City Council - Regular Meeting

submit into your care. Because if you're not there in it, we recognize that it's futile and meaningless. So Lord, in some small way in this meeting, God, we pray that we would continue the tradition of creating a more perfect union. God, that we would create and facilitate a community where people and children would grow up and maybe want to also serve their country. God, we pray all of these things in your son's precious name.

Amen.

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, Pastor Donaldson. Of course, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. William, will you please call the roll?

Pick up on.

Here.

Roll on. Here. Member Weirich.

Here.

Member Matheny.

placer here number prep here member stocker here six present i'll make a motion to excuse member matheny can i have a second i'll second that all in favor all right all right emotion carries is there a motion to approve as presented the minutes from the may 11th 2026 city council and the may 18th 2026 committee of the whole and city council meetings make a motion to approve the minutes all right is there a second second all in favor all right post that motion carries as well so at this time council invites chief of police frank kemp administrative specialist jennifer cross and council clerk liam ott to the floor for a special presentation on the speed management and enforcement dashboard

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here to talk about one of our new initiatives that we've been working on. Really started out, the idea that's kind of started out is we do the speed studies in the neighborhoods. And you gather all this data, a lot of times residents call in, they never see the data that we catch on the backside. So I was looking for a landing page to put that out there on our website for it to be available. Through the involvement of Jennifer, Liam, Officer Jabara, Major Buzzard, and it grew into its own initiative that has future potential to it. So Drive Safe North Canton is our theme behind this because it's not just speed, it's operation at stop signs, it's operations at traffic lights, it's utilizing your seat belts. So we created a poster that we can use maybe in the future, print some good copies of this and get it out there into our community where people see it and we message it. Because our duty as police officers is not just enforce the law, Our responsibility is also to try to educate the public as we do. So with the assistance of the group that I've mentioned, we came up with the initial poster for this, which gives us a QR code in the bottom of it that takes you to our city website. And as we move over to the city website, this is what the beginning of the page looks like when you land there. The very first thing is a chart that was put together by Liam. We provide information from our CAD system to Liam. Liam takes that and puts it into Power BI.

I'll let you explain that Liam. Yep. So obviously you go to the police page and over here under speed management enforcement, we'll take you to this page. So this will open up an interactive graphic. So right here is the Power BI dashboard. You can full screen this. So this works on both mobile phone and on desktops. And this is fully interactive and you can't break it. So feel free to play around with it and click around. So let's say, you know, we want to see traffic stops per month in January. So we see 219 stops in January, but then we can even break this down further by clicking on one of the bar columns. And that will divide that into our high traffic stop areas and subdivide all of those stops. And you can see down the line where the stops occur. Same thing in accidents per month. So say we want to look at February. They have a total of 35 in February by clicking on that column. It subdivides all of these into smaller groups. So accident areas over here. You can see that there were four on East Hill, for example, but it also breaks out into the type of accident, whether that was just your standard accident, something like a bumper to bumper rear ending, whether it was a hit skip or if there were injuries. And then even smaller is hit skip with injuries because we only had one this year. So this is a constantly evolving graph. So as we get new data each month from the police department, I'm able to clean that up and put that into the system. It will automatically update once I hit publish internally, and then that's visible for everyone out there to take a look at, analyze. And this just kind of helps make it easy to understand, to see obviously our high traffic areas are going to be our main roads. So North Main, South Main and Apple Grove, and that's both sides of Apple Grove separated out. This is just a nice easy way for you to access that data and see what the police department's up to and just be able to see where everything's really happening.

Does that also tell you if a ticket was issued or not?

This specific doesn't specifically just because it was a little bit more granular than we wanted to be from public sector for the public sake. Um, those are things that could certainly be looked into for future issue or rather a written warning this issue.

