City Council - Regular Meeting

It is 7 o'clock and I'm going to call this meeting to order. Uh, welcome everyone. Good evening ladies and gentlemen, council members, city officials. Welcome to the April uh, 13, 2026 regular city council meeting. We are meeting at 26 South Pain Street, Chilikathy, Ohio. And I would ask the clerk to call the attendance role. Thank you, President Shoemaker. Bennett present. Payne here. McCort here. Barnes here. McKver here. Dement here. Preston here. Dun here. Creed here.

And now I would ask Miss Bennett to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. 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.

Uh the minutes from the March 23, 2026 meeting been distributed. Are there any additions, deletions, or corrections? President Shoemaker, I noticed that there was I don't know how important it is, but it is incorrect. Um, my I did not have anything on the agenda last night uh last meeting. Um I just said we had a committee meeting and I don't you know there was nothing on the agenda from engineering committee last time.

So we might want to make that correction. Uh, with that correction, is there a motion to um to accept the minutes with that correction? Uh, motion by Mr. Dement, second by Mr. McCquort, and the clerk will call the role. Bennett, yes. Payne, yes. McCqu Barnes, yes. McKver, yes. Dement, yes. Preston, yes. Dunn, yes. Creed, yes. Minutes are approved. We'll now move to reports of committees. Development committee. Mr. Dement.

Thank you, President Shoemaker. Uh development committee has nothing on tonight's agenda and um nothing to report this evening. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Uh, engineering committee, Miss Dunn. Uh, President Shoemaker, we have item number three on the agenda tonight. And when the proper time comes, I'm going to ask that we wave the three reading rule to uh because it does uh have to do with grant deadlines if there are any out there and I wouldn't want to miss any of those. Thank you. Thank you. Finance Technology Committee, Mr. Creed.

Thank you, President Shoemaker. We had a committee meeting earlier this evening. We discussed three items. Uh 26015 and this was appropriation of funds for the 2026 financial books. Uh this was a lot of items that we did not do in the original budget and we went back and uh got the detail on those and the committee has uh passed that to go forward to uh for the full council. um 26-018 and this is accepting uh and appropriating funds for RDC and release of mortgage and this is basically a pass through. We'll accept the money then we will pay it out as well and item 26-017 and this is funds for the extension of builder's risk insurance. Um the wastewater treatment plant was supposed to be done I think in May and now it's not going to be done till the end of January of next year. So we needed to uh extend that insurance policy and the committee voted to approve that as well. Um on top of that we have two items on the agenda. Uh item number two is reappropriating the money from the Appalachian Appalachian Community Grant Program. Um these are monies that were unappropriate at the end of the last year. So we're just reappropriating those funds and at the appropriate time I'll ask for to wave the three recall on that. And then item number four is um an ordinance uh con consenting to the proposal submitted by Ohio Department of Transportation to resurface a high street from Main Street out to out north to the city limits. And this is work that will not be done till next year. So we don't have to worry about it this year with everything else we got going on. Um but next year they will come back in and redo that. So um I'll let that go to a second read for that one. That concludes my report.

Thank you. I'm glad you clarified that that won't be happening this year. And now we'll move on to the human resources committee. Miss Payne,

thank you. President Shoemaker, we had a committee meeting earlier this evening on assignment 26-007, and it was it's for an ordinance appropriating um $10,200 to cover the cost associated with the city's participation in the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission's 2026 local government internship program. And um this program is 100% reimbursed to the city. So, we put the money up front and then at the end of the summer, we're reimbursed for this. Um, that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you, Parks and Recck Committee. Mr. Barnes,

thank you, President Shoemaker. I have nothing on the agenda and nothing new to report. Thank you. Thank you, Safety Service Committee. Miss President,

thank you, President Shoemaker. Um, we had one we had one item on that we met with or we met for tonight on the committee in the committee meeting. I can't talk tonight. Um, it was funding for one police officer and one firefighter uh to place those positions back in the current budget. They were removed uh when we uh had budget discussions in the late fall and we wanted to have this placed back in there. So, it was approved and that'll be on the agenda the next time. And as for anything else on the agenda, I have nothing. Thank you.

