City Council - Regular Meeting

Let us pray. Almighty God, Lord Jesus Christ, our help and refuge, source of all wisdom and pillar of strength, you

who in your inexpressible love visited mankind and bestowed your blessing upon all those who entreated you. We know, O Master, that without you we are powerless. We firmly believe that apart from you, we can do nothing. We pray to you at this time and we ask of you, send down your grace upon this assembly and upon the members here present and enable them to complete the tasks which they are about to undertake. for your servants here have chosen, putting their strength, putting their trust in your strength, to gather and work for the good of this city of North Canton. Bless them and all their undertakings. Protect them against all evil influence and bestow upon them, all those who work here, your peace, your love, your concord, and your justice. Grant to your servants abundant mercy and direct their steps to every good work. Help them to accomplish these tasks faithfully and diligently, so that the completion of their work may be proved to be helpful to ourselves and to others, and that they may be striving to bring glory to your name. For you are the God of mercy, compassion, and love for mankind, and to you we give all glory and praise, together with your beginningless Father and your all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit. now and forever and into the ages of ages. Amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Ock, please call the roll. Member Pierpont. Here. Member Orr. Here. Member Weirich.

Here.

Member Matheny.

I will make a motion to approve as presented the minutes from the July 6th, 2026 council meeting. Can I get a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. At this time, council invites Uplift North Canton to the floor to speak on the organization's community service efforts. Reverend Holt.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. Catherine thought it might be wise to introduce you to what we've been working on for the last few months. And it is called Uplift North Canton. And I just want to read for you the mission statement that we have for the organization. Uplift North Canton exists to bring people together through service, compassion, and volunteerism to beautify our city, support our neighbors, and strengthen our community's pride. 2026 is the inaugural year for this event. Saturday, September 12th is when this event is actually going to happen, which I'll explain here in just a moment. We're hoping it's going to become an annual event that's going to take place every year in different areas of our city. So Uplift North Canton is a community project that's aimed at improving our neighborhoods and bringing together our community in faith and in service to one another. Neighbors helping neighbors. This initiative is a collaboration between the North Canton Ministerial Association, the City of North Canton, the school system, as well as a few of the other organizations in town. And it represents our commitment to make an impact upon the community, to better the community, and to bring us together and closer, working in a more close relationship. What it is, is that we're focusing on a group of our neighbors to provide them with outdoor home repairs and improvements at no cost to the homeowner. And that's going to be things like weeding and mulching, cleaning out gutters, trimming bushes, yard cleanup, first-story gutter cleaning, power washing your homes, that type of thing we're going to be doing. And throughout this project, we're going to bring people together through service and compassion and volunteerism, supporting our neighbors, and as a result, also bringing along the community pride And this organization started when the North Canton Ministerial Association observed the work of other organizations in other cities that were having an impact on improving their neighborhoods and their cities. And we're talking things like Impact Massillon and Impact Canton and First Serve Akron that we look to as examples of things that can be done here. And Impact Massillon is one that has existed the longest in this area. Impact Massillon and First Serve Akron are both led by church groups. If you look at Impact Massillon, they're led by the Massillon Association of Churches. And then the First Serve Akron is led by the First Community Church in Hudson. Now, Impact Canton is a little bit different. They're led by the Community Building Partnership, whose CEO is Kathy Catanzaro-Perry, who had been the longtime mayor of Massillon and probably seemingly took that idea over to Canton because they had their first event this summer already and improving some areas in Canton. But Uplift North Canton is kind of a hybrid between those two. It's actually been proposed originally by the North Canton Ministerial Association to the city of North Canton. We had a meeting with the mayor and with the city administrator and a few others in the city and We came up with an enthusiastic support from the city and decided to collaborate on this effort to bring everybody together in working towards the goal of improving the city, but also improving relationships of the neighbors within the city. So a steering committee was established and consisted of members of the Ministerial Association, some of the administration of the City of North Canton, some members of the North Canton City School System, and work to develop the details and structure of the project. And some members of the steering committee you may already know. Catherine Monar is on the steering committee. Michael Elkins is on the steering committee. Kyra Baker from the mayor's office is on