City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, everybody. We'll go ahead and first off, I want to thank everybody for coming out. It's always good to see a full house here. Hopefully some of you decide to stick around after we have all of our festivities tonight to hear the rest of what we do. So we'll call to order the regular council meeting for Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. Roll call, please.

Here. Here.

Here.

Here. Here.

Present.

Here.

Alright, we will have Matthew Huggins tonight for the invocation.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I just want to thank you for this time together as citizens in a community. Lord, I just ask that you protect those that are experiencing the storms, damages from those storms, those that are escaping flooding and stuff this evening. Lord, just be with this council tonight as we make decisions. Guide our brains and guide our hands to make the right decisions for this city. Allow us to remember each and every citizen that they each have a voice and a vested interest in making Johnstown the place to live. Lord, I ask for your blessings. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

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.

All right, item number five, approval of the agenda. Does anybody have anything on this? I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. Well, before you do that, I have one item. So we have our superintendents in the house tonight, so I just wanted to have, after we do this, wanted to have a small minute for them to step forward and say hi before we get into all of our festivities tonight.

That's okay. So you're going to add them to an introduction before the PD promotion?

Yes.

So you do want to make a change to the agenda? Just a small change, yes. So it has to be motioned and seconded and passed? I will make the motion.

I'll second.

I'm sorry, why don't you say you're adding them?

So this would be a new item... Number five. We'll call it 5.1. 5.1, whatever you want to call it. We're just going to add some time there.

Yes.

Introduction of the new school superintendent.

Okay.

We had a motion and a second. Motion and a second. Kyle and then... Ryan and then Jeff. Yep.

Yeah, the other one got thrown out.

All right. And with that, we'll yield the floor to our superintendents.

I just wanted to thank the council for the partnership over the years and with the administration. It's been tremendous and I think we've done a lot. My last day will be July 30th and then I start a new position with the state. But I did want to introduce our new superintendent. Some of you were involved with the interview process. We had some surveys that people participated in and some of you were actually involved with the actual interviews this week. So I want to introduce Dr. Luke Kramer. He has 15 years experience as a superintendent, so that's certainly exciting. His last stint or what he's finishing up now is as superintendent of the London City Schools. So a lot of experience and we've had some time to transition and we'll continue to do so. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce Dr. Kramer.

Thank you. I feel like I should have been on the left. Thank you already for putting a wrinkle in your meeting by changing the agenda. But it's very much my pleasure to be here and to introduce myself. As Dr. Wagner shared, I've had, I would say, the good fortune of being a superintendent for 15 years, the last 11 of which serving the London City Schools School District. And in that time, I've enjoyed a wonderful working relationship with the City of London and the city government there. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to meet many of you and to work alongside of you for the betterment of the community. Thanks for the warm welcome from some of you that have already had the opportunity to meet. Looking forward to meeting those who I haven't met yet.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to transition if that's okay. We're going to sneak out. Yep.

Yep. I figured so. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So with that, we will go ahead and move on to item number six, our PD promotion, officer to sergeant.

Gary, if you want to step up here. Mr. President, if you want to come on down. So a short introduction of Officer Hargraves. He's going to be a sergeant this evening. He's been with our agency for five years. He is a Marine veteran, 25 years in law enforcement. Since he's been at our agency, he's become a field trainer. He's been awarded the Medal of Valor, and he's also the most recent 2025 Officer of the Year. And as stated, tonight he becomes a sergeant. So congratulations.

We will now swear you in.

I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, the Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio, and laws and ordinances of the city of Johnstown.

To which I am appointed. To which I am appointed. And to the best of my ability.

And to the best of my ability. Will discharge the duties of this office. Will discharge the duties of this office. All right.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's

Absolutely.

. We're going to do a department photo.

Any officers you want to get in the photo, come on in. We'll take up the meeting time.

Okay. One, two, three.

Is that all you want?

Congratulations. Another round of applause.

Good job, Brian. You didn't mispronounce anything. Proud of you, buddy.

He keeps reading.

The last one I did, I went way too fast. Too many words. You did good. All right. Next, we'll move on to item number seven, the recognition of the Boys and Girls State.

Yep. So I'd like to introduce Bruce Nixon. I know Bruce told us here, and Jeff Sabo from the Legion. But he's going to come up and tell you a little bit about the Buckeye Girls and Boys State. And then we have our participants here tonight to recognize them. So...

Hi, I'm Bruce Nixon, I'm with Johnstown American Legion Post. I'm also a commissioner with Buckeye Boys State, which is a member of staff that puts on the event every year. This evening we've got guests from both Buckeye Boys State and Buckeye Girls State with us. I wanted to, I'll ask them to come up in a few moments to talk a little bit about what they did at Buckeye Boys and Girls State, and then what they liked about what they did. Before that, I'd like to explain a little bit about what it is and how we as a legion like to participate in that. So Buckeye Boys and Girls State is a model government for the state of Ohio and the associated agencies that run that government. Members of council, you'll hear that some of these folks, I believe, were on the city council for their individual cities, as well as county commissioners, attorneys. Some of them, one young lady served in the state senate. So Buckeye Boys and Girls State really gives young people both an opportunity to understand better how our government and the government agencies and governments at local and state level and county level all interact and have to work with one another. along with the state Supreme Court, which is also a part of that process. It also, though, sets them up to understand as they watch you, and I hope as someone indicated, as Brian indicated, that if you get a chance to stay, you'll see how this works. And the one thing I think you're going to recognize is it doesn't work a lot differently than what you were exposed to. These are human beings with personalities making decisions, bumping into each other, right, and not sure what's going to go next and changing agendas on the fly. So as you experience what you experienced through your time and as you learn and learn how to lead and realize that you can be thrown in and have a roommate you've never met from another town in the state of Ohio. and actually get along with that person and learn how to work together with that person, you're going to see a lot of that play out here. These folks work very hard at what they do, but they're not all geniuses. They're all citizens dedicated to making a difference, except for Nicole, making a difference for their community. So one thing I will say to counsel on your behalf before I bring the folks up, You all need to be very proud of these young people. They represented their community extremely well. I'm proud of all of them. We had the opportunity at the American Legion at our meeting last week to go through a little bit of what we're going through, what you'll go through here with regard to questions and answers and what they did. And without exception, every single one of these young people represented Johnstown very well, and I'm extremely proud of them. So questions from anyone about what Baccalaureate Boys and Girls State does or is?

Does Johnstown Legion do this every year?

Johnstown Legion does it every year. There were 700 young people from across the state of Ohio represented there at Buckeye Boys State. Maybe one of the young ladies can tell me how many, or Reba can tell me how many young ladies were there. So the Buckeye Boys State is held at Miami University. Buckeye Girls State is at a different week, but at Bowling Green State University. And since COVID, that number's down. At one point, it was nearly 1,100 young men at Boys State, and it's growing back up. I think around 500 at Girls State. 500. So we take a little bit different tack in Johnstown as an American Legion. And we've been led by Bruce Toll for many years, and I'm kind of STEPPING IN AND BARELY A SHADOW OF WHAT HE HAD DONE FOR MANY, MANY YEARS. BUT OUR GOAL IS TO SEND AS MANY YOUNG PEOPLE THAT ARE CAPABLE AS WE CAN. WE RAISE FUNDS TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN AND SEND AS MANY AS WE CAN. SOME OTHER CITIES KIND OF JUST GO, WELL, NO, IT'S JUST GOING TO BE TWO. ANOTHER THING WE DO DIFFERENTLY, AND THIS IS, AGAIN, BRUCE'S LEADERSHIP, IS IN SOME OTHER PLACES IT'S A POPULARITY CONTEST, RIGHT? WHO'S THE COUNSELOR LIKED THE BEST OR WHO'S THE VALIDATORIAN AND WE'LL SEND THEM. What we like to do is find young people who have leadership potential, but maybe aren't just as outgoing initially, but they've got real good thought processes, skill sets, and have the potential to be leaders because Buckeye Boys and Girls State brings that out of you. These guys ran from 6 o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock at night for an entire week. SETTING UP THEIR GOVERNMENT, RUNNING THEIR GOVERNMENT, MAKING DECISIONS ON BEHALF OF THEIR STATE AND THEIR CITY AND THEIR COUNTY, AND THEIR COUNTIES. THERE WERE SEVERAL COUNTIES AND SEVERAL CITIES. AND SO IT WAS A FANTASTIC EXPERIENCE FOR THEM. THEY CAME HOME EXHAUSTED. I'M SURE THEIR MOMS KNOW THEY WERE ALL EXTREMELY HUNGRY. I hope that they tell you it was a great experience. From my part, we keep them from hurting themselves. Put them in their position, sit back, and let them run it. It is not us dictating, this is what a city council does. This is how the parliamentary procedure works. All of you vote together and elect a president, and we step back and say, okay, what are you going to do for the good of your city this week? And off they go. Some things are... Really cockamamie. Some things are very, very fantastic. At a county and state level, they tackle issues like gambling. They can tell you some of the other things they did. Fantastic. If there aren't other questions from anyone, I'll ask all of the young men and women to come. Please come up to the front. Stand and face the group. If you would, come up. If you would, we'll just go from left to right if it's okay. And turn around and face the audience, if you would. And because I made the young ladies go last at the Legion meeting, I'll have the young ladies go first this time. If you could just give your name and what position you held at Girl State, and then what you liked and didn't like.

