SAFETY COMMITTEE MEETING

AUGUST 18, 2015

 

Eastlake Committee Chair Mr. Hoefle opened the meeting at approximately ­­­6:00 p.m. Members of the Committee in attendance were Mr. Hoefle and Mr. Evers. Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins was absent and excused. Present from Council were Mr. Licht, Ms. DePledge and Council President D’Ambrosio.  Ms. Vaughn was absent and excused.

 

In attendance from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Law Director Klammer, Finance Director Slocum and Fire Chief Whittington.

 

Also in attendance were members of the public.  

 

Mr. Hoefle: We have two items on the agenda. One is the Lake County Jurisdictional Plan and we are waiting for Chief Whittington on that and we have the Miscellaneous: Lease Agreement: Eastlake/Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library. Mayor Morley?

 

MISCELLANEOUS

LEASE AGREEMENT: EASTLAKE/WILLOUGHBY- EASTLAKE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Mayor Morley: Thank you, Mr. Hoefle. We have the Director of the library and some of his members.

 

Mr. Werner: I’m Mr. Werner, Director of the Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library and I am joined by our immediate Past President Jeff Mackey who is still on the Board and the Finance Officer/Fiscal Officer Vicky Simmons and the Facility’s Manager Tom Johnson.

 

Chief Whittington joined the meeting at this time.

 

Mayor Morley: We have been working with the Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library to get a lease agreement in place for them to come into City Hall. They will have eighteen employees and a majority of them will be at the opposite end of the hall by my office. One of the offices next to mine will be used and we are going to move the Historical Society down the hall next to the Finance Department. Our Law Director and the Law Director for Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library who is through the County have been working on this for the past few days to get everything done. Mr. Werner and I have had some issues with the utilities and that has been settled. If anyone has any questions or, we can go step by step it’s up to you.

 

Mr. Slocum: Just so you understand the utilities and where our reasoning is behind things, as it relates to Natural Gas, there will not be any charges to the library for that because we are heating this entire building with or without anybody here and with our heating system that we have we are stuck heating the entire building and we did not feel that we needed to charge for that, however, the big item is going to be electricity.  What we did on that is we used 2014 as our base year. Then we went back through all of the bills and looked up how many kilowatt hours that we used for each month.  In the future, they will pick up on the kilowatt hours if they exceed in 2014 and they will pick up a portion of the bill that exceeds.  If it does not exceed then they will not get billed anything for the electricity and the same type of thing for water, but water is a minor thing for cost.

 

Mr. Licht: You said this portion or the difference?

 

Mr. Slocum: For example if we use fifteen hundred kilowatts two years ago and this year we use sixteen hundred they will pay for a hundred kilowatts based on what we are paying on kilowatts at that time. We are going to take the entire bill for this building and divide the total kilowatts used at a cost per kilowatt hour and whatever that exceeds we are going to attribute to them. Nothing will change with this formula providing that we do not exceed sixteen people in the building and currently we have ten.  The reason that we use sixteen is that in 2014 which is the base year we had sixteen people here.   We are trying to keep it fair for everyone and if we go over sixteen and they happen to bring six more people in here, or relocate, or hire more people, then we are open to re-negotiate those costs.

 

Mayor Morley: This is a five year lease and it escalates on to a square footage. We came up with a forty five hundred square footage and if you look at September 1^st they are only going to bring a portion of it, because they have a remaining lease that is with the City of Mentor. A majority of their lease will not be over until November 1^st  and some people will start to move in on September 1^st and then we will go on from there.

 

Mr. Slocum: Seventeen hundred square feet for the first two months and after that forty five hundred square feet. That is probably different from what you saw on an early edition of this contract, but we are in agreement with these figures.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: They are going to be on the whole west side of the building basically.

