City Council - Regular Meeting

Pledge of Allegiance. [clears throat] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all for joining us this evening. Jody, could you call the role, please? Dennis, here. Harold, here. Halen here. Musgrave here. Odicio here. Fipps here. Robinette here.

The uh minutes for our November 17th meeting were distributed for you to review prior to this evening. Are there any additions corrections to those? Hearing none. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Properly moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Okay. Jody, do we have any correspondence this evening? We do not. Do we have anyone signed up for lobby visitation? We do. Tim Dunn.

Tim, if you could just give your name and address for the record, please. My name is Tim Don. I'm president of our Bowling Green uh youth baseball program and I'm here tonight uh finally to thank Council, Mike, Brian, Lori, uh in support uh of a couple projects that really has been going on for a couple years, maybe three years. [snorts] Our lighting project got completed out at Carter Park. Uh new aluminum and steel poles, um fixtures, new lighting, the entire thing. We were torn up for quite a long time and we opened the season this year. We finished the project in June. Uh and we are extremely pleased at what it uh has done for our program. We got a lot of feedback not just from our own parents in Bowling Green but the number of teams that come through uh Carter Park in a year's time. [gasps] Also uh supporting the pavement project on the south end. That was a big project getting that new pavement put in and the pavement uh repainted handicap spots and parking spots. those two projects along with our board that uh took on quite a few things at the park. We feel uh right now going into 2026 be our 76th year. We opened Carter Park in 1990, but we think we're as good if not better uh as far as the physical facility. Uh really really pleased. And so tonight on behalf of our board, I just came to thank all of you. Um, I hope you understand the impact. Uh, the competitive teams and competitive

leagues now across Ohio, uh, Indiana, Michigan, uh, cities are putting a lot of money into their facilities and Carter Park is right up in there now in Ohio. Other things that they're doing um that have made uh, big inroads on making them more competitive where they're at, but we're very pleased with where we sit today. So on behalf of our board of trustees, 11 members of our trustees that I noted there, we just want to thank everyone for taking the initiative to support this because I know it was expensive. I know we did some grant money with that, but it it was a big step and we are good uh for a long time to go. Okay. Any questions at all about our facility at all?

No. Thanks a lot. All right. Thank you so much. Kathleen Dennis

[clears throat]

So, good evening. I'm Kathleen Dennis, 402 Buttonwood Avenue, and I'm here this evening on behalf of BG Song. We're excited to invite you to um all of you uh and including the administration um and the residents of Bowling Green to our architectural design studio showcase. Uh we present this event in partnership with BGSU's school of the built environment. The faculty who have worked with us are Lindseay Brusco and Ben Burkhart. The students are from Professor Brusco's design studio class. The showcase explores how architecture can support new collective forms of living and care by addressing the urgent need for diverse affordable housing in our community. The featured designs are student visions that imagine sustainable, connected, and community centered ways of living for one of the newly designated mixeduse neighborhood properties in Bowling Green. The showcase will be held from noon to 2 o'clock on Tuesday, December 9th at the First Presbyterian Church, 126 South Church Street. Community members are encouraged to drop in and view the designs and engage students about their work. The students were challenged to envision a new future for the former Sentinel Tribune property on East Po Road. Their proposals are quite varied, rem reimagining the site as vibrant, well-integrated neighborhoods that foster connection, adaptability, and mutual care. You will encounter architectural designs that enhance lives through the repurposing of a space located near all major community resources. These designs provide moderately priced housing in settings that facilitate community engagement. The neighborhoods include a variety of homes and buildings, some with designated commercial commercial uses linked by inviting landscaped walk and bike paths, including natural elements such as native plantings and water features. Um, they're well integrated into nearby communities. As you talk

with the students, you'll learn how reutilizing existing spaces in a well-designed cohesive environment can support everyday people. Through our collaboration with BGSU School of the Built Environment, we hope to build excitement around the possibility for future affordable housing options that will reflect and enhance Bowling Green's existing sense of place. Too often we hear there isn't a way forward on affordable price points for new homes and neighborhoods. BG Song believes through dialogue, determination, and hard work, we can bring together the elements that will be required to address this need in our community. We hope you will all attend and enjoy exploring these creative ideas and I look forward to seeing you all there. So, thanks.

All right. Thank you. That's everyone for this evening. Okay. That brings us to [clears throat] the introduction of new legislation.

Mr. President, Mr. Robinette, from the finance committee, I've got three ordinances. First, an ordinance to provide appropriations for the expenses and other expenditures of the city of Bowling Green, Ohio for the fiscal year beginning January 1st, 2026 and ending December 31st, 2026. An ordinance providing supplemental and/or amending appropriations for current expenses and other expenditures of the city of Bowling Green, Ohio during the fiscal year beginning January 1st, 2025 and ending December 31st, 2025. and an ordinance amending and adopting chapter 33 of the codified ordinances of the city of Bowling Green, Ohio, regarding employment policies.