So I'm Izzy Rodoff. I was the superintendent of our city school board and I think my favorite part was getting to see my city grow as women. It was really intriguing to see all of their voices and how they all work as women.

Let's talk for a second. What was the name of your city?

Jones City.

Jones City. So the cities and counties are named after legionnaires, typically our auxiliary members, that had served for a number of years. And the competition between those cities to win the flag every day is really intense, both at Boys and Girls State.

My name is Ashlyn Wetzel, and I was also a resident of Jones City. And I was on my city's city council. And one thing that I really liked was just the positivity among everyone. Everyone was there for the same reason. Everyone was just so supportive of what I've been doing. And especially our city, just as a group, we got super close. There was an incident where both of our counselors had to go home, and it really helped us unite as a city. and we ended up winning our city's flag the first day um which was pretty big it was big to us My name is Hannah Schultz.

I was a state senator. And my favorite part was very early getting to learn how Congress works. I know I didn't have to do it a lot in school, but it was really interesting to see firsthand and writing bills all on my own. And it was also really cool to meet 500 girls who didn't know each other at the beginning of the week get to know each other and make friendships while we were there.

My favorite thing was probably just meeting new people from different backgrounds and experiences and getting to learn about them. My name is Noah Meacher. I was a resident of Ridenour City. I was on the city council as well. I think one thing that I really liked a lot was the sense of unity that was among the boys. Whether it be political opinion, it did not matter where, everybody was just together. And I think it made an impact on how I am today. my name is my favorite thing was walking around in the county building and seeing all the shenanigans that everybody had going on my name is jason hedinger i was the clerk for the city council and the clerk of the mayor of the city of elvers and probably one of my favorite things was During the assemblies, there are flag ceremonies that go on before and afterwards. And I guess I had the privilege of being the stateroom and playing the tempo and guiding everybody on every single day. I had to be doing ceremonies on and off, whether it was the state troopers or causing them to do that. So I thought it would be a nice privilege.

My name is . I was part of the business community. And I worked in the Department of Taxation. One of my favorite things was getting to know everyone throughout my city. We all got definitely quite a bit closer throughout the week.

All right, boys. Give me a smile. One thing that I left out. You can do better than that. One thing I left out that I think is important is in each evening, there's the awardees of the competition between the counties and the cities. But one of the tenets of the American Legion is to support and foster 100% Americanism. And so there was a presentation, an assembly each night. that had different themes. When you may have talked about playing the snare drum, almost all of the young men, I don't know about the young women, from Johnstown were also in the Spuckeye Boys State Band. So in addition to all their government responsibilities, they also went off to rehearsal, skipped part of their lunch, AT OTHER TIMES OF THE DAY AND REHEARSED IN THE BAND THAT WAS PART OF THAT ASSEMBLY EVERY NIGHT. THE STATE HIGHWAY PATROL'S MEMORIAL IS THERE EVERY YEAR. THE GOVERNOR CAME AND SPOKE. THEY WERE ALL OF THE FOLKS THAT HELD STATE OFFICE WERE INDUCTED BY THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE OHIO SUPREME COURT, WHICH I ASSUME HAPPENED ALSO AT BUCKEYE GIRL STATE, AND THEY BOTH GET PLANNED TO TAKE OFF UP TO BULLY GREEN TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN. It's one of those things where we kind of want to make sure not only here's what you understand the job is, but the second part of the evening is, and here's how important it is to foster and maintain this system that we're privileged to live in. So thank you all so much. I appreciate it. And thank you for representing us so well.

Thank you. She's going to take a picture of all of us as well.

Who's that buck behind him? The good looking people? All right.

I'd also like to recognize there were two of them that were not, two of the boys that were not here, Cyrus Bennett and Logan Lucas. They were unfortunate, could not make it tonight, but I wanted them to be recognized as well. So thank you.

So how many of you live in the actual city limits? We got two, three? Four. Four of them? We expect to see you guys in the future. As you come of age and we have positions that open up on any committee, there are varying levels of what you have to do for that job. We definitely expect and encourage to see you guys in the future. as we have positions open up, and hopefully we see you on the ballot someday. So it's definitely an important thing that you guys did, and I hope that you continue along those lines and just being involved in your community. You don't have to be an elected official to be involved in the community, as you know already. So we hope to see you in the future. All right, anything else? All right. We'll go ahead and move on to item number eight, our presentation. Would the American Legion like to go first, or are you going together?

They'll go first slash together.

Okay. Okay.

Just for the record, I don't agree with Bruce. I think all of you are geniuses. I have copies of this if anybody wants them to keep for your record, but I just want to go over some of the things that the Fireworks did, we were able to do. First of all, the fireworks were completely paid by only three entities. That was the city, Babcock Foundation, and the American Legion Johnstown. All the other activities I'm going to talk about were paid only by sponsorship. So it's important that the three groups continue. all these things for the citizens of Johnstown. So we had free face painting, sand art necklaces, photos of the Highland cows, the duck pond, the photo booth, yard pong, as well as it was obviously free, free parking, there was no charges for anybody and they could come out and watch the fireworks. And hopefully create a lot of lasting memories, family memories and memories of Johnstown. my little farm town. We didn't have this much stuff, but it was still enjoyable. Then we also help other local groups when we do this. We hire them to run the duck pond. CCL got money for running the duck pond to help with Santa House. Big Red Band Boosters, National Honor Society, students and organization, both Boy Scout troops, 25 and 420, JYA Baseball Team, JYA Wrestling, Johnstown Football TD Club, Johnstown Monroe Soccer, Johnstown Monroe Athletic Boosters, Johnstown on the Mission, and the Johnstown Northridge Food Bank were both beneficiaries of over $1,400 to help with their expenses. We were able to showcase local talent. We had a lot of kids up there doing their talent, singing, dancing, whatever it was. We had a soccer tournament for part of the JYA. My favorite part was we were able to honor Sergeant Cooperider. He had no idea. The chief tricked him, told him he had to go down to the stage to guard a senator. during his speech. And then he got down there and he pushed the button to start the fireworks. It was really a great thing. We appreciate all our supporters and of course the city. We appreciate what you guys did for us too. Now that Daryl did the much more boring part of this presentation.

