City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to Athens City Council. This evening we will be meeting in council committees. The meeting will be called to order by the city council president who will then pass discussion over to a respective committee. The chair of the committee will introduce the discussion topics and provide an overview of the issues at hand. If needed, members of the administration will offer brief statements to provide further context. We will then welcome input from the community. Any citizens who wish to speak will be asked to state their name and address both verbally and on the signin sheet located at the podium. Individuals will be given one opportunity to share their thoughts and the committee chair will have the authority to limit each speaker to three minutes. Once all citizens have had the opportunity to speak within the 15minute time period allotted for total public participation on each topic, the public comment portion will be closed. Council committee members will then continue their deliberations. There may be additional questions directed to the administration during this time. When the discussion on the topic concludes, the chair will indicate whether legislation will be introduced at the next regular session of council and move on to the next item on the agenda or adjourn the committee if their work is complete. The next committee chair will then call their committee to order, proceeding in the same manner as before. Once all committees have adjourned, city council will conclude for the evening. Heat. Heat.

Good evening and welcome to Athens City Council. Uh today is April 13th and we are in committees this evening. We will begin with the committee of the whole which will feature a presentation by the affordable housing commission on their annual report. and we'd like to thank Sulves Bilz uh for being here this evening. Former council member and dedicated civic servant and we will turn things over to you.

Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it and it's kind of fun to be back and look at you guys again from this angle. Um so obviously it's April and we were hoping to do this in December. So I am just going to be talking about for the Affordable Housing Commission what we did from January to December. Um, we'll save the other stuff until next December, which we hopefully we c we can present earlier. But the other thing I'm going to do today is talk about the um talk about the the rental inspection processes subcommittee because we're we're supposed to give a quarterly report. So, I'm kind of combining those two. That means that I'm going to kind of condense some things that I wish I could talk about it more broadly, but I want to be respectful of the council's time. So, um this is uh that's me for those of you who don't know. And um for my goals, I want to present the mission history and accomplishments, discuss our committee's goals and tasks, report on progress, discuss future directions, and as I said, talk about the rental inspection process subcommittee. I want to be really clear here that one of the things that's very important about our commissions, any commission, is that we are an advisory group to the city administration. And one of the ways that we can save money, I think taxpayers money is by giving the commissions um tasks to do so that we can help do some leg work for the city and uh provide informed information to help make good decisions. So anyway, I think that's the reason that commissions are there. Okay. Uh the mission of the affordable housing commission is it says city government established review best practices investigate

community affordable housing models and identify needs and opportunities within Athens city limits to advance decent, safe, sustainable, affordable housing for all residents. The commission is tasked with providing advice and guidance on measures and policies that influence access to and needs within the local housing market. And we want to be really clear that this is not just lowincome housing. It's housing for all segments of the community. So with that in mind, I'm going to proceed. Okay. The purpose is quite broad. The uh purview that we were given from the beginning was quite broad. Zoning plan and implementation, fire, police and safety services, recreational services, housing code and enforcement services. This is all in the original ordinance. Athens city transit, streets and parking services, utility services, existing programs and needs. So um again, acts as a liaison between members of community and local government. Respond to questions from the public, local government and community. consult with city officials, council citizens and institutions of Athens in implementing special projects, etc., etc. Provide information. We have 11 voting members. We did from the start. There are seven appointed by city council and then there is a mayoral representative, a not confirmed by council, an OU representative, again appointed, and a city council representative. So, we have a lot of members. There's a lot we could accomplish. These are the names of the members. Uh I'm doing this report today because I was the pres uh the chair of the affordable housing commission for the last couple of years and Shay Myers who's now the current uh chair could not be here. So uh he allowed me to do this. As you know um Alan Swank is now our liaison and he's sitting there ready for to help us out. Okay. Uh some of the

things that we did this year, and again I'm trying to condense this pretty carefully, contribute to the westside spring cleanup. There was a lot of very cool cleanup on the west side and along the uh along the bike path. And then uh we added the rental inspection processes subcommittee via resolution. We provide input to the welcome home and the vacant property ordinance that did end up uh passing and and coming to fruition. uh clean up and add to the Affordable Housing Commission website. And we're working on expanding collaboration to fulfill projects and goals. So, you can't get stuff done if you're not talking to the community organizations that do stuff, right? So, we're trying to expand our I guess uh our contacts and build relationships so that we can accomplish more. Okay. Another thing we did was we felt that part of what we do is to provide information in our meetings. So we had Andrew Chicky talking about the welcome home and and vacant property ordinance. Rob Dillich uh the BCA chair spoke about um uh STRs and Rosefreck talked about integrative services and discussed HUD rules. So this is part informing the committee the commission but also hopefully informing the community. And of course, this is all filmed. So, uh, Ken Aers, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity, uh, for this region, talked about their work and new housing plans, and they're doing a lot, which I've been observing and and talking to them about. Zack Richus, um, he's a consultant, and he explained how land trusts work, which is something that we think is a good direction for us going forward. Um, we'd like to look more into that. We had Jeff Woda and Chris Lrand the Woda Cooper Group talk about what LITC really is and about their company and how they function. We

also talked to had Danny Tahini who spoke about tiny homes and how they could possibly be something we could consider in the future. Okay, we have four committees. These are standing committees that have been uh again part of the original ordinance. The executive committee, that's obvious. Communications committee kind of obvious. New development, you know, new housing. what are some ideas? And of course, um, Megan Jennings is on that as the leader in planning. And then the neighborhood revitalization committee, which is, you know, like the cleanups and all those kinds of things. And, uh, we put the rental inspection processes subcommittee under that. It seemed to fit. So, uh, communications committee and ongoing work to provide new links and correct missing and inaccurate information on our website, make our website more accessible and easier to navigate, and also total transparency on our project work so that anything that we're working on that's relevant, it's on it's viewable by the public um, under the uh, and under the website. So, we also we talked about accessory dwelling units and uh that might be a possibility in the future. I know that Megan is looking at that as a possibility under the comprehensive plan. Short-term rentals. Uh we decided after much discussion to stay the course for now because of some state legal things that may be changing. Uh we as I said contributed to the welcome home Ohio uh discussion. And then another idea that's being floated is creating a shared and intergenerational housing program. Again, just early discussion if we want to add interesting new housing models. This is something that's happening around the country and there's a a great interest particularly among seniors to share their homes. So that's that's another piece of it. Um, I'm a