 

Mayor Morley: At this point everyone is aware of it. We have moved the Commission meeting rooms into my conference room for duel use because the only thing we use that for right now is for my staff meeting on Mondays and when I meet with Resident’s.  We have moved all of the cabinets in there and you are more than welcome to walk down to see all of the rooms that we have emptied.  The Commission room will be their room for planning along with the old channel twelve room. The Port Authority which used to be the Law Director’s Office and the tax office will be used for deliveries of DVD’s. They will also use this room and the one across from us and we will move the Historical Society down the hall.  They will have eighteen employees which is double the employee’s we have.  The square footage rental and the eighteen employees with the 2% income tax is a good deal for both of us. Working with Mr. Werner and his group is one more thing with government entities working together to save money.  We are all happy with what is going to happen.  Do you guys agree?

 

Mr. Licht: Is this just an extension of the Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library down the road?

 

Mr. Werner: Yes, that is one of our…

 

Mr. Licht: Nothing’s happening. That’s staying open?

 

Mr. Werner: That’s staying open.

 

Mr. Licht: So this is an addition to that?

 

Mr. Werner: Yes, sir. The Mayor’s point is that we are moving in under this lease which would be Administration and that is Tom, Vicky, and I along with some of our colleges, and our Technical Services Department. They are the folks that the Mayor referenced too that process the books, DVD’s, and the materials that go out to all four of our libraries.  This will be all of our back office functions, which is our Administration and Technical Support Department. A couple of years ago we had some pretty significant flooding in the lower level of the Willowick Library and we had to move everyone out. It has been under the Boards direction, under both Mr. Mackey when he was Board Chair and now it is under our new Board Chair Ms. Rosy.  For us to return to the Willowick Library our plans are to re-develop the whole lower level of the library and all of our back up office functions and Administrative functions will be within the office.  I do want to give credit and to extend my regards to Mr. Mackey. It was his suggestion that we start these conversations with these municipalities in the Communities that we are in and to see if there is some kind of win- win situation. Right now we are in a temporary space on Mentor Avenue in Willoughby and we wanted to bring all of these operations together into a single location. The opportunity to work with Mayor Morley and Mr. Slocum has been terrific and they have been incredibly patient with us. We have probably been a burden to the Mayor in regards to trying to make sure that we can fit everything in.  Mr. Johnson, who is our facilities manager, is doing a little bit of shoe horning to fit people in here but at the same token almost all of our staff will be in here.  This is going to be a significant improvement in the offices and we are really grateful to be a part of Eastlake City Hall.

 

Mr. Licht: I think that it is great and I commend both of you guys in the partnership and the utilization of a facility where there is a lot of space that is unused and it will raise revenue for the City as well.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Mr. Slocum?

 

Mr. Slocum: This isn’t going to compete with the Eastlake Library?

 

Mr. Werner: Oh no.

 

Mr. Slocum: This isn’t going to be open to the public or anything like that. This is their back office operations.

 

Mr. Werner: We are willing to bring in some best sellers.

 

Mayor Morley: We could use some best sellers here.

 

Mr. Licht: Special requests.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Was there anything in here that states if they are going to use Council Chambers?

 

Mayor Morley: We talked about that and if they have to use Council Chambers during the day it is in there and it is part of our Ordinances also.

 

Mr. Hoefle: I read it today and it looked pretty good.

 

Mayor Morley: I appreciate that our Law Director and their Law Director for working together.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Any other questions from Council or Administration?   Can we move forward? Ok then we will move this forward.

 

Mr. Werner: We would love to do what Mr. Mackey and what the Mayor had suggested a few weeks ago and that we think that this is a great example of a collaboration of two public entities working together as well as economize the use of your space. We would love to do some appropriate press release on it and we will obviously wait till Council has had a chance to consider it and pass it. We are hoping that both institutions could get a little bit of credit for where our local tax dollars are being re-invested and that is into the City of Eastlake. 

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Mr. Klammer and Mr. Slocum brought to my attention that Mr. Hoefle is not going to be at the next Council meeting so we don’t necessarily vote on this typically as we—-

 

Mr. Klammer: My feeling is that at some point we need to approve it because of the long term valuation of the whole year lease. We should just move forward with it and have them retroactively approve it when we have the necessary quorum.

 

Mr. Slocum: Do you necessarily need to have a Resolution?

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: That’s the question.

 

Mr. Slocum: Or can they just do it? I guess that’s the question I tried to get across earlier.

