City Council - Special Meeting

All right. We will go ahead and call to order the special city council meeting for Thursday, July 23rd, 2026. We'll go ahead with roll call.

Mayor Tiffany Hollis. Ryan Green.

Here.

Donnie Barnard. Here. Matthew Huggins. Here. Kyle Cook. Here. Jeff Barr.

Present.

Nicole Shook. Here.

All right. Well, we have public comment today, so we'll go ahead and open for public comment.

So what I'm talking about is exhibit ordinance 6, 2026, an amendment 1141.05 in your community authority. I'm looking for clarification. I'm not telling them asking. When asked about a single NCA, the representatives for the city of Charleston says, no, it does not limit you to one NCA. Under Section 1141.05 of the NCA, Section 1, 2, 3, B, and C, all use the term irrevocably added to the authority. So if all New Phoenix land has to be added to authority, where does that leave room for any other NCA? We're going into that in a second. Driving a little deeper, I'm familiar with 12170 Johnstown Utica Road. Currently, it has existing sewer and water. So if that were to be annexed into the city of Johnston, it wouldn't require any infrastructure fees from the city. And I think this would be a great place to allow another form of nca pilot program some other kind of program that could generate money to the city right now not in 17 years it's not adding any cost to the city because it's already there i'm just familiar with this parcel alone because that's where i was grew up and raised i'm sure there's probably other out there but If everything has to be flew into that one NCAA as stated, that doesn't mean room for any other NCAAs or any other opportunities for the city of Johnson to capitalize on any kind of revenue from that expansion or annexation. So I would just like for us to maybe take a look at some guardrails. I know those are your proof. But I'm asking for council to maybe put in some guardrails on this, allowing the development to continue in the gateway development and anyone who would have access to that development or development costs. I understand being forced into that, the authority of paying their fair share and part of that. But with other scenarios, maybe looking at it with a different set of eyes and trying to generate money now for the city versus in 17 years. That's all I have to say.

Can I say something back to her? I started researching today about this statement irrevocably added to the authority and the research I did is not fully consistent with ORC 349.03 so I was going to ask council at the next meeting if we could have that defined better.

I think that's pretty good. Thank you guys.

Alright. Thanks Mindy. Is there further public comment?

Thank you, Ryan. I really appreciate your guys' time.

If you want to hand that to Teresa.

That's all I get?

That's all I get?

There ain't very many people here.

I figured we could talk afterwards.

Yeah.

Is it on? It's on, for sure.

Same thing, I already have it.

I didn't know if they wanted a minute to digest. Just a quick preview. I know it's not something we're going to go over tonight. I was just looking to show it to you, let you quickly look at it. Quick presentation. I'll leave. Thank you for your time and continue your dialogue. You want me to start speaking while they're eating?

Yeah, you can go ahead. I don't care, obviously.

Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So, I'm just going to read off the thing. You know that the NCA is all about pay or your fair share. You have a developer that has invested a large amount of money to get in sewer and water that gave way to PD districts. They need security for that investment like anyone would want or need. We do not want anyone tapping into sewer and water lines that the NCA funded without paying the $9.75 million to pay down that debt. But what about a small-medium development scenario where these NCA-funded sewer and water lines are not needed due to suitable existing Johnstown sewer and water lines and geographical location? Scenario one would be a small impact 1.5 acre parcel adjacent to the city's corporate limit with existing sewer water on an adjacent parcel that's inside city limits. That parcel develops a restaurant storefront doctor's office and that developer will pay to extend the sewer and water onto their parcel and pay the tap fees upon annexation a question would pose, why would they have to join the existing NCA to fund the sewer and water to the Johnstown Gateway? Scenario two, small impact, a five-acre parcel outside of Johnstown's corporate limit that already has existing sewer and water on the parcel. If that parcel annexes and pays the tap fee and develops, why would they have to join that NCA and pay for development costs to extend? when it already exists there. If these scenarios are forced to join an existing NCA upon annexation, you're now using revenue generated from original Johnstown to pay off debt of the PD district NCA and expand Johnstown footprint versus using revenue from original Johnstown projects, versus using that revenue for original Johnstown projects. the goal is just to tax these businesses an additional 975 nca millage and create a separate 975 nca for those projects we could call the original johnstown nca where the millage funds would be able to be used in original johnstown sooner than 17 years possibly immediately because there would be no debt on that infrastructure because the infrastructure is currently existing If minimal investment is needed or no debt needs to be paid off due to proximity of existing infrastructure of these projects, Johnstown will start receiving the 975 millage. These projects would happen much quicker due to their proximity to Johnstown infrastructure. Someone could sell something off, a restaurant could come in, that could get built in a short amount of time while, you know, it's a multi-year process getting the gateway project going. It also illustrates under 11... 1140105 under number 3, line B, which I'll go over here in one second. Let me just... Well, number 11B basically states, and if you guys need a copy of it, I have it. It was what was passed, that besides something annexing into the town, that anything that's existing in the city limits that already has sewer and water and everything, if they... do any type of zoning change, they would have to enter the NCA. I don't know how many of you remember, and I don't have my archive, I can find out, but the old Ford dealership was bought by a property owner and was executing for a couple years. Then he needed a zoning change to do what he was already doing. And as Sean Standard put it, it was clerical housekeeping. Teresa can probably remember. And it was just like, hey, it's fine. Nothing's really changing. It's a clerical housekeeping area on the city of Johnstown. There's still coming for a zoning change. He did, went through the 90-day process and passed. That property under 3B would have had to enter that NCA. And there's no, remember, that NCA, no one should tap into those NCA lines unless they pay that millage, plain and simple. You know, it's not personal, it's illegal, this and this. Later, here I have some ways to protect your NCA investments, meaning, I'll just go... You could say if a parcel has sewer and waters provided or funded by the NCA, they must join. If a parcel is adjacent to a parcel with sewer and water lines, they must join. If a parcel is adjacent to the Gateway PD District, they must join. Am I supposed to be timing?

