City Council - Special Meeting

that very well may be somewhere. We have city council workshop meeting. Uh today's Tuesday, March 17th. We're starting at I'm not sure what time it is. 5:39. 5:49. Tracy, you want to call roll? Tiffany Hoff here. Ryan Green here. Ellie Barard here. Matthew Huggin here. Kyle Cook here. Jeff Bar present. Nicole Shook. And the first item on the agenda is revenue discussion. And I think Jeff, you want to take this?

I did. Thank you, Mayor Hollis. Um, I might need a little help so that I don't straw poll Theesa. So if I start to do that, please speak up and correct me. Straw poll in this. Can can we since it's not executive session or no? I I honestly don't know. Yeah, I I think cuz it's not executive session. So federal government practice vote today. So yeah, if uh either one of our that works. If Jeff or Dave, if if you feel like I Let me just rattle.

It's weird because we're usually in a work session. We're usually at tables and not in this like formal setting feel different.

Yeah. So, um, Councilman Cook, uh, shortly after we got on council, brought up again literally two years later after I first got on council about the condition of our roads. We know we have limited funding. We've seen our service department and water and sewer. I don't know how many positions exactly uh with m Mr. Liots under his leadership. We also know that the chief has asked for maybe one or two more officers to really round out. Um he he just gave me a gang sign and a four. Um, but whatever that number is and and without without additional funding, we're we're not going to get there. We we have budgeted, I believe, the planner position and the economic development position. Um, but our our budget is is tight at 1%. Um, uh, Mr. Bernard, thanks for bringing this information forward. But I think the first thing my ask of everyone here this evening and and why I say no, she says is that if we are going to get behind some kind of income tax increase, we need to talk about it now. develop a of what that is that everyone can support and get behind and be part of it and then establish when we're going to have it um to vote. We have potentially November of 27, May of 28, excuse me, November of 26, May of 27, and November of 27. That is when my four-year term ends is

uh December 31, 2027. I would like us to see it. Um there's a couple of us that end our term. Whether or not we seek re-election is something totally different, but we have three opportunities over the next approximately we're getting close to 18 months. Um we're at 21 months now until uh December 31, 2027. So, how how can we um at at a workshop meeting of without breaking any rules of is there support to start moving this forward because trying to do it in a 90 or 100 or or even 120day period is not enough time. It's not enough time to I I think if there was enough support and coming up with something that we could all be supportive of, that only takes a meeting or two. It's the roll out of 18 months. Um, you know, we're we're 15 months away from May of 27. I I personally think that's the best time to do it on the off cycle, not on the general election. I I I'm not looking to try to develop the plan this evening. I can talk about what I think. Um but would anybody else like to in a very short order of time um talk about where they might be of supporting of some kind of plan?

I mean clearly we have to do something. Yeah. Clearly something has to be done. Right. I've heard from I think we've got a a little bit of work ahead of us before we get to that. I think we got to um clarify some previous spending and um paint a very clear picture. Sure. But I think you know we defin something's got to be done cuz the roads are just falling falling apart.

Yeah, I agree. I mean that's why we we started talking last safety and service meeting with Jack about putting together some type of understanding of what we can do with our current tax. um hopefully by November, you know, and then also what could we do with a, you know, good, better, best situation when it comes to taxes because roads is definitely at least my number one. Well, I don't know if you guys need a tax increase.

When you've talked about the roads, have you divided it out between like what we think is um the damage from like truck traffic versus like just what is what we would feel is our responsibility as a city to do cuz I feel like we need to do that. there's the state, you know, there's a lot of opportunity for things like that where um if it is from the truck traffic and all the construction and everything that we're enduring, then maybe that's not where we focus. Maybe we focus on what we feel is like the actual city's responsibility. Even though I know it's all a responsibility, but you know what I mean. Yeah. if we can go after different funding for those those roads and look at our roads for

mayor if I could look to the other side of the table to see where others are at. I see Mr. Green affirming with a head nod. I with the taxes the public definitely said no twice and it got worse the second time when we took a vote. Um, so unless we go back, I think the best way forward is we're going to have to show how we've been a good steward of the money. I think we're slowly getting there. I think with some of the roads and things as we find out the cost of those and make those public, I think we're getting there. We have to be a good steward of the money. We have to show how in the past we've handled these things. We're going to have to win a lot of hearts and minds to move that needle at all because last time it was a 70 to 30. And I think to your point, we have to be very clear about where the money is going.

