City Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. to be mindful of caucus time starting at 5:30. So, I uh want we've got a lot to go over. It's a pretty heavy agenda tonight as far as just the public hearings. Um and we've got a lot to go over. So, I want to make sure that we as council have time to ask any questions and uh

address some of the the things like um on the agenda before we get into any of the the process of the hearing and where we are. So, for final passage tonight, we have the ordinance um reszoning the Eerie Cemetery. Is there any questions? Wait, am I reading is this the correct one here? I don't think that is Yeah. No, the wrong one is tucked. We'll get like that's absolutely not our agenda. No, isn't okay. No, it is. We're good.

Now, yeah. Now it's like, wait a minute, we've definitely talked about more of this than twice. Okay. Anybody have any questions around the final passage then for the historic site uh the zoning that Right. There's no financial situation attached to that. No money that we're going to have to spend, right? They just have to adhere to the historic. Yeah. And I think it actually the goal was to open that so they could actually get more money for through grants and stuff from the support of the state. Beautiful idea. Um, any question on the ordinance for the first reading?

Uh, this one is so when we pull this one up, this one can be a little confusing looking at it. The ordinance for the first reading is actually pulling in all the other ordinances and aligning them up with an E-code so that they are correctly codified online and on the the platform that we use. And so that's really what we're passing is is putting the ordinances that we've already passed in the right place on the e-code system. At least that is how I understand it to be. Goes to mo that goes back over.

Any question from council on the old business then? This is where I suspect actually if we wouldn't mind pausing for a second and uh cuz I think that we're going to have quite a bit of conversation on this. Um looking at new business or any of the transfers or contracts or purchase orders from council. I do have a question. Um so and I apologize I didn't catch this earlier. Actually didn't catch it until um I was talking with this with the solicitor. Uh could mayor could you explain the reappoint of Colin Russ because he's on both the planning commission and the design and just how that's not a conflict and just the role designation there.

Um I will begin and then I might ask Cooper or Jackie if they're here to come to the mic to help. Um Colin uh first of all you know there's obviously a lot of overlap. The design review committee makes recommendations to the planning commission. So we did not see that there was any kind of conflict. In fact, we see it as a kind of good base of knowledge. And also just want to say have been very impressed with Mr. Russ as I've gotten to know him. Um, and the planning commission did ask to keep him on. But Jackie, can you speak to whether there's is there a conflict between design review and planning, you or Cooper? Cooper's in the front row. I should have called on him. Sorry about that. Yeah.

Um, I don't think there's a conflict of interest. The design review committee advises the planning commission and one of their seats is for one of the planning commissioners to also be on the design review committee so that there is some shared knowledge between the two. Okay. Um but uh Rich Spiker is on both committees. Colin I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're Yes. Yeah. Colin Russ is just planning commission. Okay. Where did then Okay. Um is he coming up for reappoint? Isn't there one? I think they just voted on that on Tuesday. Okay. The planning commission.

Thank you. We had started to kind of go into the design and the the planning and so that things are and thanks for catching that is a little jumbled but I wanted to just kind of explain too because I also don't understand if one is on one was it a conflict to vote on the other. So thank you. I appreciate that. Technically yesterday the planning commission he did not vote during the vote to vote himself reassigned to the design committee and then the design committee really is supposed to be very technically oriented. So they want specific occupations. So he's the architect that fulfills that role and then the planning commission would look at more of the macro you know vision for the city and for the 10-year plan and that sort of stuff. Then he would use his expertise then would shift from specific you know technical stuff to the macro vision. That's my understanding,

I think. Go ahead. Okay. No. No. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. Thanks, Cooper. Yes. Thank you, Cooper. Any other questions then from council on anything that we see before we get into the old business because those those pertain to the public hearings we'll be getting into and I just want to kind of go through the process there. Dr. Titus, could I just ask council to take note um under committee reports? So I don't know have you gone over this already about how appointments will be placed there? No.