It has a. enhancing effect because anytime we make a traffic stop on a roadway it has lights and visibility with us being out there and there's that additional public influence that we get from the traffic stops so we figured what we were posting was getting the the importance of we are out there making the traffic stops whether the officers issue a ticket or whether they issue a more granular numbers, we do post that data in our annual reports. But on a regular monthly page, if I live on Woodrow and I'm looking to see how many traffic stops occurred on Woodrow, if they want the visibility of the cruisers making traffic stops on Woodrow, that is what influences behavior because we are seeing it in the area. Whether it's a ticket or whether it's a warning, it doesn't matter because I will tell you Personally, I have lowered my threshold in some areas. When we get complaints and it's around the schools, I will justify my officers making a more strict traffic stop. That does not mean that I influence where they write a ticket. I influence where they initiate a traffic stop. And it's their discretion whether it's at the bank. Consistency is safe for them whether they write you a ticket or whether they write you one.

For example, to Chief Kemp's point, I scrolled down through the list and found Woodrow Street Northwest and clicked on that bar. There were 14 this year, seven of which were in April, five in March, and two in February. So you can see that they are out there on Woodrow. But also as a grand total, all of these so far added up is 1,234. So in the first four months of the year, they made 1,234 traffic stops. So I think that to his point, that paints a picture of they are actively out there working every single day and every single month. And that's reflected here.

So you had a community up in Cleveland. I don't know if it was in the Cleveland area. I don't know if it was Beachwood or Cleveland Heights. On your speed, you were going at If they were going nine miles over, it would click it, they somehow filmed it, and they got a ticket sent.

There are different tools out there, but that's a decision to have a more detailed discussion on. Okay. As to whether we need to use those tools. Do we have some reason maybe those tools might be of assistance? It could be. In those communities, when you're talking about using the tool, I think one you may be referring to is DragonEye. That tool does. There is an officer that's operated by them. It is a handheld laser, and it gives a picture of a plane. The officer operated the radar laser system, so it's fully connected. It's not an automated system. It sends a ticket in the mail, never did the traffic stop, never did the secondaries, effect of having a traffic stop on the roadway because there's no visibility. There's also less room for there to be any conflict between the officer and the driver on a heavy traffic area. It's Apple Grove and Everhart. When we go up there, we do traffic on Apple Grove and Everhart. If we're up here at the busy times of the day, those busy times, when we get out there and we do traffic on that roadway, we just make it that much more congested. by being out there. So there is a traffic pattern for them being out there. So do try to be visible up there. They do make traffic stops that can happen. But when you get close to the intersection, that increases your suggestion and chance for creating secondary accidents because they have a traffic stop close to an intersection. So try to, when they're up there doing a course of an action, they try to not turn their lights on until they're further down the roadway so that we can get an internal hot socket. That is something that we could have a future discussion on whether or not it's worth going into that realm. Some communities, that move is contentious, but it's a conversation.

That said, I do think that there's some information on the website that also helps paint some of those pictures, so I'll hand that over to Jennifer to talk about the website portion.

Thank you, Leo. So, as you mentioned, we kind of approached this project with two primary objectives. The first was to make a user-friendly public hub for the NCP East traffic data for our community to explore. And then the second would be to provide that broader driving safety initiative, establish that for the NCPE so that they can share informational and educational resources with the community to promote safe driving. So Liam's traffic data dashboard is a great example of the interactive portion of that NCPE data. In addition, if we scroll down the page to our speed stats and surveys section, we've actually broken down THE SPEED SURVEYS TAKEN BY THE NCPD OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS BY STREET. SO IF YOU SEE A STREET THAT YOU'RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT, WHAT KIND OF DATA WAS COLLECTED, YOU CAN CLICK ON IT AND IT WILL EXPAND INTO THE BREAKDOWN OF WHEN THE SURVEY WAS TAKEN, WHAT THE AVERAGE SPEEDS WERE, WHEN AND AS THE SURVEY WAS BEING CONDUCTED, AND WHETHER THERE WERE ANY PLANNED SOLUTIONS OR APPROACH FROM THE NCPD BASED OFF OF THE DATA THAT THEY FOUND, WHETHER THAT'S INCREASED PATROLS, that kind of presence that she was mentioning that encourages people to keep an eye on their speeds as they're going through these areas. And it also includes some helpful definitions off to the left there for those of us that aren't as fully engrossed in the industry to know what exactly we're talking about when we say 85th percentile speed or average speeds in a particular area. Beyond the data,

