County Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

good yeah good morning and welcome to the lorraine county board of commissioners friday september 11 2026 please rise for the pledge of allegiance

Mr. Moore? Here. Mr. Gallagher? Here. Mr. Riddell? Here. We have a quorum.

Thank you.

People at two planes flew into the two towers. Get out of here! Be advised, the North Tower is down. All personnel, be advised, the North Tower is down.

Thank you.

If we could have a moment of silence Thank you

Okay, we have two proclamations. The first one is Connect for a Cause, Community Foundation of Lorain County. Colleen Watts is here.

Good morning.

Good morning, Colleen.

Hi.

Tough act to follow.

I was just going to say, yeah, that it's a tough act. Yeah. It's a sad day.

Well, good morning. Good morning. Well, do you have anything to say? Because we have a proclamation for you. Yeah. Would you like me to read that? If you could, that'd be great. OK.

Thank you.

Well, we're recognizing that Connect to a Cause Day in Lorain County is on September 17, 2026. Whereas Connect to a Cause, presented by the Community Foundation of Lorain County, has grown to become Lorain County's largest 12-hour giving event, united thousands of residents in a shared commitment to strengthen the community and raising more than $2 million since its inception. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but Connect to a Cause inspires a culture of philanthropy by encouraging individuals, businesses, and community partners to give generously, amplifying the collective power of charitable giving, and demonstrating the profound difference that can be made when a community comes together for a common purpose. Connect to a cause reflects the spirit of compassion, collaboration, and civic pride that defines Lorain County, reminding us all of the collective strength and generosity found within our community. So that's what we have a proclamation for you today. Yes. And would you like to add?

I would love to, yes. Well, good morning, County Commissioners. On behalf of the Community Foundation and the 112 nonprofit organizations participating in Connect to a Cause, I want to sincerely thank you for this proclamation and for recognizing the important work being done throughout our community. Connect to a Cause is more than just our seventh annual fundraising event. It is a celebration of what happens when neighbors come together to support organizations that strengthen the quality of life throughout Lorain County. Through this annual giving event, local donors had the opportunity to invest in the causes that matter most to them and help the nonprofits in our community sustain their work. This community-wide event demonstrates the generosity and civic spirit that makes Lorain County such a special place to live, work, and play. I encourage everyone to learn more about our participating agencies and nonprofit organizations and consider supporting them through Connect to a Cause on Thursday, September 17th. Every gift helps strengthen the programs and services that touch the lives of our neighbors every single day. Donations can be made online at peoplewhocare.org or through an offline donation form where every contribution makes a meaningful difference in the local nonprofits and the families they serve. This year, we are excited to support our nonprofit sector and raise more than half a million dollars during our 12-hour giving campaign next Thursday. We cannot accomplish this without the generosity of donors, volunteers, business partners, nonprofit leaders, and the community across Lorain County. Thank you again to the Lorain County Commissioners. We are honored and humbled by this proclamation and your support, and we look forward to another successful Connect to a Cause. So thank you.

No, thank you. Thank you for all you do. Would you like to come up for a photo op?

I would love to get a picture if I could. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

uh the next proclamation we have is proclaim september's kinship month lorraine county kristen fox berkey director of children's services is here

Good morning. Good morning.

um so good morning commissioners and thank you so very much for allowing us to be here today to recognize september is national kinship month in lorraine county um i'm kristen fox berkey as you already said and i'm here representing lorraine county children's services at children's services we see every day the impact that relatives and other close family friends can make when they step up in the moments of crisis for children and their families when children cannot remain at home safely with their parents The best outcomes for them really are when relatives or family friends step up and are able to provide them with a safe home. Today we have about 110 children who are in our custody who are actually in the placement of kinship caregivers. when children are able to stay with family and close friends it really decreases the trauma that they experience and it helps with the stability that they have and helps them to stay connected to their family and to their school and to their friends and to their community and that helps them with their own identity of who they are because they're not being separated from all of that at a very important time in their in their development What we've seen and what research has shown us is that children who are able to stay with relatives and close friends actually experience less trauma, they have a more stable time, and they also have stronger long-term outcomes than they do for children who are placed in traditional foster care. We are very grateful to the many families in Lorain County who have stepped up to provide kinship care. And so many times that happens without any advance notice or very little advance notice or time for them to really prepare to welcome a child or three or four into their home. This morning, we are very fortunate to have two families with us who are kinship caregivers for our children. We have Shaw Atkins here with little Serenity back there.

Serenity? That's her name? Very cool.

Okay.

She gets the mic next. She don't need it.

And Billy Daniels and Brianna Strauterman are also with us. They are all providing care for a relative in their care, a young relative who they're caring for. They've opened their homes to their child relative who's in need. They're providing stability. love and a safe place for those children to reside and their compassion and commitment along with all the kinship caregivers that are in Lorain County are many kinship caregivers caring for children right now all of them exemplify the essential role that kinship caregivers can provide to children so thank you again so much for this opportunity and for recognizing september as national kinship month i appreciate that thank you okay thank you thank you do they want to add anything are they good or

Are we just come up for a photo maybe? Sorry, I guess we should read it, huh?

