Regular Council Meeting Minutes from June 12, 2018

June 28, 2018 in Regular Council Minutes

REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING

MINUTES

TUESDAY

JUNE 12, 2018

7:00 P.M.

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. Meyers at approximately 7:03 p.m.

The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.

ATTENDEES

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

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

APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Regular Council Meeting Agenda –June 12, 2018.

MOTION: Mr. Zuren to approve the Agenda for June 12, 2018. Mr. Spotton second.

ROLL CALL: Yeas unanimous.

Motion carried. Agenda approved.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Regular Council Meeting Minutes- May 15, 2018.

MOTION: Mr. Zuren to approve the Regular Council Meeting Minutes for May 15, 2018. Mr. Evers second.

ROLL CALL: Five Yeas and Two Abstain.

Motion carried. Minutes approved.

Mr. Meyers: The Minutes from May 22, 2018 are not complete and they will be ready at the next Council Meeting.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Meetings Scheduled

Mr. Meyers: The next Council-as-a-Whole Committee Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 26, 2018 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 were no questions for Mr. Meyers.

COMMUNICATIONS & PETITIONS

1. A communication from the Administration to file an application with ODNR to acquire funds for the Quentin Road Park.

Mr. Meyers: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole and it is on this evening’s agenda.

2. A communication from the Administration to purchase a 2018 F15C 4X4 SUPERCAB from Classic Ford of Madison.

Mr. Meyers: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole and it is on this evening’s agenda.

3. A communication from the Administration to purchase a 2018 K8B2 Explorer from AutoNation Ford East.

Mr. Meyers: This was discussed in Council-As-A-Whole and it is on this evening’s agenda.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Mr. Meyers: An Ordinance Committee Meeting was held since our last Regular Council Meeting. Mr. Kasunick?

Mr. Kasunick: We discussed the General Cash Reserve and that was moved forward. We also had preliminary discussion on the rental inspection issue and that is what is being discussed later on this evening and that was it.

There were no questions for Mr. Kasunick.

Mr. Meyers: I believe that Mr. Zuren has a report.

Mr. Zuren: Thank you Mr. President. I just wanted to announce to the public that there will be the first Trick-Or-Treat Street on Vine Street this Saturday. This is an effort to promote our local businesses. It will be from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Vine Street. It will start in Willowick at Bethel Lutheran Church. It is going to go a little bit into Willowick and then all the way to the plaza where the Two Bucks Shopping Center is located. After the event Severino’s is going to have a Halloween themed dinner. For anyone who wants to come out to Severino’s…to promote your local businesses. There are over thirty-five businesses involved so dress up your kids and grandkids and bring them out. The winners of the contest will get Captains tickets. The next Vine Street Corridor Business Meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 19^th at 3:00 p.m. at ReStore on Vine Street. This is a meeting where businesses focus on networking and cross promotion. The main topics of this particular meeting will be Vine Street Corridor Business website, the no vacancy incisive that we rolled out about a month ago, this open to every resident and business owner. I put out flyers today and I am going to post it on the internet and it is the third annual Eastlake Nature Day and it will be on July 29^th on Erie Road at the Chagrin Salmon Association. There are three guided canoe tours by ODNR. I suggest that people start registering soon, because there are limited spaces. There will also be limited food trucks that will make homemade ice cream, there will be super heroes, and the Chagrin River Salmon Association will also have their fishing event for the kids as well. There will be will also be some educational displays from Lake Farm Parks and some other local organizations, so bring your kids out it should be a real fun day. With that I am open for questions.

There were no questions for Mr. Zuren.

RECOGNITION OF THE PUBLIC: 1/2 hour, 3-minutes per person

Mr. Meyers: Normally we have recognition of the public besides the licensing of residential units is there anyone wishing to speak?

Mr. Meyers 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.

David Kelley, 308 Shelton Blvd., Eastlake, Ohio

Mr. Kelley: This licensing thing is a good idea don’t get me wrong, but there are a few houses on my street that have been abandon and I have been calling for the last year to either have them go after these banks or have the city go inmate domain and take them over. Seeing what happened in East Cleveland…they found out that there were people inside stealing copper and everything else and taken to the salvage yards and the house eventually filled up with , but gas and blew up. I sure don’t want to see that happen in my neighborhood, but I can’t understand why a house can stay vacant for a number of years and you guys can’t do anything about it. That is all that I have to say.

Mr. Meyers: Mayor Morley or Mr. Menn would you like to address that?

