City Council - Regular Meeting

Pretty jealous you guys have lesser fabric on right now. I'm sorry you didn't get I did. Ladies and gentlemen, it's 7:01. I'm sorry for the tardiness, but we are ready to begin tonight's regular city council meeting on July 8th, 2025. Call to order. And now, roll call, please. Member Horton, here. Member Ner, here. Member Nean, here. Member Kelly here. Member Jud present. Member Leven here. City attorney Edmonson here. Assistant administrator Barks here. Mayor Baker here. Full house minus uh Jay who's on vacation. I wish him the best vacation and I appreciate your guys' presence. Uh next up will please have a moment of silence and then we'll do the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of America stands nation. Thanks to everyone for their attention to that matter.

Please pardon me for one second. Next up on our docket, we have the mayor's report. I got a nice little mayor's report today. Uh first of all, I want to let everybody know that we have been working with Red Bike. Uh, you know, I don't know if you remember when Red Bike started about 12 15 years ago. Uh, they kind of did their their initial footprint which uh excluded Dayton. Uh, we've been working with them over the last year or so and uh and working with another community. And so we're picking up one of their lesser used stations for quite the price reduction. Uh we're going to be placing that in the uh possibly in the middle of the city. Uh so uh we'll give people uh access to that share ride system. And what that's going to do for us is it's going to be bringing more people into Dayton to to uh to to buy our our chicken wings to to pick up tacos to uh go to our events. It's also going to give all of our residents a great way to to go around Dayton uh to check out the riverfronts to go out and uh maybe go out beyond our borders. they have tickets to an NFL game, they can go over there with their red bike and uh and and and make that a nice cheap and healthy way to to get to a game. So, we're really excited about that and we're really excited about the cost savings that uh that when you poke around other neighborhoods, yard sales that you find. Uh next up, we have a lot of park renovations that are going on. So, you probably seen what we're doing down at Gillan Park. Uh the majority of the park renovations are going to be done Oh, thank you Jared for that really nice graphic up there. Uh the majority of the park renovations are going to be completed by the end of July. Uh the pickle ball courts will probably be towards the end of August. Uh the Gaga ball pit right there, that's

one of my favorite stories because we started that when we we met with the children's council, we'll call it student council, the student council of uh of Lincoln. uh in Dayton High School and they said they wanted a Gaga ball pit. So we we we got this gaga ball pit for them and we thought thought it was done. But then one day I was at Hansman's grabbing my daily turkey sandwich as I do. And this little young woman comes up to me and she's like, "Aren't you the mayor?" I'm like, "Yes, ma'am, I am." And uh she's like, "You installed a gaga ball pit." I was like, "Yes, yes we did." And she said, "Look at my my knuckles." and they were they were blood red. I was like, "What's up with that?" It's because the way she was scooping the ball. So, uh we worked with some people and we're going to have that rubberized. So, uh hopefully her knuckles won't be so uh beat up and she's still going to have a lot of fun. Uh but just goes to show that uh we we do listen and no matter where you see us, whether it's city council meetings or whether it's uh Anson's Market getting a turkey sandwich, we're going to listen to to what you care about. Uh all the basketball reports going to be resurfaced. Got a lot of nice new trees going in thanks to public works who are working out in the hot summer sun. Appreciate that. All done. All right. You're watering frequently, I'm sure, because you're good stewards of trees. Excellent work, sir. And that's going to that's going to be a game changer when we see these trees starting to uh mature down by uh the entrance to Dayton on on Mary Engles. That's a That's going to be beautiful. That's great. Seven trees down there. So, as you can see, we have a a lot of things are going on in our parkets parks and uh this is all coming under budget, which

is really great. Uh Jared, how much under budget is this? Uh currently it's about I'd say $60,000 under budget. That's That's a good use of taxpayers money. $60,000 under budget. Uh Sergeant Park continuing with a park theme. We're going to have the grand reopening of the Sergeant Park. So, that's going to be coming up here on S Sunday, July 20th at 11:00 a.m. If you'd like to stop by, hike the trails, check out the work that we've been doing over the last few years, we will provide you with lunch and drinks and prizes. Uh, not at park. What? Hi. What time What time did you say? Uh, that's 11:00 a.m. Okay. Thanks. So, July 20th, 11 a.m. not a park, but part of the idea is uh the state finally approved Riverfront Commons. Uh this is phase three, which is going to connect the current path at the marina all the way down to Mary Engles Highway and past uh yeah, past Riverside Marina. I I I can't thank enough people for the work, the the years of state federal work that this has done. Uh some of those people are out there in the crowd tonight. Uh Will, Mike, you guys have been great partners for Dayton and Mike's going to get a chance to talk about it a little bit later, but uh just wanted to let you guys know that that is going to be completed and uh also I believe under budget. So, thank you guys for your your work on on that major piece of uh infrastructure. Last thing that I have uh before uh we

get on with the council meeting is we will have an ordinance read tonight for paving and this also came under budget almost 300,000 as uh we are starting to work alongside Dayton I'm sorry Belleview and combining our funds to get better discounts. So uh Mike's also going to give that that uh that update as we uh go along with tonight's meeting. So, that is my lengthy mayor's report and I appreciate your attention. Next up, we have an approval of minutes. Would anybody like to motion? I'll make a motion approve minutes. Member Horton has made a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Second by member Jud. All in favor? I I Any nays? Any abstensions? moves forward. Uh, next up, we'd like to welcome John Chamberlain uh on the city of Dayton financial statement audit for the fiscal year ending on June 30th, 2024. John, thank you for your uh joining us tonight. Thank you very much, Mayor. I appreciate it. My name is John Chamberlain. I'm a CPA and partner at Chamberlain Owen and Company and we're a CPA firm in Erlanger that specializes in audits of governments, governmental entities, city governments and so we appreciate the opportunity to do the work for the city of Dayton. Um, uh, Jared and Jay and Tristan and your staff have taken great care of us uh, and provided us with things that we need. We're u I think Tristan probably be attest to this. We're pretty annoying. We ask for a lot of things and so uh we do appreciate their uh uh their working with us. Um we've given what's called an unmodified opinion. Go to the next slide. given what's called an unmodified opinion, meaning there are no modifications to

the opinion that are required. And that um that means that after we've done all the work that we're required to do, uh we believe that your financial statements as presented are fairly stated in all uh in accordance with government accounting standards. Uh and that's the highest opinion that we give as a part of every governmental audit. Uh we do a review of internal controls. We want to make sure that your risk assets are protected. uh through segregation of duties and we had no issues there. Um we did give what's called a uh a material weakness in in over financial reporting and uh it really just stems from when we came in to audit uh we're really having to close your books for you uh lack of a better term. Uh we made a lot of adjustments. Normally an auditor should come in a very clean audit. We wouldn't make any. It's not unusual for us to make one or two. You'll in the next slide that we made a lot of adjustments and so um in our in our estimation your financial statements weren't appropriately ready to be audited. Now let me kind of tell you how that comes about just a little bit and that is you're into a lot of things as a very small city. Okay, you're doing a lot and that's good. Good on you. That's that's phenomenal. Um now when you do a lot you have to have the accounting function. Okay so anytime you anytime you grow as a city you expand you expand the things that you do you need to expand your accounting function as well. Okay it can't be a part-time function needs to be a full-time function. So now that doesn't necessarily mean a full-time employee but that just means there needs to be full-time attention. Okay. So, um, so I've given I've talked to Jay and Jared and Tristan about, you know, some of the things that we recommend and they're taking some of our ideas and and and running with them. They have ideas on their own about things that we can do to solve that issue. So, um, just wanted

to let you know that because that is a relatively significant item to be, uh, for a weakness to have. As a part of every governmental audit, we also do a review over compliance. Uh that would be compliance with uh contributions to service your required contributions uh payroll taxes uh bond debt uh financing debt anything like that and there were no issues of non-compliance that we need to report uh Jerry show the next slide. This slide's a little busy, but this just shows we make one planned adjustment every year to net position uh to to um you have a uh a joint venture with the city of Belleview uh to really own and run the Belleview Dayton Fire Department and uh they have to have an audit of their own. So, we have to wait for their audit to be completed to put that in your financials. That's why these are always a little later. Um but uh so we we make that adjustment every year. We would expect to make that one. And then under that you see we make adjustments to the general fund and you know most of those are not small adjustments. So that's that's where we're talking about we really shouldn't be making that many adjustments. If you'll show the next slide as well Jared these are to the smaller funds the tiff the park fund mun road aid and so there's just quite a few adjustments each one of those funds that are required here that were required this year. All right, the next slide. Uh, this is your asset comparison for your governmentwide statements. So, this is across all of your funds. It shows your the green bar is your cash position. Uh, the blue bar is your capital asset position. You see your capital asset, that's net of depreciation, and that uh is pretty consistent over the last five years. Your cash position has grown steadily each year. Uh, this year, uh, your cash position went up, uh, about $70,000 compared to last year. So, That's a good uh that's a good solid

increase in cash position. Uh we'd like to use the uh GFOA, the Government Finance Officers Association. Uh they have a suggested rule of thumb that about three months worth of operating expenses. Uh you need to have about that much in cash on hand to cover about three months worth of operating expenses. Uh for the city of Dayton, three months of operating expenses is right at $1.6 million. Uh you have 4.7 million in unrestricted. So you have almost nine months of cash on hand. So a very solid uh cash position for the city. Uh the next slide shows the debt comparison. Uh the yellow are your current liabilities. Uh those uh reduced about $426,000 from the prior year and that's mainly uh the ARPA funds that you received that the city received. Uh those have been deferred uh for the past couple of years. They've been sitting on the balance sheet as deferred revenue. We actually recognized 420 um $496,000 of of ARPA funds in the current year. You'll see that again here in a minute in revenues. Uh but that reduced the current uh liabilities for those deferrals. So there's about $57,000 remaining in deferred revenue for ARPA funds. Uh the red is your capital lease. I'm sorry. Red's your capital lease uh for the fire truck. for the uh Dayton Belvy fire truck and that's getting paid off as we would expect based on the uh the amortization schedule. Uh that's about $152,000 remaining and of course this is a June 2024. So this is a little bit stale, but that's right where we would have expected. Uh the green is your investment in the Belleview Dayton Fire Department. Um and that's this is always a large liability number because they have net pension liability just like you do. And uh so that a large negative number on their balance sheet which makes a makes your investment basically

and because it's a fire district it's all hazardous duty so they have um then the orange one more and then there it's quick is that a hint the orange is the uh net pension and oped liability and you can see that dropped pretty significantly this year uh any investment or any pension fun fund. Uh you have a pool your investment balance or the the uh u sorry your portfolio uh your portfolio is based on the the value of the stock market right so when the markets are high your net pension liability to pay off all those employees and so this was measured at June 30th 2023 uh good stock market performance at June 3023. So a significant jump or significant decrease uh in the net pension and oped liability. We'll expect a similar decrease for 2025 year and for 26 year because the 26 year will be measured was measured uh this past last week. So and the market hit a high last week. So uh so we would expect those to continue to step down in both 25 and 206. Uh the next slide is just revenues versus expenditures and this is all governmental funds. See revenues is the green line about $7.4 million. That's a 6.2% increase over the prior year. Again that $496,000 of ARPA funds. You know that a little bit. Um then the expenditures right at 6.4 million about 5.9% over the increase over the prior year and uh you had about 137,000 expenditures in urban renewal and $152,000 of capital improvements. So you really see that there's a some some

