City Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat.

Good evening, Garden City. I'd like to call to order regular city council meeting for Monday, February 23rd, 2026 at 7 p.m. Our first order of business is our opening ceremonies which consists of our national anthem followed by a pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence for those service members who have given their lives for our country. Please rise. Hallelujah.

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Smith, if you take roll call, please. Mayor Jacobs here. Mayor Prom Dold here. Council member Hughes. Uh, show. Council member Hughes absent and excused. Council member Whit here. Council member King here. Council member Dol here. Council member Kerapotus here. We have a quorum of six. You. Okay. Item four is our approval of the agenda. Mayor. Council member Wit. I'd like to make a motion to approve the Monday, February 23rd, 2026 council meeting agenda as presented. Support for Mayor Prom Dold. Comments from table from the public. All in favor? I opposed.

Motion passes 6. Okay, we have no recognitions. Uh no state or county officials, no presentations, uh community events. I'd like to call up president of GCBA, Miss Jackie Periodor.

Hello. Hello, Mayor and Council. I'm excited. It's that time of year again. Music in the park. So, we have our dates. We have June I have to read. June 18th, July 16th, and August 20th. So, this year we're having a new group. They're called the ones and twos. They are Mottown Mottown adjacent. So, that'll be in June. And then in July we'll have Smith Factor which is a repeat and then Singen Smith in August. This year we're trying to tell people there's more things than just the free concert. There's vendors, there's games, there's um food trucks, there's all kinds of things. I think Kuanas is doing popcorn again, which is everybody keeps asking about the free popcorn. So Parks and Rock will be there with the games. I think it's going to be awesome this year. So, it starts at 6 and the music starts at 6:30. I left some cards over there and I hope to see everybody, but uh you got to bring your lawn chair.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we have no petitions or communications, no public hearings tonight. Uh item 11 is our consent agenda. Mayor, council member Wit like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items A1 through five as presented. support from council member King. Discussion from table from public. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 60. Onto our action items. Uh item one is our citywide copy lease agreement. Uh and I will ask Mr. Smith.

Good evening, mayor and council. In front of you this evening is a request uh to a renew our lease agreement for citywide copers with Toshiba. Uh the contract expires uh beginning of April. What we've done for this um we are a member of Omnia Partners, which is a purchasing consortium uh that allows governments to put things out for bids, uh do solicitations, and then once that's awarded, other municipal governments and state governments can kind of piggyback on those terms. It's the same thing we did in 2021. Um, I looked it up. I was like, "Oh, it was the Omnia Partners contract back then than what we did." So, this one, uh, there was five printer companies that had submitted bids for it. And what they did is they did a rubric because prices on copiers aren't necessarily apples to apples. Um, so they looked at the different criteria, reputation, service, long-term costs, things like that. And Toshiba was the top scoring on the rubric and was awarded the contract. So what we've also done is we've worked with um Mary from Toshiba is here in the audience with us. Um so we've actually worked out uh agreement too where instead of upgrading all of our machines, we currently have 16 machines citywide. We are upgrading 13 which are the ones that are used the most. So we'll get upgraded new equipment, but there's three in the city that have relative low usage um comparative to the other ones. we will keep those ones. Um, but they will still fall under this service agreement. If something has an issue or anything like that, they'll come out. They'll be repaired and taken care of. And they've actually with this agreement we've set up, the quarterly payment is the same as it was under the old agreement. So, even though we signed that one back, you know, five years ago, u the price per unit stays the same. So, it's nice in this day and age to not see

a price increase um for something five years, you know, in the future. And that price stays the same for the length of the contract. So, five years from now, we'll still be paying the same quarterly as we are now. Uh I like Toshiba. We've worked with them for years. They've always been responsive uh to come out to do repairs. Normally, if there's an issue, we contact them. They can't make it out that that day, it's within the next day, they'll come on out and take care of it. The other nice thing about Toshiba is we already have the print drivers installed on our system. So, it's going to minimize our IT time in terms of getting everything up and running. Toshiba will swap out the old machines, bring in the new ones. We should be kind of pretty much a plugandplay good to go when they bring those in. So, it minimizes external IT work. Also um over the course of five years I think after 5 years our staff is finally comfortable and has memorized exactly how to use the copier interface. They don't have to learn a new system. Um the new models are basically the same interface as the old ones. Um so it cuts down on staff training. Uh so because of those reasons is why I recommend uh approval of a 60-month 5-year agreement with Toshiba this evening.