Thank you, Utilities Committee, Mr. McKver. Thank you, President Shoemaker. Utilities has nothing on the agenda for tonight and nothing new to report. Thank you. Thank you, City Services Committee, Mr. McQuart. Thank you, President Shoemaker. City services has one item on the legislation tonight. An ordinance accepting adopting a revised of city of Chocolati Chauati transit system pure procurement policy for the Joki transit system. That's all we have. Thank you. Thank you. Community affairs committee, Miss Bennett. Thank you, President Shoemaker. We have nothing on the agenda and nothing to report. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now move to reports of officials. Mayor Feny.

Thank you, President Shoemaker. Just a few things to touch on tonight. First, I'm going to touch on everybody's favorite topic, which is construction and street congestion. Um, just uh today I think marks two weeks since the start of um the the major major work uh on Bridge Street, its impact uh on detours, etc. through the city. Uh and I just want to talk for a couple minutes about uh how we are dealing with that. So um first and foremost, the city has worked very closely with uh ODOT over the past several years uh to plan for this project. Um we uh the administration, city council, we've all met uh sat down with ODOT. We've looked over these plans. These are the plans that we you know submitted originally. I think the the tough thing happens, you know, that first week. Um, the pain you feel, the human nature about the routes that you're used to and that sort of thing. Um, and so as the the dust settles from, uh, people taking different routes and adjusting, uh, what we're able to do sort of in real time is do traffic counts, do observations of sort of human nature, where people turn, where people don't turn, uh, and we will make adjustments um, along the way. Uh it's it's somewhat necessary to do it that way because there are moving parts in this project. Uh everybody knows that the Octangi is also closed uh but it will only be closed until August whereas this project will extend further and that changes uh how people travel. And so just some quick observations. We've already changed some traffic timing. Uh it appears that the the major pinch point uh in these various places uh is High Street and Water Street. high street going southbound is uh during certain times of the day uh can delay uh a trip by somewhere around 10 minutes is the is the counts that we're getting. Uh and we also know that Narrow's Road uh is getting backed up at times as well.

People going around uh Bridge Street that way. Um the exit on uh east uh sorry westbound 35 is open going southbound um on Bridge Street and it's just going to take some some getting used to navigating that. I will say if anybody's been out to Bridge Street lately, uh the traffic's great. So, please make sure you're continuing to go out to Bridge Street. Plan ahead, uh because it's going to take you about 5 or 10 minutes longer to get home, but uh it's never been easier to navigate uh out there in Bridge Street in my opinion. Um so, things that we're looking at but have not made decisions on uh would be a wide range of things consider such as uh continuing to modify timing of of intersection lights. That could be all the way down High Street. that could be Water Street etc etc. Uh restricting left turns uh is also something we're looking at um and u just increasing signage and awareness. So we are well aware uh of the issues but I will also say this if there are specific issues that people experience in their day-to-day travels um that uh are are not being addressed. Uh we're open to uh comments and suggestions. We're doing this in in conjunction with ODOT. Reopening um eastbound uh the the highway entrance eastbound um on 35 is not one of those uh options. And I'll clarify very briefly why that why that road is closed. So I'm talking about northbound on High Street. The the on-ramp onto uh basically on 35 going eastbound is closed. Uh, and the reason it's closed is because during times of of high traffic, and this is one of the core reasons for this project, um, several years ago at Christmas time, uh, a woman was killed in an accident because the the exit traffic on, uh, Bridge Street, traffic exiting at the Bridge Street exit off of 35 was backed up so far was actually backed up on to 35 and a woman was killed because she essentially was rearended um, because

that traffic had backed up onto the highway. That is a very dangerous situation and the modeling that ODOT did shows that uh we ran the risk of that being a significant backup because people would get high street 35 exit and that would uh compound the issue. And so first and foremost the decisions that we make as a city with ODOT with the state are about safety. Uh and so we recognize the high levels of inconvenience. Uh I think probably all of us have already experienced them. uh but safety is the first factor that we consider and so that's why that particular change was made um but I I I will say this like we look at the models the models uh are almost always very accurate but we have to be able to adjust for real life circumstances and so that's what we will continue to do unfortunately it's a long project but we will stay on top of it it's not something that's frozen in time um so uh in the interim we'd ask for your patience uh and uh I sincerely really um appreciate uh the stress that this has caused over the last couple weeks. Um couple other things um I wanted to touch on somewhat related to this is um we've been having an internal conversation uh around what appears to be the proliferation of ebikes. Uh so these like look like bicycles but they have motors and they go pretty fast. Um and so we're starting to see those on sidewalks. We're starting to see them on the bike path. And so the police department is researching um sort of what communities are doing to uh curb these this sort of this practice. Uh especially on sidewalks, it can be pretty dangerous. Um and uh there are communities that actually have speed limits on their bike paths, that sort of thing. Uh but I just wanted council to know that. Um because uh it's likely that soon you might get a legislation request to deal with some of this. In the meantime, the police are just sort