good expenditures in that fund. Um so that's right at about a $1 million gain or net income if you will um this year compared to right at about the same number 109 last year. Next slide is just revenues by source. That's interesting. Something missing. Um the top line should say revenues right at $7.4 million. Uh tax revenue at $2.8 million. And there's a slight decrease in that uh due to some of the tiff tax revenues being lower this year. That might be a timing issue. I'm not exactly sure why uh those were lower this year. So we're going to look at that again next year. But all of your other property tax, uh your uh motor vehicle tax, most of those all increase. So um the franchise tax, utility, all those increase. Licenses, permits at $2.6 million, about a 9.7% increase. The intergovernmental at 787,000 that's about a three and a half% increase. That's uh your ARPA funds that were recognized. That all runs through that again. Uh the next slide is expenditures by department. So total expenditures of $6.4 million about a 5.9% increase. Uh the police at 1.6 million about a 6 and a.5% increase. Fire and EMS at 1.1 million about 3.2. Uh professional services right at a million dollars. Uh about a 75% increase. And u a lot of that were tiff fund um professional services things that you did in the tiff fund. And then uh the Orleans development for the Ramy building. Some of those I think that was about $100,000 or $200,000. So that uh that bumped up those professional services as well. And then a capital outlay about $152,000 this year uh compared to about $766,000 last year. So a little less in capital

outlay this year than last year, which is normal. You do that in cycles. These next couple of slides are just uh some annual comparisons kind of going back five years to like police expenditures for five years. And you can see right there about a $400,000 increase but not uh not a dramatic increase year-over-year. Uh fire expenditures the same way for the next slide about 3.2% increase in the current year. Uh public works expenditures they tend to jump around a little more. Some things get classified as as capital assets and some things as public works. So this this slide kind of jumps around a little bit hard to quantify. And then the last slide should be your general government expenditures uh about 13% increase in 781,000 over the last. We did provide uh city council with uh copies of the financial statements. I know there's one correction that you pointed out that we'll make and we'll send you we'll want to correct it. small correct number in the notes. U it's a percentage on the bottom on the bottom bomb tip and we'll uh we'll uh the percentages were incorrect. So we'll update that and send that out. Thank you for for catching that. We appreciate that and um but um and then you also should have received a governance letter at some point. So it's a letter from us to you and that really concludes our presentation. Are there any questions or is there anything that we can answer about the financial statements or this process? Actually, um well, first on the fire truck lease or the fire truck note, I know this this is 2023 2024 statement uh that was paid off earlier this year out of the

from the fire department. So, so that relieves us of that. Um point one of the issues I always have I'm not an accountant but reading our budget every month is it seems very conflated because we put in grant restricted funds. So, if it's a 8020, uh, we've got, you know, $5 million in our in our operating budget and then our, you know, and have it expected to be repaid once the project is done and then we have to also allocate our 20%. Looking at the way that we do our books, would it be wise to separate out those grant restricted funds into a separate fund? for tracking purposes mostly because some of some of the grants by the time they come through uh with the delays price has gone up. Sure. Um you're not wrong to do it that way. Um and that is a good way to manage things. I personally like funds because self balance if you like your municipal road aid that's all of your municipal road cash in municipal road expenses out. So it's a good way to manage that. silo if you will. So we we think we like a fund. Um you know your these guys opinion might be slightly different to have a separate fund for that might make things more complicated for them. Um but uh you know that's something that again that's kind of where having an accounting function on a regular basis could manage something like that within your city you know and answer that help answer that question for you throw it back a

little bit but uh kind of understand what I'm saying but yes uh a separate fund would help manage that better. Um the issue in a separate fund. You really have the same problem is if you have four grants in one fund, right? You know, you still can mix and mingle four grand fund. It would be easier to track. I'm just looking at the total budget number that we have has really gone up quite a bit percentage wise, but a good bulk of that is these grant restricted funds that were either in progress, let's say. So, it looks like the city's spending a ton more money. In actuality, we are, but they're capital improvements there. This might be this might not be the best forum to talk about this, but there is on your balance sheet places to put, you know, on page 12 of your balance sheet look at um there's places to put committed, assigned, restricted, committed funds. Okay. Um just the balance of So assets minus the liabilities and that's the net asset or but it will but it will show you what's restricted for this particular this particular thing and and you can use those separations in your uh in your trial balance. set up committed or assigned amounts of your total funding. I'm just asking for your opinion on it if it's better. There there are multiple ways of doing it and I just think like the way I would like, you know, I would like it done a nice pretty clean way that's always really easily identifiable where what might be convenient for people who actually have to work with it every day

might like something. So that's where I don't really want to answer that question exactly because you know what I what I want and what they want might not always might not always jive because you know I always want something to be as clean and pretty as possible and for them it might be easier if it's all in one in one fund. I'll dig into it with staff. I was just asking your opinion on it. That's all. But there is there's no wrong way other than not not managing. Good question. Thank you so much. Yeah, I have a question. Uh, a couple quick ones. Um, and it's less about the content and more about just general relationship with uh your ter with your firm. What are the contract terms with your firm currently for doing audits? The contract terms like Yeah. So, how how long? We do an we do an annual contract. annual contract. Okay. Is there a max term that we can have with you before we need to switch auditors? Um quite honest, oh no, there's not a max like a maximum now. You're not required to change auditors. Okay. At all. Um in fact that's uh probably um 10 years ago let's say 15 years ago uh the u the PCAOB who manages public accounting for large corporations made a suggestion to that every fir everybody every uh publicly traded company should switch auditors every five years and u they quickly they quickly backtracked on that because that was their leading source of audit failure was um was auditors who didn't understand. So it's a really bad way of managing an audit. What we do to get around that is uh we change audit seniors every so many years. So the person who's in here

running the work will be different than the person every so many you know so maybe five years ago was a different so that's um that's how we get around that where we audit and then I'm around for continuity so I understand the things in the back of the financials the notes and say yes I know what that I know how that works and that's usually the way you get a new senior audit. The other problem you might have is there are very few I'm just saying it's it's true. Y and then my next question is um this looks like it took about 13ish months um from the time that the financials closed. Is that typical? No. No. Um we so we were done with this in late May I believe was kind of when we finished it. Uh some of that was me. I was out of town for a little bit. Really probably could have been late April if it weren't for me. Um but um the uh the difficulty we had in performing the audit for all the adjustments that was really issue that that was a delay. We don't start on yours until later because our assumption was these things were going to be adjusted for us. someone was going to have this adjusted then we would start the December frame and we came in and it wasn't like okay um most generally to answer that question more succinctly generally most of our audits occur somewhere between

September and December very few audit reports for June 30th especially our municipal Okay. So, would you expect a similar turnaround time or a more normal turnaround time for next for this coming year? has passed. I'm I'm hoping for a a quicker turnaround time and and like I said, hopefully with what Jay and Jared and Tristan what they're doing to improve with the uh with your consult. Other than that, I really liked uh all the information you provided and the way it was presented. So, thank you. Thank you very much. Good questions. Thank you for anybody else. John, I appreciate your uh keeping us uh keeping us on the right side and uh thank you for your time tonight, man. Thank you very much, Mayor. Appreciate it. Take care, sir. Next up, we have uh city engineer Mike Jagger, who's going to be uh speaking on the ongoing and upcoming public capital improvement infrastructure projects right here in the city of be. Thank you, mayor, and good evening, everyone. Thanks, Mike. U Mike Jagger. I'm with Compass Infrastructure Group. Uh I'm the face city engineer, but we've got 45 other people that that are here working for the city day in and day out, just depending on what what's coming up. But happy to be here. provide some updates. Um, I think one thing with the grants that's good news is uh finally get some of these things moving. So, we're getting very close to really the three largest grants that are on the books with Roofront Commons and Dayton Pike. Um, so hopefully you won't have that issue again, but also we hope that we do run into that issue again because we've submitted a couple more grants and waiting to hear back in October for the

next round. So, what got them moving? Yeah. what got them moving all of a sudden through KYTC. Um just persistence I think and and just jump through all the hoops that a lot of times the federal money is is um it's great because you get 80% of it funded and you can stretch stretch your budget and get more things done but there's a very lengthy process you got to go through all the hoops and it's just staying on top of it and um making sure that ours is the higher priority over the other hundreds that they've got to deal with. I I I think the answer is the team. Uh the Jay Fosters of the world, the Mike Gaggger of the world, the people that we have pushing Dayton down in Frankfurt and I I've been with you guys on trips down there. We go down there and we we meet with these people and we talk to them and say, "Hey, do you know what we're doing up here?" That's, you know, Mike Mike is humble when he says the word persistence, but he is persistent and uh so is our team. So, uh that that's the answer to your question, sir. as a team. Appreciate I appreciate them. We can go right in. So, first slide up here is um it's going to be led as one project, but but phase two was led, it's probably been three years ago now, and the budget came in um over budget. It was done by a different firm. So, that's one of the first things we started to work on was uh redesigning that after talking with contractors to figure out why those prices were so high. Uh so, value engineering middle section phase two and then at the same time we start on phase three and using those lessons learned from phase two um to get that where it needed to be. So those are actually it's on the agenda for tonight. So assuming we get a positive um vote on that. What will happen is we'll sign the document send it down to Frankfurt and then as soon as they sign it then they turn around and give us authorization to

go out to bid for construction. So, we've got those bed documents and plans ready to go as soon as we get the authorization. We've got the dates set and um we have it have it back. Hopefully, the uh I guess the proposals come in under budget like we've been seeing here recently and and we can start construction. So, um if all that happens, we'll start this fall and have a a time frame of around May for completion, but it could be even sooner than that. Um, all that in mind, we've got the river comes up and down, so we've got to, you know, work around that schedule, too. So, it all depends on what mother nature does, but we're very excited that this one is is ready to get going. And so, the other one is we submitted two grant applications to OKi in June. Um, both uh also related to Riverfront Common. So, one would be to redo the upper trail on on the levey itself. And instead of just uh resurfacing that, it would also widen that out and also provide connectivity down uh close to the Mary Engles and uh down to the road network. The other one is to do the connector from the upper trail down to the lower trail um at the street connector. Um and so those both were submitted. It's difficult to see there, but they're both SNK projects. Uh the tricky part is that they had 10 applications of 19 that total 19 million $19 million in total and they've got $7 million available. So it's it is a very competitive process. A lot of times I know they don't like award. So really fingers crossed hopefully we get one or the other and they may even come back and ask ask us what the priority will be. So that will be announced early in October. Sometimes they'll um let you know what the rankings are late in