Senator, I'm going to interject. The one thing about that, in that question, it goes to the percentile scenario with the largest volume of traffic in that area is traffic. We did not post high scores. We did not post the fastest speed limit that we've had on that street. That is not this data. We know that there is a percentage, and we had to, for the equipment that we used, we used 11 miles an hour over the limit. for measuring data so when you see that anything over the speed limit is 11 over is where that gets tricky as you alluded to in some communities nine nine was the number they used for our equipment and speaking of that equipment another thing featured on this website is a little bit of background information on the tools and activities that pncp uses

in order to uphold those speed laws throughout the city. So that includes, you'll see a map here, of all of our radar speed signs that will actively measure your speed as you're passing them and compare it to the posted speed limit on that particular street. I believe we have 28 scattered around the city. I'll take your word for it. There's a number of them further down the lane, but we'll scroll a little bit further, somewhere along there. Let's see, there's a capsule at the top. So those are the solar power signs that we see in some of those two streets that help people check their driving in real time, in addition to those. All the locations are listed the entity also a couple of speed trailers that are mobile that they can use to respond to complaints. Stapp, All certain areas that they may receive from residents on the stealth staff, which is a little more of a low key option from in many cases. Stapp, If people recognize that they're being measured. It's not a true measurement of what they're really going to do when they don't think anyone's looking. So the stuff that is there to Stapp, Catch and honest you of what the speeds are on that, whether everyone's obeying within a reasonable range or whether might need some more activity in that area and then of course the office patrols with our radar speed guns um believe the figure there about 33 percent of annual calls for service for traffic related items yes they're certainly out on the streets and they use those that combination of in-person patrol and those various tools to try to get a comprehensive view of what the cities look like Then beyond that, when we talk about that broader driving safety initiative, this page acts as kind of a home for a variety of information, educational resources on some key driving safety topics, whether that be what Liam's showing here, a little bit on the ins and outs of speed limits. You set some, what are the different limits based off of the type of street that you're on. Obviously, we always recommend that you follow the postage table. First and foremost, the signs are there for a reason. But some of those frequently asked questions they receive from drivers are trying to address in these areas. Just some key statistics on why safe speeds are so important when you're on the road. And then further down the page, we also have a section for our driving safety spotlights. This will be a place where you can put more information on those frequently asked questions, all those topics of interest that come up from season to season. surrounding driving safety. So you'll see here so far we have some background info on bicycle safety, the signs and signals that bicyclists will use, and the reminder to share the road with our drivers. Then there's also information on our e-bikes versus e-motor bikes, what the differences are to make sure that people know what the laws are and that they're operating those safely. And as well as some information on seat belts as well. this page is going to be an evolving resource for the community to be updated on a rolling basis like liam mentioned as new data and new topics become available they'll be housed here and the community can check it at any time that's live at north canton ohio.gov drive safe nc or under our police department page overall we're just hoping it'll be a helpful resource to kind of promote safe driving throughout the community and make sure that north canton remains a safe place to travel and for everyone

want to make sure it's a positive message that we get out and try to say that you're working we want you to be safe i want you to be careful and i want you to take your time thank you all right thank you thank you thank you that's fantastic information thank you guys for sharing thank you chief and thank you liam and jeffrey and whoever else was uh involved with putting it together i did have one thing that i wanted to bring up and i think i know the answer but maybe for those in the audience or those uh out in youtube land If somebody has a concern about speeding, because I know I fielded a lot of these from different residents. You brought up Woodrow. Yes. And so if somebody has a concern about speeding, what is the best way to convey that to the police department so they can be monitored?