Yeah. You know, and if we can have, especially with from a road perspective, if we can have some type of That's what we did last time. We showed the where the money was going that it was earmarked for these things and have priority list the roads. If if I could respectfully get us back on track is the first thing is not trying to develop the plan tonight. Is there support that if we all can agree upon a plan, whatever that is, is there enough counsel and and I feel like it's got to be 70 or 61 at minimum to it's got to be 70.

70. Thank you. I agree. I can't have u Miss Shook I know is not here tonight but if there was anybody fundamentally just totally against it. We think we're good at 1%. I'm I'm not trying to put anybody on the spot but we're going to continue just to have tremendously bad roads. I don't know how you ever recover from it except to start laying off more police officers, more public service people. And if you're going to do that, then you need to proportionally start looking at administrative level staff. We have a report, we fairly clearly seen it 12, 14 years ago. It was at that time 34 of a million dollars. Period. That's a baseline from over a decade ago. Mhm.

It's probably a million dollars. Just that $ 750 12 years ago is at least a million dollar today. Plus, the roads that were not done 12 years ago are addressed. Probably spikes it up to to maybe as much as 1.5 million. So, there is no secret sauce. There is no creative financing or anything else. And I'm arm twisting a little bit here um for this council to be to get the support of start talking about what a plan is. Matt any

I'm not opposed sorry I'm not opposed to having the conversation about it um not to get off track but being that this is my first term on council and talking the failures and the tax before were multiaceted. Mhm.

It was a distrust for this council in the past. It was distrust of where the money was going. It was the distrust, especially the last time the taxes were tried to be passed. Um, a lot of that money that was aiming to pass the tax increase here was not from Johnstown at all. A lot of it was from outside our borders that got around to our city. Are you talking about like the campaign for it or Yeah, the campaign the money supporting the tax increase was not Johntown money pushing that. So that going back to Councilman Green's reference of it failing 7 to3. That was the first time that failed.

First time first time it failed it was 6040 I think and then the second 30 it just left a really really bad taste in everybody's mouth I think. So, we're going to have to overcome that and we're going to have to see instead of doing an all or nothing small incremental because you know we all have household budgets. You're not talking to everybody in the everybody over here. 1% to one person may not be anything. Sure.

1% to somebody else is their groceries for 3 to four days to feed their kids. And I think we have to be very very um smart about it. We have to be very honest about it. And I I just feel I mean one of the main reasons I ran was to protect the poorest of Johntown cuz I keep seeing the poorest of Johnstown being forced out of our town all the time to Newark to Hebra and to Heath because they can't afford to live here anymore. And that's not necessarily a council's fault. It's property taxes. It's a lot of things. But I think it's an obstacle for us. But I think if we come out to the public and are honest with them, show the numbers and say, "Hey, we know here's where every money, all the dollars have been spent, and we answer to everybody." That's the only way this is going to go through in my opinion is blunt honesty with everybody.

I don't think it's anything different than anybody else. Um would agree with you there, Matt. Um, I've not heard an opposition to any of it. Um, and again, we don't need to lay out the plan now, but we we we do have to start having and and I don't mind taking the lead. I don't know um if it if it starts in finance committee meeting at the next meeting um to where we start hatching a plan. Um I don't think it's we're in March. Mhm.

