City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to Athens City Council. Today is Monday, August 17th, and we are in regular session. Before we begin, I'd like to check to ensure we have quorum and we have all council members present. And now I will ask for a motion to approve the agenda or to entertain any amendments to the agenda. I would second that we approve it as submitted we have a motion and a second do we have any discussion from council members from the administration from the public okay all in favor of approving the agenda say aye any opposed say nay the agenda is approved so we are now in session and we will have communications next do we have any communications from members of council Members Dazer, do we all want to go first? Or gosh, we have a few. You go first and then- Member Clodbetter will start us out.

All right, sure. So I received communication from a business owner who has a business on Court Street who is really afraid that the doubling of the parking ticket amounts are going to actually reduce people coming up to shop on Court Street. That's the first person I've heard say something, but apparently that individual had been approached by other business owners who have properties on Court Street, and several of them are really worried about that.

Thank you, Member Cloudfelder. Additional communications from council members? Member Thomas.

Yeah, I just want to communicate that the Athens Community Relations Commission has two open seats currently and are looking for community members to join. If you visit the city website, there's a link and also a more recent post that they put up with the information to apply or who to reach out to if you have any questions.

Thank you, Member Thomas. Member Steser?

So all I have, I'm just-

I'm going to communicate that some of us have heard from a lot of people on Richland Avenue that have businesses with the flooding. We've talked to Mayor Patterson and Safety Service Director Andy Stone and I think that the city is going to work to adjust that. Thank you.

Any other communications from council members? Yes. Yes, Member Almeida.

Mine's a little bit happier thing to report on. We had an event on the west side, specifically on First Street. I want to give a shout out to Strongtown Athens and the West Side Community Association for working together to bring this event together where we Cleaned up about half of the block of sidewalk and walls just vegetation. That's overgrowing That street and there were about 20 community members that came together Councilmember wood was there and it was it was it was a really good time. We accomplished a lot and I just want to say thank you to I was grateful to be a part of it. Folks coming together, getting to know people in the neighborhood, seeing people work together and trying to really make a difference on the west side. And also make a statement that it is important to have better conditions for our people that live in the neighborhood as well as folks that are just passing through the neighborhood. There will be another event, a part two. We were only able to accomplish the first half of the street, the end of the street near Schaefer side. We're going to continue it. Michael, or Council Member Ward, could you help me?

Saturday the 29th at 10 a.m.

Thank you. Same spot which is at Schaefer and First Street is where we're meeting on the corner house there. So please come. Bring your shovel, your weed whacker. Any tools you have to help so we can finish off the street for those folks?

Thank you for that positive update. We have additional communications from council members. Member Wood.

Yeah, it was a joy to do that with you. Shout out to Stephanie and Rob who coordinated that event. It was just great. If you want to feel good about your community, this is a great way to do it. It was an awesome morning. To have some more water items as well. Um, heard or much less positive. Gotten a ton of communication from folks on East State Street. Uh, as well as on Congress with a flooding flooding drain on that side. Um, a lot of stormwater issues brought up last week. Um, and then unfortunately, it became a very pertinent issue right away. Um. I was really hoping to have something to share with those constituents about what the city is doing and ask if there are, what the plan is to look especially at that spot by Kindred because those folks are desperate for help.

Thank you, Member Wood. Do we have any additional communications from Council? Seeing none, I'll acknowledge that all council members have heard about the flooding issues and I believe we would welcome an update from the administration. I'll move to communications from the administration at this time and beginning with Mayor Paterson.

Let me start on a positive note. I have a proclamation which I'm not going to read in full detail, although I will at my weekly update on Wednesday, but I want to recognize The fact that August 26th of 2026 is Women's Equality Day here in the city of Athens. So President McCary, you're the one who brought this to my attention and several other potential proclamations. So what I'm going to try to do is when we have various proclamations, I can deliver them on communications, on regular sessions moving forward. But I will read it in its entirety on Wednesday. Let me kind of walk through several things that are worth noting, and I'll speak to Councilmember Woods. I know you didn't pose a question. I know you created a statement, and I will make a statement as well. But this Saturday, the 22nd, if I'm not mistaken, is... is the River Sweep here in Athens, and that will take place at 8.30 a.m. East Park Drive. Bring closed-toed shoes and clothing that you don't mind getting wet and probably muddy, but to help with cleaning along the Hocking River as it runs through Athens, something that we do every year, basically. So this is a great event, so asking people who are interested to come out. If you pre-register, I don't have the details, but I think it's on the city's website if I'm not mistaken. I'm seeing a head nod from our illustrious government channel, Scott Thompson. If you pre-register, you'll be able to get a River Sweep t-shirt or something like that. I believe that food will be provided. Keep that in mind.

Quick question on that, Mayor Patterson. Quick question on that.

Yeah, I'm just curious. East Park Drive, is that the one by the swimming pool?

It is the one by the swimming pool.

So will people somehow be transported to the river? Or how is that going to work logistically?

I do not have that information in front of me. Okay. But they'll start there at that area, that location, and then probably break into teams and start working their way up and down the river.

Okay. So maybe they'll be walking from there.

I think they will be walking.

Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. We'll continue with the Mayor's report.