They can reach out to the regular non-emergency number, and they can put in a speed trailer or speed monitor. Typically, what we do in our approach is we go into an area that we have not been in. We will try to get a self-statement. Now, we have one stealth staff that we purchased in the last couple of years. And our older ones, we've kind of retired them. They're older technology, and they're well over 10 years old. So we just have one stealth staff that we send to different neighborhoods to get a read on what the package is doing. Our officers will still go out and do enforcement during patrol shifts because we make them aware of it. But before we put an electronic sign out there, We want to get that measurement. We want to see truly what traffic's doing. In our city, when people are complaining about speeds, typically on any of our different streets, it's less than 5% of the traffic on the street is speeding. And I think the majority of our streets are right around that 2% of the traffic is speeding. consider that we're doing pretty good we're not talking about the digits we're talking really getting it into the nitty-gritty when we're trying to find the filing because it is a safety concern anything about one percent is where we'll we'll do an active control push to get into an area if we read an area and it's less than one percent If somebody's complained about, we will spend some time in that area, but then it's just going to be something for us to be aware of, hey, from time to time, check this street. But when people do call in and they do have concerns about speed, what really helps us is if we know the time of day. If you can give me 20-minute time blocks for me to have the officers show up at, that helps us to narrow and be efficient in our use of time.

Good information, thank you. We had, when we removed some of those stop signs on Saddleway, I had a lot of calls, their speed. And I went out there after you guys did, and I thought, well, it looks like they're speeding. But I sat there for two and a half hours, and I didn't, you know, I didn't see that much. You did, the stuff you do.

The width of a roadway, whether the roadway has curves, and give the appearance that traffic is moving faster than what you would expect it to be. Narrow roadways have an effect on it, and so do curbs.

I think this goes a long ways to really demonstrate that our police department is taking this topic seriously. You know, I think it's really easy for some citizens to just randomly say, you know, nobody's out patrolling, nobody's pulling anybody over. And I think this demonstrates the opposite of that. And, you know, I think it's great to have that information available to the public. So this is fantastic. Thank you.

And if the community does want to look into more details or data further than this, the annual reports are also available on the website that go over an entire year's worth of data from each of our departments.

And if we built this to be able to be, you know, if we would have funding for it, you know, I can see that. Try and save more can't becoming a sticker that we have with us when we get someplace and have a handout. I can see those flyers and we had some of those made up on a little heavier stock that you know, the community will be able to come to us and say, Hey, can we get one of those and we'd like to put one of those in the front window of our shop. It lends itself to that and with the QR codes, it really makes it easy for people to find that information.

To that point, you know, as I look over to our friends in the administration, maybe that's something we could have, you know, on the table for like Main Street Festival, things like that. So that would be great information.

We have a part of your booth that you're always at for Main Street Festival.

I think that's a great idea.

I was going to comment on the branding too. I think the branding is fantastic. And I love that it's proactive and just a positive way to go about this.

It took us a little bit to get to that, but I think we found the right mix of something that pops something that ties to our community because when you come into our community you see those pillars and we want you to be able to travel to our community safely and we also want we're a very active pedestrian type community we want everybody to enjoy it following up on what you said it's it's informative but i've always appreciated what

your approach to proactive safety is. You do that differently than a lot of other communities do. And I think our community really appreciates that. This is phenomenal. Well done, all of you.

Good job.

So next up, we have recognition of the public for legislation that's on the agenda, but no one signed up for that. Okay. Moving on to old business. Liam, will you please read the title of ordinance 19-2026?

An ordinance amending Chapter 163, Contracts and Purchasing, specifically subsection 163.04a, Purchases and Contracts over the Bidding Thresholds of the Codified Ordinances of the City of North Canton to remove the requirement of a voice vote of counsel for approval of contracts and purchases following border control approval to align more closely with the border control's charter-defined authority and ensure the timely approval of contracts and purchases.

