City Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Call the meeting to order for the Ashlin Board of City Commissioners. If you will stand, we'll ask Mr. to do our invocation and Mr. Wartz if you'd lead us in our pledge.

Let us pray. Lord, we come this first meeting of 2026 with thankful hearts for how you have blessed us in the past year and with optimistic expectations for a great year ahead of us. We ask and invite your Holy Spirit to be with us and presside over our meeting today and give this board of mayor commissioners wisdom and guidance as we conduct city business in the best interest of our citizens. We ask your blessing and favor in this new year over our city manager, our staff and employees, and those that attend us today. We pray always in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Stand and salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Commissioner Good and uh Mr. Wartz. Appreciate that. Motion to uh file uh receive and file the agenda. Second. Any uh corrections? All in favor say I. All opposed.

All right. motion to receive and file the u the minutes that were sent to you for the special called meeting on December the 1st, regular meeting held on December the 11th, and the recessed meeting held on December 12th. So move second. Any corrections or additions? All in favor say I. I. All oppose.

All right, hearings report. Uh, welcome everyone. And you notice I guess we have we have a couple of roster changes. uh our city manager is out. So we have Mr. Wheeler uh sitting in for um him and we have Mr. McCay is going to be our our council to today. But u thank you gentlemen for stepping in. Um, the only thing that I will report and we'll pass it on is our Martin Luther King uh program is going to be on the 19th at 10:30 at the uh transportation center and hope everyone can attend that. Uh, with that, I'll pass it on. Um, let's start here with I just want to welcome everybody here today to the first meeting of uh, our new year in 2026. Hope everybody had a wonderful uh Christmas and New Year spending time with their friends and family and I'm hoping for a successful year this year u doing uh the work of the people in our community with this fine group of mayor and commissioner. I do want to mention tonight there's a PSC meeting. Uh that's the one of the main reasons we moved our today's meeting from six six o'clock to today noon. PSC meeting at 5 o'clock at the transportation center. uh they're talking about u public comment for a potential raise increase from the uh a 14.9%. So uh wherever you fall on that, wherever you whatever you feel, please come out and uh make your opinions and your voice heard. So that's all I've got.

Commissioner Renfro, I just want to say looking forward to uh next year, see what it brings. Great. Commissioner Martin, I share Mr. Rimfro's remarks. looking forward to the coming year. I think we dealt with a lot of difficult issues last year and um I think it would be in order if we could schedule a work session as soon as possible to maybe get input from the public and staff in terms of things that we might discuss. Yeah, matter of fact, at the end of the the meeting, I have a note to schedule a time, but um uh we can do that any time what dates that we'd like to do that. Probably near the middle of the u of the month of this month

of this month. Well, I think our maybe what our best meeting last year was the July I think our best meeting work session or the work sessions. I think a lot of good good stuff came out of that. Did we get a um yeah uh possibly look at the 27th, 28th or 29th was what Mr. Gre Let's just do this now. Um

you all will have a uh your second meeting of the month I believe on the 22nd. Okay. 28th month. Best date. That's a Wednesday. A day works for me. It's fine with me. Works. Morning or afternoon? Noon. Noon.

Noon. It is on the 28th of our work session. So, if you all want to send uh items you'd like to discuss to Mr. Grub, uh then he can compile a list and we'll try to put them in some type of order for us to for this discussions. I would encourage the public if they have things that they think we need to take up to contact any of us and we can pass it on to Mr. Well, I think that would be hopefully we'll have some um a good turnout from citizens that can come in and right and speak if they wish. Okay, sounds good. Uh Mr. Goo,

I'm just thankful for this overflow crowd we have today. And uh one thing about it, we're well represented legally on the platform today. And so uh but we have a long and lengthy agenda and a lot to be thankful for. I'm looking forward to two of the largest projects in the history of our city uh coming off in the next few years. The wastewater treatment plant and our conference center along with multiple items that are going on in every department. As always, I'm grateful for the knowledge and efforts of all our department heads and our employees who make up our city family, and I'm thankful for you and your efforts and accomplishments in the last year. That's all I have. Great. Um, Chief, we had down to I notice you have given us our statistics here. Uh, can you give us just a brief overview of this? And I think what we'll end up doing is putting this as an agenda item for our work session so we can kind of get a lot of input from citizens and cover from there. But what are we looking at?