By end of April, I believe that the finance committee could have a proposal back to this council in short order. I'd like to take some time because there's nothing else on agenda and we have 38 minutes left. Um I would like to share a thought that uh again uh Mr. Bernard thanks for putting this together. I think everybody can this this the same information that uh Donnie had shared some time ago and and on different meetings but for ease of discussion if you look at that and Donnie if I'm wrong when I go along this way please correct me if you look at that um effective tax rate of 1.75. For easy math, I'm going to call it 1.8. Okay. It generates about an additional under the 50% credit. So, if you currently live in Johnstown and travel to Columbus, you the 50% credit would mean instead of 1.8% 8% effective tax rate. Let's say on $50,000. That's um um $480 or 1% on 1% on 50,000 is $500. If you get a 50% credit on 1.8, a the effective tax rate is 0.9%. So it's it's not it's not any kind of um significant savings, but it is slightly less and the cell if you will to somebody that does that because 67% of

working people on earned income 2/3 approximately live in Johnstown and work somewhere else. So the to sell to them is you're paying slightly less. we get an additional $1.7 million to go to roads, infrastructure, and public safety. And and the message is here's what this breaks down to. Using our former that plan some time ago of I'm just making numbers up at this point, chief. Let's say it's two police officers cost salary, benefits, overtime, and everything else. $125,000. Um, for easy math, let's say it generates $1,750,000. Now, you got 1.5 million left over. We just talked about or I just talked about that a report 12 years ago says we need 750. It's probably more like 1 million to 1.5 million. So you can kind of see some I'm doing some gross math there, but with just a couple police officers and dedicating 1 million to 1.5 million to roads. And here's the here's the kick, if you will, to me is do it for 10 years, then you could show it's only it's it's for 10 years. And this is, and you can document along the way of um if we were trying to sell this today, Jack could probably spit out here's the first handful of streets we're going to do with this. The additional money in year 1, year 2, year 3, year four, five. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to plan out, Jack with his experience, knowing how much things cost, etc. where you could put a plan together to say these are the streets year 1 year 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 we're also going to fund again I'm just saying a number two police officers and it right sizes back public service of giving a couple positions back we got to figure that out but generally speaking that's what this 1.75 additional 1,750,000 would bring and we say it's for 10 years Some of us may be on council in 10 years, some of us may not. That's not the point. But that council can then decide where are we at and start having the discussions. And if if they see that there's an end to it, that might convince some that hey, we definitely need to do these streets. We see that they have a plan. And one thing that I would need legal is we have in our ordinance that 28% of our income tax must go to capital. Whether that's debt service, whether it's new, whether it's infrastructure. I'm assuming that 28% is all of revenue. But if if we did this just by itself,

I think it's tax revenue. So, we we would be spending more than the 28% anyhow at a 1.8%. Um, we would exceed it. Let's test the people that are here. We've got someone that's retired. We've got a young family and we've got a small business owner. So, I mean, very different perspectives. This area is going to grow.

Your tax base, your taxing, that percentage is going to grow. the amount of wealth you're going to abract extract from that tax base is going to grow. I mean, I moved here because I wanted to get away from Columbus and then intel came. I went, "All right, I'm going to be able to live in a place that grows again." But I've lived in places that grow again. And if you manage like that, what you guys are talking about right now is what I voted for twice on a tax reform. Voted yay or nay?

I voted for it. And I and I'm I think I told you last time I worked down the street as a high school and end up having to pay tax because of that because I was employed in one of my jobs within Johntown. But I'm like, so what? The town needs the money. If I'm going to pay a little bit of tax for working at a job I happen to have in Johntown as a retired guy, I can handle that. Cuz I agree with you. I drive around these streets and go, "This needs to get fixed." I mean, that streets and cops environment are like the base for the community. Then you start trying to expand beyond that. I'm just saying as a taxpayer I'm glad to hear this because I mean like I said I thought the plan I already saw

which I my basic understanding is if you got if you worked elsewhere had to pay tax elsewhere you were going to get a break on what you had to pay for Johntown because that wasn't the place we were employed. Correct. Correct. Yeah. My dad used to work in Philadelphia and live in New Jersey. I grew up with this. Okay. He had to pay Philadelphia taxes and they also had to pay New Jersey taxes, but he was paying he didn't get that great. Philadelphia taxed him on his income and so did New Jersey. So I was looking at this one. This is reasonable and fair and we got to come up with the money to be able to deal with this stuff. Sorry, I just No, that's good. That's why you're here. Yeah.