Member Pratt, I don't know if you have been, we're on the third reading, but anything additional to add?

Yeah, basically, this would just be doing away with the current way, which requires it going back to Council after the Board of Control looks at it. It does away with that. It would stop with the Board of Control then. However, the Board of Control at the next Council meeting would bring guess four notes or minutes from uh what was uh handled at that meeting just as a public acknowledgement that's basically the change it's just aligning more with the charter itself okay admin anything else to add okay is there a motion to adopt the third reading of ordinance 19-2026

I'll make that motion.

Second?

I'll second.

All right. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? That motion carries. William, will you please read the title of ordinance 23-2026?

An ordinance authorizing the mayor of the City of North Canton, upon border control approval, to enter into a guaranteed maximum price agreement with Beaver Constructors Incorporated for the construction of a new fire station at a cost not to exceed $11,469,883.89 and declaring the same to be an emergency.

Great. Member McLeister, it's yours.

All right. Well, fantastic. This is our second reading of this item. And as it's described in what Liam just described, this is the maximum price that shall not be exceeded. You know, that is the ceiling for the purchase of our entire station. And I'm not aware of any changes, Jim. Nothing new. And I think we're also working tonight. We'd like to pass this tonight. It is on emergency. I would like to just move this forward and just... I don't have any other questions that I've heard from anybody. Does anybody have any questions? All right. So with that, I would take the motion that we adopt the second reading or pass the second reading of Billings 23.26. Okay.

I'll make the second on that. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? I then will make a motion to suspend the rules of council requiring three readings. Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And is there a motion to adopt ordinance 23-2026 under suspension of the rules? Motion. Second? Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? So now we are on to the second recognition of the public. But no one signed up for that either. All right. You guys are making this easy on me today. All right. Then we're just moving on to department reports. Is that right, William? Yep. Okay. All right. Mayor Stroy?

All right. start with Memorial Day, the parade, I thought went off really well. So I want to thank the Lions and Joe Chevro, who just does an amazing job organizing that. And I feel like that was the most efficient parade that we had. I think we were I've never been all the way up at the beginning, so I think I was done in 21 minutes. Fantastic. It was great, but I thought it was really well attended and really appreciated the ceremony and everything afterwards as well. so coming up we've got the uh the mayor's fishing radio i'm super psyched about that uh it starts at 8 00 a.m and that is saturday so i want to thank the eagles for putting that together and uh I never really understood why that was so exciting to the previous mayors until you became a mayor. And now I get it. I always remember Dave Bell like being super excited about the fishing radio. And yeah, I'm really excited about it. So that's going to be fun. Um, and then, uh, the brews bourbon and barbecue festival is, um, I don't start at noon. Do we know what time that starts?

5 o'clock for VIPs. Okay.

Okay. Okay. I'm way off. Yeah. Um, no, but I'm looking forward to that as well. So that's all I have for now. Thank you.

Thanks director of administration.

Mayor said everything I would say great Memorial Day parade looking forward to starting the summer off with the mayor's fishing rodeo. And I will not have a report tonight because I want to yield some time we have our new direct parks, we talked about this position so much here he is now live in person of the parks planning and development administrator Mike Elkins so I will save my time so when he gets a chance to talk, he can tell you a little bit more about himself.

All right. Deputy Director of Administration.

I will follow Catherine's lead. No pressure. You guys have done it twice. I proceed to speak for a minimum of five minutes. Nice to meet you all. Mike Elkins is what they call me since birth. I've spent 28 years with the city of Green, more than 30 years really in public service, all the way back to when I was a teenager in the city of Aurora. And I just want to commend the administration. I want to commend city council and the entire community of North Canton. There's a proverb that many of you know, but there is no vision that people perish. And so this community has done a great job with strategic planning for the city and now for the parks with this master plan. And I'm excited to be part of this very talented team. Thank you for your trust and my ability, my leadership to help bring this vision that the community of North Canton has put on paper will bring this to life. So I'm really looking forward to working with each and every one of you and all the different organizations in North Canton.