member of the uh senior housing group that is talking about housing at the ridges, but also in other ways around the community for housing as well as for programming for seniors. And so that is part of what I think we can possibly contribute to. Okay. The neighborhood revitalization committee, as I said, uh we collaborated with the Westside Community Association to expand porch fest and, you know, cleanups. So, um, they, uh, they did a number of different kinds of cleanups and whatnot, which was really quite impressive. The Westside Community Association has really taken fire and is doing a lot of great stuff. Thank you in part to Megan. Appreciate that. All right. Um, summer beautifification days. Uh, again, we collaborated to conduct the cleanup days on the west side and along the bike path. the vacant property ordinance which I mentioned earlier. Um I think that will be a help to our community and add some more housing. So getting to the rental inspection process subcommittee. Uh the resolution was passed by city council at the time um in September for a one-year ad hoc group. We have seven members with three appointed. Uh, our purpose is to review rental code inspection and complaint processes to enhance efficient and effective code compliance and rental unit safety to address goals in the city's comprehensive plan. And as I mentioned, we put everything that we have as we clean it up on the city's one drive folder so that anybody can view what we're looking at. Okay. Our goals are to present informed recommendations all rental housing in Athens to be structurally and functionally safe. again based on our recommendations hopefully as we go along because I've been talking to Tom Pile about this that um we don't want to present anything that the city doesn't feel comfortable that they can input. So this is trying

to be a true collaboration with the city in trying to get some some things done. Uh okay our research team has three PhDs, one student member along with volunteer statisticians and IT experts. So we have not only the seven members, we have several people that are volunteering to help in some phase or another. University people, volunteers, landlords have said they want to contribute. And by the way, I've been very impressed with the extent to which landlords have been very engaged. I have yet to talk to a landlord who's unhappy about this project. And we have a of all the emails that that the city has has for the landlords and property managers is around 500 some um we have a 30% response rate which is fantastic. Um so I'm very pleased that this is moving along quickly. We have about 430 so far uh tenant responses and um we're actively hoping to get a lot more. The more the better obviously. Uh so collecting and analyzing code office data for inspection. We have a statistician who's doing a fabulous job looking at that and efficiency strategies looking at workflow and IT solutions and cost containment again with Tom Pile and you know the code office. you know, what what do they see and how can we look at um their thoughts about it and how we can incorporate those into any changes. Uh we had meetings with Ohio University to look at some off-campus housing uh strategies. Uh they've incorporated some changes into their um their portal for students and we're looking at other possible ways that we can inform students who are new to being a renter uh to uh do a better job or understand their rights and and

responsibilities. We have interviewed the public health department, the um AMHA, the fire department, uh other folks, and we're looking at best practices around the state and anywhere that we hear that's they have some good stuff. So, we have distributed the surveys again. Um we plan to clean the data. We have a professor volunteer who wants to clean the data in the summertime. And then we're looking to analyze the data in August and September and then prepare the report from October to November and present the report in December. We might have to change that a little bit depending on some realities being that Tom Pile is new um and he may want to extend that, but we're going to see how we can work with what we have. Okay, some other quick things before I I'm done. uh project co-create, as you know, the uh Sunset Motel is going to be transformed into the Sunset Shelter. Uh they're still working on it. However, because prices have changed, uh their construction bids have topped their funding caps. So, they're trying to look at best new steps. Can they scale back? Can they get additional funding? You know, what kinds of strategy they're using? They're also looking at, although that's kind of delayed, too, is kind of programming for the folks that stay there. So, it's coming. It's just run into some pitfalls, unexpected pitfalls. Uh, I also am, like I said, part of the ridges uh discussion and uh it's coming along well. So, just real quickly, of course, you know, they're maintaining the conser conservation land, the recreation for public use. uh leverage vacant space and develop a land to meet market housing needs, create opportunities for flexible commercial and artist lofts. So, they're looking at some restaurants in there, artist lofts at a reasonable price. Uh the transfer

to the new community authority is expected this summer. It's finally finally looks like coming together and then they're looking at construction along Dair Lane to start as early as 2026. So, and part of that, as I mentioned earlier, is senior housing options, um, which could be along Dair Lane. And there's also, so rentals, luxury housing, condos for seniors, a whole range of different so that it's a mixeduse thing plus some commercial and artist lofts. It's very exciting and it could be about 700 housing units. So, this is a great time to look at how we're inspecting rentals because we're going to have a whole lot more.

Yeah. coming up not that long from now. So getting an idea of what's up is important. Future plans exploring ideas based on mission goals and purposes which I articulated earlier. develop a menu of short and long-term house uh housing strategies and develop more collaborations and trying to get some more uh committees under the affordable housing commission to do some of the le leg work so that uh there's more people engaged in the process which I think people really want to have their voices heard with these things. Thank you very much. I'm probably over 10 minutes. I apologize but anyway uh if you have any questions we can quickly do that.

Thank you Dr. Spielz for your service and for that of this commission. Uh we start our commission our committee meetings with comment from administration and then we move to the public and then to council. So first if we have any questions or comments from Mayor Patterson. No comment. And do we have any questions or comments on this presentation from members of the public this evening? Seeing none at the moment, we'll move to council. Uh council members who have questions or comments for Dr. Spielz member Claude. I think it's just tremendous that there could be as many as 700 new housing units at the ridges. That is just great and I look forward to learning more about that as things progress. It's finally looking like it might actually happen.

