City Council - Regular Meeting

First up on tonight's agenda is utilities committee.

Thank you. Appreciate that. So this is going to be the first reading

an ordinance that's amending some provisions to chapter 927. And to best facilitate that, we have a couple of experts from Verdantus to make a presentation. So if you would allow me, I would like to introduce Mr. Bob Knutt and Ms. Julie Merrill.

Thank you, guys. I'll have Julie just introduce herself real quick. She is from Raines. behind what we talked about tonight. And as some of you know, I like to say I'm just the eye-cagger.

Thank you for the interruption, Bob. My name is Shirley Harrell. I've been the financial support operator here now, but I've been working with Bob for the past year doing water and wastewater engineering. I've done a few race studies with him so far, but I let him take me through the details of our study. Thank you.

So it's... It's almost like homecoming for me. I've done a lot of work for the city now over the past 25 years or so. This is my fifth round at reviewing your rates, your rate studies and adjusting different things. So, and if I walk around a little bit too much, it probably has something to do with the fact that my dad was a Pentecostal preacher and I never learned how to stand still. So, My history, I've been with Verdansys CT for 13 years, but I've been in this business for 36. Over 36 years, I've literally done hundreds and hundreds of rate studies, a little bit different from what an engineer usually does. I am a professional engineer licensed in several states, but I've always liked the financial side of things. So when Julie was doing a freight study and I had the opportunity to come tonight, I told her I was gonna be here in person. So next slide, please. So what I like to do when I do public presentations is I like to give you the takeaway points up front. We'll go through the information and then summarize it again the same way. North Canton is a community I love working here. I've loved working with you guys for a long time. One of the main reasons for that is this community has always been a great steward of your resources. This is my fifth round with your rate studies over the last 25 years. And each time we make small adjustments, minor changes, and every time it makes your rates that much better. And the part of being a steward, I like to tell people, is nobody owns your water utility. Not one person in here has a title to, but everybody here has a responsibility. We're all stewards of the environment in one way or another. North Canton has done a terrific job with that in the past. That's why it's so fun to work with you guys. Along with that, though, we're going to talk about the performance of your rates. Again, I've been through this a few times with you guys, so I have a long history. I know some of the historical background. I'll try not to bore you guys forever. I have been told that, yes, I can talk way too long. I'll try to keep it short. So the importance of rate studies is we need three basic things to be our good litmus legal test. Our rates have to be reasonable. That means we don't want to be the highest rates in the state of Ohio. They have to be defensible. That means we need to have a method to show how we calculated them. And they must be equitable. And you're going to hear the term equitable a lot tonight. What that really means is we want everybody paying their fair share. So when we talk through that, you're going to hear that again and again on both the sewer and on the water side. And at the end of the day, I want to say again, the city has done so well. And we just say continue the legacy of what you have been doing for a long time. Your finance director office, a lot of kudos to Gina and her group. In 2019, when we put together a rate study, one of the things I left you with in the city was a spreadsheet that we call a rate book. And I recommended that Gina keep it up to date every year when the expenses and the revenues come in from ending last year. And she has done that. And that really makes our job a lot easier. Not only the finance department, the engineering department. Over the years, the engineering department has taken the approach of fixing, replacing, renewing your infrastructure so that you have good, valuable, and working utilities. I was talking to Julie a little bit today. In one community, they had no problems with 30 fire hydrants out of service at a time. I remember once in North Canton, we had one. hydrant out of service. Somebody almost lost your job. It's that important to the city to have a great system. And simple things like main breaks is a great way to waste money. But the city, instead of wasting that money on main breaks, historically, has fixed, replaced, got rid of the old, oldest lines. And I like to tell a story, and I like bragging about the city a lot. I've done a lot of presentations where I do brag about you guys. Because we went from 20, 30, 40 main breaks a year And I think it was 2012 or 2013, we had one main break. That was it. And that's because the bolts rusted off of a patent. You don't hear that in this industry. That's just how much of an effort that the city has put into it. And I just think that's great kudos. Next slide, please. So just some general goals of rate studies. Now we're trying to be, again, reasonable, equitable, defensible. We're trying to meet that litmus test. We always strive with all the rate studies that I do to align our rates with our meter sizes. And you're gonna hear quite a bit of discussion about that tonight and why that's important. We wanna have transparent rates. If somebody comes to Gina and says, how did you calculate my rate? We want it to be transparent. We want it easy for the city to be able to explain how you did it and what that means. And we're gonna go through that tonight and on your sugar rates, that was one of the big things that we worked on trying to fix. We want to cover the cost of operations, maintenance, and management. If you're not going to be a good steward, you don't cover those costs. But being a good steward means we cover all of those costs. Management is very, very important. It's one of the areas that people really don't think about when they're trying to set their rates. And finally, it's really important as a general rule to maintain a healthy carryover balance. If we don't have that, in one of my communities, failed to keep up with their rates, and they were actually borrowing money by the end of the year to make payroll. Not what you want. Or if you have an emergency, a main break or a major main break, and you don't have the money for that, that's a bad day. We have a general goal in the city. Our goal here is to maintain a 12-month carryover balance. That way, if we have an issue, we've got money for that. If we have a bonding issues. A lot of times bonding companies, if we bond a major capital project, they want to see a certain amount of carryover. Lots of good reasons. Now, you're going to hear again, that's the goal. We're not always there, but that's what we're always striving for. Next slide. So when we're talking about covering costs, there's two portions of the bill that we always talk about. There's this thing we call a minimum bill. The minimum bill could be able to recover most of the fixed costs of a utility. Why is that important? When Hoover left North Canton, I don't remember the exact year, the North Canton utilities did not go under because we had the right mix of the minimum bills versus the consumption and what they covered. So when your minimum bills are mostly covered, or your fixed bills are mostly covered by the minimum charge, you lose a big user, you're not really too impacted because the fixed portion of the bill covers fixed expenses. So that's a very important concept I want to make sure that we talk about. It doesn't always cover all of them, but it should cover a lot. In one community, we did not have this right. They did not have this right. And when they lost a big steel mill, they really cost very bad in their overall water fund. So the minimum bill is meant to cover fixed costs and then the remainder of the fixed costs and the variable costs, the chemicals, electric power, things that change how much water we treat or pump, that is usually covered by the consumption costs. There's two parts to a rate setting. One is the science or the mathematics, and then the other part is the art of it, you know, how you kind of try to balance all of those. I think as we work through it with the administration, going through this process the last few months, there's a lot of balancing to try to get this as good and fair and equitable that we possibly could. Next slide, please. So again, you're going to hear all about equitable. One of the things that we preach, quite literally, is meter size. And there's a lot of resources through AWWA, that's the American Water Works Association, or the Water Environment Association, or the American Society of Civil Engineers. I have all sorts of resources from all three of those organizations that talk about how to affordably set rates. One of the big things that they talk about is a meter size. Why is a meter so important? Well, if you look at this chart, a standard residential meter is a 5-8-centimeter. So that is considered one equivalent residential unit, if you think about that. Well, the size of your meter really dictates how much of a stress you can put on a system. So somebody who has, just looking at the chart, a three-inch meter, for example, they have the ability to take 15 times as much water through that system. That impacts your pumps, that impacts your tanks, that impacts your pipe size, and all of those capital costs, all the fixed costs that you have to put into your systems. So when we look at the size of meter, we try to set the minimum bills based on these ratios. Now, North Canton does something similar to this now. It's just not perfectly aligned with this. So you're gonna hear a little bit about tweaking our water bill to get it more in line with the standard ratios that are typically used in the industry. You're close now. Here's just an example. We have Cintas, a washing company close by. And Cintas has the ability to take an awful lot of water real fast because they have a three inch meter or whatever it is. It might even be four, I don't remember. But when Cintas opens their valve to take water, they're what I call a batch type system. They suck a lot of water in quick, do their washing, they slam that valve closed. And when that happens, they create actually surges. And this is a real life story here. We had a main break because of how CENTOS used to operate their system. Well, with the water department, now where Tad is the chief of the plant and the distribution, over the years, we worked with CENTOS to help slow down that meter and that valve and that ability to pull water quickly and create a surge and break your guys' pipes. So meter ratios are very important from that aspect. We want people... to pay their fair share of all those fixed costs and all those capital expenses based on their ability to put the stresses on the system, like CENTOS has. CENTOS is not the only one, by the way. That's just what I wanted to give as an example. Next slide. So now we're gonna break this down. We're gonna talk about the two different rates. We're gonna go into the sooner rates first, because this is where we're gonna have a lot more adjustments that we're gonna talk about. And then the water rates, we'll get into that. And a lot of the stuff you're going to see is very similar, but we're going to introduce it like the meter ratios. We're going to introduce that for the sewer rates. Next slide, please. Now, I know a lot of these are just boring slides, a lot of numbers. This is your current rate structure that you see on the screen now. For residents, it doesn't matter how much water you use today. It doesn't matter what size your meter is. You pay a flat fixed fee of $43.99 a month. That's it. For your commercial and industrial users, you pay both a flat fee of $30.46, which, by the way, I'll just say that kind of threw me for a loop when I saw that