Thanks for that. I actually want to take a moment to recognize a few of the individuals, instead of just the organizations, and then we'll actually reemphasize the organizations that are so critical to making this happen. So first I want to thank Dave Seelan for his leadership again this year. He's done a tremendous job coordinating so much of this and getting a nice foundation, moving it from part of the city council responsibilities over to GJPRD and the Legion to be able to carry this on. So we look forward to the continued partnership with the Legion to make sure we can support as necessary for this to go on successfully. So tremendous thanks to Dave and his service the past two years. With that, I also want to thank Jeff, Janet Piper, Nicole Shook for her role as liaison from the city, and all the volunteering they did to help put it on. There were numerous individuals from Johnstown Police Department, the Monroe Township Fire Department, and the school district that played a role in making sure this could go off. So again, from a community unity standpoint, this is one of the, again, the best things that we can do together to really show the community how this is supposed to work as one body for the citizens regardless of boundaries. So congratulations to this entire group for helping make sure that was successful. So to that same point, just a quick update as we look forward to next year. There was a meeting where there was discussion of your intentions next year when it comes to funding, as well as some rumor of a potential donation. I want to report to you, we do not have any large donation from Wilco in hand. There are continued conversations that are being led by our wonderful GJPRD board member, Jean Wright, that we hope to create a partnership with them that can help support the community fireworks. So we'll keep working towards that, and I promise you'll be the first to know if we're successful in those avenues. As we look to move forward, we will look to bid out the fireworks again because our current provider has communicated to us they plan to go up in cost for the same type of show that we had this year from the 15,000 that Jeff mentioned up to 20,000. So with that increased cost, that's going to make it even more difficult for us to be successful. When you look at the review comments on Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor from our community members, the primary sentiment was appreciation for the fireworks and the opportunity to come together as community. But the one pain point that was talked about was that Brevity of the show and especially the acceleration of the end of it, part of that was because of the lightning storm that was impending. So that was rushed a little. But that tells us we're already on the low end of what the community expects to see from the fireworks show. So we want to be very careful about taking a step back as we look at next year's show. So we're taking that into consideration. There's some other learnings that we'll take into account that I think we can be even better next year when it comes to some of the kickoff, but again, overall, this was a tremendous opportunity, and if there are any community members listening that would like to play a role in putting this on next year, whether it be to take a leadership role like Dave had, or simply make sure your voice is heard to help coordinate, reach out to Jeff or myself, and we'll make sure that you have an opportunity to contribute.

Anything else, Jeff? The management of it going forward is what we talked about. There will be two members of the Parks District, two members of the Legion, and one at-large member. That's how we'll put it off, but again, in terms of it being successful, it takes a lot more people. That would be the decision-makers, the pre-planners, and then obviously we had a crew of probably 15 plus that helped out in other areas, so we'll still have that as well. We're not going to take all of it on ourselves.

Can I add a comment, if you don't mind, just regarding price? I'm the finance officer for the Legion, and we paid it just four years ago, maybe five years ago. The cost for this was $5,000. So this has accelerated very quickly and looks to continue to do so. So I encourage that.

It's grown a lot, too. I mean, this started with the veterans going out and lighting off fireworks that they bought, and then the city started recruiting. We ran it for many years. I remember, you know, 20-some years ago, sitting in my driveway, you'd see two fireworks, a pause, three fireworks, a pause, five, a pause. I can't tell you how many times. I'd say at least two every year, two times. We would stand up, hold our chairs, and then realize it's not over yet. So I think it's a lot better. We've improved it a lot, especially recently here. And that's because of the support of the community, all of our sponsors, the city, the other foundations that are here. So I think we can continue to grow it. As Daryl said, we've already found some potentially less expensive options with probably a bigger bill. Not going to make everybody happy. We know that no matter what you do. We'll still have people who time the fireworks and post about it, but it was a great event for a small town. I think we did a tremendous job, and I thank you all for your support.

Jeff and I talked about the backup plan, but we don't like the idea of packing mortar shells in his garage to help offset the cost.

We like our fingers, so we can pull it off. has banned me from having a lighter within city limits. In my defense, it was a good idea at the time, but I'm not allowed to have a lighter, so we'll find somebody else to light it and we'll go back to that. Any other questions for us?

I just want to thank the two of you and everybody else who helped out. I know how much work it takes. So it is an absolute wonderful event, and thank you so much for all your dedication.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Then with that, we'll move on to the business portion of our meeting here tonight. Like I said, I hope you guys stick around to see how we do this here. So we'll move on to item number nine, action on the minutes from April 21st, May 6th, May 19th, June 9th, June 16th, June 22nd, and June 30th. Can we approve in a block? I'll make a motion. I missed the two.

I can vote on it.

We can still vote on it.

Yes, you can. But if you'd rather do them separate, I will.

Any edits from anyone? Okay. I'll make the motion to approve and block.

I'll second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. No one opposed?

All right. We'll move on to item number 10, which is citizen comments on matters not on tonight's agenda. Are there any citizen comments? All right. No slips? Okay. All right. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move on to item number 11, the council committee reports. Teresa or Jeff, if you could give us an update on design review.

Design review was short. They just had the one application for a three-season room, and it was approved.

All right. And planning and zoning? Kyle?

We had a conditional use and a variance. It was about a 15-minute meeting.

All right. And safety and service, we met tonight. We had quite a few things on there. So much that I'll have to go back and look at this. So we talked about our capacity fees, our clear well, water and sewer planning, with our loans with Jacobs Engineering. Talked about our OPWC grants and our road projects. and how we'd like to proceed with those. That'll be part of a much larger conversation as we try to do the most we can with the roads with the smallest budget. All of our road grading and estimates, we talked about the Leafy Dell Island maintenance and our HOA request. So we will be going forward and drafting a letter to Leafy Dell as we work on that with them. And briefly, we talked about our e-bike discussion. As you know, we potentially have an e-bike issue here in this city, so we're going to do what we can to enforce that. Other than that, that was all we had. Any questions for safety and service? All right, and we'll move on to finance. Donnie, if you could update us on finance.

We talked about a couple of the same things, the water and streets, and we also talked about doing a pay survey for employees that are not under collective bargaining agreement to look at that. So we'll be looking at that coming forward, and that was about it.

All right, we'll move on to, are there any questions from the committees? All right, we'll move on to director reports. The service department, start with water and sewer and street.

Any questions on the report?

Anything that you want to highlight? No more than three.

Nope, nope. The highlights are pretty much covered in the service director's report to follow.

Thank you. All right, move on to our police chief.

So, as you know, we had a promotion. With that came a retirement. Sergeant Cooper Ryder, I know I've mentioned it here before, but he did 29 years of service with our police department. He retired, and he will be enjoying his time down south in retirement. We hired another officer. His name is Joseph Lindholz. He was sworn in on June 30th. And Sergeant Hargraves now will start his first shift as a relief. promoted sergeant this evening. So he will be on as a sergeant, and then Wendels will complete a, at minimum, 12-week field training process. That's all I have as far as the law enforcement side of my police department. I also want to, with Mr. Sabo and Daryl, With the fireworks ending the way that they ended, they were announced that everybody needs to leave the stadium. With that, everybody hopped in their cars, backed up traffic. We didn't have anybody stationed at 37 and 62. Moving forward, we will always have somebody at that location. If it gets backed up, we'll open it up. So anybody that stayed in that long line for the five to ten minutes that it was, and we had to get a patrol unit to that area, I apologize. Moving forward, we'll get that taken care of. That's all I have.

All right, any questions for our police chief? All right, we'll move on to item number 13, tabled legislation. That is Resolution 2026-19, Resolution Authorizing the City Manager to Execute a Lease Amendment with the American Legion Post 254. Will that be coming off the table tonight? I believe it should, yeah.

All right. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion to approve. You have to remove it first. I'll make a motion to remove.

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. All right. So it's removed from the table. Now we'll have discussion on that item.

We've had a lot of discussion. Well, here we go. I thank the American Legion for the back and forth and I feel like we got a good contract because both feel like neither one got over on the other one.

So I'd like to make a motion to pass the... Before we do that, is there any other comments from anyone on council? No. All right. And technically we don't have an applicant, but is there anything from the Legion or the public? All right. No public comment. We'll go ahead and close public comment.

I'd like to make a motion to pass Resolution 2026-19 as written. I'll second. All right. Roll call, please.

F. Barr.

Affirm.

Nicole Sheck. Yes. Matthew Huggins.

Yes.