Did you go over that? So I just want council to note that in the past it's been a little difficult um once there have been appointments to particularly some of our boards and commissions. They haven't been memorialized on agendas and so it is possible to find them if you really kind of go back and look in the e-code but without the without them being on the agendas it makes much more difficult. So Dr. Dr. Titus had asked if there was a way to get these appointments, even the ones that you don't need to approve because some you do need to approve, some you don't. Even the ones that you don't need to approve to get them on the agenda. So, the solution we came up with is under committee reports, we're kind of treating it like as part of my mayor's report and we're putting them there. Again, you're not voting on this part by this point in the agenda. You're done voting, but it's for your kind of benefit and also to make sure that it's on the agenda. It's easily searchable if folks are looking. So, just want to let you know from now on any appointment that you don't have to um approve, we're going to be placing there for you to see. Thank you.

All right. So, if if you don't mind then, solicitor, I would like to just kind of walk through some of the process that we're going to see tonight as we go into these two public hearings.

Okay. So, um I drafted uh two different things for our purposes tonight. So, we've had a lot of public interest in at least one of those projects. So, but for both of these are both public hearings. I'd like to use the same process for both. So, I've what I've listed as ground rules. So, I I'm going to come over and just kind of tell the crowd that this is a legal proceeding. So, the city is going to request the following. And I have a bunch of bullet points. So, the all witnesses will need sworn in. Everyone will need to remain quiet for the speaker at the microphone. We only want one person speaking at a time just out of respect and out and also for clarity. So, everyone also needs to remain quiet for the court reporter. Now, there is a a slight issue. The court reporter we usually we want here physically. However, that person called off. So, we're going to have the court reporter through Zoom. It's already been double checked. It's going to be uh they can do that now. However, we're going to need everyone to speak into the microphones because it's going to be a little bit harder for the court reporter here. And it's also another reason why it's important for everyone to remain quiet or remain calm. Okay. So, I'm going to read that. Um the remain so also just remind everyone that this is presented before you guys because the planning commission has made the recommendation for city council's decision. Um city council will need to decide if the plan complies with basically sections 305 and 306 of the zoning code. Now 306 is the more pertinent one. That's the waterfront conditional use. So that's what you guys are going to make your final decision on. So you're hearing evidence or testimony tonight to make your decision based on those criteria. Um I'm going to announce city council will not make a decision tonight. Um the order of the hearing I my recommendation is that city staff or the developers will present first. City council will then be be able to ask questions either after that or also during the presentation. Again because of the nature of the court reporter in that situation I'd ask one person speak at a time. um uh all witnesses like for

the um for the public so it's not public comment but for people who want to say about the project specifically I'm just going to ask that they say their name spell it for the court reporter say where their residency is just like you guys do for regular hearings so if they live in Mil Creek or the city or wherever do that whether they're for or against the proposal and then why okay that's the only reason they're up here for that particular for that public hearing if they have something else to say about another topic IC. That's what public comment's for. Okay? They can so they can come up twice or technically because we have two public hearings, they can come up for public hearings, speak their piece, and then save the rest of it for public comment. Um, then we're going to close out that proceeding and then we're going to redo the same process, I'm hoping, smoothly for the second one. Okay. Now, so now, so this is the schedule I'm proposing, and it's kind of incorporates sort of what I've said already, but I have it as a separate paper here. So, confirm one, the court reporter ready, swear in the witnesses. Read the ground rule. So, just kind of read what I just read already. Call to order the first public hearing, which is going to be the liquor license transfer. Have Lori read the agenda blurb so everyone knows officially on the record what we're talking about. Uh, have the presentation by either city staff or the developers, so they would go first. again, questions from city council members at that time. So again, if you want to ask a question during the presentation, again, I just ask for one person at a time and then they can respond. Um, or if you just want to wait until they're all done, that's up to you guys. Um, and then call up any citizens who are for or against and then why. And then officially close out that first public hearing and then repeat the process for the second public hearing. They're two separate things. So, that's my proposal to keep it just going smoothly and to make sure that it's uh we get everything we need so you guys can make a valid decision um at the next hearing or next city council meeting.

