City Council - workshop

This meeting to order, the mayor is unable to attend tonight. This is a duly noticed workshop of Hudson City Council, held in accordance with the Sunshine Laws of the state of Ohio, Section 121.22, and the City of Hudson Charter, Article 3, Section 3.02. for Tuesday, June 9th. I'd like to take a moment and welcome everyone who is in attendance tonight. And the only two members of the public are Christine Rady and Captain Graham. So thank you guys for being here. And as well as all those who may be watching remotely via the HCTV video feed. All right. Moving on to the next section, correspondence and council comments. If any council member has something they'd like to share, please get my attention. Patricia.

Um, two items. Um, as everybody knows, this Friday is the, um, uh, ice cream social. Um, and, um, They are in need of donations. They lost the donors for the ice cream and also for the waste products. So, um, they're in need of, of extra donations. Um, and also there'll be a lot of different musical of, uh, people there, but the, um, uh, Western reserve community band will be playing from seven to eight o'clock. I'm a member of that, and there'll be a lot of patriotic songs, and it'll be fun. And then the second thing that Mrs. Sutton had sent us a notice about, there's going to be a play that's put on by students grades three to eight. It's called Twinderella. It's kind of a takeoff on Cinderella, and it'll be Friday at 7 p.m. at Barlow and Saturday at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. I'm going with my grandkids. They're really excited about seeing it. It sounds like it's going to be a fun thing. So anybody who's got small kids, I would suggest that you go and patronize this. It doesn't cost much. It's very small. But I'm sure that the kids would appreciate our attendance.

Heather.

Received a voicemail from a resident this weekend who Would like us to update our food truck legislation to state that you cannot park a food truck in a residential District and operate unless you're part of a festival That's all Updates from the home committee

The school board is planning to approve a three-year contract for resource officers at the schools. This would be brought to council for approval and continue the joint effort between the school, city, and police department. The school board is also still working through solutions on the Saywell House and having it sold or moved. Nothing concrete has been presented at this time. Um, parks department discussed some trouble with e-bikes and neighborhoods, and they'd like us to discuss that in our next safety meeting, uh, which I believe is next week. Um, and we'll also be looking at the current ordinance on e-bikes and, uh, look to council to potentially update that if it needs it. Um, council also discussed, uh, the birdsong project with, um, potential involvement from the Hudson parks and school and the library. Um, parks is going to be discussing that at the next meeting, I believe. And they may have already done that Kyle. And then, um, I'll be reaching out to the library for potential collaboration. And then the last update was the library mentioned that they had the approval of the levy which accounted for I believe 70% of their budget. So they were very happy for that to pass.

Yes, I just wanted to recognize June is Pride Month and I just wanted to formally acknowledge put a statement out from the city of Hudson recognizing that for the month of June. So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there. If anyone had any comments or questions regarding that. We pulled some just other months that the city usually acknowledges in several different, you know, Black History Month, Heart History, Women's, all the things. So I think we should also acknowledge this group in our city.

Tom, you had mentioned that there was a list that's kind of put out as significant heritage and history months that are recognized by the State Department. I'm sorry. So yeah, so I think if you wanted to do, if we wanted to do all those official months, that would be good.

It would be good to be consistent. And I think also it helps staff to know each month that they would be posting whatever the month is, and it would be on the State Department list. So happy to discuss it more. I wasn't on the agenda tonight, but if council wants an agenda item, we're more than happy to. But if we don't need one, we can just go ahead and start doing it going forward.

Comments about that?

It'd be great.

I think recognizing members of the community and since it's already an official officially recognized month that it'd be great to recognize that as So that we are welcoming community One more thing I'm just regarding our community engagement the Clinton crossing the Charette specifically for the residents can sign up for two different sessions and which will be closing tomorrow. The sessions are next Wednesday, two different times, so if you're working or not working, that would be a good, I just made some posts regarding that that I think is helpful for everyone to stay engaged. Wednesday or Thursday? Wednesday. Wednesday. 17th. Anybody else?