Thank you. Richland Avenue, this is worth reminding everybody, the project that is ongoing with the closure of Richland Avenue is the sewer project. I'm getting lots of people saying, is this related to or reactionary to the flooding event on Richland Avenue? It is not. This is something that has been planned for for quite some time. It is part of the 50, US 50 corridor sewer expansion, where we're receiving more sewage from the 50 corridor, from Radford Road, and out 56 as well. So this particular project that led to the closure of Richland Avenue is to put a deep-dig sewer pipe underground that'll tie into the new wet well slash lift station that is the other project that has been going on for quite some time at the Richland Avenue roundabout or near the Richland Avenue roundabout. The project, again, is slated for 30 days of closure. We're hoping that the contractor will be completing that project in less than that time. So we're continuing to charge down that path. But again, this is a project that's been planned for several years in reality to get this done. We know it's in confusing people, but if you go down there and look, there is access for pedestrians to be crossing over where this project is taking place, so it's not impeding any of the students who are living at some of the larger apartment complexes. There obviously was a second high water event that took place on Richland Avenue. As Councilmember Spacer was just mentioning, we are meeting with the business owners that can make it up and down Richland Avenue to talk more fully about several issues. But more importantly, we have the Corps of Engineers report that came out late last year that I've delivered to a lot of the business owners for them to digest and understand what the challenges are with a very complex corridor, probably one of the most complex corridors in the city of Athens, former Mechanicsburg, up and down the Richland Avenue corridor. So we're working with the business leaders down there, the business owners up and down the Richland Avenue corridor. I have several slides that I want to show or pictures I'd like to show to council and the viewing audience. The fire department was contacted by the leadership in Crooksville as well as EMA in Perry County with the urgency of the three plus foot high water event that the village of Crooksville was impacted by. And unfortunately, they were impacted again yesterday with the rain event. a rain event that they had up in Crooksville. But these are slides or pictures of the responders that went up there, which includes several members from our fire department and both of our watercraft that we have were brought up there to help evacuate people that were stranded. We had some presence up there again yesterday, but they didn't need the assistance of watercraft. but this was from last Tuesday's high water event. This was a huge, almost statewide weather event that took place where New Lexington was affected, they were affected yesterday, Crooksville, and I'm really pleased that we were able to lend support in, again, an extremely high water event in one of our neighboring cities up in, again, this was up in Crooksville, in Perry County. I received a letter this morning, I believe it was, from the Hocking River Commission. I think Council all received that letter as well. I thought it was a great list of concerns that the city will be responding to, and that being at our boat ramp basically at West State Street Park. This was one that was funded with various grant funds to build that ramp that was necessary to go in to get people out of the river before they got too near the falls or the outfall at White's Mill. We were alerted to the fact that there was a lot of silting on that boat ramp, that there was a lot of overgrown vegetation, and that there was signage that needs to be repaired and we're going to address all those issues that that individual had shown us, which was really interesting to see, and so we're gonna make some corrective actions there, as well as post some signage over by the new fire station headquarters boat ramp, because that's a boat ramp that is open to the public. The public can use that, but it isn't signed, so unfortunately several people feel that, or I've heard from several people who thought it was a city-only boat ramp. That's not the case. is there for anybody to use. The last thing is to address the East 8th Street flooding that's taking place. The Director of Engineering and Public Works, as well as the Service Safety Director, the plan is to start doing some extensive smoke testing of the storm drain system over there. There's concern that there might be some I&I or water infiltration coming into the storm drain and possibly affecting the sewer system down there as well. So we'll make sure that we alert the public about the smoke testing that goes on because that also raises concerns where people can potentially see some of the smoke testing smoke coming up through their downspouts, because there are some cases where downspouts from some older homes are still tied into the sewer system, and that should not be happening at all. So it'll be smoke testing the sewer system and smoke testing the storm drains to identify where we may have some issues that lead to overpressuring of the sewer system in that particular location in the City of Athens. So hopefully that addresses your question, Council Member Wood. That's a lot, Council, I recognize that, but I'll tell you what, there has been a lot happening over the past week here in the City of Athens, and again, completely sympathetic to the flooding that has taken place all throughout the city. We have not seen, in some cases, that level of water rise, rising that quickly and affecting so many businesses. Richland Avenue, the video footage that I saw, literally looked like the Hocking River running right down through that particular corridor. To that One thing I can share that, again, Director Stone, and more importantly, Director Jared Balderson, Engineering and Public Works, were looking at doing some silt removal underneath the bridges up and down Richland Avenue. to help with correcting some of what's going on down there. But the issue is so much larger than just the silting that's taken place in Coates Run. There's other factors that certainly come into play that have led to these flash flood events that we're experiencing really impacting that corridor and other corridors in the city of Athens as well.

So. Thank you, Mayor Paterson. I'll check in with other elected officials for any reports they may have, and then I'll go back to approving the minutes in just a second. But Auditor Josh? No. Auditor Josh Thomas and Treasurer Jason Schroer? No. All right. Lisa Elias, the Law Director. Seeing no other reports, going back to approval of the minutes, may I have a motion to approve the minutes from the regular session of Council held August 3, 2026? So moved.

Second.

They have a motion and a second. Any discussion from council? Administration? Members of the public? All right, me. I have a vote. All in favor of approving the minutes for August 3rd, 2026, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay. The minutes have been approved. And now we'll move on to ordinances for second reading. Beginning with ordinance 68-26, an ordinance authorizing the service safety director to submit an application and enter into an agreement for a state infrastructure bank, SibLoan, for the state route 682 major rehabilitation project and designating a dedicated repayment source for the loan introduced by member Thomas. Seeing no. Hands indicating additional questions or updates, I'll move on to Ordinance 69-26, an ordinance authorizing payment to the State of Ohio Department of Transportation to cover the local share of the State Route 682 Major Rehabilitation Project introduced by Member Thomas. Ordinance 74-26, an ordinance amending Ordinance 68-25, authorizing design and construction of a public safety training facility, project number 373, introduced by Councilmember Isherwood. And moving on to ordinances for first reading, Ordinance 75-26 is an ordinance authorizing the service safety director, to enter into a contract for design build services for the court and state intersection improvements, project number 398. Do we have any updates or questions on that topic?