September. So we're a couple months out finding that out. But uh fingers crossed that we get get some more money to front. That's the just an aerial view of what the I think everyone's familiar with what what that upper path looks like. Um you can it gets used every day. So, it just if we can get that widened out, I think it'll just really enhance that and even get more more frequent use out of it. And then the connector there, um, Berry Street is there at the bottom right of your corner corner of the screen. And so, we've got all the developments planned, but there is an ement that was well thought out and planned for uh that goes in between the development. Um, and then once we get down there, the I want to point out is this would be ADA accessible as well. So that's why it kind of chases so far. It's not a direct shot. Pretty steep drop off. So um generally that's what that path would look like so that we can get ADA accessibility down to uh the lower path. The other good news is resurfacing bids. And so the city has been very strategic with this as well. So ever since I've started, we've done a joint resurfacing contract with Belle and In general, the more larger projects you get, the the lower the unit cost you get for pricing. So, it's it's another way the city's been stretching their resurfacing budget. Um, the way we set this up was we we had kind of some streets prioritized and just in case the budget came in high and and we're very excited that they didn't come in high, so we're able to get all those. The list of all the streets that we we'll do is is there on the left. Um, also there on the right just to point out Fallon between 6th and 9th is included. And so the city boundary between Dayton right down the

middle. So that's in there also. And it's right down the middle. So that will be done as well. 5050 match on the cost. The one section of this and we can go to the next slide too is the Kentucky 8x reroute. And so this is that been in the works for a while now. So stretch uh we want to get 8X away from the school especially with the new stadium being built and just all that additional traffic. So we've been coordinating with KYTC on that. Part of that deal was they agreed to it but they had just resurfaced the existing ADEX. So they wanted to do a swap and make sure that the city resurfaced that put put that in good shape before they took it over. And so that is included in our scope of work and that'll that'll be done. Um it's gone out of the district office, so it's down in Frankfurt to get the official order signed there. Um but they're confident that they'll be able to get all the signs and everything updated before school starts. So that's in the works and they the latest update this week is that they feel confident that that the signs will be able to be updated before school starts. So excited about that as well. Dayton Pike. Um, so there was a pretty significant sinkhole on the street that had surfaced just the water district has had problems out there for quite some time. Uh, it was leaking and shout out to council and shout out to make sure water district knew about it and even though they've got a project it's going to start here in a few weeks, they went out and fixed that. It was a pretty serious issue. Um, With this sidewalk project that we've got, we wanted to make sure that the water district came in and fixed their issues so that we didn't come in and build new infrastructure and then have them come in and have to tear it out when there's

another break. So, that's it's kind of pushed this project back a little bit. Um, but I think in the end it was the right way to do it and and get everything done correctly. So, their design is good. They even this week so they're on track where the the water is going to start in August and it's going to take about two months for them to get done. Um we are really pushing for the sidewalk project to be ready to go right as soon as they're done and roll right into that. Um I will point out that there's going to be some closures on Dayton Pike uh during the water main installation because it's right up in the middle of the road. So it's not like we keep track traffic on one side of the other. So one of the big things that we coordinated with Northern Kentucky Water District is we've got to have a very clear and detour route and that we've got to have plenty of notice to get out to the resident. So, as a contractor selected and we know timing and and what that detour is exactly going to be, we'll get that out so that we can make sure that blast that out and people don't get caught off guard with that. Um, with Dayton Pike, the design is done. Um, what we call disturb limits is how far out construction actually goes. A lot of times it's the grade work, but um as you're going up taking pike, the sidewalk's going to be on the right hand side and connect. We've got some pretty steep driveways over there already. So when you flatten that out for the sidewalk, it it makes that a little bit steeper. So in order to prevent cars scraping and things like that, some of those driveways are going to have to be regraded out as well. So it's what's called a temporary easement. Um but where where we are right now is is prime. I think this week is going to give me the have the disturb limits marked so that I can start going out and knocking on doors and letting folks know exactly what the impacts will be and then hopefully getting consent and release form signed where they give the contract with the permission to get on the property do that redo the driveway.

So that's the last piece we have on the sidewalk project. And then once that's done, we can submit everything to KTC for approval and get that ready to go out to bit hopefully right behind the waterwork. And then Grant Park storm water project. So this is uh it's a it's another success that I think the city should be proud of. Jay worked on this for a long time with uh the homeowners association. And so if you've been out there, there's, you know, pumps and things weren't tied in. Ground water was constantly pumping up out of the street in in the curb line. And then in the winter months, it was just like an ice skating rink out there. So, um, we did kind of I guess it was we didn't do the whole street just so we did a small section of the road just to show that it would work. I don't know if you've been out there, but as soon as the the new um piping system under drains were installed, the very next week it rained and two days later you got there and the curb lines were wet everywhere except exactly where the pipes were installed. I mean, it was like clear as day exactly did exactly what it was supposed to do. Um so I think we can use that model if we want to to continue that on in other areas. And now like when new subdivisions are put together, that's why the subdivision rags are the way they are. Those just for that very reason to prevent that happen. So, um that also was a grant with SD1. So, it's 5050 match. So, another good way the city extended their budget to get another very important project of 7th Avenue. So, this is one um the road's in really really poor shape and it's just because of the landslide that's taking place there the of seven street. Um we a couple of years ago now with the municipal road a couple different ways

you can take the money. You can either get a set amount or you can take a little bit of a lesser amount and then you're eligible for emergency funds. So we knew this was coming up. So we did we took that lesser amount and then we're able to use that to parlay that in to get the money needed to do the design and geotech geotechnical investigations to do the retaining wall. So the design and everything paid for with that extra emergency funds. It's there. Um the difficult part is it's, you know, it's a $500,000 construction project. So, we're knocking on doors and looking for any kind of grant funding we can, any kind of funding source to get that paid for because it's such a steep price tag. So, it's ready to go. We're thinking about CDBG funding. We're talking to elected officials looking for any any source of revenue we can find to get that done. It's ready to go once we find and then just parlay on the Gillan parts by basketball court and then again the cost came in quotes came in low so we were able to get the resurfacing included as well. Um this is the schedule day just provided so it looks like on Monday they're going to start the excavation and then we weeks of of install and then there's a process you've got to wait four to five weeks before you put that final coating on you got to let the settle before you do that. So they're going to basketball court towards the end of the month and then another month later. That was another good success story here recently that prices came in the way they did. Seventh Avenue storm water project. So there's a proposed development a little bit further I guess west on seventh street and then there on the right of

the screen there's an alley that goes down and it just takes a sharp 90. It's a area where water ponds regularly get into people's that live there on the north side as well. So, um that the developers got plans to do bas behind the property there. And so, originally we had looked at putting in some new inlets uh and piping and tying into the combined sewer system. Um, but now that we know they're putting in the detention basin, we can put in new inlets and pipe it straight to their detention. But this is another one too where we've got to wait until they do more work. We don't want to come in and redo the alley and put that stuff in and have heavy coming in and out tearing it up. So the latest I heard on that is if they could still start this year and then as soon as they get their facilities in, this will be another one to get the new piping in and then also redo that alley. make that more of a usable roadway network. And third in Walnut, that is where we've got other significant flooding happening. Just everything runs down. It used to just pond over in the grass area. When the development came in, it just dumped everything into that property there on Third Walnut. We're going to put two, it's hard to kind of see, but just on the south side of Third Street, there's going to be two new storm inlets that are going to be installed that'll catch all that water before it gets down there, take that into the system and keep it from getting into her home and causing flooding. And so that's also a 5050 match with SD1, but recently they changed their guidelines and then they've got different criteria. And so if it's a really serious situation now they can fund it above

50%. And so this one has a very good chance of being funded 100%. So there may be no match for the city at all and it could be completely 100% on their dime. So fingers crossed I think we've got a good shot that may happen too. That would be Riverpoint. This is a similar issue that we've got um to where we got really significant icing issues in the winter. And so this is basically install a new storm inlet in the street yard in the yard and then piping to take that water down over the hills in the winter icing issue. And this is another one. So there's um connection up to the trail. And this is the second. And so this one is one that our survey crew has got scheduled now to go out and just we need to mark the property corners just so when the contractor comes in, our annual concrete maint without their property. So this is another one that'll be completed this year, but it'll provide activity the from the trail. Yeah. So, there's there's a swap of behind the properties there on second and then there's like all city

It could. And then we may put a little pipe in there for it'll tie all that. That's it. That's it. Now go on for another half hour, Mike. Come on. Sorry. I don't know. I'm looking at all these projects you just listed and this is the stuff we've been waiting on for years. Correct. That's great. Um, with the new stadium down here and all the construction going on, u Rick, I think you were involved with the discussions with the school district. Mike, I don't know if you were about repaving Third Street. Is the school district going to be repaving Third Street? Okay. To repave that block. Yeah. Because they got to repay they got

to put paving down for their two new parking lots anyway. And then on Clay Street between third and fourth, there's there's now a gap about this much from where they put the sidewalk in out to the street. Right now it's behind the fence, but I'm presuming they're going to fill that in, too. Okay. They're talking about, you know, the grand opening a month from now and there's not many pieces left down there at the stadium to put together. Looks like they're about done. So, I just want to make sure before the contractor pulls out that that that's taken care of. The other thing that they are going to cover it or be responsible, they could piggy back on your resurfacing project and use the same contractor and I'm sure they get better pricing doing it that way. So, it's worth having that conversation, too. Thank you. Any questions for Mike? Oh, that's that's extensive, man. You guys do a lot of great work for the city of Dayton. We really appreciate it. Uh We're just years ahead of where we were before, like Councilman Ner was saying. So, appreciate your work. Thank you. That's the end of presentations. Uh we'd like to now open up the podium for anybody who'd like to come from the public and make conversation, questions, comments, concerns with city council, administration on things that are on tonight's agenda. Uh so this is again for the ordinances and resolutions are on tonight's agenda. You're welcome to address those currently. So the podium is yours if you'd like. So come on Will. You know you want to. There's another public comment section at the end.

That's it. What's that? from anybody if it fair guards the ordinances that we're going over this evening. If it's just a general conversation, then that's held towards the end. Oh, I Well, I might be out of order here then. Well, let's not keep you out of order. What What's it regarding? Well, uh, a lot of things. There's probably a lot of You don't know who I am. I've lived in the city of Dayton for 48 years. Um, I've probably paid the city over $120,000 in taxes since I've been living here. So, if you give me a few minutes, um, when I first moved to Dayton was a town where you really didn't have to leave town. You had everything you needed in this town. Believe the same way. And probably in 1980 things started to change. We had a Kroger store in Dayton. We had uh two drugstores in Dayton. We had two banks in Dayton. We had a post office in Dayton. We had chiropractors in Dayton. We had dentists. We had doctors in Dayton. We had a hospital in Dayton. And over the course of time, things have changed. Now, I'm really happy with the way this city's starting to move now. You know, I think the big thing we had to get started was a flood wall because this building probably wouldn't even been here if this flood wall hadn't been built. Probably been underwater. Most certainly. So, things had to be done. And I think the way this started, I think Bill was mayor at that time.

So I know bonds had to be taken out. Uh houses had to be purchased, moving expenses had to be paid, and in order to get this flood wall built, uh the guy that lives around the corner from me, his wife works at the law firm that was in charge of all the legal work. and a a gentleman from South Korea, I believe, was how does a guy from South Korea find out about Dayton, Kentucky? But anyway, he was good, he was going to start developing the flood wall and then with this uh infrastructure and the sewage and there was a lot of going on there and he pulled out. So now u it's getting developed. So, but a lot of concessions had to be made in order to get this plug wall built and uh usually it has to do with taxes. But anyway, we got it done. It's and the city's a lot better off because of that. The property values have gone up. you know, we were able to build this new high school down here and a beautiful football field, which we couldn't have done before. So, anyway, u like I say, concessions had to be made, but we're picking it up on the back end, correct? I I don't think the city really recently got anything for the property back there. Am I correct on that as far as money? behind the flood wall. Yes. That was 40 years behind my time. Okay. Well, I in order to get that developed, like I said, things Oh, the current one.

