City Council - Regular Meeting

On August 31st, 2026, the time is 7 on 1.

Oh, yeah, late. Mr. Ott, will you please call the roll? Member Pierpont.

Here.

Member Orr. Here. Member Wyeth.

Here.

Member Matheny. Here. Member McLeister. Present. Member Pratt. Here. Member Stocker. Here.

7 present. Excellent. OK. First item on the agenda is an ordinance or rules and committee. Ordinance and rules committee. Mr. Pratt.

So this is something that came from an inspirational matter. The ordinance repealing Chapter 1 of 7 public records and the codified ordinances of the city of North Canton. The proposed legislation repealing Chapter 1 of 7 public records and the codified ordinances of the city of North Canton. The city has determined that the Ohio Public Records Act and related provisions of the Ohio provides code providing comprehensive and uniform legal framework governing public records and making separate legislation unnecessary. Repealing the chapter will help avoid potential conflicts or inconsistencies between local regulations and state law, while ensuring the city remains in line with future amendments to the law.

So I'm going to throw this out. Our law director is not able to make the meeting tonight. This is conflict. I think as counsel, we may have a lot of questions that are going to require the law director to weigh in on some of these differences, these concerns, these conflicts. If everybody's kind of in favor of this, we might want to just move this to the next committee meeting when our legal advice could be here.

I'd make that motion.

Well, before we get into motion, we just want to make sure that everybody's fine. Does anybody? I guess, could we answer just a couple of questions, like maybe the why behind it before we move to it? Well, if we postpone to the next committee, then we can get into the why, and then we'll stop, and then it'll be fresh in our mind before we move it to a council meeting. So, Mr. McLeister, do you want to make that full motion?

Yes, I'll move we postpone this to the next meeting.

I will second that. All in favor? Okay, we'll get back to the next committee meeting. Next item on the agenda is Street Senate Committee. Mr. Orr.

All right, we talked about this a couple meetings ago, or maybe it's a couple meetings ago, and then we sent it back. They made some changes to that. Liam, you want to go over the changes? what exact changes we made.

Absolutely. So in the original conversation at the previous committee, we discussed the extent of which that this would apply. So we had kind of come to the consensus that we would dial this back to specifically military service. And we can always evaluate with future amendments to the code later to extend it to other areas of service. So it would maintain the 70 years old or deceased for military veterans, identifying a one block street segment for the sign placement. with a $250 fee, the sign would remain in place for 10 years. The city retains the right to determine the placement, what that sign exactly looks like, and where specifically it would be placed, whether that's on a dedicated pole or on the same pole as the normal street sign. Again, this does not change the official name of the street as it would appear on the auditor or anybody's mailing addresses. This would just add an honorary placement that would exist for that 10-year period. And we also included some language for where this will, kind of how the workflow will be. So applicants would submit it to the administration office. It will be through the online portal, just as all of our other permits and applications are. The administration will review the application, verify it for correctness, and then refer it to council for approval. That would require six. So the super majority of council to approve and council would be able to approve no more than two in a calendar year, just so we're not constantly flooded with applications. Again, if we see a great increase in applications, you know, if we get 15 stacked up in a year, we can always consider adding more to that. But just starting kind of like a pilot program, if you will, of limited to military service, no more than two in a year, just so we're not inundated with requests. I like it.

All right. One thing that I would like changed, 70 and older, what happens if someone, you know, gets killed in, you know, the Iran or something, and there's only

30 or so it's deceased or 70 years old unless otherwise determined that it would be necessary to honor them you know somebody's in their 50s and we consider that you know they may it does leave that in there that if special consideration but otherwise it would be 70 years old or deceased uh

I know it's going to be like a secondary name. It's not going to change the name of the street or the road, but my concern is following the rules, the laws, but by signage in the state. I just, my concern would be is that we don't cause confusion. We're not worried about people that live here coming in and things that maybe matter as much. But if we have a situation of like EMS and fire where we go to mutual aid, they're not familiar with the area and now they're seeing a separate sign during a time of, you know, emergency, are they going to struggle to be misled or new department members on any of our own security or safety forces?

Yeah, to that point, would it eliminate that confusion if the honorary street, you know, Bob Smith way is directly above in the same plane as the street sign? And because I think Liam had mentioned something about having possibly separate poles. You might over here have a Bob Smith way, but here you have, you know, whatever street. I don't know, is that maybe because I think you saw the properties. I just said you need to be mindful of that. So the Armory Street sign could be in a different color, maybe?

Oh, I think it certainly would be. And I think that's part of, you know, you are kind of covered under the city reserves the right to determine placement, appearance of the sign, lettering. So it could be whether the sign is brown and in a different font than the normal street signs, which I believe most, if not all, are white with black lettering. So it could be brown with white lettering. And to avoid further confusion, it could just be that they all get dedicated polls rather than being on the same as the normal legal street names.