And this is a very special one. When I first got here as a commissioner four years ago, one of the first things that fell onto the radar was the children's services. They were right on the floor below us. One of those times that we understood the government didn't have it right the first time. They had financial and other support for non-family members and they didn't have it for family members and it just struck as one of those things where the government had rules probably for a good reason but they were they were harming the family unit and relationship on which the country is built. So I became a very good fan of the work being done under the leadership of Ms. Fox Berkey, and so I'm really proud to read this today. Whereas kinship caregivers, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, extended family members, neighbors, close family friends, open their hearts and homes to children who need safety, stability, love, often stepping in during times of crisis of hardship. Whereas kinship families provide a vital support system helping children maintain connections to their families, their cultures, and their communities, which promotes well-being and long-time success. And whereas more than 2.5 million, or about 4% of the children across the United States, are being raised in kinship care arrangements, with 110 of those children being placements of relatives, friends, and 51 children having found permanency within their kinship caregiver's home so far in 2026. So whereas National Kinship Month provides an opportunity to raise this awareness of this important role kinship caregivers play, and we need to celebrate the families who keep these children safe, connected, and loved. So it now be resolved that the Board of Commissioners does hereby proclaim September 26 as National Kinship Month in Lorain County and encourages all citizens to honor and support the kinship families who are making this lasting difference in the lives of children and our future. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Kristen. That's the way it works.

You guys scoot closer guys.

Scoot, squeeze, squeeze like you love each other. I'll get on the other one.

We got it girls.

Yeah, we got it. Thank you.

Good to see you again. I'm great.

Hello there. Nice to meet you. How come your hands are all sweaty? Nervous? You've got the easy side of the pony. Oh my gosh, you're so cute.

Oh, me too.

Good talk.

Under resolutions, number one, investments.

Move to approve. Second.

Discussion? Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Gallagher? Aye. Commissioner Riddell?

Aye.

Number two, appropriations.

Move to approve.

Second.

Discussion? Commissioner Gallagher?

Aye.

Commissioner Moore?

Aye.

Commissioner Riddell?

Aye.

Number three, transfers.

Move to approve. Second. Discussion?

Mr. Gallagher?

Aye. Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye.

Number 4, advances repayments to Rwanda. Number 5, requisitions.

Move to approve. Second.

Discussion? Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Riddell?

Aye.

Number 6, travel.

Move to approve.

Second. Discussion? Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye. Number seven bills.

Move to approve. We have two pages today. Oh, sorry. This is page one of two. Page two, please. Move to approve pages one and two.

Second. Discussion? Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye. Is there any old business?

Yeah, I do have some. I would like to thank John Gull for his work on bringing that video that you watched earlier today. Yeah. That was pretty emotional. I've been watching a lot of documentaries this week just to kind of relive a lot of those activities and what people don't realize you know that there were so many heroes that day because i think that's what we're about as americans and lorraine county we had our fair share here too people were not aware of the flight 93 did come over and turn i think around sandusky and went over At that time, I did one term as a commissioner, and there's a lot of discussions on what to do here. But as I learned that year, and I actually got to go to the Trade Center a few months afterwards, because we were trying to finance the Justice Center at the time, and got to talk to many New Yorkers, and outside the window of Finch, such as the rating agency, they were still bringing people out. Lorain County had a lot of heroes here. People don't realize our air traffic controllers are really our quiet heroes. And Lorain County had a lot of them that day. I'm not going to go into too much detail on that, but some of the people that actually were talking to a lot of the planes actually live here in Lorain County. So I just wanted to at least recognize the air traffic controllers that did go through a lot that day, and a lot of those quiet heroes live here in Lorain County. just thought I'd point that out and if you don't I actually got to go to the memorial for flight 93 and I think in one of them there was a Lorraine morning journalist some of the stuff that was there on display I think that was on the plane so I think that's what I saw there's some other things there from individuals from that tragedy so I just wanted to at least say that I know we went to, Lorraine, you wanna talk about, I'll let you talk about.

Yes, we'd like to thank you everybody for their patience and allowing us to postpone the meeting this morning, a half an hour. While there's many celebrations, wanna reach out and share that the JBS students and staff who created a memorial in Lorain County with an actual piece of the beam, which gives an extra attachment. But they did an outstanding job, and we went to the memorial this morning, and what they did for the veterans and the public was first class, well done, and wanna make sure that everybody knows what a great job they did. And again, thank you for your patience in letting us postpone our meeting so that we could be part of it.

Yeah, the most, I'll let you talk about how many people were not born.

Oh, it was on the news this morning. And Jackie from the Veterans Service gave this great attention in her speech. And her speech was so good, I tried to remember. I was going to steal a couple of her quotes. But they kept coming and I couldn't remember them fast enough. It's part of being 75. But at the end of the day, one-third of the people alive in the country today They were not born yet for 9-11. And Jackie did a great job of memorializing that Yes, it's our duty to remember, but it's also our duty and obligation to see that those who come behind us understand it, not just like another holiday to have a family picnic or memorialize it like other holidays, but to understand what happened that day and the sacrifice that was made. And she likened it to the fact that our parents and grandparents did that for us after Pearl Harbor. And now it's our job to carry 9-11 forward to the next generations. And hopefully there won't be another Pearl Harbor or 9-11. But we've got to keep alive and not just make it a paragraph in a history book. So kudos to Jackie at Veterans Services.

And Joint Vocational School. That was an excellent program. Oberlin Fire was there. There was everybody. There was just a lot of people there. And it was really done first class.

Yeah, and they remarked that there were no students there at the vocational school that were alive in 2001.