Yes. No, we we we didn't give any money, right? But you're making it up on the back end with taxes and everything, correct? Well, it's a TIFF program. And and truthfully, sir, and you asked about keeping it right in order. Uh that would be later comments tonight. Okay. This is this this time is typically set for people who want to address the the three ordinances that we have to speak this evening. Okay, I'll step back and then I'll come back up. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so does anybody from the audience like to discuss the ordinances that we have on the agenda for the evening? Not. All right, we're go ahead and uh move right along. Uh first the second reading. Uh so this is the second reading of ordinance 2025-3. Miss K client, please. An ordinance amending chapter 50 of the city of Dayton code of ordinances titled garbage to reflect changes to the city solid waste removal and recycling policies as a result of the city's new solid waste and recycling contract with Rumkey of Kentucky Incorporated. We have a motion to accept the second reading orders 2025-3. I'll make that motion. Member Neman's made a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. Member I didn't know which one it was. We'll go ahead. Member Horton. Uh any convers conversations, questions, thank you for updating this. And it's interesting to watch between Belle and Dayton that distribution of garbage cans. That was like a concentrated war effort. They're putting them all out. Um, and I see people starting to try the recycling that were against it before. So, huge step forward. And I know this ordinance includes uh having to have lids on your garbage

cans and I know it's going to be a load for code enforcement to ramp that up, but much appreciated getting that updated. I guess just a general comment. Um, in the prep materials, I didn't see where there was a red line version at all for this for this item. Did I miss that somewhere? Yeah, I had the same question this morning. So, instead of redlinining it, he has amended and appealed the entire ordinance and put this one forward. So, that's why there's no red. We have a motion and a second. I roll call, please. Member Leven. Member Horton. I. Member Ner. I, member Neman. I, member Kelly. I, member Jud. I, the eyes have it. Next on the docket, order resolution 2025-1414, Pete Rose. There's that name again, Romeo. Miss Klein, please. an order resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into agreements with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to construct phase two and phase three of the Riverfront Commons River's Edge hiking and biking trail in an amount not to exceed $2,13,94. 80% of which is payable from a federal sync grant and 20% of which is payable from the city of Dayton's fiscal year 2526 capital improvement fund. So, we've had Would we have a motion to accept 2025-14 Romeo? I'll make the motion to accept 2025 14R. Member Kelly's made the motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. Member Loveven has made a second which opens up for comments, questions, concerns. What should we do on this, Mr. Weber?

So, do you have any questions, comments, concerns? No, I think it's great that this is finally, thanks to you for being persistent on it, thanks to Mike and your firm and administration. This is great to finally get this started. It is a team. It is a team. Any other questions, comments, concerns? And just one clarifying comment. Um, these funds have already been set aside, correct? Yes, they're in the budget. Yeah. Anyone? Anyone? Roll call, please. Miss Klein. Member Jedi. Member Levens. Hi. Member Horton. Hi. Member Ner. Hi. Member Neman. Hi. Member Kelly. Hi. The eyes have it unanimously. That's big. Next up, order resolution 2025-15. Romeo. Miss Klein, please. an order resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with Miracle of Kentucky and Tennessee playgrounds in the total amount of 200,000 to supply and install playground equipment at Gillan Park. 100,000 of which is payable from the city park tax and capital improvement funds and 100,000 of which is payable from a contribution to the city of Dayton from the city of Dayton Independent Schools. Do I have a motion to accept order resolution 2025 Romeo? Make a motion to accept. Member Hordes has made a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. Member Love has made a second. So, time for conf comments, conversations, and questions. I have a few slides uh to go over for this project. So, like she said, the playground, which there's a photo of it here, um the total cost is $200,000. The

city put out an RFP asking vendors what they could do for $200,000. We received $100,000 from Dayton schools. 60,000 is going to come from the general fund and 40,000 is coming from the park fund which is all in our budget. Uh it was placed in a competitive bid process because it's over $40,000. Uh we received four bids and they had two designs each. So, we had eight different designs to choose from. Um, the city staff met with the schools and this was the one that was by and far the best. Um, Tristan and I have also worked with this company in our former city. So, we know how they operate and we were very impressed with what they showed us before. So, we were happy that they were awarded the bid for this project. Um, if you do decide to approve this tonight, this will be on the September schedule for them. So, it'll be after school starts, but that's the soonest that they can get to it because they have several other cities in line already. Um, here's another photo of it. Um, so we're planning on taking out all the equipment that's currently down there in all four sections and replacing all four of them completely. This will have a set for large or older children, so usually four to 12. Um, and we have a threestory tower which is going to be the main um section of the playground. Um, and then there's a a section for the smaller kids which are usually up to four years old. And then we have a larger swing set and then two kind of play structures as well for a total of five different structures. Instead of separating them out into four different mulch sections, these will all be combined into one. Um, at first we're

going to have mulch down, but we are applying for a grant that we feel that we're very likely to get that will put poor in place rubber surface surfacing down, but that will be the year after it goes in. Another photo of the side is 12 total slides if you're curious. Um, Mayor Baker wanted and the community also had concerns about uh disability people with disabilities and wheelchair accessibility. So, there are several different portions of it that are specific to that. Um, this company specializes in that as well. So, they're well versed in it. Um, and so each structure has wheelchair capabilities. Um, and this is the swing set for handicapped children. We'll have two of those. Um, this dome climber is also handicap accessible. And then this spinner is also handicap accessible. And then there's also a communication panel for children or people that have um communication issues. Um, so these were all also priorities of the school system for their special needs students as well. So if you have any other questions, let just let us know. The color scheme shown there of green and blue, is that the color scheme we're going to go with? Yes. I like it. Just a question about the September start date. Uh, is there a complete date for They said it will take three weeks. Three. Okay. And um, just to kind of get in front of things, savings time. Are we and with football season going on and Gillan Park is probably going to be the epicenter soon of uh you know activities in Dayton. Have we thought about lighting and access at night? And is it going to be in conflict with pickle ball

potentially if people are playing pickle ball at night at 9, 8, 9 o'clock at night with daylight savings? And will the access be the same granted to the parks? This playground set as you walk into Giland will be on the right hand side. The pickle ball courts will be on the left hand side as you go into the entrance. So they shouldn't overlap whatsoever. Um, there is lighting in the park right now around the play structures that are currently there. We may have to move those around, but there will be lighting for this. Another um point to make is that this company wants all of the structures to be see-through. So, there's no opaque panels on any of it. So, if a police officer shines a flashlight at night, they're going to be able to see through the entire thing and be able to see if anyone's sleeping in there or if someone's in there that shouldn't be. Yes. Who's going to be doing the demo work on this on the existing? We haven't gotten there yet. Okay. I'm just worried about wondering about the loading on public work. Yeah. Certain sections of the current equipment will be have will have to be taken out completely, including the concrete footers, but the sections that are more on the west end, they'll just be able to cut them off at ground level and they will not have to dig up the concrete because this is really going to uh consolidate all the equipment in a much smaller area. So, all of the equipment that's down there now will be gone. Correct. And during the construction that'll be cut off because I can see like football season going and we have football games going on down there and they're doing construction down there. It will hopefully be vis not visibly but

penc. Yeah. So we've made great pains of keeping the entire park open as these projects have went on. So, we make it clear to the contractors that they are to stay within the area and and that the park will remain open and and I think it'll be our job as city council and public officials to, you know, let the residents know to stay away. I mean, I think that'll be easy. I was just asking for general knowledge. Yeah, it'll it'll be fenced off. It'll have caution tape and all all that good stuff. Circling back to the the handicap accessibility. Um, if I assume this is a raised platform, this is going to be mulch in it. Is that correct? Yes. How how would they access to get into the facility to begin with before getting onto those ramps? So, the way that we currently have it, it has a small plastic barrier around it and there is a wheelchair accessible entry point uh as part of that short wall that's around it. Once that gets taken away and the pore in place, it will be completely level with the ground. Perfect. Thank you. Good question. You have any other questions? We have a motion by member Horton and a second by member Levens. One quick clarification. And I appreciate uh Jared saying that it was my assistance on the handicap access festivals just because I I'm married to a wonderful woman who's very insistent on it. And uh you hear what Jerry just said. Yeah. It's temporary though. Yeah. We're going to get there.

Which we still have wiggle room to to adjust. I anticipate that meeting. Let's do it. They built the Lelo playground. This is the same company. Yeah. I try. It's two-way street. Thanks, Jess. Appreciate that. Uh, roll call, please. Miss Klein. Member Kelly. I. Member Jud. I. Member Leven. I. Member Horton. I. Member Neri. Hi. Member Nean. I. The eyes have it 100%. We are doing a lot of work tonight. Next up is uh order resolution 2025-16. Romeo. Miss Klein, please. An order resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with Eaton Asphalt in the amount of $341,3340 for street repaving work and with Hindi construction in the amount of $91,694 for construction of ADA ramps in the city of Dayton, payable from municipal road aid funds and capital spending fund. Do I have a motion to accept resolution 2025-16 Romeo? So move. Member Ner's made a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Second by member Kelly. You want to discuss? Yeah, I have a map up on the screen showing where all of these streets are. Anytime streets are being repaved, I'd like to remind everyone that none of the

council, the staff, or the administration chooses these streets. It's chosen by a third party engineer based on a scoring system. So, the council doesn't have any input whatsoever when it comes to which streets are being repaved. So the three factors that we look at when choosing this is coordination with utility companies, Northern Kentucky Water and Duke. If they're going to be cutting into the street at any point, we're not going to repave that street. Um then of course the scoring system with the city's third party engineer and then how much money we have available are the three variables that we look at. Where are the There's 91,000 for ADA ramps. Where are the ADA ramps? Are these same streets? Yes, they're on the same streets. Once we repave the streets, we have to update and and abide by the ADA requirements. So, those truncated dough mats and all of that have to go in. Okay. So, it's but the ADA ramps are only going to be on on these areas that are being correct. Yeah. as as we repave a street, we also have to do the ramps associated with those streets. Thank you. And as Mayor Baker mentioned earlier, our paving contract came in $300,000 under budget, so we saved quite a bit of money. Any other questions, comments, or concerns? We've had a motion by member Ner, second by member Kelly. Roll call, please. M. Member Nean I. Member Kelly. I. Member Jud. I. Member Levens. Hi. Member Horton. I. Member Ner.

I. The eyes have it. Last on the docket would be order resolution 2025-17 Romeo. Miss Klein, please. An order resolution of the city council of the city of Dayton, Kentucky, authorizing the mayor to enter into an interlocal agreement with the Campbell County Fiscal Court regarding the sheltering of animals in the Campbell County at the Campbell County Animal Shelter. Do have a motion to accept 2025-17 Romeo. I'll make motion. Member Kelly's made a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Second by member Nean. Which opens up for conversation. Any questions, comments, concerns? I actually have a question on section 4. C uh TNR surgery billing. U said TNR surgeries for animals covered by this agreement and seized by the city handler will be scheduled by the cities and paid for by the city. Correct. Yeah, I knew this question was going to come up so I' I've done some research. So what to know about this agreement is that this is only the sheltering of animals. We're still contracting with the city of Newport and their animal control officer for the actual capturing of the animals. Um, so it is up to that animal control officer and the staff to determine if they are going to do the TNR and that's tag and release if you're not familiar where they essentially catch feral cats, take them, have them spayed and then they release them back to the same location where they were picked up from. Um, I've done research into TNR today and it is controversial. It's not a not everyone believes that it's works. And so we've essentially told the animal control officer that she is not to do TNR

um at this time until we can further look into it. So even though this contract does say that the city would be responsible for the TNR costs, we are not permitting the animal control officer to do that at this time. So So then my understanding was that the the previous trap neuter release program was paid by some benefactor who had left a lot of money to the county to do that. It's no longer the case. That's no longer the case. Um, does this mean that they will trap it, take it to the shelter, not neuter it, but bring it back to us? I anticipate that they will they I mean, they'll capture them, take them to the shelter, and if the shelter doesn't accept them, then they'll be returned. Yeah. I don't know why we don't I mean, we don't do it for dogs or any animal where they if it's a stray that they would take it and bring it back. I mean that that's my concern is who's going to pay for it now because neutering could be a couple hundred bucks per animal straight cat right that was our concern as well and so we told them not to because this is not something we've budgeted for and it's not something that we've looked into enough to determine if it actually works or not. Do we know how many neuters they did in a year's time for Dayton? I don't. I'm planning on talking with the animal control officer to get more information on this. All right, great. I have a question about that. Um, with the TNR program, do they feed them somewhere? No. So, there's no dumping of food. So, because somebody told me that they empty out bags by No, I thought you meant when they were actually in possession of them. Oh.

