Planning Commission - workshop

Here. Here.

Here. Here.

Here. Would anybody like to present the invocation? I have a moment of silence, please.

Are there any additions, deletions, or organization of the agenda?

I have a motion to approve the agenda as published.

So moved. Second.

I have a motion by Councilman Murphy, second by Councilman Byers, to approve the agenda as published. All in favor say aye. Aye. Says and comments?

start with Gina Coons good evening council my name is Gina Coons I live on Walnut Street in Columbia I just want to do a follow-up to the bicycle comment that I made last week last week we talked about the e-bikes and the motorized everything and the problem that it's causing and I understand there's provisions being made for all that I was told last week that all bikes are to be out in the street and except for children little children and I understand that but the the crime watch sent out a thing on bicycles and i printed out what they said what they have here and it said the segways e-bikes and bicycles are allowed on the sidewalks according to this list so i was just wondering it just says yes yes not in business district and yes not in business district electric scooters, motorized pedal bicycles, and motor scooters are not allowed. So I just didn't know exactly where do we stand with that.

Did you say you saw that on crime watch?

Yeah, it was sent through crime watch. It was a three-part.

I think there was a street regulation or an hour thing stipulating. Not on the sidewalk, right?

I'm only quite, because it says ColumbiaPB.org.

Right.

yeah we have to look into because this one out and it has children safety and all that but it does say that you have to drink maybe right that may be a state thing but we have different yeah because like the state police they put out all those um nice graphics and stuff like that and we just pull them and slap our you know thing on them but We absolutely should be looking into it to make sure that. Because you might run into a little problem. Yeah. This says this and you're saying that.

And the other comment I'm going to make, I don't know if anybody was brought to the attention up at Janssen and Cherry and 6th Street. The kids, I mean, I'm all fine with the kids hanging out. It's the ones on the bicycles. They're all congregating in the intersection. And they play chicken with you. I've encountered it twice. You sit there and they will not move. And the more you go, the more they start flipping their bikes around and doing all that sort of thing. So I feel bad for the kids that actually are there enjoying the park. So I just didn't know it was worth anyone's attention. That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

And to follow up with Gina, I've experienced the same thing at 6th and Sherry with the kids on bikes. And they move in groups. It's not just one or two. It's six, seven, eight kids together.

Is there a time of day you're experiencing this?

This was, yeah, this was around 7, 7.30 in the evening. It was around that time.

Thank you.

And it wasn't just pedal bikes. They had some e-bikes. They had some scooters, you know, and they're just, that's not what I came to talk about, but I just wanted to confirm what Gina's saying, and I've experienced it too. I appreciate it. Last evening, I was out at my daughter's. What is going to be done about that airfield, the condition it's in right now, the weeds out there? If that was a resident's property, they would be sighted. It's ugly looking. All you have to do about it? The McGinnis field. My daughter lives at the corner of 12th and Franklin. She's surrounded on two sides. buy these weeds and she mentioned it to me a couple weeks ago and i said okay she didn't have time to come here i'll come um i was out of town for about 10 days and when i first walked just tuesday morning up the fourth and locust street that trash can up there next to family first it wasn't just everything it was overflowing there was like a tote there a container with the lid on it that you would use for storage it was about the ad it looked like food residue in there like somebody had served food out of this and then trashed it or something and finally this morning that and being cleaned up there.

Yeah, I addressed that. Yeah, okay. Mary, you're probably the fourth person who's complained about this. The complaint was made directly to codes. The codes did address it. So I just wanted to let you know.

Yeah, it is taken care of. My thing is, several years ago, the trash cans were removed from the 400 block of Locust Street because residents were putting their trash in it. And what I'm seeing with that trash can is it's walking across the street. So why do we continue to provide trash removal for residents? That trash can is like that constantly. There are shoes there. there's takeout food containers that yeah you guys know what's there um has i know at planning we referred the light business zoning change has that been referred to lancaster county planning yes thank you very much um when is something going to be done to repair this pedestrian crossing sign out here one side of it has totally been blown out in the middle of the street yeah yeah yeah it's been totally blown out there's nothing on the one side and the other side it's lucky that the notice is still there those are my comments from the city yeah the one at the crossing here thank you very much thank you

and our last signer is kathy hamilton good evening everyone um i was wondering about the current status of the property at 400 locust street um right um so does anyone know like i i know at the may 2023 meeting you know there were two proposals one from cimarron investments one from lancaster habitat and we went with cimarron even though habitats bid was slightly higher um so you know the real estate taxes right now are 554 dollars nowhere near the taxes that were anticipated by the borough for a $1.5 million project. And then I discovered that the property was sold to 400 Locust LLC about a little more than a year later for $1. And the president of that LLC is Benjamin Lesher with the mailing address in Lancaster. just wondering if anyone knows why cimarron didn't build there why they sold the property for a dollar and if 400 locust of c has any plans i'm not aware of anything okay thank you thank you

I start with legislation tonight. Can I help you?

Oh, yes. Sure.

Can I have your name and address? Kevin Walnut.