 

Mr. Klammer: We always do it by Resolution. That is how we always approve the contracts by Resolution. It’s a contract over $12,500.

 

Mr. Slocum: But that’s their rule.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Ok just wanted to check.

 

Mayor Morley: Just so you’re aware of what is going on we have a Council person that is out ill and then Mr. Hoefle will be out of town. So we won’t be able to pass by emergency until September 8^th but from what we are gathering is that on September 1^st we can move people in.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: We will bring that up at the Council meeting.

 

Mr. Werner: I appreciate your help in that and we probably won’t be moving people in until the middle of September. The Mayor has been very gracious in helping us by getting those offices prepared for us. We have to do some wiring and other stuff. The folks that are moving in first are most of the tech dependant and we have to make sure that they have Internet and phones and that can take a few weeks. So we will be well past the 8^th

 

Mayor Morley: Ok.

 

Mr. Werner: But our agreement will be the first.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Yes.

 

Mr. Werner: Our Board gave authority to our Board President to sign the lease once it has been approved by City Council.

 

Mr. Hoefle: We will move this forward then.

 

There were no further questions or comments.

 

Lake County Multi-Jurisdictional Mitigation PlaN

Mr. Hoefle: The second item on the agenda is the Lake County Multi Jurisdictional Mitigation Plan. Chief Wittington?

 

Chief Whittington: Thank you. Sorry that I was a little late, however, I have been working with Police Chief Reik for the start of school tomorrow. This is the first time since I have been in a City that there have been this many changes in the School District.  The different things that we are trying to get a grasp on are where Thomas Jefferson has traffic pattern changes and they are pretty significant. So we are going to have Police and Fire out there for the first week to try mitigate any problems and to get a grasp on what we are going to do with Washington.  Washington is now Lake County Collaborative and their Director is Mr. Conover.  They are still working on the building and as far as long term the building is ready to accept students tomorrow.  They did some painting and re-arranging and they are going to have the students from Lake Academy and a portion of the MRDD students. They are working on the building to get that set up for them. Kennedy is going to have a big branch of the Tech Center health programs. Lake Health is building a clinic where they are going to have all of the nursing students.  They will still have the autistic wing and the pre-school.

 

Mayor Morley: I spoke with Chief Reik today about the Longfellow changes tomorrow and we need to be present – and, with Thomas Jefferson. Just as a side note the reason is that when they closed Washington there were 100 new students going to Longfellow and 100 new students going to Thomas Jefferson. That is the reason for more busing, and we just wanted to meet with Police, Fire, and the School District about the changes with the bus routes.

 

Chief Whittington: There have been driveways that were added on. So if you’ve been down by Longfellow it goes behind the building then it turns around and they will go out the same exact way. There is also a bus route that is on the east side of the building where they enter from Stevens Blvd. and they will go down the east side of the building and exit out the back down E. 351^st Street. There is an operating arm that is programmed for emergency sirens and the buses will have a door opener. If we need to get access our emergency sirens will activate the gate which will allow us to get in.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: The buses are going to exit off of E. 351^st Street?

 

Chief Whittington: They are going to come out behind the building right by Longfellow by E. 351^st Street.

 

Mr. Licht: Hopefully they are going to go left and not right out of that street and onto Vine Street.

  

Mr. D’Ambrosio: They are going to take a right once they get onto Vine Street.

 

Chief Whittington: They are probably going to have to take a right out of there.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Yes.

 

Ms. DePledge: Then they are going to come onto E. 337^th Street to the bus stop.

 

Mayor Morley: They will go right.

 

Mr. Klammer: We tried to wind the driveway around a little bit to try and get more back up in the driveway.

 

Mayor Morley: We made a change on the one street and they will go up and make the right and go up E. 337^thStreet.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Right on Vine Street.

 

Mayor Morley: The bus depot.

 

Mrs. DePledge: They can’t go all the way down Eastlawn.

 

Chief Whittington: No, they are going to go right down E. 351^st Street.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: No right?

 

Chief Whittington:  That was all talked about.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: You know that I am going to get calls on this.