Uh, but they're regular public feeding of the bags. No. Is that true? Okay. So, it's they're sort of on their own on the streets. Yes. Begging style. Yeah. Okay. What did you read? You said that it's uh controversial. It's controversial. Um there were three organizations that supported it and then a whole laundry list of others that said it did not work and it was detrimental to the population. So population of humans of I mean both cats and humans. Yeah. If I can interject the feral cat problem. I don't believe we don't Dayton. We don't need that controversy. I mean I've seen it happen in similar cities where city council members get involved in this feral cat controversy and it's just one that's unwinable. So, I personally agree with the approach that we're taking is we're just going to stay out of it until the residents come to us with it because if we start opening this feral cat situation in the city of Dayton, it's going to be more than we can handle in my opinion. I think we should just table, leave it, and just go to the next subject. It's it's kind of like bringing up a swimming pool in Dayton, in my opinion. I feel bad for them because true on 10th and Dayton, it's like Rome up there. I mean, they're everywhere. Now, one has a big hole in it and I feel bad for them. I thought they at least they fed them, but it's like so these bag and people feed them and they're all literally laying all I just wanted to get clarified if they are still going to be doing the neutering and that we have to pay for it. Since that is in this ordinance, should we table this or take a vote on it? No. Like I said, we have two separate agreements. One with the city of Newport and one with the fiscal court. The fiscal court is only sheltering of the

animals. If we bring them animals to be TNRed, they will charge the city, but we have instructed the code enforcement or not code animal control officer and through that contract with the city of Newport that they are not to do that. Thank you. Is it still Terry Baker? Yes. Yes. Does she support Tanner? She I'm not sure. Okay. So, if I read that correctly in the contract language, um, this contract will be in effect for an unspecified amount of time, but it has an annual renewal. So, is this considered an annual renewal? Is this the same contract we've been signing, or is this a brand new contract? This is different because we used to contract those animal control officer duties to the fiscal court. However, they were not timely in picking up animals. Um, we had several issues with their enforcement. So, we switched over to the city of Newport. Many residents here are familiar with that animal control officer. She has a good rapport with a lot of residents and so we chose to move over to them. So, this contract is different in that the animal control officer duties have been shifted over to the city of Newport. Okay. And so if this were to be accepted tonight, we would be cancelling the prior agreement. Correct. By canceling the prior agreement, we would not be required to Could you repeat that one more time before we vote? We would not It would stay in place or we would not be financially responsible as a city to handle anything to deal with the feral cat situation. Correct. So in order for that to happen, the animal control officer would have to go to the the administration and request permission. And at this time, we're denying that. So, if we're denying that, what is the status? Are they supposed to pick them off the street like any other community

and put them in a pound and they have a certain amount of time to get adopted? Is that what's that will be up to the shelter to determine if they're willing to accept them or not? Is is are we talking about Terry Baker for all of animal control? Like, yes. Okay. So if we pass this, is she supposed to be coming around and grabbing cats now or just No, she will maintain her exact same duties. Nothing will change with her. Remember that time that we had a cat problem? Yeah. We had people up by the railroad tracks that were putting out like 10 pounds a week and every skunk and raccoon Yeah, they were getting fat. It's really a public health issue. It still is like that. It's the same here as is in Cington as it member Horton said it is. It ain't just us. Yeah. And residents will feed them. They feel sorry for the cat. Sure. They have good hearts. That being said, uh, we have a motion by member Kelly and a second by member Neman. All questions, comments, concerns answered. Roll call, please. Miss Klein. Member Ner. I. Member Nean. I. Member Kelly. I. Member Jud. I. Member Leven. I. Member Horton. I. And that concludes this night's this evening's uh orders and resolutions, which brings us up to the department director's monthly reports. First on the docket, we'll have uh Lieutenant Bman. He's like, "Yeah, me." You That's why we're excited to see you, buddy. I'm assuming everybody has a copy of our monthly report that was provided by

Chief App before he went on vacation. Pretty much I looked it over. Everything looks pretty normal. Nothing summer. Yeah, I um wanted to make sure everybody was aware of this. It is coming up on the u 19th of this month. It's on a Saturday from 12 to 4. I want to give a little shout out to my uh Sergeant Ly puts a lot of work and time and effort into this. Um so really wanted to bring this to everybody's attention a little bit more. So he's always looking for we're always looking for donations uh prizes baskets for the raffle and so forth. And um of course all the proceeds do go to the light up project. So very good turnout every year for that and it does require a lot of funding. So, if anybody's wanting to help out, I did leave some more flyers over there if anybody wants to pass them out or whatever. Um, you want to help out, you can always contact Sergeant Loo. I left his email at the bottom there. Actually, actually, he actually put that together. I had to tease him for a little bit about it. Missing a few things, but it'll work. So, Uh he does a great job. Yes, he does. He's kind of like my right hand man. Um any questions about uh one thing I did want to mention, everybody's talking about grants. So we are um I had put in for the uh Kentucky Office of Highway Safety, which partners with Nitsa for the traffic grant. Um I'm

hoping that we talking to representatives from it. We are going to get some funding out of it. I mean, I did ask for a little bit too much, but as for over $10,000, help us assist with traffic throughout the city, different programs like ticket or ticket, the seat belt, um, speed enforcement, distracted driving, and I thought they added a fifth one, but I'm not clear on exactly what that is. Um, took um Sergeant L with me to a briefing last month uh right before the ticket campaign trying to teach the youngsters the ropes get them ready for the next step. Um so speaking of them, they also help us out with equipment as well. You know, we go in there and ask for additional PBTs, portable breath tests or additional radars for some of the cars. Uh they've been very helpful with us on that throughout the years even though we weren't a member of the grant. Um, so probably looking at maybe I'm going to say close to maybe 6,000 getting awarded by October and that'll be started I'm sorry the DUI campaign over. So kind of where we're at. I'm always kind of try to look around for grants like usually bug Jared Dev when I come up. Hey, what do you think about this? You know, so that's kind of all I have. Anything else? Any comments, questions? Good to see you, sir. Good to see you. See you for a little bit longer and then we'll How many years you got in LT? That's Congratulations. Thank you so much for your service. Wow, that's a career, man.

You're a good man, Tony. And so, uh, July 19th, if, uh, you got some kids or if you got some free time, come on down for summer bash. And thank you, Billy, for putting it on. Uh, next on the docket, we went first, please. Let's go fire Chief Schaefer, please. Everybody has a copy of my report. Uh, couple highlights. 205 responses last month. Um it's a training. We're just out training every day. We do have two new guys. Uh firefighter medic Nick me. He got through his orientation. So he's actually on shift. And we had a new firefighter MT Logan Nance start Monday with his orientation. He'll be going to shift. So he's out training with that. Um the state did come in conduct their audit on our training records an annual thing. They just pop in when they want to. So we had no deficiencies or no recommendations which is always nice to hear and looking forward. Like I said we had lunch at the firehouse. That was that was a huge success. Had a big emergency food run there. So other than that any questions? How many runs for Fourth of July? Heard a lot of sirens. A lot of fireworks, but a lot of sirens. I don't have a specific count for that day. It was Fourth of July is always a busy weekend for us. So, we try not to count try to not tell people to have a quiet day and we try not to count when we get done. So, hopefully no injuries. Uh there nothing. I mean, had a couple burns. I think we did have one small garage fire, but Nobody lost fingers or ts or whole houses weekend.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Last but certainly not least, Mr. Lucas, you know, we probably been pretty busy so far lately. Seen that, man. Um anyway, um on the playground equipment, can I try to find somebody that would take that? Yeah, we'll talk about it. Okay. Because uh I mean there is a guy that installing equipment now. He may do it. Okay. I just want to double check with you on that. U I just got a message from Will. He want to start clearing a little bit on the river side of the trail. Um but they got a project possibly going in later and they may have another company coming down doing some work down there. I'll probably on that. Not tomorrow, but Thursday, I guess. And we'll be taking the fence down in Gill Park tomorrow for the pickle ball courts. We'll start on that from the girls outfield fence down to the gate. We'll leave the gate up. Other than that, we've been busy. I mean, grass, it won't quit growing. the storms. I mean, yep, we're busy. So, if anybody's got any questions, how many trees did you plant all together? At least 40. And they're all over 10 12 feet tall. And they're up on Dayton Pike. I think we planted uh nine of them on Dayton Pike, probably 20 in Gill Park. quite a few of them and we planning a lot of them. Did you start the search for the new employee? Uh, not yet. I mean, I got two applications,

but I haven't even mentioned anything yet. It's been so busy. I mean, we're pretty busy trying to keep up with everything. Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Lucas. You have a great evening. Mr. Faucet is vacationing with his family as he does every July. So, that means Mr. Barks gives the administrative report for this evening if he so chooses. Uh, I want to talk about um Gillan Park. We had some storm damage. Um, we just replaced the roof on those structures and then the roof blew off literally I think 10 days after that. We had 70 mile per hour winds. I met with the contractor um and did my own research on how it should have been installed and they did do it correctly. It was just a freak nature situation. So, we will be replacing that and I think they'll be doing that this week. Um, on June 25th, TriState Trails in the city combined efforts and did the pop-up bike shop for the fifth year in a row. They will repair bikes for free to the children in the community and adults. It's mostly kids, though, so we want to thank them for doing that yet again with us. I wanted to mention that the city's now street sweeping on Route 8, which includes 6th Avenue, Clay, and Fourth Avenue. All of those residents along the street have been sent a letter explaining what's going to happen and that they will be required to move their vehicles. Uh the street sweeping is going to occur on the first and second Monday of every month from 9:00 a.m. to 12 noon.

The first Monday is going to be the north side of the streets and the second Monday is going to be the south side of the streets. We picked Monday because a lot of the restaurants are already closed. a lot of businesses are closed and so um if you hear anything about that, let us know and we will have signage out soon out on the street. Um just a couple of upcoming events. Um Thursday, July 10th, we'll have histories on the square. That's a small event where Tina and I, a local person, will pick a subject and just do a talk about it. This Thursday is going to be famous Daytonians if that interests you. And then Mayor Becker mentioned that Sergeant Park was going to have their grand re-reopening on Sunday, July 20th. The Sunday prior to that, July 13th, we will be hosting a volunteer day at 900 a.m. And that's Sunday, July 13th, and where we're going to be preparing the park for that grand reopening celebration. And that's all I have. Wait, sorry. Okay. July 13th is a volunteer day. What was the next one? Uh Thursday, July 10th is going to be Histories on the Square. Okay. And then July 20th is the grand opening. Yes. Okay. Reopen. Rereoping. Is it Bob's Burger themed? Yeah. You will see some tie-ins there. Yes. I like that. That's good. And the histories on the square is on July 20th, 10th, Thursday. What are the times? It is at 6 pm at Monument Park. Thank you. Sash 19th. Very busy weekend for volunteers for fun. We have a lot of events this summer going on. And I've heard two different people that came in from town out of town talk about

the signage that we have at uh the monument park with all the listing of stuff and they were pretty amazed by how much we have going on. So that that kind of signage goes a long way. Uh back to the the roof on the building in Gillan Park. Um is it worth spending a little bit extra money and getting a a more sturdy roof this time or replacing it with the same thing we got last time? This roof is very sturdy. Um I'm not sure exactly what happened to cause it to come off in that way. Um but the wind rating is very high. it. We did actually spend more money to make it a stronger type roof. It's not just a corrugated metal roof. It's called a stand and seam metal roof, which is aesthetically more pleasing and is tougher than your typical metal roofing. It It caught the building at the correct angle and it was just one of those act of God situations. Okay. So, based on the people you've talked with, there's nothing additional we can do. that in the future? Not that I'm aware of. We could add more bracketing perhaps or which I've talked with the contractor about. Um it's supposed to be spaced 24 in apart, but they could add more and hopefully that would solve it. Okay, that's exactly what I was thinking. It was more bracketing potentially. It might be worth the funds. Any other questions for Mr. Barks tonight. You're lucky Joe's out of the room. We'll go ahead and move quickly. All right. Right along. Right along. Right along. Uh this is audience comments now, sir. If you'd like to address uh city council administration on anything that crosses your mind, whether it's uh the red score or anything going on in the city, you're

welcome to do so. If you could though, please do me a favor. Just state your name and address. That's it. Dave Cole. 320 6th Avenue, Kentucky. The reason I'm here tonight is uh I need your help. I got some concerns that are not being addressed. Okay. I told you I live in this city for 48 years. Uh I understand we have a historic district in the city of Dayton. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Where is the where is the historic district at? Mainly throughout 6th Avenue uh down through Main Street. Yeah. Okay. If I was going to move into the city of Dayton, how would I know where the historic district is? It's on the website. No. How would I know I'm in the historic district? Oh, you're asking about signage? Yes. Uh there is no current signage that you're entering a historic district. The reason I say that the first thing I see when I leave Dayton and enter into Belleview, it's a nice big sign. Belleview historic district. I go up with Fallon Avenue. Another sign, James Taylor historic district. My daughter lives on Barry Avenue in down a block from her another son. historic district. First thing when I see when I leave Newport, coming into Belle, another nice sign, Bel historic district. When you leave Belleview on Sixth Avenue at 6 Street Phil going into Newport, the first thing you see is