Well, I would like to talk about it a little bit. So hopefully that title alone, authorizing the service safety director to enter into contract for design build services for the court and state intersection improvement project has made some people pretty excited. Um, so many of our citizens who use wheelchairs have had, basically, it's just impossible for them to cross at that intersection. And when they've had their walk, rock, and roll events, um, people who usually don't use wheelchairs have tried to use them to cross at court and state, and have also been unable to do so. It has just been really challenging. So the city's gonna try to fix it. And, um... The goal is to have a project that will fix the bricks there and make like put them onto a concrete sort of fan at the intersection so that they will stay level because they'll have a solid base. To do that and do other things to make that intersection far more navigable for our citizens in wheelchairs, hopefully between Thanksgiving and the beginning of spring semester at OU. That is the goal. And the city's really hoping we're going to get some bids, and it looks like we're going to be able to pay for this project with, CDBG funds, which are community development block grant funds. So I'm just really excited that this is going to happen, and I think it's going to make life easier for a lot of our residents who use wheelchairs.

Thank you, Member Cloudfelder. I think just for the record, would you mind reading Section 3 to indicate how much this will cost?

I would be happy to. Thanks. Section 3 reads, the Service Safety Director is hereby authorized to expend up to $420,000 from CDBG Formula Grant Fund 248, Transaction Code 500, for said project number 398.

Thank you so much, Member Cloudfelder. Do we have any questions or comments from members of council?

members like yesterday uh... conversation with uh... director stone late last week uh... it was uh... suggested and i will do that in a moment that we uh... suspend the rules this evening because of the court in our calendar in september uh... our first meeting in september is not until uh... September the 8th September the 7th is Labor Day Monday. We don't meet on federal holidays We don't meet today, which would push the third reading all the way back to September 22nd Remember cloud Felder talked about wanting to get this done or started in November that would leave two short months To bid and all of that so it's a request of director stone I would move that we suspend the rules this evening for this this particular ordinance second.

I

That was quick, all right.

We have motion and a second. Do we have any discussion on the suspension of the rules? All right. All in favor? Well, administration, do you have any concerns about suspension of the rules on this?

Not at all.

All right. Any members of the public? We understand that sometimes projects, especially construction projects, require this kind of flexibility. So all in favor of suspending the rules, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. All right. The rules have been suspended. And we are now ready for a vote if you'd like to. Proceed with that.

Okay. Motion. I move that we approve Ordinance 75-26, approving this construction project to improve the intersection of Court Street and State.

Second. We have a motion from member Claudefelder and a second from member Swank. Any discussion before we move to the vote from council members? Administration? Members of the public? Now it's time for the actual vote. All council members in favor of approving this ordinance with the rules suspended, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The rules have been suspended, or were already suspended, and now this has been approved at first reading. Thank you very much. Moving on to Ordinance 76-26, an ordinance amending the 2026 Appropriation Ordinance 120-25, introduced by Councilmember Thomas.

Thank you. I will need to amend this also to add one more appropriation to it. I'll add at the end when I read it. The 2026 Appropriation Ordinance 120-25 is hereby amended by appropriating from the unappropriated balance the following sums. $3,800 to general fund fire awarded by grant funds for CPR mannequins and AED trainers for city staff. $50,000 to general fund lands and building, 101.112 for street light electricity, and $55,000 to internal service IT fund, $865,000. to cover IT costs through year-end and increasing the total appropriation. Before I get to that part. Also from general fund 101.207 to APD vehicle maintenance for the amount of $5,593 and increasing the total appropriations by set amounts. Do you have any questions on the appropriations?

And would you like to make a motion to amend as you described?

Do we need to amend it if it's on first reading? Move to amend it? Okay. I have a motion to amend.

We have a motion from Member Thomas and a second from Member Cloudfelder. And any questions, discussion from council, members of the administration, and the public? All right. We have now an opportunity to vote on this amendment. All in favor of the amendment as described, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Okay, the amendment has been approved. Thank you, Member Thomas.

Thank you.

And that takes it back to first reading, doesn't it?

Okay.

Now we will move on to Ordinance 77-26, an ordinance approving a then and now certificate for payment to Court Views Justice Solutions and declaring an emergency introduced by Council Member Thomas.

Thank you, and I will move to suspend on this as we do with but I'll read Section 1 real quick first. A then and now certificate in the amount of $57,788 to Court View Justice Solutions for court software is hereby approved for payment. First, I would like to move to suspend the rules.

Second. We have a motion and a second on suspension of the rules. Do we have any discussion from counsel? Oh, yep, Member Swank.

Is this an annual expenditure or this is a one time for a two or three or four year package?

It's an annual.

It's an annual, okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other discussion on suspension of the rules? Seeing none from council, administration, members of the public? Okay, we have a motion and a second to suspend the rules. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The rules have been suspended.

I would now move to adopt 77-26. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion from Council? Administration? Members of the public? All right. All in favor of approving 77-26, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. 77-26 has been unanimously approved. Thank you, Member Thomas. We now move on to Ordinance 78-26, an ordinance authorizing the service safety director to advertise, accept bids, and enter into contract for design and construction of the Hudson Street Water Line upgrade associated with project number 382, introduced by Councilmember Swank.

Because the property currently owned by the Red Cross is supposed to be transferred tomorrow, and you never know in the closing what may happen at the last minute, it will be prudent to make this a trifecta of suspensions. But before I move for that, this is basically to replace a two-inch water line on Hudson Avenue to, one, make it safer for those who currently live there. We have a fire in that area. We have to hook up at Lincoln and stretch hose after hose after hose. secondly, we're going to be building eight brand new owner occupied homes at the end on the right hand side and It would be appropriate to when those folks move in to make sure they have the correct fire protection For those brand new homes so I to move that along because we're hoping to have the first unit built and occupied by the end of 2026 We need to move this along so that when they move in, they can turn on the faucet and have water. So I would move that we suspend 7826. Okay.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the suspension from council? We know that this sometimes happens with contracts and construction projects, so any comments or concerns about suspending the rules from the administration? No. Members of the public? All right. We will now vote on suspension of the rules for Ordinance 78-26. All in favor of suspending the rules, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The rules for 78-26 have been suspended.