But to memorialize it again with the presentation, just like they did last year, too, they're doing a very good job.

Okay. That's it for old. There's no public comment.

Board business. Number eight, job and family services, authorized purchase service grant between JFS and beyond.

You put it down for public comment at the end, not on the, this was about public comment for the agenda. Yeah, so.

Authorized purchase service grant between JFS and Beyond Guardianship Services, Inc. Leary in the amount of $50,244 for protective services for adults using Title 20 social service block grants for fiscal, federal fiscal year 27. This is effective October 1st of 26 through September 30th of 27 will be paid from the account Title 20 social service block grant funds.

Move to approve.

Second. Discussion.

Yes, I think Chris Cabot's here. Would you like to, I mean, do you want to address this one or do you want to address all of them? Because you have quite a few. You have five. I don't know if it's on. It doesn't.

Good morning. Good morning. Christopher Cabot, Director of Job and Family Services. Thanks for the time today. Yeah, we do have five contracts on the agenda today, so I thought it was important for me to be here. As we talk about these different contracts today, I think it's important to mention that we are constantly evaluating the effectiveness of our contractees. and ensuring that they're held accountable to the deliverables of those contracts. This requires in-person meetings and at times pointed conversations, but we do this because we understand the importance of being good financial stewards of the limited funds that we have available. So moving into the Beyond Guardianship contract, this is the second contract with this organization. We've been very pleased with the timeliness and responsiveness of Beyond Guardianship. Our Adult Protective Services supervisor is in frequent communication with their executive director. This service not only provides guardianship services to our older adults, that need a voice and support, but also provide support to family guardians. So I guess I'll just end there and then speak to the others as they come up.

Is there anything further? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye. Number nine, author of sub-grand groom chain JFS and Neighborhood Alliance, Lorraine, in the amount not to exceed $230,000, $180,000 for TANF and $50,000 for Title 20, effective October 1st of 26 through September 30th of 27, for the shelter for domestic violence victims and domestic violence victim families in Lorraine County, and this will be paid from TANF and Title 20 funds.

Move to approve.

Second.

Second. Discussion?

Chris? Christopher Cabot, JFS director. One of the first visits that I made as a director was to this organization. Neighborhood Alliance provides safe and confidential housing for family violence victims. They provide support and healing through many different programs. They also provide support to our seniors. This agency helps empower families to become self-sufficient and break the cycle of violence. So it's a very important organization within our community that we value and would love to have your approval on this contract. Thanks.

Anything further? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye.

Mr. Riddell? Aye.

Town authorizes sub-grant agreement between JFS and Lorain County Safe Harbor Corp. Lorain in the amount not to exceed $192,500, $180,000 from TANF and $12,500 for Title 20, effective October 1st of 2026 through September 30th, 2027, for shelter for domestic violence victims and domestic violence victim families. This will pay from TANF and Title 20 accounts.

Move to approve.

Second. Discussion?

Chris, you good?

Are you on? Christopher Cabot, Director, JFS. In regards to the Safe Harbor contract, You're gonna see me a lot in the next couple upcoming weeks. I met with the director of Safe Harbor at their facility on August 18th of this year. We had a great conversation. Safe Harbor provides safe and confidential housing along with numerous support services to the victims of domestic violence and human trafficking and provide legal support for these families as well. Again, a very important organization and partner for the community, and I hope that you can approve this contract today. Thank you.

Thanks. Anything further? Yeah.

What do you mean, provide legal?

So they actually have a legal team that provides support for other families that are going through court proceedings regarding their family issues and whatnot, and they provide them support and guidance through that legal system.

Okay, thanks. Mm-hmm.

Anything further? Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye.

Mr. Moore? Oh, sorry. Aye.

11. Amendment Resolution 25712, adopted October 24th of 2025, authorized Lorain County Transit in the amount not to exceed $450,000, effective October 1st, 26th through September 30th, 27th, to provide non-emergency medical transportation. This will be paid from the Medicaid net funds account.

Move to approve.

Second.

Discussion?

Lurien County Transit is one of several providers that we utilize for non-emergency medical transportation for Medicaid recipients in our county. There's a huge need for this. Lurien County Transit provided approximately 8,500 trips for nearly 200 unique individuals over the past year. So we, again, this is invaluable service for those that can't drive or don't have the means to get to medical appointments can do so. So we ask for your support on this contract as well. Thank you.

This is an amendment though, correct? I think the amendment is to carry it over to the next year.

Was that correct, Karen?

Karen? Yeah.

How does this work with our, how we're moving forward with transit?

So this partnership that Lorain County Transit has with JFS, helps Lorain County Transit by giving us local funds. Okay. So the payments that we receive. So we've got to get our federal matching dollars? Exactly. This is one of the ways that we do get those matching dollars that we need for the grants. Okay. We are hoping to be able to expand this program next year. We've got a pilot program that we're working on between JFS and Lorain County Transit in the hopes of being able to generate additional funds that we can use for matching dollars. There is a county, I think it's Muskegum County, is that right, Chris? Yes. That is currently operating like a brokerage firm with their JFS, and they're doing that as a pilot. Been approved by ODOT and also FTA, so we're trying to see if that will work here in Lorain County as well.

Okay. Thank you.

Anything further?