 

Chief Whittington: Thomas Jefferson’s driveway goes behind the school so when you enter along the Middle School you will continue where Safety Town is and then go behind the school which will pull them out of the way. It should be good the first week for parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles bringing their kids in the new pattern and we are going to be out there helping everyone to make sure that the transition is easy.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: And this is because of the changes with the bus traffic and because of Washington and because of more students?

 

Chief Whittington: Willoughby Hills is now going to have more students and we will split them between Thomas Jefferson and Washington. The Mayor is right about 100 students at each school. There maybe a few more at Longfellow.  We worked with their operations people and we feel that the Mayor is going to be a part of the meetings to make sure that we are all comfortable with the changes that they have made. To get an understanding on all of the changes that were made, I think that we are pretty good with the building use.  Washington was the biggest challenge to get used to because it is a whole new facility which was being used as an Elementary School last year and now it is going to be an academy that has a diverse group of students and adults.

 

Mr. Licht: Is it Thomas Jefferson that they go behind? When they go behind it do they cut through the basket ball courts?

 

Chief Whittington: I guess.

 

Mr. Licht: They do okay.

 

Chief Whittington: We couldn’t drive it today because the streets were still curing. However, when we were down there they still had the cones up so we just walked it.  Some of you will be on post down there with a police officer and the Police Chief and I will be at Longfellow. We did that with Kennedy when they opened up the pre-schools and that helped with the traffic control.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Because E. 351^st Street is a narrow road are they going to be posting additional signage for school zone traffic to cut down the speed limit. I don’t know if there was anything on that street?

 

Mayor Morley: The speed limit is 25 mph right now.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Are they going to have a school zone sign there to drop it down to 20 mph on E. 351^st Street with the amount of buses?

 

Ms. DePledge: The kids won’t be loading or unloading there with the traffic.

 

Chief Whittington: There won’t be any kids there. They will be exiting and they will be dropped off next to the school. If you remember how it was before the bus traffic would come in on the east drive and off load then turn around and go back onto Stevens Blvd. and go down Route 91. At the same time while the parents were coming in the front and the traffic on Stevens Blvd. was causing a hard time for people on Route 91 to get to work. Now we are going to compound that by adding an additional 100 students and the resolution is to have the parents stack up in the driveway and down Stevens Blvd. We are hoping that everyone will be on school property to do the drop offs. 

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: In theory it seems like it will work.

 

Chief Whittington: We will see.

 

Mr. Klammer: What schools?

 

Chief Whittington: They are Longfellow and Thomas Jefferson. We have been working with the Director of the Collaborative Academy and Lake County Collaborative Rosewood Guide. I know that Chief Reik was sworn in as a Part Time Officer- their SRO. They felt that it would be a good transition to have the same SRO in the school which would be beneficial for the students. In case you get calls on it or anybody is concerned about it this is a learning process and I think that with some guidance and patience we will get them through it.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: I already got one call on it. 

 

Chief Whittington: Tomorrow is the first day of school so we will see how it goes.

 

Mayor Morley: You’re going to get more.

 

Ms. DePledge: E. 351^st Street?

 

Mr. Evers: Especially on the back side.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: No, it’s E. 347^th Street.

 

Ms. DePledge: Especially if they have those buses go down the side streets.

 

Chief Whittington: With the amount of buses going to Longfellow there will not be a tremendous amount of bus traffic. They are only going to have five or six buses. We’re only increasing them by one or two buses so it’s not a tremendous amount leaving that school.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: The one call that I received is that their concern is about other traffic using that when the buses aren’t. Is that going to be…

 

Mayor Morley: The arm is down?

 

Chief Whittington: The arm is down.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: So nobody’s going to…

 

Chief Whittington: From Eastlawn to E. 351^stStreet the arm is positioned down.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: You cannot go that way?

 

Chief Whittington: You can’t go that way.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Ok.

 

Chief Whittington: It’s a one way street.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Maybe what he was talking about is that people were making a trial run today or something.

 

Ms. DePledge: Or they could cut through from Stevens Blvd. to Eastlawn.

 

Mayor Morley: They can’t do it.

 

Ms. DePledge: That’s why the arm is down.