President Kerry, I would move that Council pass 78-26. 77-20, 78-26, yes. Second. Oh, gosh.

Member Sherwood gets the second. All right. And now any discussion from council? Member Thomas?

I just have a question because my brain is just failing. Do we need an emergency clause on this or does this not need a 30-day emergency clause? I know finance ones don't but I don't remember.

I'll defer to legal and the clerk.

At this point, it doesn't because he can advertise and accept. He can advertise, and I think that's what he's waiting for right now to advertise the project. So he can go ahead and do that.

Thank you for that question. Any other questions before we move on? Good question. From the administration? From the public? Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Now we're ready for a vote. All in favor of approving Ordinance 78-26 say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Ordinance 78-26 has been unanimously approved. Next we have Ordinance 79-26, an ordinance granting a special right-of-way use permit at 144 Grosvenor Street to Richie Parna and Debasis Basu owners to extend an existing front porch into the city right-of-way, introduced by Councilmember Swank.

As we saw in the pictures last week, the residents, the owners of this property would like to extend the porch and the roof out on the city right-of-way. It will line up with the other structures along that road. And I'm guessing they wished we could have passed this last week. I just checked with Scalia Lab. We've already had 10 inches of rain this month. They'd probably like to get that rain out on the street and into the storm sewers. But it's pretty straightforward. They've done all the things they need to do and no need to go through or no need to pass this tonight. You can go through the traditional three reading process.

It's been read for the first time. Do we have any questions or comments from members of council? Yes, Member Podfetter.

Only to say that I took a walk on Grosvenor Street and agree that if they extend the awning, it's not going to be a problem and that there are others that are at equivalent lengths.

Any other council members have comment on this item? Anyone from the administration and the public? All right. 79-26 has been read for the first time. And now moving on to Ordinance 80-26, an ordinance amending Ordinance 110-25, updating the cybersecurity policy for the City of Athens, introduced by all members of Council. Member Isherwood, would you like to read the pertinent section?

Sure. An ordinance amending Ordinance 110-25, updating the cybersecurity policy for the City of Athens. And I think that's really it.

All right, do we have any discussion on the importance of updating our cyber security to be in compliance with state recommendations and guidance? All right, anyone from the administration have comment on this ordinance? And from the public. All right. It has been read for the first time. And next, we have Ordinance 81-26, an ordinance amending Athens City Code Title I, General Provisions, Chapter 1.03, Code Fees Established, introduced by all members of Council. Do we have any discussion on our Committee of the Whole discussion on fees from last week? Member Swank.

Yeah, I've had a little time to think about this and do a little digging. And Larry, I don't know if you wrote this or not, but I'm going to read a short paragraph from The Independent. In a Friday, August 7th email to McCary, Stone noted, Service Safety Director Stone, noted that the city's contract with members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees includes a 4.25% pay increase for 2027. That will use about $90,000 of the additional revenue, Stone wrote, so that leaves $170,000 additional from the 4% rate increase. Here's the part I'm going to address. With the highest electric cost of the city, $500,000 plus per year, an expected increase there along with other inflationary pressures, I just hope that $170,000 covers them. What day did we meet about the flooding? Friday?

Thursday?

Friday. On Friday, we had a meeting to discuss the flooding and to set up this meeting for later in the week. And I was talking to Director Stone about this particular ordinance we're referring to today, particularly the electric part. And he thought, and this is not the absolute because he's going to try to verify that. He thought that we were paying somewhere about 11.5 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. About 11.5 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. You can go on the PUCO Apples to Apples site right now and get it for less than 10 cents. This potentially, if we can get a better rate on our electricity, could be a savings between $40,000 and $60,000, which is a significant amount of money. And I bring that up for two reasons. One, I, for one, am all in favor of the city saving money any way it can, legally. And secondly, if indeed we can possibly save that much, it may be less than that. It could be $10,000. It could be more than that. Director Stone is researching this to get the numbers. But if it is significant, We may not need to go the full 4%. It might be three and a half. It might be three. So we have two more readings on this. So I just wanted to share with council that Director Stone is researching this. Once we find out what that number is, I think we can explore the possibilities, our possibilities, in terms of finding a better rate out there. Because if we are at 11 and a half cents and we can get it for 9.75, when you're doing as much electricity as we do down at that plant, that's a lot of savings. That's a lot of savings. So I just want to throw that out, hopefully by our next meeting on September the 8th. We can have some updates on that. If not by then, certainly by third reading on the 22nd of, I say May, September, September the 22nd.

That's encouraging, Member Swank, and we want to thank the administration for being so diligent in looking for any opportunities for savings. Do we have any other comments on our Ordinance 81-26 regarding code fees? Seeing none from council, administration, treasurer or auditor, and members of the public. All right. Then that means that we have read Ordinance 81-26 for the first time, and we'll move on to Ordinance 82-26, an ordinance amending Athens City Code Title VII, Traffic, Chapter 7.09, Penalties, Section 7.09.99, subsections P, Q, and R, introduced by all members of Council. So, again, this is a follow-up to our discussion during Committee of the Whole last week, and we specifically talked about the increase in parking penalties. Member Claudefelder mentioned this in her communications, but do we have any additional comments or questions on this topic from members of Council? Member Wood.

We talked about having it be two weeks. This still says five days.

We can amend that.

Do we need to amend that now?

I think we would need a motion to amend. Would you like to make that, Member Wood?

I would like to make a motion that we amend this to say 10 business days.

