City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome to the Cleveland Heights City Council Committee of the Whole meeting.

It is Monday, June 22nd at 614. I guess I'll call the roll. Tony Kuda, I'm here. John Larson here. Ray Cobb here. Jared McFoy here.

Sarah Stone here. Jessica Cohen here.

Jim Koch not here.

No, you're here. You're just in Las Vegas. Okay. Okay. So we have a legislative review here. We have three pieces of legislation that we're just going to discuss today. The first one is 121.26, a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a community cost share agreement with Northeastern Regional Sewer District. Any discussion here?

I would like to propose that we consider, look at both of these, 122 and 121 at the same time, because they both involve that street sweeper. I am convinced that this is something that is justifiable and it is funded, so I would like to move forward to Friday for both.

Any other discussion? I concur.

Well, I'll just mention for those who are watching this meeting and may have not watched the preceding council meeting where we discussed the street sweeper question, is that the director of public works, director Klingscale, did respond to my questions on this, that it's not an additional piece of equipment. It's meant to replace one of our three street sweepers and the cost sharing agreement needs to be replaced. all of this needs to be done by July 1st to take advantage of that agreement. So I concur with my colleagues, and I just want to close the loop on that for those who are only watching one meeting at a time.

Very good. Everybody okay with voting on Friday?

As we discussed in our previous meeting, the 120-2026 will be the original that had both the owner's rep for the pool and this particular piece of equipment on it. So I'll make sure that Eddie has that information so we can see it on Friday.

All right. So that's 121 and 122. And then ordinance 123, an ordinance declaring improvements to a certain parcel within the city of Cleveland Heights to be a public purpose. And that certain parcel is the Alcazar facility. exempting the improvements to such parcel from real estate property taxation for a period of 30 years. All right, any questions on this or discussion?

Can I just ask a process question? Because we discussed this at the last committee of the whole meeting.

Yes.

But was that as a reading or an agenda item? Because it's listed here as first reading, but, you know.

So this should be denoted. Well, it is still on second reading, though. You're just discussing it tonight. Sorry, it's still on first reading. You're only discussing it tonight.

So this is an opportunity if we want to discuss it more with the intent to pass it on July 6th or Friday.

I mean, July 6th would be fine.

Is there any? Yes. Am I mistaken? Wasn't this item something you wanted to talk about on the Finance Committee? No.

Wasn't there an element in this that you... Yeah, but could we just talk about it now? Is that okay?

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah, go ahead.

Director Zant, we have these wonderful spreadsheets from Assistant Director Anderson. I want to get clarification. The first 10 years at 100% tax abatement, the dollars that are in that column, do they exchange hands at all or does a developer keep those dollars?

I don't know the answer to that question. Brian, Assistant Director Anderson would know that.

Would you like me to email him so that I can get that clarified before we vote?

I may be able to answer that. Hi, Rico Petro from Independence, Ohio. So by right, In the event that you spend a certain threshold to renovate your property in Cleveland Heights, you are offered tax abatement. That abatement will be based upon the newly assessed value of the property. So there's no abatement on what the existing taxes are. So for that 10 year period, if the county assesses the property at $10 million, as an example, more or whatever we have in the spreadsheet, an amount we do not need to pay. So it's not in the form of any rebate or anything like that. So it just, it is not paid by the developer and reimbursed.

And for the record, you are the owner of the property.

That's correct.

So it won't go into the TIF fund then?

That's correct. So the TIF is that we have requested is post the abatement period that offers us a rebate at that time. So then the

And the money that goes to the school district, according to this spreadsheet, would stay with the school district. They don't have any responsibility to reimburse you for anything, right?

That's correct. So we thought it was good business not to touch any of the proceeds that would go to the schools.

Much appreciated. Believe me. And I would just like to know which department monitors the TIF funds when we do have a developer's TIF fund established? Is that finance or would it be?

It's a collaboration between finance and planning.

Great. So talking to each other sounds good. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. I just want to make a comment about some of the projections and I'm in favor of this. I'm voting for it. tend to be on the high side. So for example, for Top of the Hill, there are a significant number of residents in Top of the Hill that are students or retirees that are not paying any significant city income tax. And I suspect that we'll have a similar situation in the Alcazar as well. So just keep in mind that when we get these numbers very sunny. They should be cloudy. Or a little overcast.

I want to make a process point here that we're talking about information that we received from Assistant Director Anderson, which is not in the packet that we have for Committee of the Whole, which means it's not posted publicly. And I would like to ask in the future that what is provided to us that we're discussing. I've asked this before, it's posted publicly because we're discussing documents that the public doesn't have access to right now. And it would also be helpful, I'm not sure why Assistant Director Anderson isn't here today, but it would be helpful for some reason, the appropriate person, and I will reference the street sweeper scenario. Like if we can get, I don't even, not ahead of time where we can ask questions in advance or the right director at the right meetings. Absolutely.

THURSDAY MEETINGS WITH THE LAW DIRECTOR AND THE MAYOR IS USUALLY THERE CERTAINLY CITY ADMINISTRATOR REESE IS THERE THAT WE WE SHOULD SAY WHO WE NEED YOU KNOW BASED ON THE LEGISLATION THAT THAT'S COMING FORWARD YEAH THAT SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY GOOD IDEA SO THAT WE CAN MAKE SURE THAT THE STAFF MEMBERS WHO YOU'LL NEED WILL BE PRESENT AND AS ALWAYS THE CLERK OF COUNCIL IS ALWAYS WELCOME TO

in the packet that she puts together.

And again, not for the administration. I'm asking for us that I want to make sure that more is posted. Like if we're going to be discussing something.

But that's a decision of the clerk of counsel and not of the administration.

But I want to say, have that caveat that anytime we're not the last word on who needs to be there. I mean, if one of you all thinks somebody needs to be there that maybe we didn't know.

since we don't have, as president of vice, you know, you set the agendas with the clerk, we don't have visibility in that agenda until everything is posted. So it's hard for us.

Well, no, no, no. Eddie's been, Eddie's been sending it out the day we. There's been one.

Oh yeah. There's been one. I don't think we got anything. We did not. Okay, good. Thank you. Make sure that I'm not, there was one.

Wait, let me, let me, for a regular meetings. Okay. I don't want to, When we meet on the Thursday, sorry about all this, but when we meet on the Thursday after the meeting, the clerk has been sending you for at least a couple rounds all the agenda items summarized that comes out of that meeting. Now, I'm not going to say that there might not be something added in between the time we meet and the time the packet comes out. That does happen.

That has been helpful. I think also committee of the whole, if we're discussing this from last week, it could be helpful to have the same thing for committee as a whole because we don't have visibility into everybody.

And to be honest, I didn't realize when we went to this new format that we were really doing legislation on these days. I mean, that was not the initial intention. it's a convenience to do it.

Yes. And I think it provides us with more flexibility and allows the administration to pass things more quickly if need be, because we can do a reading because we're all together. So there's a lot of benefits, but just to keep things moving and not having to worry about amending or emailing questions in between, you know, and it's growing things. I just think we can continue to improve the processes as we go.

Yeah. Thank you for that. Any other questions about 123? I have one. Oh, please.

Did you consider, did you discuss with the school district whether they would be amenable to any sort of tip?

Or did you, you said you thought it was good business to not? As a developer, we feel like we just don't touch money for schools. The funding is limited as it is. We just feel like there are certain dollars that,

that goes to the school sacred and then um how how does this um it's it's about a 30 70 split um but you know from the the not touching the schools how would this compare to some of the other you know deals that you've done in the last five years maybe in the city of Cleveland or other nearby municipalities um

abatement policies. The city of Cleveland, for instance, has a longer 100% abatement period that can go for 15 years. And then they'll work with you on a TIF afterwards. But, you know, in this situation, and what's unique about this property is just the age of the property and the complexity of redeveloping a 120-year-old building.

Just for... Oh, did you have something else?

Oh, yes. If you're going to add anything. Cassie Slansky. I'm with Project Management Consultants. So, yeah, this is common within the city of Cleveland. I know it was mentioned as well. So once that abatement expires and you have a back-end TIF that comes in, it is pretty standard to do a non-school TIF for a development project like that to go towards the pilots.

And, Director Hanna, would you mind just stating – When it's mandatory that a development deal consults with the school district and when it isn't, or I don't know, is that more of a director's amp question?

Yeah, there's two structures. There's what we call the non-school TIF and the school-related TIF, and it's really just part of that. get the schools involved because that's a whole different level of complexity. It can increase the amount, obviously, but typically the development team and I think probably the city wants to keep the schools

But the requirement with the schools, if they're being kept completely whole, is essentially a notice requirement rather than a consent requirement or an approval requirement.

