City Council - Regular Meeting

Order. Mayor Baker is out of town. Probably sitting on some beach in Columbus right now. Um, Miss Klein, the roll call. Member Horton. Member Ner here. Member Neman here. Member Kelly here. Member Jud here. Member Levens. City Administrator Faucet here. City Attorney Edmonson.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, now for a moment of silence and a pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible and

All right. So, [clears throat] on our agenda, we have a mayor's report, but we don't have a mayor, so we'll skip that part. Uh, well, we do have a mayor. He just can't be here tonight. Um, do I have a motion for the approval of the minutes from the December 9th, 2025 meeting? So, moved. Aaron, member Jud. Member Jud. Oh, yeah. I forgot that part. And a second. A second. Member Horton. All in favor? I And now we have a presentation by Tesa from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Hello. Thank you uh for letting us be here tonight. My name is Jennifer Wy and I supervise one of the recruitment certification teams. I let I'm Taiisha Elmar, a social services worker with the cabinet

and uh we have really just been going around. I think we started this back in last August and we've just sort of been going around um to various city council meetings. Um my team covers Kitten and Campbell County. So we are always looking to raise awareness on the need for foster and adopted parents and just to give out some information to each of the cities. We were just in Highland Heights last week and Coington. It seems like we've been hitting all over Kenton and Campbell counties. Um, so I don't have specific Dayton data, but I do have Campbell Countywide data um and state data that I wanted to share with you guys tonight. And Tai's just sharing some information that um that you guys can look at. And a lot of the cities have

uh really um helped us with uh just just raising awareness by um uploading some of our flyers and some information on their city council websites. um and just letting us speak um to different um business associations, things like that. So, that's that's why we're here tonight. Can you send us the PDF? Can you send those? Yes. Yes. I I know Taiisha has been in touch with I'm not sure who, but I'll have her send all that out tomorrow to you guys.

And uh send all that um as well. So, basically, I just wanted to take a few minutes. I won't take too much of your time. And she has some goodies for the uh city council members, too. So, um, these the information I'm going to give you is as of December 25, um, is our information. Statewide, uh, I wanted to share some data and some stats with you guys. Um, statewide, we have 8,692 children out of home care. Um, in northern bluegrass in our region, which covers Kinton, Campbell, Boone, all the way down to Scott County, the top 12 counties of the region, there are 1,210 children out of home care. Uh, which means they're in some kind of foster home. Um, when I say out of home care, sorry. In Campbell County alone, there are 172 children in foster home in foster care. And of those 172 children, 38 are placed in our what we call our cabinet department of community based services um foster homes and 24 of them are placed in what we call our private child care uh um foster homes such as like your neco diosis Catholic children's home stepstone. You might see other like yard signs and those are our private child care agencies that that that contract with the cabinet because we don't have enough of our own foster homes. Um so that's just some information. Um some of our biggest need um obviously um for for children out of home care in our region is teenagers. Uh we often I know you guys have probably heard um we often have kiddos who are sleeping in our offices because we cannot find a suitable placement until a placement becomes available for them. And oftentimes those are our teenagers who have um you know some some significant behaviors or might just have some mental health issues going on. Um but I do want to I wanted to share that information. Our biggest need is for children uh is for teens for foster homes. Um we approve two different types of foster

homes. We approve like your basic regular foster home uh where it's like Mr. and Mrs. Smith who want to come in and just help children out of home care or we have we also approve what we call our relative fictive kin caregivers and those are like your grandparents your aunts uncles maybe a fictive kin such as a coach or a teacher or a bus driver. We've had people step up to help children so that children can stay in their community and their school system. Um so we approved two different types of foster homes. Um the basic your normal what I call quote unquote basic foster home. Um there are trainings that are um that are available that are uh needed to be certified. Background checks of course. Um for relative addictive caregivers though, we're able to wave that training because they already have a bond and a relationship with the child. So we're able to wave the majority of your actual foster parent certification classes. Um we have there are some benefits um for becoming a certified foster adoptive parent. um financial support. Um um there is a medical cards, there is a pdium until the child is 18. Um there is college tuition waiverss for any instate college or uh technical school. Um so that is some of the benefits for um adopting out of foster care for families that we go over a lot in depth in detail if people um were to attend the training. Um, some other things I wanted to share with you guys, there's an adoption tax credit as well. Um, one things I've really wanted to share is other ways to help. Um, when we approach like business meetings or city council meetings is everybody's like, "Well, how can I help?" Well, just by listening to us, raising awareness, sharing our information on your website, that kind of way, that kind of thing. Um, Taiisha has attached some flyers that go into depth on different of the stats that I talked to you about and on other ways to

help. Um, you know, not everybody can become a foster parent, but you can step up to become a respit care provider, which is like to help foster parents to give them a break if they're going out of town. Um, you can donate items to um to to us to help with the kiddos who are staying in the offices. Um if you own a business um you can become what's a there's an app that's called um a foster friendly app and that's where they give discounts to foster parents. Um it started in Louisville and Lexington and is slowly moving up. It's spreading information on on that. Um, and so attached in the documents that she gave you some information and just some some um ways that we can send all these to you electronically that you can help us post on your website. Um, does anybody have any questions? I know that was just a quick brief overview. I uh um just wanted to share that information and um thank you so much for your time. Just uh let you know that the need is out there and we want to keep children in Dayton. We want to keep them in their school system and often times we're moving kids out of inner city schools to rural counties because we don't have enough foster homes. So just sharing the information.

Uh I do have just two quick questions. Sorry over here. Hi. Um so are I see the 1200 number for Northern Kentucky and the 172 for Campbell County. Is that number going up or down?