Thank you. Can I just reference a Taylor Swift song and say it's been a long time coming? So grateful to have you here.

Thank you.

Yeah. Okay. Deputy Director of Finance, Jim. Okay. Director of Law. Council Clerk.

I'll just keep following suit in our report. Moving along.

Okay.

That'll be good.

Ward one, Madam McLeister.

Well, what's on your report? I do have a couple things. So if anybody found something in their mailbox today, North Canton Sun, and I see Jennifer smiling back there because I'm going to thank her. So she's done an amazing job. Just I think it's kind of been a reroll out. And I know Mayor Shroy and I have talked about it at length. I'm glad these hit a little bit differently, have useful information. And I also want to thank finance, because I think between us, we had discussions earlier this year about having more financial information. So this edition talked a little bit about property tax and stormwater funding, which I thought was a great little article. And then if you scroll a little bit further back, I should have heard behind the budget volume two talks about streets and sewers. So definitely check this out. I think you did a fantastic job with this. Well, certainly, certainly. I also want to talk about May 22nd. Big shout out to Catherine for throwing together for Public Works Appreciation Week. And I was joined, or I guess we were all joined together with Jeff Stocker, Andy Pratt, myself, and Holly Pierpont, and we joined Catherine, let's see who else was there, Catherine, and I think Terry was there from the administration, and we, I'm sorry. So we were all able to cook breakfast for our service center employees. And I just have to say that was probably the most fun Friday morning I've had in quite a long time. So I just want to send you a big thank you for putting that together so we could show our city employees the appreciation.

they also wanted to thank you the service i think i might have told you i don't know if i told you all of you but they said that is the first time city council members have ever come down there and done something like that for them and they really appreciated it you went off with matt to look at the billing machine and that's when i had a chance to talk to them and they were asking who you were what ward and i got a chance to tell them so thanks for doing it well i'm not just saying that i'm already looking forward into next year so all right i think everything was a blast so

I also wanted to touch on Memorial Day. I don't want to belabor the point too much since Mayor Stroia touched on it, but fantastic parade. Big shout out to the North Canton Lions. I also wanted to throw out, as a Ward 1 resident, I'm sure lots of people drive by Whittier and Portage and saw all the American flags in the lineup along Portage. So every year, his name is Jim, and I'm probably going to mess up the last name. Big House. Big House, yep. does a fantastic job and i've driven by slow like a creeper the last couple times i've gone past this house because i was hoping he was going to be out and uh be able to say thanks but uh i just think he does a fantastic job i'm looking forward to july 4th and seeing uh his next flying display so big shout out to him really nice and that's all i have to see all right we'll go to board four remember all right well not too much happened we had a i got a couple calls from some residents

seeing us in the parade and they were very happy so thanks for the whole council we were in the parade hopefully i didn't drive the golf cart too fast the city crews are doing a great job in world four i drove past the golf course and went by the pickleball course everything seemed really nice back here across the street my ward is the park and we're drawing a lot of people We're at that park right now. Playing softball down there with the girls and stuff. And it's really quite an attraction for our city, the park there. Other than that, Lee and I got a couple calls. We took care of those. Nothing really major. But that's my report.

Okay.