Newport Historic District. You go into Cington, you go up around Holmes High School, Wallace Woods, you go down along the ed of the river, licking river historic district. So you know you're in the historic district and I think that's important because that's the history of your city. Mr. Baker, you live in the historic district. Yes, sir. You have a nice home there. I've been in your home before. Thank you, sir. Uh but we have to we have to recognize that some of the most beautiful homes in the city of Dayton are where on 6th Avenue and there's other pockets of beautiful homes in city of Dayton, not just on 6th Avenue up on top of the hill, Fifth Avenue. There's a lot of nice homes in the city of Dayton. Six Street. If you try to rebuild those homes today, how much you think it would cost? Couldn't. You couldn't. They can't recreate those things. They're They're one of a kind home. I don't know what we have to do. I see a lot of grants are being passed out in the city of Dayton. A lot of grants to get the business district for one. You know, rents were being subsidized. money was given for signs to be put up on these buildings. What do what do we have to do to get the to get some signs up about the historic district in the city of Dayton? We can at any point. It just takes time to do it. I love the idea. Is there any way we can work with the transportation department and get some like historic signs because I know I've seen that they do grants. I know Cington has done that where they find historical places and puts placards there.

We've tried to do that in the past. Typically, they do that for like, you know, I I'll just pick out Coington. You Lly S. Grant's son lived here. Uh you need something of that level. Uh in Dayton, you know, we have, you know, John Wooden's house. Uh that wouldn't necessarily address what he's saying. He's asking like for entrances into a neighborhood into Well, I live in a historic district. Right. Right. Yeah. Uh, so I don't think that is that what you're talking about, Terrace? Kind of, but I figured there would probably be like we could tie some kind of historic district into the program that they have for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the transportation department that has the big brown placards. So, yes, I am talking about that. And if I'm not mistaken, we could present to the transportation department because they actively look for places to put these placard things. You are correct. Um, however, they are very expensive. Um, and you have to prove s historic significance to them. So, um, you have to have the verbiage and everything ready for them. I've never seen one of those signs for historic district of homes, but we can certainly look at that to see. Um, I was going to say the one thing where you're saying with the significance because like that's my day job. Okay. And uh like our district's an overlay district, so it's not actually a national register district like the Taylor Daughter. We've never gone through the paperwork of registering our district at that level. We just did it started as an overlay to try to get the ball rolling. Are you are you on the historic board in the city of Dayton? No, not any longer. I can't can't be as a council member now. What does a historic board in the city of Dayton actually do?

Mostly what they they do is they are working on things like that and they have helped with other people doing nominations um you know national register nomination forms but mostly what they try to do is keep the feeling of the historic district so that you know when you're fixing something it's sympathetic to the neighborhood. you're not doing something, you know, wacky, which you can because, you know, I mean, it's still your property, but you want everything to be cohesive as you said, so that you have this nice district so that you can, you know, get on the register with it or at least be eligible for the register and then, you know, which the buildings that are eligible for the register are eligible for tax grants and then that's through the park service. There is some money at the state level But it's generally not so deep dive down into a city level. So we're actually not moving in that direction. I've not seen what they've been doing. Want to add to a budget like start looking at prices? Sure. I mean, yeah. If the council, the mayor gives us direction to the staff that you want to install new signage that says it's in a historic district, then we can certainly move toward that, sir. Is that what you're wanting? Yes. Okay. I agree with that. I'm not going to be the only one. I No, I agree with that. We should I'd like to ask council's Well, we don't have a historic preservation board. We did initially. What? We have a bar. We have a board of architectural review. So that if you are in the historic district and you want to do improvements to the outside of your property, it has to be approved by the board of architectural review. We don't

have an entity promoting like a like a normal historic preservation board would do. So I guess it it would fall on administration or I don't know that we want to create another board. Um yeah, I mean Coington has staff members. So like they actually have city staff members and Newport does as well who does who do you know handle the preservation stuff. Let me ask you this. There are guidelines for our historic district. Is that correct? That is correct. That's basically one of the reasons I'm here. And the other reason is I've been this gentleman here on a piece of property. I've to the code enforcement people on this piece of property next to me. Okay. When I first moved there, there was a family by the name of Sats 316. That's the property I'm talking about. And their daughter, granddaughter lived on the second floor. Their daughter was the same age as my daughter. So they became friends. I've been in that house a few times. A beautiful home. Beautiful floors, doors, woodwork. They had a nice screen in back porch where they could go out there and sit, not have to worry about bugs. Beautiful front porch. So Mrs. passed away and uh her daughter, granddaughter and her husband moved out of the second floor, got a place of their own. So Miss's daughter, her husband didn't want the house anymore, so they sold the house

and a a gentleman bought it and turned it into a piece of rental property. First thing he did is put up a fire escape and everything, but didn't have a whole lot of problems with that. But it started, this whole thing started because people would come down, the renters would come down. Now, rather than just going down three steps, taking that lid off the garbage can and putting the garbage in there, putting the lid back on, I know that was too hard. We're just going to come down, take the lids off, and leave them off. And we're just going to throw the garbage over the side of the porch. We all know what happens when you don't cover up your garbage. It's a stink. You start attracting animals, raccoons, possum, and rats. We had rats over there. So, he sold a property to another guy. And this is where the problems really started. You talk about the cat problem. I've had a lot of problems with the cat problem. Them people on the first floor had 15 cats. Okay. They had a dog. They had to get rid of the dog because the dog was eating the cats. So I went went to the city about this problem. They direct me to Camel County Fiscal Court. Camel County Fiscal Court had went with this group we were talking about just before that spay and neutered the cats. Okay, that's a nice program. The only trouble is they bring the cats right back to where they found them. Okay, so 15 cats. I have a grill cover. The cats are going

to do what cats normally do. They got to sharpen their claw. They're going to climb up on my grill cover and scratch my grill cover up. The guy behind me uh had a cover on his car. They get up and scratch that. So, these people didn't really care. The best part, the animal county animal control pulls in her van in the alley behind my house and gives her 25 pounds of food to feed these cats. now went to fiscal court. They're not going to do anything for my problem. So I ask you, what would you do? My daughter's a personal friend with Trishi Mackey. Trishy Mackey sent a news crew over here to film all these cats. I don't think that's the kind of publicity that the city of Dayton wants. Now I finally got rid of them. Now we got another group in there. I've been the code enforcement board. Wind is broken on the side. Wind is broken a door. They got four dogs and I guarantee you none of them dogs are registered in the city of Dayton. We don't register dogs, sir. Please. We don't register dogs. You don't in the city of Dayton. Dogs do not have to have tags. No, sir. We did away with that 5 years ago. Campbell County still requires it. Campbell County requires it. But some of you say Campbell County. What's that mean? I believe Campbell County requires you pay a fee to the county to have your animal tagged. And I believe it's to make sure that they are um have had their rabies vaccinations.

So long dog gets out. They had a litter of puppies over there. And this is what's going on. Now, with the historic board, there's certain things you can and cannot do to your piece of property. Correct. Is that correct? Well, this guy that owns this piece of property could care less about it. He could care less about the city of Dayton. He lives over in Ohio and he's not going to do any more than he has to. It took I've been to the code enforcement board. It took this guy one year to paint a 20 by 20 section on his house. The paint was flaking. It's coming over my yard. Now, you think the guy we don't care about that piece of propert has been torn off. Part of the front porch has been torn off. The wall fell down in front of his home. I don't know who allowed even put up a temporary wall, but it's a completely different wall. One part of the wall is one way, the other part of the wall is another way. I got pictures here and I passed these around to the city council. Here is here is all this gentleman's piece of property. I've lost my patience. That's why I'm coming to you. I should not have to come to city council. Code enforcement board should take care of this problem. I've been with you. How many times have I met with you? I think we've met three or four times, sir. What's our point of action? what what's our point of

so from the city's perspective his neighbor has been fined many many times multiple times over um code enforcement as you know is a very slow process there's a lot of due process when it comes to code enforcement this gentleman that he's referring to has paid many fines for these infractions that is all that we can do and So I don't I don't know what to do at that point. So we will continue to charge him and that's what we're doing. And he has paid those fines up until now. From what I understand, if you're fine for something and you don't take care of that in a certain period of time, you will be fine again. That fine is added on. Correct. Correct. Is that being done? Yes. Okay. What I'm asking you, city council member, is to go to the code enforcement board. I want to know what's been done since last year. Cassie is not with us tonight. Um, but she will have that information for you. And Tristan can attest, this gentleman has paid fines. Here's I'm g tell you another thing. You're gonna love this story. I went to Campbell County Fiscal Court over this cat problem. Okay. Now, like I say, they're going to spay new to the cats, but they're going to bring it back to where I live at. Now, they told me if we take the cats out of the city of Dayton, we create a vacuum effect, which means what? We got cats in Belleview and Fort Thomas just waiting to come into Dayton. I've heard this argument. I want to see more data on this. I mean, that's true.

Stupid. What do you think we are, stupid? So, here's what I did. Since nobody's taking care of my problem, if you read some of the guidelines of Camel County Fiscal Court, these cats are considered community cats. What does community mean to me? Community immunity community property. It's not private property. It's community property. So the way I look at it, these cats cannot be in on private property. They have to be kept on community property. What's community property? They have to be kept at the police station, the fire station, the parks. So what do I do? Guys say poison him. No, I'm not going to put It's not the cat's fault. What I did is I started live trapping and taking them out to Pendry Park in Silver Grove. I took him out there because Pendry is a head of the fiscal court. Let Pendry take care of So I'm asking you to help me out. If this guy is being fined and he's paying the fines, then we're not finding him enough. The only thing this guy understands is getting in his pocket. Don't we have I I thought we adopted a nuisance ordinance years ago. It's $100 per day up to $5,000 and then we send them a bill and he has paid those bills. Yeah, he pays a lot multiple times over. So, I I'm asking you council members to come to my home. I'm not asking you to go to his house. That's private property. I'm asking to come to my home.