So it would be clear that it was an honorary street name, kind of like italicized, different color, different color, in a way that it would be really clear.

It's a one block section.

Maybe even in small lettering above, you know, Bob Smith would say honorary, something like that.

And it's just, John, I heard you say a one block section. The whole street might just be a one block section.

So maybe not where the sign would be further down. where it would be less confusing. Yeah.

You could place it behind the street sign as a part of we have the right to determine specific placement. Yeah.

It would not be less confusing if, so say, you have your street sign and you have, you know, the honorary street sign above it, and you can say, oh, that's the honorary name right below, as opposed to finding a random pole and no other street sign.

I guess if it's there, anyone looking for it is going to see what they're looking for.

Right. Yeah.

No, good point. Safety is the number one concern for ours. We would never want to put something in place that would inhibit our safety forces.

Do they call it street signs or GPS?

That's a good point. Both, I'm sure. But it would never show up on GPS is what we've been doing.

Right. So our neighbors are going to be upset. We're adding more poles and signs in their way. But the other question that I would like to know is, if we're only allowing two per year, how is that going to be done? First come, first serve? And we end up doing this in January of the year? Do we do this once a quarter? Do we say, okay, for the first year, applications are due by this date, and we'll make a decision by this date that will give us an idea of how many we actually have? So we have policy. Do we have a process?

That's what we're working out on our side. Okay.

For the first year or so, I think this is a great program. I love it. I have some concerns about it being two. And so I think about the fact that in our first year, such as a Hall of Fame, there's a huge class that goes in. Maybe for the first year, it's much more than two. Maybe it's eight. Maybe it's ten. And then after that, it's two per year. Because I feel like there are probably far more than two worthy residents or former residents. So we have an initial class. And then after that, it's two per year. It's just a thought.

Good idea. That's why we're discussing it. It takes time. It'll take your time. It'll take our time. It'll take the street department time. And I think we were just thinking start small, you know, and move up. But, you know, to your point, an inaugural class might be larger. And then that we'll see. And we don't know. There might be two, there could be 20.

The other thing that I threw out there, and again, I don't know what you guys think, and if I'm the only one who thinks this, then I guess so be it, but I would almost like to not name Main Street. If you want to specifically put that in the ordinance, we can, you know, you can propose that as an amendment, or it's just a, from a policy perspective of the administration of no main roads.

policy perspective. I think we should put it in. Because think about it. If you live on a main street, I guess we'd have to say the most close neighboring. If you live on East Maple, you might get Pershing or Wise, depending on where you are.

Your application has a section, according to this, where they can propose the segment they want. So maybe we need to have that somewhere.

You could put language about not allowing any streets that are federally classified. So those are the ones that are eligible for federal funds or language about classified as a collector or above by scads. We could definitely have criteria that would preclude the more arterial and collector streams. Yeah, that's a good idea.

In fact, Mr. Stocker, I think that's a great thing you brought up. Maybe we should put not to exceed five or up to seven.

In the first year? Well, just a quick question. So this will pass. What's our anticipated passage date on this, Liam?

Next. Council. Let me pull up the calendar real quick.

I'm just trying to think, like, does this pass and do we have 30 days for it to become law?

So it's not an emergency, so you do have 30 days from effective.

So it certainly would become law before the end of this year. So this is the first year. So we're going to have potentially up to, does that give people enough time to get, do we do the first two years? Do you like say five?

Yeah, not for set of blanket shall not consider more than are approved more than five in a year. And we can just keep that as the running and I meant that later. I feel that's too much or too much.

Yeah.

I think you could have a decent turnout of applicants right away. People really like the banners that we did for veterans. And I think you could see a lot of people want to find a way to memorialize their loved ones. So I think more than two is absolutely a good idea. I don't know what that magic number is.

And what happens if 10 people apply, but only taking five? How do we select?

It would most likely be a first come, first serve basis of as submitted.

So wait up until 12 or 1 a.m.

Even with, you know, in the open go system, it does give a specific date and time. So if everybody submits at midnight on the date of effect, if everybody's 12.01 through 12.10, those first five are the first up. That's more of a procedural question.

So we're going to pass this. It's going to be into September, 1st of October.

It would be October 12th for third reading. So it wouldn't take effect till November 12th.

Then you're going to have to take in applications. And how long are you going to give them before you say, okay, we're stopping applications for 2027 honorary street names? on this date and then accumulate what we've got.

It's not going to happen until next year.

You've ordered the signs and then pick out the placements. So do you make the decision in January and say, okay, here's our list. These are the ones that we're going to move forward with for how many signs. And then they're up by spring. That sounds pretty accurate. Or do we set a date for the weekend before Memorial Day? Right? That would be cool. And this is what we're doing for Memorial Day. And we've got it in place from January to May to get locations.