the steering committee as well as the assistant athletics director at the high school and the care team family support specialist at the high school is also part of that steering committee as well as five members of the ministerial association making up that room. So to get us off the ground, we thought, why reinvent the wheel? So we went and enlisted the help of the former longtime director of Impact Mass. He'd done it for quite a few years, and he also consulted for Impact Canton. And he helped us develop some of the groundwork of the program that we needed. And of course, we came in working on about half the length of time that they normally require, so we were kind of pushing our way through it. Now, neighborhoods are chosen in areas where residents would look and benefit the most from the exterior home repairs and yard cleaning up and volunteer work in the city. And Uplift North Canton met with the city officials. They gave us some input. They gave us recommendations. We solicited the residents of an area that they pointed us towards and sent them letters ahead of time. The mayor sent a letter of support. And then we went door to door and talked to everybody on the street. The areas that were selected basically we felt were appropriate because they might have a number of elderly or disabled people on the street. They may have people on fixed income, single parent households. I thought they would be the best to benefit from what we could do for them as volunteers. So once that neighborhood is selected, every resident on the street is asked to participate. We aren't just picking one or two houses. We ask everybody on the street would you like to participate in? We have received this year about 25% participation of, actually a little over 25% participation of the homes, homeowners that we invited to participate. Now we did exclude rental homes. We were only looking for folks who actually owned the homes they lived in. So this year we selected a neighborhood in Ward 1, Member McLeister's home territory there. And we're gonna be actually working on two different streets that are about two blocks apart. They're very close to each other. So we solicited the interest of those residents and have met with them to determine exactly what they need done in their home. And one of the people we're working with, we're going to be rebuilding a set of stairs up to their front door for a person who's blind. We had another person who came out and said, I'm really not interested. I'd really do a lot more work outside, but I've got neuropathy in both legs and feet. I really can't get outside and do the work that I should be doing. And he probably said, you know, I could use some help. And so we're going to be working on, here they are doing some bush trimming and some mulching and things like that. We've got some new folks that just moved into the neighborhood. They're looking for some help getting kind of started what's going on there. So there's a lot of different reasons and different types of things we're doing in those areas. But I really want to make a point that this is strictly a volunteer organization. No one gets paid. There's no money that's going to be profiting from this. Everything that comes into donations for this is going back out in projects. And we are actually getting donations from different areas, different groups in the city right now. We have gotten some corporate sponsorship. We've gotten churches that have kicked in some money. We've got some individuals that have contributed to that also. But there's also some of the areas that are going to be contributing materials, are going to be contributing services. We're going to be contributing employees possibly to help us do the work that we needed to do in town. And it's really just boils back down to, we're just a bunch of neighbors trying to help each other, help our neighbors in the community. And again, we really anticipated kind of an annual event affecting different areas of our community, going to go around to each year and find a new area to work on to it. The whole city is going to benefit in the long run. So we look forward to really working together to make Uplift North Canton a success. Starting small this year to make sure we're going to be successful before we spread it out after that. But we really want to make a lasting impact for everyone in the city. That's that in a nutshell. Christina has volunteered to help work. So again, if you have any questions about anything, I'll be glad to answer them now. Or you can see me or Catherine or Michael. We do meet weekly. We've been working quite a bit over the last few months to get this up and off the ground. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. I love it. Looking forward to that job. So it's nice to be able to help your viewers out.

Where would we go to donate or sign up to help? Good question.

I was just going to answer that. There is a Facebook page. It's called Uplift North Canton on Facebook. You can go there, and it gives you a link. It takes you directly to the registration forms for volunteers or to a donation portal where you can go through and donate towards that also. Maybe Robert caught that. The main thing is we are looking at the churches for the most part, but a lot of land power that we need. But we can't always provide all of the materials. And so, again, we are looking for community businesses to help kick in on that side of things, too. So it is going to be a really community-wide event. It's not just this little group or that little group. It's really people getting a lot of folks from different areas coming together to do the work. Do you have anything you want to add, Catherine?