Well, we kind of Thank you. Um, we started off with some statistics since October the 20th to the day you all ceased the violations for the holidays. Um in total we had uh 600 violations were issued between that period of time. 493 were issued which did include a warning for the first violation and there was no fine. 129 citations have been issued for subsequent of second, third and fourth offenses and beyond. Um 53 of those citations were issued for 60 or for second offense, 29 for third offense, 47 for fourth, um and beyond. There's there's some other there's some citations that are beyond the fourth. Um just to let you know, there's an additional fine uh $5 added if not paid within 15 days. Um, currently only 44 citations have been paid from within those issued. 22 in person here at the city building. Uh, 22 paid online. Uh, estimated 85 citations have not been paid. Of those, there's 56 that have not paid with fines amounting to $925 that are awaiting payment from eight violators. Um, that's pretty significant and I'll cover that here in just a second. Uh, relatively small number of vehicle plates account for outstanding tickets suggesting repeat offenders. Um, enforcement activity peaked in November representing nearly half of all the citations and to date no hearings have been requested to challenge the violation. um 185 citations in the first month in

October, November netted 293, December 122. Uh less than one quarter of the total fines have been collected, indicating a significant opportunity to improve compliance and revenue recovery. Uh repeat offenders represent a disproportionate share of the unpaid tickets. Um the last discussion was increasing the time limits. Uh from the statistics that we've gathered, I feel like that if we increase the time limits, uh we're only going to create more of an opportunity for the roosting. Um we have non-compliance now for violators. I think that's an opportunity for strategies to take up some of the uh premier parking in, you know, in areas that are that are needed for some of the businesses, which we've we've also heard the positive response to the turnover uh and things related to that. Um the uh um of course increasing the time and and reducing the turnover also goes against what our purpose was in initiating this kind of enforcement. Um if we have to increase the time period we're running into a uh technology problem. uh it's just not a click of a button to change it to 3 hours. Has to go into a whole reprogramming thing in the infrastructure of the company we're dealing with. It also comes into play with some of the problems with some of the citations that we've already issued. So, um I don't think that's very efficient, a very positive way to handle that. Um, we're trying to get, you know, our

motors to comply, trying to educate them. At the same time, uh, our enforcement officer not only dealing with the negativity, but he's also, uh, very positive and trying to educate um, our motorists on what's going on on downtown and the changes. Uh, you can tell how many warnings he's given for, you know, just the first opportunities. Uh we feel like maybe it has has caused some change. Uh but the individuals that are choosing not to comply with the with the fines or the the the penalties involved uh seem to be uh who we've identified as part of the problems. Um we need to keep the current process and begin the next phase. Um we started the citations, started the issuing uh the fines, receiving them back in, but we're at the part of the collecting segment and where we've changed to a parking enforcement um board say or type of enforcement where this doesn't become a criminal offense, it's a civil penalty. um we need to start that process through um notification, through warning letters and other options. And we've been talking to Mr. Wheeler and Corporation council and trying to develop a plan on how that process is going from that point on to try to uh u get, you know, some compliance and people paying for these violations and hopefully change, you know, some of the um some of some of the thinking of what, you know, what parking enforcement is about. Uh changing that behavior. We've also uh kind of thrown some ideas out during our discussions about maybe

involving the businesses that get involved with incentives. And I'll I'll let Mr. Wheeler expand on that.

I I think generally what my recommendation at this point would be is you've got this data. Uh I wouldn't make a you know off-the cuff reaction to it. I'd take it and think about it. You've got a work session coming up that you've now scheduled for the 28th. Think it's a good discussion item. like you said, mayor. Um, so I would I would probably recommend uh you consider maintaining what your current status quo is. Let us come up with some recommendations on what we might be able to propose to you at that uh uh 28th meeting, some options maybe for you to consider. You can gather some public input in the meantime and and come back then.

I think that's right the direction that we want to that we want to take and this will be a good discussion item. We'll we'll get it done then. And just to let you know and your all's action at the meeting that changed for the holidays. Um it will it will go back to enforcement on Monday just through the today.

Yeah. So um he'll he'll get back on the live activities. He was doing other things enforcement parking downtown such as the curbs and the and the loading zones and things that that that doesn't apply to the the timed parking type situation. But uh he will get back to that. So I just want to make sure that that's that's known. Uh but that that has expired. Yes. Yeah, that was that relief I guess was only through today. So but thanks for this and we'll we'll take and study it and then you all can come up with some recommendations that'll help us in our decision making. Thanks, Chief. Okay. All right. Um um

city manager, let me raise a a point. Do we need to uh receive and follow the call letter? Probably. Yeah. I mean, we're we're having a meeting that wasn't scheduled, so we need to deal with the call letter. That's true. And rescheduled the meeting. Okay. Uh take a motion to accept that call letter. I make a motion to accept the call letter and a motion um uh to officially transfer or approve the change of meeting time from 6:00 today to noon today. Second.