Yeah, so these grounds will not be frozen. Yeah. Signs don't go anywhere.

So it has to be up to Friday before Memorial Day. So you can stipulate that, you know, all applications for that calendar year shall be submitted before Memorial Day of... Well, no, you're going to have to submit it by the end of the year so that we can decide by January so they've got time to make up the signings.

Okay, so we need to... And I think posting the signs on, you know, before Memorial Day would be, if we're doing this military and honorary... Would be a good thing. We could have included it in the ceremony. Yeah.

Any new signs? When does the winter edition of the sun go out? Would we have time to print about this in there so we can notify beyond social media means?

The next one will go out early December. Okay.

Maybe we can get it in there in writing to our residents that are not online.

That'd be perfect. Yeah. If you said something about early December.

Yeah, like right after Thanksgiving, December 1st, right around there. Okay.

Maybe kind of taking what you're saying, David, but maybe having to push it back a little bit. Maybe when you start to take applications beginning of January, they have to be in by January 15th, and that still would give time to the beginning. February 1st.

February 1st, right. That way you think it.

I think the streets enough time to figure out.

getting the signs made, and then the location of the signs, and it becomes part of the Memorial Day. We have two new library streets, or five, or whatever.

It's your five, it's five or ten or something.

So you could make... I would just be very careful not to saturate it. It should be a special thing. There's a lot of different ways that we recognize people. This is just another one. It should be special, in my opinion. I feel...

I don't know, a little weird about it being a first come first serve thing. I don't know if it's just me, but I mean, I'm just picturing some sign for some person and then it comes out that there's some terrible thing. I don't know, like, you know what I mean? Like, we're just, if you apply, then... You're in?

I agree with the whole first come, first serve because it is a little bit... Is there going to be a selection committee or a... Well, I think we meant first come, first serve to go to the selection committee. Not that you just automatically are in. Oh, I thought it was automatically... I've never heard of that.

So as they're submitted... We got multiple people talking. Let's back up here. So there's confusion in is there a selection committee before it gets to council? Is there a story or an essay explaining this?

There is criteria. There are criteria that they have to specify why, where specifically, and why that specific area. And then presumably it goes to the administration who then reviews all of that information, verifies that what has been submitted is true and correct, and then it appears before council. You are not bound to approve all of those. i don't want to be the selection committee i feel like that's got to be the ceremonial right to rename streets as it is in the present code uh so we do have this already um it's just a single paragraph so this is flushing that out a little bit more but that responsibility does still lie with council we just have not presently received Any applications?

I mean, can we have, like, a committee that's making the recommendation to council, here are the five people we have selected, and then we approve that per the ordinance language you just mentioned. Yeah, I think that's what I'm hearing, right?

Yeah, and I think, Christina, you might have said if there was anything derogatory. It's just not in there. It does say that in there, as if it was somebody that got street naming and then something happens later. There's also a provision that that might... We can always take care of it. We can always take care of it.

So you get 50 applicants. You're not taking the first five or the first two. You're going to review all 50 of those and say, these are the two that we're going to move on.

But if the first two meet all the criteria, it's the first two. It's reviewing them on first come, first serve.

Well, then why give them a deadline? I mean, if you're giving them a deadline of January 31st.

Then we can leave it open and have a running wait list.

Which is how...

They were suggesting the deadline, not me. We didn't have a deadline. It was kind of like you're on a wait list. And researching this... And the rest sit there and they come in when they open up again.

I think it's too important to do it first come, first serve. I would... try to honor the people that have given the most to the city. I think that means a lot.

In researching this, there is no other city that I could find that does it that way. This is structured seemingly as a first-come, first-served basis. Now, certainly, the other cities did not have, shall not consider or approve more than X number, then just left it as open-ended, presumably Because many people don't have an extra $250 to...

It's a lot of fine criteria here.

Well, I think the first couple years, you'll get a lot. Then, like, everything else in the city will go down. The first three or four or five years, you'll get a lot.

Does that mean that we have to reapply every year? No, I would think it would be in there. So if you have to reapply every year, it'd be kind of nice if we just... I know it sounds silly, but if we could keep it simple, it's probably better.

What we're trying to do, if you've applied through OpenGov, it will stay in there.

So I apply in OpenGov in January, and it's number four on the list, and you're only doing two. I've paid my $250. If I'm number 12 on the list or 27 on the list, and I don't get my name, my honorary name for my dad or grandfather, whoever it was, Does that mean I have to wait 20 years?

I guess that's where I'm from. Keeping it simple perspective, it would be per calendar year if we have already approved a set number or if you If that's the complicating factor, you take that out and you let it be considered based on how many are submitted. Everybody that submits one goes before it, provided your information is verified.

Maybe you don't pay until you're selected.