Just that this is the first year. So it's the inaugural year. We don't know what to expect. We know, like Marilyn Cope said, Massillon's been doing it for a decade, and they have the whole entire Massillon football team comes out. They have huge sponsorships from, like, Nards and Lowe's and Home Depot. We don't have all that yet, but we're hoping the first year will get it started and the momentum will catch on. And like you said, I was going to say direct people to the website. You can donate right through there. And... You know, we've gotten, like you said, a few sponsors, a few donations. Hopefully we'll get more. I think the goal is if you do volunteer, you'll get a shirt. Probably the one with the bright orange, right? So we'll know who the workers are. You show them the back of your shirt. So, yep, you're looking for it. They wouldn't wear theirs tonight.

I don't know why.

I wore mine to the Main Street Festival.

We'll see how it goes first year. And, you know, some people have said,

You know, there'll be people, why not my area or my area? We'll get there. We just had to start somewhere. So we picked a place to start and then we'll refine it as we go along. We really love that North Canton is this kind of community. We do care about each other. Neighbors do want to help neighbors and we love the name. We want to uplift the community, you know, and that's the mission.

And we've got a lot of people talking to each other in the neighborhoods too. Yeah. They can use some help because we know we ought to stop at this house, you know, So a lot of the motion is directed to the ones who really need that donations are on Facebook or volunteer sign up on Facebook.

Also, yes. Excellent.

And if you have a group that would like to volunteer, just give us an account and you can make them sign up that morning of the waivers and we can sure that then we're going to need about 50 to 60 people to actually pull this off this year. I think Madison did 26 homes this past year. Canton did about 15. We're not at that level yet. You have this in the back of your mind.

Where we go. That's right. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is recognition of public. We do not have anyone that has signed up, so we will move on to no business.

We please read the title of Ordinance 16-2026. An ordinance repealing Chapter 1139, Industrial District Regulations, and amending various provisions of Chapter 1137, Business District Regulations, of the codified ordinances of the City of North Canton to update, modify, and clarify the regulations governing the City's business districts. Thank you.

So this is the ordinance that in our last meeting we amended to remove the neighborhood business. The other provisions still stand. Is there anything that administration would like to add? Are there questions from council? Seeing none, hearing none, I will make a motion to adopt the second reading of Ordinance 16-2026. I get a second. All in favor? Aye. Please read the title of Resolution 32-2026.

A resolution in support of accepting the 2026 Parks, Recreation, and Open Spaces Master Plan.

This is Parks and Recreation. This is yours.

All right. So this is the third reading for the Crow's plan. There was some additional edits requested after the second reading and those edits were made and the edited version was sent to Liam, sent by Liam to all of us on August 18th. So I think we are in a good place now and I will go ahead and make a motion to adopt the third reading.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carried.

Please read the title of Ordinance 39-2026. Ordinance establishing Chapter 149, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board of the Codified Ordinances of the City of North Canton, thereby establishing the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board for the City of North Canton. Also Parks and Recreation is Larry.

All right. So we discussed this last week in both committee and council. This is kind of reestablishing a Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, which we used to have several years ago. It seems like everyone felt good and excited to kind of solicit citizen feedback in this way and engage them in the process as we begin to implement some of the items in the PROS plan. Anything to add?

We're going to take applications online. When is that going to go up?

After this passes and this is a legitimate, yeah, board will put it on, right? So after the 30 days? I think we can put it up right away and then, yeah, start vetting people's names. So be thinking of people, council has two, mayor has three.

I just had a quick question, follow up on that. I had some citizens reach out to me asking more about it, and I had a little difficulty explaining what they'd be doing. So could you elaborate just a little bit so we can educate people who might be interested better?