Mr. President, Miss Pips, um from the planning, zoning, economic development committee, I have an ordinance dedicating a perpetual easement for highway purposes without limitation of existing access rights in the name and for the use of the city of Bowling Green, Wood County, Ohio.

Okay. And then I have two ordinances from public utilities. I have an ordinance authorizing the utilities director to enter into contracts with Novote Tix for professional services and an ordinance accepting uh deed from Bowling Green Economic Development. And that brings us to official reports. Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. President, and good evening, council. I really don't have a report, but I did want to provide um just a reaction to um Mr. Dunn's comments. Um I would want to reciprocate his uh observations about the value of that partnership and the relationship between the organization um Little Youth Baseball and the city of Bowling Green. Um, that's a long legacy of of uh little league baseball and Bowling Green. Tim and I could probably have a lot of fun telling stories of our time at the old Peewee Park going back to the the days when we were elementary kids. Um, that's when I first met Tim and we played together out there all the way through um, you know, our our elementary days. Um, a lot of great memories, but that just goes to speak to the longevity of the relationship. But from my perspective, that is really an an amazing organization. There are um a number of of residents that support that through um their volunteerism. You have a a roster of the of the board members. They're all volunteers. They are they they do not get paid in any way, shape, or form. And I can speak I can say from experience that there are hundreds of hours spent um by those individuals and many others supporting the work of that organization throughout the course of the summer um every year and um the participation from local young people. Um it's an outstanding um opportunity for kids to learn a game of baseball and I'm thankful for the work that they do. That's honestly it would be difficult for the city through their parks and recck department to be able to stage and present and organize a program of that magnitude. So, we're fortunate that there's an organization such as Little League Baseball that is willing to do that and take that on. So, Tim, thank you for your work. Um, how many years

you've been doing that?

Yeah, 49 years. Um, [snorts] so thank you for your work and your commitment to that over the years. and also um please share my appreciation with the with your current board members um and other volunteer coaches and concessions and ground people. Um it's a group effort and the community community benefits in a very positive way for that. So I'm proud that the city is able to support the work that they do out there because again I believe our community as a whole benefits from that relationship and the programs that are presented there every summer. Concludes my report subject to any questions that you may have. Does anyone have any questions for the mayor this evening? All right. [clears throat] Thank you very much. Municipal Administrator, Miss Treader.

Good evening. Uh starting my report with a bittersweet announcement. Uh we are um happy for her, but sad for us that Martha Walkey has let us know that she'll be retiring at the end of this year. Uh Martha has been with the city since I hopefully I have this right. September of 2021. Is that correct? Um after a long career um within the community as well. She was a well-known community figure and we were glad to have her on the staff here. In that time she has led our community development area and in the last couple of years in addition to those took over the as the director of the administrative bureau. She has been a proven staff resource, coordinator, collaborator, and an all-around great person to work with. She is professional, responsible, and responsive as well. Um, I very much enjoyed working with Martha, as did my colleagues, and just so you know, you truly made a difference in your time here, and you will will be missed, but we are happy for you to get your retirement time. So, since we are on community development night, uh we have invited Matt Snow here to give an update um on community development for all of you this evening. I can take questions if you have them now or or after Matt talk.

Are there any questions right now for Mr. Tredder? Right. Thank you, Matt. The floor is yours. So, I have quite a bit to cover, so I'll go kind of quick, but happy to answer any questions at the end. Um, as you know, in community development, we administer several different programs. Um, have several that I'm going to highlight tonight. Uh, one being the home repair programs. Um, we definitely appreciate, uh, city council's allocation of the $100,000 at the beginning of the year for our local home repair program. um that has provided a lot of flexibility in being able to provide assistance to residents in BG. Um one being the income limits uh being at 350,000 or 350% of federal poverty level um allows people to qualify um that wouldn't otherwise qualify. Um that's an increase of around 25% for eligibility. Um, with the funding so far, we've assisted seven households with an average repair of 11,500 per project. Um, most of the repairs being roofs, furnaces, um, water heaters. Um, we did have a project which I'll share is uh success story that I have listed in the report um where we were able to replace uh some of the galvanized water lines um that were identified through the utilities department um and also some painting that was done as lead safe work. Um, so one of the projects was, uh, as I had mentioned, an elderly homeowner that had gotten a letter from the utilities department identifying that there was galvanized water lines. Um, we were able to replace the water lines from the um, city street into the home and actually throughout the house, they were