Thank you. Uh motion is in order. Mayor Uh, Council Member King, I move to approve the proposed 60-month agreement for Citywide Copier Services with Toshiba America Business Solutions build in a quarterly amount not to exceed $9,959 for a total annual cost not to exceed 39,836. Support from uh council member Kapotus. discussion from table. Mayor, tell me I got it wrong again.

No, no, you you got it right. I just I'm sorry I looked at you for a moment. Um I just wanted to to kind of say um when I was DDA director, we were able to kind of piggyback off the city's contracts with Toshiba and we worked with them. They were fantastic. Supplies arrived, you know, very quickly. um and anytime I ever needed help actually, which was often because I'm not real literate with things like that, but uh they were always right there. So, I I think it's great. I think the price is very reasonable. So, further comments from the table. Mayor, Council Member King,

I just have a question just regarding the financial piece. I noticed the um GO account number is not filled out. Is that because there's so many units throughout the city that each one is tied to their their own department or how That's correct. Um each each department has their own GL number. Um so each quarterly statement there's about seven or eight different GL numbers. So um that's the total fiscal year impact. Um but it is divided up by the department. I just didn't want to give you a a sheet that was three pages. No, that makes sense. Um, and just out of curiosity, I think I read in there or you just mentioned also three of the high volume copiers will be updated. Which three? Three, three of the lower usage ones we are retaining. Right.

So, so those are there's one over at the ice arena. There is one that is in the fire department and there is one that I believe is over on one of the apartments in over in PD. So, which is actually the one that came from the DDA office. So, all right. Thanks. Thank you. Further comments from the table. Okay. Comments from the public. Okay. Uh, all in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 6. Thank you, Mary. Item two is uh just calling for a public hearing uh on ordinance amendment. I will go to Mr. Gibbons.

Uh, thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh yes, this is just uh uh calling for public hearing to update our uh what is currently labeled our obscene and harassing telephone call ordinance. Um it has been in place for a very long time. Uh telecommunications is modernized quite a bit. There's a lot of different ways you can communicate with someone um in a manner that might be a seen or harassing. Um so what we want to do is uh amend our ordinance to provide for all methods of communication that someone might use on a phone that our ordinance may not um in writing right now cover. So, it's just to uh make it more uh modern uh to be able to enforce uh ordinances against obscene and harassing telephone calls. May they text, maybe they're emails, maybe it's video call, but this this update um the council will consider will allow that. Mayor,

Council Member Do like to move to call a public hearing for Monday, March 23rd to 2026 at 7 p.m. to consider an amendment to chapter 131 for malicious use of service provided by telecommunication service provider. Support from council member Kapotus. Uh further discussion from the table just on the calling of the public hearing. Mayor, Council Member King, the copy of the current ordinance as in the packet, that's the existing one, right? Without the markup yet. Um, the one in the packet, I believe, is actually the updated that we will be considering. Let me double check and make sure there's not another

It is a draft of the uh one to be considered. Uh, as we've renamed it, malicious use of a service provider by telephone telecommunication service provider. It was previously known as obscene or harassing telephone calls. Can we get a I guess a question is can we get a copy of what's been changed or what's being updated in in this ordinance? Absolutely. Um like a redline copy. Yes, no problem. But it it it is a uh nearly complete overhaul of the uh of the ordinance. Um it little was retained from the previous but I can certainly get a redline copy provide the previous ordinance would be online with our ordinance. Correct. But we could go on it because that's what it is right now. We can go on there and read it.

Absolutely. But I can but it's really no problem to provide a uh a redline copy. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Further comments on just the calling of the public or a hearing from the public. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 70. What's that?

6. Did I say 760? Sorry. Okay. Item 12. Other business? None. Uh public comment from the uh public. Mr. Jones. On March 17th, there's going to be a St. Patrick's Day lunch at at the Radclu Center. We'll have uh good food, drinks, prizes. Costs are $10 for residents and $15 for non-residents. Okay. Thank you. Are you going to be there? Are you going to be there? I'm going to be there.