Donald Barnard. Yes. Brian Green. Yes.

Kyle Cook. Yes. No applause? That was a long time coming. We appreciate you working with us, but like they said, I think we got the best out of it. All right. And it's off the table. We don't have to read that every meeting now. So, all right, we'll move on to public hearings of legislation. Ordinance 06-2026, an ordinance to amend Chapter 1141 of the city's codified ordinances, introduction of public hearing. This is for our NCA discussion, as I flip the page here. All right. We'll open this up. Is there anything from council? Or would our staff like to give us background on this?

Mr. Green, is there any way we can do a workshop with this with, I presume it would be with New Albany Company? Can they come up?

Mm-hmm. Can I ask a couple questions, Mark?

Real quick, let's have our staff give us the background on this for all of us and for the public just so we know what's level set here and then we can have them speak.

Is the attorney comfortable to give that update?

Yes, that's great. So for those of you I have not met yet, by the way, my name is Joe Batchelor. I work with Yaz at FPT Davidson. I'm filling in for him tonight. So to try to Keep this legislation simple. It's really only applying to any land greater than five acres that's not already part of the city of Johnstown. When that land is annexed, it would automatically come in under the jurisdiction of the NCA. That's pretty much the simple. It's created again, but it's not going to cover the governance of the NCA. That's something council can consider moving forward, but this is just covering newly annexed land with a couple other exceptions depending on the use of the land.

Does that require that anybody who has more than five acres wants to come in the PD district can come in the PD district? Or does the NCA committee, say New Albany Company, can they stop them from coming in?

No. This is just applying land that's annexed. I don't think it's actually limited to the PD district to the best of my understanding.

So this is newly annexed land that comes in from the township. That governs how this happens. The land that is already annexed within the city, if they want to enter the PD district, that's a totally separate process. Does this limit us to one NCA?

I don't think it does. The city is happy to create a new one if they want to. In our experience at the firm working with other cities, most cities keep it to one NCA because it can come down to administrative costs, ability to issue debt, things like that. It gets a little convoluted, but there's nothing that would stop you from creating a new NCA to the best of my understanding.

One of my questions for Jamie is the city has four members on the board. You guys have three. Right now those are controlled by New Albany Company because you guys have the land and everything. So say someone comes in, they want to bring in a 100-acre development. What's the likelihood that they get a seat on the board, that they get a say in how the NCAAs run? Or will it always be controlled by New Albany Company?

Jay McNally, the vice president of the NCAA, the Johnstown New Community Authority, There's a couple different ways to kind of skin that cat and options for the city. We don't have to decide that tonight. Essentially, the goal tonight, let me take, I'm gonna answer that question, I'm gonna take a step back real quick. That's fine. So remember, the new community authority strictly designed to focus on infrastructure public infrastructure projects in the funds for that the funds and say are prioritized for public infrastructure typically towards economic development initiatives so in Yes, most communities that we've studied, I think last time we were at council we asked to do some additional research. So we provided Yaz and council with a memo on how different cities operate. A lot of communities will have one community authority because the intent is to align interest between the private development and the city. Because we don't want to establish different NCAs that are competing for funding or projects, so all the money is going to the same pot that the city controls. Regardless of the board, you could, so to answer your question, if another developer comes in, a significant developer that wants to join the NCA, there's a couple options. One would be you can increase the seats on the board. Right now there's seven. And when you increase the seats on the board, you have to, by law, currently you have to increase them in twos. So you go seven, nine, 11, 13. I believe state of Ohio law caps out right now at 13 is the maximum you can have. So that's one option. You can just add board seats. Another option, for example, I believe this happened in Bridge Park where Crawford Hoyne had the, you know, contrived, majority of the development seats on the NCA another they gave up a seat that the city then was able to assign to another developer so there's a couple of different ways to do that there's also a third option which would all that can be had and handled privately for example another developer comes in and we the current development could make a separate private agreement with the other developers too. So it's really up to the discretion of what the city wants at the time, if and when. It's tough to answer now because we don't know the size and the scope of additional projects. And if we guess today, we'll guess wrong. But I guess the point is that'll be a different process to amend the bylaws of the new community authority, which the board will be a part of too. And by law, the city has to have the majority on the board. And not only have they the majority, they have to have the majority present during votes too. So that's, so to simply answer your question, that'll be addressed in probably amending the bylaws if the NCA, if and when that does become a reality for additional sites. The initiative tonight essentially wants to establish so that if new land is coming in, let's say, Great Chapel, Dunton Plains being where we're working to bring additional infrastructure. That if new land comes into the city of Johnstown, that they will have to pay their fair share and pay their way towards the infrastructure. So none of this, none of the expenses are borne by existing residents of the city. It just means if it's kind of pay to play, you're joining. And if you're going to tap into the lines, you're going to benefit, you are going to join the existing NCAA. So that's the concept here for today.

If I may, I would reiterate the key is the city controls. Any new situation that arises that might require a change, the city can consider that change, but has control of the votes of making the change within the organization. You'll always have more votes, and no matter how many developers or if the maximum size of the board, you'll always have one more vote.

So one of the things I've heard from people that their concern is, is they feel like New Albany Company has a monopoly on the NCA and that it's just going to be, you know, people don't want to buy their land because of the NCA being controlled by New Albany Company. So I'm asking, you know, does New Albany Company have a monopoly on this land or can other developers come in and buy this land and come in?

Basically, can another developer create an NCA on their own?

Well, and then I think of our old industrial park here.

I think that's the big question.

That, to me, would be prime for a different NCA because whatever money...

Those buildings bring need to go to the infrastructure there for like the roads, you know, they've already got water sewer So, you know, they don't need that but the roads and maintenance of that facility could use something else yeah, if Existing business is the existing part and it was isolated and those those costs were easily isolated but we were trying to avoid is competing interests or having, we want to establish uniformity so that there's non-competitive advantages. So one NCA, so let's say another developer comes in, creates a new NCA so that the city is basically partners with both developers. One developer decides to have five mills. And the other developer has 9.75 hills. So that's really the goal of this. This doesn't prohibit the existing businesses in the additional park to do if they so wish to fund infrastructure projects. I mean, in New Albany, historically, the new community authority, the same thing has happened over time. It has not become an issue. A lot of other developers have come in and bought land, end users, private developers. and have all adhered to the NCA. And by having uniformity, I personally think it also gives a little bit more weight or stick from the city's perspective to say, here's how, you know, you have to adapt to our standards and pay your fair share.

How do you make sure that those areas are getting their fair share of the infrastructure money? I mean, because the one thing I was researching is with the 1NCA, one of the cons to it is that some money may go more to one area than another.

Those would be further discussions that we'd have to have. I mean, we're set up. We have the majority vote. So this is a living document that we have a board to control. I get it.

Can I hear Jamie's answer to that, please?

It's a good question. I think a lot of it comes down to... How does the city and the new community and the NCA board want to spend its money and its debt, and what's the best return? Because there's going to be times where, right now, Everything that we have planned that is under the NCA's current scope is all geared towards economic development. So if you wanted to use infrastructure or something that wasn't economic development, there's probably another vehicle for that funding mechanism, whether it's a grant PRIVATE FUNDING, ET CETERA, BUT THE NCA IS MOSTLY TO GENERATE, JUMP START THAT CATALYST TO PAY. NOW, THE BEAUTY OF THE NCA, TOO, IS IT GOES ON THE TAX BILL. THAT MONEY IS COLLECTED FROM THROUGH THE TAX BILL SO THAT THE CITY WILL INDEFINITELY HAVE CONTROL OF THAT MONEY, AND THE BOARD HAS INDEFINITE CONTROL OF THE MONEY. But the NCA is not. It's a voluntary tax on private development. It's not designed to get rich off of. It's designed to make new development pay for itself so that current residents don't have to take on the expense or burden of new businesses moving into the town.

And you're mostly talking about roads, sewer, water, those things. Yeah.

Now, there are scenarios that where you fund, and it often happens 10 or 20 years down the road where, no pun intended, but like, you know, A decade or two down.