Thank you. So my my other goal then for this evening for for the counselors is we can't go into necessarily the topic of the hearing material because we have to do the public hearing. But this would be a great time for us to kind of go over section 305 or 306 if there's any questions before we go into that so that we all are feeling pretty confident in those two sections. Um those are the ones I had emailed out last week um and that the solicitor had cited and kind of point us to that top paragraph and then all of section 306. But um does anybody have any questions? Because I just want to make sure we feel good as council going in with with where we are with that. So then after we have tonight's hearing, we as council will be able to discuss amongst ourselves and then at that point we can make any requests for any accommodations that we that we might have

to be placed on that those waterfront conditional uses. Um so they just have to be reasonable. Yeah. So and within the confines of the conditional use part of the ordinance. So yes, and you'll have time to review the uh recording of the hearing and then we'll get all the public comments and the letters. Yeah. And then public comments explain the the letters again to like how long do they have to get

how long I what I had suggested was that they have up until roughly 4:30 the end of business today to submit a letter or an email. Um but certainly if someone submits something you know 8 o'clock tonight or whatever I don't think that would be opposed. I think I wanted it ahead of time so that it was fresh and from them. But if you get a letter on Friday, you still haven't made a decision. I don't say don't throw that out. Yeah.

I just keep that and then we can at the next hearing we can say, "Hey, we have achieved we got more." Just kind of keep it transparent. So Cooper has already received letters for tonight that I asked him to say how many he has. And then before you go next time, I think I put on the record that you've received x number of letters or emails um between LA, you know, today and then next time and just say this and we and you put on there that how you considered all of them and make to make your decision. That's how I would do it. Jason, I I just want to say I really appreciate you laying that out um in the and you know the way in the order that you in the way that you just did to it really makes it uh very for me.

Yeah, just trying to keep it simple too. Um I do expect that we will have a a lot of public comment tonight. um not only during the public comment time, but also during the public hearings just with the emails I've been receiving and just what I've been seeing online. So, I would expect to have a pretty full house tonight. Um is there anything else that any other council would like to to bring up either about tonight's agenda or something that we've recently gone over that maybe still needs resolution? Is the zoo all taken care of? You want to give an update on the zoo? I was told that it's we're good to go. So, that was about a half hour ago.

And I think there's an announcement on Monday. We'll make sure you all get the information on that. Well, you you all may have covered it uh at our at the study session, which I was unable to attend, but uh still fresh in my mind, the parking authority. Is there any updates on that? So, I was not able to attend the parking authority meeting. I don't know if you were there this week, Jasmine. um I meant to coordinate with you. So I have a meeting request out to the executive director and we also have a separate meeting where we're asking all the authority directors to come together to meet with me to talk with them about how we're going to be doing appointments a little differently in the future. But I have a separate meeting request into him. So after that I will have an update for you. Great. Thank you.

Welcome. Remind me. Do so we had talked um and then this I think would just also help kind of prep. Do you remember what we had said next month's study session was going to be? Next month's study session, I believe, is going to be parks. I'm looking at Jackie. No

code. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Katherine. So, next month's study session, that will be your April study session will be um pretty meaty. Uh we have some proposed changes for you to um some code enforcement procedures. We want to talk about fees. We want to talk about um a particular program that we feel we need to have some more oversight on. So that's going to be all around kind of code enforcement and neighborhood issues. Um we also in April will be coming to you because you're only doing one study session a month. We don't want to overload you, but we do have a few things in April that we do need to bring to you. So we will be bringing CDBG allocations to you uh April 1. So, those will be coming to you in advance so you have time to review them and then we'll um during council meeting we'll do a presentation and um answer your questions. And then the other one is at the request of Mr. Bzinski. We're going to be bringing you um a comprehensive look at bike lanes. Um we know this was a hot topic issue last year and Mr. Bzinski has kindly reminded me that the biggest issue was lack of communication. So, we want to make sure that uh we're fully communicating with you. you understand where we're looking for bike lanes, how they connect, what the whole plan behind them, and give you lots of time to talk about that. So, both of those will be presentations to council in April.

Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Interesting to see how it connects because it can't Where are we with um that's not on here, but like the home charter stuff, are we still is that still in consideration or is that

So, we that is officially off the ballot. um with our second final passage was at two meet I think two meetings ago. So that one is down. Uh we took it down and left it in a position where if any other counselor wanted to bring it back up, we could at some point in the future so that we kind of we've kind of neat neatly packaged it back up um so that it's not the process could still reexist if we wanted to reopen it, but we'd have to like re-engage the process and do the first and second reading again. The biggest problem with that, I believe, is they needed 200 signatures to get on there to be chosen and there was no real time frame to educate the public to find out what they would be getting into by doing it. So, it was wisely pulled. I think there was a lot of

I think there were a lot a lot more problems with it that we I won't open up into how it impacted our pension. Uh, and I think that it was a a a probably a a something that would that put the cart before the horse. Uh, and and it would have had long um hard impacting negative

negative impacting uh consequences on our pension. Uh, and I for one hope it never comes back up. not in the form of uh not in the form of of a district voting by district and I could talk at nauseium uh about why that shouldn't be it's like a citywide gerrymander

and that was one of the so I am glad yeah so essentially to answer your question um uh council troop it is off the so it won't be on the ballot at all um and and I think to give us more time to to to address a lot of the concerns if we want to bring it back up. Bring it back up. I was just I'm thinking I see we we're going to put the committee reports under letter K. If we ever decide to bring that back up to educate the public, could we make a letter to start putting something every agenda on the You're free to introduce on that on that. You know what I mean? Any council person is free to introduce it to bring it.

I'm not saying I want to introduce it. I'm just saying if we if it ever comes back up and I know we talk about uh educating the public, could we put something right on the agenda, every agenda like, hey, a fact about home rule charters. That way by the time it comes you've and we could talk about it every, you know, every one of those that comes up. I do though want to let Mr. Horton know um we did ask PFM to do a pretty extensive review of the financial impact of home charter. I just want to say that is in no ways an endorsement. We just felt that it was important to have the financial information. So you will see that when PFM does come to us thanks to the controller who kind of raised the concern. So again, not an endorsement, just wanting to give you more information on that piece.

Just in full disclosure, I I stand ready to vehemently oppose it uh as as ferocious and as passionately uh as I can. The PFM, no, the home rule charter uh voting by district. I asked a question. I never got an answer. A couple years ago, uh, last PFM was a five-year plan. Yes. They never came back to us and told us the impact of CO. Well, and that's why I had a big problem with the five-year plan because it was blown in the air after two years.

Yeah, absolutely true, Mr. Bzinski. I will note that we have to pay PFM and so like with this engagement, we have a grant from the state. So, I'm not sure that the city could if the city had wanted them back, the city would have had to pay for that and that might have been maybe something at the time different administration they didn't want to do. Um, lack of communication. Thank you. This is very much putting you on the the the spot and and it's okay if you don't have anything prepared. Is this like the hot seat? Did I pick the hot seat? You did pick the hot seat. That's why they set you in the blue seat. That is the blue seat. That's actually seat. Okay.

Uh, no. I was just curious. Uh I've received several calls just um around housing and especially rentals and I know that you've had a couple meetings and just how have those is there engagement just to kind of get a sense of of the housing plan? Yes.