Well um to be honest, [clears throat] so this was just pulled December 1st. Um I don't have January's data but um it's probably roughly around the same um it now I mean obviously I've been I've been with the cabinet for 22 years it's definitely uh has increased um dramatically since I started um you know the out of home number children was like for the whole state was 800 and something but now it's like you know uh doubled that but um it's definitely going up just not not a lot I don't have January's data but this was p pulled for December 1st first. Perfect. Thank you. And then um I know you don't have it with you today, but is it possible to to send us over the information on who in specifically Dayton

um is taking part of these foster care programs? Look, like uh what what's what? Say that again. Sorry. So, you gave us the data for Campbell County. You said you don't have that with you now for the Dayton. I don't know if I can break it down per like the city of Dayton, like how many children are removed from Dayton. I might be able to, but it's mostly so because we run on a state level, so I can probably only break it down for Campbell County. Okay. But I can I can probably try to get that information for you for sure. Only if you have it readily available. Yeah. No need to put any more work on your plate. Okay. [laughter and gasps] Yeah. Um but yeah, definitely. Thank you. And we will um send these over to you electronically as well to share. That would be great. I have a question. Um it might overlap with what he just said, but

you said you want to keep kids in Dayton. Is that what you said? So now they need foster home and they're going to Dayton school and you want them to be around still. Okay. Do you have any idea how many kids like are removed from Dayton? No. That like need a place in Dayton. Oh. Um well like I said I don't have Dayton the city of Dayton specifically just Campbell Countywide. Uh which out of Campbell County of course you know that you know Dayton is part of that. Um you know to we do a lot of removals of inner city kids. um uh from Dayton, you know, all the way to Belleview, Newport, you know. Um I guess those would be your biggest areas of removal from Campbell County. Okay.

For sure. Um but I can I can get that information. I just might take me a few a little bit to consult with uh Frankfurt on that to get the citywide data. Um but that that's typically all we share is our Campbell is our Campbell our county data. Is that usually a temporary situation if you take a foster kid from Dayton? Well, I mean, obviously foster care is meant to be temporary. Um, you know, hopefully to give the birth parents time to work their case plan, whatever the reason they were removed for whatever. Um, so hopefully the whole goal is always reunification. Uh, we're going to always place least restrictive with a with a birth parent uh with a relative or family member or a fictive kin before we actually have to place them into foster care with families who are unknown to the child.

Okay. the the the majority of approvals that we do are relative fictive care uh givers. Um so like that's your aunts, uncles, grandparents, sisters, brothers, cousins stepping up to take the child so they don't have to go into a stranger's home. Okay. Quote unquote foster care. Yeah.

So um which is really good. And you know just a few years ago relative fictive caregivers were not supplemented the same way foster parents were. So like um they would receive kinship care benefits but not the full foster care rate which is awesome. So that's why we're able to certify foster or relative pictive caregivers um to be certified as considered as a foster parent for the children. The children do remain in our custody because of that um until either they work the plan to go home or if not then termination of parental rights can occur and the family could adopt it.

Yeah. Thanks. I have a question. A couple of these are about respit uh providers. Um do you have anything that talks about if you want to become a foster parent, what are the qualifications and what what are the benefits and things like that? Do you have any any flyers like that?

Well, I mean I mean obvious Yeah. Yes. I mean um we we hostformational meetings. of the cabinet. Uh we have several trainings that go on uh that go into much detail, much much more in depth than what I'm going over tonight on the qualific on the qualifications to become a certified foster parent. There is um it's it's anformational meeting followed by six weeks of classes. Um, so our next uh we have a group starting in February that's on Monday nights and [clears throat] it's usually held at our Kinton County DCBS office in Lutonia and um inerson ones and then we also have virtual ones that are uh via Zoom and so um and they're usually 3 hours a night. So the curriculum itself is 20 hours. So, you'll do anformational meeting followed by six weeks of classes like every Monday night from 6:00 to 9:00 is typically what our trainings run and I would be glad to send you that information as well. And

yeah, I was just thinking if we're doing something on our Facebook page, maybe something just talks about how you become one and what are the requirements and what do you get when you do it, things like that. Yeah, we'll send you stuff. I think that would um there'll be a QR code that Taiisha will send as well that'll go right to our website that really breaks it down. That'd be great. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't want to overwhelm everything, but Yeah. And that website is kyfaces.ky.gov. Correct.

Yep. That is our that is our [clears throat] um that's our website and uh by scanning that QR code that takes you right there. and it tells you all the steps to become a certified foster parent or a relative fictive caregiver and the benefits uh to that or if you wanted to do respit care. There's a whole flyer on that on what that entails um which is not you don't have to there is an online training that's two hours for that but that is not it doesn't in it doesn't require the same amount of training as becoming a basic licensed foster home to the state of Kentucky.

Yeah. And one of the things you mentioned on here is to donate items to local foster care closets because I know a lot of times with a foster foster care case, the kids are leaving maybe with the clothes on their back and nothing else or they're in the foster home for so long that they age out of their clothing.