And when is the consent mandatory?

When they're not being kept whole.

Okay.

So if there's a contribution, and we can provide some more. for 5709, but essentially when they are being kept whole, then there's a requirement that they're made aware, but it's not a consent requirement.

All right. The only question, and this isn't a question, well, I guess it is a question. I am a little bit concerned about the ability Mr. Petro of the 10% rent increase a year. So in other words, the rent could go up 30%. That would be, to me, exorbitant. I mean, the COLA is, you know, it's usually 3%. I don't know what it's going to be this year because, I mean, I know this is kind of an odd year with the gas prices and so forth. But would... I would be more comfortable if it was 5% a year so that this three-year period could be capped at 15% because 30%, to me, in three years would be an exorbitant rent increase. I'm not saying you're going to do this. I'm not even asking you what your intentions are. But to me, it would defeat... the purpose of putting this in the contract because 30% would be, again, in three years, in my view, an exorbitant rent increase.

I understand your concern for the residents that have been there prior to when we purchased.

Oh, four years or more, right?

So I guess I would steel man your comment to say, first of all, is what you're talking about is a cost of living increase year to year, correct?

What I'm saying is it's so much more than the cost of living that it could be detrimental to the current tenants who have an expectation that they could afford to live there at least three more years.

or 4% or 5% a year, right? I think from our position, when we're putting a cap on this, we think that is the subsidy because we're doing five times the improvement to what we paid for the property. So it's almost like we bought the building five times for five times more money. So we're paying five times more to renovate it, but only asking to be able to increase the rent 30% over a three-year period. from our perspective as well, what I call them, there's five or six lifers that are in the building. They've been there. One of them has been there for 12 years. We as owners of the building have not increased their rent substantially since they've been there, since we've owned the property. So what the city is asking in exchange for this TIF is to own, if we cap it beyond the amount that we're recommending, We're almost being penalized for being good stewards to the occupants that have been there for a long period of time and somewhat taking care of them. We're also asking for a modest increase. I mean, when you're talking 10% a year, some of these tenants are paying $500 a month. There is not another location. I mean, open up Zillow or apartments.com. There's not another place in Cleveland Heights that's $500 a month. So we're already offering them a savings. And at 10% a year, that means the rent's going up $50 a month to go into a unit where we're spending over $100,000 to renovate that space. for $50 a month.

Just so you know, my concern was not based on your stewardship to date. It was just that this is affordable housing for some people. And I mean, I think when people are looking at apartments, if an apartment was 30% more than whatever it is, that 30% might be the reason they're not moving there. I mean, that's- I agree with you.

I'm in agreement with you, Mike. My only argument would be if I've already kept their apartment at $500 in a $1,000 unit, and now I'm going to put all this money in. And for a TIF, you're asking me, to not move the apartment up from $500 to $650 a month when market rates $1,000. Is that really fair? Is that the goal for this TIF? Or is it to make improvements so that for the next generation, this can be a contributing address to the Cedar-Fairmont district? I'm empathetic to the five or six people that are lifers, but we're already... literally offering them apartment. If you can show me an apartment for $650 in anywhere in Cleveland Heights, I'll gladly be open to what you're talking about. But I think at a minimum council, if they are going to put a governor on what we can charge in rent, you have to show me another apartment in the entire city that meets your merits.

I understand. That's why I wanted to discuss it or bring it up. I certainly understand your point.

So while I also for the Cleveland market right now, even in the absence of any significant investment. So, you know, we're talking about a 10% increase after this investment when Cleveland broadly, I think, has seen certainly individual buildings and the market more broadly has seen close to that, if not comparable growth

year to year increases. So, um, you know, that, that feels like a, a relative compromise.

Um, I think it does speak to the need, the, the struggle of housing right now and the need to do everything we can on the supply side and the cost side to, you know, to, to get more units and more affordable units online. Um, but I, I wouldn't want Appreciate that.

So a quick question. I'm on the website right now.

We'll come to you right after.

I'm sorry, Jim. And so on the website is studio apartments, $925 a month. One bedroom is $1,400. And the two bedroom, two bath is $2,800. Are these the...

So the tenants that are in the building that are the lifers that we're considering, if their rent was $500 or $600 because they were friends with Rita Motlack or Kirk Motlack, I just didn't increase their rent. I knew they were dealing with construction. I tried to be a good steward. And now at some point in time, I'm being penalized for being – because there's a lot of people that just didn't want to leave, and I'm fine with that. But there has to be an end to – what I can offer to them. I mean, you're looking at the website, the lifers are between 500 and $800 a month. And I, I specifically, because they were there 12 years, eight years, seven years, I just didn't want to push them out. I mean, Rita Montlack's one of them and she doesn't even live there. She uses an art place to go paint. You know, I mean, do I let her, does she fall into the category because she was there in advance? For her art studio, you know, I don't I don't want to get in the weeds on these type of things. But, you know, I think that in the past I've seen where cities work with developers when there's an affordable housing angle and those angles there's. that's going up now. These are all, and whatever the market will be, I hope it's $3 a foot. It could be $2. It's somewhere in that range. We're going to be putting 100 plus units on the market. Our last unit will lease for more than our first unit. We'll offer incentives and be strategic. And that's why we did the project in four phases. So our hope is, and I think we brought this to council, that We will target empty nesters. We will target people that work at the eds and meds and university circle, people that can take advantage of being able to walk to pick up a cup of coffee and groceries in the Cedar Fairmont neighborhood.

We'll go to Councilman Posh now. Just so you know, I just intend on discussing every piece of legislation, including yours, and this is not about punishment. It's just about let's just get everybody points of view. I gave a point of view. I'm not declaring it as a C point. Go ahead, Councilor Fox.

Thank you, President Kuda. I don't feel comfortable, Council, taking a stand on this issue.

I mean, I think there are specific issues that are really the role of the developer and not the role of Council. I mean, I think it's healthy having these conversations about affordable housing. I think we need affordable housing, but we also need strong investments in our properties. and this is one area of town that I think you have a building that has been, I don't want to say, well, let's just say it's dated and getting it updated so it is competitive, driving property values up in that area of town. I think that's healthy. And I also think that the developer was very generous in not taking, it could have been a possibility here. I'm thankful for that.

I think it needs to be recognized, but I, I, I don't feel comfortable with the way this conversation is going.

That's just, that's just my feeling.

I just understand it's in the legislation. So I, I'm, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of not discussing something that's actually in the legislation, but I'm not sure I would have wanted it to see it in the legislation, although I'm, Anything else on this? Because we have a pretty robust agenda here. All right. So we're going to move away from legislation.

Just a point of clarification.

July 6th is okay for this as opposed to the 26th meeting.

July 6th is our next regular meeting.

Right. So with regard to whether that's okay, I would defer to the bill. Does that timeline work?

Is that okay? Yes. All right. Thank you. So item number three on the agenda. So I was talking to Vice President Larson. I thought it might be a good idea to schedule some time individually with members, just kind of a check-in, you know, through the I wanted to throw that out to you. When Addie gets back, let her know if there's any burning issues. Certainly, we couldn't meet between now and July 6th. If not, when we come back, we'd be fine. This wasn't something that's imminent or anything, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Is this with just you and President Larson?

Right.

Both? Yes.

Yes. Any questions about that? All right.

So municipal services, the tree canopy, I see Deanna's here. Is there something else you want to talk about first?

No, I'm absolutely going to hand it over to Deanna. She's done all the work and she's ready to make this presentation. We're all excited about it. Yep.

Are you able to see the presentation, Jack? Yeah, it looks great.

Fantastic.