So I we have our car one of our cars in the shop right now, but um with the roads the way they are, if you're not paying attention, you're going to end up paying more than that each year in repairs. Anyway, and you know, we all want we all want nice growth. I think I would be I would be for it. Yes. Is there a certain percentage that you would be supportive of it at more so than another? I have to sit down and do the math. Um, obviously Yeah, we're right there with you. We want it to be nice. Um, and it does get frustrating when it's, you know, we watch these bigger trucks go through and do damage. Yeah. And it's not ours. not yet.

That's got to be frustrating. But I don't know if there's And again, like you said, like formed tonight, but there, you know, with with maybe a few more officers available, are they able to, you know, enforce different things and Yeah. redirect. I will I will sorry to interrupt. I will say from a high level degree of certainty that whatever the police may take trucks off of the road if it's here or there has about that much impact on on the roads themselves. Right. Um so we always use more right we could always relieve stress

right there's it's going to relieve some some stress but it's it's it's just negligible. It's time and weather that affects roads and and the um doing them correctly. The craftsmanship, let's say. Time, weather, and base. Yeah, time, weather, and base. Thanks. Craftsmanship is base. So, I guess my question for because this is like retired young family with young kids and a small business owner. So, at what percentage is it palatable to a variety of, you know, Yeah. I you you live and work in Johntown? Oh, we live in Johntown. I am my local realtor. So So you would have an increase.

Yeah. And you the same work in Johntown. I work outside. So it's when I say giving It's just good information to have back from people. Do you feel it was in this

and from like who knows where. Yeah. Um well ultimately it's your money you know it's asking that question right there people will be like whatever you think you know whatever pre because they've been asking because it' be a serviceing what we need to do with

that I only hear about but I don't understand fully. Yeah. Um so and you guys have done more about that but um I think just like you're doing in the community and being a whole new set of of people I think it you know trying again you might you might get so it goes exactly to why I wanted to have this discussion and um it's only four voters that are present but

right but very different demographics so there like really good balance I like it that whatever the plan is, you know, in in finance, I think we talk about it, Donnie, is here's the timeline to come up with the plan, meaning us council. Okay. This is the timeline to start having the um and and that would include all of us when we talk about support of it. All of us have to take approach. which I'll be the first one to admit last time even though I was supportive. Um I didn't I did not I was not involved. Um I just verbally supported. I could have done more. I'll be the first one to admit that. Um but we all need to if we're going to be supportive of it. It's kind of that six degrees of informing our friends, neighbors, and supporting asking them to if they support it that they share. But it's also having some uh whether it's at our places of worship or um in public spaces like the library of hosting. It can't hosting a town hall type meeting or a virtual. It can't be just a person or persons or just follow on the finance committee members.

I think there's two things that need to happen before we get to and then send it to finance committee. one, I think we need we have questions we need to answer from um fiscal responsibility in the past. I think that will go a long way. Like what on that one?

I hang on one second. I'll get to it. Um and then secondly, I think we need to do heavy on the front end. Exactly. this going like I don't know how we do it if it's like a community task force or we send out surveys or whatever but we need to hear from them first before we put any work into figuring out what's going to work you know like let's do that first and find out what is palatable and then we can come back with facts and numbers to back up what they're already I agree I agree with that to a certain point I do think that palatable though is it's never going to be it's not necessarily that I think that's what is palatable is how it tastes too. Yeah.

Because to your point, I'm sorry, what's yours, Ashley? To Ashley's point, you know, like to have this conversation and kind of know, all right, this is where the money's going and this is what I'm doing with this percentage. Like I was just kind of mentioning to him, I don't know if it would be I think it would be beneficial to maybe have a couple options. Mhm. To see what's palatable. All right, we've got a 50% option. We've got a 75% option. This is what we can do with this. This is what we can do with that. and did what Jeff was just saying, we will have to do leg work with that, but then we can all have a conversation and we can kind of get an understanding of where the city is based on that. So to I agree with you to make it palatable, it's the taste matters, too.

So one thing that the superintendent is doing is um sort of hitting on some like six different things that he's going to be asking the um community about how they feel about our policies for like school district. But if we did that for the city like city council budget like put together some sort of survey that asked a bunch of questions you guys wouldn't know the answer to and just had them out you know at the library at businesses at

it's like paper surve um and like at like farmers market or something and then have like a stand and you know maybe do one shift each or you know do it that way we're collecting info that you guys can use and you maybe have like a like a drop out there where you put a survey in there, but that way people feel heard. You're getting all the info you need because it is really hard to get feedback and it's hard to get it's hard to educate and get information out when we don't have an outlet other than Facebook and you got to kind of duh, you know, through where where the facts are and that. So, um, yeah, that's that's good.