Sure. five-member advisory board, there are additional eyes and ears within the city regarding parks and recreation needs. So they, too, will get a copy of the first plan and work with the administration very closely in terms of setting priorities for the plan, you know, helping guide the administration in the implementation of the plan. So it really is an inclusive position, if you will, advisory only, you know. But again, it's helping the city meet the needs of parks and recreation for the city of Rochester.

Would they be like helping out in cases where we're doing things like fundraising and whatever for projects? Should that be the nature of it?

Well, the grant writing would come from the administration where you would see... advisory board members is in public facing events like Main Street Festival or Winter Festival, anytime there's a public event or as the Parks and Recreation Department continues to grow, there might be special special events, there might be, maybe an art show comes to North Camden. And so the park direct board members would participate, perhaps in the planning of that and of course, have a presence at

It's kind of a liaison of sorts. Exactly.

Liaison is a good word between the administration and city council. Absolutely. Okay.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to adopt the second scheme of ordinance 39-2026? Motion. I get a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, moving into new business, I need a motion and a second to suspend Council Rule 23 to allow for consideration of Resolution 41-2026 without committee report.

I move the motion to suspend.

Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Hunt, will you please read the title of Resolution 41-2026.

a resolution authorizing the mayor of the city of North Canton to provide the information and documentation necessary to apply for funding assistance through the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District's Connecting Communities Grant Program and the claim is aimed to be an emergency.

I like the idea that it is a grant. Can the administration or Berks like to elaborate a little bit on this?

Sure, this is a grant for the Muskingum Watershed Conservation District funds, I believe are generated through revenues of oil and gas. The application in this particular grant application is for Rotary Park. When you read through the master plan, you look at some of the recommendations for Rotary Park. There's recommendations for additional amenities. And so one of the things we would like to do is create a perimeter trail around the property boundary of Rotary Park and making a connection to Lois Avenue, providing access to those residents into Rotary Park. A public park walking path which would total around 3000 linear feet. So one point I think 1.76 loops would be a mile, but also connects really nicely to Apple growth as well. So we are requesting $40,000 from the scheme. Watershed Conservancy for this particular project. This would be a 2027 project. The application is due September 1 with notification going out to recipients in November. So again, we'd probably implement this project in 2027.

What would the total project cost us?

So the total project would cost us roughly $50,000. So $10,000 would be on the hook for. There is a requirement for a 10% match of the $40,000. But I also like to budget a little bit of a contingency for things that just happen to occur during construction projects. Those things happen. Not only are we looking at the trail around Ruddery Park, but the city also was notified earlier this year of a $50,000 grant award from the state of Ohio, which we were looking at expanding parking, which if you're going to invite people to the park, you need more parking. So we will certainly confirm here shortly to develop that plan as well. So Mr. Ward, to answer your question, both projects, the parking lot project, the trail project, roughly $100,000 of that. The goal is to have 90,000 of that funded through grants.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Fantastic.

Any other questions? Okay, so tight timeline. You said September 1st.

Yes, sir, and all we need is the approved resolution to apply for the grant, and we'll submit it tomorrow. Everything else is ready to go.

Okay. All right, so can I get a motion to adopt the first reading of Resolution 41-2026? I move to do that. Second. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? That motion carries. So, because of that timeline, I will make a motion to suspend the Rules of Council requiring three readings. Can I get a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Can I get a motion to adopt Resolution 41-2026 under suspension of the rules? Second. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? All right. Moving along, we are now in recognition of the public for the second half, those being topics under city authority.

At this time, members of the public who have signed up to address City Council will be called to do so. Each speaker will be given five minutes. Speakers shall be called in the order they signed up. During this section, comments shall be limited to items reasonably under the city's authority. The rules for speaking and the speaker's time will appear on the screens. After you have finished speaking, please remain at the podium to answer questions from the officials of the dais.

We have one individual signed up, Mr. Patterson. The podium is yours. Sure.