I was going to say, let's change that part on the fee language.

Maybe we don't collect it unless you've been selected and you have like two weeks to make that payment or something like that.

The only problem with not paying until you're selected You know, I thought the whole idea of having a $250 fee, yes, was to create a sign, but it was also to keep people from just putting things in. I mean, I think, was it over in Europe, or was it Canada somewhere, where they had a contest to rename a brand-new icebreaker or something, and then the people voted, and they named it Boaty McBoatface. I mean, you know, people put it on all kinds of walls.

Would that be a quick, like, look, reject? Well... It would be easier to accept funds at the time of approval than it would be to return funds after the fact. So that's your... It's a double-edged sword. Negative. But I think, didn't you mention payment within two weeks of...

I was suggesting some sort of a quick urgency to make your payment once you've been selected so it wasn't sitting out there and... impacting others who might be in the queue.

If others are waiting, I think a reasonable time frame, if you've been selected, this is now the fee to move to the next step.

The other aspect for having payment due at the time of the application is just so that we don't end up with somebody submits their application, we draft a resolution for it, and then that person doesn't pay on the books. No, the resolution would have to come after payment. It would. You're building the sign. Correct. The location, all that. The approval of the application is by resolution. So the resolution would have to pre.

He was saying it was hard. Did you say it was hard to find other cities doing this?

So other cities do this program as it's late here, except for the shall not approve more the next number in a year. They just leave it open-ended of submit however many applications and we review as they come.

Do other cities leave them up for 10 years?

The 10 years is the standard.

Really?

And how do they accept? Well, I guess it has to be approved. I was going to ask, how do they accept payment? Do they take it up front?

It doesn't really specify. It's just that there shall be a fee.

If we collect payment up front, my concern, and maybe it's addressed here and I missed it, my concern would be I didn't make that initial cut of five. I don't know if I'm number seven or if I'm number 28 or number 79. So am I now... create a lot of phone call traffic and stuff to the city asking about my status of this program, that's something to consider as well.

You're also creating refunds and more work that they're not going to be happy about.

We're not losing money on $250, are we?

I mean, if 20 people apply, then it might take away a small project or something. We do have to budget it, for sure.

What does each plaque cost? What does each plaque cost? We don't know, do we? How big of a plaque are we going to make?

We don't know. We don't know any of this. That's why we're talking about it right now.

We make them in our own sign department. We can get you that information. We're just trying to... But there's labor.

There's a lot of it involved.

We don't have to do it either.

I think we still need more processes figured out.

That's why we're talking. One thing I did want to mention regarding the payment and the applications is all of this would obviously be through OpenGov. So we do have the ability to turn those on and off. So once we receive, you know, the five that get approved, we can always disable that so that it doesn't even appear on the website for application. And the same thing, refunding from a practical aspect is more than likely it's going to be paid by credit card. And we can just refund that directly back to the card that it was applied with. Obviously, people may submit checks or pay with cash. That's still going to be financed.

Plus, since they're mostly going to be veterans, maybe some of the veteran organizations would pay for it than the people.

You know, as I'm sitting here, for me to get the opportunity to take the opposite approach, so I get what You're saying, Bob, this should be special. I agree. This should be something that's going to be special. But other communities are not limiting it. Are we creating like 10 times more work by saying we're limiting it to two or five people? Do we open it up to, who knows, maybe we get one person for next year and maybe all this is like, do we just try for the first year? And then if we get 50 for the first year, we're like, okay,

You know, you could not even say within the first year. If we're seeing, you know, a sudden influx of we do get 50 applications that we have to consider, you then say, all right, we're receiving too many of these. Let's go ahead and put an amendment to cap this effective immediately upon passage.

Right. Well, I do like the idea, though, of what you're saying about it should be in the beginning of the year. So, yeah, they're not from a world. By and large, these are going to be people who are in theory deceased. So... I think it should be for Memorial Day. It's perfect timing. And as Mayor said, you know, it could be part of the program. Hey, these are our two, these are our three, our five, whatever.

You could make it, you know, if you wanted to push it back a little bit more, say March 1st, March 31st shall be submitted. Those are all the ones that we consider. We turn that application off by that date. So it's if leave it open-ended and it's just whatever is considered by march 31st or whatever date we turn that application off and that's it for the year and then we turn it back on when the application period reopens we could do it that way as well and then yeah i like it and then just to double check and make sure because i think i heard it a couple different ways but i don't know if the one way was accurate so we're going to have these applications come in

Did you say you guys are going to filter them before they come to us?

So procedurally speaking, just having a process for that, it would be submitted to the mayor's office of somebody in the administration, reviewing that for correctness, making sure everything's true and correct, name spelled right, obviously, and then submitting that to me to go on the council docket for consideration. And then once we reach the five approvals, we can turn that application off.