I want to show you what this place looks like. He's changed the roof line in the back of the building. You cannot change the roof line in the historic district on your property. You can in the rear of the home. You cannot on the front of the home. I can do what? I'm sorry. You can on the back of the home. You cannot on the front of the home. Which doesn't make any sense. Kentucky state statutes. It has to be in view of the street. If it's not in view of the street, then we cannot regulate it. This is the whole problem. The code enforcement board rides around in her car. Correct. If she doesn't if she can't see from the street, then nothing's done. That is correct. Unless there's a complaint from a neighboring property. I agree. But again, we cannot regulate the roof line in the back of a home. If he had changed the roof line in the front of the home, then we could. He's changed the porch. You see the pictures there? Part of the porch has been and he has been fined for that. Mr. Cop, I'm just looking at some historical pictures here. Please. I'm looking at historic pictures of the house. When do you say that he was changed the roof line? I'm looking at the back. It's hard to see. It's right here. This is in 2013. So, you're saying this was done over 12 years ago? See how it's changed. Windows are out.

I I I'm sympathizing with you, buddy. I really am. It's It's often one of the best quotes I heard from a previous council person was that one bad person or one bad property can ruin an entire neighborhood. That piece of property is beautiful. That piece of property is gorgeous. But I I would tend to agree with you that this house does need work. No, no, you're not. Don't Don't be sorry. I will address this with uh code enforcement. That'll be August 12th. Mr. Cole, appreciate you. Uh, the podium is still open for anybody who like to address council and if you would please just state your name and address. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council. My name

is Don Baker. Uh, I own the property at 638 Fth Avenue, the old building um shared a presentation with Jared earlier. I think he emailed it out each of you. Again, I'm not going to go through every slide. It was more just for awareness. Um my purpose of being here today is really I just went through the property tax appeals uh process uh for 2025. Um raise awareness to some of the impacts it's having on businesses um and really punitive effect particularly that it has on my my property. Um, so just to give you an overview of the property, if you go to the uh the second slide, the property details, it's the old Dayton Eagles building. I purchased it about five years ago. Um, it rehabbing it ever since. Kind of taking a Johnny Cash approach, right? One piece at a time. It's a slow process, but it is it is uh making progress. Um, this was prior to any of the Burton building purchases or any of the other uh development within the city. So, if you see that kind of ceiling view or roof view, you see my property that's on the corner. Um, the Burton buildings on the other uh corner and then there's a uh property right next to mine as well that uh was assessed at a much lower value and what have you. My property for the first four years was assessed at 150k. Last November when I got my tax bill, um I had a 380% increase in my property tax, one of the highest in Dayton commercial properties. Um there was one other property and and I'll share the details of of that with you. So I'm here today. I know the appeals process runs its course and and I've

completed that. There's one other step I can take. Um that's not my course of action here. It's more to raise awareness because as as you drive down Fairfield Avenue and and if you look at what my property is, it's a singleuse facility, right? It's a bar that Dayton uh Eagles owned it for a long time. Uh as their membership aged, they couldn't upkeep the building. So, there was a lot of maintenance that need to occur and obviously they moved a couple blocks away. Um there's no parking facilities, right? It's Uber and and obviously with the new pizza place. Um you you've seen the impact of that with the street parking and and what have you. Um so there's limited uses and and that building was bypassed even by I think this council right to to purchase as a potential um city building or something or that's my understanding of it. Um that's probably not correct. Whatever the case, I think it was on the market for some time. there was plenty of opportunities for people to buy it at that purchase price at the time. So obviously um you know it did have a market value or a cash cash value fair price. So I think um you know I think the the major concerns is highlighted was more so just to uh um demonstrate some of the obstacles you have from a business in Dayton in that main area. Um so I think as you kind of go to the other slide as you go down You see a lot of vacancies right now, right? You see a lot of bar lease and businesses maybe that have turned over. Um, you know, I know the uh the Mexican restaurants probably turned over a couple times for different reasons, right? Maybe not for property tax, but um that could be a contributing factor to it. Um, I think uh it's it's hard for small business to sustain, right? Particularly food businesses. The

volume, the margins are low. and you're dependent on volume. Um, so I think any impact and particularly an egregious 380% property tax impact impacts your business. Now, you will say, well, that's a county issue, right? That's the PVA. That's Mr. Brun's territory. But the downstream impact is to the local cities. So, when I hear that you're under budget and a lot of those uh the progress that's being made, that's awesome. I love to see the progress. I love to see the the stadium. All that's all all good and and I appreciate all your service that that you guys do. I know you hear a lot of complaints, but um you guys are doing a lot of good stuff and it's obviously evident. So, thank you for that. Um but the thing I did want to call out though is in in what I presented in the spreadsheets when I went to the appeals process, I said, "Well, I get it. There's an increase even if I look at the audit that was done earlier talking about the fund accounting. I I feel for you because I I understand fund accounting and restricted gifts and and trying to gauge that. So, uh completely feel your pain there. Um but when when you look at like even your increase, what was it? 6.2% or 2.8 million of property tax revenue. If I if I heard that correctly on when he was reading the audit statements or when he had the graphs, you had about a 6.2% increase year-over-year. That's understandable. Everybody would expect some level of increase in their property tax. 3% maybe cost of living whatever but 380% that's egregious. Um so I think when I tried to you know take a step back um and obviously go into my appeal process I looked at different properties. The most logical one was the Burton building right? that building was purchased for

385,000 two years after mine. Um it's about the same square footage. U so logically you could look at that and get a square footage price and you should be able to apply that across the board at least on that street or in the neighborhood to get a comparable. Now my building is unique, right? It is the the old Dayton Eagles building. It's a 10,000 square foot building. um did a lot of uh improvements on the interior. Um but ultimately it was hard to find comparables even when I uh engaged an independent audit uh to to do an appraisal for my appeal. So, I guess my point is is and and if you look at the 40 properties that I did the analysis on and I think the spreadsheet that um it was maybe emailed when I got my uh property evaluation. Obviously, I went to the uh PVA website and was able to do my own research and identify 40 different properties within the scope. I used a scope of anything that was material 50,000 and above, right? And in general, what surprised me is if you look at the square footage price of each of those properties in that Excel file, you would think that a county PVA would have a logical program that would have peak APIs and drivers that would automatically give you a square footage price. Now, I'm not talking about the businesses that are in it, right? That's irrelevant. I mean, you could argue that it's relevant, but that goes that doesn't with the building. I'm talking about the fixtures in the building, what the properties are assessed at. But when you look at that and you look at what my property was assessed at and what I had to do to appeal that, um, it was an significant undertaking and in cost to

me to have to prove why it wasn't to be assessed at 380% what it was. So, the reason I bring that to your attention and the reason I want to share the data with you was if you look at that Excel file and just look through those properties and look at the range of square footage prices, it goes anywhere from $30 a square foot up to 120. And that shouldn't be it should be a logical application. Now, what's my ask to you, right? What am I what am I here? What's the action? I think you have upward pressure that you can apply in the county because this is Dayton. It's not Fort Thomas. It's not Belleview. And if you look at some of the demographics comparatively, I've lifted listed some of those that you can get off Neielson and other things. It's not the same as Fort Thomas or Belleview and it shouldn't be evaluated per se. So I think we do have a a bit of a problem from a business perspective because I view it as very high taxes, right? Obviously, I'm paying almost 380% of of what I would expect to pay. Now, I figured a fair market value of my property was about 385K. Um, I had an independent audit. It still came in about 250,000 less than than what it was assessed at. The problem is is that stunk cost, right? the cost that I had to pay in property tax for the 2024 is lost funds, right? I can't recoup that. Well, the my only other option besides going to the appeals process, the appeals process is one guy in Campbell County, Mr. Braun, who arbitrarily makes the assessment, right? He must be the most powerful guy in the state of Kentucky. um he's more powerful than the governor to be able to have

that uh revenue control. Then you go to an appeals process that includes two business owners that you know if you go look at their pits maybe I need their tax accountant right because it's it's not applied favorably across the board. So I think when you look at the scope of the audit that you had earlier and you talk about the scope of the audit of that property tax I'd like to see it expand. I'd like to see it expand to even that spreadsheet that I provided on the commercial properties that are listed. And just I'm not asking for zero property tax. That would be nice and and hopefully that that gets some lags um in some of the the cities. Um I pay my fair share of property tax. I'm just asking for a fair application of of the property tax and in clear logic to it. Um because I think what you're going to see you're going to see more vacancies particularly when you've got uh food service companies and and low margin businesses that that impacts it impacts money that maybe would have been used for boiler repair or a air conditioning unit. My air conditioning units were were stolen from my building. I had to replace those. Simple things like that are significant costs. So when you got the added burden of inflated property tax like that, it's an impact. It's also could be an impact of maybe hiring a subcontractor, a local Dayton subcontractor to do work. Um $10,000 might not be a lot of money to some people. It is to me and it is to individuals within this community where probably the average income of 50% of the community is less than $60,000. So to put that kind of um uh inflationary u impact on a business I I think is um is pretty difficult. So I

think the market trends I listed I'm not going to go through those in detail. I really just want to raise awareness. If you know me what I did to the building um if I was in it for profit I would have turned it and sold it. Um, if you look at what I'm doing, I'm trying to provide an affordable place for the community to follow like the Belleview Vets um in in the veterans places where drink charges are not, you know, 10 to 12, I'm charging four to six bucks for drinks. So to keep that type of cost down and make uh make it amanable so individuals can celebrate maybe life milestones. I think it's um you know that that's the intention of of the place. So I guess my ask is you go to Frankfurt and as you have the conversations because I know you're probably aligned with the the administrators and what have you. Um you know express pleasure because it's not just me. It's local residents on fixed incomes that are being impacted. I'm sure you all are impacted as property owners. Um, and we're not talking 3 to 6%. But the fact that I have to incur cost and the burden of proof is put on the property owner to then state your case to a um almost a Ponzi scheme kind of appeals uh court. It's it's very challenging and I shouldn't have to do that. and residents shouldn't have to do that. So that's my ask is more awareness um and uh again as maybe some of the savings that you're generating from these projects um if there's opportunities to pass that on to the businesses which I know you are and abatements and other things um you know I'd like to see that. So that was it. Again I appreciate your time. I know it's been a long night for you and um

you know I uh I'm going to continue to appeal this. I was able to get it reduced at least to uh 580 which I still think is egregious because if you look at the actual sales prices in that area in the comparables the transactional amounts that's what it should be based on. It should be based on cash value, not arbitrary inflationary artificial inflationary guidelines. So, thank you. I don't know if you have any questions. Certainly love to answer it, but um yeah, if I could explain something about property taxes. I mean, you you bought this building for 140 and now it's on the books at 570. Thank you so much for investing in Dayton. Um, with property taxes by state law, we're limited that we can only take 4% more in in total property taxes, not the tax rate, but the total property taxes can only increase 4% maximum year to year to year. We've reduced our property tax rate over the past couple years from, I think, 4.97 to 3.99. It's a 25% reduction in the rate. So if your property value had stayed the same, you'd be paying 25% less in property values. The PVA issue is not just in Kentucky. It's in almost every state where an outside entity, usually at the county level, assesses the properties for decades, decades. You mentioned that we're not Fort Thomas or Belleview. Uh that's the way Dayton was looked down on and our property values here in town were severely depressed. Uh the people that have been here the longest are profiting the most because my my property I've been here 19 years. My