Second. We have a motion from Member Wood and a second from Member Stazer. Any comments or discussion on the proposed amendment? From Council? From Mayor Patterson?

Council Member Wood, I think it might be better and easier for the person who's receiving that ticket, you know, to just have in there 14 days, you know, two weeks to pay. And here's why. Because I think sometimes people kind of get confused with the five business days and what if there's a holiday in there or something like that. And so, you know, I think it's cleaner for someone. They've got the time stamp. Here's when I got this citation. I've got 14 days to pay. get the fine taken care of.

Can I amend my amendment or should I strike it?

Just let us know what your new proposed amendment is.

I never heard 10.

Yeah, so John gets to it.

So remember what you approve of 14 days Yeah, and so we got a motion from member wood and members taser says enthusiastically 14 days is okay, too any council members have anything to say about the 14 days and We already heard from the mayor Auditor treasurer members of the public. Okay, the amendment is now ready for votes all in favor of the amendment. Please say aye Any opposed say nay Okay, we've accepted the proposed amendment and do we have any additional discussion on Ordinance 82-26? Member Swank.

I want to go back to member Claudefelder's communication statement. I have several questions and I think the first would be this and I don't know who answers this. What is the purpose of this? What are we hoping to accomplish?

I believe our understanding is that this is a deterrent from people violating parking policy, parking regulations. Increased cost is psychologically supposed to be a deterrent, is my understanding. Does anyone else have a different understanding? Member Isherwood.

Yeah, I think part of the conversation we had was that the older rates were not much of a deterrent because, in fact, it looked like $15 was actually a pretty good deal to be able to park uptown all day. whereas $30 and therefore you were blocking parking spaces to people who might otherwise want to access Court Street and its businesses. That was the discussion we had.

I think that's the nature of it. Member Thomas and then back to Member Swank.

I would concur with that. I mean, you can park there at 7.30 going somewhere and leave it there till 7.30 and not move it and you're only going to pay 15 bucks. That's less than you're going to pay in the garage, I believe. And it also encourages people to pay them when they get a ticket, which there are probably more than you realize that probably have 10 or 12 or more tickets that they just don't pay. So it also would, you know, you're a little more motivated to pay it if you have to pay it $30 and it's going to get higher versus $15 isn't really seen as that consequential by some. I'm sure there are plenty of others that, you know. But also it makes people hopefully pay a little more attention and things like the two-hour limits, the loading zones that are constantly full of people that are not semis loading and unloading, and just blatantly ignore signs. It's hopefully a deterrent. We'll see.

Okay. Member Swankin and Member Clodbetter.

I would agree with both of you 100% for those who are habitual offenders. For the one-off people, the visitors, I don't think they know what a fine is, what the amount is. And what I'm getting at is I wonder if those folks you're talking about who abuse it over and over and over, I think one of you said that have 10 or 12 or 15 parking tickets, with modern technology and those readers and things, if we couldn't possibly have a graduated system.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Would the mayor be willing to explore whether a graduated system for first-time offenders versus repeat offenders? Would he be willing to see if that's possible?

I would be willing to look into that, and I would work with the law director to see, you know, what you can legally do with something like this to have something to where if you're a repeat offender, you know,

members Lincoln a member Thomas to the mayor's point a question to the the law director Law director Lyson are there other things in the city where we have graduated fines for repeat offenders?

We do

Yes. Then I guess it would be a matter of when it comes to parking tickets, is that legal? Or would we need to, just if we pass the code, parking tickets? I guess I'm wondering, and it would take some research on your part, if there's anything in the Ohio revised code that would prevent us from doing that.

I don't believe there would be. I can research it, but I think being able to put people on notice with some signage or something like that. And I think we do have signs as far as the time period.

Oh, we do. But not the amount.

Not the amount.

We're trying to use this as, when I asked the original question, what is the purpose, it's a deterrent. A deterrent for a parent coming into town this weekend with their freshman son or daughter and getting them moved into their dormitory. Now, we're not talking about those people. We're talking about the people, primarily residents or those who drive in from out of town to work here, who do it again and again and again. I'm sure Member Wood and Member Thomas can probably identify some of these people because of the business and they see the same car and the same plot over and over again. I think that's the people that we are trying to address here. If we could check into that, that would be wonderful. We could possibly do a graduated system.

In Section P, it does say every consecutive hour of violation of Section 70521 after the initial expiration of metered time shall be deemed a complete and separate offense.

But that's the same parking situation. That car never moved. I'm talking about somebody does it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and next week they do it Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and the next week they do it all five days. That's what I mean about repeat offenders and a graduated fine. And maybe, eventually, they get enough of those, and the fine gets up into three digits instead of two digits, they'll wake up and go to the parking garage. Thank you, members.

I think there's a little bit more to this, because my recollection is that for unpaid tickets that we do tow, so... I think we need to check into that and check with parking enforcement, get more information.

We'll certainly research it. Thank you, Member Swink. Member Klapfelter, did you still have a comment?

I did, and a question as well. I think everybody's made really good comments on this. And I like Member Swank's idea of graduated fees for repeat offenders. I wonder if it proves that graduated fees would be legal and we could do that, and if we could come up with a system that makes sense for repeat offenders, people who violate parking requirements on many different days, to be clear, if maybe that would mean that we could keep the existing... ticket amounts the same if the people who are repeat offenders are perhaps the ones clogging up parking spaces.

Good point. Thank you, Member Cloudfelder. Did I see Member Isherwood? Member Isherwood?