And that's that's the hardest part is getting information out there to people. And, you know, we kind of tried to do town halls. We offered free pizza for people to come listen, free food. And getting people to come out nowadays, I mean, it's not like it was 3, four years ago. Not for lack of effort. It, you know, even going door to door, and Ryan can attest to this, is not the easiest thing because people don't want to answer their doors where before and people would be happy to see someone at their door. Now they're looking at their camera and they don't want to answer the Now it's like my phone. You can see them sitting in a chair as they check their phone and go, I'm not talking. You don't you don't have a newspaper to to get this. So your only mechanism is Facebook and then

it's just very hard to get information out there. Could I make a suggestion that our next finance committee, Donnie, you being the chairperson, is that we develop three options that that the committee would feel um I don't like the word palatable. It's got to be support, right? Palatable means ah okay, but support means somebody would vote for it. And I know we're just

Yeah. three members on that committee, but we can have a little more open dialogue. Um, I'd like to do it out here so that we publish that agenda and it's on topic. Folks could come in at least. It's an opportunity there where it's a little more open. They don't have to go through city hall administration egress. I would almost ask for like you said three, but if you're talking three with say like these three, I would almost ask too to have three options that are also just a flat rate, just a straight increase without the break. Well, I I think you know what I mean? Just to kind of give those options as so that a citizen can come up and go, I like that. I don't understand that.

Hey, Kyle, to bounce off of what Sorry, Jeff. to bounce off of what you're saying is just me thinking over here. Whether you look at federal taxes, whether you look at state taxes, y'all have graduated scales, I think as a city, we may be missing the boat when we're thinking about, okay, I I work in Columbus, okay, I give to Columbus 2 and a half% of my income every year. I would vote for 2 and 1 half% increase if I didn't have to give it to Columbus just because it it go Johntown. I know that's not going to happen. So the next step would be we know we have an average income in Johnstown of about $40,000 a year. So a 75 or 1% increase is going to hit that person a lot harder than somebody making $120,000 a year. We know that. So why don't we look at a graduated scale? These people, let's call AGI at 40,000 doesn't see an increase in their taxes at all.

I don't think you're allowed to donate. You're not allowed to do that. We can't do that as a city. No. Oh. So the state feds can do whatever they want. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, because I think Don Donnie looked into that. You guys, we looked into that and that's why we tried doing that rebate for people as a mechanism to get around that they do that to people. They were just confused about they do that. They don't let you pay taxes where you live because if you paid taxes where you live, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati would die. Not my problem. So, but still that would happen because nobody lives there. They just work there to the point wherever you travel in, whatever road you go into city of Columbus to her point, you're going to pay in car damage. I know, right? I'm just trying to figure out how to do it now.

In finance committee meeting, we'll we'll come up with some options. I hear what you say um Kyle on just it's flat. It's this um I'm going to say it out loud is that hey, I go from 1% to 1.5. If I remove myself as council member, like I'm gonna pay more. Yeah. No, no. And if I'm educated to know that, I'm not saying that we won't get that. I just want to have both options. So, you have the increase with the rebate. You have the increase that's flat. So, that that that the citizens can see both

and kind of determine, we can determine then how it's being interpreted and what works and what doesn't. You know,