property value has doubled if I was to sell it. My tax my total tax has not been increased that much. So it's a misnomer. I'm sorry. I feel very passionate about this. When people say that the property taxes, the property taxes are capped by the state and someday I'm going to have to sell my house or my heirs are. Same with your property and that's where your profit is going to come in. Now, the Burton building, because I just got this about four o'clock today and I didn't have too much time to do much research on it, but the Burton building right now is at a tax base of 1.1 million and it's 10,000 square feet, which is roughly what your building is. So, they're being assessed at $110 a square foot. Could Can I challenge you on that, sir? Sure, please. Because that building was purchased at three the actual cash value was $385,000. That was the purchase price and it's in the PVA. That's what's listed on the site. Only after I raised my concern with my property tax on November 26, right, did that assessment go up to 1,000. And I don't know what their agreement is from a tax deferred situation, but you could argue then that they had what 2.4 million invested from outside investors fund or other things. So shouldn't that then be 3.4 million? I got a problem with the PVA too. But don't you have to go shouldn't you have to go off actual transactional value? What was the last recorded sale? Well, the problem with going on just transactional value and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong here, Alex. I could sell you that property for a dollar and it's on the t it's on the rolls for a dollar. Some there has to be an outside entity that assesses it and by whatever whatever guidelines they go by as far as your building is is tough because there's no comps. Okay. The closest

comparative building would be the Burton building because it's mixed use. could be resident. It is residential upstairs as yours could be. So that's really the only the only comparison in the area that they could base it off of. But shouldn't a square foot be a square foot, right? A square foot of property should be taxed at a very similar amount in a region, in a neighborhood. Wouldn't you agree to that? Uh I think it depends a lot on the condition of the property. I I agree. Yes. And unfortunately, they can't inspect inside. PBA doesn't. But then how can you make an adjudgment then if you can't inspect inside? You're strictly doing it on the outside. Nothing's changed in the outside. Yet you inflate it by 380%. What's the justification for that? Mr. Beer, um, and and I know you probably know this, but there's an appeal process for a reason. The beautiful thing about a commercial building, and I know I've done this at least 100 appeals for clients, as well as half a dozen for myself, is your appraisal can be based upon the income. And you can take that approach to your PVA who will look at the income and the profitability of that building and ultimately determine the value is. So, it's not a like kind apples to apples. In your situation, if the property doesn't bring in the revenue source that you expect it to because it's commercial related, the appraisal will go down. So, there's lots of ways to maneuver that point. But the nice thing about it is you've got a multiplestep process to appeal it. So, at the underlying inspection period that you have with your PBA, you then go up to the board who's an independent board. You make your argument. The beautiful thing about Dayton is the property values continue to increase. And I'm a property owner in Dayton as well. I've seen the same effect. Bought a building for 40,000 assessed It happens because all ships are rising with the tide. So the beautiful thing about it is on an individual basis like yourself, you can go there and argue

whereas a person who doesn't have maybe the sophistication level to do it is the one that's really being hamstrung by all the boats rising. So the position from the city is we're happy, you know, if you ever have an investor, someone that wants to come in for us to to help maybe sit along with you and enjoy the ride and do whatever we need to because Dayton's going up in value. and it has in just the six years that I've been here and Lord knows how many years Joe's been here. I mean, everybody's building is becoming worth more. And I appreciate that. I appreciate the the input. Um, but that was presented to the appeals committee. So, the problem is now I have to go to the state in Frankfurt, incur attorney fees to defend. Did you bring your own appraisal in based upon income? So, I brought a a a property appraisal, not based on income. That's that's the approach in a commercial setting. It that's that's the difference. It's an income approach. If your building only makes X amount of dollars on on a a cap rate, that's why it's worth less. It's not a residential structure. So, you know, that's what would have mattered at the appeal board because there's no other evidence to refute your appraisal on the income stream. But what and I appreciate that. Again, thank you for that information and and I'll take that approach. I guess my question is when you do go through the appeals, why wouldn't they take that into consideration? Because that's that's I mean that's your burden, right? That's your work that has to be done because they've assessed it. It's you then have to counter it. But the nice thing about it is you can do it every year. It's not like it's one time and out. So next year you can fix it again and you can do it every year until you get it right. And you will because this time you're going to show them a tax return and say this is what it makes. So as a result the tenant, whoever owns the building versus the tenant, you'll be able to the income. Happy to sit down with you and explain it to you, you know, to help you get there, but you'll win because they can't argue otherwise. The Burton building is not a comp. There's residential, there's income that comes in, there's commercial. So, he has

to use all those different comps to be able to assess the value. If you're a single stream income, it's going to go way down based upon profitability. Appreciate that because the only other option was to create a nonprofit entity and do what you said, sell it to a dollar. This is so much easier to do it the right way. Just do an income approach, not a like kind, you know, apples to apples because it's not. And just your your profitability will go down, the value will go down, and the PVA will understand. Plus, he's retiring in year and a half anyway. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for the information. Um, and u appreciate you staying extra to hear this. We appreciate your investment in Dayton. Thank you. And, uh, you know, I think that the challenge is the sunk cost, right? come around all every Wednesday afternoon in the city building. He's always at city hall. Happy to call me anytime. Awesome. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. It's good seeing you, sir. Podium is still open for anybody like to address city council. There's only one left out there and he's saying no. All right. Thank you. We appreciate you, J. Uh any new business? I do have new business. What you got, Terrace? Um recreation board uh committee formation. What can we do? I know we talked about that before, like forming a recreation board exploratory board where we can take some of the access funds that are left over from the parks board. I think there was excess of $60,000 or under budget. Maybe taking $10,000 of that and exploring leagues for adult leagues for when the pickle ball courts are open and like for when the um sports facilities are the Gillan Park improvements. We should explore taking advantage of those things. And

I'd like to not just talk about it in an open open session like this. I'd like to see what we can do to form an exploratory board committee to actively put forth some funds to do either it's a grand opening tournament or some kind of tournament to raise awareness to see if we can get a recreation department for to accompany the parks board if possible. Uh it could be parks and wreck, you know, but from my experience of trying to get work with the parks department who do who does a phenomenal job with things that they do with the the trail the trail park uh my bike went over there for two hours and sat and had a blast with the kids everything what they did. But I feel like there's a we're missing we're leaving money on the table and we're leaving opportunity to reach the community by not having a recreation board. And I would like to see what we can do to form that board and not just be talk. So the next meeting we have some traction about okay we formed this board and now we are going to assess this a calcocated amount of money to programming for recreation. No. So I'm I'm glad you brought that up. That was going to be a topic I was going to bring up as well as committees. Um I've been speaking via email with Mr. Edmonson here and it correct me if I'm wrong but we need to draft something an executive order form is probably the best option to do it or we can do it informally. And I think the more formal route would probably be best. Um I think the next step would be maybe one or two of us on council to just get together and hammer out what we want this to look like so we can run it past the full board. Um and I'd be happy to be part of that that committee to do that. Um that ad hoc committee to to form committees. Um, so, uh, if anybody else would like me to join join me on that, Terrace, you're welcome. Anybody else is welcome

as well. Um, we can meet and hash that out, um, maybe some Wednesday afternoon when you're in the office. and we're new, but so I'm sure you guys have se done this and seen this and heard this song and dance a bunch of times, but if you guys could take us through the process just once Aaron and I are both remember Jud and I are both expressing interest to do this. Please take advantage of this opportunity and how passionate we are because I'm sure you probably formed tons of boards before but we would like opportunity to get our feet wet. I would caution using the term board because a board has to be assigned by the mayor and it can't be people on council. I would suggest making a committee. We've talked about this before and you don't have to have everybody on a committee. The committee has no uh they can make recommendations but they can't make decisions. And that's that's the safest way to do it. So I'm I'm just saying don't don't say board because we don't have enough board members as it is. Okay. But if you would make a committee then you can include council members on it. But how serious are committees taken? I mean look we could be committing two city council members talking about being on the same committee. I think it takes has been taken pretty seriously. Got it. Yeah. Question answer. And a lot of other cities take it very seriously. We have not had one here for a while, but I think it's time. And I think we talked about that during our strategic planning session. Yes. So, I think it's time to move forward with it. Um, we we did talk I talked to Kathy Bolter um a couple weeks ago and she said that was standard years ago that there were like at least five committees that were regularly participated in and reported on. I'm not sure why they went through the went to the wayside, but I think we should do it. Yeah, it doesn't matter. There's the interest now. So, let's get it going. Um, So let's chat after here on and try

to find out a time that works for us. Ideally when Mr. Edmonson can be involved as well. So the next step we we would meet we we meet with um councelor Edmonson and then we would put something on paper to say that we've got this committee that we would present to the city council. Correct. Yeah. You would need a motion by the council I would imagine to approve the committee. But other than that I think it would there's a couple just different ways to do it. I mean the mayor can just inform them based upon your all's recommendation and you just put together an executive order. It's done, right? You can appoint the way typically it's done is at the end beginning of every year when the new term comes in of council members, the mayor kind of assigns people to committees or you could do it whenever you want. Somebody can't make it on Thursday nights and just remove somebody off and put them on. But this is really not complicated. The issue is is what for what committees you want to do, put together some policies. Uh we can draft them so that you guys kind of have something to go off of. you're going to get citizens that are coming. So, you got to deal with those issues and how you want to do it, where you want to hold them, those kind of issues. It's all public, right? So, everything you talk about is going to be out there for so people can see it and we can put them together. So, just uh let me know. Okay. Well, I would like to be a part of that, too. So, what does that look like until what do we get done by the next meeting so we don't bring this up again? We bring it up every every month. So, uh, yeah, I mean, if we're wanting to meet on a Wednesday that that works for Mr. Evans's schedule, that's great. Work around whatever guys works best for you. If you want to work on an even meeting or something and so you guys don't have to leave, let's right after the meeting, look at our calendars and see what works. Perfect. I would suggest make a list of the committees that you would recommend by name already done. And what their responsibilities would be and then you can get together and figure out Are we going to have 42 committees

or only three or whatever? I'd recommend it's 42. You know, so that we can if you want to do it quickly. Yeah. Define them. Uh and you can always add them, you can always change it. But if you really want to get like if you're going to have a parks and recreation committee, what are their responsibilities? How many members will will there be? And do that. And you could suggest one. You could suggest six, whatever you want to do. We used to have six committees. Well, it was before I got on council, but they had like a finance committee. So, those three members were responsible for the most responsible for going through the budgets, right? So, what happened? You think like why did this kind of go away? Um, I you would have to ask the past administration. Okay. wasn't on your it was just sort of faded away. Okay. The past is in the past or the future. Well, I'm curious how that went. Learn from the past. All right. Well, any other thoughts on committees? Otherwise, I have two quick things before we wrap up. None. Awesome. Uh All right. So, one is uh the Yalon Stallion race happened uh on July 4th at noon. Um Barry Baker and I were holding strong with uh the Dayton crowd. Um but I'd like to see that increased for next year. So um you will hear me talk about this coming up to next year's race. I want more Daytonians than we do Belleviewites. I'm making up words now at this point. Belleians. Belleians. Is that what it is? Uh I want more Dayton folks to to attend that that event. It was a great time. Um everyone there had had a great time of all different skill levels. Uh You don't have to run to be part of it. You can be supporter. Uh whatever it may be, but

it's a great time. Highly recommend. Um the other item is uh that uh an organization that I am part of called Housing Opportunities of Northern Kentucky recently had an open house um a month or two ago for a new home that was prepared uh refurbished, rehabbed uh in the area and is now ready to go to go to um a low to moderate income family. Uh they've recently also purchased another property in Dayton, Kentucky at 814 Fth Avenue. So that's 814 Fifth Avenue um not too far down the street here. And I was curious if there was any interest at all in making this a very heavily involved community project. So getting together maybe one day a week on a regular basis or one day a month um where people from the Dayton community can help rehab a for low to moderate income families in the city of Dayton, Kentucky. So, no action needs to be taken tonight, but just think about that. Um, and if there's any interest in people helping with that endeavor, please let me know. Thank you. Excellent ideas. Any other new business? Have a motion for adjournment. I'll make that motion. Ladies first. Miss Kelly had it. Second. All in favor? I see all on August 12th. Kept it going.