Chris, I hope that as we go forward, this is an important relationship with Lorain County Transit. But on behalf of JFS, I hope we continue to look at our numbers and make sure that, you know, how much of this goes towards overhead and how much pays for the rides and what our cost per ride is to make sure that we, even though Lorain County Transit is our county partner, we still need to hold them accountable to make sure the costs stay where we need them to be.

Thanks for saying that. As you know, in previous weeks, there were some other NET contracts on the board's agenda, and one of the conversations I had was They're lucrative contracts, but it is a costly need. And what I found out, because I was asking about cost per ride when I was comparing the different contracts, but frankly, the money that we provide to these providers does not even begin to cover the amount of expenses that they incur, so we only are really paying a portion of what they expend. So we are cognizant of that, though. Very good.

Anything further? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye. 12, amend Resolution 24558, adopted September 10th of 24, authorizing Child Care Resource Center to develop and manage a recruitment and pre-licensing system in Lorain County. Said amendments reflect their scope of services, including licensing, inspection, support for family child care homes, effective retroactive to October 1st of 26 through September 30th of 26, and will be paid from the child care non-administration funds.

So moved second session. That's only for 60 days, August 1st, 26th.

Yeah, it's just an amendment to include that. That's a cool that.

And then we get it. Okay.

As you can see, this is an amendment to a current contract. Um, it's it's the funding it's sort of it's not really a pilot i mean they're doing the work but we're we're going to go uh sort of 60 to 60 day contracts amendment most likely on this one on 7 16 26 i met with child care resource center staff about their services and also about supplementing their scope to add licensing inspections to that scope um so they're going to be adding up to 24 family child care home inspections for us the child care resource center already works closely with family child care providers to support them through the pre-licensing process so this is an additional service that they'll be providing us moving forward

Anything further? Mr. Reddick? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Under sanitary 13. Thanks, Chris.

Thanks.

Certified Sanitary Sewer Councilor and County Auditor for collection on tax duplicate for the year 2026, collection year 2027. There are a total of 1,233 certified customers at a certified amount of $556,621.23 in the various county sewer districts.

Move to approve. Second.

Discussion.

Bob, do you want to touch on this?

Unfortunately, commissioners, this is the only mechanism we have for people that either can't pay or refuse to pay their sewer OM&R fees. It's a big number. It is. Like I said, the issue we have is many utilities, like in Lorain, your water and sewer bill are on the same bill. So when people don't pay it, the city will shut off your water. Ours is a separate bill just for maintenance. And there are some that can't afford it, and there's others that just refuse to pay it.

You guys have payment plans? Have you worked that? Is that above your?

We have not got to that point. Maybe that's something we need to look into, Commissioner.

Who does the collections then? How many people?

It's just our office does, you know, we send out the bills.

You just send out bills and hope they pay? Is that kind of how you guys do it? Yeah, and then if they don't pay, like I said, we... And you just slap a lien on their taxes or what?

And we do receive quite a bit through the tax duplicates at the end of the year.

So that's the process. Instead of litigating, you add it to their property tax bill?

Yeah, and like I said, the amount, it would... Think you'd overwhelm the prosecutors. I was good. I mean you're not talking individuals for millions of dollars It may be a few hundred dollars that they didn't pay that year.

Okay, very good Yeah, all right anything further mr. Moore I Wish your Gallagher. I sure know all right stormwater a 14 award contract to Ebron excavating LLC Norwalk in the amount of four and thirteen thousand $560.40 that includes a contingency for any unforeseen change orders for the Curtis Ditch Restoration Phase 4 east of Whitehead Road, Penfield Township. Four bids were received, this being the most responsive, complying with specifications and will be paid from the stormwater account.

Move to approve.

Second.

Discussion? Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Mr. Riddell?

Aye.

Chair, 15, amend Resolution 26482, adopted August 25th, 26, entering into subgrant award agreement with the Ohio Department of Public Safety, Ohio 2025, Edward Bryan Grant for the Lorain County Drug Task Force. Amendment is to reflect the grant received is in the amount of $43,008.16 not $57,352.13, and this will be applied to the salaries of the drug task force and paid from the criminal justice salaries account.

Move to approve. Second.

Discussion? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye. Mr. Gallagher?

Aye. I'd like to make one comment at this point before we move into the administrator's report, and that is if you've taken a review of the agenda today, please continue to look at the work being done by the clerk of the commissioners, Teresa, Denoting where all the funds come from and in today you'll see that while we took many actions today The role we play is to process and review the appropriations that are brought to us by other people so none of the funds in our agenda today outside of the the appropriations at the first part of the meeting actually came from the general fund and they're not up to our necessarily decision making but up to our review to make sure that they fit the the mission and the paperwork is correct so just one of those things that we do is the board

And I want to put that out there that the department's giving me those account numbers in case he verifies them. So we're all on the same page. We are a team.

So we have control over the general fund, but we don't control these things. We have other good people that are in leadership positions, and our job is merely to audit and support those functions.

Yeah, we have control until judicial orders come in and take it. OK, Ms. Perkins. Sorry, I have to do those digs once in a while when I get them.

So I have no update to today. Thank you.

And I have nothing. Board correspondence? Move to waive the reading. Second. Discussion? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Public comment?

Yes. Michael McCrae. Now you can come on. Come on up.