 

Mayor Morley: Because the only way that they can is with their siren or to hit the button for the buses.

 

Ms. DePledge: Hit the bus button.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: We will see if it will work out.

 

Ms. DePledge: It’ll be different.  You’re going get some calls.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Oh I know.

 

Mr. Evers: The call that I received was for Eastlawn and it was in regards to people parking on the street. Is that were they just put up the no parking signs?

 

Chief Whittington: I think that Chief Reik understands that it is a possibility for problems because of the new drive, and that they are going to be conscious because of the kids crossing the new driveway. That will be some of the problems that you guys will receive calls on and we anticipated that when the plan was presented. I think that it is going to have to be one of those things that this is a trial by error kind of deal.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Ok.

 

Ms. DePledge: I’m just curious if either of you know if Willoughby-Eastlake usually puts out a lot of posts on social media about the changes and the things that are going on or do you know if they have posted anything about those changes?

 

Mayor Morley: I thought that I saw it on Willoughby-Eastlake. They have the diagrams and aerials of the plan.

 

Ms. DePledge: To let people know. Because I haven’t seen anything and normally you see something.  I haven’t seen anything.

 

Chief Whittington: Again it’s going to be a test for the first few weeks.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: It’ll work.

 

Mayor Morley: They’ve meet with the teachers and the parents of both schools.

 

Ms. DePledge: There was a bunch of people at Longfellow last night. I didn’t know what was going on.

 

Mr. Licht: It was meet the parent night.

 

Ms. DePledge: Meet the teacher.

 

Mr. Licht: I had that.

 

Chief Whittington: Again if you get any calls obviously you can forward anything to the Mayor or myself and just let us know if there is anything that we need to adjust. We had the same issues with Kennedy were they were lining up down Glen Drive and all the way down to Willowick Drive and down the other side of Glen Drive. It was backing up the traffic for the first couple days and we were out there directing traffic.  With everyone’s kids in school the first couple days everyone’s going to be up at the same time and getting on the road at the same time, so within the first few weeks you will start to see people stagger in so I think that things will work out.  I just want to let everybody here know that we will be out there with more force to help with any safety issues. Because we are making ourselves known it will keep everybody relaxed. So what I did is I gave you a copy of this plan and I felt that it was something that I could bring to you guys that as a County it has to maintain a Hazardous Mitigation Plan in order to receive any federal grants. The current plan will come to an end in December, so we have to re-do the plan.  If you look through the agenda I have attached a copy of the EMA along with their Director Mr. Green to have him send out a letter to all of the bosses, managers, and to the Mayor’s in the Communities instructing them to assign somebody to this group.  In most Communities they send out the Fire Chief, because part of our job is to do Risk Management and Vulnerability Assessment on a daily basis.  Most of the stuff on the first two pages are County projects. If you look under the ones that are about getting partnerships with companies and being able to get resources it shows you all of that.  Then it shows you information about damns and earth quakes, because this is a Hazardous Mitigation Plan.  This is nothing that we have to make a decision on today.  We have a few more meetings before we have to get there. If you go to page 160 it represents what was done for Eastlake in the past. It was under the Strategy 1A.1.2 and it focuses on the backup powers to critical facilities which include City Hall and the Police Department.  I have been asked to update our current plan and base it on whether a project has been completed, deleted, deferred, or if it’s an ongoing project.  We have completed the Police Department Project and I would have to say that City Hall would be an ongoing project.  As the Mayor’s representative it was presented to me to find out the hazards that are valuable and to list them as to how the impact is on the Community and how we can get it resolved to benefit the Community in a positive manner.  All of this has to be accepted by legislation from the Council bodies or the Trustees of the different Communities. I am not aware on the exact details of this plan in terms of how it would represent Eastlake. When the Mayor gave it to me I wasn’t too sure on how to read it.  I do not want to be the sole person and that is why I am caming to you and saying that I need your support with this legislation. I’m open for discussion and to get everyone’s thoughts on the direction for the City of Eastlake. I don’t think that we need to give any answers now. The one thing that we can focus on is our Northern boarders of this Community.  We have about sixteen marinas depending on the time of the year. If we were to ever have a marina fire or a boat fire that would require a water base fire fight. We have no fire fighting capabilities on the water.  We do have a boat that is set up to do a quick rescue.  So if I had to use a boat to go down the river, up the river, or in a marina and actually apply water to a boat fire or multiple boat fires we don’t have that and we don’t have anybody that we could call to do that.  Now Cleveland’s boat does have fire capabilities, but I don’t think that it can make it into the channel.  That is a pretty vulnerable part and we have already had one boat fire this year. We average about one boat fire a year.  This year’s boat fire was in the ramp so when the boat caught on fire it was a land base fire and we were able to attach it.  I always worry if one of those marinas catches fire and it really gets going that I can’t get to it from the shore. It’s probably going to have to be one of those things that I just have to watch and protect what is on the shore from spreading.  When I do my vulnerability check I look for things like that. Because a lot of the stuff states the County will address floods, damn repair if we have a damn and earthquake issues. So the County has that global look to Natural Disaster for a lack of a better term.  We needed this tailored to us. That would be one thing off the top of my head but I am open to for discussion that the group has as far as things that you might think would be a part of this plan.  When I talked to Ms. Vaughn about this it really doesn’t commit us to anything.  This is not something that says if we put it in that the City is obligated and I think this allows us to do what I did when I went out to find a grant for a fire boat.  I could say in reference to this plan that our legislatures, the community, and the Mayor of the City believe this is a pretty big deal. When we write the narrative we could reference this report, which would have some clout I think, because it’s a County plan. As a group there are not a lot of things that we may not want to have in the plan but I don’t want to go in it alone.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Any other questions?