Yeah, I mean, to Member Swank's point on that, you know, do people from out of town not know there's a violation for overstaying your parking meter? I think everybody knows if you stay longer on your parking meter, you get a ticket. I don't think anybody would be shocked that this is a thing that only happens to you in Athens. And I don't think $30 from parking tickets that I've had in other places around the country, not many... LAUGHTER But that, you know, that's not an outrageous amount for that kind of violation. My understanding is, well, I mean, it's not strictly enforced. As soon as your meter goes off, you've got to find, you know, parking enforcement's got to, you know, you have some leeway. The parking enforcement folks in Athens are very reasonable, to my understanding. They'll let you know if you're, like, you can get in your car, they'll let you go. They're not going to ticket you right there and then. And so... I feel like people coming to town will not be shocked that we have parking tickets. Thank you, Member Sherwood. Member Thomas.

I'm just curious if we're talking about a graduated system, we should probably ask when we're looking into that if that is going to show up in our system as only after the first 14 days and so we know it's unpaid and not just their third hour at that or third ticket at that day. That makes sense. They get three tickets in one day, but it's only going to trigger if they're over, which it does because we do have a towing and a boot system. We don't have a boot system, but we have a towing system. That should kick in. I would agree with Member Isherwood. I think everybody that parks somewhere knows that if they don't pay their ticket, they don't pay their follow the rules of the parking, they're going to have a ticket. We've all had tickets lots of places. I don't think it's unreasonable to look into a graduated system if our system allows it.

Thank you. I'm hearing that we will follow up with not only a legal review, but also a technical feasibility. And do we have Member Swank?

Now I want to move over to the auditor here on this. Sorry, Jeff, didn't mean to catch you off guard. The parking tickets, I'm looking at June's reports. Where do they go? Where does the money go?

It goes into the general fund. It goes straight into the general fund. Okay. Parking meters, parking tickets, all that goes back into the general fund. Except unless you're in the parking garage, that goes into parking garage.

Well, wait. We have parking meters. We have line 730. So that would be parking garage. Parking meters?

Yeah.

Well, we also have parking garage. Hold on. We have parking garage... Uh, parking garage is $730. Yes, parking garage fund is $730. And parking garage debt fund is $733. Correct. And parking meters is $730. So parking meters, parking meters, parking garage, parking tickets all go into $730.

Yeah, so in $730 you're going to have a line. It's going to be 730 dot whatever whatever that's going to say parking tickets and parking meters. So that's anybody that parks inside the parking garage. You kind of got to go back to when we had meters and everything there. But then currently right now, all the funds that are coming from our new system go into fund 730 for the parking garage. Now, when they collect all the money on the street, you see them go along, they're collecting all the change or whatever. When they collect all that, that's going to go into 101 general fund. You'll find another line in there. And I'm sorry, I just don't have it right in front of me. and don't have it memorized unless it's like four it ends in four something something but that would be street meters in the general fund so again that's how because when we did the parking garage it has to be its own separate again i've kind of explained this a lot of these funds are like their own separate businesses the parking garage has to bring its own revenue to pay for its own expenses um whereas the general fund collects the revenue from all the rest of the parking meters okay and tickets all right um

I think, Paul, you may have misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't trying to give a free pass for people coming to town. But we talked about this being a deterrent, the increase being a deterrent, not the fee itself, but the increase. And for someone coming in from out of town or someone who follows the rules every day of the week, never had a parking ticket in their life, and suddenly gets hit, as Member Cloudfelder said, with a $30 charge, it might be a bit punitive. I guess at the end of the day, are we trying, and I'm not implying this by any means, are we trying to generate more revenue? Because I would bet a whole bunch of money that our parking ticket revenue has gone up since the parking garage went online. And the reason I say that is we no longer have a parking meter attendant patrolling the parking garage. They're out on the street, and they've told me they can cover about 15% more in a day, consequently more parking tickets. So this isn't to generate more money.

No, I think when we discussed it before, it was really more of a deterrent. Okay. You know, you could say that, well, we've doubled the fine so we could double the money, but the point of it was not to write more tickets or to try to generate revenue with it. It was to see that turnover in the spaces. Again, I think Member Thomas, Member Wood would attest to this too. For the businesses uptown, that's what we want to see more than anything. is that the spaces are being utilized for the appropriate amount of time, but then that car moves on and another car pulls up and hopefully goes to a storage shop. So that was, I think, more the idea.

Because in the whole scheme of things, what I'm getting at here is what many citizens in the city of Athens are suddenly feeling. We passed an income tax and starting January 1, they're going to pay two-tenths of a percent more for that. We're talking about raising their sewer rates. Now we're talking about parking tickets, although that's totally different because if you behave, you don't get one. But you know what I got in the mail last week? And all of you that sit up here that own a home got one of these too. The six-year reappraisal. And my property value went up 16%. Now, that's good for me because I've lived at home for 30 years and it's paid for and it's become generational wealth, can be passed on or sold at a nice profit from when we bought it 30 years ago. But that also means those taxes are going to go up proportionally. So I think from a public relations standpoint, as a elected body, we need to be very careful that we're sensitive to the increased cost that people are facing, not from one place, not from two places, but in many instances, three, or the big one, four. So I suggested looking into the graduated, making people aware that this is not to collect more money, but is to deter behavior, and that we deliver that message consistently and with a caring heart, because there are people really hurting today. But this was a bit of a shock, because it doesn't say how much money I went on, but I went on the county auditor's site, and ooh, 16%. That's a chunk of change. Thank you, Member Slink. Member Thomas.

I just have a few things. First, it's in the general fund 101.000.440100 for the street meters. But I have a question just for Member Cloudfelder. If the people that were concerned, are they aware that these are for violations, that these are not the tickets, but these are the unpaid after what would be two weeks violations.

I am not sure that they were aware if that is a cost for people who haven't paid within two weeks, but just the idea of parking violations costing twice as much, they were afraid that might deter people from coming uptown to shop.

I think I would disagree with that, but that's just, everyone's got their take. Then I'm just going to put the disclaimer that the property taxes are at the county level and not the city level. Please do not come in and complain about your upcoming property tax.