Member Pierpont. Okay, well, thank you for everyone that came out tonight. One thing Chief Kemp and Jennifer and Liam, that report was fantastic. I do think that's going to be an excellent tool, so thank you. Welcome, Mike. Looking forward to all the opportunities ahead. I wanted to touch, but I'll go in chronological order here because we haven't been here in two weeks. So back on the 21st, I attended the North Canton EMS conference. Those guys rolled out the welcome mat to me. I just came and I listened while people came from departments all over Northeast Ohio. And they use those to gain credits towards certification renewals. So there were like six or seven topics that day. They were all over the place from like cardiac issues to pediatric trauma and other things. And I think my biggest takeaway from that event was that our guys are not only our guys and girls are not only out there addressing the immediate medical needs of our citizens, but they're looking ahead of that they're doing a lot of things and making a lot of decisions that could impact the future of our citizens and what i mean by that is they may identify some rough situations like child abuse elder abuse mental health crises and things like that and you know i haven't really given a lot of thought about that until that day and i got to hear the experts talking about it so that much more respect for those people so thank you for letting me attend that that was fantastic um we did serve breakfast for public works thank you for coordinating catherine that was a lot of fun for us We did get to talk to Superintendent of the Streets, Matt Morrow. He did give us a tour again. It was kind of another touch a truck experience for us grownups. We got to see the new milling machine. And then like my eyes must have lit up like it was Christmas because he said, by the way, my guys are going to start working on Pershing Avenue in Northeast next week. And I was like... and yes these guys i was excited um and so i will go there and say i have been watching that and it is progressing and it's amazing what they're doing so quickly so thank you very much i know i've been very critical of that so Made me very excited to see Memorial Day Parade. Thanks to the Lions Board for heading that up. And he's not here, but we'll thank David for coordinating, getting all of us together. That was fun. My Apple Watch thought I was getting a workout chasing you in the cart, but it was good. So that was a lot of fun. It was neat to see all the people out, all the kids and all their patriotic clothes. That's a great perspective being in the parade and seeing that. Um, other than that, you know, there's been some discussions going on. I know I myself and I know council member Pratt. We've been talking about. All the E bike talk in the community, and I know there's a lot of work being done. Liam, you're heavily involved. Um, so thank you to those of you that have met with us. Um, we just kind of want to support. that cause and put some more teeth around legislation if we can so hopefully we'll see something in the near future if we're able to do that and I'm also working with legal and Liam on trying to put some together um some safety in the parks type legislation so hopefully we'll see that in the near future too and so that's my report thank you remember Brett all right uh thanks uh yeah I'd like to second uh Holly with the e-bikes um we know there's a lot of concerns and issues

Hopefully, something to help law enforcement. We'll see what comes of that. Thanks to Chief and Liam, always a help. And since we're on the police topic, one of the officers that was with North Canton for a long time, Stanley Strasser, he passed away. fairly recently and uh he retired as a lieutenant he was a detective for a long time uh i think he started in dispatch when he was young like in high school so uh and kind of rose through the ranks and uh he passed away he was in florida and uh i only seen him maybe once or twice the first time i saw him i'm like who's this guy i mean he was in a suit i mean he looked he was it was like top, top, and I just always had that image in my head. So just a huge loss to pay that. The other thing was with, I guess, Mr. Elkins, just wanted to welcome you. I saw a video online, the YouTube view in a construction site, and I just thought, you know, this, I was excited to see, you know, very hands-on, it seemed, and Just look forward to the experience and knowledge that you have and your willingness to share that with us. So let's appreciate that. And I guess traffic with summer schools out. It's nice to see the traffic is on everyone's mind with the law enforcement rolling out this new plan. to be able to see, you know, where they're putting focus and whatnot. It's nice to see that traffic is a top priority of theirs. You know, like, you know, growing up, you pull into North Canton, it's like you go to speed limit because everyone knows that, you know, you're going to get, someone's going to clock you. And so it's nice to see that we're still traffic focused. I've always heard, you know, we had low speed limits because when there's lower speeds, there's less likelihood of fatality, bad accidents, things like that. And so I just think it's important that, you know, people are mindful of speed and that we are trying to be more proactive. And so I appreciate the chief's mindfulness and leadership in that. And really, that's all I have.

All right. Member Stocker.