I thought we were talking about not doing a limit.

Well, and that's if that's the way you want to go. But I would not necessarily recommend establishing an ad hoc committee for these to evaluate them just because that adds an extra layer of red tape to the circumstance. And then that could potentially prevent it from going up before Memorial Day.

And that's exactly what I was going to try and hit at because I guess I was also thinking What then therefore becomes the criteria. Oh, this guy has one purple heart. This guy has two purple hearts. This guy has a bronze star. This guy, you know, was an infantryman. You know, it's like, what is your, what is your criteria?

Which is the, you know, staying factor of remove the cap. and just say, we will consider all of the ones submitted before this application deadline. And then that's it for the year.

Our criteria would be the criteria we listed, you know, the age or deceased, I think lives in the city, you know, that military only. So Cody McVote comes in and he's 20 years old and lives in Akron. That's a quick note.

Those are pretty good things. But what size do we want to eat by 10? Do we want something of this size?

And the provisions of city reserves, the right to determine placement size color that we can determine, you know, what is ultimately the best value for the applicant for 250 dollars.

Well, we want it. Still, we want it. This year, you might go to ABC vendor. Next year, you might go to DEF vendor. We do them in our signed apartment. We make them ourselves.

Yeah, we do all our own street.

All right. So we would have a standard within the department of this is what the signs will look like.

Yep. That makes sense. I think it's a very, we all agree. It's very, it's very, very tension, but there's a lot to work out. Right. You can go, what do you want to go?

Unlimited. Yeah. Okay.

Let's sit. I think we should set the deadline for the end of January. One thing. Yes.

So if we make it unlimited, You know, we have to look into these. It's going to take a lot of time. So if we have 50 people, it's just not going to get done.

Well, if we have a deadline in January, I'm sure it'll be done by Memorial Day. Okay.

We're also going to be looking down to value their time. Well, and that's if you make the deadline...

You can establish that as if you got it in, it shall be considered. It's up to the seven of you, six of which to actually approve it. And then if anybody comes to us in March and says, oh, I wanted one, unfortunately, you'll have to wait till next year and they will consider your application. for next year, since we would close that and make it not accessible from the city's website. There's a lot of communication that has to go to get there is a lot of getting in that newsletter.

And if you're worried about conflict, you don't do a lottery system for it. I mean, something like that.

You could always and that could be more of an internal thing of will if we have 30 applications,

We don't know what we don't know.

Right, right. So we test it with a open-ended submit by January 31st, see how that goes, and we can always seek to amend, because this really would just be amend the codified ordinance to open it back up for more applications. Right.

So admin is kind of on board with what we'd like to see so that we can put this together.

Do we have a consensus of what you guys want to see?

I think Liam captured it. I mean, when everyone's really worried about this large influx, I'm sitting here thinking about the memorial bricks that we've had in the past. And with 18,000 people in the city, it's not 18,000. And they were only like $25. And there was no criteria. You'd have to be over 70 and deceased in the military. And there were not that many.

That's what I keep thinking is we already have... Like, I'm all for this. Let's support the veterans. Let's give them street signs. But we have a veterans memorial, right? And are there ways to support that? Are there ways to add names to that? Could this be like a two-tier thing? For $250, you can get a street sign. For $100, you can get a plaque that supports a keep of our veterans memorial.

Maybe it was the Heritage Society. I saw it too late because I wanted to make sure my uncle had a brick there. But I think it's in the fall. It was the Heritage Society. Yeah, that's right.

They do the bricks. So looking at the potential amendment, just so we could keep this moving forward as amended to the council agenda, is it correct that the amendments would be amended to remove the limit of two applications approved and instead add an application deadline of January 31st of each year?

Well,

Right. Yeah. So unlimited applications have to be in by January 31st.

We don't have an established number of how many will actually have.

I mean, presently, we do have name change for the purpose of honor on the books as it is. This would just be an amendment to really flesh that out into a proper program. To my knowledge, nobody has submitted any yet.

And to your point, as far as numbers, I was going to say, I lost my train of thought. We had those banners for, you know, when we were doing the American 250. How much were those and how many people, how many banners did you sell?

They were $100. And I'm not sure, do you have any idea on the count? I mean, if you think about where the placement was. There's, what, 20 of them? It was about 20 the first time.

One and a half, or, well, no, two and a half times the price. Yeah. And... And not on Main Street. Yeah, they may not be on Main Street.

And there wasn't a criteria on those as far as age.

We could get maybe one in each ward at least the first time through so that people can see it.

It would truthfully depend on the number of applicants. I mean, obviously we can still publicize that these go up when we post them to Facebook as some ceremonial dedication of these honorary signs go up. Every year these applications will be open due by January 31st. Due by January 31st.

And I feel like Edmund can figure out the details. When things are due, just know that we want to announce it at the moment of state.

