City Council - Regular Meeting

Good

evening, everyone. Welcome to, City of Green City Council meeting for Tuesday, 10/28/2025. I'm gonna call this meeting to order. Please stand and join me for the pledge allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Nicole, could you please do roll call of council members?

Sure. Mr. Miller?

Here.

Mr. Neugebauer? Here. Mr. Noble?

Here.

Mr. Spate?

Here.

Mr. Mager?

Here.

Mrs. Babbitt is absent. Mr. DeVitus? Here. Okay.

Thank you. Next is, council study session. First item is, TMP five thousand one thirty three approval of the October 20 or 10/14/2025 City Council meeting minutes. Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve TMP 5,133. Is there any discussion? Nicole, please call for a vote.

Mr. Spate?

Yes.

Mr. DeBitis? Yes. Mr. Miller? Yes. Mr. Nojavar?

I was absent for the last meeting, so I will abstain.

Okay. Mr. Noble? Yes. Mr. Maker?

Yes.

Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Next, item is public report. Do we have anybody signed up to speak? Okay. Nobody has signed up to speak. So we will move on to a public hearing. We do have a public hearing tonight. I believe that's Mr. Spade's committee. So I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Spade to read this in and get going on the public hearing.

Thank you, Mr. President. I now like to start the public hearing for twenty twenty five R45. This is a resolution establishing a street lighting district for Jacobs Ridge planned development Phases one through five and declaring an emergency. Mr. Wethey, would you mind giving us a brief overview of this, please?

Yes, quickly. This is for all five phases, as you can see, one through five. That's the entirety of Jacobs Ridge Subdivision. There's 166 parcels in the subdivision, and the ESIP agreement is $643.5 a month that the city would pay, and the assessment to each of those parcels per month on a yearly basis we built annually, but it's $387 a month per parcel. So as you talk with I didn't do the math on that one, but so it's really we will pay the first energy bill first and through the assessments, we will be paid back.

I don't know if there are some neighbors that were contacted. This is not all Pulte Homes. They still own, I believe, about 70 somewhere in the 75 to 77 category are actually constructed upon. So I don't know if anyone's here tonight. It doesn't look like it, but they all have been notified. If you are separate than Pulte Homes, you've been notified about the public hearing tonight. So it's relatively pretty much right in line with everything else you see, about $350 $385 a month.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Weethy. I will go ahead and turn it open to any members of committee. Members of counsel have any comments or questions about this? Since this is the public hearing per council rules, we are not able to take action on it this evening. So we will probably move this forward at our next regular council meeting. At this time, I will close the public hearing for $20.25 R45.

Thank you, Mr. Spate. All right. Next item on the agenda is the reading of correspondence.

Okay. We have the 08/20/2025 Planning and Zoning Commission minutes, the seventh 09/17/2025 Planning and Zoning Commission minutes, the Planning and Zoning Commission's notice of recommendation for Greensburg Meadow PD, the 10/15/2025 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting summary, the 09/10/2025, Civil Service Commission minutes, and an email from Brent Trask regarding the annual sidewalk repair program. And that is all.

Thank you, Nicole. Next item on agenda is new legislation. These are items that are being on first reading.

All right. We have 2025 R48, a resolution approving and adopting the 2026 annual capital appropriations for the City Of Greene and declaring an emergency.

That will be referred to the Finance Committee. Mr. President, before we

move on, I'd just like to point out that the administration has requested that counsel consider passing the capital appropriations in the month of December before we go before the Christmas break. Our typical practice was to do that in the first of the next year, but there's a couple of reasons why they would like us to consider doing that in December. I bring that up because it's different than we've done the last few years and it'll be the same basic course that we're doing the operating budget on. Typically, consider them at the same time, but don't vote until the next year. But I think this year that we'll probably be looking to approve both of those at our last meeting of the year, which would be the second Tuesday in December.

Is that it, Mr. Nudhavar? That's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Nicole?

Alright. We have 2025 dash r 49, a resolution approving and adopting the 2026 annual operating appropriation for the general fund and all other funds for the city of Greene in declaring an emergency.

That'll be referred to the finance committee. Mr. President. Mr. Niedzebauer.

I'd like to make a comment on this also. This is first reading. We won't have discussion this evening on the operating budget, but there are, after this week, three meetings remaining. And so the process that I think we should use to discuss this at our next meeting, the administration will be making a presentation about operating budget, which will be prepared by Director Goodrich. I think at that time, if we have any questions related to the presentation or anything that we've observed in the budget, we can certainly ask questions.