Um, can you explain the closets because I I always see online that people are trying to get rid of this or that whether it be clothing or toys or whatever. Could they be redirected to these closets? Absolutely. Um you could totally uh if anybody has information or anything they want to donate. Obviously we can only we because of space and just uh things like that. We can only take we cannot take used items. Um so they do have to be new. But we do have we we con we have a uh foster adoptive parent association who who's also developed like a closet where uh they take information or they take uh donations for children all the way from 0 to 17 of

17. and uh gently used items and things like that. And it's called the Giving Tree of Northern Kentucky. And so Amanda Nenise, one of our foster parents, runs that. Um and so we have various ways if you reach out to me or email me and Taiisha, we can help gather that information or um let you know what is mostly needed. Uh right now obviously for the children in the offices as teenagers um a lot of a lot of uh business associations have gathered uh gift cards for us which is nice you know to use um to help feed them in the evenings or to buy new clothes for them uh things like that. Um, that's one of the ways that folks who want to directly help the kiddos who are the teens in the offices, I I always tell them gift cards to [clears throat] Walmart, Target, fast food places, everybody can run and get them some food until, you know. So, um, but yeah, good questions. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you. Any other questions? And Jay, you said you'll try and get this information. Yeah, when they send me some. All right. Thanks so much for coming. Thank you guys so much. appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh next we have Tracy Gentrip, but she's not here. Cassie, I know you're involved with the Read Ready program. Would you want to meet tonight? She wants to talk about the Read Ready Read Ready. Um she wanted me to hit on the mentoring program, which is um 30 to 45 minutes once a week or once every other week. They do it from lunch on. So a lot of kids go to after school program. If you're working, they can do it, you know, 4:00, 3:00 after school. Um, and uh, I have the information if anybody needs it. I have the application if anybody needs it. I could email those out to anybody out there watching who would be interested. Um, I think Tracy plans on coming back to the next meeting and kind of discussing the read ready program and this again. So,

I have a question. What do you do? Do you go and read with kids or um, pretty much they gear what they want to do? You can just sit and talk. You can play a game. You can eat lunch with them. You can I mean, I think it's pretty much anything. I used to do it years ago with um Newport schools and you went for ours was almost an hour. So typically we would have lunch and then if they wanted to go outside and play you could take off. You can hang out. You can It's kind of geared about what you and the student want to do. Sometimes they want to play a game of cards. Sometimes they want to just read a book or tell you about their day or

it's it's really a nice program. It is. I mean, it kind of it starts they they want to start you out with a third grader and then you move up with them is the plan to take them all the way through high school. So, yeah. Well, thanks for all the work you're doing with this. No problem. It's And you said Tracy's going to come back in. She's gonna come back. Yeah, we're working on some things with the Read Ready program, [clears throat] um, with the little libraries and things like that. that we've got some things in the works. So, yeah. Gotcha. Can you remind people where they could find that information online? Is it underneath read ready? It's for the re for the read ready.

Yeah, they want to look up. It I think it's it's kind of early. They're still developing the programs. There's nothing online yet about there's really not a whole lot online yet. We're kind of getting we've been doing Zoom meetings and things like that trying to get it all together. So, okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, guys. the mentoring program. Um, I have that. You can email me at the city or call me at the city or the school has that information on their website as well. Great. Thank you. Next, it's uh public comments regarding legislative items on the agenda. Anybody from the audience? No takers. So, we'll move right on to ordinances. is a second reading of ordinance 2025-7. Miss Klene,

an ordinance amending the text of chapter 154, article 10, section 10.15, central business district of the city of Dayton, Kentucky zoning code, regarding certain permitted uses in this zoning designation. So, this is an ordinance that I discussed a little in depth at last meeting. It's essentially cleaning up our central business district zoning to make sure that our commercial spaces continue to be used as commercial spaces instead of residential space. So, council, what's your pleasure on this? Do I have a motion? I'll make that motion. Motion by member Neman. I'll second.

Second by Miss Kelly. Any comments, questions, issues? Okay. Yeah. So, um, in regarding the wording part of it, I it looks like we we, uh, explain the abbreviations pretty well in there, except for what CBD is. So, in there, unless I'm missing it, I I didn't see where we actually defined that central business district is, it's defined, this is just takes a section of that. There's a section of the zoning code that just talks about the central business district. So, we're only talking about the one.

So, this is just changing one of the paragraphs in there. So, the rest that's still in there. Okay, you go to look at it, you'll see this will go in a section there after they identify the central business district, which is basically the district runs from Main Street to um McKini. That's that's along six. That's a central business. Yeah. And that geographics uh region is also mapped out somewhere in that other those other on the zoning map. So the zoning map's available uh on the Kimmel County planning and zoning website. Okay. So then no issues with the uh the wording the all that stuff. Uh my other question is just uh how we plan to notify the residents in those areas if there are any to let let them know of the the any changes.

We generally don't the only time the not residents are notified is when there is a zone a map amendment or what they call a zone change. This is a what's called a text amendment. When there's a text amendment that's just the city doing that. uh they are only notified when there's changing the zone in their neighborhood and they notify the adjacent property owners. That's what the law requires, but we never notify on text amendments. Okay. Well, I guess the existing properties are grandfathered in. They're grandfathered in, so they're not going to be affected by it. Gotcha. Any other questions, comments? Miss Klein, roll call on this. Member Neeman. I. Member Kelly. I. Member Jed. I.

Member Horton. I member Neri I [laughter] I know there's nobody there. Uh next we have order resolution 2026-1 Romeo. Miss Klein, an order resolution declaring city-owned real property located at 949 Walnut Street, Dayton, Kentucky as surplus property and authorizing the mayor to sell or otherwise dispose of this property as permitted under Kentucky law.

So, this is the property we discussed at the last city council meeting uh up on uh Walnut Street. There's a couple that is buying two empty lots up there and they wanted to use this lot in order to build a single family residence. Um, council authorized me to uh offer 12,000 but be willing to go down to 10,000 which was the assessed value. We negotiated and kind of split it in half. So, uh, came to $11,000 to sell the property to them. I've been in contact with them in the last couple days and they're anxious to get going. Uh, it may be a couple this process may take a couple years, but I think they've got some nice plans for what has been an empty lot for years and years. three empty lots for three years and years.