Township I've been a member of the township association for a couple years now. I don't live in the township. I live in O'Leary Oh, yeah, but you need to state your name and address on Michael McCray. I live at 125 Denison in O'Leary, Ohio and That's it. Okay. Thank you. I am retiring soon because I'm close to your age. I and I have something for you now one of the projects that I was doing and you probably aren't aware of it as well and when I say photographer at that meeting I've been documenting the county for over ten years and one of the things I was interested in was water that I have a lot of experience, and I have this for you. This is because I'm getting to the point to where I want to start trying to publish this. I've talked to Carlyle Township about putting a thing together for their website and giving them pictures and access to what I'm doing and let them write the text of how they're going to do it. But water is an important area to me because one of the things that... It is. This is a comment that I heard that you're going to let everybody decide on these data centers. But water doesn't respect political divisions. It doesn't care what they're in. It flows downhill. And it's like I've been photographing the water and the different problems of water. since the beginning because when I was in college I did for southern Utah part of a water college thing and so over here at the college they monitor that they monitor at that time when I talked to them last the photograph there of agricultural runoff and all these things so If everybody did their own, then you're going to get somebody else's garbage because it all flows. And I'm not going to hear to tell you how to do it or anything like that, but I think it has to be a much more comprehensive management of it. You can't let everybody just do what the heck they want to because that's how you got in a situation to start with, with the river and things like that. So that was mine. Far be it for me to decide, you know, because this would be something you'd have to work out, but I do feel strongly about that and just seeing how even when I was in Utah, what I did collect for a, I collected water samples on a, to make sure the streams were there and the people who had it wanted to keep it. Now on another note or two, I think, I am not a, I'm a photographer. I've been a medical photographer. 9-11 is important to me because I was where Osama bin Laden was before he ever took down in Afghanistan, El Salvador, and these places. I've been a medical photographer 20 years. Photographed homelessness for 18 years. So this is when I get into something I get into it And my bread and butter has been for medical Photography so just a little bit about my background. I did three weddings only got paid for one because Family doesn't pay you. And I don't do children's portraits. I don't do weddings or anything like that. But I do my homework. And like I say, I do a highly technical type of photography in the medical industry.

Thank you for your work. Thank you.

So that's mine. It's about the water. It's got to be viewed, or else you're just going to run into the same problem again.

Thank you. Thank you. Tammy? Tammy? Love the shirt. Thanks. Morning.

Good morning. Beautiful video. It really was. Emotional, wasn't it? I lived in New York at the time, and I had several friends that were involved. Oh, really? And so it was touching. thank you so thank you for putting that on um good morning tammy mcginnis 502 vermont road illyria 25 years ago our lives were rocked beyond anything imaginable the following day our entire nation came together as one wouldn't it be amazing if the unity and compassion that came from that tragedy would have lasted a lifetime 25 years is a relatively short amount of time to witness such a rapid collapse in the united states our country is more divided now than ever and not just our country our county the united states is quickly becoming a place of two classes the wealthy and the poor on tuesday you spoke about a housing crisis in lorraine county to justify the need for development While I don't disagree with the housing crisis, I do disagree with the type of housing crisis that is actually there. The median income in Lorain County is approximately $78,000 a year. Homes being built in the Eaton Township development start at roughly $450,000. To safely afford a $300,000 home, a household needs an annual income between $89,000 and $109,000. The omission of the word such as affordable doesn't make it any less of a crisis, but changes the demographic of who is in crisis. A population in our county that this board seems to care nothing about. the actions of this board over the more most recent meetings gives me great concern the blatant disregard for robert's rules and assumptions off of citizens comments gives you off the vibe that you three seem to think that you're losing control of your county and control isn't the goal How about we get back to the unity and concern for all people that we had on September 12, 2001? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Tammy. William Zimmerman? Brian, you decided not to come up? Okay. Okay. Good morning.

Good morning. William Zimmerman, beautiful Avon Lake. So are we going to abide by Robert's rules today? A new age is civility. Civility is not required by myself or other citizens, but is expected of you as public servants. We work, you work for the people of Lorain County. You need to remember that. As for Mr. Moore's comment of me flatlining, I find this to be totally inappropriate, hoping that I will die here at the podium. You know nothing about me nor my health issues. To make a statement like that is inappropriate. Mr. Riddell was out of order when he began arguing about the choice of words I used to describe his donors. Violation of Robert's rules. As soon as he opened his mouth. These three stooges have shown that they're true colors. Lashing out, yelling. acting totally inappropriately. These were not matters that I brought upon, but actions that you all decided to make. Collectively, you should not hold the position of commissioner. Your lack of professionalism has indicated that there are not quality leaders amongst you. So unfortunately, only one is up for reelection in November, six weeks away. So as citizens, I suggest that you write in Andrew Lippian, a man of honor, respect, and integrity, and change the direction of this board.

Thank you. No more. That's it.

Okay. Under new business, this is Justin Richcar, which is Lorain County Health Commissioner on ticks.

Good morning, Justin. Good morning. Hello. Nothing more exciting to find out what's going on with ticks.

A lot going on this summer.

Yeah. I should have you talk about poison ivy. I'm covered in it now.

No, really?

I've never had it. I'm 64. I've never had it. Picking weeds. Yeah, picking weeds. No, looking for ticks to help you out.