Yes. So we have had two meetings uh two listening sessions uh one last Wednesday. That one was really focused on um owners and landlords. It was a very uh it was a different crowd than I would say we normally get and their questions were different and they wanted to specifically talk about the needs and the concerns of of landlords which we heard and received and in fact afterwards um I promised that we would go to a meeting of the apartment association in May to present to the landlords and allow them to ask questions of us. I also invited them to city hall to come talk. We were very clear, of course, in our in our need to protect our tenants, but we also hear the landlords and their concerns and want to make sure that they feel heard and that they're being taken into consideration. And then on Saturday, we had another session at the Quality of Life Center. I was unable to attend because of the St. Patrick's Day parade, but my team was there in force and that was a completely different room, mostly renters, uh mostly, you know, members of the community over there and they shared their concerns around housing. We're hearing a lot about rentals, which I don't think anybody is surprised at. Um, some things have come up, you know, for example, with the tenant bill of rights, which we appreciate your work on. There's question now about how that should be enforced. Um, whose job is it? It's not really code enforcement's job. Um, so we some things have been raised that we definitely need to look further into. I really want to thank the team. Many of them are here tonight from Mayor's Office of Community Affairs, um, the Department of Neighborhood and Economic Development. I mean, code enforcement officers, everyone was there to listen and all of that data will now be put into that final plan that MNL presents to us.

Okay. And I do do think this is a good um a good call to action for for us as council to revisit uh that that tenant bill of rights and see how I mean I think it's great but it's only great when it's being it's useful to be implemented and so seeing how how we could work with the systems that we have through the district justices through this the staffing uh to make it something that that that's usable and and and helpful and protecting.

Yeah. And Dr. Titus, if I could just add since I know we have a minute. We have had a couple of incidents over the past week or so that I would say have really highlighted this issue with with rentals. And I want to be very clear, this is not all landlords. We have very many good landlords in the city of Erie and they are investing in their properties and they're doing what they need to do. And then we have some who are not. And we this week took action and we will continue to take action um to do what we need to do. And we want to be very clear, this isn't just the city of Var's code enforcement officers. All code enforcement can do is look on the outside, do property maintenance review. This is internal issues that we really need to address. Right now, BIOU is the outsourcing agent for our inspections and there is just a breakdown of communication. So, this is something we're going to bring to you in April. That'll be the topic of our study session. This is where a lot of the issues are really coming from. And I want to say again, it's not every landlord, many of them are doing right by their tenants, but the ones that are not, it's time for us to take action. I think the other side of that too, there's an awful lot of good people that are being hurt by landlords, but there are a lot of people taking total advantage.

Yeah, I've been in real estate for a lot of years and I've seen some of the, you know, a lot of them know the rules. They can't be thrown out for 90 days and all that kind of stuff. And by the time they leave, place a wreck. Yep. So, it's double-edged sword. We have a lot of work to do. I have one quick question. This poor guy gets up in the morning. His wife's been in the hospital with a stroke. She's gonna he's going to bring her home from the hospital Tuesday morning. Looks out the front door and there's a tree on his car.

But his insurance company is telling him that until they find out if the tree is on the city, what do we have 12 feet from the center of the city or something? Center of the street or from the owner's house. Uh poor guy sitting there with a red Jeep and a big tree laying on it. He had to go rent a car and he's it's it's right on high view there. It's a nice neighborhood. We have big trees.

Yeah. And I'll I'll tell you, Mr. Fzinski, we had this conversation the other day because we had so many trees down. Um we have to be really careful in terms of liability that we can't we can't go on to private property. We can't take our equipment under private property. So, we've been really clear with streets that they are to pick up trees are in the right away, but we can't. As much as we'd like to help everybody, it's too much of a liability for us to be going onto private property and removing them. So, I think streets did a great job this week in removing from the rightway and doing what they needed to do. And by the way, then immediately switching to salting and plowing, which we didn't expect to do. Um, but all in like the matter of 24 hours. So, but this is an issue. We had a lot of calls and we had to remind people we can't come on your property. But I would ask I knew there was a setback from the middle of the street or something.

Yeah. But if he's being advised by his insurance company particularly, I wouldn't want us to get in the middle of that either. I just didn't know if we were liable for it. That's all. Yeah. I And I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Who would know which should we can find out the setback I mean that question and get get that information to you and then at least you can provide it to him. We can do that. I think it's always been said that anything in between a sidewalk and the street is sidewalks on high view, right? Well, anything off the street I think is 12 feet from the middle of the street is the last rule that I heard. Okay. There's no sidewalk. There's another issue. We'll get clarity for you on that.