I'm going to be there. Just check. All right. Uh any other public comments? Okay. Mr. Given. Uh nothing tonight, Mayor. Thank you. You, Mr. Smith?

Um just two quick reminders. Um, business licenses for the 2026 renewal are due and of this Monday because they're normally due the last day of February. With that falling on the weekend, we extend it to the Monday. Uh, so business licenses are due next Monday. And along the same lines, the last day the city can take 2025 tax payments is end of business day next Monday. After Monday, they have to go be paid at Wayne County. So, our tax department just wanted me to put out the reminder that um it's not a garden city rule. It's, you know, countywide after Monday, we cannot accept 2025 tax payments here.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor Prom Dole. Yeah. I'd just like to give a shout out to uh Garden City Fire Department and local union 1911 for the fantastic job they did on putting on out the uh bowling fundraiser yesterday. was a great time. A lot of people just terrific uh gifts, raffles. I hope they raised a lot of money to continue to help the nonprofit organizations in this city. It's all I got. Thank you, Council Member Wit. Nothing tonight. Yep. Council member King, I'm all set. Thanks,

Council Member Dold. Uh just real quick, I wanted to remind everybody about the Kowanas Pig Race that is happening March 7th at Radcliffe. $20 uh dinner, desserts, cash bar, great time with the pigs. Come come see them all. They're they're most of them are currently in the hall at Radcliffe, so you can go over there and take a look at them. They do have actual physical tickets at Radcliffe that are available or you can get them on um ludis.com. Um also congratulations to uh the Garden City PMP pomon team. They made it to state championships. Unfortunately, they didn't take the state championships, but they made it there and they did a fantastic job. And I wanted to also um extend my sympathy to the Walls family. uh just heartbreaking loss for them and also the Jablanki family and their loss.

Thank you. Thank you, council members. Cara Fotus, I just have a few things. Um one, I wanted to know where we are with the ordinance for the rentals for limiting rentals. Um we provided council some information. We'll continue to provide some more about rentals within the town and then uh we'll be bringing it back in front of you um when we feel like we can address the council's concerns based on the data we collected. Okay. So,

um, and then, uh, at the budget meeting, I talked about possibly talking about using our road bond money when we do roads to also replace, um, water manes. And since I said that, several residents have said, "Please do that." So, um, I know that we're starting Maplewood and I wanted to know when we will have out like the map of what other um, roads will be done. A lot of people are asking about that. Um, and I know what most of the water means were already done on Maplewood the last time. So, those are relatively new, but you know, maybe some of the other smaller streets that the water mane is original. We could think about doing those. Um, I also wanted to say um shout out to the Garden City Fire Department. I had a resident contact me this week, said they were called to her house. It was a very stressful situation and it was wonderful. They actually uh met her at the hospital so that um she knew that they were there for her and she said they were absolutely wonderful. They were very caring and she just felt like our fire department goes above and beyond. So, thank you for that. Um, I also wanted to mention that the Garden City Garden Club is having the gardening conference. It's Saturday, March 14th. It's at the Garden City High School Ori Auditorium. You can register online at garden cityguardenclub.com or you can register in person at lucky dog. And that's it.

Thank you. Uh, I just have a couple things. I want to again remind everybody about the uh police verse fire charity hockey game March 14th 700 p.m. Uh a lot of raffle tickets there and uh um it's always a good time. Uh entertaining to say the least. So uh mark your calendars for that. We'll hear more about that. Um and all the proceeds go to our our home pantry. Uh, I'd also like to extend my condolences to Eric and Dena, uh, on their loss. Uh, terrible. Um, my condolences. Also to the, uh, Dol family on their loss. Uh, Jim and Jeff. Uh, my condolences to to you guys and your families. Um, unfortunately, I did not I was unable to make the, uh, fire department yesterday, but I heard it was a good time. So for those that took my place, I'm sure you did a better job anyway. So, uh, good. Uh, and with that, no further business. This meeting is adjourned. Heat. Heat.