Any discussion? Good point. Uh all in favor say I. I. All opposed. Well, we haven't taken any official business yet. No. So, so you got it. you save it. All right. Thank you. It's always good to have have that council. All right. Um let's see. Uh does city manager have a any departmental reports? I I don't believe there's one scheduled for today. Uh so I think there's no city manager report right now.

All right. Um well, we'll move over in public uh uh participation if anyone like to address the uh commission, which I really don't see one. Uh so let's move into old business. Uh item A, Mr. Okay. First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled tabled from December 11th, 2025 regular meeting, an ordinance of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, adopting the housing choice voucher program payment standards for the city of Ashlin Community and Economic Development Department Division of Assisted Housing Section 8 effective January 1st, 2026.

Motion hearing none. So this um this will die. Lack a motion. All right, let's move into our consent agenda. A resolution of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, adopting and authorizing and approving the course of action presented by the city manager on the items appearing on the consent agenda for the regular meeting of the board of safety commissioners of January 8th, 2026. So move. Second. Second. discussion. I go ahead, DJ. Well, I'd like to make a motion to to remove and table item Q. Item which

Q? I think it was the last one, correct? Yes. Page eight. I'll second that. All right. We have a first and a second to remove item Q. Uh, any discussion? All in favor say I. I. All opposed. All right.

I'd like to make a mot comment on item G as where it pertains to the summary. The last sentence. This is the final phase of a multiplephase project. I just like to say thank goodness. It's been five years. those uh people on Dixon Street actually deserve better.

Final phase um additional comments. We have um aside from the condemnation actions and the um concrete work, we have 11 contracts that total over a million and a half dollar 11 million half dollars and payments of $534,798 on the consent agenda. Um, these contracts were entered into at various times. I don't know what the status of the contracts are individually or as a group. I don't know when they were let. I don't know if there's a time frame on them to com be completed. I I would like to see a little more information being provided uh than just putting him on the consent agenda and approving a payment of a of an invoice that's been submitted by an engineer or whomever. We

we got a lot of we got a lot of outside work being done by folks out of our community. We're spending a lot of money and um I think the public needs to know a little bit more about how we're spending the money. I agree. Yep. There. Do that. Um so I think we'll get uh we'll try to get that uh on the next one that we uh next agenda items. Well, can we you know there probably are some we ought to hear something about. in particular ones. We can probably get explanations for those now and where they originated from and how long ago.

Um, so we're so we're clear. I I think maybe just like setting up a form so that we have kind just check boxes on those on a contract situation. You'd like to know start date uh and uh the time frame in terms of completion of the contract. um a general scope of the contract other than just a oneline deal. I mean, I I can, you know, I can read that it's um a safety thing on the roads. Well, that's good,

but what are we going to accomplish by it? And you know, that kind of thing. Um we got a lot of uh a lot of obviously construction work going on. Um, I just I don't have enough information really to approve these things. I'll say this, you know, our uh capital projects meetings have been very insightful on some of these contracts. Uh and I think a a form of um kind of give us giving the commission and the mayor an update u similar to how uh director hall does uh during those capital project meetings would be very uh insightful and very helpful.

Yeah, those are very those were those were very beneficial. So maybe we have kind of an abbreviated um presentation. Both both departmental and and and city engineer engineers have done great jobs when we've asked them to tell us about the project and and I'm not questioning that they haven't gone through these invoices and believe there's justification of payment. I'm not saying that. I just, you know, it's unclear in my mind exactly what we're paying for. Well, when you're not at the beginning of the project, you know, it's like, well, where did that start?

The vast majority of them were contracts awarded before we got on the board. Right. Well, we can work that out. I think um Mr. Hall, if you can kind of put that in the back of your mind to be able to come up with some kind of abbreviated presentation that we can do maybe once a month or to update us. Well, I mean, just a a little when we do the consent agenda, I mean, we have the two guys up here and they kind of sit up and sit down and give about a two-minute thing on each one. That's It's not a big Yeah. Good idea. Good idea. Mayor, I think it's uh you and I this this month for the capital projects meeting. Okay.