That's really good. Yeah. Member Sherwood. Yeah. I want to thank again. It's really great to see the work of this commission moving forward. One of the things you had in there and I I don't know if I missed you talking about there was discussion of considering the creation of a landlord network. I wonder if you could elaborate on what that would look like and what that the thought behind. Well, that's been very successful in Columbus

and um let me just say that we're exploring whether there's interest down there out out and it's a question on our survey. Would you be interested in landlord survey uh network? And we went to the university and they were a little uncomfortable about trying to initiate that. But if it's if it's something that's kind of springs up from folks who care about it. So we're thinking like the landlords can share ideas, share problems. That's what they do up in Columbus. What are some of the things you're facing? What are the things that you're looking at? What are some grants we might uh do to, I don't know, help with sustainability, for example? Uh what are some issues that we all share that we would like to advocate for? So, you know, I it's it's a possibility. And then going to the university and the city and asking for information um and giving comments, I think is something that at least some of the landlords we've looked at and talked to are interested in. Okay.

And like I said, working great for a long time up in Columbus. Thank you, member Sherwood. Other questions or comments from council members? All right. Seeing none, that concludes our report. Oh, Mr. Mayor,

I would like to add something. Um, uh, I was in Germany at the beginning of March, and one of the things I found to be rather fascinating there was they have a a A through G as opposed to A through F rating system when it comes to rental units. and it it's they're rated upon energy efficiency, which to me was super intriguing and it's something that I'm going to start with my staff thinking through how we can do this. Um, what was fascinating about it was in terms of your rental permit cost, if you're an A or you're a a B rating, you know, you're the high end of energy efficiency, you've got, you know, double or triple pane windows, you have the proper insulation, you've got a heat pump, you've got whatever in your rental unit, which if you think about it, is driving down the costs either for the landlord who's just tacking that on the rental permit or the rental rate for the the individual renting. Or if you're like me where in my first 10 years of life here in the city of Athens, I was a renter renting houses and it was me that had to pay the utilities on those electric, water, I mean you said utilities, but I was, you know, electric was one of the bigger ones and the gas bill, which isn't a city utility. And so if you rate at an A, the current rental permit fee is around 150 175 somewhere in that range, right? If you if you are a truly energy efficient unit, your this is an option. This is this potential. So just hear that and it would require council working with me on this. your rental

permit rate uh your rental permit cost per year could be much less. On the other hand, if you rate as a D or an F on that, which means you've got poorly glazed windows, single pane windows, you have aged um uh insulation in that facility, you've got a HVAC system that is 20, 30, maybe 40 years old. Who knows how old? um hot water heaters would be in part of this scorecard for a unit that your rental permit rate could be substantially higher um as a way in which to help the renter who is renting this unit when it comes to their utilities. Um you know it was mentioned about Welcome Home Ohio. You know, one of the things I lobbied really hard with the Welcome Home Ohio homes that we're going to build here in Athens is again, they're going to price at about $180,000 for a qualified purchaser. But those homes, I've al also said they will have solar on that home. that solar will be behind the meter to where, you know, we we make sure that the home owner recognizes that with that solar, you know, because they're going to be buying the house with solar on it, that that's driving down their energy cost, too. So, it's it's um basically kind of helping them with understanding um financial fluency um and understanding, okay, my electric bill is lower because I've got behind the meter solar going into this house as well, you know, financial literacy with the household. So there's things that that we're really starting to explore, but I have to say that trip to Germany just

was an eye openener to me to sit there and think, you know, we in the US are doing things vastly different and somewhat antiquated in comparison to what our international partners are doing. And so I just want to throw that out there to where there's there's a multitude of things that we can be doing and pulling some levers that would one help someone who is, you know, renting to get, you know, to the point in which they have savings enough to invest in a home or a firsttime homeowner. Um the the other thing with the the ridges complex, I mean that that is a a trip that we took to Traverse City, Michigan. They have a Kirkbride building up there. Um that that's the exact same building with some others that are a little bit different. Um some things we've lost, some things they retained. Uh but they have um the same structure to where you've got the retail, you've got the housing, you've got senior housing, you've got wraparound services for some of the um assisted living complexes. Um we still have a long ways to go on that to see this come to fruition, but you know, Joe Reie um is the person who's already come before council before and and uh we'll be hopefully getting things moving forward in the not too distant future as soon as the the state signs off on the the final transfer of this land to to become a reality. But yeah, it it it will be a game changer. Um, there will also be new homes that are on Dair Lane, which I think council recognizes that'll be much like the houses that'll be at the end of Hudson Street. Um, to where there will be some modular homes, some uh, uh, townhouse style houses that are down on Dair Lane and especially now since we've just got that sidewalk to finally make that a fully accessible corridor. Um, which will help with the Clemhouse.

It'll help with the 317 board and Dr. Wood that Diane FAF who's she's amazing. She'll make this all work. But there's going to be I think you're going to we're going to see some really interesting things moving forward when it comes to some housing options in the city. I will share this with council, too. I just learned this when I was at another meeting just last week. Uh I'm a little I'm not punchy. Uh I'm I'm operating on an hour and a half sleep because I just came back from Riverside, California from another conference, the Accelerator for America conference. And one of the things that was fascinating there was the whole conversation about um ADUs. And uh a lot of what I was listening to where accessory drilling units are um are I think they're really interesting if done well. What I learned was that a lot of cities like Chattanooga, um, uh, Kansas City was another city, um, there was a number of cities to where one of the things they identified was when they went through the process of establishing ordinances to allow for them that there weren't a whole lot of takers. And so I'm just sharing this with council because it's something I think we all need to kind of think through is when you think about in particular a new ADU that might be built on the property, you know, or even if it's a carriage house that has serviced as a garage for a long long time. It may have electric running to that carriage house, but does it have water and sewer and sewer in particular? And so that that's what a lot of cities are experiencing right now is they've gone down this road and all of a sudden they realize no one's taking no one's biting at this because wait a minute I've got to put water to this unit. I've got to provide sewer to this unit. Now that can be tapped into the stack. There's there's ways in which you can do that. But uh again I'm not saying that that we

shouldn't be looking at this. I think we need to be smart in in understanding and hearing what our counterparts across the nation are seeing and hearing and going okay um it's better to learn from their mistakes rather than us just sit there and continue the wheel of of saying okay we're going to go ahead and create AED or AUDs uh ADUs in the city of Athens and not thinking through is there a tap fee associated with that new unit um you know are they going to be able to financially afford the sewer and the water and electric in some cases, you know, if it's a new build in your backyard if it's permissible and acceptable.