Everybody? Patterson 1754 Street, Cuyahoga Falls. Reverend Cope, it's going to be a hard act to follow. It's scheduled to walk on the 12th of September at 8 o'clock in the morning across the street. Like I said, it's going to be a tough act to follow, but we'll be there and see what we can do. But there will be a second one on the 27th, which is a Sunday morning at 8 o'clock. That one will be at Eastwoods Park. get together and uh at that time also yesterday was we met over at the ball fields over on the east side and had eight people it was a great turnout uh jeff invited uh the ballasts did i pronounce that right yeah uh they came out had a good time uh you know had a nice group nice walk uh could have done without the wind but uh but it was it was With that, that's what I have for today.

There were nine, including Hendrick, though.

Yes, Henry was there. Meryl, our retired stenographer, brought her dog. So there were nine. Thank you. Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Let's move into department reports. Mayor Stroyer, will you please lead us off? All right.

Thank you all for coming. Let's see. So City Hall is still under construction. We swore in Oliver Curd as a full-time firefighter and EMT just before this meeting at 630. And school, I want to talk about school. So all the schools are back in as of today. Please Look at the crosswalks, pay attention, learn the bus rules. I already saw somebody pass a bus, which is very frustrating on the two-line road. Don't do that. So pay attention, watch out for kids. I don't have a lot. Oh, okay. Doug in the Heritage Society, I don't know if I didn't follow up on this. So three panels were installed today. One at City Hall. one in front of the old Porter School and one in front of Doug's house. So there's a new phase to the heritage trail. So maybe at one of the community walks we can do, maybe not the whole thing because it gets pretty far out, but the bulk of it. And I'm sure Doug will be doing some local tours and docking points again. So that is pretty much all I have. And thanks for coming.

Thank you.

Just a few things. Busy, busy time today. Yes, back to school. And like we just talked about, you know, it's first always like this first day, first week traffic patterns and getting used to the new flow and all that. So we're working on that, always working on that. A couple of trees down. Big one went down over on Alberta today. Another another big one went down over at Dogwood. So these winds and that. So parks, crews and street crews, everybody's been working hard on that. Congratulations to our part-time firefighter we swore in, Oliver Kurt. He's been with us part-time, came on full-time. Great kid, young man. Nice to meet him. Just a couple other things coming out this weekend in your mailboxes will be the next newsletter that we work hard on. And so it should be out either Friday or Saturday. So be looking for that next newsletter. Also, we've been getting a lot of calls on Halloween. When is Halloween? When is our trick-or-treat? As soon as we know, we'll post it. I don't want to say what it's going to be. It's most likely going to be this year because it fell on Halloween. Go with what the county does. Why would they not do it on Saturday? I don't know, though. I don't think they're going to say Sunday. We will let people know. We don't know yet. You'll know as soon as we do. That's all I have. Just thanks, Steve, for coming and talking about Uplift. You've given so much of your time. It's been a whole group of people, but he's really been leading it all. Thank you for coming and presenting tonight. That's all.

Just two brief construction updates. So as Mayor Spiroya said, yes, City Hall is still under construction. I wanted to talk just a little bit about how that's going as well as the fire station. So we're excited that we're going to have improved and more functional spaces for our safety forces. Police department renovations going well. Like all renovations, not going as fast as Any of us would like, I think, especially our officers, we appreciate them being willing to put up with the. Invasion of their space, but I think the results will be well worth it. It is going very well. A lot of important transformative changes already on that 1st floor of the building. Um, building a new conference room in the lobby right now, that's 1 of the more visible improvements, but as chief can attest, there's a lot of great stuff going on behind the walls of the police department as well. Similar story with the fire station. That's, um. I I'll knock on this wood that's going very smoothly so far. Everything's on schedule. Foundations are in for the building. A lot of the subsurface work involving utility connections, electric waters and so forth is going in. So I know you've seen some changes on the site, but a lot of the work has been below the surface. I think in the next couple of weeks, you'll start to see more visible changes. And the hope is to get, you know, a lot of the building, fundamentally put together before the weather turns. And so the contractors can start to focus on the inside. We're still looking at July, late July, early August next year for a completion date. So that was what I had. Thank you very much.