But then we would have then the second meeting in November to follow-up with more questions. And so if counsel has any requires any more in-depth analysis or has any questions, perhaps they could give them to me and I can forward those to the finance department so they can process and be ready for that second reading in November. And then on fourth reading, the first meeting in December, then I would anticipate that we would be in a position to approve the operating budget.

Thank you, Mr. Nieszchevauer. Next.

2025 R51, a resolution authorizing the City of Green to enter into a contract with Environmental Design Group, LLC, to provide municipal engineering services from 01/01/2026 through 12/31/2028 and declaring emergency.

That'll be referred to the finance committee. Skip to r

50. Oh, yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Twenty twenty five dash r 50 resolution modifying appropriations within certain funds in order to provide sufficient funding in declaring emergency.

That'll be referred to the finance committee.

Twenty twenty five dash r 52, a resolution authorizing the city of Green to enter into contracts with various planning, architecture, historic preservation and landscape architecture firms for professional services for a three year term commencing 01/01/2026, and declaring emergency.

It will also be referred to the Finance Committee.

Twenty twenty five-eleven, an ordinance declaring a portion of improvements to a certain parcel of real property owned by Toth Realty of Akron LLC doing business as Toth Buick GMC to be a public purpose, exempting 100% of the value of the improvements from real property taxation for thirty years.

That'll be referred to the Planning and Economic Development Committee.

Twenty twenty five dash 12, an ordinance changing the zoning classification of approximately 30.5 acres of land located at the Northeast corner of Greensburg Road and Winning Way from r one single family residential to PD planned development and accepting the conceptual site plan of the proposed Greensburg Meadow plan development.

Okay. That'll be referred to the Planning and Economic Development Committee as well. Tentatively, there's a public hearing on this topic scheduled for 11/25/2025.

Twenty twenty five dash thirteen, an ordinance declaring a portion of improvements to a certain parcel of real property owned by Sarah Works of Akron LLC, doing business as Sarah Subaru to be a public purpose, exempting 100% of the value of the improvements from real property taxation for thirty years.

That'll be referred to the Planning and Economic Development Committee as well.

And lastly, 2025 dash 14, an ordinance to amend section 34.1, City Tree Advisory Commission of chapter 34, city organizations of the codified ordinances of the city of Green.

That'll be referred to the Environment and Parks Committee.

That's all I have.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Next, we're gonna report we're gonna do the report of of council committees from earlier today. So the first committee to report out is the finance committee, chaired by mister Neugebauer.

Thank you, mister president. The finance committee did meet this evening at 05:02 p. M. We had one item of legislation. This was Resolution twenty twenty five R46, a resolution authorizing the city of Green to enter into an agreement with GPD Group for concept and site improvement plans for Roehl Family Park, making an appropriation and declaring an emergency.

This was on second reading. We had a fairly in-depth discussion about what's happening at this piece of land in the Southwest corner of the city. Basically, this land was a donation, and we're looking to make those improvements. The contract under question is for $55,100 and GPD was selected through a qualitative process where they evaluated firms and their approach to the project. This was on second reading and the committee requested time.

Time is granted. We had no old or new business before committee, and we adjourned at 05:16 p. M.

Thank you, Mr. Niedzibauer. The next committee to report is Environment and Parks chaired by Mr. Miller.

You, Mr. Noble. Thank Myself, Mr. Spate and Mrs. Vabat were present. However, we had no items of legislation for discussion, and there were no new or old items of business for discussion, so we did not meet.

Thank you, Mr. Miller. Next committee to report is public safety, normally chaired by Mrs. Babbitt, but will be chaired by Mr. Miller.

Thank you again. Myself, Mrs. Babbitt and Mr. DeVitus were present during committee meetings. And again, no items of legislation in this committee and no new or old business was brought up. So that committee did not meet either.

Thank you. Next committee to report out is Planning, Community and Economic Development, which is chaired by Mr. DeVitus. Thank you, Mr. President. All members of planning were present tonight. However, we had no items on the agenda, and we did not meet. Thank you. Next committee report is rules and personnel, which I chair. All members were present this evening. However, we didn't have any items of legislation, and we did not meet this evening. Next is Transportation, Connectivity and Stormwater chaired by Mr. Maker.