Hi, Kevin. Your address is 121 Walnut Street? Yeah. i've sent i appreciate your time this evening i've sent two communications to you so i won't spend a lot of time up here um are there any questions if assuming you've had a chance to read what i wrote do you have any questions about what i'm experiencing because it's not pleasant and if you close your eyes and imagine me screaming I WOULD EASILY DO THAT, BUT RESPECTING THE AUDIENCE HERE, I NEED SOMETHING DONE ABOUT THIS.

MR. MULLINS, IF I MAY, THE PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MET TODAY, AND YOUR PROPERTY AND THE ISSUES So I wanted to let you know that the borough engineer, Barry Granato, is in the process of setting up a high-level meeting with a Penn Dodge contractor, Jacob, myself, who all participate. And we're trying to get some answers and get some assurance that some of the problems that have been occurring

That would be great because I'm coming under financial stress from this and I'm getting no assistance from CMS or their insurance carrier. They're completely non-responsive. And they have a lot of liability at this point. The subsurface under this sidewalk that they just finished, almost finished today, is compromised. The porosity of it is a lot more than it was before this project started, which means the water flows into my basement that never flowed there before. I never had a sump pump for this property. I never had need of one. I had minor infiltrations. in the heaviest of rains. I never had standing water. And it's a clear and present danger to my business because I have books down there. These things are sensitive to humidity and water, obviously.

Kevin, if I may, just to make sure I'll counsel an audience if they're curious. This is the Walnut Tree Project. We're facing sidewalks. and haven't started receiving water.

That is correct.

And as soon as he did, he reached out. I know Jake has worked with him. I'm sorry, I didn't hear who had reached out. Jake has been working with you a little bit.

Yes, yes, he's been a godsend.

You reached out as soon as it started happening. Oh, yes, yes.

We were aware of it right away.

Jake's been working with you. In fact, I saw your email today, I think it was, maybe yesterday, today, where it rained yesterday and Jake was there with you.

Yes, it took less than four minutes for that water to get from the surface into my basement.

So my understanding is that they have contacted their insurance. The construction company has contacted their insurance company, and their insurance company contacted Derek. Is that correct?

Cincinnati, and they've been wholly unresponsive. I've had one phone conversation with them, and that was 10 days ago.

We are trying to get some response, but, I mean, there's nothing that we can do to compel them to pee.

I believe you hold the purse strings.

Well, we do.

We do. Which is a great incentive.

Well, yes, it is. But, I mean, we can't compel them right now to be responsive to you.

I understand. But when the bill comes due and it's not paid, They may have a change of heart in dealing with this.

My point was we are trying to do everything we can on your behalf.

That's great, and I'm very appreciative. Right. But I felt it would be a good thing for me to come and introduce myself and answer any questions you might have about this. If anything I've written is unclear.

Sure, thank you.

Great, and I know 118 Walnut Street suffered a good deal from this as well.

The same thing, the same place?

Yes, the sidewalk was torn up and left for the holiday with no covering, and I used to own that house, and I never had water problems in that basement either, and they had a lot of water in it.

Are you video documenting this?

I am. Good. I didn't want to bring that all here tonight. No, that's fine. But I can send anything anyone wants anywhere in the world.

I believe you. Jake's been there, so I believe what you're saying. I'm just saying, for your benefit, it's being recorded.

Yes, and I can't speak highly enough of Jake because he brings an empathy and an interest to this process that his word is indisputable. Whereas you might think I'm exaggerating or making things up, he's able to see this, and that has made a world of difference to me in terms of tolerating this and knowing that. We're all working towards a common goal of holding this company responsible. Right.

Jack, you were talking about a high-level meeting with PennDOT and some others. When do you sort of expect that to happen at this stage?

We'll be soon, within the next week or so.

Do you think that if the insurance company continues to be unresponsive, is there anything at length? the PennDOT level that could be pushed as far as helping to get them to respond to him? Those are discussions we can have. I can't really answer that.

Sure.

Thank you. I would think that some portion of this contract has the phrase workmanlike product in it in order to be paid. And what's going on here is clearly not a workmanlike product. and would be an avenue for discussion, what are they going to do to fix that product? Because sending more money towards them gives them no incentive to fix the problems. And the more time goes by, the less memory they will have of the problem that still exists under that sidewalk that's been poured.

One of the issues we are having It's a PennDOT project. We have the final version, but they have their own inspector on site, and their own inspector that they have doesn't seem to have a problem with the work so far, which we don't agree with. So that's one of the things we need to get.

I would welcome them into my basement any time they'd like to come take a look at the workmanlike product I've seen. And I'm sure the people on the other side of Walnut Street would have no problem with that either. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks.

All right. This is . This is .