So I would just like to thank the Ward 4 residents for sharing their concerns and frustrations about the fiber install, and they shared them with Brad Cosco last night, and Brad, thank you for being available as well. There was another gas line break last night. There's been several utility disruptions on Hudson Park Drive. Residents had lots of concerns about traffic and visibility and opportunities to improve our communication. We could do a better job with that. Unfortunately, Kinetic was not able to or did not coordinate with us on the installation. So the residents have also kind of been exposed to back-to-back fiber installs. So I think that And Brad, you can add more if you need to, but I think we've got some good next action steps around looking at the work zone safety and traffic control measures, improving city website, improving communication and FAQs, and putting more frequent and more robust communication, and then taking these lessons learned this install and making sure that we learn from that going forward.

Brad, any?

Oh, Dr. Bird, you did a good job summarizing our action plan going forward. And I do appreciate what patience the residents have left and expressing that they not only met, we met with them last night, but they would take the time to write us today and let us know. Thanks.

Okay, Amanda.

I'll just say on that note, I heard from a resident who had a utility disruption. I think the fiber accidentally went through their sewer line, and they said the city was really responsive, and they just wanted to tell me that they appreciated how responsive the city was and to fix the issue and to cover the costs.

Okay. Anything else? All right. Moving on. For a motion to propose consent agenda for June 16th, 2026 Council Meeting 4A, TMP-8723, a motion to acknowledge the timely receipt of the May 2026 Monthly Financial Report. Knobloch.

Sure, so just a few things to highlight. As we've noted, through the first few months of the year, we were below estimate on our income tax. We have, through the end of the month of May, we've recovered from that and we are now 3.1% above the estimate. Last month, through the end of April, we were 2.4% below, so May was a good month for us. Our interest income continues to be well above estimated. HCTV franchise fees, we got our second quarterly payment in from Spectrum. We are 12% or about $15,000 below estimate on the HCTV franchise fees. This is something we'll be addressing in the upcoming budget meeting, budget discussions, is how we're gonna deal with this. As we've talked about a number of times, HCTV over the course of the last several years has seen a declining revenue in franchise fees. about 98 percent of their revenues, cable franchise fees. And as folks cut the cord, it impacts their cash flow and their revenue. We're planning to offset it with the additional fee that we've added on to Velocity Broadband. And so, again, like I said, we'll bring this back up during the budget discussions. I don't know that this year the franchise fees will be, or the broadband fees will be enough to make up for the shortage. But we'll look to see how that looks going out five years. And then lastly, what's on this, you'll see on the grid that Tom has pulled up there, the ambulance fee cable is in the red because they are More than 5% below estimate. The yellow is your 2% to 5% below estimate. The ambulance fees are 2.9% or about $10,000 below estimate. And sometimes that can be a timing issue. It's the first time they've not hit their estimate for a month. So we'll continue to monitor that. We've met with Tom and I, met with the chief and the director, met with... Life Force Management, who's our third-party administrator, if you will, of our ambulance fees. They do the collections and so forth of that, and we've asked for additional information on the revenue in terms of write-offs and things like that to see if there's anything we can do to adjust our collection policy to possibly increase revenue on that front.

If I could just piggyback on that, the work we've been doing in EMS is looking at the, we'll call them nuisance type of calls that we're getting, and stacking up our ambulances, 48% of them are the nuisance calls. Well, if we can reduce those, we would have more units sitting down in the garage for the major emergencies. As Jeff said, looking at life force, trying to find the unrecovered funds that we got for transporting people and what have you, is another aspect of that. And then we're looking at other things in EMS to make it more efficient. So hopefully we'll be ready for budget on that. And also HCTV, Jeff and his team will be providing us with some options, partnering up with other television places. We talked to the schools at the home meeting to see if we could do sort of a SRO swap with this. And they weren't really interested, which is fine. But we will have more options by the time we get to budget.

So those are the two things I'm concentrating on for budget Jeff saying are in the red and yellow so Thank you Okay for B TMP dash eight six nine six resolution authorizing city manager enter into an amended contract with cogent communications and for the provision of an internet circuit for the city's velocity broadband and declaring an emergency?