Thank you. We uh really appreciate the additional kind of national perspective that you've shared in kind of your own thinking as mayor on where we might uh see future housing opportunities. Uh Dr. Spielz, did you want to respond to any of that before we move on? No, I just want to make a quick note that um we can start the process of resoning. there's some reasonzoning like right away rather than waiting until the pass it's passed to the new community authority. That's what we that's what we heard so we can then make this all go faster.

Thank you again for joining us this evening. Uh that concludes our presentation on the affordable housing commission and we'll now move on to our second agenda item for the committee of the whole a discussion of council rule 28 regarding committee meetings. Uh when we are discussing council rules, this typically um is just a council discussion and we occasionally recognize that our procedures uh in practice have fallen out of sync with our written council rules. And I'll begin by sharing that our law director who also serves as our parliamentarian uh months ago in helping us uh transition to a new policy under which we could our new practice I should say now getting codified potentially uh have votes and motions during committee meetings. That's typically not something that has happened in the past, but on occasion, we have found that there may not be clarity uh with regard to how much support there is from committee members for an item to move from the committee to the full council for discussion and potential first reading. So, I'm going to begin by reading the uh current language. Actually, I'll just go with the um revised language proposed by the law director. The first section that's unchanged is an introduction that says, "All meetings shall meet the requirements of the Sunshine Law and be open to the public. Each standing committee shall meet on an as needed basis on the second and fourth Mondays of the month. No committee meeting shall immediately precede a regular session of council without prior approval of the president of council. Each committee meeting is required to keep minutes of each meeting. Notice of special committee meetings. Time and place must be given to the clerk in with at least 24 hours of advanced notice. In the first section of this rule, we have one change in the first sentence and it reads, "Any subject matter brought before the city council shall first be

referred to the proper committee chair or official by the president and that committee chair or official shall forward copies of all materials to be considered at the next committee meeting to each member of the committee by 4 p.m. on the Friday before the committee meeting. What that adds is just that the uh council uh may have the committee chair or the council president be informed uh of those uh requests. The second sentence under number one reads, "If the matter requires considerable time and study for completion, such committee chair or official shall advise council members of progress or such study at least every other regular session of council until the subject matter is completed by official action or council action. After the first meeting of a new term of council, the president of council through the clerk of council shall review and assign all unresolved assignments to the appropriate committee. There are no changes to the second section which reads, "When any person is about to address a committee, they shall request permission from the committee chair. No debate, disrespectful, disrespect or obscenities shall be tolerated. The committee chair shall rule any such individual out of order. Individual members of the public shall be permitted to speak only one time per committee topic. Each speaker will be limited to a maximum of three minutes with a limitation of 15 or sorry uh yeah 15 minutes for each public participation per topic unless permission to extend the time has been granted by the committee chair. Uh this next section is where we have the most significant changes and uh that reads upon completion of discussion of each item the chair will ask if there are any objections to forwarding the item to council to the full council. If there is an objection the chair will ask for a vote and this is where we have the latest change in this next sentence. Um, if a vote is

2 to one,

2:1 or 2:2 uh is received, the item will move forward. If an objection receives a majority vote of 3 to one, the item will remain in committee until the next meeting. And if it is not placed on the next committee agenda, the chair shall provide an update. If the item is not returned to the committee agenda within 60 days of the date it was first introduced, it will be deemed as dying in committee. And there are no changes to the final section which reads, "As a matter of protocol, no proposed changes. As a matter of protocol and courtesy, complaints from members of council concerning any department or city government should be first made to the mayor or the elected official involved before the same are brought before or entertained by council. Again, with our uh committee of the whole, we just limit that discussion uh traditionally to council members. And if the rule pertains specifically to a public engagement topic, that might change. But right now, I would like to open it to council members for comments on the proposed changes from the law director.

Who'd like to start? I I'll start. Okay. Member Thomas.

I like what what we came to this uh in this discussion with asking if there's an objection and then deciding then that we would need a vote. Um, we tried it with voting and it I know I certainly struggled with remembering that but but it was a little clunky but this is basically if there's an objection then we make sure there's enough of a majority objection and uh otherwise it'll go forward automatically as it has in the past. Um, my only concern would be if it does not move on to the next committee agenda that it will die at 60 days and that we don't have any a mechanism that requires it to be brought forward again in some way because maybe it just needed a little more work or some more questions. Um, but it would be pretty easy for that to be pushed back and then die in committee.

Or maybe I'm reading that too deeply. No. Thank you for getting the discussion started. Member Thomas, if anyone has a response or other comments, we'll entertain those now. Member Wood,

um, can I ask a point of clarity on on your note? Sure. Um from from reading between the lines, uh can you make explicit what the uh parliamentarian is saying here uh in as far as uh one uh the recommendation that we rely on votes as needed. Um yeah, I'm just trying to read between the lines of of what what is being said here. Yeah, I um and if I don't capture that in this response, feel free to rephrase, but uh essentially we have noticed that at times it's unclear whether a committee's discussion has resulted in enough support for an agenda item or committee item to move to council for full discussion. And uh the default with this proposal is for it to move to council unless someone objects. And it's not just one person. uh it has to be a majority of the committee that would offer an objection before it would officially not go to full counsel. And we've been uh trying to establish some clarity around when things are ready to move from committee to full counsel with voting uh this term in particular, but it was not a prior practice. So, we want to make sure that our rules are reflecting what's been happening recently. And

yeah, sorry just a secondary is is the recommendation that we do pursue this or that we leave it alone? Uh we would our current rules don't call for any motions or votes during committee meetings. So these changes would make it uh make our rules say that when we want to decide if something is moving from committee to council, we will give the opportunity for someone to object. Uh, and if there are a majority of objections from committee members, then it wouldn't come to full counsel. No, I get that. I'm saying is the law director recommending that we that we do this or not? Yes. The uh what council members received and reviewed and read are the law director's recommendation? Yeah.

Member Swank.