again. It's been a long time since I looked at these rates. Wires, bigger meters have a less charge. They're the ones stressing the system a lot. Probably not the way we want to go, right? And then, of course, they have a consumption charge on top of that. I love the industrial users. We have this in our cataloged right now in our rate ordinances, somehow in the industrial users, we have to count employees. Huh. Good thing we don't have any industrial users. That makes it easy. But it is on the books. Next slide, please. So capital improvements. In any rate study, we have to look at what is it that we need to accomplish. We have to operate and maintain our system, that's true. We also have to manage it. We have to fix things. We have to do things. The first thing I'll say about this is this is not significant. Now, people can argue with me that, you know, 10,000 bucks is significant, but when you're on a utility rate like this, Julie can tell you what significant it was from her last week's study. This is not significant. It's not that it's not important, but this is just a capital plan. You know, you're going to see on here some basic lift station operational changes, some upgrades, and some necessary equipment that we need to operate the sewer system. That's the type of stuff that's on this capital. It'll be different on the water. Next slide, please. So when we go through these rates, we're looking at what do we see? What are we observing that probably needs a little bit of attention? I put a lot of things on here. First of all, your sewer system, you saw the rates. They have nothing to do with meter sizes. So the first question that it begs is, are we being equitable across all of our customers? Is everybody paying their fair share of those fixed costs? The answer is no, they're not. Right now, the way our system is, that's not happening. So that's something we need to look at. The next thing, when Gina's trying to explain to somebody how their sewer rate is calculated or when they're looking in the office, it's pretty confusing. It's not easy. It's not transparent. It's very confusing. And if you're confusing a staff that has to create the bill, I wonder what it's doing to the people trying to pay the bill and figure out what they're really paying for. Currently, your sewer... rate has three basic components. You've got a North Canton component, you've got a Stark County component, and you have a city of Canton component. Now, the biggest reason for that is North Canton does not have a wastewater treatment plant. And I can say from experience, that is a very good thing. Wastewater plants usually end up catching people by surprise eventually. One of my rate studies, they got an 80% percent rate increase the first time. I told them, please do not tar and feather the messenger on the way out of town. I didn't create that problem. It's EPA's problem. But that's bad. You guys don't have it, but because we send our sewerage to Canton and some goes through Stark County, there is a portion of our bills that get paid through both of those. So a little confusing. And if you think that's not really hard confusing, that's a lot. I'm not even gonna try to explain this. That's how Stark County tries to figure out what they charge you. Next slide. If that's not bad enough, that's what Canton tries to charge you. Yeah, not even gonna go in. If you guys are interested, Gina can give you the papers, you can look at it. I don't think she can really explain it either. Part of all the things we wanna fix. All right, so when we're doing our revised sewer rates, next slide, yeah, we're there, okay. So when we're doing our revised sewer rates, again, what are our goals? What are we trying to achieve? We want them to be transparent. We want it to be easy for people to understand what we're doing, what they're paying for. We want it to be understandable. We want to charge for consumptions similar to the industry standard. I mean, I've been preaching this stuff for 36 years. So one of the big things is that is meter ratios. Talked about that already. And we want to align those meter sizes across our customer base because that is how it gets to be equitable. That's how everybody pays their fair share. And with our cost sharing right now, if you look at the minimum bill, if we were to go back to that, you're going to see the residents are paying $44 a month rounding and your commercial are paying $30. Right off the bat, it doesn't quite seem equitable, especially since the commercial is Larger accounts can use an awful lot more water. So those are what we're trying to achieve. Next slide, please. So again, we keep talking about the minimum bill. You're going to see this format several times. So what is the minimum bill that we're recommending for the sewer side? Right now, you're going to see at the top of this table, your residents are paying $43.99, and that does cover all of the fixed costs. and your commercial are paying $30.46. When I say that, you add those up times the number of counts, and you're covering your fixed costs. We're proposing, you can see here, if we go with a standard residential meter, we're proposing to lower that bill to $42 a month. Now, there's a lot of reasons for lowering that because now we're trying to do an equal ratio across all of the meter sizes times all of the meters in that group to cover those fixed costs. So you'll see the regular 5-inch meter is 42, but if you have an 8-inch meter that can use 80 times the amount of water, you take 80 times that 42, and their minimum bill will be $33.60 a month. That's more in line with what their stresses is onto the sewer system. And we're proposing that new ratios across the board for the minimum bill. And if we use those ratios, we cover basically all of our fixed costs. Next slide. So what does that look like over the five-year period? Everything we look at is for five years. This table gives you that 27 through 31 based on meter size. If you guys want to look through that more, that's what that slide is. Next slide, please. In your current water minimum bill, each meter size has a certain amount of consumption, certain amount of water that's included in that minimum bill. Again, it's just an industry standard. Some people don't include anything, and all consumption is billed. This happens to be what we as a city have done for, I don't know, the three decades or so. I've been looking at all this stuff with you guys. made the decision to recommend using the same format, because we already use it for water, and use that also for the sewer, trying to keep all of our rates, again, understandable, easy to follow. So all this is showing us is, you know, for the existing, we have no consumption in your residential, and we have 5,000 gallons considered in commercial and industrial, but in the future, our recommendation for the proposed, you see the numbers down here at that, matches identical to your water rates inside the city. Okay? That'll be the same format. Next slide. So we keep talking about that minimum bill, that fixed bill. The other part of the bill is the consumption. This, again, you're trying to pay for the variable cost of pumping costs, electrical, chemicals, stuff like that that we need in our sewer system. Currently the residential doesn't have a charge. They just pay $44 a month and that's it. Commercial for after they get that 5,003 gallons, everything above that is $6.05. As we do the, I'll say the art of rate setting, once we figure out our minimum cost, we figure out what that covers, we come up with the type of consumption that we use, you can see that the demand portion of the bill is dropping from $6.05 down to $4 per 1,000 gallons. So that's how this ends up working out on the sewer side. And again, this structure, this rate structure then matches a lot closer to our water bill. Next slide, please. And just like our minimum bills, this would be over the next five years with our typical 5% yearly increase. This is what we'd be recommending for your consumption portion of your bill for all of the gallons used above It's already included in whatever your meter size is. Hopefully it's not too confusing. Next slide, please. So here's the recommendations. Again, just kind of following it up. Implement the proposed rate structure starting next year. So there's plenty of time for you guys to read this in the council, go through it, debate it, discuss it, talk through it. And second one is to implement this rate schedule over the next five years. That's what you hire us to do, is make these recommendations like that. And really, the rating, the rate reviews on the sewer side, we recommend that you guys review them at minimum every three years, which happens to be, and you hear it on the water side, that's required by the asset management plant law. So I can tell you again, Gina and her department, they review this stuff every year. So they're actually looking at it and making sure everything looks like it's still flowing the way that they have it projected. So that's excellent kudos. So the last thing that we really didn't write on here is really our recommendation is to change your rate structure, how you're actually billing for sewer, as we have it proposed here, so that it is more clear, easier to understand, transparent, most importantly, equitable, so that everybody is paying their fair share based on their ability to use the system. Next slide, please. And now the water side. So the sewer head, the biggest thing with the sewer, not really raising a lot more capital, it's more changing the structure. Next slide. Water rates is to really just do a few more tweaks, a few more adjustments, and to increase the amount of money that we're making. And the reason for that is, again, we have to operate our system, we have to maintain our system, we have to manage our system, and those costs are going up. So on here, you can see what the current minimum bill rates are. And you'll notice on your water, they are listed by a meter size. So this is really just a tweak. The ratios between these don't perfectly align with the AWWA recommendation, which we've got in all these slides for you guys. So it's just changing a little bit to align with the AWWA ratios. So that's good as far as our meter ratios here. You've got inside rates and you have outside rates. So minor tweaks, but that is your current bill right now. Next slide. On the consumption side, again, the demands. Here's what you're doing. So you'll notice under the residential on this table that there are rate blocks. So inside the city, from 0 to 15,000 gallons, your residents right now pay 7 tenths. 15 to 30,000 gallons, you pay $8.13, and then $9.43 and $10.21. I don't know if that makes sense to you guys, if you've ever seen an increasing rate walk before, but there's a reason why North Canton has had an increasing rate walk. The late 90s, early 2000s, the city had a lack of capacity at the water treatment plant. We didn't have enough raw water. We didn't have a system that was generating enough clean water. So if you have an increasing rate block like this, this really is trying to support conservation. We want people to conserve as much water as they can. We just didn't have to sell. In 2026, that is no longer the case. We have good capacity. We've done the hard things over the last 20 years. treatment plant is working well. We've got additional low water capacity in our well fields. And so really, does it make sense to charge more for water that we use like it did in the late 90s? And the answer is no. Now, you also notice that your commercial and industrial users, they did not have that same increasing rate structure. And as a matter of fact, even their structure like where those breaks in the gallons were was totally different. So it just makes it more difficult, again, to explain the different customer classes, why their rates are so much different from everybody else. So again, this is what we're trying to make some, in this case, pretty small tweaks. Next slide, please. I mentioned before, the city has been a great stewards with your finances, your engineering department, I mentioned about the number of main brace and how that's changed because your past administrations have gotten rid of those 50, 100-year-old type pipes. City of Canton, one of your neighbors next door, still has pipes in the ground from prior to 1900. I know because I've helped replace a few of them lately with our designs. So unlike the sewer, this is what I would call significant. You look at these improvements and you look at the cost and you're like, wow, look down here in 2028, for example, $2.4 million worth of improvements. Now there's a reason for that. Your engineering department tracks this every year. They're trying to make good decisions about what the highest priorities are, what needs to be replaced, needs to be fixed. A lot more significant on the water side than it is on the sewer. And this is, again, this is probably the primary reason for adjusting the water rates. So we can not just operate and maintain, but we gotta manage and keep our system good. Next slide. So what this slide is, is again, your finance department has the scrolling rates on the wall. They see where things are going. And when Gina and her group was starting to look at this, they noticed, as you can see over here, the carryover balances. In 2026, 10.4 months. 