Sorry. Sometimes you say, did anyone else want to speak that didn't sign up? So I thought I'd sneak in. Hey, I wasn't going to bring it up because Derek wasn't here. But since this gentleman spoke about the project on Walnut Street, I just wanted to ask a question if anybody does know the answer. We've walked down there frequently and we try to walk every morning, but sometimes we can't get through that way. But I noticed the sidewalks, not in your immediate area, but up a little farther toward third are kind of almost like in a slight V, like they come up, they slant both directions. And I just wondered is that, was that planned that way for drainage or something? Cause it seems like it would drain back towards the houses where I saw that up toward the corner of second and Walnut.

that near the corner it it is near there but it goes down it goes down kind of you know well derek was explaining some of that as far as for the ada ramp access they have to provide right but this would be beyond like this it has to be level at some point i mean the actual where the joint is in the sidewalk like there's should be just flat across you would think well or so toward the gutter but this is almost like a without seeing it i don't but a lot of it depends on the grade like he was explained before this project was taken on a lot of was just at an angle you know what i mean which is not acceptable

I've just never seen a sidewalk like that. We're in the middle of it.

I can see that Derek's doing a good job. Jake is doing a great job of visiting the site, staying on top of things. There have been some concerns with some of the work that has been done related to the concrete, and they've had to redo it. So if there is an issue and it hasn't been called yet, it will be.

Okay. I saw Jake out there. I know he's on there.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

It's just, it's not right at the ADA. I'm not. Yeah. It just seems odd, like when you're walking, it's not flat. That's all. Thank you. Thanks for trying to explain it to me.

All right. Anybody else?

All right.

leadership committees legislation anything wrong um first of all i believe that we are trying to track trying to march toward the public hearing for the zoning change to be held at the last voting meeting in september which is september 22nd right so we're looking for that and i want to apologize i had some issues i have not gotten the rental ordinance the reworked rental ordinance change um i've not gotten that into ordinance form yet the problem is that we don't have a copy that was done that shows what's changed from the original. So I have to go through the whole ordinance to find everything that's changed to actually put that in an ordinance. And it's taken me a little bit longer to get to that than I had hoped. So I'm hoping to have that done shortly, but that's where it is. Kelly, anything to add?

No, basically like I said, I was hoping to help you out more with 166, but vacation and some other things came up.

And the data center ordinance is ready for discussion whenever we want to get that scheduled. That is gone.

I held off because we had people on vacation for the last two weeks.

And

Now that school's starting, it might be better to do it now that school is actually starting. So we'll get with the school district and find something. Anything else?

Nope.

All right. Finance. In finance, you'll see the financial reports. and the balance report as you notice in the balance report we are adding categories as we go to try and be as financially transparent as possible

And so just so the Parks, Shade, and Police, those are not counted in the general fund, correct?

They're not. They're separate. I think they're separate from the general fund that we'll start posting in. I have a turn. Thank you. So the general fund is a $4,268,000. Thank you, Jeff. Sorry.

Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. What did you mean?

No, that's fine. That's fine. I don't know why. They're the same. Okay. Very nice of you. uh as i said four million two hundred sixty eight thousand forty two dollars and thirty nine cents the parks and recreation which currently includes the 300th committee the uh dungeon frustration yes and also uh the um The Albert Twitch Harvest Festival, yes. So that's why that's shown $14,000. Shade Tree Commission is at $44,939. And the police special account is at $19,202. What is the police special account? So when people make private donations to the police department, so they can buy equipment or whatever they want to buy for it, That's their account. That's the same if somebody wants to make a shade tree commission donation or a parks and rec donation. It goes back to those accounts that way. It doesn't fall into the general account. Unless somebody specifies for a general account. We will be adding a capital account once we get some money in the capital account. We should add the... liquid fuels and soon around later I'd like to see the reserves start building back up so really the capital fund right now is a minus 1.7 million that's the RACB grant that's really so I think it's in the capital right now there is a 1 million dollar grant available to us LSA grants but there's no money there it's just available to us so that's the financial report does anybody have any questions or concerns I have a question so no there's this a new report that I've never seen before that

general ledger transaction inquiry normally we only see things that were paid by ach on there but this appears to be like every transaction for every budget line and i think it's a little confusing um i mean i get what it's trying to show but i think it's it does it really muddies the water i mean i guess i didn't know that's fine if you first see the other way i mean i i like i i don't i think that that one is overkill i mean we still have the one that shows the summary of the budget budget lines like the budget accounts and how much is you know right received and everything else I just don't think we need this 30-some pages of individual I mean if someone disagrees please but I just I was kind of confused as to why we were seeing all that and then seeing and seeing it again

And they have a discriminatory. All right.

Yeah, I mean, the ones that are like this that are right. Statement of revenue and expenditures. That's perfect.

I don't think they were just trying. Oh, no, no, no, that's good.

That's fine.

I just don't want to confuse anybody.

Right. No, I get it. Yeah, I mean, we want the reports to be as...

There's a lot of people.

Well, right. And we want it to be as useful as possible without over-complicating.

About 40 pages in, it's easy for your eyes to just glaze over. Right. I'm not a reader as it is.

Okay, anything else?