When the debt's paid off.

Once the debt's retired, then you could probably start using those funds for parkland, for example, or for other things. But it's specifically by law designed geared towards the money is raised from the private development goes towards infrastructure.

And it helps get that clear quicker. Right. If this doesn't limit us to one NCA, another question I have is from, I guess, does this actually make the change today, or does it just add the language to where we can have the discussion on having one NCA?

This language is just about the existing NCA. If a discussion about another NCA could come up, if a private developer wants to petition the city for another one and the city thinks it's a good idea, that would be a discussion that the city could still have.

So in your opinion, we're not limiting ourselves at all? I think there's two points here, which is we have the majority vote in the NCA, and the second thing is, just like with any other type of legislation that we look at as a council, we can, at a later date, go back and change this language in this chapter as well. So, with a majority vote. So...

I just feel that this kind of discussion is a great thing to have with Jamie and also for our constituents who are watching or in the audience to be able to understand what's going on here so they can see all sides, all relevant information. So I don't think that anybody's... I just think that that's a great conversation to have so the constituents can understand it better. So thank you.

I appreciate it. I think it's... GREAT QUESTIONS, AND THE BEAUTY OF THE NCAA BOARD IS IT'S A COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT OPERATION. YEAH. AND THROUGHOUT THE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS, THE DEBT PROCESS, AND THE GOVERNING PROCESS.

Well, Jeff, to your point, not that I disagree. I think that ultimately I don't know if we necessarily need a workshop to further discuss. If we are getting counsel from the city and our attorney that we're not limiting ourselves with this and we're just adding language to further discuss and to have that as an opportunity, I don't know how much more we would learn in a workshop. So not to take that away, but...

As long as there are high-level questions today that can be answered here at face value, I think we're fine. But if there are questions from council that really barrel into the minutia on this, that's when you need a work session. Do we have further questions from council?

Can you say that again? You said if it's more than five acres is where you started. as what you stated, from the very top.

Yes. So it's more than five acres and if the property that's annexed is currently a residential or agricultural use, and Jamie correct me if you think I'm wrong here, if it's currently residential or agricultural, they're not paying the NCA fees until they request and are rezoned into a denser use, like a business or industrial use. If that makes sense.

That's correct. So for example, What we're proposing to extend water and sanitary would be, let's say we're funding $20 million of that, and somebody else wants to tap into those lines. We want them to pay a fair share to use those lines so that the debt can get paid back quicker, and that debt is so that the city can get its revenue quicker as well. The more people you have in the NCA, the quicker it gets paid off. Exactly.

When I was looking at this and maybe you can clear this up or Jamie maybe you can clear this up. You're saying over five acres but anything under five acres that goes through a rezoning process that's residential or farmland is also subject of joining the NCA as well according to this language.

I think the spirit of it is to address development that really is not single-family residential.

That would be Section 3 if you look at it.

I should say one-off single-family. If you were doing a master plan single-family community that was tapping into the water and sanitary lines that currently have debt on them, I think it's fair to ask the private developer to chip in.

But it has to be rezoned to a higher dense use to get that.

So they would be required to join the NCA even if they're not if they're annexed in. If they go for the rezoning. Say they're not the PD district, okay? So say they're not in the PD district, but say we annex them in, a piece of land in, they need to tap into the water and sewer, they would be required to join the NCA?

Yes, the NCA border that the city controls and that the boundary of the PD and NCA do not necessarily have to overlap and they probably, those borders probably won't overlap.

But, Nikki, it's only if they annex in and then they request a zoning that has higher density. Right, right. But if they just come in as agriculture and don't want to do anything, they're not going to.

Right. Got it.

I just think the goal is to align everybody's interests, including neighbors, with the city.

All right. Further questions from council before I open for public comment? Alright, we'll go ahead and open for public comment. Alright, hearing none we'll go ahead and close public comment. This is the will of council.

Well given that the city seems give us direction, that's a good idea and it doesn't limit us in the future. I see it as an opportunity to get that debt paid down quickly and benefit everybody in the long run. So I'd like to make a motion to approve or pass Ordinance 06-2026 in order to amend Chapter 1141 of the City's Codified Ordinances.

All right. I'll second.

Kyle Cook?

Yes.

Jeff Barr?

No.

Nicole Shook? No. Matthew Huggin?

Yes.

Danny Barnard?

Yes.

Ryan Green?

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right. With that, we'll move on to... Our next item here, resolution, or this would be ordinance 07-2026, ordinance to amend chapter 1165, the city's codified ordinances, introduction to public hearing. Introduction was June 16th, and we'll have our vote tonight. This broadly is our PD district conversation, specifically the housing bank. If our staff could give us the background on this. We have an audience tonight, so we have to, we need to be extra careful.

Is our legal representation going to give us the background on this? Please. I think that's why they're here.

absolutely so there's two there's kind of two elements too really one of them makes it easier to add land to a pd district and then the other element which that one's more simple the other element is discusses the creation of a housing bank so to keep it simple there this is assuming there's a fixed pie of housing for a round number let's say it's 100 units If one developer has already been allocated 100 units under this PD district, new land wants to come in, and the new developer wants to maybe perform some residential development, the housing bank can distribute the units of the existing 100 to the new developer. So the developer who is holding the existing units would commit to not developing the new units. The new developer would have that number of units available. But the most important part is that no matter what, it's under the city's approval. So the city would have to approve the distribution of the units from one developer to another.

Can I make a suggestion on this one? Can we change housing bank to unit bank? Because... Am I right in thinking if the housing bank is 100, that may transition to something different if it's apartments? Or I think if people hear that there's a 1,200-unit housing bank out there, they're thinking 1,200 houses, but it actually might be less.

There seems to be some constituents, there seems to be a... A LITTLE BIT OF CONFUSION AS TO WHAT MEANS TO HAVE A HOUSING BANK. AND YOU SEE 1,200 UNITS, I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK THAT'S 1,200 HOMES. AND THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS. SO I THINK BEING ABLE TO CHANGE THAT LANGUAGE A LITTLE BIT TO HELP THE CONSTITUENTS UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON HERE MIGHT BE BENEFICIAL.

WELL, JIMMY, BEFORE YOU START, I DON'T... I MEAN, I'M JUST GOING TO ASK, CAN THAT ACTUALLY BE CHANGED? BECAUSE MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE HOUSING BANK, THE UNITS AREN'T SET IN STONE. SO... I mean, housing covers apartments, covers condos, covers single family, covers everything.

I guess it depends on what's defined in the original.

The thing is, in the specific district, it is defined of what type of housing that you can have. So it's not going to be a single family home. It's going to be a multi-family home. And you can't designate the difference between multi-family from condo to apartment. So you have to leave it as that. But... Under that heading, if you're able to bank that density and transfer it to another part of the PD district, it could become single-family homes, potentially.

It could, yes, that's correct. So the way this is written, there's no proposal of any changes, any units getting moved around at this time? No. what's on the table right now is a change in the process to begin, to potentially begin renegotiating moving some of the residential or rezoning. And part of why that's important is because these residential portion of the plan development is kind of getting in the way of some of our economic development initiatives because we want to, we don't want to lose all of our residential rights. And as the PD's grown, our residential density bank's grown. And so we might have more units than what we want right now, more than what the city can absorb. A little history lesson, a couple years ago when we established the plan development, Intel's process, Intel was really humming along and we needed to address some of the workforce housing immediate near term. Johnstown had some requirements, and I don't remember the exact numbers, but essentially, for example, to a one bedroom apartment, you're required, I think it was something like 1,000 square feet, which is a large one bedroom apartment. This meeting with the school board, having a bunch of additional units designed, we were worried that an influx of a bunch of additional apartments would impact the school district negatively in the short term. We decided to make commitments about what would be built and it was geared towards workforce housing was the demographic. There were smaller units and they would be phased and they would come online and phase it. So the PD expanded because we correlated the number of units to the overall tax base. So now we have more than 1,200 residential units. We don't want to necessarily lose those rights, but if a big economic development project comes in front of us right away, we want to have some flexibility to address some of the housing initiatives. We also think it's important to show some of the businesses that are considering Johnstown for major investments where housing might go. We don't necessarily have to... WE DON'T HAVE TO SOLVE THE HOUSING INITIATIVES TODAY, BUT I THINK ESTABLISHING SOME OF THE FRAMEWORKS SAYING THAT THIS IS A PRIMARY IMPORTANCE OBJECTIVE. I'VE MET WITH DR. LAGNER AND DR. KRAMER ABOUT THIS CONCEPT OF THE DENSITY PAY. Don, to your point, we would love to, there's a couple different ways we could do it. We could establish a formal conversion or ultimately up to the city. We can't move units around if the city doesn't want to just move units around. the city could dictate what they want the units with the product type to be if they want it to be town homes condos apartments owner occupied for rent single family senior housing etc when some type of mix they could choose a percentage so it's really giving the city the more power to do what it wants to do with some of these residential units So today would just be establishing that process to say, do you guys want to start to go down the road to address these? And if you don't, then there's no reason to even go down that path to take up all the time and resources.