of taking a heightened awareness to the issue um in places like downtown. It's happening more and more. You know, a fast basically motorized bicycle on the on the sidewalk is not a good thing either for pedestrians or for um especially young people riding them without helmets and that sort of thing. So, just an issue um that we're looking at. Um and then the the the other issue I want to bring up that I I honestly don't have a solution for. or it was uh brought to our attention last week. Uh the law director's office has been working on this is the questions around the the ballot language uh on the paving levy. So um the ballot language on the paving levy is not the language that city council passed. Uh and there's a major distinction between those two things. One of the the major distinction is that the the language on the ballot does not say 10 years. Um and uh the law director's office has worked and she might report on this tonight, but has worked very hard uh to try and find out why that happened. Uh I'm still not sure we have uh exact clarity on why it happened. I would love to see something uh in writing from the Secretary of State to be honest to just frankly tell us why that happened. Um but I think it puts uh at least my I'll voice my own opinion uh puts us in somewhat of a a precarious position. Um because I know when I sent the committee assignment request, I suggested that council consider permanent versus 10ear. um the the city council chose to do a 10-year limited uh levy, which is exactly the same thing we did 10 years ago. Uh which was fine 10 years ago. And so it's it's somewhat unclear to me what what has changed. And it's also unclear to me if um the language does not say 10 years, but that's the intent obviously of the city council legislation. Uh if the intent of the legislation goes forward, we have a opinion from the water director's office. I think my interpretation of it is saying that perhaps it was not permissible to put 10ear limit on. Um but again why that's why that was okay 10 years ago is is is

at least confusing to me. So I think um I just want to be very uh straightforward and honest with the voters uh of of what they're going to see on the ballot and what it actually means. And so I don't know uh the next city council meeting is only a week before uh the the vote. Uh I think that city council has planned uh some public meetings this week uh to talk about this week and next to talk about um that ballot issue. I was not able to attend uh those meetings on the dates that they were scheduled. U so I was talking to the audity and clarity on that topic and be honest to the voters I think is important. So I don't know how council wants to handle that. I don't actually know the process for removal. I know a candidate can can take themselves off the ballot, but I think sample ballots are already or not sample ballots, actual ballots, you can vote early already. So, that puts us in a a strange position, I think. But, uh that's my take on it. I might take further discussion. Um or I'd be interested to hear what city council's thinking. Um and then finally, uh on a lighter note, uh this is kind of cool. So, uh, Artemis 2, uh, we all know the excitement from last week around Artemis 2. Uh, we actually have two trees in Millennium Grove that came from seeds that have gone and went around the moon. Uh, and they're they're, uh, two sycamores uh, in Millennium Grove. They have signs on them. Uh, but those were planted um, uh, during the Millennium. And uh we our Millennium Grove is it might be the only grove in the country, but it's definitely the only grove in Ohio that has all 100 trees uh that came out of that project. Most of them were scattered around states. So 20 here, 20 there. Uh but we have one of the best

preserved uh and active um groves in the country and uh two of those trees went around the moon, which is pretty cool. Uh, I will stop there. Thank you. Next, we'll go to the auditor. I do not have anything to report tonight, nor do I have anything on the agenda. Thank you. Now, we'll move to the law director.