galvanized as well. So, we went ahead and replaced throughout the entire home as well. Um, we also had a historic build our historic home uh that had a lot of damaged siding, peeling paint. We were able to um repair all the siding and repaint everything. Uh, we otherwise would not been able to accomplish that with the federal money with all the restrictions with the lead safe housing rules. It would have uh exceeded the cost of the programs. Um, we had a roof that was tarped for over a year. Um, that was able to be replaced as an emergency once they were able to um turn in all their documentation. Um, so as I had mentioned, that's the the local home repair program. Uh, the local money allocated. Um, but another big part of our home repair programs is the CDBG community development block grant entitlement funds. um we were awarded 282,000 in uh fiscal year 24 through that program. As I'd mentioned, the income limits are lower, about 25% lower for a threeperson household. Um but we were able to assist 17 households with an average of $8,000 per repair. Um most of them repairs were roofs and furnaces. Once again, we're looking at major uh mechanical issues that otherwise could catch uh applicant offguard that they would not be able to afford to um have replaced. Um we were able to do some windows and doors, accessibility repairs, plumbing and electrical as well. Um some success stories with that program. Uh we were able to replace a substantial amount of flooring in one of uh the mobile homes that we went into. Um, actually when I walked down the hallway, the only thing holding us up was 2 by4s laid across the floor joist. Um, so we were able to go

through that entire home and uh replace subfloor and put new flooring down. And in the meantime, we uh did some accessibility repairs in the bathroom as well. Um, we had a uh boiler that was not uh running efficiently at all. um leaving black soot on the homeowners uh ceilings. Um that was replaced as well. Um and then the last one was a elderly home homeowner where we replaced the front and back doors of the home and we were able to partner with the fire department's Knox Box program to also um install them on the newly installed door. Um we partner with the county to administer the community housing impact and preservation program also known as CHIP. Um through that program we are able to accomplish uh very large projects that we would not be able to accomplish through our programs. Um also we are eligible for leads safe Ohio funds through that partnership and that was one of the projects that we did. Um, we identified a household that was actually it was actually identified through our um, it was through one of our other programs here. Um, and we were able to get them to go through that program and address um, all the siding windows and doors that had led to waste paint throughout the house. Um I provided a map of all of the projects that we've uh done throughout um funding year 24 and county year 25 for the local money. Um some pictures of some of the projects that we've completed. Um some some of the other programs that

we either manage or administer. One being the rental assistance program. We manage it manage the contract with the Bowling Green Housing Agency. Over the last year, they have dispersed $365,000 through that program. Um, average monthly assistance per household is around $459 and there's about 84 um households on that list um per month. Uh in addition, we are eligible for Wood County vouchers and they um their voucher program assists around 22 households here in Bowling Green. Uh we contribute funds to the Salvation Army um for transitional housing for the homeless. We allocated $6,000 to that program and 20 individuals were assisted through that. Um we do some economic development through CDBG program. We do the business revolving loan fund that is uh with a goal to create jobs and boost economic activity and we loaned out $230,000 and it's expected to create seven full-time jobs. Um we administer the BG Transit program. Uh through that program, uh $650,000 was allocated. Um it is a program that takes a lot of partners to be able to administer that um and for it to be uh fiscally uh possible. We partner with the FTA, ODOT, we have some general funds that go into that uh fairbox and uh the CDPG program um for that as well.

There's about 25,000 rides in the last uh fiscal year. About 41% are elderly or disabled riders. Um we have seven modified minivans that are fully accessible. Um we do have an update on our service provider. We have had our current service provider for over 20 years. Um, we went through a RFP process and have identified a new service provider that will begin January 1st. Um, they will provide the same service. Um, and after startup cost, there'll be a significant savings to the community. Um, we're expecting around $100,000 in savings with that. Um, should be a very smooth transition. Um, Groom Transportation will be the new service provider. um they are familiar to our area. They are the current um shuttle service provider for uh BGSU. We also awarded a grant for a new uh replacement vehicle for the BG Transit. They will cover 80% of the cost which is um definitely helpful being that the new vehicles cost around $70,000. Now, um we dispersed the micro grants for the community action plan. Um that was around $15,000 and then we're that was grants to advance citizen engagement, enhance neighborhood beautifification, and improve safety. Um we have several neighborhood initiatives that we administer. One being the report of concern. um that's an online tool that residents can use to submit any type of concern that they may have um that is actually going through our GIS system now. Um so it's a little bit more automated and hopefully we'll

get a little bit um faster response to individuals um that may have concerns. It could be anything from roads, housing conditions, um anything really that you could imagine. So, uh, the property maintenance program was the the program that I was trying to think of earlier with the leads safe Ohio funds. Um, so that program, what we're doing is trying to identify and prioritize um, maybe different homes that have fell into disrepair um, that have been identified through the health department's um, exterior housing survey. So that was one of the properties that we identified and was actually able to provide assistance um to the to the residents. Um we administer the community reinvestment area or CRA program which provides a 50% real estate tax abatement for 10 years. um that's been a pretty successful program and we've heard some feedback from different builders that that was the deciding factor for some of their clients um to actually build here in Bowling Green compared to a different community. Um then the last four things that I have is just covering some of our required strategic planning that we have to do um to be eligible for CDBG uh funds. We uh have to prepare a consolidated plan. So all these are five-year plans. We have to prepare a consolidated plan which is a strategic five-year plan saying how we're going to uh distribute and um allocate our funds. We do an analysis of pediments to fair housing choice. Um we do programmatic agreements for uh with the state historic preservation office and we do environmental reviews. Each one of them