Sharon? with regard to page 11 of the accounts receivable aging report is this all these pages that are in here are they that's all money owed to the borough yes so can you tell me then on page 11 what that meaning of this is under um I guess it was Detective Jesse Zimmerman there's a whole bunch of that's the bill we send to the county like the drug task force when we assign someone to to the task force

the county reimburses us like the drug task force reimburses us for um certain items and that would um that's i guess the final bill that so we should get that yes i'm not

I'm not there on the page, but is that about $160,000? It is. So I must give credit to Lori Gerf and the bookkeeper. She discovered that for about two years, we did not receive our reimbursement from the county for our officer, who was assigned to the drug task force. so oh yeah I do now see yep it's all the different quarters kudos to the county for the willingness to work with us and um I believe about a month ago we received those funds yeah okay so so they're not actually owed anymore we've we have they're not owed no this is something they owed us yeah that's what I mean that's what I mean they already squared up with us yes okay okay Sharon the aging report just so you're aware it's pulled um

when we pull it for the workshop it's not the previous month but the month before that so this is everything that we were showing was owned in june oh okay all right thank you and did you at july 1st so now the things might have been paid yeah okay because there are someone here that i know i asked about before about fire inspections why are we allowing people to continue to to rent and so forth if they don't pay their fire inspection bill. Anyway, there are several of them on there. I didn't count them, but there are several.

Thank you. Thank you. Any else on finance? Community development? Is there any planning on a HAARP report?

There is a HAARP issue on 477 Rocha Street.

477.

Yeah, 477 Rocker Street. It's where Cooper's Comets used to be. Yes. And Vortex now it's a record store.

Yep.

And they're going through a thing where they were told that if they didn't take their clings down anywhere on their windows, they'd have to pay $2,500 each day to pay the left dollar. So they took them down, they paid $800 though, and the grower didn't take them down. And they didn't know that they had to go through hard for the size, there's no control. And I'm thinking that it would be a really good idea if hard and codes both had a little booklet that went to people who moved into the historic district to know what they can and can't do, Before you spend your money, check this. We've been asking for that for several years.

We've set money aside in our budget for that booklet.

For the booklet?

From HAARP.

From HAARP, yes.

How much money did you set aside?

It doesn't matter because they've never taken the opportunity to do anything about it.

You're going to know.

Okay.

She's going to bring down the hammer. Yeah, I mean, we've been asking for that for several years. That's crazy. It alleviates so many problems.

It is. I agree with you. But there's also a bar to work.

That's true. But when the new business comes into your town, they hate to have them have to fight for everything that they need to do.

I agree 100%. I agree 100%.

We have a lot of places that are empty down there. And we have Vortex telling people never to come to Columbia for business, that it's not a good place to be as a business. Mitch and I, we loved working here. We didn't have any problem, but Vortex did. And now, they're being very good about it, but they just lost an $800 investment and they won't even open in a month. You know, that's a shame for that damn guy.

I know, Jeannie, when Marilyn Hartman used to be on council, and she's a realtor, she used to complain to us all the time about how realtors in town knew these things and would tell their clients up front where there are people that are buying us a realtor that's out of town. They're not getting that information. So some of that falls back on the realtor, but some of it has to – I mean, when I moved to town, before I even moved to town, We at one time thought about doing a bed and breakfast at our home. It was just me and my wife in a six bedroom home. Well, it turned out later on that we needed it all. Before we ever bought the place, I came down here and met with Jeff Helm at the time. Ran through what it would take before I ever signed on. At some point, if you have an investment...

got to be proactive you have to be your own like with your health you have to be your have to be your own advocate yeah no that's there's there's a lot of truth to that too darling um either way but i just think that when they come in especially in the historic district where it is overseen by all right no i agree a lot of people just don't know yeah we um we agree like i said we budget money in fact it probably goes back to when chan was on council

we were budgeting money for it my concern is how who gets the boy who who gets the booklet to them a new business yeah we know that and we thought about it i'm just saying our idea i think these realtors obviously are not so not like a welcome package yes yeah the problem with that is we don't know until a month or two later right no you don't we don't know until a month after they purchase maybe two months sometimes maybe a little longer

with a report right i mean i think we were we were thinking that initially once it's done one copy would go to everyone in the historic district and after that i mean we would have some here in in our office we could provide that with the local some of the local realtors and also the uh merchant association yep because we have talked about

opening businesses as well right yeah so we could put this in it and do it all together yeah but then again there's vortexes they buy that property or they rent it no they rent it so to me it'd be on the leaseholder to notify them what they can and can't do yeah yeah that's that's true too but we were never told about that when we rented it we were never told all right you're in the historic district and You have to buy a few things. And, you know, things like not having a flashing light in your window. You can have a light that says open. You know, the red lights that say open. You can have that, but you can't have a flashing light like you did Joe's. But we couldn't do that. But Jesse does it in his computer shop.

he gets away with that well we shouldn't point fingers yeah but i'm saying it's not consistent across the boards let's um let me know what because i know tom's on community development with you tom's on communications with me yeah we should sit down and talk about what we can do with our um to get that process moving along because i didn't know there was a line item set aside for that but considering that there is money sat man it might only be 500 hours but

But that's enough to do it. To get it developed and everything.

Yeah, exactly. And it shouldn't even take that.

Reduce it. No, but I mean, if they had took the time to have meetings and spent some time, I'm not saying a whole meeting, but they put the two minutes aside each meeting and said, we're going to talk about this. They could develop something pretty quick. In fact, I think Mark gave them a generic carve handout that other municipalities use yeah so it's not we were working towards getting design standards and everything right in fact we even paid a do a grant paid a consultant to come in here full hearted to go back to go out and do a battery don't they they

did it i mean it's it's done i don't know where it's at it's done i think they did it it's available in electronic form but i'm not aware the next hard meeting is next wednesday yeah but i mean i think i they have routinely when they don't have anything come through the bar they just don't leave and that's a perfect time for them to be working on yes

and I talked to Jonathan about a thing today so but I didn't know now when I go I can say there's money and we gotta get it done because I think it will solve I mean it won't solve every problem but it will solve something.

I'm more concerned about the homeowners doing league act construction than I am about our flash and light So I agree with that.

And as a business owner, when you're told you can't do something and somebody else can, then that's a problem.

Sharon.

It's a matter of enforcement.

Not to prolong the agony, but she is exactly right. The enforcement, I have harped on that for years, is arbitrary. Some people get caught, some don't, some do projects. And I mean, I could walk you all over town and show you what was going on at each place that shouldn't have been, and they got away with it eventually. And I just think it's wrong. It's kind of like e-blanks. Yes, it's kind of like that. But we're losing the historic district piece by piece when we don't enforce these things. And in the first place, to print something, and like you said, to see that maybe each homeowner in the district receives that would be a start. Because in your case with Vortex, they would have received at least the landlord would have gotten something, and he could have said, hey, you can't do this unless you go to HARP. And I sort of remember, didn't your husband come before HARP for his signage? I think he did.

He did after he was told to take it down.

Oh, okay.

All right. He didn't know.

Well, they caught him then. He's more highly visible up there, too.

Two for two.

But to Eric's point, too.

We weren't upset at all. We made it ourselves. We didn't pay, like, $10,000 more than anything. We just made it ourselves.

But to his point, a lot of people do it on the weekend, too. I've seen that, and then nobody's around to stop them. All right, thank you.

Thank you. Anything else on the zone? All right, the homeless shelter. He's up again.

What am I up on now? I've been going to different meetings to find out how different people are handling this situation. And in Lancaster, they're doing a couple of different things. I went to a meeting the other night that was very good, and they talked about toxic charity and that sometimes helping is not helping. And so I'm going to look into that and see what they do and how they're doing it to see if we can maybe implement some of that around here.

What's it called? Toxic Charity. Toxic Charity.

Yeah, Toxic Charity. It's a book. I had it in my pocketbook and I took it out because I wanted to put my umbrella in it. I just do that.

All right, thank you. You're welcome. Anything else, anybody else? All right, public works.

Basically the May and June reports are in there. Any questions on anything that's in there? Moving forward with paving projects, we just do paving projects that we defined early in the year and 300 blockable of union is complete now. Of course our

headache is wall street right now and like i said you were topic number one and lengthy topic you have not fallen on deaf ears anybody have any questions i did bring up in the public works meeting today the thing that i had mentioned last week about the walk signal on the stoplights and that is being looked at to see what we can do and some of it requires PennDOT and full nine yards, but that is being looked at. And I'd also like to note that I talked, this has been a while now, about the mpo asked if they wanted to come and look at the 462 corridor in the borough for safety improvements we had the meeting with them i talked about that before they did a site visit walk through we received the uh the report from that this last week they asked for our comments and there will be a public hearing or a public they're calling it an open house august 27th from four to seven um we did provide some jack provided some feedback to them we thought We thought there would be a little more to it than there was. It was just a lot of pavement markings and signage proposals. And, you know, Jack suggested, and I agree, we would like to see some of those crosswalk signals like they're on 9th Street. would like to see those at 8th and 9th on 462 to help with pedestrian safety there um but yeah that will that'll be uh in this room august 27th from four to seven so thanks um do we we know that we lost another um

You know, I can volunteer to do that with Charlie and Six until that's in line.

You have to be certified, am I correct, trained?

You have to be trained.

Okay, you mentioned 462.

That light at the shopping center at Columbia Plaza. We talked about that so many times. There is no car turning left when they're westbound. Traffic backs up to Union Street eastbound. That light, when I was going council, that light was planned for 9th Street. Somehow, when I came back on council, it ended up there.

The guy at the market, the guy that had the shopping center cajoled them into moving it down there, and he was going to kick some money into it, and he apparently never did.

Yeah, and there is the wiring in up at 8 and 462 to put a light in there at 5. remember correctly 462 was redone with all I think that's stubbed in up there yeah for a future I thought it was for a future traffic light yeah okay

It is a problem, like you say.

That at the plaza is ridiculous. I know. Well, the thing there is that that one, the sensor is a camera. And so if people are slightly in the wrong lane, the camera picks them up and sees that someone's in the turn lane, even if they're not.

Yeah, and somebody makes a great turn on red out of there and swings out.

Same thing.

Same thing. That's a horrible button.

I know.

Yeah, we talked about that today, too.

Yeah. I've been there times there where you're in a line of cars, it turns green, and four cars get through, and it's turning red. I'm like, are you kidding me already?

I have a question for you. Whatever happened to school crossing guards? I don't see them anymore.

I haven't seen them for months. You left yourself open. We talked to schools about that. They didn't want to do it.

They don't want to be involved with that? It stopped early 2000s.

And you're correct in what you're saying.

It's dangerous today.

Sometimes they have a short attention span. It could be dangerous. Our crossing guards, even though they're trained, they have to be on their toes every second the way traffic is today. And the way kids dash across the street without being told to go across the street. And even parents It's a hard job. You've got to really concentrate. Right now we have four vacancies.

Yeah, I know. I'm just asking.

It's a tough job.

It is. Which brings me to another point. Jake, those signs in the center road, like the ones out here on the side, are they expensive?

Yes.

Are they really? Because I know in Wrightsville they have three of them. was a time when he was giving him out for nothing right yeah i i work on the other side of the right shoulder i drive up main street every day both ways close to that and i am amazed at how many people stopped now i don't see it in columbia as much here well i do when somebody stayed out there they stopped you also see a helen township cruiser sitting there every day well that's only that's only for school crossing now i'm saying throughout the whole day

if anybody goes up there and stands people stop and this goes back to the one of the biggest problems is people think our crossing guards are traffic officers right they do not direct traffic they only direct kids or anybody crossing they don't do anything with traffic and that's that's It's been a contention for years.

Yeah, that's part of the training. They're told they cannot direct traffic. That is correct.

Now, there's been talk with a group of people, I forget the committee, that wants to do a safe walk, safe streets home or whatever.

We tried to get the walking school bus gone. No one wanted to volunteer.

But if we could have set paths from the high school, from Taylor, to general areas throughout the town, Then we could do the crossing. We're almost guaranteed.

We do. It used to come down Walnut. They're supposed to go to Locust. That's why we have the four-way stop. That leads to Locust now. They're not supposed to come. But they do.

They go down Walnut. They go down Chestnut.

They go down Alley Street.

Spruce.

Spruce? Yeah.

But there are defined walk paths.

I just wanted to make a point, too, for those who are maybe interested or contemplating being a crossing guard. There is flexibility with this. And I'm thinking of you, Gina. No, no, no. That's what I wanted to bring up, actually. The chief, the police department, is willing to accommodate a half schedule. So working maybe the morning or afternoon. instead of both uh shifts so um just wanted to bring up that point uh for example at 9th and walnut street we have two different uh crossing guards uh who cover that intersection one in the morning and then one in the afternoon and it's good pay by the way it's 17 26 an hour it's pretty good yes yes thank you

Talking about the public safety, can I ask, and I brought this up probably two years ago, why do we not repaint before school the crosswalks? I was told there was no money budgeted for that. Why we do not paint curbs anymore?

That used to be a high school thing, wasn't it?

It was always before school started, they always repainted the crosswalks. if you look outside here on locust street many of the curbs were repainted it's just a matter of public works jake does a great job the whole i mean these cars parking right up to the corners yeah there's no yellow lines there's no red lines for the hydrants there's

I know it takes a lot of time. So I haven't seen anything really.

Especially uptown.

And our public works department has been short-staffed as well. We've been struggling to find public works employees.

Can there be anything done about people parking right up to the corners? That's a police... That's a parking... I mean, intersections are just nasty.

Well, I've noticed with SUVs now, it makes it even harder.

Well, yeah, because a lot of them are tinted and you can't see through the windows.

It's just... And they sit higher than a regular sedan.

You can't see if something's coming to you halfway out in the street. I pulled almost halfway out. I pulled the intersection. If you don't see me...

So, okay. Sorry, that's all. Thank you. Yeah, that alley up by my house at the end of the alley, there's someone that parks this big truck right at the corner.

Yeah. I do think that there's definitely more, obviously staffing is the bottleneck, but I do wonder what else we can do to alleviate that because of the whole fact of, you know, enforcement kind of pays for itself.

um as far as like hiring more staff to do enforcement it's just really finding the people the manpower in order to actually do it that is actually uh being addressed uh you will see on tuesday the police department just interviewed two individuals and are moving forward with requesting counsel to hire uh two additional parking enforcement officers And they have done a great job of focusing on enforcement of those types of violations. Yes.

And whenever a parking enforcement officer is out, are they also referring anything they may see to codes? Like, is there any kind of cross training there?

Yes, there is. Especially one of our senior parking enforcement officers who used to do some of the code enforcement at one time. um so there is uh i would say um you know good uh a good deal of cooperation between those two departments sleeps and bombs anything else on public works one thing i wanted to remind i do want to remind the public that we do have

codes against off-premise signage this weekend. I wanted to stop, but I didn't want to block traffic. Up at the town square, someone put a sign in there for their person advertising their personal yard sale. At the town square.

right and like i said i wanted to to grab it but the trip the light was turning and i tried to tell my son to get out grab it and couldn't can he can he do that no no no it's public property i saw it for a couple days i was waiting to see how long it took to disappear i also i'm not losing i'm not being smart i mean how many times do certain people go up by there Do you drive around like this? Or do you look for things? I don't want to be smart, but I get a little upset about that. There was one at 9th and Ironville Pike yard sale sign. Well, it's on the ground now because of the storms. That was there for three or four days.

It's still there. And it was stapled to the telephone pole, which is...

Thank God to you, the other week we had...

sign stapled on all the street trees on locust street yes they like to the trees yes yeah stapled to the trees staples on each street tree yes yeah we know who did it but i had the officers take them down yeah i i hope they they didn't just pull the paper that i don't know yeah because i don't want you know our street trees to

Anything else on public?

No, I'm sorry.

Public safety. Police report, fire report, EMS report, EMA report, and the court report.

Well, it's all there. I'll say that Tom is mostly the person who's been taking on a lot of the public safety stuff. But obviously, the police have had a busy couple months, especially last month with the homicide investigations, though, thankfully, those have been addressed and taken care of, as far as arrests being made. Overall, i know that the police this is something that tom and i are going to sit down with as many people as we can to talk about what we can do to sort of get some short-term solutions for the staffing issues in the police department things that maybe we could do to move some budget items around or talk about ways that we can get efficiencies happening that we don't have to wait for the six to 12 month process of hiring another officer. I know one thing that Jack and I spoke about at the beginning of the year was the community service aides. You know, there's potential there as far as expanding that role in order to take some of the load off of the officers in order to, you know, get them some of the help that they need so they can handle the things that only they can handle. But that's a conversation that we're scheduling to sit down with Holly when she has the availability.

And I would add that the EMS lifeline is going to be in at some point to talk to us about the... There's three calls. There's three calls, yes.

Yeah, so Tom is reaching out to them to have them come to an upcoming workshop in order to have a conversation. Specifically, Jack, you had mentioned it's kind of like not a pilot program, but a special program that they're trying out. And Columbia was one of the locations that they wanted to test it.

And this is county. This isn't, I said, I like my Penn State, but it's county. Yeah. yeah the program is currently underway in the city which is covered by lens here any else comments all right market house report market house reports you go back it bonnie you have anything you want to share no

you will see some vacancies coming up this month but that's not unusual because people do get their footing and then move on to brick and mortar so it's not that unusual but always that is the plan of the market also yeah pretty much yeah and and you're always you're always kind of happy you're sad to see them go but you're happy to see them move on to the next step right well one is our produce um you've probably seen my posts out there trying to get somebody else in you know for september because that that's a big one yeah um they're not from this area so i would i'm hoping to find a local produce so and then there are some other changes coming up shortly but i don't think those businesses have been able to share that with their own people so i don't want to really say too much too soon but um i always have people kind of lined up ready to move into new spots so okay okay thanks thank you new business

uh we need to discuss the rfp from the guinness property yeah um dates dates everybody's okay with keeping the price the same keeping the price the same yeah i guess the question is do we want to do

well, how quickly do we want to try to move to a realtor as opposed to getting out from the bid process? Do we want to do another full 45-day window? I had sent Evan an email asking, because he had mentioned it before, that he was unsure if a bid that was not responsive to the details and like for Saudi a 60 day issue. If that counts as it does.

Okay. I it specifically says that.

Okay, so then there's just one more. So do we want to just do the 15 days so we can move on? But I think 15th of that month, right? But we want to do the shortest possible time in order to move on to a realtor? Or do we want to do another 45 day window?

That's why. And I'd like to say it's Shroud's time to try to sell it, but Shroud's time isn't always the best thing.

I'd want to see at least 30 days. Yeah, I wanted to do 30 because I don't want... Because...

we sit here and you say in a public meeting we want to get this moved on to a realtor and that looks suspiciously close to we're trying to manipulate the process i mean we had that problem before where someone we sat here and said we want to get this moved on to a realtor and then i mean that's That's like advertising that you just, you know.

But we are following the rules.

Right, we are following the rules. But, I mean, the appearance of impropriety is as bad as impropriety. So, you know, I was fine with 30 days. I don't think... I also... I'm not sure we need to do a pre-bid meeting. What do you think, Jack?

You're certain it's not a requirement?

The pre-bid meeting, no, is not a requirement. I mean, that was just set by us so that we could head off any questions that came in. mean what we would know if we did not do a pre-big meeting is it just increases the chance of repeated questions coming in from interested parties that's all it does and you change text now that you show that data centers are no longer in there i put a zoning under the section of zoning i put zoning note a proposed zoning ordinance is in the process to remove data centers from the lake business district additionally a proposed standalone data center ordinance is in the process is in process i didn't need to to give any more detail than that i thought i think that covered it all

And then we've also added the section on what's going to be disclosed to the public after it's unsealed.

So, I mean, my suggestion would be 30 days or 45 days, but I think 30 days is good. Yeah, I think 30 days is the right time if they're going to do it.

yeah because in the case if somebody was interested in the initial window and then just didn't have the time to put something together it's possible that has changed now that they're more aware of the project so obviously we have to kind of have to work back from when we would want to

accept it. To find, or what we could... So, now... I don't know the exact deadlines for LNP. But I think even if we published it, if we sent the request tomorrow, the soonest we could get it in would be Wednesday the 12th, right? I think it's like five days or something like that. So, I mean, we could get it in the 12th. We have it open for 30 days. That puts us at September 12th.

Yeah, I want to vote Tuesday on this.

Right. so yeah i mean i would just i need to know the dates so that i can update right update it update that rfp or if you want to update the rfp jack it doesn't matter to me yes and then i i think i have everything highlighted that needs that needs change that we needed to discuss and change so it should be pretty easy um

if we vote on the 11th we could open it uh started on the 17th that would be enough time for lmp to publish it yeah but like heather said i worked backwards now you give yourself actually i said september 30th if you said wednesday it would be the 19th i would say i would say let's it sounds wonderful

Why? No, sorry. My calendar went from July to September and then I got confused and I'm like, wait a minute, what the heck? We don't need August. Yeah. Then we'll be seeing crossing cards.

That's true.

So the 11th, so if we vote on the 11th to advertise, we could say that it is being, it would be, we would just plan like, we could say the 17th. because that would give us till, if we get it into the paper Monday, August 17th, 30 days. So let's see, do it till September 18th. That's not enough time to vote at the 22nd because we wouldn't have everything together for the packet. we could unseal it on the 21st which would be the monday right which is the month which is the day before the meeting which puts us at awarding the bid october 13th yeah which is three or four not really does these not have to be 10 days after the bids are unsealed no i don't think there's a thing on awarding the bid i don't know we just have to yeah i think yeah yeah the deposit has to be in 10 days of awarding it yeah um so yeah i don't think we have enough time to get it in for awarding it on the 22nd but that meeting is going to be a lot anyway because we're going to have the public hearing for the zoning change that one so um we can move we can march forward with awarding the bid at october 13th and then just work the way back from there or we could do the six too i mean i can we can go to our workshop yeah we can so but yeah i mean we could um yeah we could say like the bid opening is monday the 28th we do bid opening by the 1 to 28 that gives us more than a week prep everything for the workshop, or the 13th, whichever. So yeah, it's definitely gonna have to be October. So pick the dates and work back and just fill them in.

If we do the 13th, and the final day for submission is around the second, I don't know exactly how many days that would be, that would basically be the 45 day window that we originally gave for the first round. if we're already looking at early october we could just say you know do we have like it could work out to basically be the same 45-day window regardless yeah i'd rather but yeah i mean we can just work back on those on those dates jack and then

It's the first page has the date released and due date. And then on page three, it's the date when bids will be accepted by and the bid award will take place that just needs to be the whatever council meeting you decide and i think everything else oh and then if we want to take off the attendance and a pre-bid meeting if we want to take that off you can just delete that we still we would still have a pre-bid meeting it just wouldn't be part of the requirements or just no pre-bid no pre-bid let me make sure But yeah, everything else is done.

So we'll have a revised copy for September, August.

No, that's August 11th meeting.

And we'll go to advertising. Okay. anything else under that all right boards and commissions uh we have a parks and rec opening we have two or alternate opening one for zoning says this is there's a zoning board position open and three planning Commission board seats open. One wanted to. Thank you. So one sitting to our next right and as mentioned earlier crossing guards although that's not voluntary that's paid when's the first day of school by the way i'm 20 years removed i'm like 10 years crossing guards oh no i'll be able to hear it anybody else they know when the first day of school is

And Jack, about how long would the training process be for a crossing bird?

The training is about three to five days. It depends on the individual. And what that would include is some classroom training, but also some in the field training as well. So you would have a trainer with you while you're doing the job.

So there's some potential if we would get somebody in the next week or two that they would be able they would be prepared.

uh for school starting to do the job or do you think that would still be too soon well the issue that you're going to have at this point is uh council approval from higher so after tuesdays it's going to be another two weeks we can't vote on that well there's nobody higher we can vote on it

next week get your names in by tomorrow i don't think we can give a blanket hire anybody we approve no but i mean if somebody if somebody stepped up or multiple people stepped up yeah we could add them to the agenda that yeah sure so oh not that night

So Monday by end of business.

That doesn't matter.

Monday would be the deadline.

Okay. Well, I'm glad you're saying.

By 430 Monday.

All right. For our council comments, we'll start with Ethan.

I don't have any.

All right. Jeannie?

I haven't really talked about mine, so I think we're good. All right. What was the thing for the packing for the pile?

Yes. Heather?

Nope. Nothing for the ceiling.

I have nothing. Council will be going to an executive session after this meeting to talk about a personnel issue. The next regular scheduled meeting is at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, August 11, 2026. I have a motion for adjournment. So moved.

Second.

A motion by Councilman Zink, seconded by Councilman Cooper, to adjourn this meeting. All in favor say aye. All right.