So I'm excited to talk about trees and our urban forestry master plan. And so I'm going to just give a little context and talk about the climate action and resilience plan that the city adopted in 2025, but And so you might be aware that there are 28 strategies in that plan and 154 actions, and they are in these seven categories. And the natural areas and land use category is where you'll find information about the tree canopy and specifically 7.2, which is nurture a healthy tree canopy. And actually in the plan, I pulled this one up. was the fact that the city was at that point looking to develop an urban forest disaster plan. And that it would include an inventory of existing trees and analysis of the health of our canopy. And if you look at any of the other categories within the plan, you will see that there are things that touch on our tree canopy. And in fact, You can make an argument that almost all seven categories really touched on This is a map from our Cleveland Heights master plan that was adopted back in 2017. And it shows our tree canopy. And you can see the chart here with the latest figures that we have from 2025 of our tree canopy shown over time and also compared to neighboring cities and the county as a whole. And what you can see very clearly is that our tree canopy has declined dramatically. 30 to 40% is generally what urban foresters say is a good benchmark for urban areas. And we are now below that 30% or 26.7%. And as you can see, it's true throughout the county. It's not just us, but it is concerning. Here are a couple of charts from our climate action plan. As you know, we did a vulnerability assessment. And so we looked at things like the urban heat island effect. And what that is, is when there is less tree coverage and there's more pavement the temperatures are actually hotter than they are elsewhere in the community. So if you look at this map and you see the dark areas, those are where we have the highest urban heat island effect. And not surprisingly, the largest area is where we are right now, right here in Severance. Look at another map. Here's the lack of tree canopy. So again, anything that is dark on this map is where there is a lack of tree canopy. Again, severance and kind of the center of the city is where you are seeing that lack. So there are a lot of risks to our tree canopy currently, as we saw in the previous slide, we're now down to 26.7%, which is below the ideal. So despite the fact that we are continuing to plant trees, our canopy is continuing to decline. And that's due because of development or really redevelopment in our case. for the most part, but also age and disease.

Can I interject a question? So when we do plant trees, do they count as part of the tree canopy?

Well, they do. Of course, when we're planting trees, in order for them to show up on satellite, they need to get a little larger. And so you plant the biggest tree that you can at the time, but it does take time for those to really develop into the tree canopy that we need.

Understood. So it is possible that new trees don't register in part of the game.

Not right away. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, we know that with increased disease, and we've seen it just within the last week, We've got the hazards of trees coming down on people and property. And I just learned this fact recently that our USDA plant hardiness zone has gone up. We are now in zone six, which means that our climate here is hotter than it was just a few years ago.

Thank you. The climate study that was done, did that look at what of the tree canopy is healthy versus diseased?

really just a broad analysis, so we didn't get into that level of detail, and actually we'll talk about that a little bit.

One question before we move on.

The decrease since 2014, those things have always sort of been an issue.

Um, that seems like a very dramatic decrease in the last 12 years. Uh,

Well, we really need to do a deeper analysis to find out if there are any very specific causes. But overall, our tree canopy, a lot of trees were planted in the 20s as the city was being developed. So they are getting old.

We've sort of been on borrow time for a while now.

That's right. And also because of the change in climate, we have more diseases than we've had in the past and different diseases that our trees that are native to this area are not resistant to. And so we're seeing more of that. Anyone else have a question? All right. Obviously, there are lots of benefits. Tree City USA award ceremony a couple weeks ago with our city forester and David Burke, who is the vice president of science and conservation at Holden Forest and Gardens, says shade trees make the wait for the bus feel shorter. tree canopy are there's the greenhouse gas emissions goals that we have but they produce shade they help reduce storm water stress and they help clean clean the air and make our neighborhoods more beautiful and against our quality of life so we know the benefits of our tree canopy We have worked with Power of Clean Future Ohio, and they are a nonprofit statewide organization that assists municipal governments with various sustainability issues. And they've done a tree canopy assessment for us. Actually, they're in the process of just finalizing it at this point. And they have recommended that we do an urban forestry master plan. when we were doing the climate action and resiliency plan so that is why i'm here for you today to talk about actually doing an urban forestry master plan so they are working on a tree canopy assessment and this chart here differentiates between that and what the next step is which is doing the master plan so whereas the tree canopy assessment gives us that assessment that says hey, there's a problem here, your tree canopy is declining, the master plan will dig deeper and give us what are the specific problems process. Now, PCFO has been working on this assessment since last fall, since before I joined the city, and they are almost complete with it. The urban forestry master plan process will take longer. It'll take about a year. or potentially longer than that because there is community engagement involved. They want to do a – also with this is also doing a survey of our tree canopy. So we've got data. We need to ground truth it. We've got information by census tracked, but that's not enough. We need to get a finer grain detail, and we need to know what the health of our tree canopy is as well. So coming back to, there we go. Okay. So we want to do a tree canopy inventory, and then we want to do the urban forestry master plan. We need to update that inventory. We have an inventory that was done, but we really need to ground truth it and make sure that we've got these specifics. of those trees are and what their health is. And then need to create this long-term plan that hopefully

Are these trees on private properties or also public properties? It's everything?

This is really, it's really public property that we're talking about here. And there might be some strategies to assess what's going on on private properties, but primarily we'd be focusing on the tree lawns and our public parks and properties for this assessment. So, as I mentioned, a lot of detail in this, but it really would give us the detail that we need to be able to manage this long term and would be able to integrate the various functions, various departments within our government as well, and make sure that we've got enough staffing and enough budget. this?

Just to follow up on Councilwoman Stones, I think it's a great question because some of the complications that we have with trees are trees on private property. And I'm just from living here, but also seeing the tickets that come in, you know, this tree on my neighbor's lawn is dead. Will the city come and cut it down so it doesn't fall on my property? Like what is the city's responsibility to deal with disease, dead trees to avoid what may be in the storm, right? Then we may not need staff for that because that's not our responsibility. But if that tree falls down and it falls across the road, then of course it's our responsibility as a city to clear the road. So how are you thinking of balancing all of this in a way that truly accounts for the needs across the city?

I think that's one of the reasons why they're advocating for a lot of public engagement. to understand that trees aren't a nice to have but they're really a necessity and that they're that they're valuable they have value and we need to take care of them and what are some of the issues that trees are having and what can people do themselves on their own property to do that as well because you're right we're not going to be able to achieve all of our goals just by looking at public property we need to consider private property as well we can't as a city be responsible for what's happening on those private property, but we can try to educate folks and give them the tools that they need.

Well, I mean, I guess the question, sorry, just one follow up to that one. Um, what if the community engagement, if we're here, I'd like to be us to be open to potential changes in policy. If we're hearing that one of the biggest problems we have, our residents have huge hundred year old dead disease trees on their property. and they can't afford either to get them cut down or et cetera. Like these, I want to be open to not necessarily just educating the public on what we do now, but looking at the problem and think, yeah, what we could do. Knowing that it needs budget.

Yes. This is exactly what I was going to mention. And it is, you know, I don't know if we can cite homeowners if they have a dead tree because it could fall on a neighbor's property. So I think it's a policy that we need to look at, but also it's a policy from a utility work perspective. I recall when Tanisha Briley was our city manager, they took out a significant number of large, I believe at the time, healthy trees to put gas lines in, and they were thrilled that we were able to get replacement trees, but we were getting trees with maybe a two-inch caliper tree.

It's We got the money to do it. We may want to look at our policies and how we work with our utilities. And unrelated, but even how they patch the roads when they're done doing their work. I think it's all combined, but it's something that the administration may want to consider.

So do we have an existing tree inventory that we're working on, or would this create that for the first time?

Thanks.

I would like to follow up on what you're talking about and wondering directors. I've just left. It seems like as we're reviewing code that we should be looking at these entities and these parts in the ordinance where possibly we could make sure that there is more awareness. That's what Dan talked about is building the awareness that we do have responsibility to our neighbors when we have a dead tree on our property. And I do know that for a point of sale, if you have a dead tree on your property, it has to come down when that transfer is taking place. I'm not seeing the specific language in the ordinances here, but I think that that is something we can be looking at as we move through the court.

And just on the other side of things, I know other municipalities across the country have taken a much more protective approach and regulations around when you can and cannot remove a tree. I'd be open to thinking about it, but I think we are so over-regulated on what homeowners can and cannot do that, you know, striking a balance there is also important because if you do want to expand your home, you shouldn't have to build five different boards, including a tree removal board or something like that.

So just another, you know, I think that's unique to us, another consideration as well.

All right. So next steps. We want to get an RFP out to do the tree inventory and the master plan. Funding is allocated in the 2021. Then if that were approved, then we would hire a consultant to conduct the tree canopy inventory and urban forestry master plan. And then one more thing, the Climate and Environmental Sustainability Committee has recommended that we form a tree commission. And so that is a recommendation that would require separate legislation for consideration. There's not as much urgency to that. The reason why I wanted to bring this before you now is because we do have the funds in this year's budget. It's a long process, and I think it's somewhat weather dependent. And so we'd like to get moving on it.

And then finally, before you go on, Director Hanna, do we have legislation for this project, RFP?

I'm thinking that you don't have it.

That will have to be something you'll talk to Director Hanna about. Yes, please. Thank you.

Can I ask a question? Is the cost for this going to be under 50, and is it something council actually has to approve?

It's likely going to be more than 50.