plans takes city staff around two months to complete each one. Thankfully, we only have to do it every five years, but it does take a substantial amount of time to complete. And that's all I have to report. Does anyone have any questions for Matt this evening? Thank you very much. Thank you. That brings us to city attorney Mr. Brown. Good evening. No report. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Brown? Mr. President, um, [clears throat]

for the greater community good, is it uh what would be your opinion on our passing a resolution prohibiting Martha from retiring? Well, she is technically my supervisor, so Oh, conflict of interest. You cannot answer that question. Yeah, I think we should pass that resolution. [laughter] Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Brown? Infrastructure director, Mr. Okonnell. Good evening. Uh, no report unless you have questions. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Okonnell this evening? [snorts]

Okay, that brings us to council committee reports. Does anyone have any council committee report? Mr. President, Mr. Robinette, on November 19th, the finance committee met uh for the purpose of receiving conducting the budget hearing. No issues were raised by committee members at that meeting.

Okay. Uh I would just like to give a reminder that prior to the uh council meeting on the 15th uh there will be a committee of the whole meeting that will meet at 6:00 uh for the purpose of receiving uh the findings on the main street um bike and pedestrian study. So that'll be at six o'clock on December 15th in council chambers. Does anyone have anything else? [clears throat]

Is there going to be somebody from Mannequin Smith at that presentation? They'll be the ones giving the presentation. Mannequin Smith. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Hearing nothing else. Jody, can you lead us in the reading of legislation?

Legislation for first reading. Ordinance number 9328 for first reading. Ordinance to provide appropriations, excuse me, [clears throat] for the expenses and other expenditures of the city of Bowling Green, Ohio for the fiscal year beginning January 1, 2026 and ending December 31, 2026. Ordinance 9329 for first reading. Ordinance providing supplemental and/or amending appropriations for the current expenses and other expenditures of the city of [clears throat] Bowling Green, Ohio during the fiscal year beginning January 1, 2025 and ending December 31, 2025. Mr. President, Mr. Robinette,

I move to suspend the rules and give ordinance 9329 its second third readings. Okay. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Jody Harold, yes. Holland, yes. Musgrave, yes. Odicio, yes. Fipps, yes. Rabinet, yes. Dennis, yes. Okay. The rules are suspended for ordinance 9329.

Ordinance 9329 for second and third readings. Ordinance providing supplemental and/or amending appropriations for the current expenses and other expenditures of the city of Bowling Green, Ohio during the fiscal year beginning January 1, 2025 and ending December 31, 2025. Mr. President, Mr. Robinette, I move to adopt ordinance 9329. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Jody, Holland, yes. Musgrave, yes. Odoricio, yes. Fipps, yes. Robinette, yes. Dennis, yes. Harold, yes.

Okay. Ordinance 9329 is adopted.

Ordinance 9330 for first reading. Ordinance amending and adopting chapter 33 of the codified ordinances of the city of Bowling Green, Ohio, regarding employment policies. Ordinance 9331 for first reading. Ordinance authorizing the utilities director to enter into contracts with Navatics for professional services. 9332 for first reading. Ordinance accepting deed from Bowling Green Economic Development. Ordinance 933 for first reading. Ordinance dedicating a perpetual easement for highway purposes without limitation of existing access rights in the name and for the use of the city of Bowling Green, O Wood County, Ohio. Legislation for second reading. Resolution 3896 for second reading. Resolution authorizing the municipal administrator to enter into a renew of the agreement with the Wood County Public Defender. Resolution 3897 for second reading. Resolution establishing new funds. Resolution 3898 for second reading. resolution authorizing the mayor of the city of Bowling Green, Ohio to file an annual application and execute a contract upon grant application approval under the community development block grant entitlement program as authorized by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 as amended. Ordinance 9326 for second reading. Ordinance authorizing the municipal administrator to enter into a contract with the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce for the promotion and publicizing of the

city of Bowling Green, Ohio to bring the patron patronage and business of cultural, educational, religious, professional, and sports organizations into the city for the benefit of the citizens of the city and the business community and declaring an emergency. Ordinance 9327 for second reading. Ordinance authorizing the municipal administrator to trade in, sell outright, or otherwise dispose of equipment no longer needed for municipal purposes. There is no legislation for third reading.

Is there any other business to come before council this evening? Hearing none, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Some moved. Second. properly moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. We are adjourned.