And one last thing on the whole idea of preventing Bodie McWhatever that was.

Bodie McBoatface.

Bodie McBoatface. Thank you. Put that on the record. We probably need to figure out a way to vet out that they are indeed a veteran. That's kind of difficult to do. I was kind of Googling it while I was sitting here. Veteran records are not publicly accessible like you might think. There may be ways to do it, but when we're creating this process and really fine-tuning it, we probably needed to say, whoever at City Hall is responsible for this, this is how you're going to go about confirming that.

Well, that's more of a procedure.

Yeah, we don't need to know that paperwork.

Yeah, I would say we can request documentation.

Yeah, there's a way to do it.

We can do docket searches to look for criminal history. Yeah.

So pretty much going to change the deadline, remove the two.

So if we want to keep this moving forward, if you guys would like to make the formal amendment, just so that I will take this and run with it and have it ready for the next council meeting just to not keep this trapped in committee. So I would need that motion.

So I'll make a motion to move for A, the council agenda amended to remove the number.

The limit of two approvals per calendar year.

And instead of January 31st for applications.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Excellent. Next on the agenda is Utilities Committee. Mr. Stocker.

Yes, thank you. So this is the ordinance that's amending Chapter 921 sewer code found by Ordinances of the City to establish criteria for the discharge of fat, oil, and grease, otherwise boring, or it's going to spawn in order to protect the city's sewer system. Ordinance further established So what this is, is this is really being proactive. We just realized that we have a situation

that when someone puts in a restaurant initially, there is a process to which our building code official will look at it upon construction. Now, if over the years, as that restaurant has changed, maybe it was a restaurant that was... salad, soup and salad, and then they go to, now they're frying, you know, they're frying a lot of food, but, you know. Also, as their business expands, maybe they were kind of a low volume, and then they increase to, you know, a larger volume. There's no inspection process on this, much like how we have backflow inspections to make sure that that's going right. um so there is this fat oil and grease fog interceptor which is kind of your grease trap for lack of a better term and if it's undersized after a certain point because your business has grown or the food you're cooking has changed and it is no longer um sustainable to the amount of grease that it's supposed to be capturing you know what happens then that is going down as if anyone knows you don't dump grease down your drain because then it can you know pile up and clog so um you know we obviously have uh a obligation to keep our lines all clear for everyone. And what can happen is it can then cause a series in our main line. If it causes a series clog in our main line, that's going to back up everyone. So if it's, say it's on a main street and there's businesses, all of those businesses are going to experience some damage due to a backup. So this is just something that we never realized. We don't have a lot of restaurants, as we know. I mean, we have a few. We don't have a lot. We hope to have more. And so we thought having this in place, it would be something that we would inspect and just ensure that it is right-sized and that it's more of a preventative measure so that we're not spending a lot of time, money, and frustration after the problem occurs, preventing a problem from occurring.

How's the administration going to communicate that to the existing restaurants and give them enough time to install one, pay for one?

Well, they probably already have it. It's the inspection of what they have.

Right. What happens if they don't have one? You're going to, you know, you have 30 days.

Yeah, they should have one probably in construction. Most restaurants are required to put it in. But beyond that, there's nothing on the books for us to inspect it.

and there's some language in the ordinance about the director of development services has some discretion to examine the situation and then make a recommendation about do they need a grease trap do they need a bigger one would we allow a smaller one that we still think would do the job so there is there's a little bit of nuance in the ordinance to To be flexible and not try to do a one-size-fits-all approach to every facility that cooks.

This is also something that the health department does not do. Only for new construction, not for me.

We see it on the new construction side through the Northeast Department. Existing buildings, new restaurants that have gone again. It's just the upfront communication. Nobody wants to be surprised as a business owner that you've got a major expense coming up.

And like Catherine talked about it, the reason it wasn't really captured before is because you've got the health department, you've got the sewer department, but this is really more of a building and plumbing issue. I mean, it happens internal to the business and the plumbing system, but the problems manifest themselves in the sewer system. And so that was why we having it ultimately under the director of permits development services made sense. We haven't had any problems.

We have. We experienced one recently, and that's where we feel like we have a responsibility as a public entity to ensure that we are doing things to not cause additional problems to the businesses. So by doing this, we're preventing when somebody's business shuts down, they lose money. They have to shut down multiple restaurants on the street or multiple businesses, not just restaurants, any business that's tied to that same main line that's clogged, that's now backing up into their business. You know, we want to do everything possible to prevent that.

Is this, it's fair to say this is a, this is a in-restaurant, above-ground solution, right? The trap is not installed below, like subgrade below subgrade.

It depends where. There's many traps that are in the plumbing. There's large traps that are in the floor. What's a typical anticipated cost for someone in that position?

What they cost, someone with a restaurant?