And I apologize for not being here at that last meeting where we had more discussion. But I just have a couple quick questions. Who owns the housing bank? So who controls the housing bank?

The city.

The city does.

The language on page 76, that's the key part of what you're talking about tonight. And all it does is clarify and make clear the city's control over the process.

So say someone wants to build here and you guys want to transfer your housing bank here. We can stop that, total.

That's correct.

And you still keep your housing units.

That's correct.

Do those housing units ever expire?

Not now, but in this discussion, we have the opportunity to at a sunset.

That's correct.

And we can have an opportunity to possibly work with... I would like to fix the number. That's... The conversion of what they are. Not necessarily the conversion, but right now it's in there to where if we annex, then that adds houses to that bank.

I want to stop that.

So what we're voting on tonight, if I understand correctly, opens up the conversation to have more control over that housing bank.

That is correct. You're getting more control and opening up the conversation. Correct.

It allows us to get into negotiation patterns that allows the city to actually monetarily benefit from the transfer of SOME OF THOSE UNITS, IF THEY WANT TO TRANSFER THEM TO OTHER PARTS OF THE CITY, WE COULD ACTUALLY MONETARILY BENEFIT AS A CITY BECAUSE OF THAT. WHICH WE'VE DISCUSSED, YES. THAT'S CORRECT, YES.

IS IT BETTER TO PUT THAT IN NOW, OR IS THAT BETTER IN LATER?

WE WOULDN'T PUT IT IN NOW, WE WOULD PUT IT IN AS WE APPROACH IT. IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE DOING, THE CONVERSION?

WELL, THE THREE, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WAS DISCUSSED EARLIER WAS WHAT CONVERSION LOOKS LIKE IF YOU WANT TO DO A SINGLE FAMILY HOME, WHAT, HOW MANY UNITS does that take out of the bank to do a one single family home?

That's negotiated later.

I understand that. But that still is applied. That's done when you want to take those out, correct?

Do you bring it up case-specific?

So when they ask to move, then you have a discussion?

Sure, exactly. It's better to do it when you have more specific information to make your decision.

Now it's all in theory. So right now it's you waiting for them. It makes no sense. Wait until you're dealing with reality.

He's not speaking. But yes, Kyle, you're correct. I think the concept of of tying the residential bank originally to the tax base was a great concept three years ago when we did it because it was all based on a balanced tax base. Conditions have changed and we're open to fixing that number and meeting whatever goals the city has when it comes to owner-occupied homes and product type too.

There's one question that's come up in this, I think, and I'm going to defer to our city manager and our legal team. Is it better to put the framework in for these conversations now, or is it better to wait for a specific project to come up? So if they want to move, if they want to transfer these units, do we wait for that specific project, or do we do it now?

I'll give you my answer first. You can do it now, but it doesn't have as much value because you're basing it on theory and not specifics. You can change it now, and you can change it later. I'm not sure it's effective to do it now when it's still all theoretical.

I just want to make sure I'm understanding the question correctly. Are we talking about passing this legislation now, or are we talking about amending it to have the conversion rate?

That's a great question. I think we're doing both.

We could do all that later. Right now all we're doing is voting to have the conversation, which seems silly.

You're giving yourself more control.

In the end, we control to say, no, go back to the drawing board and bring something better. Correct. If they sell a, to your point, you call it a unit, I'd call it a dwelling instead of a housing bank. A dwelling bank might be a better term. I'll let legal people smarter than me come up with that term. But if they sell it hypothetically for two, we want one and a half of the two. Or it's one or split, whatever. We'll figure all that out.

Is there any concern over moving it? Because it was a half mile before, correct?

Yeah.

Two miles.

It was a mile and a half. Now it's two miles? No, it was a half mile. Was it a half mile? It was 0.5.

Is there concern over that from council that now two miles, that housing bank can now reach anywhere in Johnstown?

Only if you approve it.

That's the thing. I see it as an opportunity to take those 1,200 units that we have agreed to, and instead of having those sit on top of another development that comes in, we can just fold them into that. If we add a sunset, then there's a potential that they go away altogether. And if we do like a three-year, then next council can vote on it and choose what they want to do with it.

And we could even say not just a sunset, then in three years we can say there is a definitive life. Ten years.

Okay, let me ask. I'm trying to get my figure out. Say right here, someone comes and wants to develop it. They want to add 1,500 houses here.

1,500? That's big.

That's huge. It's big. So 1,500. Council approves the $1,500, but they have to come from your housing bank. Not necessarily. No, no, I'm just saying. I don't want to add $1,500 and they say, oh, we want $1,500 more.

This gives us the capability to do that, though, because if you have... We wouldn't take it out of the housing bank? That way we can.

Do you mean that the best interest of the city to do it that way?

Yeah, you could take those $1,500, empty them out here, and the housing bank would be empty.

Part of it becomes a tying and sequencing, because let's say three different developments happen. Let's say two other developments happen, each one is 1,000 units, and then we still currently have our 1,200, 1,700 units or whatever. All of a sudden, the city's projected density would add another 3,700 units, or we transfer ours. This gives us, it's kind of goofy, it gives us the ability to transfer our units without having somebody join our planned development. which they always have that option too. Somebody could join our plant development, establish a new cell area, and then we could just shift some of the density around. But that's assuming that multiple private developers want to work together, too.

Those don't have to be contiguous, though, right?

That's correct.

Okay.

So if we are to pass it tonight and we do not have in there the agreement that we will get some financial value from the transfer or that we have a cap and want it to go back to 1,200 units and a sunset... We can add that later.

Yes.

I just wanted to clarify.

And it incentivizes a private developer with the bank to come back to the city to renegotiate. Because otherwise, there's an incentive to potentially just sit on the units for now, too. So, come now.

The ambiguity gives us room to negotiate. And it's actually done this way throughout the whole entire state. Jamie, you could probably attest to that. With all the developments going on, there's a lot of this moving of housing units and stuff, and it's constantly shifting. But the city councils or villages, where I see this development going, always it's either yes or no.

Yes.

Look, everything we do, essentially... goes back to supporting the school district. Regardless of the community we're developing in, the land planning is often about increasing the cap space for the school district. And we're not going to do anything that compromises the school district.

Mr. Green? All right. Are we ready to make a motion?

Yeah. So we'll go ahead and open for public comment on this. And here, if you could come up to the podium. Could you please come up to the podium? and state your name for us, and we just want to make sure you're on there so that we can hear it for... Reva Lang.

I guess I just want to know where these new houses are going, or... To be determined.

Anywhere in Johnstown? What's your address?

We don't have to do the address anymore. No, I'm just asking, because I was going to sit right next to your house. I was going to say... I was going to say... I think a lot of us know, but...

I can answer you really quickly. Right now, the housing bank was actually planned with the planned development district outside of Intel. down in that area. If this passes, NACO can actually, or Johnstown Land Company, however you want to call it, they can actually basically sell or trade off some of those housing units to be placed elsewhere within Johnstown.