Okay. My question wasn't as strategic as that. I was curious what you're expecting it to be budgeted, or how much is budgeted and how much do you expect it to come on?

will be about 125, 130 at the most. So there wasn't much information other than what you're seeing here. So I wanted to put together my last slide, just a little bit of a timeline in terms of what we're thinking. We're hoping that if we do form a tree commission, that we'll be able to do that by the end of this year, so that they'd be able to start work next year. Earth Month, a number of activities happened during that month, but one of the things that happens is Arbor Day. And that's a significant event because our Tree City USA, which is through the Arbor Day Foundation, it was 50 years ago today that that program was created. And Cleveland Heights this year achieved our 48th year of Arbor. getting the Tree City USA designation in 2027. That means that if we continue on this path, we'll have achieved 49 years. And by 2028, we'll have achieved 50 years. Cleveland Heights achieving 50 years in 2028. The City of University Heights will also achieve 50 years in 2028. And so a couple years ago when I was at the Tree City USA Awards, we raised our hands and said we would be happy to host the event for the recognition ceremony for Tree City USA in 2028. And we are, in fact, on the agenda. I confirmed that a couple weeks ago when I was at the Tree City USA award ceremony. So the two cities will be co-hosting those awards together with John Carroll University, which also is a Tree City campus. and has an arboretum so we will be planning for that in the next couple of years and the city of university or cleveland heights has also achieved a growth award for seven years we did not achieve it last year but we would like to get back on that path so that we will have achieved our ninth growth award also in 2028 by the time that we host the tree city usa awards so i wanted to let you know about that we're excited about it it's a great honor to showcase the work that's being done here in our city. And if we can get our master plan completed long before that, then we may even have some progress to show with all of the other cities that participate in these reports.

Sorry, follow-up question. Two quick things. One is, can you send us the commission's recommendation, the, um, sustainability, climate, environmental sustainability committee recommendation from last year, um, to, for the commission to create the commission. That was last year that, or when they haven't finished it, it's still in the works.

Oh, yes. They are. They are still, they are still working on it. We did talk about it in our last meeting.

Okay. Okay. So, and then the second question, have you worked with or connected with high street people?

in the planning for Tree Sim USA.

Well, I think that that might be another opportunity perhaps for our, depending on how the commission or, but there might be a role that they can formally play in this process. I know that they have some sort of sense of what the tree canopy looks like. I've seen maps of theirs.

They do a lot of good work. And in order to get points that

Anything else? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Deanna. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. Moving on to finance, if you'd like to join us at the table. Good evening, everyone.

Good evening. Bye. Later, maybe about after five, I believe.

It was just a formula correction. 528.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right. I'm going to go ahead and get started if that's okay. All right. Starting at page two. the financials, but I'm actually going to get started on page three. Moving to page three. For May, our cash balance started out at, well, beginning of the year started at $91.9 million. Our year-to-date revenue as of May is $47.4 million, which is a $3.8 million favorable variance. 44.9 million, which are down 1.5 million compared to prior year last year. We have open encumbrances of 24.1 million, which leaves us an unencumbered balance of 70.2 million. On page four, it gives more detail on what makes up the all fund variances. Looking at, I'll start with the intergovernment contract, we are at 3.8 million, which is a 1.8 million variance compared to last year. Last year, we were at 1.9. In the government contract category, this is primarily made up of 1.2 million. OF NEORSD MEMBER COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM. IT'S A REIMBURSABLE COST SHARING AGREEMENT RELATED TO REDUCED THORNWATER BACKUP. THIS IS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS. WE ALSO HAVE 665,000 IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT. THIS IS A TRUE-UP OF PRIOR YEAR. I BELIEVE IT WAS 25. AND LASTLY, in the inter-government contract. We have about 264,000 in NERSD Regional Stormwater Management Program. This is also with public works. So we did get an increase in funding in our inter-government contracts and grants category of 1.8 million. Next, charges and services. We received 8.5 million, which is up about 1.3 million compared to last year. This consists of $743,000 in utility collection fees. Nothing in particular stands out. We received about $320,000 in landfill collection fees and $424,000 in sewer collection fees, as well as there was an additional $324,000 in this category for CDBG-led abatement. That's offset an expense. all year.

Tiffany, does that mean that the collections, I thought I remember hearing a few months back that we're going to start to go and try to get more of the utilities that were, the payments have not been paid. Or is that just regular collections because of people are paying their bills on time? So use the word collections. Can you just define that for me, please?

Sure. So in this account, the collection fees that we receive from the deposits that we receive, and it can come from both businesses as well as from landowners, what Rayshawn and I were looking at is just making sure, is it timing? Is it additional? Nothing really stuck out. However, we are taking additional steps to look into it further to see if there is more to it and maybe it's just not captured in the deposits that hit the general ledger.

And so what we did was Tiffany and I looked at just the detail, the general ledger detail year over year, and, you know, nothing stuck out. I did reach out to utilities just to get a sense of whether or not we had some additional assessments, you know, that came in through the county. And so we're still kind of looking at that to gauge exactly that. And pinpoint what the driver is behind the increase. So more to come on that. Not complaining, but it's nice. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Well, thank you. I think that's important because for a few reasons. One is that we're thinking long term about the sewer. So if this is money that we're not spending, then maybe we need to put it somewhere for recycling. future sewer needs, but the other, and we're also looking at, I think at some point we're supposed to be presented with the sewer rate increase. Well, the analysis is being done. The analysis, right? The analysis. And so I think this is going to be a question for the analysis. Like how does, if something is happening where we're receiving more money than we have in the past, how does that factor into the recommendations moving forward?

Yeah, it didn't look to be in terms of just normal collections. I'm thinking it might be assessments, but we're still digging into, you know, kind of unraveling some of the detail to figure that out.

Next, looking at our state levied share taxes. Again, this is the adult cannabis tax that we were receiving earlier. It started in July, so it's part year. We've received a lump sum amount. I'm going to go ahead and skip down to our unfavorable variances under fines and forfeitures. We received $421,000, $422,000 in May compared to $550,000 compared to last year. This is due to a decrease in criminal fines and cost collections in the court.

Question. If we had a conversation with the judge about that. We have not. And I recall that there was previously a significant uncollected fund balance due. in excess of, I want to say, $2 million.

No, but we can certainly have a conversation with them.

We'll have a conversation with them. I mean, it's the first time I've heard that.

The first time it's probably been brought to your attention.

Right. But yeah, we can certainly have a conversation. And we're going to be tracking, obviously, in a perfect world, the fines equal the court costs as long as the clerk costs equal. We're tracking that to make sure. In other places where I've worked, we've had conversation with the judge about that. You need to up something because we're in the negative. But yeah, we could certainly take a look at all that.

Are those funds in forfeiture revenue limited for only certain expenses?

No, that comes into the general fund for audiences. But you'll see sometimes, and I'm sure anybody who's an attorney knows, a lot of times they will lower the fine and keep the cost. And the defendant goes, oh, that's a good deal for me. Well, yeah, but it's lowering our fines. But they get the court costs.

you know, other. So on page seven.

So they will argue that's their money. That's not ours. Oh, I know.

You're having a holistic discussion.

No question. I get it.

What do you mean by that? It's their money and not ours. I mean, I know we're separate entities, but how, what's the difference between.

There's so many ways that we could go with this conversation. I mean, A municipal court is not a legal entity in the form of they can't enter into contracts. They cannot. All the furniture that's there is owned by the city. If they up and move tomorrow, we could keep all that furniture, even though in theory they probably bought it through appropriations that you pass. I've experienced this in Cuyahoga Falls when the Cuyahoga Falls Municipal Court moved to Stoke. But they have the ability to create additional court costs. And one of the things, and I don't know the history here, but one of the things that they did in Cuyahoga Falls is they created a special court cost for special projects where the judge could decide, I could use it on this project. I want to upgrade all my audio and video. I could use a special project for that. But other than the fact that you guys approved the appropriations, that's about as far as it goes.

That was very helpful.

Thank you.

And lastly, our interest earnings. We have about $1.2 million compared to about $1.9 million. Again, this is a Fed rate cut.

Can I ask a question real quick? Sure. I was expecting those interest numbers to fall as we let go more of the ARPA money. You know, maybe in a future meeting, I'd just be curious to see if there's an anomaly there. I mean, I know it is less and has been dropping. Okay.