I'll take this one. This was, we had passed legislation in February 2026 for a three year agreement with Cogent. There was a small programming fee, a $50 a month programming fee that was not realized by either us or them. And so this is to amend that because we had approved up to a certain dollar amount. This is the $50 fee or $600 a year is over and above what was authorized. So this is an amendment to that agreement.

very minor but to get a past okay uh... next is tmp tmp dash eight seven one four an ordinance recognizing portions of Darrow Road State Route 91 as being an, quote, urban district, unquote, under the state law and amending the city's traffic code to lower the speed limit from 45 miles per hour to 35 miles per hour on Darrow Road State Route 91 between Valley View Road and the city's northern corporate line and declaring an emergency.

No. I'll tee it up before Brad gets into the details. We've been looking at this segment for several years. I think, Brad, when was the turn lanes done? 2020, we bid that project. We designed it in 2016, so about 10 years. We've had multiple studies up there for warrant analysis, and one of our consultants brought up this other method that we would be able to use out of the Ohio Revised Code, and kind of turned it over to the city engineer. He took the ball and ran with it, and he can go into more detail on how it was passed to be able to reduce the speed in this segment, and it's something we could look at in other segments in town. But let's first concentrate on this one, and I'll turn it over to Brad.

Yeah, as the city manager noted, when we were doing the design of that original north turn lane project, that project went from Brandywine Drive up to Middleton Road and widened the road Some of our public comments we got during the design of that project was to lower the speed limit along 91. And if you've heard me talk about speed limit lowering in this room before, it's largely set by Ohio Revised Code. It's our speed limits. And to change them, you need a speed study that looks at the speed which most drivers use, accident history, and the geometry of a site. And up until this other consultant informed us of this other option, we never met the criteria to lower the speed limit on this section of State Route 91. What's unique about this is the Ohio Revised Code made this urban district thing. I don't love the name of it. in the 40s and 50s you really had kind of downtowns and you had more urban or rural areas so you had this kind of 55 mile per hour rural area and this more downtown 25 mile per hour and then as time went on we see expansion of our more downtown areas and houses get built, driveways get built, access becomes an issue so the state revised code came up with this provision where you have these areas that are not quite a freeway, but not quite a downtown where they allowed cities to incorporate this urban district. There's a set of criteria in there to meet that urban district definition. The primary one is structures have to be approximately 100 feet apart or less. And so we measured all the structures along this corridor and identified that most of them are at least 100 foot or closer from one another. So that meets that kind of congested area and that urban district. Looked it over with our city solicitor and he agreed with our findings. uh checked in with the ohio department of transportation to make sure they didn't have any catches or any any issues with it and they said they weren't they were fine with it it was up to the city if they wanted to implement it so we think the engineering department thinks uh this will improve safety along the corridor we have been kind of watching some uh crash trends increase along this section of state route 91 amats identified the section between amats is our acro metropolitan area transportation study and they They do everything transportation planning for Summit County and Portage County. They had notified us that the section of Middleton Road up to North Carroll, I'm sorry, from Middleton Road up to the North Corp line was starting to creep up and showed up as a high congestion or a high crash segment. We've done some improvements up there for signage and some signal timing here. We did apply for AMS for some improvements up there. We were not selected for that project. But we think this is a good, low-cost improvement to reduce speeds. Along this section, we expect to see a reduction in crashes and certainly crash severity if people drive that speed limit. Happy to answer any questions.

Yeah.

Not a question, but I will just note that I've had a couple of residents speak to me quite a few months ago that they were concerned about the speed limits there. They live in the area and would like to see lower speed limits around the houses there. Of course, they've also had residents who would prefer to go faster and take a little bit less time to get there, but just want to say that.

What did you mean by we never met the criteria before just because it's been built up now?