Thank you. Please do not call the city office.

Which budget line is that?

Since we've had some additional discussion from council, I'll just take a moment to check in with other elected officials. Mayor Patterson, did you have any thoughts on this topic of parking fees?

I do. The reason we have metered parking in the uptown area in our historic retail corridor is so that the businesses that have functioned there, in some cases for decades, others who are brand new, it's to turn people off of the meter so that other customers can come in after someone has parked there under the legal amount of time, and then they leave that parking space so that another customer can come in and use that. That's the reason we have that. If we didn't have metered parking uptown, even if we were to post a limit of two hours parking, it would be Chaos there would be storage parking in the uptown area the you know with this conversation of having adjustments to the fine for for overstaying your visit at that meter in comparison to What we would hear from business owners if we were and I'm not saying that this is the conversation I'm just saying I'm giving an example as to why we have the two-hour limit at the parking spaces with the meters is so that we can get people to come off that parking space so that someone else can come in and park and do their shopping uptown. I think for most people who come from the city of Athens who drive and park at a parking meter, I think by and large they recognize that it's a two-hour, I can park here for two hours, and they do come uptown. We're talking about a deterrent for those who just continually are recognizing that, I can absorb that $15 ticket because if I were to park there all day long, it would have cost me $11 in a $1 parking space anyway, and so what's $11 versus $15? Now, I will say our parking enforcement, if they see that you've gone over and they walk, I don't know if the council has seen people who have parked there all day long There will be multiple tickets on that vehicle, so that adds up too, but I appreciate the robust conversation over this topic. I will certainly have Director Stone and myself and maybe even the auditor look deeper into what can happen with an escalating Fine for people who do this Monday, Wednesday, Friday, as Council Member Swank was indicating, then they come back the next week and do it on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday or something. Actually, it's free parking on Sunday. So that doesn't count.

Thank you. Do we have an additional comment from the law director?

No, only I think that probably finding out from parking enforcement how they would track that.

Yes. Yes. Any additional comment from the auditor or treasurer? And from members of the public? All right, then we will consider that read for the first time. And... I believe we have one more. Nope, that's it. And now we can move on to announcements and other business, beginning with confirmations of the mayor's reappointments and appointments and reappointments to the Athens Municipal Arts Commission. Council members received an email from Clerk Walker on August 4th with the candidate names and the bios for the three new appointments. For Athens Municipal Arts Commission, the new appointees are Elena Pallet, Avery Snyder. And for the Recreation Advisory Board, the new appointee is Megan Day. I would like to accept a motion to approve these appointments for new appointments.

So moved. Second.

We have a motion from member Claudebelder, a second from member Thomas. Any discussion from council? From the mayor? From the public? And all in favor of approving these new appointments to AMAC and the one new appointment of Megan Day to the Recreation Advisory Board, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. All right, those three new appointments have been approved, and we'll now move on to reappointments, first with AMAC, reappointment of Tina Wilson, and reappointment of Kate Federoff. Do we have any comments on those two? We also have a reappointment for the Historic Preservation Commission, and that would be Tim Anderson. And that would conclude our reappointments. So do we have any discussion on those reappointments from the council, from the mayor, from the public? All right. I think I need a motion, don't I? A motion to approve these reappointments.

So moved.

Second. That's Member Thomas with the motion and Member Swank with the second. All in favor of approving these reappointments, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay. All right, the reappointments have been unanimously approved. We also have on our other business the discussion of council rules continued from Committee of the Whole, specifically our discussion on council rules 13 and 27 and the proposed consolidation of those rules pertaining to public engagement and public participation during meetings and the option that had been previously previously discussed at the June 8th meeting we referred to it as option C proposes that a broader this was from members Wink consolidates rules 13 and 17 and It's going to be just one public participation rule, remove the home address requirement, retain the affiliation disclosure requirement, clarify the once per agenda item practice, and preserve the three-minute and 15-minute time limits. Mayor Swank, would you like to take us through this?

Yeah, Mr. Member Carey, in all honesty, I didn't see this on the agenda, and I still don't see this on the agenda. So I think we need to kick this down the road. It's not on the agenda.

We don't typically put council rules on the agenda.

This is not on the agenda. I have taken what I had proposed and added to it and in my opinion cleared everything up. And because I did not see it on the agenda, I did not bring that with me this evening. And I would move that we table this until next meeting so that I could bring this because in my mind, listening to everybody up here, I honestly think that this statement will address everybody's concerns and preserve as much public participation as the public would like to have.

We have a motion to delay vote on the proposed amendments to rules on public participation. Do we have a second? Discussion? Do we have any questions or comments on Member Swank's proposed... Was there a second? Oh, no, I guess we don't need to have discussion if there's no second. I'll second that. Okay, all right. So we have Member Swank who's recommended a delay, who's moved to delay the vote, and we have Member Claude-Thotters who's seconded. Now we will discuss the motion on the table to delay the vote. Member Thomas.

It was in email and we talked about last week that it would come forward this week under other business. We've done all the others under other rules, other business. But also if you had changes, you've not sent that out to anybody. So I don't see a reason to delay this. It's been going on for months already. We could obviously amend tonight if we want to discuss it. But

Thank you, Member Thomas. Just to clarify, it is indeed our practice to handle rules of council under other business that is not clearly designated, but it has been our past practice. We just have the flexibility to give Member Swank the opportunity to provide an additional proposal for consideration that may be of interest to council members. or we can proceed with what's been recommended thus far and potentially have to amend again. I'll go back to Member Swank.

Within 10 minutes of getting home tonight, I can forward this to you, Member McCary, to distribute to the members of council.