2029, you're gonna be down to 5.0 months. You get down to 2033, we go negative. Nobody wants to be in that position. If we wait till 2033 to make this type of an adjustment, what we end up doing is having those 20, 30, 40% rate increases. I've never been popular for recommending two-digit type rate increases ever. So what we see here, bad, not good. Next slide. So as we look at it, again, what are some of the observed conditions that we see in the water rates? There's some minor adjustments that we're gonna recommend here between the inside rates and the outside rates. Just again, aligning them to the AWWA type ratios and cleaning up some of those minor adjustments. Getting the right meter sizes so that everybody pays their equitable share. Right now, we notice that we have an increasing rate block for the residents, pushing conservation. I think one of our goals as a water utility right now is to sell more water. We have it available, let's make some money. So that's gonna be one of the changes that we look at. And then again, our declining rate balances are going, carryover rate balances are going the wrong way. Next slide, please. So main goals. Again, same thing. Align to the meter ratios. Said that many times. Revise outside rates for consistency. Again, same time, trying to just do some minor tweaks. Try and get our similar bill format with the sewers because we want everything to kind of align, make it a lot easier across the board. And then, of course, we are trying to increase revenue with our water bill. Now, there's no... No problems about that. We do have a significant capital improvements plan. I looked through everything I believe is a needed capital improvements plan. So that's the main goals. Next slide, please. Go back to the minimum bill. We're trying to cover fixed costs. Now in the water side, we're not covering completely, but if you look here at the top of this, you can see the current rates by meter size. So you look at your 5.8 cents, your standard residential, for example, inside is 14.20. You're also gonna see that we're recommending the same rate for commercial because we no longer care if you're residential or commercial, what we're trying to do is be consistent based on meter size. You'll notice if you look out to the three and four inch meters, again, versus today, the existing versus proposed, you're gonna see on three inch meter today, 256.74 for the resident. Down in our new proposed rate, you're gonna see it's 268.50. So there around that three inch meter, you're starting to see a slight change, again, by aligning the ratios to the AWWA ratios. Now you're starting to see that there's an increase in some of those meter charges coming. And through this type of a balancing, we actually end up equaling out. And again, just for the bottom, we're showing you what all those ratios are comparing different meters. Next slide. So this is the same information, just looking at five years out. Your next five years, inside, outside, everybody's rate, doesn't matter if you're residential, commercial, industrial, is all based on meter size. So this is the recommendation that will be right into the proposed ordinance changes. Next slide. Same thing with your minimum rate. These are already in your ordinance. This is how much water is included. You can see how many gallons are included, both in the inside and the outside. We've always had a change. We include different ratios for the minimums and the outside customers. That's not changing. So this is identical. This is what you do right now. Next slide. So now for the consumption rate, again, to cover the rest of our fixed costs and the variable costs, powers, chemicals, etc., This table shows you what our current rates are. And I'll just throw it out sort of an example again. Your inside commercial, you see zero to 40,000 is $7.10 in the upper block. Over our proposed rates is 675. So there again, it's a little tweaking because the art to rate setting, we're trying to balance fixed costs versus the variable costs and change them as we need to. What you're gonna see here is no longer Are we having rate blocks? We're not recommending that. This is what we've seen a lot of similar communities doing over the last several years, have everybody pay the same demand charge no matter how little or how much water they use for the demand for the consumption, and then everybody paying their fair share base of the fixed cost on a meter size. So this gives us equitability, everybody paying their fair share, and really trying to balance the cost for what we have to, collect, next slide please. So same type of thing now, so over the next five years, this is what's gonna be read into your rate ordinances recommended. So that's what that is, next slide. Okay, so your proposed water budget, we had the slide before. We kind of started showing you where we're going negative if we maintain what we currently have in place. And now you can see by 2028, we're dropping down under six months, 5.89 months. Not ideal, not what we want. But again, part of that art of rate setting is not to raise your rate super fast and then unduly balance it. So it's always kind of a balancing act to get it this way. But our bowl is 12 months and we can see down by 2033, we're getting close to that. That's more than five years out. So again, you're looking at this every single year Every five years you sit down and do something like this to make sure that you're still going in the right way. And if something bad happens in between, I know that your finance department will be calling saying, okay, we see something negative, talk to engineering and figure out if there is priorities that they can change. But I know they've been talking very well and trying to make sure that everything is aligned. Next slide, please. So for the water utility, here's the recommendations. Number one, implement these new rates starting next year. Give you time to read them and discuss. Implement the future rate schedules, the actual rate schedules that we've recommended on the past slides. And again, it's all about trying to be transparent and equitable. Minor tweaks on the water side, but that's what we're trying to go for. Next slide. So a lot of times when we do these rate studies, one of the biggest questions is, What you're recommending, how is that impacting our most vulnerable customers? Usually the folks on fixed rates. We don't like to call them elderly these days, right? So we call them more mature. And I think I'm joining that group. So I'd like to be called more mature and not elderly. But anyway, how does this really impact the folks that aren't using much? And we looked at both bills, the water and the sewer together. If you look at the top one, this is our standard residential customers who use less than their 2,000 gallons per month. And we know that 2,000 gallons per month is included in the minimum rate for them. So if you look underwater, they're going to get a little bit higher bill. Under sewer, they're going to get a lower bill. But that net change every month, that customer is actually going to save them about 20. That's kind of good. It kind of helps. And that's That makes us all feel good when we can ask things in a way to make it help. Now, the other standard residential, we're using $4,000 a month. You can see over here that when you do the pluses and minuses, their bill is going to go up about $5.39 a month. When you look at the overall cost, percentage-wise, that's really not too bad. I know nobody likes costs going up. You certainly don't like the gasoline costs these days, that's for sure. But When you look at these costs, this is not a very large rate increase at all. So I have to say that, you know, in all the rate studies that I've done and all the rate changes and improvements, I like this one. I don't think it's too bad at all. Next slide, please. One last thing that we were asked to look at is your bulk water rate. Now, how much do you charge for your water haulers? So we looked at that. We compared it with other utilities around you. And really the question I like to say is, what is the right answer for warm water, right? So the real answer is you wanna charge, and it's my own philosophy, you wanna charge as much money as you can and still make the sale, right, in a sense? So you look at what Canton charges or what the county charges, what other people around you charge and say, is that water hauler gonna drive those extra miles somewhere else to save a nickel? Probably not. The schedule was what you guys already had, we reviewed it, so we're not recommending you make any changes to your bulk water rate. But we recommended you stay with the rates that you already were projecting. Next slide, please. So, just bringing it home, same key takeaway points that I started with. The city has been a great steward of your water utility. The city has been a great steward of your sewer utility. These changes really are just adjusting, tweaking things and making it more equitable for everybody and more clear and easy to understand. We want to align those water and sewer bills together and make them more easy to follow, more transparent. We've already had reasonable rates. If anybody wants to argue that the rates in North Kansas are not reasonable, I'll talk to you afterwards. I do a lot of these studies. These are very, very reasonable rates. They're defensible because the city has had for years nice calculations showing how we defend what we're trying to charge for water and sewer. And now, most importantly, is we're really trying to tweak and adjust things to make them equitable to all users. In the case of water utility, our water rates are required by law to be reviewed every three years at a minimum. Now for you guys, it's not a problem. You guys have done a great job with that. Other communities, I have to beat them in the head with that idea. And it's not just me, because as soon as the EPA comes in to do their sanitary survey, they get nice little write-ups and notice of violations when they don't do that. It is a requirement of that law. The sewer is not, water is. And then, of course, you've already been doing a great job. Your system shows it. Everything about how North Canton has done your utilities, I think is just top notch. You guys have done a wonderful job. And, you know, I really say you should continue to proactively maintain that legacy. It's not always the cheapest thing today. But in long-term, just like the main breaks, you can spend your money on fixing breaks all the time, or you can spend the same money replacing those pipes, which is what the city has done. And now that frees up more money for CAD and the distribution department to do their jobs and do the other things that they really need to do. And it saves you money overall. So with that, thank you guys. I know if you guys have any questions, we'll try to field them now. And if you have any questions in the future, Gina, Rob, administration, you guys all feel free to get a hold of us.