Just one comment regarding Dogwood Pool. We are working with a local company out of Cleveland to schedule a time to come in and not only scan the floor and the walls of the pool, but also do the pressure checks on all of the plumbing within the pool itself. That will help us understand where we might have some issues with the pool. And if there's anything under the floor of that pool that shows as a void, then the next step would likely be GPR, ground penetrating radar, So one step at a time, the pool will be closing in a few weeks. So we'll get on top of that as soon as we can.

Do you know how much we plan on budgeting for the pool next year?

I think it's the same as this year that we have.

And maintenance. Yeah, we're just operations and maintenance, nothing new.

Nothing new, okay. And then we plan on inspecting it after the Y. exits out like we did last year. Okay, good. Thanks. That's what it is currently.

We have a contract renewal that will be coming up and then we'll set that.

Do we have any other people who would

be able to come in and do what the Y has done?

I mean, they're community partners. There are outside organizations that do pool management, but I mean, we could look at them. We don't know what they would charge us.

Okay. Are we happy with that agreement with the Y?

I mean, there's always feedback, but for the most part...

Okay. There's not going to be a lot of interest in somebody that has a limited lifespan on something. So it's, we're kind of in a difficult spot right now.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Director of Law.

Okay.

This is Bert.

Okay. So we started with budget meetings last week. We're going to partner with us for some budget. We've got a lot of items. You guys. This is where. No. No. Yeah, so after the budget season, a few weeks into that, Once I kind of set it, create it, set it, I don't have to do as much usually throughout the year, but November, December. Yeah. Like I said, it's throughout the rest of the year. We appreciate the work that you're putting out.

Jim, I've asked a few people and I've been told a couple of different answers. Is there any way we could put some discretionary on these in each board. You know, capital operating. So like something comes up, then we know we have some.

So we don't, so by law, we don't budget that. We have to fund the family budget. So, you know, we have a general fund. We don't have anything really to do with the board per se. Like we could put together like, can you and it's probably difficult because we've always you know we haven't said in the past so we do what's needed for the city but could you give us some type of figure how much you gave you each ward in the past year

Yeah, because we get asked that question.

Yeah, but maybe do some digging and see, figure out what went where and what department that is. I could probably get something together for that. Okay, because, you know, we know what we're doing, why we did this.

This is supposed to be done.

Operations, I couldn't really know. Yeah. Ambulance, you know. Right. You can't do that. In terms of projects, you know, I would find something for that, maybe.

Okay. Well, thank you so much. Mr. Ott? No report tonight.

Okay.

Let's start on this end and just work our way down.

Okay. Yeah, I'd like to congratulate Oliver Kurt again. He's not here, but I remember when we swore him in part-time in March. Really nice young gentleman. So I'm excited he went full time with us. Congrats to him. I just, you know, it is back to school season. A lot of us here either have kids or grandkids in our school system. So in one way or another, we're all going through it like everybody else in town. And, you know, I have twins at the high school. I went through the brand new car lane pattern this morning and I have faith that it will work its way out and get better. But I want to thank our police department. They were there. I saw at least three officers helping out. I know our fire department has assisted with some drone picture taking that's going to maybe assist with observing some traffic patterns. And so I think we have great safety services here assisting with all that. So we'll look forward to that. Our city services have been really busy in Ward 2 where I live. We've got the Weber and 9th water project going on. And I mean, there's a lot of trucks over there. So you see a lot of cones. I mean, where I live, I hit that project first and then I keep going west on 7th and then I hit our brand new 7th street widening project. So more cones. I don't know who's out there resetting those cones on a daily basis, but that's like a part-time job in itself. And so, you know, with that, and then you add in the middle school project and all the things that we're to just, kind of looks a little bit like a war zone right now, but it's all good things leading to better things. So I pack my patients every time I leave the house and I think we'll get there. So thank you for everyone working on those projects. And like you said, a lot of tree damage, a lot of storm damage. You've had some crazy storms in the past week or so. And I know that we're out really fast and really quick. I know you're very responsive, Catherine, when any of us see something and we text. I mean, it seems like they're on it pretty fast. So I wanted to thank those folks as well. Yeah. And then... The question that came about the pool contract, you know, Catherine also has solicited feedback from me. I'm a very vocal person, as most know, about Dockwood Pool and access and all things, and I really appreciate having a chance for input on something like that. We had some really good conversations, so I'm hopeful that that will work out well, and we'll see even a better season yet next year. So that's my update.