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Um that would probably be Sarah. Yeah. Is there anything else that anybody not sure what other calls that others have been getting? Mine have mostly been around the public hearings tonight that we'll be having and and I've been hearing a lot more about about housing. I think it's it's in in tangent with just the listening sessions that have been happening and just some of the the local groups who've been really staying focused on this. I'm in the hot seat. So, anybody else have questions? We might as well keep going. I'm sorry. No, we're good. I don't mean to do that. No, it's fine. I don't mind. It's the job.

Are we going to continue uh the way we do uh big ticket items by calling in and that because um I can see driving around the city where it's not like two or three items, there's 10 items.

Like where we were back to before. Yeah. A lot of problem. We are going to do the um the sweeps that were done last year, but we're going to hold off until April 1st. We want to give folks a chance to try to take care of some of those items themselves. This is a place code enforcement does help. They do, you know, exterior review. Um and we've encouraged them to go out and work with residents, talk to them about large item pickup, how to do that. You can do it online or you can call to get that scheduled or, you know, maybe you need a vendor. But we can we'll work with them and we're going to try over these next these last weeks of March to understand where the worst spots are, where our code enforcement officers need to be. And then on April 1st, we will announce that we will be ticketing again and doing sweeps. And at that point then people need to we can't allow the city to look like trash. It's just we cannot it's not fair to our neighbors. And so we will be aggressively um working on this. It takes all of us kind of working together, code enforcement, you know, communications office, all of it. But yes, April 1st, we will begin the ticketing again.

And this was something we had also seen again that was quickly a trend became uh noticeable that it was um some landlords who who weren't present um that were were where tenants were leaving things out and they they weren't aware and other people were getting punished um and it was falling on especially on the taxpayers. So I I do feel like this is al one of those other routes where we're identifying where some of the problem areas are and we're able to address that.

Also communicating, you know, we did put something out to remind um residents you can't put your garbage out prior to 24 hours before your pickup night. So the problem is if you put your garbage out on Monday and your pickup is Wednesday and now we had all this wind and now your trash is everywhere and there's animals in your in your bags. like you can't do that because again, so we we do need to continue to educate our residents on how they can help us keep our city clean. Everybody has a role to play. Just as simple as that. Please don't put your trash out until it's your trash night. So, we are going to continue to educate and talk about this more and more kind of leading up to the the bigger things that we need to do. But it it sounds silly, but it does take everybody to to have a role in this. Put your can away at 20. Yeah. Don't leave it out till next Tuesday. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of them in the streets. Ah, yeah. They blow all over the place. They're laying in the streets. And if you drive in the neighborhoods with a lot of green spaces, you see a bunch of garbage cans and you're like, I wonder whose house you belong to cuz, you know, it's not anywhere anywhere near cuz no one, you know, looked for their can. So, it's obviously blown from quite some distance.

We have strong wind. I did have the um this planned out in a much more robust way, but we are we're pulling with the with some of the the DCED and the HUD funding. So, I did want to that was going to also be in in this tonight. Um but our brains are getting a little bit of breathing room and we will tackle that at another later time. But I did want to make sure that we as as council just felt that we un like that we were ready to go in with the section 305 and section 306 before the public hearings tonight because this is um these are big ones that we've that and I don't think we've I think they'll just these are going to be big ones. So I just want to make sure everybody felt confident. We don't have to fill the space. We don't have to keep you in a in a hot seat. We can we can recess until the council meeting starts. Um, so and that will give us time to reset the space as well.

I just do want to say the staff is all here. So if you have questions for the staff about any of the zoning or anything, I just want to make sure you know this is the time to ask them. So just if anyone does, I can happy to call them up. I think I just want to hear from the public and then the any presentation uh both applicants whether it's for the liquor license or the hotel. I think I'm just in listening mode. I don't have a lot of questions. Any questions I might have would derive from that. You tie your hair with one hand. I got I got a girlfriend his wife.

Well, then if council's okay with it, we will go ahead and recess then until our meeting starts. Um and that way we can reset the room and be ready for our our public meeting.