I don't know what the in-ground ones are. Those are usually done with new construction. The attachments to piping are very cheap. but they're not always efficient enough. And they're also neglected. So, I mean, I worked in the restaurant industry when I was younger, and a lot of people would empty the grease traps into a bucket and then just put it down the drain anyway, which There does need to be some education involved in that process.

The ordinance also does require, put some maintenance requirements in there that it's, I believe, at least quarterly, that any disposal has to be done by an approved disposal service. They need to maintain a record of their disposals just so we can try to avoid those very circumstances of, yeah, we have the grease trap, but it fills up and then we just kind of dump it down the drain from there and whatever happens, happens.

So I had a notice in Township next to us, a grease collection, which was out in the parking lot. I certainly don't want to see that occur.

Which is why they have to have an approved disposal service or containment mechanism.

And I think the cost, I mean, it will vary some depending on the size of the facility and the nature of the plumbing and the number of fixtures. But one of the things we were trying to head off by bringing this in is thinking about the cost. If you don't do this, then you're going to have multiple property owners with backed up sewers. And anyone who's ever experienced a sewer backup, one is enough. And so we're kind of trying to balance be reasonable with individual property owners, but looking out for the common good too.

Just to that end, so obviously our sewer system is interdependent. And so would there be potentially liability of the city if we did not properly maintain the system and then someone else's individual sewer had a backup or an issue? You understand what I'm asking? No.

I went to city council and went to the administration When we had that hundred year rain and the sewers backed up.

Right.

Nothing. And then it happened the year after too.

Nothing. To your question, I think that that's one reason we want to be proactive with this legislation because someone could at least make the claim that, well, the city has failed to do something to regulate this. And that's why we wanted to be proactive with this too.

That's what I was saying earlier.

We do have a fiduciary duty to maintain our sewer infrastructure.

Can we go back to existing businesses? So I'm reading through this several times and I see the director's authority section in there. I can follow all of that, but are we saying we will go to existing businesses and check this out now? Or will we wait until an incident occurs?

No, it is preventative. So we would be inspecting the same as we do backbones.

And so will we have a process for how we identify who we're going to go and inspect? And I'm assuming we're going to send a letter of notification. Hey, we're coming out. Okay. Similar to how we launched our rental registration. We had to go through our records and locate who we would be.

So to give you that example of backflow, you know, if you have a backflow device, you have to every year, you have to, you know, people know the process on it. And then they have to know their backflow has to be inspected. This will be that same kind of process through the same process.

Generally speaking, these are going to be, I believe it does specifically say in there at one point FSE so food service establishments. We have a very finite amount of them within the city so it is, you know, not a tremendous ask upon the building department to build out a workflow for every year or on a certain rotating basis they will go out and inspect these that was my next with a running list of businesses that we're just going to go down the line one after the other there's not a set frequency that we would revisit that it's under the director's authority for the frequency at which that would occur okay so do we charge for medical inspections done by a plumber All commercial activity, all permit or work done to a commercial business has to be done by a licensed contractor.

So who bears that expense? The building owner? It is always on the owner. And the backflow inspection.

I guess I would maybe like to see more clarity than just saying at a frequency determined by the director. I don't know if we're able to better define that. This says every 12 months, every three years, whatever the frequency needs to be. Maybe we need to be clear about that.

And that is the director of development services, not me. Right, correct. So I can check with Marty.

Okay.

So this interval, though, was this in recognition of potentially the different natures of businesses or restaurants, I should say? Like, in other words, if someone is dealing more with fats, oils, and grease as compared to a set restaurant or smoothie. There's no doubt, yeah. So having a one-size-fits-all would certainly make sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

Like a pizza place or a bar that does fried food. Dave, you're talking about the recycled grease when you see the little things on there. The receptors. Right. So, yeah, a salad place is going to have one on their sink.

Right. So that one doesn't need to be inspected every month. But somebody that might have a 200-gallon one somewhere. So maybe you can have intervals to answer Holly's question based on the size of the receptor.

Some sort of a schedule that matches up so they understand what they can expect. It's not a shock to them. And we're not doing something inconsistent at the same time.

And similarly, one reason we wanted to have some discretion and flexibility there is... You can imagine a scenario of businesses inspected initially. Well, if there are no permits pulled in the next five years and the building doesn't change hands, you know, it may not be necessary to go out there every 12 months. But just to go on the salad example, if it was a salad-based restaurant and then permits are pulled three years later and it's going to be something that heavily fries, well, then that will probably trigger for our development services to want to go out there But it may not be necessary to inspect every food service business every year. So that's one reason we wanted to try to, I definitely understand the interest in trying to have consistency, which I think we want to, but we know that there's a lot of different types of facilities that might require a different inspection regimen to

And along with that, you know, one more thing to consider before establishing some sort of frequency is just the nature of businesses and how they pivot. You know, say somebody inherits a business that's intended to be a soup salad kind of place. They bought the business and it came with a fryer system or the infrastructure for a fryer system. And they just decide I'm going to start serving fair food now.