Mr. Ward? Well, I want to thank everyone to come out tonight. It's good to see some new faces and stuff out here. Thanks to the uplift people, that was really a great thing. The swearing in of the fire officer was a great thing. Ward 4 has been kind of quiet in the last week. I think Dominic had sent some things over, and I gave Liam a couple other roads to look at. But other than that, I don't really have a report tonight. Thanks.

All right. So I guess let's just start with, there were three parks and recreation items on the agenda tonight. And after, I don't know, years of not having a whole lot, that feels really good. It's something we've been building toward. And so having a parks administrator and a pros plan and forming an advisory board and hearing that we've got, you know, multiple grants that we're seeking, it's, I don't know, it feels really good. And I'm really proud of the work that we've all come together to do to kind of move parks and recreation forward and prioritize a little bit more here. And then Reverend Cope, as everyone else has said, thank you so much for the work that you're doing with Uplift. I'm really excited for the 12th and just to finally have a way to kind of address some of these things. So I know obviously we can't hit the entire community, but to be able to start somewhere, it's a pretty big deal. So thank you.

And that's all.

All right. A couple of things here. I wanted to throw in there as well the conversation about the school being back in session. So drive safely, drive slowly. I also wanted to remind you about the Ward 1 meeting. It will be September 15th at 6 p.m. over in the Baldwin. We've talked about that in the past. And again, who this is for. This is for folks living in Ward 1. It's not for the entire city and there's no agenda, no speech, no nothing. It's just simply a sharing of thoughts, concerns, ideas, just a way to come in and have a conversation outside of a council meeting. Then lastly, I just want to touch on uplift. And so again, Pastor Koch, you know, I really appreciate you coming in here. I appreciate the conversations we've had about it and And I'm blessed that Catherine invited me to sign the letter too. And we got some folks over in Ward 1 and we decided to sign up. So I'm looking forward to the 12th. It is my wife's birthday. So I did tell her I'm going to be gone in the morning, but we'll be back for cake and dinner later. So looking forward to it. Mr. Brown. Yeah.

Why are you in the road with your car? Mr. Elkins, do you think that we'll have lighting in that parking lot? I always feel like it's kind of a dark park over there. Is that something that you don't know where you are?

So first I've heard of a vegetarian for lighting over there. I'm just thinking as it changes. Yeah, as it changes, is we add amenities? Something we can look at?

I like the idea that we're looking to expand it because I feel like it's kind of isolated and I think that will open it up. So I Stop sign on 7th and Weber. We also had a tree blocking the entire road on Elberta this morning. Stop sign was already in it, bogged down. I'd also like to thank Catherine for handling those many issues that popped up and appreciate everything that went into getting this coordinated. We have some sidewalk concerns on 7th Street. I know we got... I'm totally mindful of that. It's not going to be difficult. I just think that it's important that people that are walking, mainly students and whatnot, have a way to safely do that, as well as anyone attending the football games. So I guess I know that it's a school project, but I thought maybe between you guys, administration and the school. Maybe they can talk about moving back the construction fence that's on the other side of the sidewalk. I don't know how much material is there, dirt-wise or what have you, but I think that it would be a safer way to go if that's at all possible. I know things are happening fast there. It may not... you know, be that long on the other side. I know they're working on both sides right now. So I'm mindful of that. But there's some concerns I've got is we do have a lot of cars. As Polly said, we do have a lot of new drivers. I think it would be important. And I think in working together, I hope we can figure something out with that.