So I so appreciate your time, Justin. Obviously, Lorain County Health Commissioner, Public Health. So I think the former commissioner, Adams, talked briefly about the efforts on ticks and how ticks have been increasing over the last few years, especially as it pertains to Lorain County. But just wanted to provide a quick update and give our communicable disease supervisor, Brent Steyer, an opportunity to talk about trends and kind of what we do with communicable disease at the health department. But this summer we actually launched a tick tracking website that when community members are out and about and they're walking around and they find a tick, they can actually go to our website and self-report that. So kind of cool. It gives an opportunity for passive surveillance. So obviously we can't be everywhere, go everywhere, searching out all of the little ticks across the county. So great.

How's that working out? I mean, is it, do people are aware of that? I mean, yep.

Yep. They're aware. So the second part that I want to touch on, you're okay. Um, was actually, we created, um, tick check stations. So we launched that. Yeah, I know it gets better. Okay. Okay. so uh we actually uh partner with lorraine county metro parks um it's six of their parts of the trail heads that you walk by and you actually have to walk past a big tick station with a signage on you know how to check and when to check yourself for ticks with the qr code that as you're walking through again if you find a tick on you or the animal that you're with the dog cats i've seen everything across my career but If you find it, you can actually take a picture of it and our staff will be able to identify that and contact the residents directly to let them know, hey, it's a black-legged tick or a lone star tick, which are two ticks that we're also interested in looking at. The black-legged tick is also known as the deer tick. That's important because that's the one that carries Lyme disease that you've heard of probably more frequently. In addition, the Lone Star tick, we've actually identified two now in the county. So these aren't statistics to make everyone kind of jump out of their chairs and say, oh, no. It's just more for awareness. The Lone Star tick is the one that is also concerning because it comes with the disease known as alpha-gal, which is more or less an allergy to red meats such as beef, lamb, pork, venison, et cetera. We're continuing those efforts, and of course, as a public health agency, we encourage people to go out and about, but I'd like to give Brent some time to talk about some of the statistics and some of the things that he does, if that's okay.

Yeah.

Thanks, Justin. So I get to talk about the exciting part, the numbers. So far in 2026, we've had seven Lyme disease cases. Historically, we see about nine a year, so we'll probably surpass that this year. And the historic average is five years' worth of data. We did have one anaplasmosis case and one ehrlichiosis case, which is rare for us. We've only seen one anaplasmosis case in the past five years. With ehrlichiosis, we haven't seen any in the past five years. a pretty rare disease for us to see here in Lorain County. From 2019 to 2025, Lorain County has seen 47 confirmed cases of Lyme disease, with 19 of those cases occurring in 2024 and 17 in 2025. That's a significant jump from the previous five-year average of 6.2 cases per year. So we're definitely seeing an increase in Lyme disease across the county over the past couple of years. So you might be wondering, how do we get this information? How do we find out if someone has Lyme disease or anaplasmosis? So there's an Ohio administrative code that requires certain infectious diseases to be reported to the health department. If you're curious what diseases those are, it's the Know Your ABCs. If you look up on Google, Ohio Department of Health Know Your ABCs, it has classes of diseases that are reportable to the health department. And based on the severity, they have to be reported to us immediately or by the next business day. And all the tick-borne diseases fall under that list. So we are notified about that. And then what we typically do, we're notified about a communicable disease. So like, for example, for a tick-borne disease, we reach out to the infection prevention because there's pieces that we need to make that a case. So we need the clinical features, the labs to make it a case. And then what we do is we follow up to try to find out where they may have gotten the tick and to check in to see how the person's doing. So with other communicable diseases, similar process. We follow up, see how the person's doing to check in and try to figure out where they may have gotten the illness and make sure Those aren't spreading as well, so like at a daycare or a nursing home. So that way we can keep track on what's going on in the county. So how do you prevent ticks? So do a tick check. So whenever you're outside, do a whole body check. Nooks and crannies, check your scalp. Because you'll be surprised where those ticks will go. So you want to check everywhere, especially on your children. You'll check everywhere. Use repellents. EPA-registered DEET is the best thing you can use. You can use piret permethrin on your clothes. So if you know you're going to go out in the woods, especially if you're a hunter, maybe put some piret permethrin on your clothes prior to. If you can wear long sleeves, long pants, tuck your pants in, that's always advisable too. Of course, in the summertime, it's hard to do with the heat. And maintain your spaces. So maintain your yards. Make sure you're cutting your grass, rake leaves, because that's where ticks will go. Check your pets. They can bring in ticks into the house. Make sure they have their tech medicine as well. So that way, if they do latch onto your pet, they will die. and expand your outdoor routine so just if you're preparing to spend time outdoors be sure to spend time afterwards to reduce your risk with tick bites so like I said do a thorough tick check you can toss your clothes into the hot dryer for 10 minutes that will kill the tick and if you take a shower within two hours you can wash that tick away because it usually takes a little while before they'll actually latch on And that's all that I have, unless Justin has more to add.

Do you guys have statistics in regards, because I know Northern Michigan's just having a real serious issue with ticks, because a friend just came back from camping up there, and he said he's never seen it that bad.