We may not know that for like 12 months. Right. So versus going with it. So I'm not sure how we're going to know.

each time it's time to inspect that restaurant because we don't know if they went from serving ice cream to deep fried oreos and you know so that change there is with the leaving it with the director's authority say you know somebody tells us all or we notice all of a sudden they've started serving fried food advertising it they previously weren't so the director might just stop in and say hey i recognize you're doing this now we might need to establish that based on the size of this i think it's going to need to be every three months And the burden is on the business owner to be reaching out to us for it rather than us necessarily being going after them for it, since it is their grease trap that needs to be maintained.

That is something our Department of Development Services frequently has to be. They're very close and in touch with the business community and the inspectors. For example, like sometimes certificate of occupancies, businesses change use. And a lot of times, you know, we don't know that, but we find out. And when we find out, then that's when we... you know, investigate and make sure that they're following everything by the state code if the use has changed for a business. It has to be the same thing.

So do we want to add inspections based on size of the receptor? Small, medium, and large version? Three months, six months, or 12 months inspection?

You could also just make it a, again, there's a finite number of businesses, so it shall be a rolling six months inspection. for everybody and just that's part of the list or regardless of size that we're every six months, you should be reaching out to us. Similar to the backflow, I don't believe they chase backflows. It's more of a owner determined.

And if we see them, if we see like say an irrigation system and we check our system to make sure that that address has a backflow and they're registered and they're having it inspected to prevent any contamination to our water system.

How much time do we hypothetically have? I mean, I know that every line might be a different size, but typically how long do you have from where they're exercising a bad behavior and then they actually, the board actually kind of matters or goes bad on our watch, creating an issue for.

How much time, are you asking how much time for the grease to accumulate?

Like when's the last time we had to clean a line?

Just recently. Our main, we had to clean our main. Because it was completely, or almost completely blocked.

When was the last time it was done before that?

Our line was clear, so there wasn't an issue with our main line. We do camera all our lines to see if there's issues, but that's the whole city, so we might not get to that part until there's an issue. And then there was an issue, and that's what the issue was. And that's what prompted us, is that we've never had anything to inspect it.

make sure that this type of thing didn't happen which is the advantage of leaving it open the business owner has to do the inspection and pay for the plumber to do that how often do they have to do that so the director is going to decide what their interval is going to be and they're going to be the ones to follow up that they're meeting that interval And if the business changes, they can have their interval changed. Is that what I'm hearing?

We can discuss more with our director of the Department of Development Services, Marty.

Again, this one isn't recommended for emergency passage, so we can continue on the same timeline. It'll be early October before this is approval and 30 days after that. So we can continue working on this with the development services team.

We've looked at what other cities have and we're going off that. And we can also talk with our director.

Once they were approved, like on your backflow when I had businesses, I got a little tag. Right. And it was good for one year. Right. And if I didn't call the following year, I could be subject to fines. Are we going to add that?

So it's very similar to a... oil change in your car. They put that little sticker in there. It's up to you to make sure that you're doing it that next time.

This is good from January till December and then I have to have another one done the following January or 30 days I get a fine.

Except some people don't have businesses with massive amounts of grease.

Yeah, but there are quite a few with massive amounts of grease.

Okay. So under penalty is just establishing a reasonable time for these things to be corrected. And that was just part of the existing chapter. So again, director's authority for what would constitute the reasonable time. And that would go on presumably the certificate of inspection of Shelby within 30 days of the expiration of this. Okay. And that's more we handle that just from a workflow internal procedure.

I don't think the intent is to be overbearing on it. It's just to prevent a mass backup.

The other aspect of this too is it is not a fine so much as it is a minor misdemeanor to violate any provision of the chapter. Again, that was existing under the sewer code for the intent of you are discharging into public infrastructure So it is a misdemeanor to misuse that.

Now, when you cleaned out the sewer line on Main Street, did you have an idea where that came from?

Yes.

And did you? We paid for everything, correct?

Yeah.

So, yeah, we have a sidebar here. If this is a misdemeanor, who gets the misdemeanor? The manager or? The assistant manager.

So as with all business code, it is on the owner to do all the applications and all of the maintenance. So ultimately it would be on the building owner who gets it if it's not complied with.

The building owner or the business owner?

The building owner is generally who receives everything. So if you have a tenant that's violating it, you're... Because as the building owner, you're responsible for your tenants.

Right. If the neighboring businesses are going to sue someone, they're going to sue the building owner, not the tenant of it.

Good. Great discussion. All right. Is there a motion to move by 5A for council agenda? There's a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? I will make a motion to adjourn. Is there a second?