I got you that we get together in our next finance committee, put it on agenda, develop some options. Jack, I would like to ask for you to do a little bit of homework from that previous report and come up with at least some kind of ballpark figure of good, better, best and additional revenue. And keep in mind that it's not going to be all for roads and infrastructure. There's going to be some public safety component in there, but um so that at least we have a range that hey, if you only do this much and we only get $400,000 a year, you know, we're still constantly behind. I want to be mindful of is that we want to there is a catchup period and then there's a period of now this is what it takes to maintain every year. We need to have that information because that's the objective of what do we need to maintain them so that we don't cycle through this

every six councils and what you're asking makes sense to me but it's very complicated. I realize the reason it's complicated is because how are you going to fix this road? You just want mil and fill and you want to see new black top that's going to last 5 to seven years. You want a full depth. Well, I think the report says, you know, this road needs full depth. This road needs mil. And I realize it's 10 years old and and that's why I'm saying some of your experience will come in there to say, yeah, that was 10 years ago, but it probably needs full depth repair now. We don't need a full definition

cuz like we like we said just cuz I heard about the dollars you're you're talking about here, but to do a full depth and and I like to use East Jersey Street cuz everybody's most everybody in town's seen it and been on it. I mean to to do full depth repair so the road will last. And you can see everybody sees that road is solid. It is holding up new curb and gutter sidewalks, new service lines underneath. So, we're not digging it up right after putting new in that. That two blocks just slightly over a million dollars. So, two blocks of road fixed properly is a million dollars. Well, it takes a lot of dollars to to do any substantial length of road.

Yeah, it's crazy. Now, North Oregon, we just did a mill and fill on them. There's no curbs, there's no gutters, there's nothing there. Well, we got that whole stretch, you know. So, so it is a little bit complex to say how far your dollars are going to go because it truly depends on how you're fixing fixing them and are you going to replace the water lines underneath them before you fix them. And to your point, Milan fills temporary.

Yeah, it looks good. And and I gave you this example. If you looked at West Jersey Street from 37 to Anna away, we did full depth reclamation. That road's holding up really good. Just as soon as you cross over the hill, you see potholes. The road is what what I call stretching. You see cracks uh forming because we mill and filled that. We did full depth on the top. Mhm.

It costs a lot more, but it lasts a lot longer. But when you talk about budgets like we have right now, it's only short stretches of road that we can get done to fix them that way. So I I think I understand your question, but I'm not sure I understand your question. H what you want me to bring back to you? Here's what I would say is bring back a number that doing from that report that was done 12 years ago is I need this every year and if it's I I'm and to do it right if it's full depth repair then it's full depth repair and we have

you said so one block is $500,000 approximately. Yeah. if now you're not you're not going to do all of them in one year and I realize it's a little bit of art as well. Um but if you sat there and said, "Well, I need $5 million a year." Well, that's an income tax that's just not going to be palatable with support to be voted upon, right?

But no, but no, but that makes sense. and and uh the gentleman talked about as the community grows with additional jobs coming in um knock on wood that's that's coming to fruition as we see yeah there's additional income uh that will pick up with that but with additional people in the community whether living or working additional resources need to be paid it's it's a tough act um I I know others might have under other business but I feel like in finance committee, we we have some direction that we can work with.

This is just an open-ended question probably for all of council. Would it be beneficial to us whether or not you know that kind of piggybacks off of this kind of doesn't would it be beneficial to us as a city whether we get a tax increase whether we don't get a tax increase to bring a part-time grant writer in cuz I know in previous administration grants were the reason we were a 1% city and it worked really really well is because we were able to get a lot more grants in than we have been in the past few years. That's not That's not accurate. So in 2015, there was a a 50% credit that the city had that council took away because the city was broke in 2015 and then

mostly estate tax and mostly because of the estate tax, but the city was going broke so they took the credit off. Okay. And then the city incurred a tremendous amount of debt over the next five to six years after that to do the roads. Okay. So that's but the question still remains. We don't have Yeah, we don't anybody on staff here at all right now that we know of that is a professional grant writer that can maybe bring us in more money. Jeff talked about and I haven't met with Jeff yet. I'm sorry. I didn't say so. Jeff, he might chime in here. I can I can only tell you in the last 5 years in my past post, we brought in $5 million in grants. Okay. And I wrote them out.