I wanted to say, you know, I would add in with that request as well. I made that same request. when that fence first went off. That was back when I was dropping my daughter off at school in the morning. You know, just seeing kids walking the street. I'm like, man, it's a matter of where. Now it's going to be sidewalk roads. But I was told less things have changed before I do it. So hopefully, anyway.

Well, now that we've got both sides, it might be more important. Also wanted to thank the street department for catching a many potholes on the lift end. And the Civic Center here, obviously, grass is back to growing like crazy. And the Civic Center and the Parks building on the way in the night, I thought they looked amazing. They edged it nice. I just wanted to shout out whoever was behind that because those little things do add up. appreciate their efforts. As far as the parks plan, I'm glad that we were able to move that along with one discussion over the many meetings. I am thankful that the administration will take all of our input seriously and the importance of each matter. I just wanted to say thanks, thanks to the group that made the edits.

Mr. Saunders. All right, thank you. Thanks to everyone who came this evening. Thank you, Matt, for speaking as always.

I'd also like to congratulate Firefighter Bird on scoring in. He's joining an incredible safety team, as he knows, we know, so they're on a long and healthy career here in North Canton. I want to also take a moment to follow the bench. We were recently seeking out a one-on-one discussion with me I'm not going to say exactly what it was about, but it was an important and sensitive issue. And it's that exact type of community-based policing that you and Major Buzzard and the entire police department employ. So thank you for taking that talk. I really appreciated that. I am also very, very pleased that after an extremely significant discussion that was spread out over multiple meetings that allowed for feedback from everyone that we are moving forward with the PROS plan. And I'm excited that Mr. Elkins will have an opportunity to execute some of those ideas that I'm sure he has. Also, I'd like to thank Mr. Elkins and Ms. Corina for the full updates. I had some residents asking me quite specifically about the amount of water leakage that was happening and the costs that may be associated with that. And so I appreciate the action that's now being taken to look very expensively at that. So thank you. And then finally, to Pastor Cogue and Uplift North Canton. Thank you. I think we all kind of know that government can provide a hand up, but sometimes it takes a community-driven private sector organization such as yours to help unite citizens and neighborhoods. So thank you very much for that work. I was in the process of signing up on Facebook for the 12th. I'll get that figured out once we get done here, but I plan on seeing you and hopefully for a long time to come. Thank you.

Okay. A lot of construction going on. Hall, police department, fire station, library. I hear that there's even more construction going to go on even at the Y. We've got construction going on Main Street. And now we have Uplift. And what a great name. And it's not small in any means. Neighbors helping neighbors and creating this kind of community is Canton. That's why we're here. And I appreciate everything that you've done. I know that it has taken many years and it's just getting off the ground, but that's the biggest lift. Once the momentum starts, I see this growing tremendously in our community like it has others surrounding here. So thank you for that. That's what I have next. Final call for new business. Seeing none. move into executive session. I'm going to make a motion to enter into an executive session for the purpose of discussing the purchase or sale of property as permitted by ORC 121.22 G2. Can I get a second? I guess your point was definitely not my point. Member Pierpont?

Yes.

Member Ward? Yes. Member Weirich?

Yes.

Member Matheny? Yes. Member McLeister? Yes. Member Pratt? Yes. Member Stock? So we have two topics for executive session. So I will also make a motion to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing with our attorney for the public body concerning disputes involving the public body that are subject of pending court action as permitted by ORC 121.22G3. The director of the court and the mayor.

Motion to adjourn the executive session. Second. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Out of executive session. Let the record reflect no action was taken. All right. Moving on to meetings calendar. August 31st, Committee of the Whole. It's Monday. And then we are not going to have a meeting on September 7th. That is a holiday. Questions about the meetings calendar? Seeing none, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Can I get a second?