Mr. Klammer: Were you going to hold all comments until the Public Hearing?

Mr. Meyers: Yeah I was.

Mayor Morley: I think that’s a separate issue…the vacant homes. We’ve taken sixteen to eighteen homes down in the last two years. Not by emanate domain but by the Land Bank. When we talk about going to court…when we go to court it extends the time, because either the Building Department or the Law Director is trying to go through and find the people that abandoned the house. The banks aren’t helpful and I’ve talked about this…and I’ve talked to the legislatures that are above my office…they need to put legislation against the banks. The banks…if you looked at if someone lived in the house for fifteen years, they basically had their money through the interest and then they abandoned them. For us a lot of it is to try and find…the bank and once it goes to the courts and the Law Director will tell you that it is this continuance and this continuance and this continuance…it takes over a year to get these houses demoed. The ones that we do find that are a nuisance.

Mr. Kelley: I am very familiar with I really am…I was in government myself and I know how it works. But sadly to say the house that I am speaking of there are parked cars there and there are…some kids got in there a couple of weeks ago and they really made a mess of things and there is mold throughout the house. My wife has health issues…

Mayor Morley: The Chief Reik just asked and I will get the address…I know that we talked a couple of weeks ago…the Chief has been going and tagging the cars and we’ve been telling the ones that we can and ticketing the others. We just talked about an address off of East 346^th Street that we’ve given seven tickets too…we go to the court too, when it goes to court it’s not that easy either. There are a lot more new laws and I’ve sat down with the Law Director and the Chief and talked about if you can’t pay…in the old days if you couldn’t pay for something they put you in jail and you are not allowed to do that anymore. Again that is well above the city and the county.

There was no one else wishing to speak.

LEGISLATION PROPOSED: First number will be 2018-052

06-12-(01) ORDINANCE NO.: ____________

Requested by: Administration

Sponsored by: Council

A Resolution authorizing and directing the Mayor and Director of Finance to purchase at State Bid cost, a 2018 K8B2 Explorer, from AutoNation Ford East, Wickliffe, Ohio for the amount of Twenty-Nine Thousand One Hundred Nineteen Dollars and Twenty- One Cents ($29,119.21) for use by the Eastlake Service Department, 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.: 2018-055.

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 and welcome everyone to this evenings meeting. I have just a few things to report…RCG, which is new owner of the Vine Yards and where the old Wal-Mart is…you will see some new things going up there. They are doing a face lift to try and attract more businesses in there. We are also going to the Planning Commission Meeting on Thursday with Premier Commercial Realty; they are representing a new company that is going into the old Wal-Mart. We still cannot put the new company’s name out there. It will be three hundred new job and about a $13.5 Million payroll. Mr. Rubertino and the Service Department continue to work on the roads. Again this summer we’ve had a lot of neighbor issues and we’ve been going through with the Law Director and we ask you that hopefully you can work out your differences between the residents. The Law Director will usually say that they need to get a court order against each other. There are some things that we can do and some things that we can’t do. A lot of the things that we can do are the property maintenance like getting the grass cut, siding, and different things. Councilman Spotton, Councilman Meyers, and I have been working with the Willoughby-Eastlake Schools on the skate park and we did apply for a grant for the skate park. The skate park was about is about $39,000.00 and Vine Street Revitalization is about $100,000.00…$50,000.00 is for trimming up the trees and $50,000.00 for working with the business owners to do some different things for their facade. The 4^th of July will be at the Captains Stadium with Willowick and Wickliffe and I will something in my Gazette article, usually it starts at 7:00 p.m. with the fireworks going off at about 9:45 p.m. We should be opening the Miracle League on July 29, with the first game on that day; obviously with the weather we’ve been having some setbacks. This Thursday we will be meeting at NCI Eastlake with Representatives Yuko, Eklund, Young, Rogers, Mayor Regovich, Mayor Fiala, and I will talk to all the people that live on Lakeshore Blvd. about the continuing erosion. They are all aware that the cities, state, and the federal cannot pay for any of the improvements that they need to do on walls. This is to try and hopefully push the ODNR and the Army Corp of Engineers into contacting them back. The example that I’ve used with the Senators have been that we had to do a sub-merged land lease in the city and it took us almost two years, so let alone a resident to try and get that done through ODNR. I’ve been asked and I’ve been getting calls about the rental and my position on the rental at this time is and Council brought this up is that possibly after tonight’s meeting that they put it back into committee. Work it out between the landlords, the residents, and everyone else and I will take a look at it. At this point I have not taken a position for or against it so those are my answers that I have been giving out and tank you.