Well, this first resolution is just to declare it surplus property. That's great. I should I should clarify that. So, under Kentucky law, we have to declare surplus property. Uh when we're selling property, we have to declare it surplus first and then after that, we will actually pass a order resolution uh transferring the property having the authorizing the mayor to sign a deed to do that. So, this is the first step and we have the next resolution that will authorize a transfer itself. So, council, what's your pleasure on this? Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion to um accept order resolution 20261R. Motion by member Kelly. Second.

Seconded by member Neman. Any other questions or comments on this? Miss client. A vote please. Member Kelly. I. Member Jud. I. Member Horton. I. Member Nean. I. Member Ner. I. So, passed unanimously. Thank you. And then next we have the second part of this, which is order resolution 2026-2R. An order resolution authorizing the city of Dayton, Kentucky to sell real estate located at 949 Walnut Street to James Crawford and Elizabeth Mcan for $11,000.

That's the This is the old resolution I just discussed. This authorized the mayor to sign the deed uh to transfer his property to the couple. Council, do I have a motion to accept 2026-2R? I'll make a motion to accept order resolution 2026 2R. Motion by member Kelly. Second. Uh second by member Horton. Any questions or comments on this? Uh, one comment I have is just to clarify, we do have the um, what does it say here the terminology exactly? Uh,

it's that they will have to get a certificate of occupancy within two years. We negotiated that. It's three years now. So, three years. Yeah. So, yeah. Three years. So, that was in the contract. So, that was a discussion we had. I mentioned that. Yeah. So they they will need to do that. Okay. So it's not like we're just selling it and they're going to sit on it. They're actually going to build on this and if they don't then it reverts back to the city. So that's Gotcha. Gotcha. Which I think is a good terminology for most of our property sales. And if anybody is interested in buying any more property in date and any vacant lots, contact this guy here because the city does have their name on a few lots still. Um,

yeah. Motion's been made, seconded. I have a question. So, did we make it clear how this happened or how these people approached you to buy? Their real estate agent approached me. They were they were interested in two properties and they saw there's another lot next door and then we have a paper street which is walnut continues. So that we can't sell that because it's dedicated as a street. But they wanted the lot that we had there and they called me and said would you be interested selling and I came to you all. So is that something that someone should be doing would be or is there a place on the website that has a list of all the Dayton properties and if you're interested they should come to you.

There is not there is not on currently on the website a list. There's all kinds of properties we have. There's only some that are that are developable for single family homes. So be stupid to put all on there. It would be not very hopeful. But what we are planning to do this spring is actually create a list of all properties that are developable and then we want to do an auction to allow people developers and others are interesting buying properties to um purchase that. We're working on that now. Complicated do online auction. We do an online auction. We got to figure out how to do that. But um that's the plan. And so we're hoping this spring, this summer to do that.

So is this lot considered I don't know, however you described it just now, non-buildable or whatever you said that it's a lot. What's the question? Is you said that you were going to make a list of properties that I have a list of all properties the city that the city owns of them probably 12 maybe 15 max and some of these are questionable whether they can be developed can be developed into single family homes. We have a lot of places like like rightaway pieces and you know but there are some that are so is this property that we're voting on developable a little bit. It's a little bit

um most of the development will occur on the two they're buying but they they they will use part of this one. There's also a spring on this property. So they're concerned about that and so this sales they want to make sure that they can address that. So they may not sign the contract until or accept the deed until they decide that that's not a problem. So this authorize us to do sell it whether they end up purchasing it and you think that's a fair price. Yes, absolutely. Okay. It's really this is it's a very steep you would have to you want to develop it you'd have to peer it would be a very expensive. So this is this is a fair price. Okay.

Any other [clears throat] questions or comments on this? Miss Klein, how about we take a vote? Member Jud. I. Member Horton. I. Member Neman. I. Member Kelly. I. Member Ner. I. Unanimous. And that does it for orders and resolutions. So now we're down to the department director's monthly reports. Cassie, you go first as the lady of the house.

All right. Now you're already up. Okay, we have a copy of my report. I did a year-end report as well. Um, just kind of going over typically what we do. Um, the strategic planning. I'll bring all the bolts and nuts of the actual report. Um, rental inspections are he's moving and grooving on those. Um, it was a pretty last month was a a slow month. Um we had a few rentals come up. So just hit again on you know typically every month we get a report from the PVA that shows all the transfers. Um these rentals were probably sent um well they were sent because um Angie sends them a welcome to Dayton packet with a rental um all the information that they need if they're going to you know stay in the house, do this blah blah blah. Anyway, um if they don't respond and their address is once again not at the the residence, um then she'll send out a rental citation. So, the first few on there are um rental license citations. Um that's about it. I was going to hoping I was hoping you were going to mention his name. What is his name? The guy the inspector that you work with.

Bill. Bill. Okay. I just want to say he inspected our property about a week and a half ago and Doug said that he was very professional and knowledgeable and represents Dayton very well. He does. He never says that about anybody. So, I'm just letting you know. He does. Wow. He's great. [laughter] He is great. We get a lot of compliments on him. I mean, I think people, you know, get a little anxious when they think about somebody coming in and, you know, he he makes them feel very comfortable. He's also a certified appraiser, so he knows probably. He is. He is. Yeah, I went on it on floor with him yesterday and you know he was I just kind of tag along to every once in a while to see how things are going and he does a great job.