Oh boy. Couple things. U it's really tough to have this discussion this evening without the law director here. um because we're not uh able to ask questions as to uh the background, the reasoning, the process that she went. This is not a legal opinion because this is not a legal matter. Uh legal matters are things that come before council where we vote on things that affect the public uh either their uh quality of life here in the town or their purse. Uh but this is a rule uh thing. I I guess uh the first thing I said would like to say is um we have loosely adopted um some committees more than others and as member Thomas says it takes a little bit of getting used to and I realize that it's something new for this council uh as is our procedure for how we do things for those of us on council last year we're sitting here one day and all of a sudden this man who nobody knows who is is speaking to us telling us what the new rules are

um so it takes a while to get used to these things but now when we finish a committee meeting and we had a committee meeting two weeks ago uh the committee chair after the discussion appears to be have wrapped up and everyone's given their opportunity to speak asked can I have a motion to uh move this on to and we get a second and there's a vote and I looked at the last council meeting and that whole process took on average 10 seconds so it's not a matter of saving time if that's a consideration here what it does is formalize a process and uh I think at least in forms of planning and development it has worked very well um and that that the that the committee makes an official stance, takes an official vote before we pass it on. And I guess my my question to my fellow council members, do they feel that the current system isn't working?

Member Bard,

I guess I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not working, but I do find it kind of cumbersome and um busy. It just seems busy in the committee meetings. I like this idea that if there's not an objection that it just goes forward, but if there is an objection, then a vote is taken. I don't think anybody's trying to get rid of voting entirely in um committee meetings. But I personally don't see the need to like if a committee has six items before it to vote six times. Just seems a bit I don't know in Spanish there's a word pesado right a bit heavy like a bit cumbersome whereas maybe um you know who knows but in a scenario I could see there maybe only being a need to vote on one of them if there's an objection on one

or two or what have you. Thank you member Cloudfelder. Um, remember Staser, we haven't heard from you yet. To me, it just seems like an automatic walk in baseball now, right? You don't have to throw four pitches anymore. Just do like that and walk somebody, right? Like I don't see a big issue with going this route, especially if the law director recommends it. And I do love football, so thank you for your metaphor. That was basically just

Okay. All right. Let's go to member Wood. I mean, you I guess and I hear what member Swank saying is the is there need to change. I'm comfortable if this is what the law director prefers and it feels that it would be more efficient um and it requires committee members will if they do have an objection to voice that um but I'm not sure I I'd love to hear the the 31 and the 22. So if you have situation where oh now it's that is an error. It should be 2 one or 22 indicating that there need to Oh, sorry. Oh, yes.

But so I if a vote of two but if if the committee is split two to two, how could you say that there's consensus of support on the committee to move that forward? Yeah. Uh yeah, it doesn't sound like that's saying consensus. It would say that would read that uh if two out of four then there were there was half the committee members who were supporting it to move forward and this would read uh that it would move forward based on that uh and that's 22. Mhm. But it says if a vote then of 22 is received the item will move forward. Yes. Mhm. Based on this. But but that's not a majority. Yes. So you're right. This is uh 50% or more would be what moves it forward based on these recommendations. You're reading that correctly.

Yeah. uh member Thomas and then back to member swing. So the point would be that to keep something from going forward to full counsel, you would need a majority to say we don't want it to go forward. Okay. But keeping it as we're split and we need more voices or we fully we have a 3-1 that it should go forward. Basically, if it's not a 3-1 against, it's going to be a 314. Um it basically says if it needs more discussion, it will go forward and we're comfortable with it. And if we're split, we need more input. Um but if everybody like 40 or 30 or 30 uh1 didn't think it was ready to move forward then it would stay. Okay. Majority would just you know so it's a different the way we're currently doing it. You required to have a majority to move it forward.

Correct. Which would suggest that there is support. Yeah. In the committee and there's no real it's a nuance but I'm not sure. But there's no dealing with the two two aspect of it which means if it wasn't a majority then it just stayed in committee indefinitely with no real rules around it or one two. Um let's go to member swank and the member wood. Thank you member Thomas. So another sports analogy. Last Monday night member Claude Felder proudly referenced the fact that the NCAA men's basketball championship was being played in Indianapolis home state. Yep.

Had that game ended 70-7 tied, the game would not be over. They would go into overtime. In other words, they would have further discussion until the end of that first fiveminute period. One team or the other had at least one more vote, at least one more point than the other. And if it was tied at the end of that overtime, they would have five more minutes of further discussion. Uh I mentioned to uh member Ishawwood last week that uh the idea of in any objections, none, move it forward was a very workable thing and I still believe that. I don't necessarily believe that we have to have a vote on everything. I do like the formality of it. I have a great deal of difficulty with two two moving something forward because that is not a majority. I can't find of an elect I can't think of an elected body in these United States at any level where lack of a majority is an affirmative to move something forward. To confirm that, I got no horn today. I talked to three different school board members in three different districts in the state of Ohio. I talked to a magistrate and I talked to an attorney and all five of them, both registered Republicans and registered Democrats, not a partisan response, said no, you got to have a majority, but to move something forward and each of our elected, meaning them, each of their elected bodies, you have to have a majority to move something forward. It's called 50% plus one. 50% plus one. For example, if we had a vote on a statewide basis for an issue such as the uh property tax repeal and

it came out dead even after recount after recount after recount, it would not go into effect. If there were only six of us here in this body and we were voting on an ordinance and the final result was three to three, it wouldn't move on. However, our rules stipulate that in case of a tie, the president of council breaks that tie. If the president of council would ver vote in the affirmative, it would move on. So, if we're doing that in our meetings here already in the regular sessions, it seems to me that for something to move out of committee, it too should require a majority vote of that committee.

Thank you, member Swank. Um me, do I I'll go to Member Thomas unless I have someone to my left who I missed who's wanting to get into the discussion.