Thank you, Madam Vice President. So first of all, thank you to Chief Kemp and to Jennifer and Liam for the presentation on Drive Safe from Canton and the Data Dashboard. My day job, I work in a very data-driven, very analytical environment, and it is phenomenal, frankly, that we are applying some of those same principles, especially Microsoft Power BI to public safety. I also applaud the decision to include these dashboards and make them available to the public. Much of the data that's there, and I've looked over the dashboards, most of it, a lot of it confirms what we kind of already knew, but there's also some pretty interesting surprises in there as well. And Chief, I truly appreciate the community-based approach that you and your force consistently take here in North Canton. It's very noteworthy and it's frankly different than a lot of communities. I would like to welcome Mr. Elkins. I am a fan of your past work in green and some of those ball fields are amazing and the parks are great. And I'm looking forward to your continued leadership here in North campus. So welcome aboard. Thank you. And then lastly, I wanted to shout out everyone who is involved with our zoning and code enforcement teams, including our volunteer residents who comprise the Zoning Board of Appeals as council's non-voting representative or the liaison to the ZBOA. I can report that last week, the ZBOA held their first meeting since last August. There were two issues before the board. There was one involving a resident asking for a variance for their driveway to accommodate a mobile home, motor home, I should say, And another that was involving a signage variance request, and that was by a very long time of retail establishment here in town. Having zoning standards is absolutely integral to the vision of what we want our community to be, what we want it to look, and what we want it to feel like. But equally as important is a government that's in touch with its residents and stakeholders process worked here. While both of these initial requests fell outside of the code, the City's original code, the members of the ZBOA, they performed their due diligence by visiting or driving by each of the properties in question, and they determined that each request was, in fact, very reasonable and necessary. And they ultimately approved both requests. I just want to thank you for your work and for that matter, everybody that's involved with keeping our zoning standards what they are. So that's my report. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. So I guess we're on to me. I would also like to give, again, a huge welcome to Mike Elkins. I know how lucky we are to have you. I don't take that for granted at all. You were willing and are excited to come here and are going to help us get this plan implemented. So just really, really grateful for that. Kind of random, but I think it's worth mentioning that the Arrowhead Grill is open for dinner. I went yesterday, had lunch. I can tell you, I got a glass of wine. It was $5, $5. And a salad for $13. I was like, this is amazing. I sat outside. It was beautiful. You're on the golf course. So I feel like we're frequently like, oh, we don't have a lot of restaurants, you know, but I think we forget about Aaron so encourage everyone to go out there and then chief camp Jennifer Liam I i'm sitting here thinking like. When I met you chief camp, you were Sergeant camp working film nights with me and Jennifer when I met you, you were working the front desk at city hall and Liam when I met you, you were an intern. and i was a young council person that never would have been brave enough to sit up here and run a meeting so the fact that y'all are doing the work that you're doing and that i'm sitting here today i don't know it just feels very full circle and um so i'm grateful for all of the work that you're doing um and i'm grateful to everyone for bearing with me as we went through this meeting tonight okay move on to the final call for new business Okay, seeing none, I will make a motion to enter into an executive session for the purpose of discussing the purchase or sale of property as permitted by O. R. C. One 21.22 G. Two. Can I have a second?

I'll second.

Thank you. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

It's in favor, zero opposed.

Okay. At this time, council is in executive session. Let the record reflect. Council will be joined by the directors of administration, the director of law, the directors of finance, the parks planning and development administrator, the clerk of council, and the mayor. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn from executive session?

Motion. I make that motion.

And can I have a second?

Second.

Roll call vote.

Oh, it's just simple majority to adjourn.

Oh, I'm down here. I'm sorry, guys. Oh, I did so well until now. Okay. So all in favor? Aye. Opposed? And we are adjourned from executive session. So our meetings calendar, we are here June 8th for Committee of the Whole. June 15th, we have Council of Public Speaks. June 22nd, Committee of the Whole. And then June 29th, no meeting because it is the fifth Monday. I don't think there's anything else, right? Okay. Oh, did I let the record reflect that no action was taken in executive session?

You have not let the record reflect.

Okay. All right. I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Is there a second?