Yeah, the problem is, so whenever you look at disease reporting, especially as a statewide, are you looking at specifically state or local? So a lot of that reporting has to come from the state, unfortunately, at this time. And I think it's going to change. There's not a lot of funding that the state's put specifically for ticks. So traditionally, there's been funding allocated towards mosquitoes. So we do mosquito surveillance in spring as well. But there's not as much money allocated to ticks and tick tracking right now. So Brent's very humble. Brent's very persistent in what he does. So is all of our team. I'm super proud of Brent and the entire agency that I've got to inherit because, you know, I've only been here a short time. So the last thing that I wanted to just leave you with is, I guess, two things. One, we're serious about ticks. So one of the things that we were talking about, to your point, was starting a tick talk. So I have concerns with maybe branding that we might not be able to call it that, but we'll see. And really just because we're getting into the fall season of colder weather, ticks aren't less active just because it gets chilly at night. So kind of a rule of thumb, if it's not freezing or 32 degrees or below, you're still going to have tick activity. And the crazy part, ticks can be as small as the point of a ballpoint pen. So almost undetectable unless you're really looking so. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

I want to emphasize or have you emphasize on how important your guys' role in this is. Talk about the incident that how you guys got informed and how you helped with awareness of ticks and your knowledge base of it actually saved a life.

Yeah, it really did. Brent, did you want to talk about more specifics? I can kind of hand you off. As Brent said, the ABCs of communicable disease, that's our responsibility as a health district, as public health. It extends far beyond ticks. Has anyone heard about cyclospora over the summer? Yeah. So we were directly involved with every single case that occurred in the county. The specific case that you're referencing, I'll let Brent talk about here briefly, but his persistence actually made a huge difference in an individual's life. So if you want to touch a little bit about that.

Sure. So, um, it's kind of a lengthy story about how to summarize it. So, um, as in regards to the early early geosis cage was a rare case of tick borne disease for us to see in the county. Um, and typically when we receive one of these cases, we need pieces before we can make it a case. So we need But all the labs, we need the clinical features for it to be a case for the state. And that can take time sometimes. You have to reach out to an infection preventionist at the hospital to get that information. That's not directly available to us. So when we receive a disease, it's just like a lab. may or may not have this disease and then we try to do our follow up to connect the dots that we need to make it a case and it took some time to get that information and because it was taking so long I ended up reaching out to the case prior to even getting the information just because it was such a rare disease and it can be a very severe disease so if this goes untreated you can die from the disease because it attacks the organs, specifically the liver. So because of it being a rare disease and because it was something that could be severe, I tried reaching out to this individual, and they were not able to speak to me. They were delirious because of the disease and what was going on. Typically say this was a Lyme disease case or another you know any other case We may not do more follow-up because once I get the pieces and make it a case You know, we're checking the box, you know to to get the data that we need But the following day I had gotten the information to make it a case officially and then the weekend passed and on Monday, you know something told me to at least make one more follow-up because this is a unique you know situation someone's telling me you know go ahead and you know do the follow-up find out you know where they may have gotten the stick and see how they're doing see if they're improving um and i had you know reached out and this individual's wife had answered um and at that time doctors did not know about the positive tests and in fact that was what was causing all of his issues uh so they were able to you know give him the medication he needed and now he's recovering and without that medication he would have passed away it tells you how important your role is yeah yeah

ironically the wife of the victim is in the room here too thanks for coming out absolutely saved my husband's life because i was told the night before there was nothing else they could do and hospice oh wow oh wow the next morning they took him down for a test and his phone was sitting there and my phone i answered that phone which i normally don't do because it was my husband's phone and it was brent telling us exactly what disease he had, and within a day, they administered the antibiotic that was necessary, and Brent absolutely saved my husband's life.

Wow.

Just to elaborate, sorry, I know this is not... No, go ahead. It should come up to the mic. No, that's okay. We can hear. Okay. so um thanks to brett my stepdad of 29 years is alive he has a senior grandson at jbs that's why he wasn't here this morning my husband that just left the room and my brother are both post 9 11 veterans so he has two veteran you know son and son-in-laws that are now so thankful he's alive i've been a social worker in loring county for eight years so um grew up in avon lake that's where he got bit by the tick we believe so you know thanks to brent i don't think he's getting enough credit he saved you know my stepdad's life my mom's husband you know and our family just has so many ties to lorian county i know that public mental health is um a very underfunded um after COVID kind of not, you know, the belief is just isn't there that needs to be. And so without him, my stepdad would be dead and we would all, you know, it'd be a huge loss to the community. So I just want to say thank you from all of us.

So thank you for all of us.

That's all I needed, honestly, was for him to recover.

In mentioning that real life experience, is there a process that the health department has for educating medical professionals, emergency room people? Because many of the times when you talk about things like Lyme disease, people just think they're tired. They don't realize that there's a...

you know that there's a disease there they just think that they're tired sure there is definitely a disconnect a lot of the lyme disease cases that we see that's like one of the last things the doctor tests for they test for all other things you know try to rule out things and then by happenstance a lot of times like well let's test for the tick-borne diseases and see if you know this comes up uh we do reach out to our providers we have a way of reaching out to them via email whenever things are or any communicable disease, we're seeing something unusual, we try to reach out and educate. But health care providers are busy. The chances that they're checking our emails and whatnot are probably high. But we do try to reach out. Of course, on social media, we reach out. It's stuff that we've talked about, trying to figure out a better way to reach out to providers to educate them on this. So it's more on their radar. So that way, they're doing these testings quicker than waiting days, weeks, when the person's

suffering the disease is progressing with these tick-borne diseases they are dangerous if you don't treat them they start attacking your organs yes i think that's a that's a subsidy i don't i can't speak to the funding part of the health department that's that's their levy that's not that's not the commissioners But I will say that it's one of the least understood agencies and one of the broadest based missions. We're required to have a member of the commissioners on the board and participate in the two years that I was there. I was stunned at the number of things that the health department is involved in. And most people just think that they're the custodian of your death certificate and your marriage license, your birth certificate, whatever. you know, and don't understand all the health issues that you engage in.