Okay, back to you, Member Thomas. Um, I disagree first because the purpose, at least in my opinion, of committees is to flesh out details to have some discussion, not to withhold things from full counsel, which is how it's been used in the past. Um, the purpose of a a 22 just shows that we don't have enough in input between four people on the discussion and that we should involve the rest of the council who are all elected officials. We're not passing anything, adopting anything, or giving permission for anything. We're simply doing the initial steps of an ordinance and gathering information and talking about it. Um, we're not yanging or naying really anything. I would be fine with having a vote, but I do think that having an even a split vote with it doesn't need a tiebreaker because it's not passing anything. It just needs to move forward for more discussion. Um, I guess in the basketball reference overtime council full counsel would be our overtime then. If we it's 77 at the end of regulation, then you go to overtime and full council is our overtime. We could go with a lot of sports here. But I think it needs more discussion and it keeps because if it just stays in committee, then we would have to have a whole another number I guess a number three and then a number four, make four, number five because then I would want restrictions on how long it stays in committee and how long it gets it's sitting there. We've had instances where it's sat for six or seven months because of a single person and I don't really want to see that anymore. It's not working at state and federal level and I really refuse to have it happen at local level.

With that uh and council members will still have opportunities to comment but uh thinking of our specific scenario tonight where we're we're not talking about committees of four. We're talking about the committee as a whole and uh at the end of this discussion we'll need some sense of what we want to have happened here. If uh a majority of council members were to indicate that they felt that the law director's proposed revisions to this rule are worth uh formally voting on by all of council, then we would have a motion and a second. And if there was a majority vote, it would move to uh to our reg next regular session for a full vote by council. Um, and if we had four individuals of four members of the seven council um, object, uh, then it would move forward. But I'm curious if council members have specific questions about how this would play out in practice. Member Swank, I keep hearing the law director's proposal. without the law director here. I don't know if this is the law director's proposal or if it the law director saying if you're going to do this, this is some suggested language. And I guess I would like to take up this discussion when the law director is here. And I know she's not required to be at at uh committee meetings, so no disparaging the law director here, but I would like to take this up when the law director is here when we can ask those questions. I would also uh yeah, and I I that's what I would like to do. Um, so I guess what I'm saying is, uh, I'm not real comfortable with a vote tonight without a clear definitive set of answers from the law director as to how we got to this document that we're looking at today.

Okay. So, what I'm hearing from member Swank is that rather than voting on the proposed language itself, uh, additional information about context and rationale uh, would be appreciated. Um, member Wood I uh I have some language issues in it. I mean I don't really have deep heartburn one way or the other. I think the language of if there's an objection, if a vote is 3-1, the item moves forward and then it says if an objection receives a vote of 31, the item will remain in committee.

Um and so like that language seemed poorly worked. It doesn't have a solution for if it's a one two vote. uh doesn't say what happens, you know, if there are fewer than four members, uh, etc. I mean, it just the language itself doesn't seem very good. So, I'm hearing from member Wood that there may be u some amended amendments that he'd be interested in seeing to this number. Yes, we did correct uh um the specific point that you made one instead of 31. I don't understand why there would be a 2-1 vote. somebody's absent uh or someone has to recuse themselves. There's just a typo in the first 31.

Sure. I guess it just still doesn't make sense. The if a majority is received, it'll move forward and it says if the objection receives a majority, it remains. It just seems it's it's unclear. Um if there's an objection, the voters receive 3-1, it moves forward. If the objection receives 3-1, it stays. Yeah, it it's the language says the same thing. Same resolution for both sentences. No matter it'll always move forward. Only made it through pre-law, but further than I would. Okay. All right. And member Thomas,

um I think we could work on the wordiness of it. I guess I would just clarify that the reason this came up is because for my first two years of council, I thought about this and I thought about it before I came on to council and after the first 18 months or so, I asked the law director, can we do this? How would you recommend doing this? Came up with some language and sent it to her as a proposal or an idea and asked her, you know, do you think this is reasonable? and to and she worked with the language that I had sent with her her view as to how it should be handled. Um, and agreed, you know, that obviously agreed that this would be what she would suggest if we went with this. Um, and I think just for what member Wood's saying, if there's an objection, then we vote, but if there's not an objection, we wouldn't vote at all. So, if they said nobody's, if she said, is there any objection? One person says yes, I have an objection, then we do a formal vote. If there's no objection raised, then it just automatically moves forward, which prior to this January, everything was supposed to just go forward and had for decades, just automatically went from committee to full counsel with no lag in between. And so when that wasn't happening as often, that's when it kind of started coming up. And that's really the background.

Thank you, Member Thomas. We'll move to Member Swink and then we'll move toward closing this discussion for the evening. Well, I appreciate Miss M Miss uh member Thomas's um explanation there because uh she very clearly stated this was not something that the law director came up with. This was a response from requests from her and this was the language that came out of that. So, I hope the city council members realize this is not something that originated with the law director and therefore changes a little bit of the nuance to it, which further um makes me think that we uh probably need to get the law director in here to get some clarity on this. We can't obviously subpoena her this evening, but uh in a regular meeting when she's here and we're all here, uh I I think this would be a very good topic for conversation.

All right. may uh request some specific recommendations for moving forward. For instance, council members may indicate their preference for asking the law director to attend a future committee meeting uh where this could be discussed or council members could recommend we take a vote on the language as proposed this evening, which would result uh in an opportunity for people to raise objections. And if four or more raised objections, then it would not move forward. Um, if fewer than four raised objections, then it would move to our next regular session. Member Cler,

I like the idea of um, if the law director is available of inviting her to come to a committee meeting because I think it would be good to have more discussion on this before we get to a vote. To that end, I would move uh, that we do exactly what member Claude Felchure said. I am just in the process of checking in with other council members, but we have had a motion. Um, member Thomas, what were you going to say? I was going to say that I would ask I would say that I would like to put this forward next week for the very purpose of what we're hearing right now. All right. Um, and already having heard a motion from member uh, Swank and then uh, that same sentiment approved by member Claude Potter and Thomas. But can we have a formal second? Can I have a point of clarification?

Sure. Would we need to wait to a committee meeting to talk? Could we not put this on the agenda for next week to talk with the law director then? And as someone suggested waiting for a committee meeting, I believe that during regular session we would need to have pending legislation to have it on the agenda, but I'll ask the clerk if uh you think that regular session or committee would be more appropriate with committee because it may take some time the discussion. So we'll um consider alternatives if we find that the law director is not available for committee potentially, but the plan would be to move to committee. And can we have a second to the suggestion that we invite the law director to a committee meeting as a means of proceeding? Second.