Good. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I've heard he's a great great great asset to the city. So, all right. Well, thank you, Miss Patterson. I I don't know if this pertains to you or police or but for the animal control report that we have here. Yes. Um, one of the items on there was sent an email to Dayton admins and council about TNR funding and I know that came up before the the TNR grant has expired or run out of money. What is the current status on the TNR and the cost to the city right now? It's zero. Are they doing any TNR? No. So, straight cats don't get picked up.

Correct. Okay. Correct. I think she plans on coming to a council meeting probably before the next budget to see what, you know, what her options are. Okay. Um, but yeah, we're not doing any DNR right now. Are you issuing any citations for feeding feral cats? There are not a lot of people feeding feral cats right now that I know of. If somebody calls in a complaint, I will. Um I just don't see a lot of it. You know, it used to be I've gotten rid of a couple properties, right? Moved out or whatever. Yeah, I have in the past,

right? um you know, people call and say and typically now that we have Terry, um you know, we'll kind of tag team it. She'll go to talk to them and if they continue then I work with Terry a lot on certain things. But um usually she can kind of get it taken care of. So there has been a great reduction then in the because I know up by the railroad tracks there used to be ridiculous. Yes. I mean, there used to be people that would just sit out, you know, plates all over and [clears throat] Yeah. which attracts skunks and possums and rats and everything else and the plates blow all over and it's just [clears throat] But I haven't had any complaints.

Part of the problem was we had a number of empty abandoned houses. People cats were living there and people are going to those houses, right? But we've taken we've torn down a lot of those like the one on Seventh and the ones up on Boone and Pton Pike. So, right, that's getting rid of some of the issues as well. Yep. Gotcha. Yeah, we haven't had too many problems or complaints that I know of. So, good. Good to hear. Yep. Yep. Any other questions for Miss Patterson? Thank you, dear. Thanks. Thank you. I was going to go like next in age or beauty, but these three back here, there's no choice there. Um,

Mr. Lucas, if you could give your report first since you're dressed for it. I see you got your uniform on. Yep. Well, like always, we're uh we're pretty busy and we're getting a lot of things done. We got all the alleys in Dayton cut back and cleaned and the uh storm drains is all kept clean during and after rains. [clears throat] Um, no snow, so that's good. But, um, we've been we've been staying pretty busy. We're walking trail down on the river starting to look look good.

So, we lost Jordan. He moved to Florida. He's getting ready to move Florida, but we brought on the new guy. So, we have full contingent. Zan is our new young worker. Uh, he's doing a good job. Uh, he used to work at the hardware store in Bellev. Pilot Lumber. Yeah. Pilot Lumber. So, he's he's on board now. And he started I think last week. Yeah. Um on was a Monday, I think. Okay. So, last Monday. So, we all we've got four four folks working with you. So, that's great. We had a full engine. Yeah. Everybody's doing fine. I mean, we had some warm weather. You those guys been finished up cleaning cutting back the alleys. Right. We're we're done with the alleys. That's great.

And um we've done, as far as I know, we got all potholes done in the city. We did more up on Dayton Pike. Um, yeah. Well, I think we're doing Yeah, we're ahead of schedule time. No snow and ice, so and some decent weather. I can I can do without We got plenty of salt on in stock, too. Yeah, I did I did see a report uh I think it was up in Michigan that uh they were running out of salt and it was like $250 a ton was what they were charging because of a shortage up in that area. Yeah, but I mean as long as you got it under contract, I mean they can't raise the price on you.

Gotcha. That's probably um independent player uh people going out and getting salt, helping people out with their little salt boxes on their trucks and stuff like that. Could be like ours. I mean, you know, we can pretty much get as much as that allows our quote at the same price no matter how bad the shortage is. Gotcha. We're uh we're covered on all that. All right. Any other questions for Mr. Lucas? Thank you, sir. Yep. Thanks. The next report I have in front of me is from the fire department, Chief Schaefer.

So, I kind of rolled my monthly end with the year end report. Uh so at the end of the year we ended up making 2,185 runs total. 1,500 of those were EMS. Another 700 were fire. Uh we did have five through structure fires in our cities, respond to several more out of city. Uh last year we trained over 125 people in CPR, which is awesome number. Uh training hours almost 2,700 [clears throat] hours departmentwide. averages out to about 140 per uh per person, 77 inspections and uh we did have over the course of the year we had four members receive special recognition from St. Elizabeth. All four of these were for different occasions but it was for the fastest door in needle time for strokes and these were out of the whole St. Elizabeth healthcare system. So that's you know pretty awesome and honorable. So that was Cory P, John Bulla, Jake Satrillo, and Logan Nance. Um, they received those. We do have two more coming up in February. So testament these guys are training, their hard work, and it's like I [snorts] said, it's paying off for the citizens. It's uh and I actually think the WS both of them were under 30 minutes. So that's a huge benchmark. Uh, one of our newer guys, Andrew Wrath, he completed his paramedic program in December. So, he's in the back of the AMA's riding now. So, that's great. We had our newest hire, got accepted into paramedic class, and just started Monday. So, he's on. Um, past year, Jeremy Lynn was promoted to captain. We had Jordan Ottoay promoted the lieutenant. They've settled in, been doing a great job. We were able to purchase our new uh battery powered rescue tools. We also

were able to purchase a forceful entry prop for training and then um we had our ISO audit once again maintain our class 2 certification. So that's what we had going on last year and it wouldn't stay that busy again this year. Hey Chief, talk a little bit about the fire at the laundry, the Point Laundry where we had to bring in some other departments. what happened there because there was a lot of people saw the smoke and