Anything I can help you with. Mentioned an acronym, AWW. Can you tell me what that is again? Yes, that is the American Water Works Association.

The acronym WEF is Water Environment Association. Another way you think about it, clean water, dirty water. And the third acronym I threw out for everybody was ASCE. And that stands for the American Society of Civil Engineers. And all three of them have a lot of different resources historically when it comes to setting rates. By the way, I can't see him. Guys, just so you know, some of you don't know me. I wouldn't go blind, so if you raise your hand, I'm not gonna see it, okay? So don't be afraid to speak up.

Yeah, I guess just a kind of general question I thought of. So Canton, you know, we use their sewers and if they've not gotten through this process yet with their systems, when would we, if they have an increase, when would we see that on our end? Because I would imagine that would affect us, right?

it does uh and that is one of the things your current rates right now the good thing about it is if they have an increase the way your ordinance says it right now that portion of your bill automatically you guys have that same percentage increase the way we're looking at it now we've kind of taken those general expenses that not only can't then but also start counting they both have charges to the city right We're including those general expenses as part of our fixed expenses. Most of them are, but some of them are variable, but most of them are the fixed. And every year we track those. And so if they raise them tomorrow, your rates should be set that you're not concerned that immediately you're gonna fall off your scheduled rates. Okay. All right.

Will that still show up on the bill as Stark County and Canton City, or we'll take that off the bill?

I think the plan, and if I'm following right, Gina can tell me if I'm different, but I think the plan is to kind of drop that off. We all know that that's there, but I think that's creating more confusion than maybe we really need to have. But... That's kind of up to you if you want to keep that really on there or not. I don't think it's really helping. It's great to blame them, though, by the way.

Well, it is, but it is confusing.

We've done that a few times with other places. We put a DPAP on there. That way we can blame them because it really is them a lot of times doing it.

Any other questions? You've thrown a lot of figures at us. I like the fact that maybe on the residential side, the increases are manageable. I do wonder if we're going to field questions from our commercial customers, those with the larger meters. Are they going to be the ones seeing 20, 30% increases in 27? The math that you showed us for residential was very favorable. Somebody's picking that up. Are we going to field those questions from commercial customers?

We're going to have some, especially the bigger 6 and 8-inch meters. They're going to give you a hard time. And I can say that because I've been through this for 36 years. What I tell every community like North Canton, everybody needs to pay their equitable share. And if they have a six or an eight inch meter, they have the ability to strengthen your system according to that meter size. And that means they need to pay their fair share of the infrastructure that they are using when they pull water or send wastewater to you. So it's part of that equitability. Yes, they may complain. Yes, they may feel it, but yes, that is equitable, that they pay their fair share.

So on an 8-inch, just mind me as my head's churning these numbers, so on that 8-inch meter, if they're not using the volume capacity but still getting billed at a higher rate, is that going to be an issue?

If they're smart and they have had changes in that industry over the years and they no longer need an 8-inch meter, they should look at that and say, what meter size do we really need? One of the things that I've done with the city many times, as you guys have had new customers with your distribution folks, is review what their water usage was planned to be, and help determine what the correct meter size is. Because if they had too big of a meter, and depending on the type of meter, that meter may not even be properly efficient. So they might be only built for 95, 96% of the water they use, because their meter's not reading the lower rate the same way a different size or different style meter might be. So it's in their best interest and yours that they get the right size meter so that you're getting proper readings on what they're really using. Accuracy, that's the word I'm trying to think of.

Do we know what customers are in that meter size? Should we do that review between now and the end of the year and have that on? Last thing I've got is I just want to say thank you to our engineering department, our finance department, and those that help maintain all of our water going to the homes, to the businesses, and coming out of them. We do have an amazing system and a great set of employees. Thank you.

That's it for my question, but I think there might be some more. So, Mr. McNutt, you talked about equitable a lot. And towards the very beginning of the presentation, there were references to the industrial rates being far lower currently than what the residential. Can you speak more to that?

So I can say in a lot of places that I do rate studies, we find due to whatever the theories, whatever the velocity was in past administrations, things may have been different. just like I'll use again, the increasing rate block. They were different back then. There's reasons why they may have had that philosophy. I see a lot of utilities, and I know people are using the word subsidized, but certain customer sizes, certain customer classes might end up subsidizing somebody else. When I do rate studies, the one thing I don't do is I don't look back to past administration and I don't try to start pointing fingers. Because I don't know necessarily what happened 20, 30 years ago. Now I've been involved with your water rates since 2004 here, so I know a lot of history on water. And I think I got involved with the sewer rates I think in 2014 for the first time. So I couldn't tell you how it was originally set up for the sewers and why that might be the case. But I see it quite often.

Questions.

So I just want to

to first of all, thank you for taking an incredibly complicated presentation and making it understandable to all of us. And also it occurred to me that I sort of jumped the gun a little bit. And so within the context of Mr. McNutt's presentation, I'd like to enter for the record that this is an ordinance that's amending various provisions of chapter 927, sewer rentals, Chapter 937, water rates, the codified ordinances of the City of North Canton set water and sewer rates for five years, in fact, with the billing cycle that includes January 1, 2027, through the billing cycle that includes December 1, 2031. So I didn't get that read previously, but I was excited to get to the presentation. Does finance or our water supervisor or engineer have anything that you wanted to add?

The last rate study we did was when I first got here. It was just finished, I believe. And we established rates for five years for water and three years for sewer. Within the second year, we amended both of them to be five years. So we are going to put those five-year rating increases because we've done the homework and all the studies and the experts that looked at those. And so we're confident in five years now that things change with projects and infrastructure or capacity or other things with the plan. We can amend those throughout the five years, but right now, we can't.

Gina, may I jog my memory? Was there a water rate increase that began this year, but it was past 24? Okay, and when that ordinance was determined, was it set out for five?

It was set for three. Three, okay. That makes sense.

Okay, that's where I was confused. Thank you.

Any other questions? Is there a motion to move Item 3A, Council Legitimate? So moved. Second. Second.

Faber? Aye. Opposed? There it is. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Appreciate your time. Thanks, Bob.

Thanks, Bill. All right. Next on our list is community and economic development. I'm going to ask Mr. Ott if he will read. Thanks, Pat.

An ordinance authorizing the Mayor of the City of North Canton to enter into and execute an agreement for the exchange of real estate with the North Canton City School District in authorizing the transfer of property owned by the City in exchange for property owned by the District and declaring the same to be an emergency.

This is a big issue. I think we have a few items that we want to talk about. I'm not going to step on toes. I'm going to turn this over to administration to cover what this is about and also to cover why it's considered emergency.

Okay. Thank you, President Matheny. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Catherine Maria Molnar. I am the city administrator. And tonight we also have here with us our superintendent of North Kansas City Schools, Mr. Tim Walker, who may join in, chime in. We just ask that he goes to the podium if there's anywhere he'd like to add color. I have a presentation that Liam will be putting up. So North Canton City and North Canton Schools. I mean, arguably we are the two most important institutions in this community. We ultimately serve the same people. Families choose North Canton City Schools and they choose the City of North Canton because Obviously, we all know North Canton City Schools is excellent schools, excellent school district. We all know our community is safe, neighborhoods, we have quality city services, our great streets, our great parks, and we're a strong sense of community. And people don't choose just North Canton or just the schools alone. They choose us together as a community because we do create that. A community where people can live and learn and work and play. So in that spirit of togetherness tonight, what we're talking about is a collaboration and executing a land swap. And what that land swap really is, is a vision for future transformation. Opportunities for the city and the school district for recreation, education, and economic development. So how did we arrive here? to be discussing this now. Well, I'll start off by saying the, probably Tyndall will agree, the number one question in the community has been for a while, what is the school district doing with the middle school property? We all know we're building a new middle school, so we know an old one would be coming down. I was at one of the master plan envisioning engagement sessions that was held for the city's parks, recreation, open spaces master plan was held at Dogwood Shelter. And I had families coming up and asking that question. saying, hey, what is the school doing with the middle school property? At the time, I said, I don't really know. I know as much as you do right now. And they said, wouldn't that be great? I mean, we have, if the city could get any, you know, work with the schools on that. The middle school property is surrounded by our Whitworth Park. We've got a nice playground there. We've got tennis carts. We've got ball fields. You know, just saying, like, isn't that, you know, an idea there?