No, because the two areas where we are in interest is in Starr, Ohio, as well as the investments that we do through Fifth Third Securities. And it is a strong belief that at a given point this year, the feds will lower at least once, if not twice, before the end of the year. And we have been shifting money from Starr which is more short-term in nature by what they could invest in, and sticking more into more longer terms within the fifth-third securities. So when that cut does occur, the interest rates that we currently have at start will drop like a rock. But we will have the protection on the latter approach on how we buy securities through Fifth Third Securities. So the number is dropping and Tiffany is completely 100% correct. It's due to the fact that we have less funds due to the spend down of ARPA. But it's going down slower than you would necessarily anticipate as I have shifted over a more aggressive amount of money over to fifth third to get longer yields down the road.

So isn't that money collateralized, though? So.

That's why when we buy CDs, we only buy $250,000 CDs because that's the maximum limit. But if you're buying federal instruments and you're buying T-bills, et cetera, that's 100% guaranteed and you're not limited to that $250,000. Okay. Thanks.

All right.

No further questions. I'm going to move to the expenditures. For expenditures, capital, we're at $6.6 million compared to $11 million last year. This is all ARPA-related funds, the reason for the decrease. Personal services, same thing as last month. This is driven by labor-related expenditures. Department of Public Works, we remember the local 860 pay increase as well as added staff. fire department added staff, community relations added staff, planning added staff, police added staff.

So all personnel related.

Lastly, other than personnel services, that increased by 1.4 million. Last year, we were at 12 million. This year, we're at 13.45 million. This has to do with the 750 Park Synagogue grant. $290,000 CDBG for the lead abatement, which is offset in revenue. $250,000 for the Park Synagogue building permit fees that were paid in air, which is also offset in revenue. And $189,000 in liability insurance vehicles were added as well as rates increased. So any questions on revenue and expenses for the all funds? Moving on to page five, the general fund. We began the year with about $22.6 million for our cash balance. Our revenue, we brought in $29.9 million. It's a $304,000 difference compared to May of 2025. Our expenditures are $26.1 million compared to $23 million, which is an increase of $3 million. Our open encumbrances are $5 million, which leaves us an unencumbered balance of $21.2 million. Moving to page six so we can discuss some of the variances included. Looking at our fees, licenses, and permits, we had $1.4 million this year compared to $988,000 last year. Again, the majority of this is the $250,000, the Park Synagogue building permit fees that were paid in error, which is offset in expenses. Also, $153,000. A lot of these comments are similar to what was in all funds. $150,000 in building service permit fees. State levy share taxes, $1.2 million compared to $889,000 last year. The adult cannabis tax revenue that we received. Municipal income is up. about $250,000 compared to last year. Going down to... Sure.

So I believe it was in January we received a year and a half. Going back to July of 24.

From when it initially started, have we received any next installment or when do we anticipate receiving?

So now we're receiving it monthly.

Okay, we are. Yeah.

Moving further down to fines and forfeitures, our revenue decreased here by about $129,000. We're at $422,000 this year compared to $551,000 last year. This is the courts. This is what we discussed earlier in the criminal fines and costs. The intergovernment grant contract, we're down $700,000. down $181,000. $755,000 we received this year compared to $936,000. This is actually due to we received last year this time $102,000 lump sum of a workers' comp refund that we didn't get this year, as well as the police department received last year $100,000 in continuing professional training funds that we did not

year.

And lastly, the good old interest earnings. Any questions on the revenue before I move to expenditures? Other than personal services, our expenditures for May were $7.7 million compared to $6.1 million last year. We're up about $1.5 million. Same reasoning, the $750,000 Park Senegal grant, the $250,000 permit fees paid in air, which was offset revenue, the liability insurance. Also, we received, I'm sorry, not received, but $140,000 of the out-of-county fee settlement agreement. posted in May, and $112,000 of election-related expenses, which are just operational costs associated with conducting an election. Personal services increased by $1.3 million, driven by labor-related expenditures, the same categories as it was with law funds, public works, fire department, police department, and community relations.

And lastly, capital.

Our capital increased by $221,000 in the general fund compared to last year. We were at about $42,000 last year. We're at about $263,000 this year. $74,000 in computers for the IT department, which is in the budget book. $40,000 of our annual Microsoft 365 budget. annual subscription, $40,000 in fire suppression system for five garbage trucks. This is in public works. And lastly, $52,000 in replacement mobile data terminals for the police crew first. And that is all that I have for expenditures. Any questions or comments?

Well, the trajectory of the personal services thing over the past four years is significant. And I think that's something we're going to have to talk about, you know, during the budget process, you know, as to what's sustainable and, you know, what levels we need because just looking at the past few years, it's,

At one point we were talking about getting some forecasts done, and I know you guys in the finance department are spending a lot of time doing catch-up, but do you think we'll be able to get some multi-year forecasts in time for the budget hearings in November that sort of like address what

and we haven't seen anything like that in a long, long time. But I recognize the fact getting that work done and getting that done, I kind of look at we're still in a distressed situation when it comes to getting everything in order. I know bills are getting paid. We have plenty of money in the bank. But just all the neglect that has happened citywide from the prior administration that you guys were cleaning up, I mean, do you think you'll be able to get us some projections, you know, long-term projections, some analysis work done at some point? I didn't think, frankly, we'd have it this year.

Is there a way that we can get something this year in time for the budget?

That would be the ultimate goal, but I will submit to you it will not address the question of personnel services because, again, The jump for this year at the 18 million compared to the 16, that is 100, a lot of that, well, other than the COLA that was given to everybody, that is driven on the fact that the labor union received a $4 an hour increase that didn't happen until later in 25. that was made retro, but it's not reflected through May 25. But it is reflected in 26 numbers because it's in place. But also, next year, police and fire are up for union negotiations. And we will be submitting a budget for police and fire with a 0% increase. Because if we put in a number, that becomes the starting point in union negotiations. So if we say hypothetically, we put in 3%, that becomes the low number that police and fire look for. I've done union negotiations for years. Ideally, also, I want to work to get labor contracts on a calendar year basis because we budget on a calendar year basis. I suspect why it's April because way back when, the city probably used to do a temporary budget. So you had temporary to the end of March, and then you started with the whole year in April. That's why our medical contracts... or start on April 1st. I prefer to have those numbers known in place. I prefer to have all three unions on the same cycle instead of labor being a year ahead of the other two. That's going to take time, but for budget purposes going forward, and I did it same place in the places I work. When the union contract expired, I kept the numbers at zero. I knew and we all knew that it was going to be more than that. But by keeping it at zero, you don't have a starting point. Well, you budgeted three. Let's start with three. And it only goes up from there. So it's a tactic. So it won't help on personnel. We could certainly look at it because we're going to look at things differently and how we've looked at personnel in the past. We're going to look at it by department, by individuals within those departments. And when we budget for a replacement, I'll always budget that the health care will be family coverage. And if it's somebody who's young and new and they don't have a family and they're single coverage, I'll know instantaneously I've got a savings because I built family coverage in. But I will know that going forward and we could do internal projections. But in my budget documents, I wouldn't be building an automatic race. I'll have the numbers on the side where I can do side calculations on it, but I will not build it into the budget document because like I said, it'll become the starting point.

Okay.

Can I just ask a follow up? Do you feel on the flip side, on the revenue side, is there a way to begin to just imagine what those numbers will, you know, how our numbers might be changing? Oh, sure.

I mean, the revenue will be much easier.

I mean, just to have that piece as a guideline for us to know what we have to spend or what we anticipate.

Absolutely. I've done that.

Probably will help you in your negotiations as well.

You've got property taxes, you've got your sex NEO, and you've got your tri-NEOs. Income tax, I budget conservatively. I would never want to budget more than a half percent increase. And we get 2%, and okay, so that's additional revenue. If I budget 2% and we get half percent, now we're in the hole. And that's historically how I've always budgeted income tax. But I will have a lot of the other numbers that will amount to a significant amount for every single line item.

And we're seeing, you know, you've done a good job, I think, of reporting the arc of the ARPA money, you know, going up and now coming down. but we don't know where the next two years are leading us on that train of our unencumbered.

Right, that was such a huge anomaly with $38 million coming in.

Are we going to see the funds continue to drop, or do you have a floor where you're saying this is where the norm is going to be?

I'll get back to you on that.

Let's kind of get close to wrapping this up.

I'm done.

Unless there was any questions. She wrapped it up just like you said, sir.

I am looking forward to June's reports because it will be mid-year and at that point you talked about being able to put some budget figures in for us so we can see the comparison. So I'm looking forward to June 30. Thank you.

Finance team, thank you so much for getting timely, good information, readable Good stuff.

And Ms. Ware is posting it on the website after our meetings like this.

And when we get a no, it's a We'll say everybody, right?