 

Chief Whittington: I think that my next meeting is scheduled for September 15^th and then I believe we’re going to have another meeting in October.  The meeting for the 15^th is really just an update on what we have done in the past.  Also in that meeting we will probably be looking towards what we want to add to the plan.  So we have some time as far as that goes.  Mayor, is there anything else?

 

Mayor Morley: Do you want to discuss that you have already started the thought process with the RNC coming next year? Especially since the stadium is being used?

 

Chief Whittington: If you want to discuss it. I am working on some legislation that we are probably going to send to the Mayor later.  I have proposed it to Chief Reik today. We want to work the kinks out before it goes to the Mayor and gets your approval.  I’ve done a lot of studying on the legislation based on past conventions. We’re going to end up seeing the over run from Cleveland.  We already know that the RNC people have reached out to as far as Madison and Geneva for hotels.  Because they are so far away I’d have to think that the Radisson Hotel will probably fill up very quick. I know that the Mayor has been pushing to get venues into the stadium. I think that we will probably see mid level delegates like governors, state legislative people in this area and the federal level people will be down town.  The Secret Service person that will be assigned to this area will not be moving in until October.  The initial thought was that they would be here sooner, so we haven’t had much planning with the Secret Service.  I’m going to guess that the Secret Service is probably going to spend a tremendous amount of time in Cleveland.  They told us that there are going to be three other events going on of national consequence and I do believe that the Pope is going to be making several visits around the same time.  The Pope warrents federal protection so the Secret Service is going to be stretched very thin around that week.  I don’t anticipate us getting a lot of that extra help.  I have a pretty good start on the plan. I have already blocked off any staff from being able to take time off next year during that week.  The legislation that I have is really the Mayor’s ability to declare what they refer to as an Extra Ordinary Event, which gives him some abilities and gives us the policing. As far as permitting goes it gives us the ability to do a lot more then what we would normally do during an event in the City.  Part of it is the restriction of carrying certain items inside the stadium that would normally be prohibited and I included the use of drones and that type of thing.  I think that it really puts us in the position where we can police a lot easier.  That would give the Mayor and the Safety Director the power to declare events that are listed as a national or international event. The way I see it is that we will probably see some people that will give some kind of clout, which would warrant us to provide some extra protection in that sort of situation.  I am trying to stay on top of that.  This is something that I enjoy doing and it is something that I get some satisfaction out of.  So I would think that once Chief Reik and the Mayor review it you should probably see it sometime by the end of the year.