If the city approves.

Exactly. If you sold the farmland to a developer.

I just want to leave my 13 acres alone. I'm not selling it to anyone.

We appreciate that. And this is where it's important for citizen impact. Because citizen impact is going to speak a lot to the seven people that sit on this council. Whether it's us seven or in less than two years, there's a switch of some other people here, or two more years. Nothing is going to stay the same at this table. We know there's going to be changes. So it's up to the citizens to tell council, hey, you know what, they're wanting to move these housing units to, and I'll use Donnie's example right over here, and if everybody says, they fill up the room and said, absolutely not, if this council knows what's good for them, if anybody has any type of, I want to keep my seat, they're going to vote it down. Right? Because that's the whole point of a city council is to do the will of its constituents. But in this part here, this would put us, in my opinion, in a better negotiating spot with these housing units because we can always say, no, I don't want to move these 100 units to, you know, Leafy Dell 2.0 and there's no land over there really to build, but that's where I live. So... It's one of those things. This ordinance allows us to start having that conversation, allows us an avenue to have that conversation on if we can move them. It doesn't state whether we're going to get paid out of that. It doesn't state whether they can move. It doesn't state whether they're just going to have to sit on them. It also doesn't state whether they're going to disappear on them in five or ten years. It states that we allow that conversation to happen. Did I... Does that answer it?

Under standard old school zoning, this would have been 1,500 houses approved on Green Chapel between 62 and Mink, and it would have always been approved over there. And then another developer would come in and want to go over here, and then you're talking 3,000 houses. But with this, you could take that 1,500, move it over to here. They don't get built over there anymore, and they get built over here. It's only 1,500 instead of 3,000.

We're never putting that roundabout... on 310 and second plans.

Yeah, it's really, there's no, no, we are not discussing developing any more houses right now.

There's no plan in development. And this is the thing with any city. It can always change. For example, if you wanted to build a neighborhood like the new addition right now in Johnstown, the majority of those houses could not be built in Johnstown as a single floor house under 1,000 square feet. It's against code to build anything under 1,000 square feet in a city. That's a ranch style. So the majority of what was built there can never be built again unless this council decides to change all that. Okay.

Thank you. All right. We appreciate it. Any other public comment? All right. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and close public comment. What is the will of council?

I'd like to make a motion to pass Ordinance 07-2026 as written. I'll second.

Roll call, please.

Affirm.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

All right, moving on to resolution 2026-35, resolution authorizing city manager to enter into an agreement with law general contracting for the Leafy Dell Road and Pershing Avenue paving project. We had an introduction and hearing tonight and a vote. Our staff could give background on this.

Yes. I was asked a few meetings ago to get a quote on Mill and Fill for Leafydale Road and Pershing. We got the quote. We moved forward. We put those, we put that project out to bid. We got five bids and Law General Contracting was the winner of that bid at approximately $177,000. It was within the 10% engineer's estimate. So we're asking council if they want to move forward.

All right. I think this is a resolution. Well, first, let's say anything from council. Anybody have anything?

Jack, just for the... citizens that we do have here, that money had already been earmarked for that project. Is that correct? No, sir. It has not?

No, that's what we're doing tonight.

WE DO HAVE $323,000 UNCUMBERED, WHICH WE CAN UNCUMBER THOSE PROJECTS.

OKAY. AND THAT UNCUMBERED DOLLARS WAS ANTICIPATED TO PAY FOR THESE PROJECTS. MM-HMM. SO NOT TECHNICALLY. OH, THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT MIKE.

YEAH.

TECHNICALLY YOUR MARK.

THANK YOU, JEFF. IT WAS YOUR MARK FOR ROAD PROJECTS, NOT JUST THE SPECIFIC. I KNEW IT WAS THERE, BUT IT WASN'T THERE. PUBLIC COMMENT.

All right, so we will go ahead and take public comment on this, even though it's a resolution. You guys are here tonight, so I want to make sure you're heard. All right, we'll go ahead and close public comment. What is the will of council?

I'd like to make a motion to pass resolution 2026-35 as written. I'll second. Roll call, please.

Jeff Barr.

Affirmed.

Nicole Shook? Yes. Matthew Hogan? Yes. Johnny Barnard? Yes. Ryan Green? Yes. Kyle Cook? Yes.

All right. We'll go ahead and move on to Resolution 2026-36. This is a resolution authorizing the City Manager to advertise for bids on construction for the Johnstown Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion. If our staff could give background on this.

This is the next step in the process. You've been planning to expand your wastewater treatment plant for quite some time. You have a choice whether to continue to move forward, and if to do so, we have to advertise for bids. The other option would be to delay the project, which would require the city to make a significant payment on the loan that was taken to do the engineering. So the most cost-effective way to move forward with the project is to authorize the bids to see what it would cost if we're going to move forward with the actual construction. Do you have any questions?

Questions from council?

All right. Mr. Green, earlier in finance and... public safety and service. This was reviewed at both committee levels. We had staff input that their recommendation. We have the engineers from Jacobs here present as well. Both of those engineers also recommended this of moving forward. So just stating that publicly in case any of the council did not catch The committee meetings, right? Yes. I should have mentioned that.

So it has been quite vetted. All right. We'll open for public comment. All right. Hearing none, close public comment. What is the will of council? I'll make a motion. Go ahead. You go ahead. Lady first.

Oh, well, thank you. I'm sorry. Too funny, Matt. I'll make a motion to pass resolution 2026-36 as written.

All right, roll call, please.

Nicole Schuch? Yes. Matthew Huggins? Yes. Johnny Barnard? Yep. Ryan Green? Yes. Kyle Cook?

Yes.

Jeff Barr? Affirm.

All right. Moving on to introduction of legislation. Ordinance 08-2026, an ordinance accepting an annexation of 99.4 acres, more or less, from Monroe Township, Licking County, to the city of Johnstown. This is for introduction only, but could we get background on this?

Well, we can hear from the city first. Yep.

If we won't, we can have the property owner discuss the specifics, but the Lincoln County Commissioners have for the annexation, so now it's just back up to the city.

Okay.

It doesn't stay here.

Do you want to put it right there? It's right there.

It didn't work earlier.

It didn't?

If it doesn't work, you're going to have to interpret it.

It should work now. It should be back on.

Let's see. There we go. So this, the 99 acres annexing and proposal to annex into Johnstown, this is the first reading, so I don't believe any action is required tonight, but the concept is to expand the plan development to an area west of Clover Valley Road. These 99 acres that are currently in Row Township would be annexed into Johnstown. These 99 acres WE'RE TRYING TO STACK THE LEGISLATION AS WELL SO THAT THE ANNEXATION COINCIDES WITH THE ZONING AT THE SAME TIME. BUT THE IDEA IS THAT WE WOULD BE EXTENDING SUB AREA ONE SO THAT IT WOULD BE CONTINUOUS WITH WHAT'S GOING ON ON THE OTHER SIDE OF CLOVER, ON BOTH SIDES OF CLOVER VALLEY.

Are they able to see this at home if you're watching on YouTube? No. So this property has frontage on 62 and that's it as far as roads? Clover Valley. 62 Clover Valley. It's hard to see from there. I need readers. I see you guys using it.

Clover Valley is here, US 62 is here, Duncan Plains, and then this is where ODOT's triple roundabout is being planned.

Okay. And if you will, this 100 acres more or less was previously owned, or it's currently owned by a developer that bought it from, if you will, the Piper Sod No, no, no. This is dorm. Different one. Never mind.

Well, it's known as the Piper Farm. It's there. Yeah. I'm not far enough west. We own the site in blue. Yeah. We do not own the Piper Farm site. But if the city of Johnstown wants, if the landowner wants to come into the city of Johnstown to bring the former Piper Farm into Johnstown, By annexing this, they will then have contiguity to connect into the city. So this could be phase one or phase two.

Understood. All right.

They have to join the PD district.

They would join the PD district and they would have to join the NCA to pay.

For infrastructure.

Yeah.

All right, does our legal counsel or staff have anything to add to this?