I'm not sure that you want to talk about it. But we, as humans, have created a situation in our urban environments that's making our population grow like crazy, and that's sort of the crux of the problem.

I circulated the documents for this night. Part of it is just to kind of

catch some people up that sort of weren't part of our initial conversations on council because we've had some new people come in, three of you specifically.

We have a city administrator finally that has been very helpful and engaged in the conversations we've been having with ODNR and USDA and talking to our other neighboring cities that are doing this. What I think might make sense is just to kind of give everybody a little bit of an update on what's happened over the last two weeks or so and where we're at, and then circle back at this document because it may change everybody's feeling on what we feel like we're comfortable talking about right now. We are still waiting. for ODNR to put together a deer management survey, our deer management plan.

When drafted, it's gonna be a five-year plan that sort of details what the city's obligations are for deer management.

It talks about estimates.

It makes recommendations as far as reducing the population because the population isn't going down if you have to be realistic. or are we at a point where we think we need to make a decision? But that's all going to be in the plan. And we kind of thought we'd have it in our hands by now, but we don't. But we should have it any day. And when we get that, I will share that with every member of council.

organizations that help Shaker and Beachwood and South Euclid with their deer management just to get an idea of how they work with each other. We're not making any decisions, but just to get a sense of, okay, well, how does it work? What's the process? What are the benefits? What are the negatives? And all this is going to kind of culminate for a public hearing that we hope to have scheduled at the first part, I'm sorry, at the end of July, the first part of August. And this is where we'll have Cleveland Metro Parks come in and give us sort of a historical analysis and science based on what's happened in our urban areas with deer and how at one point they were essentially extinct in the state of Ohio, and now they're not. This is the same presentation that we had on April, I think, 29th, 2025, that was very well attended, that our residents can find on YouTube. It was a public hearing that this committee had a year ago. But we were going to do that.

essentially that same presentation, uh, we're going to have OGNR talk about the deer management plan that they would like to recommend that the city adopts.

Um, and then we're going to have public comment, um, uh, and we've left room for essentially an hour of public comment, uh, people coming to us, uh, telling us, telling us what they think. Um, And then at that point, there's probably going to have to be some decision that we're going to have to make with the administration on what we want to do and how we want to do it. Anything that we do, it'll essentially be in the year 2027, so it'll be a budget item for 2027. If we do choose a sterilization or if we choose culling or a combination or one of that would likely happen in early 27 because that is when it is best to deal with deer management.

So do you guys have any questions or thoughts?

Jim?

Yes, please go ahead.

I thank you for writing up the summation for us because it really captures what's happened in the last couple of weeks for us, right? In terms of understanding what the various sister cities are doing. in our next door neighborhoods. State Administrator Reese had asked if he could speak for a few minutes because he's been very involved in this process, so he's right here at the table.

Sure. Thank you, Vice President Larson, members of council. I just wanted to say a couple of things. It's been a pleasure working Larson. We've also, in concert with what Council Member Post summarizes, we've put out some public service announcements on the harmful effects of feeding deer. And I think what's really important to emphasize is many of our suburban municipalities that surround Cleveland Heights are already engaging in a deer management program. So what we're looking at doing and considering here could be a regional approach to address the challenge here. And so I really wanted to emphasize that. And we have some upcoming meetings that are involved and South Euclid. So yeah, just thanks for letting me be a part of it. And as Council Member Poff said, we're looking at a public hearing in the next month, month and a half. And this is something that we would potentially look to include in our 2027 budget. Thank you.

I just wonder, yes, thank you also to both of you for this summation. It's very helpful. You know, as people think about deer management, there's often an emotional response sometimes, and it's a little scary, a little, you know, a lot of unanswered questions. I wonder if as part of your public hearing, you could have Selhuk would come. It seems like they have a longstanding deer management program. Is that correct? Is that right? South Euclid or Beachwood? What I'm suggesting is that you bring somebody from the city to say, here's how this has worked for us over the last four years. Here's how we handled the difficulties of, you know, calling deer and whether it made a difference or not, just as a way to sort of help manage public understanding of the process.

So we can do that. And it's a great idea.

We will have ODNR there at the meeting.

And the way this works is a city can't do any kind of deer management without it being, I don't want to say governed, but approved by ODNR.

So they know exactly what's going on because they're sort of setting the rules. And they would be giving us rules on how we would be conducting this. We'd be getting a license from ODNR. So Jeff Westerfield will be present, and he'll be able to answer all those questions. From an optics perspective, we can look at inviting the cities too, but I mean, Jeff's gonna have the same kind of information that Shaker, South Euclid, and University Heights would have.

but we'll definitely have the answers there whether they can attend or not. So just thinking through the timeline, I'm wondering if this is certainly be included in the budget, but are there contracts or any legislation that we're envisioning needing to be passed or enacted prior to, you know, just going through with the budget?

Not that I'm aware of, but certainly Council Members Posh and Larson have more history on this than I do.

We have to budget. We have to get money. We have to fund it, right? That would be the first step is funding whatever we decide to do.

The numbers that we select for the budget process, based on what

the plan is that Jeff Westerfeld's been promising us. So that's going to be a data analysis that, so we're out there saying, well, we might want to call 30 or 40 deer this year. This is what it's going to cost us. So we need to have that funding amount in place before we sign those contracts. But we are talking to people that are, that do this for a living to get their advice in terms of what we should be expecting. Both just the, mechanisms of a contract, right? What are their requirements when they come into our city? What do they do for public safety? You know, what can we expect in terms of communicating with the neighbors in the city, et cetera?

All of that conversation will be wrapped up in essentially a budget item versus a standalone piece of legislation.

Yeah, I think so.

So, yeah, I mean, we, the meetings that I think, okay, circle, I mean, I think, Anybody that's listening, I mean, there's no decisions have been made here. I mean, we haven't looked at the contract. We've been just talking to our neighboring partner cities.

When I say partners, just neighboring cities. But we would likely join a consortium with either Shaker or Beachwood or South Euclid. I mean, this is a regional issue. And I think we're going to have to figure out which one it's going to be. I feel uncomfortable as a council member making that recommendation. This is where I think our administration will be at the table, and I think we're represented by Michael Reese here. I mean, we're going to be having these meetings, but I think the administration is going to say, I always feel really comfortable working with Beachwood and Shaker on this, and we feel very comfortable with South Euclid. The way I understand it, Shakers the lead. And they don't necessarily care about the number of deer, for example.

They sterilize our call in an individual city, but they look at it from the combination of the two cities because they look at this as a regional issue. So logistically, as far as contracts go, I think that's something that we're going to know a whole lot more this month.

And I think by the time we have our public hearing, we'll have more information. I also think that somewhere along the line, we'll want to bring this back to council leadership to determine how they want to handle it. I mean, we may be agreeing in principle to do something with a neighboring city, and I'm not sure, we may not have something passed in a budget, but I think we may want to make sure that we've got a consensus amongst council to proceed with this, just as far as a planning perspective, but I don't know.

So I just, on the budgeting part that Councilman DeWitt-Foy asked about, I see that sterilization is about three times more than culling. So are we going to looking at like two budgets. And the other thing is, if we're not going to do sterilization, obviously we can't work with South Euclid because that's what they do, right?

Well, they have two separate contracts, don't they, Jim? One for the calling and one for the sterilization.

Exactly. That's how it works. The three cities come together with one contract for the sterilization and then they have two individual contracts for the calling and

South Euclid uses a USDA, the federal agency, for their calling. The city of Cleveland Heights will be meeting with them, and I think in the next two weeks, if I'm correct. And then there's another vendor that deals with Shaker and Beachwood, and we'll be meeting with that vendor also in the next two weeks.

But in that case, the South Euclid, or not even just South Euclid, the The standard operating procedure is you do culling, and then later on, if you're going to do sterilization, you do that later.

You don't do it first, correct? That is typically what we have found in the neighboring cities. In northeastern Ohio, the only cities that do sterilization I would say an entire state of Ohio does not do sterilization. It's not very effective to bring down the size of your hurts. But I don't think, I mean, we haven't had this conversation, but I will tell you from my research,

what it would take to do in future years.

Yeah, I just wanted to add two quick things. One is that I'm hoping, and I think Vice President Larson, you alluded to this, that ODNR comes with information on the public safety piece and like what to expect, maybe even how to talk to kids. I mean, like just whatever might be related and where this is going to be taking place so there's a better understanding, you know, for residents. The other thing I want to say is that we've heard in council meetings public comment about the animal control issues as a result of the deer population. And I want to suggest that as we go into the 2027 budget hearings that we see this as right-sizing the ship or fixing the mess or whatever we want to call it. This is something that has not been taken care of both on the animal control side and the deer side. I would love to throw as much money as possible at snowplows, but I feel like this is clearly a systemic city issue that if we don't get control of right now and come at it from two angles of both controlling the deer population and animal control.