And also, and

Currently, you may know that we had a agreement with the school, you can hit the next one, Liam, really where we use the Dogwood pool parking lot and the school, you know, in the summer when the pool is in, the school's always been just gracious enough to allow us to use overflow parking in the stadium lot. So every year in the summer when the pool parking lot's crowded, our cars are parking in their lot. Just always goes with whenever the pool's open, You know, school's out whenever the school's open, pool's closed. So we were further just starting to talk about the early thought of letting the school maybe utilize the Dogwood parking lot with the new building of the middle school over there. Maybe we could use it for overflow parking for the middle school or some circulation. But we took it a little further there and said, wait a minute. The city owns property that borders the school district property, and the school district owns property that borders the city-owned property. Next one, Liam. Exchanging these parcels would provide an opportunity for each of us to gain land that's more beneficial to its future needs in serving the community as a whole. So how would we get that opportunity? That opportunity exists in the Ohio Revised Code. under 3313.40, the exchange of real estate. So it's unique. It exists for a municipality and a school district to be able to trade land, to land swap, when there's a mutual beneficial need to the community. And this is something that North Canton has never done, but other cities and school districts have done this. Our finance director, Gina, can add color later on at some point where the city of Louisville did that. The Louisville city and the Louisville school district did a land swap. And I won't bore you by reading the ORC code, but there it is where it does discuss that this is an opportunity. So what is the overview of this land swap agreement that we're gonna discuss tonight on committee and then further in three readings, we will go all the way through. So some of the details are right off the bat. that the school district would receive approximately 4.56 acres of the Dogwood Pool property site. That's the total amount of acreage at the Dogwood Pool property site. The city then would have a lease agreement with the school for a dollar a year on the Dogwood Pool to operate through 2030. The city will received then from the school approximately 20.18 acres of land coming from both the middle school property, but also the Orchard Hill property site. So trading one dogwood pool property for the two school properties. School district would demolish the existing middle school at zero cost to the city. And that's a big cost, right, Tim? talking north of a million, I'm sure, zero cost to the city. The school district will dedicate additional right-of-way on 7th Street northeast to the city, and the city will complete public improvements along 7th Street to improve the traffic flow. So it's really important to note that this land swap is not a purchase of land. I know people said in the past when the city was doing land banking, the city purchased land. The city went out and bought land, no cash is exchanged here. Both parties recognize this as a wonderful opportunity for an exchange of land, providing public value for the future of the community. This isn't just today, this is for years to come. What else the city receives beyond the 20 plus acres of land, which is abutting two city parks? We do have, it's 14.13 acres. near Whitford Park. Mike has a pointer there in the orange. You can see this is the middle school side. Mike, our new parks administrator, pointing out all the park amenities that abut that property. You can see a ball field. You can see tennis courts. We have restrooms. We have a new playground over there just a few years old. There are two sites there that are to the east and the west. You go to the north, go to the top there. That's also city property. That piece and that piece. It's all about a city and everything in the orange is the 14.13 acres located near Whitmore Park. Next is the 6.05 acres that are adjacent to the Arrowhead Golf Course. So in the orange there, that is the Orchard Hill property. And as you can see, it touches the Arrowhead Golf Course. You see the six pickleball courts there, see the golf course. So again, city that the school owns touching property that the city already owns moving on thanks mike beyond the land is opportunities first opportunity that we receive would receive is an opportunity for future parks and recreation planning why we have a new parks administrator and why we're working on a parks master plan having more land gives us more opportunity to have more future planning in our parks and recreation. There's also opportunities for potential future housing. As I said, people love our North Canton City Schools. They want to move here. They want their kids in the North Canton City School District. We don't really have a lot of land. You know, we're pretty built out. So it gives us opportunities to expand the tax base when we're able to consider some redevelopment. There's opportunities for economic development. There's opportunities to generate new revenue that could significantly help support future community priorities. We're thinking of the future. And importantly, there's opportunities for a path forward to discuss a future plan towards a municipal pool or aquatic facility. We don't have a plan right now. We all know, and we'll get more into talking about this. Like I said, we'll have three readings, but we've talked before. We'll talk more about the condition of our 55-year-old pool and what we're faced with there and having an ability to have a little bit more of a path forward for conversations on that would be an opportunity here and to really reimagine the future landscape of North Canton. So then going on to what the school receives, the school's receiving 4.56 acres of land abutting, North Canton Middle School, and also Hoover High School property, and all the athletic fields located in the 7th Street area. I might lose the point again, but you can see, you know, there, which everything that's around there, you know, we have the football field, number one, we've got the softball fields, we've got the lacrosse field, we have the soccer field, we have the beautiful new turfed baseball field that holds a lot of tournaments. And owning the Dockwood property for the school can help the school address parking and traffic circulation for all those athletic events. They also have theater programs, many other school activities and events. And this can provide them an opportunity for them to plan future campus needs, whatever that future is, however they grow. This not only benefits the schools, but it also benefits all the surrounding neighborhoods and the broader community.

Do you want to add anything there, Tim? Am I doing all right?

Yeah, keep on talking. Okay, keep on talking.

So now the important question I know a lot of people will come out for, because we are trading away the property where there is a dogwood pool. So what's the future of the dogwood pool? Well, this agreement gives the city, more importantly, time to plan. So having the pool grounds leased back to the city was huge. The school said we would do that, $1 a year, through 2030. That gives us time to engage residents in meaningful public dialogue about the future of the municipal pool. It gives us time to evaluate the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Master Plan, which will have a presentation here at Council in a couple of weeks. It's June 22nd, where the consultants, Branstad or Carroll, will come in and give a presentation on the Parks Master Plan. It gives us time when we were talking about Dogwood Pool, to explore grants and sponsorships, partnerships, potentially naming rights, private and public support. And it gives us that ability to build a realistic capital stack, a funding strategy. We all know this pool, like I said, 55 years old. I don't know if she'll make it to 60, but each year it's a struggle and a pool is expensive. And you need to have a plan, a capital stack, all of these avenues of stacking up to say, what's the cost of this? We'll discuss what is the cost? What would a new pool look like? Where would it be? How much would it cost? How much would the community wants to support this? So we have to consider and calculate a potential redevelopment revenue that could come from this land swap, which could go part towards that capital stack. And we have to review city priorities against capital and operational costs of a pool. And bottom line is, like I said, the 55 year old pool not having having no plan is not a plan right now we have no plan, you know this land spot gives the school. is the city more time and opportunity to proactively plan right now if something were to happen and something big blows there in the. In the pump room one of the motors goes out something very costly something happens. What's that, a reactive plan? What do we do under the gun? No good decisions are made that way. So this way we can actually be strategic and proactive. So the next steps, this is just a committee meeting. If you so choose to move this off the committee agenda onto the agenda council agenda, we will have three readings next week, June 15th, followed by June 22nd. And then the final reading would be on July 6th. And again, passing on an emergency is only for the legislation to take effect immediately. The school board then has a meeting on July 15th. I just have a few closing thoughts as Tim goes to podium to give his thoughts. This land exchange reflects a shared commitment to the nature of North Canton. And rather than viewing it as just merely a transaction, between the two entities. It should be viewed as a partnership with the school district that allows the city and the school district to better serve the future planning for all of our residents. The school district gains property that supports its long-term educational needs and goals, and the city gains opportunities to consider recreational opportunities, encourage redevelopment, and shape future community investment. It's a very big decision. that we will make together. So here's Tim to add more on his side.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here. And I just want to thank the city leadership and council for considering this. And I think this is what ultimately I think our community loves it when we work together. And the opportunity to do that is great here. We're excited about it. I think it's got a lot of great potential. I just wanted to bring clarity to a couple things that were said. One is one of the driving forces from our end as well as continued state legislation pending the state legislature now in terms of old school buildings and that require you to offer it to charter schools outside of your community and those types of things. And that is pending legislation that's still coming from the state. We don't want to be in possession of old school buildings that need to be offered in charter schools outside of our community. So that's certainly an aspect from us, but also just the desire to kind of use our community resources as best we can Catherine mentioned that we would be demolishing the middle school. That was part of the budget from our plan, but it's also 84% paid by the state of Ohio and not by our local taxpayers. And so that's a huge thing that we want to partner together. We want to take on that because that makes the most sense for all of us, right? And having Rob and his crew look at 7th Street and how to make that The most successful is a great plan. He does that every day. We don't. And so those types of partnerships and being able to work together and play into our strengths between the two entities is a huge benefit to all of us here in the community. And we're excited about that. So, again, we're thankful for the opportunity. Again, our board has not approved this either. This is something that they will consider upon your going through your process over the next few weeks if you choose to do that. So I'm happy to answer any questions. Yeah.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, would you like to weigh in? You just said a lot of the stuff that I would have said too. To me, it's a collaboration. It's a partnership. I look at the city and the school both as a community team. And this benefits both.

It's transformative.

It is very transformative.

Any questions from City Council? Anybody else?

Just in general, what does the school plan to use that property for?

Green space. I mean, we have no plan other than green space. I mean, the parking, obviously, we'll be using for events and so forth. We don't need the parking for day-to-day parking, but we would use it for parking for events and certainly for some circulation things and so forth. We have no plans other than green space.

Thank you. I just want to say that 18 years ago, my wife and I decided to move here because of the schools. Our daughter just graduated from High School a couple of weeks ago. It's the city itself that's keeping us here. So when when Catherine, Mr. Walker talk about partnership and collaboration, it's very true. It is about a lot of different forces and people working together. And I think that this plan is transformational. The mayor has used that a couple of different times. And I think we have a tremendous opportunity to facilitate a number of different projects with this. So thank you.