So, we're the board representative sitting in and that is a public meeting for anybody that would like to attend. Uh those meetings are are public and are held here in the commission chamber. So, okay, we'll do that. That's a good good deal. I have one other I'll save this for after the Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Any other comments? Okay. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. All right. We'll move into our old business or new business. Or new business. Yeah.

First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky. Approving an approving and adopting an amended cafeteria plan agreement between the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, McGregor, and Associates, Inc. previously adopted by ordinance number 86 series of 2020 and authorizing and directing the mayor to execute in all any and all documents necessary for implementation of said amended plan. So move second discussion all in favor say I. All opposed item B

first reading and approval of ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashlin Kentucky authorizing and directing the mayor to execute an agreement with Neighbors Helping Neighbors Incorporated. the subreient of $300,000 for roof replacement at the neighborhood located at 2516 Carter Avenue from the community development block grant fund. So move second discussion. All in favor say I. All oppose. Abstain. Item C,

first reading and approval of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, authorizing directing the mayor to execute an agreement with Safe Harbor of Northeast Kentucky, the subreient of $660,000 for roof replacement on building number two from the community development block grant fund. So move. Second discussion. All in favor say I. All opposed. Item D.

First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, authorizing and directing the mayor to execute a contract with Lights Enterprises Incorporated for the purchase of all labor, materials, equipment, and services for the demolition and removal of all debris of 42530th Street and 429 30th Street in the amount of $12,000 $450. $12,450 for the Department of Community and Economic Development to be paid from this general fund. Some move. Second. Discussion. All in favor say I. All opposed.

All right. Item E. First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled Ordinance of the City of Ashlin, Kentucky, authorizing and directing the mayor to execute a contract with Lights Enterprises Incorporated for the purchase of all labor, materials, equipment, and services for the demolition and removal of all debris of 924 Prospect Avenue and 934 Prospect Avenue in the amount of 42 uh,898 for the de department of community economic development to be paid from community development block grant funds. So move second discussion. All in favor say I. All opposed. Item F.

Reading adoption of a m municipal order entitled a municipal order of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky authorizing, directing the mayor to execute an auto extrication and rescue mutual aid agreement between the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, Ashlin fire department and boy county emergency medical services. Some move. Second discussion. All in favor say I. I all opposed. Item G.

First reading and approval of ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, repealing ordinance 1522025 which authorized a contract between the city of Ashland and Cosby Construction LLC for the sidewalk replacement project phase three in the amount of $280,716 for the department of engineering. So move second discussion. Does uh the fiscal note here or excuse me the summary says that the construction company was advised unable to obtain performance bond for the project within the aotted time. Do they have that now

uh for the current project? Um I'm not for sure but they were given as part of the notice of award you have 15 days to get your information. They were given 46 days. Okay. So, do we still have this uh $218,000 for replacement from last year to be used? Yes. Yes, that's the next item. And we'll go we'll get a new contract for this work with another contractor. Yes, sir.

Any other discussion? All in favor say I. All opposed. Item H, first reading and approval of ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashland, Kentucky, authorizing and directing the mayor to execute an a construction contract between the city of Ashland and Lighty Construction or Contracting LLC for the sidewalk replacement project phase three in the amount of 327,51260 $327,000 sorry 327,51260 for the Department of Engineering. So move second discussion.

Is this the contract where we just took away from Cosby? And yes, I misspoke earlier. 41. Yeah, I actually have seen they're they're working now on um Ferry Street. So they they've demoed quite a bit of sidewalk and they're moving seems to be fairly quickly. So which is good. I noticed there is a $47,000 difference here. What happened on that? That was We went with the next little spinner. Wow. It's a big difference.

I I think that's probably uh I don't mean to speak for you, Barry, but I think that's probably the reason why engineering was trying to work so um what's the right word? leniently on the timing requirement of of obtaining the bond uh as opposed to enforcing the 15 days. They extended it multiple times to a total of 41. I think that's probably uh Director Atkins, one of your reasons for doing that was because the price difference. I can appreciate that.

All right. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I all opposed item I first reading and approval of ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashlin Kentucky adopting by reference updated procurement regulations for the city of Ashlin Kentucky January 2026 and repealing ordinance number 49 series of 2023. So move second discussion all in favor say I. I.