I'm not sure who knows, but it's about 70,000 and it doesn't include, it's really narrow. So my point is for not a lot more. I mean, I don't think it'd be twice as much or anything like that. Some more. We could get into the ballpark. And then the question is, do we want to do it with like in any kind of partnership? But I'm all for it.

Yeah, I just think, yes, this is clearly an issue that has been left to fester without addressing. And again, I don't want us to be at the point where we are penny-wise, pound-foolish, right?

Well, it's not only festering, it's growing uncontrollably at this point.

The population, it's like compound interest, it's growing 30% a year. If this was addressed...

three, four years ago, we would be in a situation where we're not calling as many deer as we may need to call. And, you know, I think the issue here is there's no interest, I mean, nobody's talking about eradicating the deer. I mean, we're not, we're just trying to control the population so it's sustainable for, you know, for our city. I mean, I was told by, at the time, I think the vice president of the Holden Arboretum, who used to live in Cleveland Heights, that was in charge of either sustainability or properties or something, but they referred to our city as being deforested.

And there's areas in our city that, you know, there are no trees growing because of the deer. And I'm not trying to say which is more important. But, I mean, there has to be a sustainable balance. I mean, our deer have no predators. You know, back in the day, they did, and the population was more stable. But, you know, I think this is where the city and the council are going to hear an expert, essentially the Metro Parks, that are very, very much attuned to this. You know, they're trying to protect the Metro Parks. everything that's in the Metro Parks, you know, balance sustainability. And there's a very, very good, it's about a 45-minute presentation that kind of goes over all these specifics. And anybody in advance can review that by, you know, looking at the first part of the public hearing that's on YouTube before 29-25.

You mentioned City Administrator Reece made of the regionalism. When you sit in this meeting with all of these cities that are doing deer management and University Heights and Cleveland Heights are not, it doesn't feel right. I mean, that's kind of a vague statement, but it's an emotional statement. We are contributing to the problem and not doing anything about resolving it. So it felt really good, the meeting that we went to last week, the three of us. for those cities to know that we are concerned and serious about falling through. I would like to talk about the PSAs that have been in the newspaper or in our newsletter lately. People have asked me if there's, don't we have an ordinance to keep people from feeding the deer? Yes and no. You can look at city ordinance 551.013 definition of nuisance definition. And it talks about any conditions that are found in declared to be conducive to harboring mice and rats. I'm jumping through it and not reading the whole thing. Conditions conducive to harboring mice and rats shall include, but not be limited to feeding of wild animals, which includes deer. birds or other wildlife other than in suitable containers for food elevated at least 36 inches above the ground level or any other manner which attracts or may attract rodents i believe that needs revision and needs specificity because 36 inches above the ground any deer can unless it's a baby a baby baby spawn but um there's another issue that we can review when we look at the codes so that's just

Thank you. Thank you. Any other parts of this discussion?

Not for Deer, but just a question for Councilman Posh. I did get asked by residents in the Noble neighborhood if we could express to the police on July 4th the need for them to patrol the area for people shooting into the air, not only fireworks, but actual live ammunition into the air. Can I ask you to follow up with the police chief? on that and see if he has any feedback for us in advance of July 4th or the administration, but I wasn't sure if we wanted to.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's, I mean, we have the leaders of our administration present. I mean, are Mike Reese, Bear Petras, do you feel

conversation with our police chief yeah i'm fine with you having that conversation or i could reach out to him and copy you if you you know are just interested in getting an answer if you want to have a deeper conversation you're always welcome to talk with him and we're doing a psa yeah we are going to do a psa regarding fireworks and related noise okay so okay so

Firing firearms in the air is also, you may want to include that in the PSA?

Yes, we plan to.

Okay. Well, I think that addresses the issue. And I think that's a perfect solution. And Council Member Kahn, I'm really glad you brought that up because I don't think about shooting a gun up in the air, but it's scary.

I didn't know it was a thing until resident. It is definitely a thing.

It's a thing. And just so you know, it comes up every year.

I mean, the fireworks, I know.

No, I'm saying shooting a gun in the air comes up every year. We've talked about what's that shot spot. Tell me. Shot spot. Shot spot. We've talked about, you know, and there's, I don't know if we don't, we really don't have time to get into that now, but I can tell you that administration, I mean, maybe not. I mean, I know this is their first year, but administrative officials have discussed this every year and it's unfortunately a difficult problem to solve, but I'm glad we're at least doing some awareness about illegality and, you know, that people will be if it's a crime. It's simple. So we need to move on to administrative services. Is there anything before we go into executive session that you want to talk about?

No, there is not.

Okay.

Then would you like to make a motion?

I'd like to make a motion that we go into executive session.

Any discussion? All right, I'll call the vote. Vice President Larson?

Aye.

Councilman Cobb? Aye. Councilman DeWitt-Foy? Yes. Councilwoman Stone?

Aye.

Councilman Cullen?

Aye.

And Tony Kuda says aye.

All right, we're back from executive session.

And I see letter B on here is finish review of chapter 11. We won't be doing that today, will we? We should be able to finish, right?

We only have 10 more provisions left.

That seems like. Okay.

Tony is overly enthused. All right. Well, 1-11-19 has required numbers of copies of proposed legislation. Do you have anything?

No. Not for that.

This is really for the law director, so why don't we make a note that they'll let us know if they'd like to see changes in how legislation is, the number of copies. I don't know why.

Is that state? Is that owner's state? I'm sorry, I didn't hear. Copies, number of copies. So we're on section 111 of the, you know. Of the codifieds? Yeah. Okay.

It's all ordinances is the reference.

Like I said, I didn't hear the question. Yeah, it was about copy, number of copies. I think that's... Copies for... Of legislation required.

Oh. I mean...

That's got to be a state requirement, right? That's not something you do locally.

Well, I mean, it could be a matter of local self-government that would be up to a charter municipality. That being said, I'd have to look to see what the charter requires. If it's a charter requirement, we're stuck with it. The ordinance dates from 1950.

gender neutral or, you know, cause it says his office for the clerk, but let's leave that to the law department to opine on if that's okay.

It was updated in 21 with ordinance 153, but yeah. And Addie should have input on that as well. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. But there's generally not a problem with that. It's easiest to do it with a sort of like a saving clause that says, you know, all pronouns are, Quantity, you know, things like that, that listed in this chapter shall be deemed to be, shall be interpreted to be gender neutral, et cetera. But either way.

So the next one is reading of ordinance and suspension of rules. I think this is pretty standard.

Unless there was some interest in making a change.

read at two meetings, unless the requirements for such reading have been dispensed with by a vote of at least five members, shall not apply to an emergency measure? Greg, is there anything?

No, there has been, and I don't know, someone has raised the issue of should we be doing three readings versus two?

The bill had an answer for that.

Do you remember what it was? Why we went to two meetings instead of three, two readings instead of three, or why two readings is acceptable instead of three?

I don't know, except that it also falls under that power of local self-governance.

I think if we went to three, we'd end up with a lot of special meetings.

Six weeks. And I think whenever we've had any issues that have required a lot of public comment, we have extended it and not calling on about. So I'm good with leaving it at two.

Me too. THIS PUBLIC APPROVEMENT Clause AT THE END OF THAT?

WHERE ARE WE AT? 20. WHERE THERE IS A SERIES OF ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS REQUIRED TO PROVIDE FOR ANY PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT.

I'M NOT SURE THAT WE'VE EVER REALLY UTILIZED THIS PROVISION.

I'm going to put in a note saying the law department needs to tell us what this is and if they have a recommendation for me. We would like an example. Yeah.

Something out of our past history where it might have been applied and wasn't. Maybe this is about assessments or changes in the taxes.

Well, we did that. We just did that. We did two readings on both of those.

Well, one particular example could be if you're doing something like a design build contract and you were authorizing a public improvement, but then there were separate contracts. Like if the city was, I guess I misspoke, but if it were just, if we were doing a public improvement piecemeal, so we were getting approval for a new project, administrative building you get approval for the project but that could be broken down into constituent components of design and then bidding out individual uh parts of the project then maybe going out for a owner's rep and there are basically so long as there are component parts you don't have to do two full readings for each part you can It just, it streamlines the process because there was already council approval for the project as a whole at the top.