All right. Thank you, Member Staser. Uh, all in f Oh, discussion. Sorry. Um, I made that motion based on number three. And that's all we've talked about so far is number three. We haven't talked about number one because that is as clear as mud to me, the process. So, would it be appropriate to go ahead and have the vote on number three and then discuss number one? I think uh I'll suggest that we go ahead and save all of the rule 28 discussion for the law director's presence and input, but um we'll make sure that

Well, I understand what you're saying, but that may just extend a conversation that could be taken care of. right now. You're suggesting a vote on just section three. Uh because we skipped right over number one and I don't know what that means. I at this point uh would recommend because there are still some questions and we've been on this item for a little while that we take up that question and the others raised with the law director. Well, I'm we're here. Okay, we're here. Let's deal with this. We've got a motion and a second to go to next committee meeting. Your your suggestion is

on number three. Uh this was for all discussion of rule 28 going to the next committee meeting. Well, we never had a chance to discuss number one is what I'm saying. We skipped right over it. Uh council members had the comment to discuss any of rule 28 this evening, but we will continue that discussion at a future meeting. Uh, council member Swank has noted that he has a specific desire to for clarity around section one that we did not discuss at length today. So, uh, we have a motion and a second to continue this conversation at a future committee meeting with the law director. All in favor of doing so, please indicate by saying I. I.

Any opposed? Nay. All right. Uh we have had six of seven council members indicate that they would like to resume this under committee of the whole with an invitation to the law director to join us. So with that we'll conclude this item and I'll pronounce committee of the whole concluded for the evening at 7:57 and we'll move on to our next uh item and that will be transportation.

Transportation committee. Thank you, member Swank. And our transportation committee is chaired by member Beth Clawder, joined by member uh Wood, Staser, and Swank. All other members of council may move to the audience at this time. Okay. All right. Um I'll turn things over to Chair of Transportation, Member Claude Felder.

Okay. So, uh, this is an item that comes up annually, uh, specifically in April. This is when it comes up. And this is the need for the city to buy road salt for next winter, um, winter starting in November, December, whatever of 2026 and going into 2027. Um there is a cooperative purchasing program that the state of Ohio runs that allows cities to buy road salt through the state uh typically at a a significantly less expensive price than they could get on the private market. So um and also the um the state of Ohio for whatever reason has a provides a very short window of time for this whole process to happen from the time they request uh send out a request for um proposals until the application deadline. So, um, if this goes forward to full counsel, we will have to suspend the rules, um, probably at first reading to give the city administration time to prepare an application for this. Um, Mayor Patterson, is there anything you would like to add?

Absolutely. I mean, we do this every single year. This is the Costco of buying roads through the state. Um, it gives us stronger purchasing power. This is no different than a community choice aggregation quite honestly. Um it helps drive down the cost. The uh aside from the reasoning as to why ODOT has a short runway in which to go through this process and uh I'm not going to question that because this is what gives us the best pricing that we have seen when it comes to our purchasing of road salt moving forward. It's already been budgeted for the expenditure of um the city resources to buy road salt and to go through this route where rather than to us go out there on our own and put it out to bed. Um you know, quite honestly, no pun intended, you know, we're going to be paying our weight and salt to sit there and and do it that way versus going with the cooperative purchasing program. So, you know, We do this every year. We We As long as I've been mayor, as long as the previous mayor has been mayor, this has been something that we've always gone through.

Yeah. Do we have any uh Do you want to ask for comment from others? Uh would anyone in the public like to comment on this discussion? All right. Members of the committee,

just a quick just Yes. Uh thank you. Just a quick question for the mayor. If you remember back when it was so cold for so long this winter, we were uh looking at possibly running out of salt uh as were other places around the country around the state around the country for that matter. How did we end? And the reason I asked this question, if we ended up with a lot, we're not going to have to buy as much, but if we ended up with a little, we're going to have to buy a lot more. And considering the city's financial position, uh could you speak to that, please? How did we end up the year? And what are you anticipating? you know, we ended up with a slight surplus this year because we did get the bins refilled. Um, that was great. Um, and it wasn't just the city of Athens. It was largely statewide to include ODAP that found themselves not having enough salt during that really difficult time that you're mention mentioning. Um, so I think we we go into it with a little bit of a surplus in our bins and we also we will calcul calculate that in in terms of what we end up ultimately purchasing for the next year. Let's be real with each other. Um, climate action is something that I take very seriously because climate change is here. Um it it's hard to predict year by year what we're going to see whether we're going to have another polar vortex or we're going to have a you know heat dome come during the summer that of course doesn't require salt that just requires lots of water and a lot of electricity. Um so we will continue to kind of forecast ahead as to what that will look like going into next year and and purchase appropriately. But I I also have to say, you know, at the end of the day, it requires statewide a village to know when someone is is um having to lay down a lot more road salt for a sunundry different reasons versus another community or or ODOT that we also have this system in place to where we've gone to ODOT in the

past and said, District 10, our district, and said, "Do you have salt that we can get from you because we're running low uh because of maybe an ice storm that we had or something that is is may not have affected other places in in the state or not as severely. Um so we'll continue to keep that partnership running too but you know council to your question it's you look it's just it's hard to predict um in terms of seasonally what we're going to be experiencing. You know I think we dodged a bullet by not having a late snowfall this spring. Is it unheard of? No. We've had we've had snowfalls in May. Um we didn't have anything like that this year and and not much in April either, but um this is this is a great program at the end of the day that allows us to buy um at a much more reasonable rate than it would be if we went on our own.

Great. Thank you. Yep. Any other comments from the committee? Okay, that concludes um the transportation committee for this evening. Let me just double check. Do we need to go ahead and uh check for objections for moving this forward? Um I I moved that we move forward. Okay.

Okay. Do we have any objections to moving forward? Okay. Great. Thank you. We will conclude transportation at 803. And next on our docket is finance and personnel committee. That's chaired by member Jessica Thomas joined by Beth Claudefelder, John Staser, and Michael Wood. All other members may move to the audience temporarily. Member Thomas, the floor is yours.