Recommend you do it.

All right, any questions from counsel? Again, this is just our first hearing on this. We will have the vote on August 4th.

So between now and the vote on August 4th, we hear it now, second hearing's on August 4th, the vote then. Second hearing. Affirm the annexation. Yes. Correct. What, if anything, will happen between tonight, because we're going to take vote tonight? No. No. This is just the hearing.

It's an ordinance, so it has to have two hearings.

Right. So tonight's first hearing and the second hearing on August 4th, what, if anything, will be taking place?

Nothing, just we can take, if the public wants to weigh in, send emails, anything. If council has questions, feel free to ask those. Let's try to get all of our information asked and everything so that we can have a good presentation and a vote on the 4th. All right. We'll go ahead and move on if there's nothing else. Thank you, Jamie. We're moving on to Ordinance 09-2026, an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of Johnstown rezoning approximately 99.4 acres. Again, that's the zoning map. Same thing that Jamie just said and showed us here. Again, we will vote on that on August 4th. And any questions on that before we move on? Okay. Our next item here is Ordinance 10-2026, an ordinance to add approximately nine acres to Johnstown Community Reinvestment Area No. 4. So this is the introduction again. We'll have our vote on August 4th. If our staff could give us background on this.

This is just a small addition to an existing project as I understand it.

Okay. Any questions from council? No. All right. We'll move on to item number 16, other business. We'll start down here with our staff first. We'll switch it up. Is there any items of other business?

I have none.

Okay. Councilman Huggins?

I do not have any this evening.

Donnie? Okay, I think it was the first, I'm trying to see which meeting, or not. Mr. Sheridan sent out his notes. He brought up the facilities management plan. This is something that council passed in August of 2025. and we paid the money for it. Withdrawing from JAG, it resulted in us not getting a final product for this. I'd like to propose that we go ahead and get our product that we paid for, so whatever that takes. So I'm bringing up the council. I know, Jeff, you had a conversation, you and Tiffany, earlier this year with Granville about this. Granville's come and spoke about this. I think it only makes sense if we paid for it, let's get our product. I think that's what Mr. Sheridan was saying.

Specifically, it was allowing that information to be retained in the report that would be submitted to EPA.

It doesn't bring us back into JAG. It doesn't tie us to JAG. No, sir.

No, sir.

And Grandville is finishing, has paid that money to finish the facilities plan.

Yes. It wouldn't result in any more money for us.

Yep.

Is there any appetite to move forward with that? Any other questions?

So we're just going to let that just... We're not going to get anything for the money that we spent for it. So this is not internet us back into JAG. It's not doing anything. What it does is it gets something, a backup plan that we have, that we paid for, help pay for, as a facilities plan. That's it. That's all this is. So we're just going to let it ride and just be like, we got nothing for it? Not one thing?

I have no comment. All right. If there's no other comment or anything from council, we'll go ahead.

$185,000. Do you go before Jeff's original?

I have no comment.

All right. We'll go ahead and move on. Some items that I have, I know we had talked about the CIC. Our finance director brought that up. So I didn't get to hear all of the conversation on it, but we are moving forward on that, and we can expect an update at the next meeting.

Yeah.

So we'll have legislation we can vote on at the next council meeting and then after that it will take 30 days to take effect from that? Or how soon are we looking at able to move forward with the CIC?

to be a resolution or more of a resolution?

Off the top of my head, I don't have an answer for you, but we can answer for you.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, it's definitely going to be important. We have some opportunities that are going to be coming up. It seems like this year sooner, much sooner rather than later. So I just want to put us in the best possible position to get that done. I had also asked earlier about the revenue that we received from the sale of the municipal building. What can you report on that?

We received... $1,194,769.50 back in June of 26, or 25, sorry, June 27. That is actually in our sweep account. It's not in the checking account. It's in the sweep account. We're probably at around $20,000 to $30,000 of annual interest income.

Okay. All right. And then the last thing I have, so we're just kind of teasing this. This is still, there's more information to come on this, but hopefully we're looking at our next meeting on the 4th where we can give everybody an update on our splash pad and where we are with that. Hope to work with council and do great things with that project and hoping to have more information for you on the 4th. We want to do a presentation.

All right. Anything, Kyle, Jeff? I wanted to thank the Legion for, again, working that lease agreement out. It'll be good for the community as a whole, so thank you, sir. All right. Nicole, anything?

No.

All right. We'll go ahead and we have public comment all of a sudden. I think we're past public comment. Yeah, we moved on to the other items. I'm sorry. We'll go ahead and make a motion to adjourn.

If you want to... You can't do that. I was just kidding.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

We passed some new legislation at the last MCA board meeting, financing some bonds for... the infrastructure that's needed to run down the PD district. And I just wanted to remind council that the scope of the NCA is defined by funding infrastructure, but that can be infrastructure projects that are outside of the NCA district itself. And part of When new development comes in, part of what the community expects is that they're uplifting the entire community as a whole. For example, when New Albany was built, the NCA funded the New Albany schools and helped build the bond financing for raising money for the schools. And we haven't asked our NCA to finance any public infrastructure projects outside of the NCA. For example, the wastewater treatment plant expansion that we're talking about, that's something that benefits the new development and the old development and would seem appropriate to propose financing from the NCA, which is something that for us to, the NCA to approve it, we need you guys to provide us with a pitch with that language to review and approve. Right now, I think we get the Residual income after 17 years. We don't ask for anything else. So That is our current financial situation with the NCA All right, yes, we appreciate it.

Thank you All right, can I get my time back on the other business? Yes, so I feel like we need to do a workshop with The NCA I don't know if it's the whole board, if it's the board appointed by us, probably legal, and the city manager. Whatever the ask is or what have you not, as Mr. Koppel has stated in there, to discuss the usage.

We can do that. Does anybody have something on their schedule they want to pitch? Sure.

Well, I'd like to ask the city manager and or the clerk to help arrange that. Now's not the time probably to try to figure that out because there's... All right.

Send me an email exactly who all you want invited and we'll try to get a meeting set up.

Well, that I feel like I can answer tonight. Would it be appropriate in a start with the committee? Is it the Economic Development Committee? Is it the committee of the whole, meaning all of us?

So you want to discuss just the NCA or the PD district on the whole, or what's the scope of the discussion?

Well, to Mr. Koppel's point is that the NCA, in their discussions, our direction would be to those four members, or if it's Jesse as the example, to say, I want 32,000 widgets. Pay for it, because it's for public good. Splash pad, new city hall, roads, infrastructure, pay for the whole wastewater, sewer, treatment plant, the whole nine, whatever. I'm just saying.

Yeah, we can have a work session.

We need to give them direction in their deliberations.

But the NCAA should be going to pay for the infrastructure.

I understand that.

Once the bonds are paid off, you can start doing those things. Yeah, once the bonds are paid off, we can play with it.

CORRECT. I BELIEVE ALL THE NCA MEETINGS ARE PUBLIC. YES. SO WE CAN HAVE AN NCA MEETING AND PERHAPS THAT IS THE WORKING SESSION, IF WE CAN DO IT THAT WAY. The NCA meetings are typically more on an ad hoc basis right now because there hasn't been much activity generated. Hopefully as things progress, more development comes, there's more revenue, there's more conversations to talk about, and those meetings become more reoccurring. But those, you know, I think everybody on the board is really... There's four board members from the city. Jesse is the city's official appointee. We did have a conversation with the city's water treatment plant that's currently under construction about different financing strategies because the city of Johnstown had the ability to get a loan at a favorable rate, it seemed like that was the, I don't know, it was 2%? Or 3.2, okay. So that 3.2% rate made it a pretty easy decision for the city to just engage directly with the state to get that funding, rather than trying to establish bonds for the NCA. So there was, I mean, there's a couple different ways, as well as history, too.

Good to know. Well, let's start with an email, and then we can create an agenda for the work session, and then we'll see about dates.

Okay, great.

All right.

Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Jesse. That's all I have. Thanks for giving my time back. No problem.

All right. Is there a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion to adjourn. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye.