related accidents there are concerning deer in our community. Somebody could swerve to miss an animal and go up on the sidewalk and injure or kill one of our children. What I would like to ask the City representatives today is to listen to the public for their comments about the deer population and to bring it to your attention. And to seriously consider doing something about this that would make everybody happy. With that Mr. Slocum best of luck to you and it was good knowing you and that is all that I have to say. 

Ms. DePledge: Thank you Mr. Lemay and we are having a meeting on March 30^th to address the deer population in Eastlake. I think that the Mayor has more information and he would like to speak.

Mayor Morley: Residents have contacted me over the last six months and I was waiting for the new Council members to be put on board. I didn’t want to over whelm them with too much. We are going to have our first and formal meeting on March 30^th at six o’clock. He has a plan and he is also a part of the ODNR and again it’s is not going to be an easy thing to get through. For as many people who want us to go after the deer there are going to be just as many people that are for the deer. Before we cull or put the deer down we are going to hear what he has to say. I have talked with the Chief about it a little and we are working on getting the statistics on how many deer related accidents there are. All of the calls that I get are about nuisance, vegetation or laying in their yards. We will look into it. I have received research from Avon Lake and Mentor spends $100,000.00 a year for their deer. Obviously that isn’t something that we can do here. We have areas that we could cull them and those are the areas that we are going to look at. If there is anything that would happen here it would have to be bow and arrow but again we are going to hear what this gentleman has to say and we will go from there. March 30^th at six o’clock is the first meeting.

Mr. Lemay: I will be out of town on March 30^th but if there is a follow up meeting would you let me know about it?

Mayor Morley: I would.

Ms. DePledge: The meeting will be recorded and the minutes will also be available online if you want to see what was discussed and how it went.

Angelo Trivisonno, 34186 Waldmer Ave., Eastlake

Mr. Trivisonno: Thank you Madam President. From what I guess that was expressed today in Council-As-A-Whole is that the lease for Central Park will not be introduced until the next meeting. So it seems like there will not be much of a discussion tonight. I just want to make the comment for any individual who is here that is concerned about that matter or anyone who happens to read the minutes later when they are posted on the website that at….all of the contract, leases, site plans, audio recordings of the meeting they are all posted on….I also would recommend anyone to speak to the Mayor or to Council. For those who wish to see the actual documents or the lease that they take a look at them. They are all straight from the Administration. That is all that I have to say.

Ms. DePledge: Mr. Evers?

Mr. Evers: The lease is not ready yet.

Mayor Morley: The draft is on…the Director’s requested a draft. Then Ms. DePledge is going to get with the Law Director on a couple of things that there were issues on last night. As I have told him before the meeting we are going to go through the process and it is not going to be…it is possibly be portrayed out there that we are going to rush through things. For the people who were at the meeting last night know that the Croatian Home wants to do this right and they want to work with the City. They want to try and enhance what we want to do there. As we have with other meetings they will be publicized and they are open to the public. There will not be any other special meeting it will be going through the committee.

Mr. Klammer: Madam President could I just point….that since it is going to be in the minutes I mind as well keep it together. There was some suggestion that the lease was drafted by…

Ms. DePledge: We cleared that up in the Committee Meeting last night. That it was our lease.

Mr. Klammer: By the Croatian Center. 

Ms. DePledge: That it was our lease.

Mr. Klammer: Yeah it was based on the lease that we passed. They asked as a courtesy and they said is there a lease that you guys have already passed that I could use as a forum. We used the Willoughby-Eastlake Library lease that we have previously used to lessen some objection to the format. It wasn’t drafted by the attorney of the potential tenant it was a convince to the City. That should be it and made available as well. 

Ms. DePledge: It was addressed in the Committee Meeting last night and it will appear in those minutes as well as in tonight’s minutes.

There was no one else who wished to speak.

LEGISLATION PROPOSED – First number will be 2016-005

02-23-(01)                               ORDINANCE NO.:______________

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 and declaring an emergency.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to adopt. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2016-005.

02-23-(02)                               RESOLUTION NO.:____________

A Resolution authorizing and directing the Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Contract with Osborne Concrete and Stone Co., the lowest and best bidder, for the purchase of Asphalt/Concrete Products (Asphalt) from March 1, 2016 to December 31, 2017 as listed for the cost as outlined, and declaring an emergency.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to adopt. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2016-006.

02-23-(03)                               RESOLUTION NO.: ____________

A Resolution authorizing and directing the Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Contract with Osborne Concrete & Stone, Inc., the lowest and best bidder, for the purchase of Stone & Slag Aggregate Products from March 1, 2016 to December 31, 2017 as listed for the cost as outlined, and declaring an emergency.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to adopt. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2016-007.

02-23-(04)                               RESOLUTION NO.:___________

A Resolution authorizing and directing the Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Contract with Pat Flowers Inc., the lowest and best bidder, for Pavement Lane Marking for the year 2016 – 2017, as listed for the costs as outlined, and declaring an emergency. 

MOTION: Mr. Zuren moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full. Mr. Spotton second. 

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous. 

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to adopt. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2016-008.

02-23-(05)                               RESOLUTION NO.:___________

A Resolution authorizing and directing the Mayor and Director of Finance to enter into a Contract with Chagrin Valley Paving, Inc., the lowest and best bidder, for Profiling & Grinding for the year 2016 – 2017 the costs as outlined, and declaring an emergency.

MOTION: Mr. Zuren moved to suspend the rules requiring separate readings and reading in full. Mr. Spotton second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

MOTION: Mr. Evers moved to adopt. Mr. Hoefle second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

Motion carried. Legislation is adopted as Resolution No. 2016-009.

 

LEGISLATION PENDING

There is 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, Madam President. Welcome everyone to this evenings meeting. First of all thank you for passing the budget and our Directors did do their part again from last year ending in a positive. At the end of 2016 the Finance Director said that we will end it in the positive. Hopefully we will not have any unfortunate issues. We are looking at possibly having $285,000.00 for the end of the year on December 31, 2016. We are thankful for that but again if something does come up that could force us into a deficit. We are one of the only cities if not the only city that doesn’t deficit spend because with finances there is money to deficit spend. Some surrounding cities can over budget by half a million dollars but they also have that in their carry over to follow through and we do not. Again it is the Directors and the Chief’s that do a great job on their finances. Councilman Spotton and I meet with First Energy about the issues that continue in the Surf side area. I have noticed in the last few days that the flags are going up and she will contact me along with Councilman Spotton in the next week on the third phase of the underground wiring. This is to fix all of the consistent outages that we have in that area. I, CBO Menn, Fire Chief and the Fire Marshall meet with Superintendant Thompson and Mr. Nedlik from Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools to talk about the two new schools that will be built in our City. They are Eastlake North High School and Longfellow. Their goal is to break ground starting in February 2017. They have a lot of planning that they have to do and we are going to have a lot of planning and work for our Building Department and our Fire Marshall. It is going to be a joint effort in working with the schools. We have thrown out a few things and they are going to have some help from us in a couple of areas. We are going to plan on continuing to work with the schools. The camera cleaning on Freed/Iris/Glen area…because of the weather last week and with one of the gentlemen had a death in the family. He is the head man for the job and that will start….the last two or three weeks a lot of our time has been spent…I was actually with the Police Chief dealing with the people who have garbage issues and the garbage getting shut off. We started out with 624 residents and we went down to 312 residents. The newest one that I have from today regarding the last quarter from October and November we are now back up to 659 residents who will be affected with the garbage shut off. Unfortunately some of the issues that we have been having are people taking their garbage to their neighbors or they are also illegally dumping on sites in the City. Our Police Chief goes door to door to deal with the garbage issue and there are a lot of other issues that we have to attend to. If there is anyone that you may know who is on that list talk to them and tell them to please pay up on their bill so that they do not get it shut off. I am sure that the Service Director will talk about the potholes and we that we have already started working on them. We have also talked about the deer and a meeting will be held on March 30^th and that there is a Chili Cook Off at North High this week for United Way. It is North High and the City working together on that fund raiser. We are also continuing to work on getting some businesses in the Vineyards. We have had a couple of discussion on the old Wal-Mart building about some interested parties and it is just getting them to finalize on some things to get them in there. We meet with Lake Health last week and I threw out there that if they are going to build another health campus to maybe look at the old Wal-Mart building. That concludes my report and I am open for questions. 

Mr. Evers: Did you want to talk about the blood drive on March 3^rd?

Mayor Morley: I open that to you Mr. Evers.

Mr. Evers: I will wait until the end.

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

SERVICE DIRECTOR – Nick Rubertino

Mr. Rubertino: Good evening everybody. As the Mayor has mentioned we are on potholes. There are a lot of them and we are aggressively attacking those potholes as we speak today. If you come across any please feel free to give me a call. The group is trying to stay within the zone that they are working in. If there is something in that neighborhood we will try and get it that day if not we will try and get to it as fast as we possibly can. Thank you for the resolution passes and as you know they are essential for us to move forward with all of the projects that we have along with the road repairs and lane markings that we need to get done in the City. Touching on the garbage that the Mayor has referred to I would encourage residents that if you see somebody illegally dumping obviously do not approach them. Obviously get a license plate number if it is at all possible without endangering yourself. Right now we are getting inundated in our parks with a certain amount of trash that is just unbelievable. To spend time to go through the trash and to locate the name of the person who is dumping it and to go back and get them along with getting the police involved is a very time consuming effort on our end. It is just costing us time that we should be somewhere else doing work that we really need to do in the City. Illegal dumping is just that it is illegal and I would just ask that if you see someone…a license plate number is the best way to go. Contact myself or the Police Department and we will have someone follow up on that. Other than that I am open for questions.