Thank you, Mr. President. All members were present. We had no items of legislation. However, we do receive an update from Paul Pickett, city engineer, regarding the last steps being taken on Masson Road, mostly just the striping and markings. We expect to have those done here shortly, and that wraps up that project. We also discussed briefly an issue we're having with the contractor regarding some concrete work throughout the city. We got an update that we are going to continue to pressure that contractor to basically fix some of the problems that they've caused and correct some issues. So if anybody has any problems with some concrete work or any kind of work, please let your council member know or me, and we're happy to add you to the list of stuff the city is following up on. So with that, we

adjourned at 05:18. Thank you, Mr. Mager. Next committee to report is Intergovernmental and Utilities chaired by Mr. Spate.

Thank you, Mr. President. Myself, Mr. Mager and Mr. Noble were all here. We did have two items of legislation, both on third reading. First was twenty twenty five R44, a resolution authorizing the City of Green to enter into an agreement with Summit County for the Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding for job creation and retention and Tax Revenue Sharing and Declaring an Emergency. The last two meetings, we had some very good discussions on this. Ms. Russell was in here describing this piece of legislation and what the Memorandum of Understanding actually does for the city of Greene and our surrounding neighbors within the county.

Some changes to be noted is our current agreement has a minimum or I'm sorry, a revenue threshold of $3,500,000 that will increase to $4,500,000 of revenue for this to take effect. If a company is persuaded by some other means, then this engagement would also I'm sorry, this MOU would also then be engaged to help protect the city of Green. There were five communities that are no longer part of this. And after much discussion, the committee did agree to

move this forward. So at this time, I would motion that we adopt twenty twenty five R44. Second. I have a motion and a second to adopt twenty twenty five dash r forty four. Is there any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, please call roll.

Mister Spate?

Yes.

Mister Meager?

Yes.

Mister Miller?

Yes.

Mister Neugebauer? Yes. Mister Noble?

Yes.

And mister DeVitus? Yes. Okay. 2025DashR44 is adopted six zero.

And next item we had was 02/1945, a resolution establishing a street lighting district for Jacobs Ridge plan development phases one through five and declaring an emergency. We just had a public hearing on this a few moments ago. And per our council rules, we are not able to move take action on it this evening. Therefore, we will be asking time for 02/1945.

Time is granted.

Sir, and we had no older new business to come before committee, we adjourned at 05:43.

Okay. That concludes the report of our committees. The next item on our agenda is our mayor's report. Mayor Juergen? Thank you, Mr. President. In response to the temporary halt of SNAP benefits, which stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs that is expected to begin on November 1 unless issues are resolved at the federal level, The City of Greene is sharing some local resources for families and individuals who may find themselves in need in the coming weeks. It's estimated that between 901,000 households in Greene receive SNAP benefits. This is what we've done. We've started a list of food pantries in our community for families in need.

That will be available on our website. Blessings in a Backpack in conjunction with almost all of our local churches are coming together to provide and expand their service for children for any children or any family or individual in need with a program called Supper Smiles. This program is still being finalized, but here are the basics. Beginning November 1, bags will be available at the Green Branch Library during business hours or Green Fire Station one. For those able and interested in donating food items, drop off items at Green High School during school hours at Akron General Lifestyles.

So anybody who's in need can pick up bags again at the Green Branch Library and Fire Station 1 during normal work hours. And those who want to donate food and there is a general request out there for donations can drop off food items at Green High School during school hours or at Akron General Lifestyles. As new info becomes available, we will be updating our website and sharing that information on social media. We're currently accepting applications from residents interested in serving the city in the following boards and commissions. The Audit Committee, the Board of Zoning Appeals, the Planning and Zoning Commission, Design Review Board, Historic Preservation Commission, Veterans Advisory Commission, the Living Green Task Force and the Charter Review Commission.

For details or to apply, please visit cityofgreen.org/boardscommissions. The deadline to apply is Monday, November 17. Special thank you to our Green Park staff for hosting our annual Trick or Treat Trail on Saturday, October 18. It was a beautiful day with more than 800 kids participating. Also special thanks to the sponsorship support of Jersey Sports Pub.

On Saturday, October 25, we hosted our annual Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast where I had the pleasure of honoring resident John Pearsall, who is a current President and longtime volunteer with the Green Soccer Association. We're blessed to have amazing volunteers like John, who give freely of their time and talents to our numerous youth sports programs. John has been a volunteer in the Green Soccer program for more than thirty years. He was integral in starting the Soccer's Goal program, which is a program for kids with disabilities and provided input into the building of our new Kloeckner Adoptive Sports Field this past year. New business openings.