All opposed I'm J. First reading and approval of ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, amending section two of ordinance number 93 series of 2025 which is commonly known and referred to as the uh fiscal year 2025 2026 budget ordinance of the city of Ashland. Motion so move. Second discussion. Uh wasn't there a $70,000 uh amount for the Salvation Army? Mr. Pullum that

I'll have to go back and check the original. I mean, I think that it had to be worked out with the uh the director in terms of how that was going to be relating to the shelter house. Correct. Yes, sir. There is. We we use the highlights with CDBG because they had like a whole page. So, are we going to do another amendment to add that? It's in your amend. It's in the amendment when we did the fiscal note. It's there. It's just not listed. Is that what you It's not listed because it it was reduced. The 425 and the 70 was added. We just did a highlight of some of it's there. It is there, sir. That's all I ask. All right. All in favor say I. I. All opposed.

Abstain. Item K. Reading and adoption of a resolution entitled a resolution of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, granting corporation council authority to seek and recover unclaimed property from the secretary of state. So moved. Second discussion. All in favor say I. All opposed. I'm L. Reading and adoption of a municipal order entitled a municipal order of the city of Ashlin, Kentucky, authorizing and directing the mayor and Steven Alli, fire chief to execute an agreement between the city of Ashlin Fire Department and Boyd County EMS regarding medical direction for Ashlin Fire Department members certified or licensed by the Kentucky Board of EMS.

So move second. First and second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. All opposed. Item M, the mayor requests the board's concurrence on the appointment of Tracy Rothenstein to the Ashlin Void County Airport Board for a term beginning January 8th, 2026, expiring on January 8th, 2030. So move second discussion. I think this brings us all full board now for that for the Boy County Airport. All in favor say I.

All opposed. Uh I don't believe we need a um executive session. I don't believe there. Um I had a a question about did we uh adopt the increase in the in the payroll tax uh to begin January 1 uh 2026? Yeah, I think so. How how did notice go out to to employers?

Sorry. notice went out to every business that has a current city business license. It was done immediately after all's adoption. We have sent or are in the process sending an additional notice this week to remind people since that was a couple months ago. We're also going to do some um an ad in the paper to let make sure all businesses are aware. But we sent we sent about 2,200 notices out. Was it October? I forget when we adopted it. Any kind of response from anybody?

No, I mean we send them new forms. Um, we'll obviously have new forms, make sure they're up on the website. Um, but we just sent a letter out to everyone and with the forms that they need to submit. One other question. Are we uh utilizing the line of credit? We have not utilized the line of credit since early October. We used it once. It's been September since we've had early September since we've had a utilization of it. And that's outstanding. Well done,

Michelle. Did we notify obviously homeowners when they received their property tax bill? It reflected a a percentage uh decrease. Did we notify homeowners or did we just rely on the bill to be a notification? I think we relied on the bill to be a notification to be honest with you. I do not remember. I think that we um we put it out maybe on social media then, but I apologize. It's been so long ago. Could a note be put on the uh the bill when it goes out that this has been reduced? It went out and Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the next one or

Well, it Well, I mean, it was I I don't really know. It was I mean was a red It was reduced but it was reduced as part of the setting the property tax rate I think. Isn't that right? It was it was okay and then notification that this board voted to decrease sanitation rates as well. Yes, I do believe that they they've done they've done that collection of the garbage. Yeah. Yes.

Collection. Um and we will uh we'll re we'll reiterate that um when we when we do the occupational tax in the year review and we're also um hoping to present the audit next meeting. So um the auditor will show the changes in the revenue and our revenue structure. When are we going to start discussing the budget for this? That was my question

uh work session. I hope to give you all a financial overview in the work session. Uh the timing is perfect. We'll have the independent auditor um come in and speak at your meeting and then we'll do a um the mayor's going to do a year in review and we've worked on talking points for that and I will have talking points at the work session. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity that we have the the work sessions like we do and that we're going to start budget session early. uh that gives uh more citizens time to give their input as well as our department staff and uh elected officials. So

yes, I uh we we started it November this year. It's the earliest I think we've started in my career. So we will have more time to work on it and to make informed decisions and see what the citizens want and what you all want for the next year to shape our city for the next year. Well, you know, for what we've done positively in the in the past year sets us up to really to be able to do some positive things for this coming year and excited to let everybody know. Yes. And as Mr. Martin said, we do have a lot of uh items going on, especially with capital, and we've uh we've we've took plans that we had in place and we're actually getting them done and finishing things.

It's exciting. Thank you. It is. It is very good. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, we stand adjourned.