Ms. DePledge: I would add to that they could take a picture.

Mr. Rubertino: I’m sorry.

Ms. DePledge: They could take a picture of the car and the person dumping it.

Mr. Rubertino: I would not get involved. A license plate is probably the quickest and easiest way to.

Ms. DePledge: Then you know who it is too.

Mr. Rubertino: Probably do it from a far distance.

Ms. DePledge: Mr. Zuren? 

Mr. Zuren: I would like to make a comment about Mr. Rubertino that I did contact him about a couple of potholes in my area and he took care of them within twenty four hours. It was very impressive.

Mr. Rubertino: That is our effort and I appreciate that and I encourage the residents to do the same thing. To either contact you guys or to contact me directly. We will get them as fast as we can and we want them repaired just like everybody does and we do have a lot of them. We are working to get them taken care of and I appreciate that thank you.

There were no further questions of Mr. Rubertino. 

CITY ENGINEER – Tom Gwydir

Mr. Gwydir had nothing to report this evening. 

There were no questions of Mr. Gwydir.

FINANCE DIRECTOR – Carol-Ann Schindel

Ms. Schindel: Well I have completed my first two weeks here and I have been working very closely with Mr. Slocum to learn some of the procedures and some of our important contacts and contracts. The staff has been great to work with and Mr. Slocum has been wonderful to work with and it has been a real pleasure. Thank you.

Ms. DePledge: We’re glad that you came on board. 

There were no questions of Ms. Schindel.

POLICE CHIEF – Larry Reik

Chief Reik was absent and excused. 

There were no further questions of Chief Reik. 

CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL – David Menn

Mr. Menn: Thank you and just a couple of things. There will not be a BZA Meeting tomorrow night because there is nothing on the agenda. We do have a Planning Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday at seven o’clock. I been contacted through the Lake County Land Bank again and it looks like there will be some funding again for possible demo for any homes that we may find. If you are getting complaints on a vacant naissance structure to please let me know. I will look at it and see what we can do with it. 

There were no questions of Mr. Menn.

 

LAW DIRECTOR – Randy Klammer

Mr. Klammer: Thank you Madam President members of Council and Mayor. Helping to keep Mr. Gwydir on schedule and he is way ahead of schedule on the Quentin Rd. stuff and got a draft…understanding going there. Trying to respond to some of Mr. Hoefle’s comments so whatever you need on the soccer lease just let me know and I will get that amended accordingly. Working on a couple of arbitration things with the Mayor which I should comment it is amazing how few labor disputes we seem to have in the City now. I guess the credit goes to the Mayor and the Directors. With Belich we have agreed to go ahead and submit that on briefs as opposed to having a trial because as we would know it is mostly an issue of law so we are going to submit that on briefs. We have a judgment against the fellow from the Radisson and the Radisson. There is still a criminal case against that fellow. We have to find him yet but other than that I am open for questions.
 

There were no questions of Mr. Klammer.
 

Ms. DePledge: Mr. Evers?
 

Mr. Evers: There are just a couple of dates that I would like to make the residents aware of and the first one will be on Thursday, March 3, 2016. It is the American Red Cross Blood Drive over at the Eastlake EPAL Community Center on 600 E. 349^th Street. At this time we only have twelve people signed up and I would really like to see us double that number. Again it is on March 3^rd from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Refreshments will be provided. Along with that I would like to announce that in cooperation with the Administration, Eastlake Police Department, Eastlake Community Block and EPAL we will be holding an Operation Street Smart Drug Class that is free of charge on April 9, 2016 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. It will be over at the Community EPAL Center. This is put on by the Franklin County Sherriff’s Department and they are the actual detectives who are out on the street working it. It is a very eye opening experience and if you would like more information it will be put out later. Feel free to call the Eastlake EPAL Recreation Center at 954-3725. We will only have a limited amount of seating available.

 

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:32 p.m.

 

 

           ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­                                               

__________________________________________

LAURA A. DEPLEDGE, COUNCIL PRESIDENT

 

 

APPROVED: __________________________

 

 

ATTEST: ______________________________________

                 TRACY M. SIMONS, CLERK OF COUNCIL