The past few weeks, I've had the pleasure of attending by the way, I want to thank I should would be remiss to say I want to thank Councilman Noble and Councilman Noojibauer for coming to the volunteer breakfast on Saturday and serving the volunteers. Also several members of my staff were there. Director Carr was there, Valerie Wolford. Kelly, my assistant always does an amazing job with that. Thank you for honoring the volunteers. Shelly was there too. Shelly was there.

Thank you, Shelly. That's okay. And Pam Serena.

Frankly, I owe her one. It's an inside joke, but

And Pam Serena. She made the batter and that's the hardest job.

Thank you. Yes, it is the hardest job. New business openings, the Devil Strip Barbershop, Bruno's Barbershop and Seven Brew. With regard to the core, we're excited to share that we are one step closer to opening day of the core. Our grand opening celebration is November 15 from 9AM to 1PM.

The ribbon cutting will be at 09:15 followed by tours, prizes, fitness class demos, games and more. And then on Sunday, the next day November 16, open from noon to five for our charter members only day. If you haven't signed up yet, you can do so online or stop at the Central Administration Building between 8AM and 4PM Monday through Friday before November 15. Charter resident memberships are being offered at a discounted rate of course. If purchased before November 30, charter rate for individuals is $100 per year.

There are a number of different rate categories for families, seniors and veterans. In addition to these rates, the core is a SilverSneakers facility. We're asking SilverSneaker members to register now to be part of this charter membership. All of this information, of course, is available on our website. This Friday, October 31 at the Corps, my Mayor's Morning Meetup will happen from 9AM to 10AM.

Come enjoy coffee with me and get a new sneak peek of the facility. Events. My second engaging green of the year is Thursday, October 30 at 08:30AM at the Central Park Community Hall. These events geared toward our business community are designed to connect and spark opportunity for business growth. In addition to sharing a city update, guest speaker Jeremy Lyle and also Wellesley McDowell from the Center of Immersive Leadership will facilitate a discussion on how generational differences in the workforce can be a superpower for your business.

Registration is required. You can register by calling my office at (330) 896-6602. Please save the date for the following November events. On November 11, our annual Veterans Day ceremony will be at the Green Veterans Memorial Park at 10:45. Our guest speaker is Green resident and Vietnam veteran, Bill Burgess. In the event of inclement weather, cold rain or snow, we will move the event indoors to the Queen of Heaven Parish Life Center. On Monday, November 17, we are hosting a community potluck and showing the documentary Join or Die. It's an aggressive title, but it's actually about community building. I've seen the documentary. It's really interesting.

It's about how communities are built by coming together and doing things together like Church, the Yelps Group, Civic Organizations, Boards and Commissions, how that builds community and what happens when communities get away from that. So we're hoping you're able to come. It will be an interesting discussion that is again Monday, November 17, Potluck. Following the viewing, we'll have a short discussion about ways to become more involved in our community. The Potluck begins at 05:30 at the John Toric Center.

The movie the documentary begins at six Registration is requested by emailing communicationscityofgreen dot org. The last great race of 2025 is the Green Turkey Day Trot on Thanksgiving Day, November 27. You may have wondered as you pass by Steese Road, what the Little Houses are by the way around the ponds at Central Park. And what has happened is the City of Green has taken over the Little House Christmas decorations that were previously put on by PLCC. So what we're doing is, we're offering sponsorships to the different civic organizations around town who are adopting a house and then we'll have it decorated for our Christmas celebration, Christmas at Central Park in early December.

Those will stay in effect during the Christmas season and will be removed then in January. So people are not moving into those. It is part of our Christmas decorations, something new that we're doing this year. Also, Mr. Noble had mentioned, he did steal my thunder in one regard. The Band Booster Craft Show is this Saturday from nine to four at Green High School. Mr. President, that concludes my report. Thank you, Mayor.

Okay. Next is unfinished business. I do want to mention that our next meeting will be on Monday, November 10, not Tuesday, which is Veterans Day. So we're varying from our normal our normal schedule on that meeting. Again, it's it will be on a Monday, November 10. Okay. Is there any other unfinished business? Is there any new business? Okay. I'll make a motion to adjourn this meeting. Second. I have a motion and a second to adjourn council meeting. Please call the roll. Mr. Noble? Yes.

Mr. Maker?

Yes.

Mr. Miller?

Yes.

Mr. Nugibauer? Yes. Mr. Spate?

Yes.

And Mr. DeVitus? Yes. Okay. Motion carries.

Meeting adjourned.