 

Mr. Licht: Is there any additional cost that is incurred because of that? Who’s paying for that?

 

Chief Whittington: The biggest thing on the reports for the RNC and the DNC is that Federal funds are available, but the host community gets all the funds and they typically allocate it to the surrounding communities.  So what that means is that the City of Cleveland would be granted all of the Federal funding and then it would be up to them to divide it up.  So what that means is that we are probably not going to get any funding.

 

Ms. DePledge: They are going to take it out of the County?

 

Chief Whittington: Cleveland EMS has reached out to Lake County’s Fire Departments for potentially having us provide rescue squads to help them.  Again I would have to go through the Mayor with this; however, I don’t think that it’s a good idea because we are going to be managing stuff here in Lake County and if the Radisson fills up, and if the Mayor gets a couple of events at the stadium, and Willoughby is filling up hotels and Mentor gets some venues. All of those are very practical things that could happen out of this and I just think that it would be hard pressed for me to be sending three guys and a rescue squad, even if we had a chance for reimbursement, when I could probably use them here at home.  So unless something major changes or the Mayor gives me a different direction to work then that’s probably going to be my suggestion is to keep everybody home during that week and let us manage what is happening here. I’m hopeful as much as I sound like the negative nanny.

 

Ms. DePledge: No you don’t.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: No you don’t.

 

Chief Whittington: I’m hopeful that we will fill the stadium with concerts all that week. I hope that Governors from different states come into the City and that the Radisson is productive and prosperous during that period. I think that would be a very good thing for the City.  If you head east from Cleveland and see how many opportunities would they have to actually have hotel space?  Between us, Willoughby, and Willoughby-Hills you’re not talking about a lot of opportunities in getting a hotel.  I know that Wickliffe is working on getting the Best Western opened up quickly.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: The old Mosley.

 

Chief Whittington: The old Mosley is going to be a Best Western.

 

Mayor Morley: I just talked with Howard Hanna today and they will be handling calls from people wanting to rent their houses out.

 

Chief Whittington: Right.

 

Mayor Morley: When I get the information from Howard Hanna about the houses then we will put that out for the community to see.

 

Chief Whittington: It would be a great thing for our community and it would allow us to show case ourselves and the ballpark. I really don’t want to give the Mayor a hard time about it but between him and the Chief you know that I overplan things and I think that I probably use….

 

Mayor Morley: I wouldn’t say overplan I would say a binder.

 

Chief Whittington: Yes I like to have a binder, but I think that this would be an interesting thing for us. Obviously whoever comes into the City and sees what happens to this community- that it is above my pay grade- and it would probably fall under the Mayor’s realm. I anticipate that things will happen and that’s what I am trying in this situation.  I am also going to be looking at having an ACLU attorney come in and talk to my guys about First Amendment issues. This is just in case there are any protestors and if we have to engage with them then we would know how to deal with the situation.  We will try to get some of those things looked into and I think that some proactive training on it would be a good thing.  I’m sure that we could get somebody in the community to come in at no cost to give my guys a quick lesson from the fire standpoint. In regards to law enforcement standpoint, they will be engaging in protestors more and their approach would be different, and they would look at it differently. However, if I got a squad call and we had to go into a group of protesters I would want my guys to be able to understand what they should and shouldn’t say in that situation.  Those are some of the things that I am thinking about as we go forward on this and I am hopeful that we are able to get a lot of things to come into the community.  It’s a great venue if you think about it. It’s going to bring everybody that’s downtown here to our community.  I’m not sure if the Browns or the Indians will be having concerts at their facilities. Hopefully we can open up our facilities to bringing some people to speak.  Maybe we will get some national candidates, national delegates or international delegates at the stadium.

 

Mayor Morley: That’s the goal.

 

Chief Whittington: I will keep everybody in the loop on that but expect some legislation once the Mayor approves it. This would allow us to be able to have a hold on things at those extra events such as not allowing people to have backpacks at certain venues and things of that nature.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Thank you Chief.

 

There were no further questions or comments.