We all felt here and something that you just said because it kind of pulled my heartstrings a little bit. So while I grew up in Northland, not much my dad, my father was a teacher at Hoover High School for 30 years, something like that. We made a very conscious decision when we got married, my wife and I, we wanted to live in North Canton, safe community, good, strong community, and raise our kids in a school district such as North Canton. So the partnership, really, I feel strong with the partnership as well. And I think that this is truly an opportunity that can allow us to re-envision some things, again, for a pool, a thought facility, parks, possibly future housing. Again, I think the pool definitely has its issues now. And I think this would allow us for an opportunity to do something down the road. But I think more importantly, it also offers some opportunities for the school. So I'm excited about this partnership as well.

I'll echo the same. Also, Mr. McLeister was one of my teachers. And I feel really honored to be in this position now because I went to school here, graduated, also decided to raise my family here. One graduate so far, twins on the way. And then I've also had a real great opportunity to participate in steering committees for all these wonderful educational buildings that we're starting to see pop up over town. So it's been a real evolution for me to be included in a lot of these thought processes and decisions. I just wanna say, I don't take any of that lightly. I think all of us, there's an amount of emotion behind these kinds of decisions. I know I speak for myself and all of my colleagues up here. We all deeply care about our schools, our city, our community, and what's going to happen with this decision. So I think we'll all want to hear from people over the next three readings. I hope that those who are watching or listening at home will come to us and use our public speaks opportunities to tell us what are your questions, what are your concerns, how can we all get there together. But yeah, I think that this is an important point in time, I guess I'll use that phrase. And I look forward to the upcoming dialogue about that. So thank you for that presentation.

This is a great opportunity for both ends. Now, I did not go to North Canton schools. My wife worked in North Canton schools for 40 years. I sent two sons through there. I went to Plain. Something similar didn't happen over at Plain. There was at one time There was Oakwood and Glenwood. Before that, it was Middle Branch, maybe Greentown. Some of the half of Plain Township went to Lehman. So they decided to build Glenwood. Then they built Oakwood in 1968. Then they combined schools. They were on a split shift, and it was a mess. All right? You take a look at some of the schools playing local halves. At one time they had like seven or eight elementary schools. And they just had a bond levy fail, okay? So they're gonna stay in those schools and stuff. Glen Oak is a beautiful facility, but you take a look at what else they have. They don't have too much. They have a lot of land, but this is a great opportunity for both, both the city and the schools. And my wife and I chose to live in North Gann for 35 years, so it's been a very great experience.

I would add that this is absolutely a win-win for the schools, for the city, for our community. I think, you know, I have made multiple presentations from the seat about the Dogwood Pool, and I believe I've maybe been told that protecting Dogwood Pool is the hill that I will die on. That is not true. Protecting a community pool and making sure that we're not making decisions in a way that's not thoughtful and considering a path forward is the hill that I will die on. And I think that this plan gives us that path forward, having the schools be willing to give us four years. to figure out how we're going to fund a pool if that is ultimately what the community wants, which I think we will see when the Parks Master Plan does come out. We'll be able to, in that time, figure out a path forward for that. So Tim, I'm really grateful that y'all are willing to take that step so I don't have to die on the hill of protecting the pool. And I think, you know, one thing that I will, I don't want to get into the weeds, but one thing that I will, you know, want to be sure of is that this pool, the Dogwood pool is going to require some maintenance over the next four years. So we're just going to need to be mindful whenever we go into budgeting, you know, budgeting a little bit of money. We're not going to make, I would not recommend making major repairs there, but we're going to have to do some things to keep it going because as everyone knows, that warranty is up after this year for the pool liner. So I'm grateful to be part of the group that gets to make this decision. I feel like it's a very positive thing. And that is all I have to say.

Can I add to that, Christina?

Many of us here have recently toured Dogwood Pool. We're taking literal steps inside the pool when there was no water in it. Thank you to the city for offering that opportunity. And it is very eye-opening, one, how a pool operates. I don't know anything about that stuff. You get to see the boiler room and all the mechanics of it. And then, two, we do get to see how the pool is failing at this time as far as that liner goes and the work that we're doing as a city to keep that going. So just want to reiterate that we do care about that pool a great deal. And then we're taking the steps literally inside of it to research what our best options are with that and to understand what is going to, you know, be an impact to the city. We make decisions about it.

So I just want to mention that. So also, my kids 12 and 13 they're still in the schools um so not only do i have the school's you know mindset but i also you know being uh in the city for as long as i have you know it's it's very important to me to work where we're headed i also believe not having a plan is not a plan I think that this gives us time to see what the city wants to do. By the city, I mean citizens, the people that live here, pay the taxes, work here, be able to have a voice and be part of that discussion. But importantly, it gives us four years. So it gives us four years that providing Steve Schenck my opinion the reason the pool is still functioning today is his abilities and the cities uh three four years break um but it gives us time you know to come up with a plan so i look forward to hearing uh the next three readings and what comes out of it and thank you tim for being

Any other comments? Yes.

Just wanted to film two things Catherine said. So she did a great job of covering the nuts and bolts of the agreement. I don't have anything to add there, but this was implicit in what she said, but the timing of this is really good because we have the presentation that she mentioned coming in on June 22nd. on the Parks Master Plan, it really was something that we found compelling that she talked about a lot, that these properties are literally adjacent to city parks where we're in Arrowhead. And so I think the timing of this exchange of properties with the schools and the possibilities, and you'll hear a lot more about the recommendations of the Parks Master Plan in two weeks, it's really timely. And the other thing I would add in the close to two years I've had the privilege of working here for the city of North Canton, I would need more than two hands to tell you the number of times I've heard from real estate people or developers, North Canton is so great. I really would love to build new housing or redevelop, but there's nowhere to build it. And so like Catherine said, although we will have a lot more discussions and planning and strategic plans, in the future to even look, is that even feasible? Is that even something that the community would be interested in? I do find that really important. And as Catherine and the mayor both said, you know, for civic transformation in the community, because it's not often you get 20 acres of land in such a great community to re-envision and re-imagine when it's strategically immediately adjacent to park. So I'm excited about, you know, this, being explored and if council decides to go forward, I'd be very excited to be part of helping to plan this.

Multiple opportunities here. Collaboration has been phenomenal and communication is good. We do want to hear from the residents. I think timing wise to your point with the master plan coming out, there's a lot of information to be shared and we're all available To field those questions, please reach out to us. I think what we have here is going to be transforming the city. Seeing other questions, I will make a motion to move item 4A to the council agenda. Second. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We can carry it. Next on the agenda is my property committee.

Mr. McKinsey. All right, so this item is a appropriations or item for hard expenses and other expenditures for the time of January 1st, 26, December 31st, 26. And there are a couple items in here, and I think one of the ones where it died in was there was a couple things for roads with some money going in and out just in advance. And I'm going to allow my two colleagues over here Gina, if you have the word, Jim, to weigh in and then kind of share the nuts and bolts on that.

There were also some donations to the boost department for... We originally allocated $80,000 for municipal road funds, but Rob just received the... Letters letter that says we are receiving $87,000. So we need to bring the additional 7000 as an advance because it's a reversible grant or a reversible allocation. So we'll advance it from general fund to municipal fund, spend the money, and then pay the advance back. So it's drawn here three times for $7,000. That's how those reversible work. And then we did also receive some donations. I'm going to amend the donations because we received one more donation today for the police department. So instead of negative $10, it's going to be $75 to the positive. I'll bring that to you with the first meeting. And then Northridge CRA, this was the last year for the Northridge Department of CRA, and that amount came in $3,000 less, probably due to the property taxes that we received. So the amount was a little bit less this year, but that's for the final year.

All right. Any other questions?

We'll just amend the first reading.

All right. So I will make the motion to move item 5A to the council agenda.

There's a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right. The last item on tonight's agenda is the Ordinance and Rules Committee. Mr. Pratt. This has been something awesome.

I spent a lot of time putting together what this is, is an ordinance amending chapter 533, the obscenity and sex offenses of the codified ordinances to establish provisions prohibiting, or provisions prohibiting So we approved the proposed legislation to put in a chapter 533, put a five ordinances, specifically adding subsection 533-05, which would prohibit certain individuals classified as sex offenders from being present in the city parks and park facilities. This is, in my opinion, it's being smart

Thank you.