Yeah, the This is the first time we investigated this urban district, and it was a different consultant than that design consultant who did our previous design project. So we had reached out to this other consultant and said, hey, besides the traditional method, and I'll talk to that in a minute, is there any other provisions in the Ohio Revised Code or in the ODOT world or the traffic engineering manuals that are all around there that we can look at reducing speed limits? And they said, you might want to look at this urban district. Up until that point, we had gone the traditional route in which the state says, You need to submit a study that proves that most people are driving lower than the posted speed limit, and for the most part, most people drive about 45 miles per hour along this section here. And so we really didn't stand a chance in cracking that door for ODOT. Crash history was starting to creep up, and we might have snagged it this way, but we think it's more of a slam dunk approach doing it this way.

This is why the state wouldn't lower Streetsboro down to 25. They let us go to 30 from 35, but it was their same reasoning.

That same reason. So in this case, we couldn't use this rule for that section because this allows the speed limit to be lowered to 35 miles per hour. We were hunting for 25 in that section, so we had to do that traditional route. That's exactly right, Dr. Getz.

Yes. Are you anticipating trying to apply this logic to other sections of town?

Well, it's 35 the rest of the way.

Sure, on 91, but you've got 303. We'd look at State Route 303.

Hitting that 100-foot section might be a little bit tougher in other sections. I'm not saying that we should.

I was just curious if you... Yeah, I think we look at it.

We do get calls for the westerly end of State Route 303, kind of going out towards the water treatment plant and Route 8. Okay.

I do like it, especially because that Middleton sidewalk that was completed, you know, a year or two ago now on both sides. So you've got, you know, major pedestrian crossing section there at 91 and Middleton now as well. So I'm a big fan of lowering the speed limit there. Obviously, tangentially related is the intersection of Hines Hill and 91 here, which will be affected by this. I know we haven't, and this isn't perfectly related to this, and we haven't gotten the report from the most recent crashes this weekend, but there was one about a month ago. Did we get the report back from that?

The motorcycle? I can't... Yes, I believe so, yes. Motorcycle, was that last... Last week, the motorcycle?

We had a motorcycle versus car. It was a serious crash that happened in May. And then we had a recent one just over the weekend. It was a minor crash. But in February, we had a fatality, but it was an intersection related. It was further south. Right by it. So we don't have the motorcycle one yet?

Okay. I anticipate this legislation. Residents will think that this is related to those crashes just via the timing. taken any steps to evaluate that yet.

No, but the crashes, they play a factor in all of them. Sure, sure.

I think residents will see this fury of accidents that's happened over the past few months, and they will see this legislation as a reaction to directly that, I feel. And that is not the case. As you said, this was started almost 10 years ago in many ways. know if we'll have proper opportunity to necessarily talk about it when we do get those reports based off of this legislation, but I would like to have, you know, some discussion around that intersection. It does seem to be.

And we put this on consent, but I mean, normally safety items we like to put on consent, but speed limits, we have no issue if council wants to do three readings.

Kyle, you're saying that, so I, so I THINK WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS THAT SPEED LIMIT WILL PROBABLY HELP, BUT IT IS NOT SUFFICIENT AS FAR AS ANALYZING THIS, THAT INTERSECTION. WE STILL SHOULD LOOK AT IT.

YEAH, I DON'T KNOW THAT THIS REALLY WE DIDN'T LOOK AT THIS ISN'T ACTUALLY COMING FROM HAVING LOOKED AT THAT INTERSECTION. I THINK RESIDENTS WILL THINK THAT IT IS BECAUSE OF THE TIMING, BUT WE HAVEN'T ACTUALLY LOOKED AT THAT INTERSECTION IN RELATION TO THIS, AND I WOULD LIKE TO.

So I think that that could be certainly an agenda item on the safety committee.

That intersection?

For that.

Hines Hill?

Intersection, yeah. Hines Hill and 91.

Because some people think there should be a traffic light there.

Well, there's, I mean, all sorts of...

I'm just saying what's going on.

...sorts of ideas. You know, I'd like to hear again from the traffic safety folks about, you know, is there something unique to that? Does that hill create some sort of an optical...