Makes sense. The swimming pool could be another example.

It could be. I don't know if there's anything in mind with respect to whether that will be a design build or a design bid build. But I would imagine that the increased popularity of those contractual structures is the reason why we haven't seen this much lately. Because nowadays, so much of everything is design build, design bid build. Most, virtually everything of what you need council approval for is getting approved in that first legislation.

Including the raising of money, because that's what's also mentioned in here.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Are we on to voting? Yeah. Obviously, we can vote now. The... You know, we're not...

The unique thing about this provision is that you can only take a recusal from voting if you have a conflict of interest or financial interest in the matter. Otherwise, your recusal counts as an affirmative vote. If you try to abstain.

You don't want to make a decision one way or the other and then end up voting yes because you abstained.

I do think that if you're here in a meeting and it's a tough issue, you're elected to make tough decisions and there's some circumstances you need to go on the record with what you're going to do. I don't know if anyone else has a... Well, can someone step out?

Legislators in Congress do that all the time.

Some people that have docked some meetings to avoid voting on some stuff. I'm not mentioning any names.

But is present, does that mean in the room or can that mean? It means counted as present for the purposes of a quorum.

Okay. All right.

Okay. Next on 22 shall be signed by the president and other presiding officer and by the clerk. Publication 23. Method and manner of giving public notice. This is such tiny print.

I don't know why this is.

The publication rules are changed.

It was updated in 24, that's why.

Yeah, to include publication by website as an acceptable means of notice.

We might have to modify this to our new standards.

Well, it didn't get on the priority list for this year, but one of my overall goals was to look at the notice requirements across the code, which might come up in planning. Because printing in the paper, that got fixed, but also proximity. So I think maybe we can leave this for now in the full review, but as it comes up in the code, like this is fine that it's on the website. One of the biggest problems we have is that there's not always electronic notice required, I think. Okay, Robert. Yeah, good. Moving on. Robert's Rules of Order. Yeah, that's fine. Amendments of Rules. This might have to be just cleaned up with whatever changes we made further up, which I don't have the headspace to.

I mean, you know, the five member, the super maturity thing. I mean, that would be.

It's just that this is based on the report of a committee to which the subject has been referred. So, oh, it's these rules. Sorry. It's these, these rules. Robert's rules. No, no. Like the one 11, right? Oh, is that your reading?

Yes. It's a little weird to say these rules the way it is. Yes.

Requires five members.

I think that's using a pronoun is not a good idea.

No.

And that would include council adopting any rules for our own self-governance.

Can we modify that? I'm going to put in the notes and let

Well, it's also, so if we wanted, you know, we never were able to adopt any council rules. I know there's a proposal out there. It's just, it's going to require five votes. And we haven't had any council rules since 2020, 2019.

at the end of that year? It was leading up to 2021. So it was probably 2020 or 2021.

And they did. There was a sunset. Yes. And that was designed to address some campaigning issues that were going on.

Okay. Next, dispensation of rules. That's what we do when we suspend the rules. That's five members. We do it for usually just the monthly rules. I can't say we've abused that at all for the month later.

Do you want to specify these rules and make that a specific piece of word or just leave it as a pronoun?

Let's pick a uniform.

Yeah. Okay. What about 27? No, it just says these rules, Section 111, be subject to any other overriding.

Why is it more than the majority?

I mean, all of a sudden, now we're not talking about five. No, there may be some provisions in the city charter that require a supermajority.

Yeah, there are at least one or two.

That wording is usually used like, well, what if there's six people? It's four. wouldn't be a supermajority because I don't know why people would change that terminology.

Is there any reason to? There's no reason. No, I don't see any reason.

Leave it as is?

I would say leave it as is.

Same with resignations. That's pretty straightforward. Modified in 22 because we needed to.

codification of ordinances. This is the procedure. Now, back to resignations just for a second. When a person resigns, can they say as of

You know, you don't have to, like, does this mean, like, if you want to resign, and counsel accepts your resignation, your resignation could still be for, like, a month from now, right?

I don't think that was our intent.

No?

No, and that's not what this says either, because it says, I mean, it says shall not take effect until, but it's when it's been accepted by a vote, that's when it's accepted.

it was at the time. It made it shorter for us to be able to do the process.

Right. But to me, it's like, so I remember when Janine resigned, she gave me a notice and then said, but I'm not leaving until, you know, and that was helpful, actually. The clock didn't start ticking until her, in a sense, resignation happened. Began.

But if that's the case, they can let everybody know as a courtesy. They can even announce it publicly, but you wouldn't take a vote on the reservation until the date that they indicated.

Okay, so there's no wording needed for that. Okay.

You just manage.

Okay. I mean, what if somebody got seriously ill and was incapacitated and wasn't going to be coming to meetings?

Yeah.

And not able to continue with their job. Capacitated.

Craig, are you reading 29? I am reading 29. And specific section B. Yeah. And I think this is something that we end up doing every year. Right.

So we don't, we just did this. Yes.

So we don't have to go through and do them individually. We can have one. resolution that adopts all of the prior changes so they can be published?

Yeah, we just, and I had asked questions about it because I'd never seen it before, but this is probably the most efficient way to do it because they update the codified ordinances online all at once.

Not always correctly, by the way, y'all notice that sometimes there are errors. In the American Legal Publishing Company?

Yes. Like this particular key for referring the clerk should have been gender neutral. Did we make it gender neutral? We made it out that it was.

Right, but you've seen us not use gender neutral and American Legal make it Not gender neutral.

They just didn't particularly edit that portion because we have so much in the codified ordinances. It's going to happen. I mean, unless they're going to start to use AI, which in which case should have just been a blanket change.

So why don't we just have the law director take a look at this thing since it dates back to 1939. Well, yeah.

The 2021 thing, all that means is that it was reviewed. It doesn't mean a thing was changed, really, other than mayor instead of city manager.

And then 30 is I just changed councilman to council members, but do we want the mayor or designee to approve the expenditure of funds for council, or do we want that to sit somewhere else?

So there is a charter provision with the last amendment I went through last year that grants the council president be a nullity at this point. It might make sense to just remove it entirely, but I can follow up on that.

Or council president.

That would be an unusual power to advocate like that.

So I think it ought to be the council president that has the authority to approve.

We talked about this because last

something outside council yeah yeah all right you never know we did but the expenditure of funds we could may not involve a contract necessarily every expenditure of funds that the city makes needs to be pursuant to a contract under the charter well how about when a council member travels out of town and occurs expenses and they're submitting them

Okay, so those are, okay. Well, and so in that case, there would be receipts that get approved by, yeah.

That's what he does now. I do that now, yeah. Yeah, so that does need to be changed.

Yeah, that's it. See, we were able to do that.

Okay, sorry, I...

We put some on the law department to review for us. Well, now it's in there. I will, if it's okay. It's fine.

No, please, please. You're catching your second wind anyway, right? At 8 o'clock.

This is the third shift. The fourth shift?

Does anybody have anything else? I just wanted to tell you guys that I did go to the NOCA meeting on the breakfast time. No, the Northeast, help me, Northern Ohio.

City Council Association.

City Council Association breakfast. There were 55, 60 people there, maybe 30, 35 or 40 communities, you know, present. And of course it was interesting just because you could, Everybody talking. And the flock camera thing came up. A shaker councilwoman brought it up. And there was some data shared with us. The interesting thing was when it was asked, is anybody getting complaints? You know, five or six hands went up. Shaker, he probably took care of this in a couple of days. They modified their contract and just went out in their business. We know what's happening in Cleveland. Actually, we don't know what's happening in Cleveland. We know. There was a safety committee vote, but no decision made. But I just want you all to know that when it was asked, how many of you support having the flock cameras, every single hand in the room went up. without, there were no exceptions. I'm only bringing that up as just to share that information. And another interesting thing, and then we'll go. I was shocked with that many municipalities in there. Somebody, I don't remember who said, how many of you have had a retreat? And only like three or four hands went up. And the people that had had them said, you know, we can't believe you guys have never had a, what do we call it? A workshop. Yeah.

Well, they use the word retreat, but did they get to go someplace other than this conference?

Nobody talked about their specific experiences, but, um, you know, I, I just offered to share what, you know, our, our, uh, agenda. And I said, Hey, if anybody wants to do something, but I certainly said, you know, I would highly recommend it anyway. So the next time we meet is, um, Friday at 11 a.m.? 11.30 a.m. We're doing some of that.

I'm going to do it virtually if that's okay.

Okay.

So this meeting is adjourned at 8.38.