Yeah, so I think I was watching the news maybe four months ago, and there was something I think maybe

passing an ordinance that involved, you know, prohibiting sex offenders from being in their parks and public spaces. And I thought to myself, I wonder if we have anything like that here in North Canton, because we have spent a lot of great work on our parks in the past few years. We have a lot of families in there, not just from our own community, but from outside of that as well. And they get a lot of attention across the state. So in my research, the answer is no. And I want to be very clear that this is not coming up because we have a problem. I don't want to be said that, oh, we must have these people in our parks, and that's why she's coming up with this. That's not the case at all. And I do think that the incident rate going forward will be extremely low. So I'm going to put that out there. But basically, not only do we get to pass ordinances, but when we have an opportunity to help write them, I think we should do those things. And so I worked with Liam and I spoke with the chief a little bit, worked with our legal team to look at what other cities in the state were doing to come up with a solution that best meets our parks and our needs. I did not want to go to extremes like some municipalities have. I basically thought to myself, our schools don't allow certain sex offenders in them. So let's try to mirror that kind of mentality here. and not go crazy with the rest of it. And so with that being said, the way that this is written is it would prohibit only a sex offender in tier three, which is the worst of the worst. I won't go into the details of what those things are, but those are the ones that you don't want to have around children and others in the parks and other locations. And so that was the goal here was to just say if, somebody is stopped in a park for any number of reasons while they're scanning their ID and they find out that that person might be a tier three, they're going to ask them to leave and they're going to assess the situation. If it's bad enough, they may go ahead and fight them with the misdemeanor. I think it's a level four, the way this was written on the first offense. And then, you know, if they have a second offense within a year, it becomes a level three. So this just kind of gives us a little bit of, I think a message to our community that we want to keep our parks safe and we want to make sure that when we do find that situation arising that we have addressed it similarly to how some other cities in the state are handling that. Yeah, there was a lot of research done by our legal team, so I appreciate Brendan and his team with that. They looked at case law. We wanted to make sure we weren't violating anybody's constitutional rights. So everything, every consideration was taken in the drafting of this, so. That's kind of the foundation of that, and we'll get up to any questions.

Well, how would we, I think it's a great idea, but how do we prevent profiling from the city? That would be, you know, so we might get a call, hey, there's someone down at the park that shouldn't be at the park. How do they prevent it from being profiled, just profiling?

I mean, I think that already could happen today, right? I could be at the park with my kids and I see somebody that seems suspicious and I might call the police and they might check on that. So I think that could already happen today. This is not intended to increase that type of activity. We're not addressing the idea of putting signage in our parks or anything that speaks to parents when they get in there like, oh, I should keep a lookout for that. It's not that level. So hopefully I don't I don't believe it's going to increase that kind of profile activity. That's a good question.

I have two questions. I guess I'm looking in. I want to make sure I'm reading this correctly, which is quite possible. I'm interpreting this differently. I'm wondering, what is it? 53305C, where it talks about the prohibition does not apply, and the sex offender is, and where was it? Two. attending an activity with his or her own child or friend or relative's child with a child's parent or little guardian, or while in the presence of his or her own child. So do I read that as a tier three sex offender who happens to have kids could go to the park and sit there with the kids on the swing set and they're still there? Is that, I guess, is going to be a concern for me. The other one was, as you go down to three, traveling past or through a park while in route to another destination. So I think immediately, bless you, Price Park right behind us. So somebody could be getting over on Glenwood and they could say, oh, well, I'm going over to Bill's house over here and I'm going to walk through the park. And is that just maybe, there's plenty of other ways that you could go through and go from, say, Glenwood to Maple. Yeah. Are those maybe two things we should consider adjusting?

I'll address those in each order. Number two, I know we have Brendan on the phone. Hopefully he's still with us. I think number two, I don't know that we can prohibit a parent who is there with his child. Let's say there's a birthday party over here at the shelter and they're present with their child. I don't know that we can prevent that. What we can prevent is that person who's in the park without their child present. So I agree with that concern. I just don't know that we can restrict it that much. Gotcha. And then number three, you're right, we have a unique situation because Price Park has two streets on both sides. And admittedly, I have not considered that someone could be traveling in the form of walking from one side of the path to another. So I don't know if we would call that traveling from one destination to another or if we would have to just assess the situation in the moment. Chief, I don't know if you have any thoughts. It's subjective.

With anything, you're going to look to the circumstances. Yeah. They're really just walking through the area when they're walking through the area. However, if they started within a vehicle on one side of the park to walk to the other side of the park, that's not going to fly and that's going to come under much more scrutiny from the officer investigating the circumstances at that time.

Yeah. Okay. That's true. Yeah, I agree with that. We have to look at the circumstances, but those are both great questions. Thank you.

With Arrowhead, is that considered a golf course, a swim club, a pickleball, or a park? Yes, it's a park. Also, could a golfer who's golfing

Yeah.

And so this says, including but not limited to public playgrounds, pools, youth sports fields, and all buildings on such property. So it probably would encompass most, if not all, of Arrowhead under that definition.

So if I'm understanding things correctly and speak to Member Hoare's question about profiling, it frankly is incumbent upon these individuals to be doing something that is drawing attention either let's just say something very innocuous like they're blasting a radio or doing something worse so in the case of someone walking through a park they would need to be doing something to draw attention or if someone is golfing at Arrowhead they would be needing to do something that's drawing attention to them at which point then police might be calling. Is that kind of an accurate assessment of how this would be enforced? Yes.

I guess my question is just the subjectivity of it, and I'd like to hear you speak on that, is at what point like who determines what that odd behavior or that odd person or what's the look, what is it? Because I mean, when I did a little research on the court fights, I did find that there was some pushback on critics, including the civil liberties advocates, and saying even that with some that have been convicted of the tier three, that if they've completed their sentences decades ago without a tailored assessment, you're also, there's been run into issues with that. So I just don't know like what identifies that says, This is who we're going to go up and talk to.

Well, it's going to be up to the general public to respond to things that weren't on a complaint basis. Something that was out of place, something to say, something that was normal or suspicious. Some people jump to conclusions. Yes, I think that lends to the idea that we're not posting signs in parks. see forward because it's not going to be a posted time because we don't want to create that kind of atmospheric part that they're calling on everything because we don't have a known time. It will be initial contact. It will be contextual. Most likely, in most cases, there will be that education point. Understand that you're in North Kansas You are not legally permitted to be in our park. At this moment, you are being made formally aware of that law. We are asking you to leave. So they would not be arrested? The first time around. make them aware and make them knowledgeable of it, because I believe the context of language should say knowingly, not recklessly, not inadvertently. They are knowingly doing it. So that is what we're making them comfortable that they know a law exists covering them. So that would be most likely the first contact with anybody like that. It's an educational thing that gives us that chance to get in, find safety, identify the person. To identify the behavior of them being, just by the back point of us with more to the situation. And of course, an action probably would not be taken out of it.

So I just want to ask you this too. So we always talk about when we talk about policy, we have four P's, you know, to apply some of them. Policy's great. at this policy and we have to have a process when you're speaking to what the process would be, that would be the process. So I just want to ask you from a capacity standpoint, then the next key is the people and capacity. As we start to get a lot of calls, a lot of people just seem that people look a little, why is this person sitting here? He's just sitting alone on a bench. That looks odd. He's in a car, you know, alone, you know, is there a concern from your staff and the capacity level on responding to all calls?

I wouldn't want to see an abduction in my staffing based upon current levels that we have. We respond to suspicious person calls in parks now. Okay. As part of our community engagement, our team also goes and does walkthroughs in different parks throughout the community during air control shifts. So the officers are spending time already in those both in the park areas.

Okay. Our new parks administrator spent many years in the City of Green parks and might have some employ also.

Yeah, so in early 2000s, the City of Green built the volunteer playground, Hair and Shell, at Baton Rouge Park. Shortly after the playground opened, I would make my rounds every day through the park system, and I noticed that there was a full-size conversion van that was there every day at the same time. And so that, in my mind, and by the way, I'm not going to call him a gentleman. The man with the cloak. So that in and of itself is what I categorize as suspicious being. So one day I pulled up next to him in the city vehicle, introduced myself, and I said, you know, I've noticed you've been here quite a while, every day watching the playground. Is that what you're watching? Yeah, I'm watching the playground. And I said... Do you have a child or a grandchild that's playing on the playground? He says, no, I just like to watch children play. That's suspicious every day. So I remarked to him that I've received complaints from moms at the playground that they feel uncomfortable with this presence in the park. And I asked him to leave. He left, but before doing so, I also took his license plate. I turned the license plate over to the Summit County Sheriff's Department. they did a check on the plate and it came back to a homeowner in green who was clean. However, he wasn't the man driving the van. It was a neighbor three doors down who was a registered sex offender. So my point is, somebody said it up there, if you see something, say something. When you approach somebody that is exhibiting suspicious behavior, They don't want the confrontation. They will leave. But I know Chief Campus is also a resource. The children of our communities are our most valuable asset, and they need to be protected. And the best way to protect them, the best front line, is if you're at the park and you see something suspicious, confront that person. Not in a... you know, a way that would provoke them, just in a conversation.

I have a couple questions. I appreciate you calling me about this. I did not think of any of these things when we spoke, but I guess I'm curious, Chief, if someone calls and says there's someone who I'm not comfortable with sitting on the bench at Price Park, you go up to them, are you How do you identify whether or not they are a Tier 3 sex offender, like in a conversation?