Thank you. To keep it short, he uh when Luke was talking about the ballot, he's correct. Everything he said, we did research it. The ballot wording is correct. Interestingly, the statute does not allow a time for a limit to be placed on the ballot. It h this type of tax has to be imposed permanently or until council takes action to revoke it. Um as such, the bottom line is nothing needs to be done and the issue can remain on the ballot as it is. That's that's the takeaway from there. Uh we are currently still working on the proler speed radar devices. We're actually some of our prosecutors are going to uh the oral fluid testing seminar tomorrow. So, there's a lot going on with the prosecutorial um issues and we've been very busy with legislation. This street construction kept us really busy. So, I'm glad we finally got that resolved. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now move to audience participation. Any person wishing to address the council must first provide his or her name and address. Comment shall be limited to 5 minutes and I will give you a warning when there is one minute remaining. Uh John Thcker 990 Columbus Street apartment 307 Bill Coffee. Uh, first I want to let the mayor know I voted for that, so I hope it's going to go through, but we'll see in what form. Um, also I'd like to refer everybody who has not already seen the excellent article by Shelby Greavves in the Gazette about the practical consequences of a hotly debated topic from a year ago, section 555, which uh shows that the city has arrested no one, which some of us said would be what would happen. So, I guess I could say I we told you so, but we'll skip that for the moment. Again, excellent article. uh going on from there. Um there are so many things going on at the city that feel like they're kind of frozen in time because I know that one of the things that came as a consequence of 555 was a committee that was to study and and I think did have a memorandum of intentions for uh for the unhoused. Uh we could perhaps have a followup that uh another thing is uh the council president has started a non-funding nonprofit funding committee to be reinstituted. uh and we hope that perhaps one of those people can uh tell us exactly what funding sources we would have for that

because uh the general fund in Chilikothy probably has a little bit less than it did a year ago. So um to work with but uh that's something that's kind of in flux also. has let's see I can try I've got a long list of uh the Tiffen school property which was transferred to a corporation and I've not heard anything about it and perhaps it's just because I'm not in that loop but I'd be curious to find out about that perhaps I can talk another time with the mayor he would be almost certainly aware of what's going on there um and close to home there is construction going on and I know about it because I can hear it pretty regularly over at Marylu Patent Park, which is uh the federal is it federal funding or state uh uh for Marylu Patent Park for the drainage and other things. Well, any rate, they are doing work over there. I can hear it regularly. So, we know that that's progressing. Um I guess in some ways I look at some of the things that people uh you know they say that the road to hell is paid with good intentions. Good intentions are not enough sometimes to get everything done. You have to go ahead and follow it through. There are problems in chilopathy as to people who quite honestly are having trouble making ends meet because everything's more expensive. We know that. I mean you guys pay more. I pay more for everything. uh but particularly as to housing and that's one of the issues that is always important to me is to make sure that there's an opportunity for housing for anybody who wants a house. Um and the Tiffen property would be certainly um one way to increase the

housing stock in that neighborhood which is of course your ward. So, um, if we could hear more about that. Um, I don't know if that Do I have any more time? You have one more minute, but you're not obligated to use it. Well, you know what? I'm the only one speaking. So, uh, and other than that, I would say thank you for all all seeing all of your friendly faces tonight. And I missed last week's meeting. And you know what? I know what happened. Somebody tripped over the court. I forget who it was. Who was it we're going to blame for tripping over the court? But um I wasn't here.

So um at least the uh the minutes as amended will um give me a good idea of what happened. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with a 17minute meeting. So congratulations on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Um that road you mentioned also apparently has a lot of roundabouts on it on the way to hell. So I'll skip Hearing no more uh from audience participation, uh we'll move to old business. Is there any old business come before council? I I do think this would be an appropriate time to have at least a discussion about uh the language that's now on the ballot. Uh I must say, I know there have been meetings about it. people have already voted and it certainly isn't what some folks expected. And so, um, that's not to blame anybody. It's just a fact that we've got, um, you know, folks that have gone out and talked about the ballot issue and encouraged people to vote for it. And one of the reasons they may have encouraged them was because this council voted to only have a 10-year limit on that. So, um, I'd like to just hear some, uh, some of your thoughts about it, if anybody has any thoughts on that particular issue about whether, um, whether there's anything that we ought to look to to try to clarify some of these issues.

Yeah, I just want to get something clarified. Um, the law director said that as presented on the ballot, it's are they voting on a permanent measure right now? I mean without council intervention in 10 years

they are voting on a permanent at this point in time I believe I would just say that when we have the meetings in the next couple weeks we'll we'll talk about that as well as the purpose for the levy which is really the kind of the heart of it talking about why we need this why we need to continue this um and we'll we'll bring up the the issue that's out there so people that want to hear about it we'll discuss it and and get feedback from them. Um, and then we can share that back and we can use that for our future discussions or decisions that we make on this issue.