I have a... Is there something? I don't know. ...forwarded to council. I have video with a number of screenshots from said video from the stop bar from pulled up, so we could take a look at it closer, but...

This is two different things. Yes, correct. All right. That's all I have. I mean, yeah.

So, yeah, my comments are just in the two and a half years that I've been on council, I have heard from a number of folks around concerns around speed on 91. The Hines Hill Road intersection we mentioned, the Valley View crosswalk, Across Darrow is right there with pedestrians and little kids on bikes where it turns into a 45 mile an hour speed limit. And that is just, again, I think a high risk situation. But I've heard some from people in Chatsford, in the fairways, Tannery Road, Herrick Park, all of them kind of concerned about turning lefts and safety of that. And mathematically, it will add an extra 39 seconds to someone's trip from 91, which is about 1.8 miles. Any other comments or questions?

Just note it's also 35 on that road in Twinsburg, so it makes it also a little bit just more consistent, so you're not varying your speeds as you're driving along it.

That is one thing. I had two other things to add was that this policy, if you have a little gap where they're not 100 feet, it kind of blankets the entire corridor because they don't want 45 for a couple hundred feet or 500 feet and then go back up to 35. So that's another good reason why using this. even if it doesn't meet that criteria the entire way, you basically could, you know, keep it at 35. Last but not least, does council want this left on consent, or do you want three readings?

Consent.

Consent? Okay.

Okay, next. Section 5, proposed legislation for the June 15, 2026 council meeting. 5A is 26-85. Ordinance amending section 206.07 of the codified ordinances for the purpose of updating specific information. This is going to be a third reading next week, and we'll be voting on it. Any questions or comments? 5B is 26-86, resolution authorizing the city manager to advertise for bids and to enter into a contract for the installation of hydrants along Middleton Road and Stowe Road. This is also scheduled for a third reading next week and is actionable.

I ask Mr. Sheridan, are we okay with it?

Agreement. I did want to give an update on that. I spoke to the solicitor today regarding an agreement with Akron for this work in the construction. We will add some language in there that will help protect us. I think it was brought up with council several weeks ago.

I just wondered if the mayor and maybe Dr. Byrd could set up a meeting with Mayor Chamas and talk to him about it. Favorable than previous administrations Aaron to set that up.

I'll talk with the ends of you know first and then we can defeat our health. Yeah Okay anything else on that one Next is 5c 26-96 Resolution authorizing city manager to enter into a lease agreement with North Star Towers to LLC and this is scheduled for a Second reading next week. This is the cell phone tower that we expect will improve Cell phone connectivity around City Hall and the old Joanne's place and Really help that southern part of the city

I'll just add that for anyone watching that this is located across from City Hall on Tarex. So I had a few questions of where the cell tower actually would be.

Right. Next is 5D TMP-8700, an ordinance authorizing all actions necessary to affect the governmental national gas aggregation program. with opt-out provisions pursuant to section 4929.26 of the Ohio Revised Code and directing the Summit County Board of Elections to submit a ballot question to the electors and declaring an emergency. We had that presentation, was it last week?

No, it was in May.

Two weeks ago.

Day after Memorial Day.

And there was that... Our broker was here. He explained how things would work. How the opt-out would work with no switching fees. And if you're already in a contract, you've got to stay in it. And that it has to go to the electors. So any questions? Patricia.

He said there was a slight chance he might find an opt-in. Did he find one?

Not that I know of.

Not that you know of, okay.

In the last two years, we've only had one company, I believe, or maybe even longer than that. I think we've only had one company that has ever bid it, so. Any other questions or comments?

It's too quickly, and Kyle's going to have something to say.

And he'll just wake up tomorrow morning with, darn it, I should have said.

Okay. So next items to be added to future agendas. Anybody, Tom, anything that isn't on the tracker that needs to be? Hey, last call. These guys got up and they came all the way out here in this hot heat. And you're going to end?

For this council, this will be a record.

Okay.

I think we burned it.

I need a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn.

All in favor? Aye. We are adjourned at 20.02.