We're responding to a complaint, a call for service. When we interact with that person, they're required to provide a certain identifying information to us. The notion that they would be inclined to provide certain elements of identifying something is a violation of the call. Okay. So we're responding based on community complaints. We would also further, we would make contact with the plaintiff. I will find out in more detail. Such as Mike's description of the case of he went there regularly, he regularly saw that dam and that part of it. Mike and I had this conversation about that which occurred there. That it's going to be more information to it. of the circumstances, what all is going on. This is another resource, as Mike said, to protect the children from going out on the street. Keep your passion true. We don't call attention to anyone else. We want to stand out. And will there be some people that we make contact with because people call in? Yes, we have people that we make contact with because they call in just because of somebody's look. If they're sitting there at the park bench and they want to watch the ducks, what do you do? Okay, so you

I guess the part of that, I appreciate all of that. The part that I was looking for is you by being called are allowed to ask for ID when you walk up to them and that's how you would identify that they, okay. Great, okay, that's really helpful. And then John, you brought up the arrowhead in the civic and I'm wondering, Would that be, I'm looking at you, Mike, and you, Catherine, because I'm not sure about this. Would that be part of our rental agreements going forward then? Like that's part of something that someone has to sign that, you know. And our terms and conditions. Yeah, like a peer-free sex offender is not allowed. Because I wouldn't want someone inviting someone to their wedding and then we walk in and.

You might have a band member, someone in the band, you know.

And I don't. I know we can't figure out every single detail. Yes, we're not going to know every scenario.

And these are all scenarios that I'm not thinking of, and I could probably think of ones that you won't think of. And you're right, we're not going to get them all. And that's really not the intention of this anyways. But, you know, I think it's just more of a preventive take, I guess. We have other people serving this city in ways that they're looking out for our community, especially our youth.

And I think this is just another step of that for me.

But yeah, I think that, I don't know how our terms and conditions and contracts are anyway. I don't know if they're high level and they say, you must follow all the laws, you know, but yeah, that's something to certainly take into consideration in the future.

It's a definitely very well intended ordinance that obviously we all want to keep children protected and would hate to hear if anything ever happened and we could have had an opportunity but i guess my only concern too is that take price park for example we have it's marketed as it's a swimming i mean a fishing pond and we say right on the sign it's for under 18 and over 65 that's just sort of supposed to be so that you know sport fishermen isn't there all day it's a recreational fishing pond so we have a lot of seniors we've just made it an adaptive fishing pond for that reason so i just get concerned that would we then start getting a lot of calls on a lot of older men who happen to be just down at the park, either with a pole every day, or maybe they're just older and we have widows and widowers that just come and they sit in the park alone. And would we be feeling a lot of calls from overly concerned parents that think that just looks odd? He just looks odd.

I guess I'll chime in. I think the intention of this is we could have, I don't think it's anything to a like someone that is a two to three sex offender is going to be, they're going to know when they go there. Well, they might not know when they go there, right? But if there's no problem, they don't do anything else to, you know, have someone call them on them or reasonable suspicion or probable cause, they're going to go to the park, walk the park. If they do something that that causes something like that, then it could lead to them having an interaction with law enforcement. But if none of that ever happens, then they're just gonna come and go. But if there is an issue, then when the police do go there, they're able to talk to them, educate them that we are not allowing tier threes in our parks in places where there are kids and things like that. know me having two young kids i don't really want to worry about tier threes being in our parks i don't have a problem with saying that um you know the whole idea is that you know to me in this world is to protect kids so if this if this protects kids and it prevents people from going there that are tier threes right if we have one go to the park they can have they can explain it to them And then, you know, not to come back. But I don't think that it's so well, I think it's good for thinking, you know, as far as someone calling in, we could have that same issue now. They could call in and say, hey, there's a guy in the park, he looks weird. is by himself they're still going to go there and have that interaction with that person and so they're either going to determine that they're just there fishing or maybe there is something going on but that could happen regardless of whether or not this is in place this just basically gives us gives the police helps protect everyone that lives here gives them a little bit more of, you know, feeling of safety that, you know, those people are likely not to be on the farm. They still could be if there's nothing that goes on, but if there's nothing that goes on, then, you know, I guess, you know, that's a good thing. And, yeah, I just, I don't think there would be a problem with this. I actually think that us not having it that looks more like we're profiling if we don't have it because at least this is a rule on the book. If chief goes there because of a complaint, what's he going to do? Is he going to ask them to leave? The city doesn't want them there. The parks director doesn't want them there. Hit them with a trespass charge. Let them know that you've been asked to leave. If you come back, you'll be charged with criminal trespass. Does that create more of an issue than having, hey, sorry, it We have a local ordinance. We don't allow tier threes in our park systems. Sorry about that. I think it's actually more protective to the city and to the people and to the kids.

And I want to quickly add to what Darrell and you said. Can I second what you said? I think this is going to add an increase in calls because I think I'm getting the vibe that it's kind of what you're thinking that by adding this, we're going to have this massive influx of calls. I think it's just an extra tool for it to play out exactly as the way Chief described and Mike described. They connect, well, I guess more than Chief. We have a conversation with these folks. You make them aware of the law and you just say, hey, you know, you're just not able to come back. I really don't see an overabundant influx of calls from people calling about grandpa.

I just want to make sure that, you know, I just want to put it out there that if it does create that, you know, because that's the experience people have in our city. And I wanted to ask you, Chief, if you do go up to someone and someone gets a call, a lot of people walk through the park and they don't carry their wallet with them. So the older gentleman that did a little walk in a sitting gown, If you go up to him and you ask for ID, because you've gotten a call now that he looks suspicious, he doesn't produce that ID, what happens?

They're not required to produce physical ID. They have to provide us with their name. Okay. they have, they provide us with enough that we can go back to these . But what if that's not them? Because they are a sex offender and they want to tell you they're Bob Jones. It's not uncommon for people to carry their sex license and stuff. And with our system, we're able to validate with our computer systems somebody's picture and confirm who they are and that they're giving us a true name. Okay. And it's all captured at home. to discuss that is the message that would need to come out to the community We're not asking you to be any more vigilant than you already have been, because people do pay attention to what's going on. So this is not to alarm anyone, anyone that we are as far as paying attention in our community. That's what helps us to do so well for our community, is people do pay attention. And it makes me feel like this is something that seems right, but it's not. It's that messaging and how we put it out there.

Okay. The other thing I just want to add is that, you know, let's say this doesn't pass. There's nothing that prevents somebody from calling into the police tomorrow and saying, hey, this guy's acting a little bit suspicious. He's, you know, I'm concerned about my safety. There's nothing that prevents them from calling in now. It just gives the police a little bit extra teeth as far as asking these folks to, you know, please kindly go home.

Chief, I have one follow-up question for you. So under Ohio law, what does it require of a tier three sex offender if they have an interaction with a police officer? Like if you're having an investigatory interaction, are they required to tell you that they're a tier three sex offender?

That is something I'm not up to speed on without having to go into that.

Maybe we could look into that then with Brendan. Yeah, I just, I was thinking about, you know, the way that the concealed handgun law used to be, if a citizen had an interaction with you, they had a duty to inform you that they were. We're getting there.

We're getting there. It will come up in the system. And they have their own rules being triggered because we are part of the county-wide system. When we find someone, it triggers suffering. I guess that system that we wait any time after the person, they're required to be reporting back to that there is no any type of probation or parole when they have contact with officers. Thanks.

Any other questions?

No, this was really great dialogue. This was exactly what I was hoping to get because, again, I've not thought of all the scenarios. And the chief is correct. It really is not designed to be alarming to the community, and it's not even designed to drive more phone calls to the police department. I do think I might be a little more aware than the average citizen. I know they get plenty of calls about, hey, there's this person sitting in the parking lot. Can you just check this out? I think they get plenty of that now. I think this just bolsters the ability to send this message when they do check on those. Um, if they find this to be the situation, we get that person out of our public places, such as that. So I don't, I thought my hope that it would increase any other additional calls. You can certainly keep an eye on that. Discuss past. Um, but I don't see that to be the case now. I'll say this not that I think it's a positive that a lot of our community is not aware of all of our laws, but. Before I researched this, I didn't know much about Chapter 533 of our codified ordinances. So other than what Mr. Wing might report on it and those who are here tonight, there may not be a lot of people that we are even aware that this law would exist on our books, but it would still be there at the right time and the right place when needed. So I don't know that it would drive a lot of additional activity in that context.

I do want to reiterate one thing, what Frank said. I think it is the approach. There's no one here that's going to oppose this legislation. I hope not, anyway. But we do not have the problem currently. So if we present it that way and back into it, I think that's the most important message that we get across to everybody.

I think it sends a great message. And I think additionally, safety in the parks is a huge concern and something down the road we may consider. Mike and I discussed one of the best safety deterrence is cameras. We have cameras at Dogwood. We don't have them at all our parks. It might be something we want to look into. Not only helps with this, also helps with the vandalism problem that we have quite often in our parks. It's just that other deterrent that people know. Don't come around here. You know, we can see that. So, and this is another good protective measure.

Any other questions? Great discussion. Is there a motion to move item 6A to the council agenda? So moved. Second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Real quick before we adjourn, I would like to recognize some guests that are in the audience. Gentlemen, it looks like you're from Troop 35. Would you stand? Give us your name. The leader can stand, too. How long have you been in the Boy Scouts? And thank you for coming out, looking and seeing how the legislative process works. It might be a little dry sometimes, but I do appreciate you coming out.

My name is Sam Trudeau. I've been in the troop for around three years.

My name is Sam Trudeau. I've been in the troop for about three years. My name is Averby T. And I've been in the troop for about four years. So I think I've been involved in this later in scouting for 35 years. Thank you.