The the one concern that I would just raise so that everybody's aware is that um, you know, there are going to be certain people who are going to vote against this and if it if it were to pass, they're likely going to try to figure out whether there's a way to challenge it later. And so the more we can clarify things ahead of time here uh either with some guidance from uh the state or somewhere um I I think that would be appropriate so that we're not in a situation where um it appears that uh council was not being as transparent or as clear as we could have been. Obviously um this is something relative to the statute and no one's to blame personally. Uh but it is a question of where um you know you always have a few people who uh if if this were to be successful they might believe that they were misled some of the things that were done relative to the council vote. So, uh, I think we need to just get some clarification between now and, uh, the election if we can. And, uh, I will take it upon myself to talk with the law director and the mayor to see if we can't get some more clarification, uh, relative to, um, relative to the questions that might arise. Are there any other comments? Hearing none, we'll move on to uh, petitions and correspondence.

Thank you, President Shoemaker. I've not received anything. Is there any new business to come before council? Hearing none, we'll move to the reading of ordinances and resolutions. Thank you, President Shoemaker. This evening, we have four items on our agenda. Item number one is the second reading of an ordinance accepting and adopting the revised city of Chilikathy, Chilikothy Transit System procurement policy for the Chilikathy transit system. The ordinance will move to the next agenda. The next ordinance

item number two is the first reading of an ordinance reappropriating Appalachin Community Grant Program funds which were carried in into the 2025 books and appropriated at year end to comply with GAP and declaring an emergency. President shoemaker Mr. Creed I'd like to make a motion to wait the three on that please. Is there a second? Second by Ms. Payne. And the clerk will call the rule relative to the waiver of the three read rule. Bennett, yes. Payne, yes. McCquart, yes. Barnes, yes. McKver, yes. Dement, yes. Preston, yes. Dun,

yes. Creed, yes. The three read rule is waved. The clerk will now call the role relative to the ordinance. Bennett, yes. Payne, yes. McCquart, yes. Barnes, yes. McKver, yes. Dement, yes. Preston, yes. Done, yes. Creed, yes. The

ordinance is adopted. Next resolution. Item number three is the first reading of a resolution authorizing the appropriate city officials to apply for grant funds from the Ohio Public Works Commission for the year 2027 and enter into an agreement with the OPWC and to accept such grant funds if awarded and declaring an emergency. Mr. President, I'd like to see us wave the three reading rule for this so that if any grants came up, we could apply for them as soon as possible. Thank you. Second by Miss Bennett and the clerk will call the role relative to the waiver of the three read rule. Bennett, yes. Payne, yes. McCart, yes. Barnes,

yes. McKver, yes. Dement, yes. Preston, yes. Dun, yes. Creed, yes. The three read rule is waved. The clerk will call the rule uh the role relative to the resolution. Bennett, yes. Payne, yes. McCquart, yes. Barnes, yes. McKver, yes. Dement, yes. Preston, yes. Dunn, yes. Creed, yes. Resolution is adopted. Uh the next ordinance

item number four is the first reading of an ordinance consenting to the proposal submitted by the Ohio Department of Transportation to resurface a portion of State Route 104 within the corporation limits of the city of Chilikoffee establishing the city as the local public agency. Ordinance will move to the next agenda. Is there a motion?

Uh President Shoemaker, I didn't mention the time and date of those two meetings that we're having. I wanted to do that before we um close the meeting. Um the first one will be uh Thursday, April 16th at 6 p.m. and this will be at the library annex, room D 40 West 5th Street. And the second one will be April 23rd at 6 p.m. at the first church first church of God at 780 East Water Street in the Fellowship Hall. Thank you. If there's no other business to come before the council, I would accept a motion to adjurnn. Motion by Miss Bennett, second by uh Mr. Barnes, and the clerk will call the role. Bennett, yes. Payne,

yes. McCquart, yes. Barnes, yes. McKver, yes. Dement, yes. Preston, yes. Dunn, yes. Creed, yes. We are ajourned.