 

REGOGNITION OF PUBLIC

Angelo Trivisanno, 34186 Waldmer Drive, Eastlake

Mr. Trivisanno: The Willoughby-Eastlake Library contract was it for $18,000 and was that the monetary terms?

 

Mayor Morley: It was $34,000 the first year, $38,000 the second, $39,000 the third, $39,000 the fourth, and $40,000 the fifth, and their 2% income tax for the eighteen employees. It is probably around $8,000 or more at 2%.  However, we don’t have all the figures for their salaries at this time.

 

Mr. Trivisanno: Is that pretty much fair market value?

 

Mayor Morley: Yes, I met with a real estate company and they gave me all of the other buildings that they looked at and we came to a happy medium.

 

Mr. Trivisanno: It sounds like they are going to have all of their technical and IT staff and they mentioned Internet but I didn’t hear Internet as a utility?

 

Mayor Morley: It’s through that VOIP or whatever it’s called. They are going to handle all of that.  There will be no Internet service that we are providing.

 

Mr. Trivisanno: That is it.

 

Louise Wayner, 883 Audrey, Eastlake

Ms. Wayner: You’re talking about the Longfellow area especially on those side streets where the buses are going to go. I was wondering what are you going to do with the children that are walking and where do they go if they are coming out first or are they just waiting until the buses and cars leave?  I don’t know if there are any sidewalks on any of those back streets.

 

Chief Whittington: Actually they can cut off into the new road that they paved back there for the kids. They will be able to enter that way.   All of the kids are going to be instructed to come into that cut through but as far as traffic goes the only increase in traffic that should be happening is the bus traffic that will be going down E. 351^st Street.  So any of the traffic that is coming off of Eastlawn or any of the other numbered streets shouldn’t see an increase.  The kids that typically walk will have the same issues that they normally would have when walking to Longfellow.  I don’t know if that answers you question or not.

 

Ms. Wayne: I was just wondering if you were planning to put sidewalks on these side streets for walkers.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Chief, one question we’re getting back to E. 351^st Street- do we have signs on that street that state there is no parking on the street during school hours? That way there will not be any going back and forth when the buses are going down because I know…

 

Chief Whittington: Honestly I don’t know the answer to that.

 

Mayor Morley: I had a discussion with the Chief to look at where there can be some issues. The front of Kennedy never had the no parking signs and then we added them. If the Police Chief sees people he will warn them there and then we will adjust. For the first few weeks they are going to be out there.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Mr. Evers?

 

Mr. Evers: I received a call that they just put no parking signs on Eastlawn.

 

Mayor Morley: Yes, I am going to have to ask the Police Chief if they put those up today.

 

Mr. Evers: They were right behind the school.

 

Mayor Morley: I don’t think that they’ve ever parked on Eastlawn anyway.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: I don’t think that they do on Eastlawn.

 

Mayor Morley: The issue will be that people will try and sit there like they did at Washington. People were in line and they were telling us at Thomas Jefferson that their kids get out at two thirty and you have people lining up there at one o’clock. The way I look at it is you’re either going to wait at the end or at the front of the line for about an hour and a half.

 

Chief Whittington: I’m not sure how it is at Thomas Jefferson but I don’t think that they won’t open that access road until it’s time for pick up.  But like Mr. Licht was saying there is some playground stuff back there and they won’t be allowing people back there.  I know that when we had the Planning Commission Meeting regarding this the one the thing that the Planning Commission brought up to Mr. Neddick, who is their operations person, was about all of the safety concerns that the Planning Commission had and it had to do with parking, traffic, and the kids walking from Eastlawn.  It was suggested to the school that they post a crossing guard there or have a safety patrol officer there.  By us being directly involved in this part of the plan with the Planning Commission and talking to Willoughby-Eastlake Schools the Mayor was pretty specific to say that the safety forces will keep an eye on some of these things.  We can pass our suggestion on to him or to Mr. Neddick. There are some gaps that we need to try and get filled.  There are probably going to be gaps.  I think what Ms. Wayne was trying to say is that with the kids walking and people trying to bypass you may have a little bit more traffic back there and that is something that we are going to have to keep an eye on.

 

There was no one else who wished to speak.

 

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

 

tms

                                                           

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