There were no questions for Mayor Morley

FIRE CHIEF – Ted Whittington

Chief Whittington was absent and excused.

There were no questions for Chief Whittington.

POLICE CHIEF – Larry Reik

Chief Reik: Most of you know that we’ve had a pretty busy week and a half and as far as the progress of the investigations…the fatal accident that we had is progressing. As we hope we are still waiting for some test results and such but it is going to be a long process. Unfortunately we buried the victim today and we are trying to help the family deal with everything that they have going on. The body that was found we are still working on that and we have some different leads that we are working with and hopefully we will have some resolution to that in the next week or so. We do not feel that anyone in the city or in the area is in danger…nothing has indicated that so we will definitely let people know that immediately if that was the case. Lastly as an addition to there has been some rumors…there were no outward signs of foul play with deceased male. There were no gun shots found, no guns, knives, or anything like that. We are waiting for the corners report to determine what the cause of death was. Finally as most of the people walking in you’ve seen the tables set up we are starting a Safe Passages Program. It started out in Bedford and it allows people who are suffering from addiction that if they get up in the morning or at any time throughout their life they feel that they are ready to search for a cure we provide some framework. Our Victims Advocate and our department help to get them to some treatment facilities. The network is already in place in Bedford, Olmstead Township, and a few other places out on the west side have been leading the way with this Cuyahoga County as a little bit more resources and beds to offer. But bringing this to this end of the county I doubt if anybody in the audience doesn’t know specifically somebody who’s personally or whose family has not been affected with the opioid crisis…we had nine overdose fatalities last year, which was more than the previous three years combined. It’s feast or famine. There are more recovery drugs out there for the individuals and the families so the reporting I think is a little bit off. But there are a lot of people affected. We are either dealing with them in a criminal way or after an over dose. Again this gives people an ability to walk into our Police Station and get some specific guidance regardless to what type of insurance they have. There is some type of ability for us to get them so that they can seek some help and hope and to hopefully start down the recovery path. We are starting with the baby steps and we are willing to answer any questions if someone calls the station. We have some referrals for them and obviously we are open 24 hours so at any point we are hoping to get some people down the right road. That concludes my report.

There were no questions for Chief Reik.

CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL – David Menn

Mr. Menn: Thank you and as the gentleman was speaking about the vacant houses Council you might remember around February that I said that we were looking for a list of houses to demo. We work with the Lake County Land Bank to demo these homes. As the Mayor said we have demoed quite a few, but I believe that it is almost thirty in the last four years that we have demoed. We will put that house on the list and we will try to work with it, as the Mayor said it is a slow process, but we will definitely take a look at it and see what we can do. That concludes my report.

There were no questions for Mr. Menn.

SERVICE DIRECTOR – Nick Rubertino

Mr. Rubertino was absent and excused.

There were no questions for Mr. Rubertino.

CITY ENGINEER – Tom Gwydir

Mr. Gwydir had nothing to report at this evenings meeting.

There were no questions for Mr. Gwydir.

FINANCE DIRECTOR – Carol-Ann Schindel

Ms. Schindel was absent and excused.

There were no questions for Ms. Schindel.

LAW DIRECTOR – Randy Klammer

Mr. Klammer: Thank you Mr. President, Members of Council, and Mayor. I would just reiterate and you guys know, but for the people in audience that Land Bank Program has been in affect a few years now, really has been a God sent in helping us take down some buildings. Because what it does is it eliminates the cost, some of the cost to the city to get those buildings down. The process though requires a whole bunch of different notices, writes to appeal, and all kinds of different things that the city has to go through to make sure that the property owner is properly notified and that they can raise any defenses that they might have to the demolition. It is a process that we go through, but in large part it is also to protect the home owner’s and the tax payers to make sure that we are not taking down buildings that we shouldn’t have. It has been a pretty good process and there has been a lot of progress as far as using that. I know that the Building Department is working hard on it, but the Mayor has been doing his best. That concludes my report and I am open for questions.

There were no questions for Mr. Klammer.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:27 p.m.

___________________________________

JOHN MEYERS, COUNCIL PRESIDENT

APPROVED: ______________________

ATTEST: _____________________________________

TRACY M. SIMONS, CLERK OF COUNCIL

City of Eastlake Ohio

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