Mike, if I could interrupt for a second. I was going to say, I think he's got a little bit more if you want to sum that up. We just have a three-minute time limit typically. We didn't have our clock out today because we didn't plan for it.

Six months from now, somebody else wants to come up here and they keep going. They say, well, you let Mike Slergy back on July 23rd. I'm not going to let that come back and bite me in the butt. If you would kindly, please, sir, whatever remaining point you'd like to make. and you've done a great job spelling it out, give you a chance to kind of gather your thoughts of how you'd like to wrap it up so that we could keep to our three minutes.

Well, I'll tell you what. I won't even try to paraphrase something in one statement. I hope I can present this to you. You guys have time to digest this so we can continue this dialogue. I appreciate it today. I don't even know if public comment was on the agenda, but you're gracious enough to allow us to speak and just digest it. The main thing is the Section 3B. I'm wondering if anyone was aware of Tuesday night. pertaining to the old four dealership also i will say to you you have properties outside of the corporate limit that have sewer and water on them that you made service agreements with that those people are allowed to tap into those lines so again no infrastructure needed they just pay the tap fee why do they have to join the ncaa and i also want to reiterate too No one should tap into NCA-funded stuff without paying the millage because the debt needs to pay down. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Is there further public comment? All right. Hearing that, we'll go ahead and move on to item number two. We have our introduction of legislation, Ordinance 11-2026, Ordinance Amending Section 921.06 of the Codified Ordinances of Johnstown, Ohio, in order to set water tap and capacity fees charged by the City of Johnstown. So this is an introduction only, and the vote will be on the 4th. Do we have anything from council on this?

All right. I have a question. I know they're not here. Does anybody know who did our last assessment in 2020? Was it also Jacobs?

No. It was a financial firm, wasn't it?

I'd have to look.

It wasn't Jacobs?

No. I can check.

Do you recall if the last time they did it, was there anything that said... you know, like a rough estimate that we're doing them in 2020, you should do them in 2025, and our preliminary findings say A, B, C, X, Y, Z, you should increase it by 8%, 18%, 28%.

Are you asking if there was a recommendation last time?

Yeah, right, like if there was a last time. Here's the recommendation for 2020.

I don't know. I'd have to pull it up, but I can send it to you guys if you want. Or I can look now.

We're not going to do anything with it tonight anyway, so if she could just get the information.

Yeah, I mean, to see what the last report said, if anything, because it would have another... If there was anything, we have something else to... used for deliberation. That's all.

I will send it.

All right. Can we move on to the next item? We'll move on. Ordinance 12-2026. Ordinance amending section 925.035. Codified ordinances of Johnstown in order to set sewer tap and capacity fees charged by the city of Johnstown. This is an introduction only and public hearing. The vote will be on August 4th. Any questions on this one? Alright. We will go ahead and move at this time to our executive session. And... and featuring our applicants and Mr. David Collinsworth. So our first applicant would have to vote to go into executive session. Real quick, sorry. Was that a motion? So, yep, I'll make the motion. I'll second.

Okay.

Ryan Green.

Yes.

Kyle Cook. Yes. Jeff Barr. Yes. Nicole Schuch. Yes. Matthew Huggins. Yes. Sonny Barnard.

Yes.