yeah so what had happened there is and this is still still being investigated but talking to the point they were doing somebody a favor and had brought in a bunch of mop heads they were going to launder so earlier in the day we were called for a drier fire so we got there they had one of their big dryers all the mop heads in there were burning it had burn it broke the glass out of the dryers So, um, our guys took a line in, put that out. While they were getting the smoke out of the building from that one, the dryer next to it caught on fire. The the contents of the dryer caught on fire. So, they put that out or they're getting rid of smoke on that one. The point has those huge bins, probably about 5 foot tall, that they put their used stuff in. So, they noticed one of those starting to smolder. So, we dumped that out. There was a mop head in there that was starting to combust. put that out. Had uh there was representative point there told them that that couldn't we had to get them out of the building. So they took them out back. We they were watered down. Long story short, nobody knows exactly what was on the mops, but there was probably a thousand or so mop heads. We didn't realize outside was just directly out the back door, but so be it. They ended up few hours later those all ignited. So it was a it it was a huge uh header of smoke. I know Newport saw it from up by Memorial Parkway,

right? And so with that, we're trained. You know, we pulled out uh you know, our guys, some of them said is more smoke they've ever seen on a house fire here in the cities. Came in as heavy fire coming out the back of the building. So we just automatically called for additional resources. So he automatically at that point called for a second alarm which that brought in. So long story short at the end of the day we had us Newport and Fort Thomas Southgate and Central Campbell. Uh the fire had gotten in behind the gutter and burned up the roof a little bit but really didn't do any more damage than that. So we're thinking maybe some sort of chemicals were on these mop heads. It was some kind of chemical reaction. We don't know. Almost like self igniting almost, right?

Yeah, it was it was combustion. I know like linseed oil and there's certain chemicals that'll do that by themselves. Mhm. With this, you know, just thousands of industrial mop heads. Hard telling what was what was mixed to combine that. Uh actually, we were fortunate because I guess all the mop heads had arrived Friday. So, took till Sunday before we had issues. But, well, the good news is that the point says they're not going to do mopets anymore. [laughter]

No more favors. But, you know, once once again, you know, testament to our guys that nothing nothing was burnt, nothing was damaged more than when we got there. So, but we we do that a lot. We have different response levels. Usually, anything that comes in as working fire, we automatically get Newport and Fort Thomas. Uh same way in their cities, we respond. It's mutual aid. And then if if we look or feel like it's going to take more than that, we'll bump it up to a second alarm. And so a second alarm is like I said that brings them to Southgate and Central Campbell. Always better safe than sorry. Yeah, you can always turn around and go home. But right a lot of people hear second alarm kind of excited but

you know it's not like a big Cincinnati second alarm brings brings them close to almost 180 people. Second alarm brings us 12. And with your end of year report, total runs for EMS 1,52. Yes. Which is about four a day. That's why we hear so many sirens going through town. Yes. Any other questions or comments for the chief? Thank you, sir. Oh, next uh fireboard meeting is February 26. Yes. and um 6 p.m.

6 pm and that one will be at the Callahan Center. Um I'm the chair of the fire board this year. Um and I want to start alternating between the Callahan Center, which is Belleview's council chambers, and this location here. Uh they're held every two months on the third Wednesday. Yes, I believe it is. So, we'll make that change. Cool. Thank you, sir. Yep. Thank you all. Chief Hatfield, you got anything to say?

I don't have too much to say. Um, you all have my monthly report and I also sent out a yearly report. I guess my question for you guys is there anything that you see in there that I can answer any questions as far as any numbers that pop up?

I do imagine that. Um I noticed 2025 572 parking complaints which is what two a day. Um which has gone down a little bit actually since 2024. Yeah, it's like I said, we just started doing the parking thing uh with the parking app where we're we're able to go online and actually document and go back and look easily look on monthly and yearly report. So, it's a lot more a lot more easier for us to provide those numbers for you guys. So, uh it's we got three years worth. So, it's kind of wait and see and see if it goes up again or if it's just going to continue to go down. So

yeah, we'll have to wait and see on that. I also see 651 traffic citation charges, which is a huge jump from 330 the year before.

Yeah. So yeah, some of those things just being proactive u it's going to lower some of those numbers, too. So you got proactive and some numbers will lower other numbers that uh I mean numbers that jumped out to me was thefts are down just a little bit, domestics are down. Uh disorderly juveniles that is way down. Uh I like seeing that and that's been a steady decrease over the last three years. Those are things that pop out just because we're more visible. I mean, not saying we weren't visible before, but just uh being more proactive, seeing those lights tends to deter activity. So,

yeah. And I think that's reflected with disorderly juvenile counts. Uh in 2023, there were 81. Last year there was or 2024 that went down to 57 and this past year, 2025, went down to 36. Yeah. Which is like a third of what it used to be. And that was a big problem for us. We were just constantly chasing felt like we were chasing kids around. We were being the we were being the parents. You know, the parents were letting them run throughout the city and you know the police department were the parents to the to the kids. Mhm.

And I think also with uh the cameras in the park as a deterrence for behavior for some of that behavior. So, um, in talking about that, I I do want to just give a kudos real quick just with the cameras that we had in the park and the cameras that we had in the school. We already had a an incident uh where a kid thought he would take his Christmas money and go buy a pellet gun that looks like a regular handgun. and I held it next to my Glock and it looks just like a Glock and he displayed it and student saw that and me and Lee went on lockdown and this is what we train to do. We haven't you know this is something that we don't know what's going to happen when it happens but it all fell into place very nicely. uh the school resource officer along with one of our officers at that time and merged together gave commands took him into custody quick lockdown went flaw flawlessly uh with the grade school and the high school uh that's what's supposed to happen and everything went great. I mean I I couldn't be more pleased and how well of a job the officers did, the school did and this turned out really good.

Was great. Could have been worse. Yeah. Thankfully, the juvenile was from Cincinnati, I think. Didn't you say? Yeah. Juvenile wasn't from here. They were visiting somebody uh right next to the school uh who was being homeschooled and got kicked out of the house. That's having some anger issues and some anxiety and decided to pull out his pellet gun and display it. So, he was bad. He was recited and put

he was charged taken to the court designated worker where they make the ultimate decision whether to put him in juvenile detention or release him to the parents. Great job by the force the SRO officer mostly a student for speaking up just saying you know you're not important yeah you say it say see something say something make sure you tell it immediately lock down and everybody's safe we can go in and take care of exactly what happened well done by your staff sir

yeah I appreciate that um just also there's a lot of things to touch on on the year um but I'll get into that a little bit more depth when we have our meeting in March. Our PowerPoint on that. I mean, we've we have so much that we accomplished in 2025. It's it's going to be a a presentation uh to kind of go over everything. So, um we'll do that in March. And also, I'll be doing a multi-year plan. I did a multi-year plan from 2023 to 2020 or I'm sorry, 2022 to 2025, a four-year plan. So that has ended at the end of 2025. So now I'm going to be doing a 2026 to 2030 which you think of 2030 it's like oh my gosh that's that's just four years down the road right

so I will be giving that to you guys also when we get together in March Saturday that Saturday where we all get together and provide that for you. So I think that's that's all I got. Unless anybody had any other questions about the yearly Thank you, Chief. Okay. Again, kudos to your staff. Y city administrators report.

I got a couple things. Uh update on Riverfront Commons. About half of the trail on phase two and phase three is done. They've had some good weather and they're even when they don't have good weather, they can do work without pouring concrete. So, they've been doing that as well. So, um, that's good news. In addition, we have a tree contractor that's taking down trees. Um, and that's about one-third done. They're going to stop for a while. Uh, most of the trees that have been removed or to the on the eastern end of the trail. Um, behind the Manhattan apartments and to where basically the uh SD1 outfall is. Um, so um that's been done and there's I think they had one more tree to take down today that was dead. a lot of dead trees. We have a lot of trees that are in invasive species. We have weed trees that come down the river. The seeds, you know, find their perch there. And so, u the whole idea is to get those down and make it look like the first, um, half mile that we've already done so it can be easier to maintain. And then at some point, we'll probably curate and bring some trees back, but the ones we want to be there and place them in appropriate places that don't block views, but also provide shade in certain areas. So that's probably a project next year and we also do get funding from the conservation service uh for trees. So maybe we can devote some of the grant funding for that. But for right now, we're taking it down so we can kind of curate and and u the type of trees that we want there in in the future. All the other thing is uh chief mentioned it um strategic planning processes. We're starting to think about that. That will be in March. And I've been got two new council members that never been through that process. Um, you haven't been through it, right?

You haven't, right? What did you say? The what process? The strategic planning process. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. You guys were involved in it last year. I forgot. Uh, so that's usually in March. We try to do it um in between the NCAA um conference and before the game starts. We know people. But all depends. Last year we had problems. We people had were out of town and stuff. So hopefully we can get a date. I'll get something out early so you can mark your calendars and hopefully we can get a date set and move on with that.

Any questions for Mr. Faucet? I just have one and it's Jared. This may involve you also on your report with the tank grant. Um KYTC has suggested plat sheets that show exactly where the amenities will be located. Is this related to the uh rerouting the bus line or has that been taken into consideration? That's the problem. So, we're kind of waiting to see whether we're still going to have a bus line because this money is all based on tank amenities. So,

um it's a grant that's been was basically it was kind of lost and uh I guess Bob Yod was working on it. So, he re he Jared revived it. So, we've been working with KYTC about that and so The only thing is now is okay, do we go ahead and move forward with this? I think crow's going to go away, but I think they're going to make an announcement on that here pretty soon, right?

Okay. So,

Okay. And when did you say Tank was going to make the decision on the number 12 bus? If I remember the timeline, I think it's February or March when they make the final. Okay, understood. Because that is, as I said earlier, I think it's one of our biggest assets. From what I've heard is that it's the one that had the most response and most people pleading to keep for the board to keep. So hopefully that pans out for

Gotcha. Thank you, sir. Uh, next audience comments. Anything, gentlemen? You're the audience. I think that they've already that that pro there was a period of comment and that's over. But there was plenty of comment and the mayor sent a letter. I send a we passed a resolution. I sent it to the board. So they have everything here. They've got a lot of comments about it. So I think it's now it's just a decision. They definitely have to cut. Let's hope that this one is not one they cut. They are getting rid of the shuttle. All right. Anything else, Mr. Foster?

That's all I have.

Okay. Any new business by council? Um Erin and I were um discussing the community boards, the boards we wanted to um move forward on setting a meeting and we were in discussing about want to do a meeting for specifically the sports and recreation. But then he had a good suggestion we just do all of them at one time, you know, and we had a date for Thursday, January the 29th in between 6 and 7 right before they have a parks board. I believe they're a meeting at seven after that. So we could put out a all call for all three of the committees to, you know, kind of meet and and then we could go through a fivem minute presentation. That's what I'm going I'm kind of paraphrating what Aaron and I talked about so we don't have to go back and forth, but they have a fivem minute presentation from each committee. Um then we can move the ball further or move the ball forward and getting with um Alex to get some legal to get this thing moving.

Okay. Just let us know when you've got a date set and time so we can probably notice it. Yeah. I think the last piece was Joe was talking before the meeting so we didn't get a chance to talk with him but are if you're free that Thursday evening on the 29th then um we can just roll with that. I'll have to check the schedule if you're already planning on going to the park board. It's just an hour earlier. Well, it's basketball. I I don't know. Okay. Yeah, I've got that schedule at home. I'll try to. Yeah, just let us know as soon as you do. Then um I think uh city staff here is already aware of our interest in using this facility for that time frame. So you're saying your proposal is January 29th at what time? from 6:00 to 7. Yep. And this uh would be here.

Yeah. We're gonna kind of make it anybody interested in finding out more or about or joining uh the committees or any of the boards that already exist out there as well um can learn more about it that evening. I would suggest putting out the all call again. I don't know if you have enough members on both of the boards that you're involved in. Um, we obviously need more volunteerism in town. Um, how you put the word out to open it out to the public, I think is going to be really important. I think maybe the city newsletter could be used for that. Be happy to do it. Let us let us know what you want. We get on Facebook and the newsletter.

My concern is um just make sure that like we get with Alex and legal to make sure that we're doing everything because I know that there was been some concerns raised about where we had the actual meetings that we had to have them in like a public place here. It's just Yeah. Yeah. There's some attorney general's opinions on that. You got to have it in Dayton and it's got be a place that people can access publicly. So if you're doing a private place, people could exclude the property exclude people. So it's better to do it like someplace like Yeah. And and I was envisioning at least that the all call would be part of that, right? So we put an all call out and we also say want to learn more or find out more about this come to this session right and talk about it or email this email address

and find out more um go from there and one last thing with the meeting moving forward with this I'd like to February have more progress done March April so May we have an actual league you know something tangible that we can show from at least six months of working

well That reminds me, and I should have said this in my report, uh, we actually met, city staff met with the Reds Foundation um, on I guess two days ago. Oh, no, yesterday. Um, and, uh, talking about getting funding to redo the fields and we had a great conversation. They said that, you know, it's probably they they're currently doing one in Indiana this year, but they are interested in helping us out and they are seems positive. So, um, definitely the baseball field. We're hoping maybe the softball field, too. And probably would just be infield that they would do. They That's generally what they do. They don't do the whole field. The only field they did was like that was in Cington Mike in field. That's because it's part of the All-Star game in Cincinnati. So, they did it big. But that's really good. If we could get that, that would really improve the U quality of those ball fields. So, that conversation is ongoing and uh continue that.

Yeah. My my last comment or question on the the committee side of things was whether or not we wanted city staff um to attend that session or not. And I was kind of looking to you for that. Uh if you you don't have to, but if any staff wants to attend already. So, but yeah. Yeah. But we can handle it ourselves. But I just I'm I'm giving that invite out. I don't think anything for me, but you're as long as it's public meeting publicly noticed, you're you're on you're good. Perfect. minutes. Yeah, someone should take minutes up.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we decided that the whoever the co-chair is will be the person taking minutes at least in the interm until we get enough volunteers on the board that might be more interested. Um and then the other item related to the strategic planning process. Um I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you about that tonight. Anyways, um are we going to try and gather any citizen input this year in in in preparation for that? Um like do a survey or anything like that? We do. He always does a survey every year. So, we we'll we'll get that. That's part part of the process. Yeah. See, I knew you guys were already on it. I was just checking.

We also try to bring together all the organizations together too before that to kind of get some direction from them about what they want to do and what they see. So, yeah, that's part of that process. And thank you Jared if we could help out not help but assist in the marketing department like Joe and I's committees of marketing and this if we could work with you on this the launch of the survey maybe something like we could get more people involved if we can do like a contest or something to say okay we had this amount of participants last year if we could have a little bit more participants and if we could help you out on that marketing you don't mind cool And tying into that, as far as new business, um, as you said, we're going to we're going to be inviting people to join these boards. And I'd like to note that um, five of our current council members have filed for reelection. Thank you, Miss Kelly. Totally understand. Um, and we also have Ms. Donald Ledger filling in the sixth seat. Uh, and no one running against the mayor. So, we're not going to have much of a race here. We probably won't even put out yard signs. Maybe in our own yard. U, but some of the flashback that you may get as that becomes better known uh, is a you know, shame old. this is a chance for people to step up and at least serve on a committee and maybe onto a board and then maybe next time around put your name in there for election. So, thank you to all the members that have reapplied. I know that um some of our surrounding cities, for example, Fort Thomas is what 14 or 16 people, they're going to have to have a primary for the first time in

crazy forever. Uh Mr. faucet threw his proverbial hat in the ring in Covington. So, we're going to have it kind of easy this time around. Uh but again, if you get any flashback like that, you know, people say it's the same old. We're on the right track. I I really feel that way. Um we've gotten done a lot of the things that we only talked about 10, 15 years ago. And if someone is really that interested, get them on one of these committees. The question I had for you, Mr. faucet is with these committees. I've got a couple of people that I have contacted. Do they have to be approved by the mayor to be on the committ?

Once you have them, we have an order ready to go. Just tell me and he'll sign it. They're on on board. Just to clarify on that. Yeah. Thank you. What did I say? 8:18. Rick, I had a question for Erin Jud. When What time is this meeting? It's Thursday, January 29th at 6 p.m. 6 p.m. Okay. here. Right here. Okie do. So, do we have any other new business? None. In that case, do we have a motion for adjournment? I'll make that motion. Motion by member Neman. A second. Second by Mr. Horton. All in favor? I.