Do we have any additional discussion on the proposed motion and second to delay? We've heard from Member Thomas a potential reason to go ahead and... proceed tonight, and we've heard from Member Swank that he's happy to provide an alternative option as early as this evening to Council, which would take us to reconsidering this at our next regular session. Member Wood.

To the broader point, do we have text for option C?

We have text for option C, but not the new what Member Swank has in mind that he hasn't shown us yet.

Do we have the I'm saying that I am searching now for option C and not seeing the exact text, and so I was just wanting to see if we had that. I think if it's baked as is, fine, but I don't have it handy, so I would like that before I... Option C discussed our June 8th meeting.

It was previously circulated by email. Does anyone have it right now?

I believe it's in your email from August 7th.

From August 7th? No, it's a summary of it, yeah. Okay.

one moment if anyone finds it in this next few seconds yes what the thing that I had taken and revised addressed one element that we had not come to a consensus on and that was the issue of questions directed to members of council chairs and committee and the president in general session and i had incorporated that into that email that's floating out there somewhere and that is what i can send to you to distribute to council in 10 minutes of getting home this evening that's why i said i think it wraps up the whole thing about the address about um As Mary Abel said to us last week, people approach the lectern, they say their piece, and we stand here like Mount Rushmore. when we might be able to answer a question. And that's what I incorporated into my revision of what was originally presented, which I would like to share with you and members of council, hence the motion to table till that can be in everyone's hands. Okay.

I do have the full text of the previous Option C, but what Member Swank has just clarified is that the proposed Option C did not address the sign-in sheet piece. So what he would be sharing with us tonight via email would be a little expanded beyond what he initially proposed for Option C. Do we have any need to hear option C in its entirety now, or do we have any discussion on Member Swank's motion to delay this a little bit so we can consider additional option?

If you wouldn't mind, I would like to hear it.

All right. Option C was that at the conclusion of the discussion of an item that comes before committee for the first time, the committee chair shall ask, is there any objection to this? No, no, no. Oh, sorry. Sorry. That's the wrong one. All right. some of your Mr. member would we won't be able to do that tonight so based on that I'm just going to propose that we wait but we do have a motion in a second so we have to formally vote I believe on the delay all in favor of delaying this discussion of council rules until our next regular session say aye any opposed say nay nay all right we will delay this member Swank thank you for your willingness to send us an updated option for consideration this evening.

Point of clarification, I'll address this to the law director. Director Eliason, would it be more appropriate for me to send that directly to members of council or to member McCary to then distribute to members of council?

I think probably to member to President Kerry, and then he can distribute.

Yeah, that's what I thought. All right, thank you very much. And I will confirm with counsel for clarity that if we're confirmed ready to go for our next regular session, we'll circulate the proposed sequence of discussion so that folks know how that discussion will go. All right, that I believe is the last item for business. Other business, Mayor Patterson? Not a problem.

Thank you, President McCary. I want to inform council under announcements that Director Stone is pulling together information for something that's going to come to committee. that it pertains to the wastewater treatment plant. Just to give you an overview, a couple things. One of our influent pumps, we have three large pumps that come in. One of them is down. We need to replace that pump. The motors are fine. The pump is what needs to be replaced. We've also identified some heaving. in the primary clarifiers which disrupts the skimmers that take out the oil and sludge within the clarifiers has become an issue with the clarifiers. Some sensors and then also the I'm glad you brought up electric. The increased AEP rates for the electric bills in particular, our wastewater treatment plant, as well as our water treatment plant, but more so the wastewater treatment plant is running overtime when we have these high water events, these heavy rain events. I'm just sharing that you're going to see information that'll come through Clerk Walker. From the administration kind of bundling all these are all separate issues, but we're going to be bundling them together They'll be line item in that ordinance We are working with EPA Environmental Protection Agency on this issue They are aware and they're tracking and so we will likely ask for when the time comes suspension of the rules to be able to get this and comply with AEP because AEP like I said is well aware of the issue with the pump, with primary clarifiers and other things that are taking place down at the wastewater treatment plant.

Do we have any other announcements today? Seeing none, we'll move on to opportunities for citizens to speak on legislative items not already covered on this evening's agenda.

For now.

If you would proceed to the podium and let us know who you are, if you are representing yourself or an organization, then you'll have up to three minutes to speak on a topic of your choice that was not already covered on tonight's agenda.

Mary Abel, Strathmore Boulevard, speaking as an individual. I want to thank you for bringing up the item regarding storm sewers. We had a lot of flooding out on the east end this past week as well in many homes that have never had water. One of the things that has concerned me quite a bit is grass clippings that go into the storm sewers. Many people, it happens in our neighborhood, as you drive around Athens, you see it, they cut grass, it lies in the street. Eventually, that stuff goes into the storm sewers. A few years ago, we had quite a very nice discussion in our neighborhood with the Athens Soil and Water Conservation and the problem that what occurs when those storm sewers are blocked. We also put this information in our newsletter every spring about this. I had one person come and cut our grass and I said, remember, you have to blow the grass out of the street. He said, well, you're the first person that I've mowed grass for here that has told me that. And I said, well, it is a rule within our city code because it goes into the storm sewer. I really don't know what can be done about it, but that's really clogging up the storm sewers. And of course, just as to the debris, the leaves and... the grass and various things that get into the storm source. I don't know what can be done about it but I know that's one of the things that creates a problem but thank you for bringing it up and hopefully somehow it can be addressed. Thanks.

Thank you for that and we welcome such suggestions especially around educational initiatives that our government channel might be able to assist with so we appreciate that suggestion. Do we have any other members of the public who would like to speak this evening? Seeing none, I will accept a motion to adjourn at 8.12 p.m. So moved. Member Isherwood, can we have a second? Second. Member Stazer, thank you. All in favor of adjourning, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. We are adjourned.

Thank you so much.