Is that does that a guarantee of future success? No. I may mean a lot. Yeah, grants are one thing, but I mean, you usually have to have matching funds and stuff, but that's what I'm saying. If we're getting if let's just say everything works the way we want for our and we get this extra whatever quarter half 3/4% in. Having those grants to go along with those matching funds allows us to do four blocks instead of two the right way. Absolutely. Yeah, that's what I'm leading towards

plan to what we're looking into. We're getting into the weeds a little bit as far as a grant writer, but you know, I what what I heard is and what I know of with Mr. Ligot, he's been applying for those grants that are available for roads for well over a decade. Um that, you know, a professional grant writer, uh uh Jack started out as a lay person with those grants and now he's an expert at them and the grants he knows he can get for roadways. Um they're not They're not intended to be complicated so that small communities like us do not need to hire a professional to apply for those grants and everyone's applying for the same grant uh same grant application and it is limited in funds and it's uh even though you apply for a $10 million grant doesn't mean that they're going to give you 5 million just because you have 5 million to match. I was just going to offer this comment. In the past, there are very few grants strictly for repairing roads. So, the key is getting grants in other areas so you can shift the dollars that you wanted to spend there into roads,

which is a lot of public safety. Well, and you mentioned too, I think in our meeting something about engineering firms having grant writers on staff that we could utilize as well. The engineering firms I worked the most with had an excellent grant writer. So that's something we can look into with the engineering firms that we're looking at possibly.

They all have them. You just pay for it and they they help you with it. Well, and one the other thing I'd like to bring forward and and gave me some credit for things for working with people that I will tell you in the last 10 years until here recently every city engineer as part of being the city engineer was required at no cost to fill out those Ohio public works grants. Now, what is the reason we do that? because the better job they do, if they can get that grant or that matching fund, then they're rewarded with being given the design of the work and the inspection of the work. Mhm.

And we shifted gears a little bit away from that and our our grants. Now, I did find out that we are getting one of the two grants we applied for last year. So, that's that's very good. We didn't get them both, but we got one of them. Dad, the second one though, we're we're right there on Yes, we're we're right there, but but at least we we've made our way up. The other thing we have to figure out is are we going to do that second project? And if we are going to, how is it going to be funded? So, that that's something also I think finance committee needs to

discuss. I I'm done talking. I know we have just a couple minutes left. There's nothing else on agenda, but maybe under other business, there's things that others want to talk about. So, I feel like I've got good direction to continue this in finance committee and keep moving it forward. Um, I know Donnie, last time on this was um um doing a lot of heavy lifting and um I'm all all of council has to be behind it if we're going to do it. It'll fail if one person does not get behind it. Agreed. Agreed. So, anyhow,

I've got homework to do and so does finance committee. Does anyone have anything for other business? I think we're up against time barrier for our next meeting. Yeah. Um, carry these over to council. this the school board of education is requesting a joint meeting with um council and they have a May 11. They're asking about May 11. Um so if you want to check their schedules and let me know. Are they proposing any kind of a start time? Their meetings start at 5:00. I'm good.

Yeah. Great. That's way easier than an email, isn't it? Yeah, it's much easier. Did they um May 11th, it's a Monday. Just something in general or was it did they have something specific with the um with the change of their school board and the change in council and Dr. a lot of the construction too. I think he wanted to talk about a lot of that.

Just a joint. We've done it before. um is they meet in here now. So maybe but it would be a joint meeting of the board of education and council. So and then I don't know if you all saw the email that I sent Cheryl Robertson that you appointed to the um charter review commission. They were supposed to have their first meeting on Monday night but they went ahead and put that off because they're down at seat. So I wanted to ask if you want me to put that back out to the public or do you have somebody that you want to point I'd say put it back. Yeah, we didn't have an extra. So, let's let's put it back out social media and our website. And is there any way

we could send it out like in a water bill as a note or something somewhere else other than those two places because they just don't seem to draw. I mean, we can a lot of candidates. I mean, any other way that we could think of because those two sites don't seem to draw. Everybody phone a friend. We have a public notice section on our website. I don't know. Right. I think that gets less of a draw. Yeah. Yeah. I think the website gets even less of a draw. We've got to do We have to do something else to get cuz the last I think three posts that we put out, we get just enough candidates to fill the position. Right. Exactly.

And the last couple times we haven't even interviewed. So, we don't even know if the person we're putting on there aligns with our goals that we want to meet or where they are. We just don't know. I'll put it out there. see what we get. Okay, that's all I have.

Anyone else? No. Anyone want to make a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. Yeah. A second. All in favor? Bye.