All right. Thank you. Uh we just have a few appropriations tonight and then as I emailed one uh then and now that came in just after the agenda went out. Uh, the first on the appropriations list is APD, a voice logger or an unplanned replacement of the voice logger that they use for recording radio calls, phone calls, and etc. Um, it's an unplanned appropriation of $65,000. And uh, Chief McGrder mentioned in his communications on this that this was in its ninth year and they typically are a five to six year item. So, it's uh just time for it to be replaced. Uh does anyone have any questions on the voice logger?

Yeah. Is the old one not working? It's starting to fail and so they're trying to get ahead of it. Uh he does not anticipate that we need to suspend or do anything u to move this along faster. it can go through the normal readings, but as it's nine years in, he thinks it's time to be ready and it takes thousands of calls for the police department. So, he doesn't we don't really want to go without it is what his messages have said. Any additional questions? Anything from the I guess I did that backwards, but from uh the mayor's office.

No.

No. Uh, anything from the public and any additional questions from the committee? All right, this will all be in one appropriate appropriations ordinance, but we can go through them item by item. The next three are all like we did the last time. These are basically catch-ups from last year where the year closed before the project was done. And so funds that had been not encumbered what were but were appropriated need to be reappropriated because they die at the end of the year. Um they're all spelled out there for street fund, water fund and sewer funds. So we are just reappropriating those so that they can wrap up the where they are in the project. Is this still ongoing? Uh any additional comments from the mayor's administration? No, other than I would encourage council to go down to the end of Kenny Drive and look at the developments that are taking place down there with the the uh fire safety training center that's going on. As I would to say, go down to the West State Street ball fields and look at the new restrooms that are down there. But oh, sorry, I digress. Um, we're talking fire service safety center. Uh, anything from the public and any questions from the rest of the committee? All right, seeing none, uh, the one last thing that I had put in the email and then while I get to Debbie for the um, meeting next week is a then and now and it is a PEP payment for 3,74 uh,22. It's deductible recovery for to Joneswood, which was just a uh insurance claim from last summer that we need to reimburse the insurance company for

because of water damage. Uh no, this is for a mower that hit a pole that damaged some Frontier lines and that went through Frontier's claim that on the damage and then it had to go through our insurance and their insurance and uh so the 3,000 is what we owe the insurance company who paid for the claim in the first place. Uh any comments from the administration? No. And anything from the public and member, why do we owe an insurance company money for for paying for a claim? Isn't that what they're for?

So, this did not meet the u did not meet the deductible for the claim. They weren't going to cover it at all. that it's cleaner for us to pay the insurance company and them to pay Frontier than for us to go through Frontier's claims company. Like they have an entity that does their claims and then coming through there for the city to pay our insurance who already paid the bill. Okay. Any other questions? I have a backup question about the police scanner actually if it Okay. can recon that. Yeah, we can go back on that.

Uh, I'm just adding up the estimates here and I'm getting 33,000. It's almost half of the 65. Are there is there paper receipts? We're not seeing in the It hasn't been built. It hasn't been purchased yet. This is just to appropriate the money for them to purchase one. Sure. I'm just seeing the quotes here on the email.

Yeah. that are half the number that they're asking for. I think those are just estimates. Hang on, I got to pull up the full email here. Um, I would guess those are just estimates and I can ask what they anticipate it costing and then also what it will eventually end up costing. just asking I mean we had a lot of discussion about encumbering numbers from the general fund for the orca discussion everything else this is more than that number and so I'd like to make sure we're at least on the right number so this will be what the appro yeah yeah I can I can get more information and I can talk to uh Chief McGrder and director Stone what this will do is we they'll it will authorize them to expend up to and then once they purchase the equipment we'll have an actual cost but this is what they're estimating and so unless he did not send one of the full invoices because these are justformational not factual until they're actually purchased but I can ask him for more information for council next week. Thanks. Any other questions? If I get more details between that and then I'll send it out to the committee also. All right. So then since we went backwards, any objections to bringing forward the appropriations or the then and now?

All right. And that ends finance and personnel. All right. Finance and personnel is concluded and we will now move on to planning and development chaired by member Alan Swink joined by members Megan Almeida, Paul Isherwood and Jessica Thomas. Chair Swink, you have the floor.

Okay, we just have one item tonight and this is kind of a uh repreeze of something we talked about oh back I guess it was in January. Uh back in January, maybe it's February, uh Village Bakery, uh Christine Hughes transferred uh the liquor license, applied for a transfer of liquor license from um Village Bakery on East State Street to uh the front twothirds of the Athens Bicycle Shop on Stimson Avenue and council did not feel that we needed to have a hearing on that. Consequently, it proceeded. Uh recently um Christine Hughes decided to change the business name or the the the name in which the um liquor license is listed from Christine Hughes to Daisy Day Daisy Da Daisy Daisy LLC. Still in the same location for West Simpson Avenue. Well, and so doing that uh we have to consider this again whether or not we need to have a hearing or not. Uh, one thing I will add to this that isn't reflected in this application and has no bearing on I don't think have any bearing on our decision this evening is uh they also found out that they could not divide that shop into two entities with the front two/3s being the wine shop and the back one/3 being the bicycle shop. State liquor laws uh prevent that from happening. So, they will be taking over the entire shop uh will be the wine shop at 4 Westson Avenue. Uh that will be effective about June 1 when the lease is up for the bicycle part of that building. So, that's uh what's before us today. Uh Mr. Mayor, anything you'd like to add to that, sir?

No, other than council member Swank was really kind of funny. I was sitting here when I saw that address and I was googling it and all it kept showing up was Bloom and I'm going, "Oh no, I hope we don't have a shop that's selling marijuana also wanting a liquor permit." That is not the case. That is not the case. That is across the street. So I I don't have anything to add other than it is within the Dora. Um in the past we have had Bellavino that was down there um as a wine store. So, okay. Thank you. Even before that, we had that passes through council. Yeah, exactly. Members of the public.

Okay. So, I don't know if we're calling for a vote if we're looking for consensus. So, I guess I'll ask it this way. Anybody doesn't like wine on the committee. Guess we're moving forward. That concludes that concludes the council meeting and that concludes planning and development. Thank you to all of our chairs and to our uh mayor for being here this evening. Thanks to the public and we'll conclude council at 8:14