Yeah, we're definitely in the background.

i'd love to invite any of you over for to spend a day i'd be happy to go over all of the services that we do provide because i can tell you based upon what i know from other health districts it's above and beyond so you're formally invited anytime i'd be happy to meet with you we agree with your statement you inherited a great department with great staff so yeah now you got it now you got to take it to the next level when you had somebody that did what he did to help that family get to the gym and get ready for that heavy lift did you have any other questions for

No, no, thank you.

Thank you for being persistent on that that really impacted those people in the audience family and the county and made awareness of you guys Thanks, I like to thank Commissioner Gallagher for reaching out and putting this on the agenda.

So, thank you Let's see, where's our okay other new business that we have Let's see There's a lot of talk about budgets, a lot of talk about, you know, the money, how we're short and, you know, we're talking, I'm looking at KC, so I guess we're gonna have to go old school here. Oh, he's got it? Okay, before you put it on there, okay, you put it on there, here. There you go, thank you. What we did is, how do you compare 20, you know, the last maybe, you know 10 years nine years you know trying to compare all the elected officials budgets and try to say okay who's spending what now is it consistent well we had our general fund was what about 2018 was about 70 million kc roughly 65 65 million and so how do you compare that to today when we're where we're looking at maybe possibly 90 89 90 or 90 are we at 90 we're 90 this year that the ask for 27 is uh 109. yeah so we're at 90 this year and everybody's asking for 109 right and that's a projection so i thought well i tell you with every elected county official THEIR JOB IS THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE COUNTY, OKAY? AND SO THE DIFFERENCE, AND I SAID THIS ON TUESDAY, IS SINCE THERE'S THREE ELECTED COMMISSIONERS, WE HAVE TO SPEND OUR MONEY IN FRONT OF THE PUBLIC I kind of reminded everybody on Tuesday what used to be done here, which is they never shared where the bills and everything was being paid and how you saw that. So we're kind of like the, I don't want to say checks and balances because that's what the auditor's there for too. So there's a lot of checks and balances in there, but a lot of them have special revenue accounts, they go out and get grant money, and our elected officials do a good job at trying to find other revenue sources to continue with the services they provide. So I kind of came up with something. I hope the three of you care. I mean, I kind of thought, how do you simplify a complicated system or complicated financial system? And so I hope what I'm about to show you helps. So what we're doing is, can you do a split screen? OK. It's going to be hard for you to read on this, but I'm sure a lot of people, especially elected officials, are going to start screenshotting and printing this up. Now, maybe if I can explain this properly, back in 2018, if your budget was, let's say, you know, $5 million and now it's $10 million, okay, is that an increase? Yes, but so did our revenue was increased. So we took this as what's a percent of the total general fund budget, which as Commissioner Riddell said, that's what we do control to make sure that we have enough money to provide the services that we need to provide as a whole. So if you take a look at the bottom of the graph, that's kind of what you want to kind of be at. At least you're going to have your ups and downs. But no matter what the money was, they've always been kind of flat. And what you see here is you see the commissioners. And it's kind of hard on the graph to see what color it is. But you'll see basically all at the bottom you'll see everyone and their budget and how much they've spent and this is actually their budget and their request for 27. So if you take a look at even though since 23 how much that's gone up for everybody that should give you an indication of how much money is actually being spent. by these individuals on a percentage of the general fund that we have. So right now, there's an ask of what, 109? 19 million? I thought it was 17 million, but yeah. More than what we're taking in. So I don't like to use the words, you know, cut, because I don't think we should. I just think people should live like the rest of the taxpayers and live within their means that they were told in December and January that is how much they were gonna get. Don't know I know why this was just there's we kind of looked at this the other day Passed it out and we got this right before the meeting from Casey And I don't know if anybody else would like to add in anything.

Yeah, I Think what the what the graph shows is that and I have a particular Affinity for this I came from the business world where I sold a product and I You know, some of the time we got the price that we wanted for our product, but most of the time we had to live with what the market would pay. We had competition and we had to be competitive. So most of the time we spent ourselves learning to live within our means because the marketplace determines our revenue and we control the expense part. That's very analogous to this situation because the taxpayers tell us what we're worth. They approve taxes and they give us the money to run the county and they say this is how much money we're willing to spend to run the county and they leave it up to the other people that they've elected to set their budgets and the commissioners are the checks, we're the balance in the checks and balances. It's our job to see to it that when there's more money requested than we have available, that we have to find a way to apportion that in some kind of fair and impartial way. And so I think that the idea that Commissioner Moore had for showing the percent of budget is, yes, every department is spending more money every year than the year before. because inflation and when we live on sales tax and when the price of the product goes up, the sales tax goes up, we get more money. So there's an automatic increase that's built into our government general fund. Property values, same way, we transfer property and when the house sells for 400,000 instead of 300,000, the transfer fee is more. So we get more revenue every year. It's not like we're cutting. Commissioner Moore is exactly right. We're not cutting the spending and we're not cutting the services. We're trying to contain them within the means we have available. What this chart shows though is Kudos to the half a dozen people at the bottom of this thing, because you'll see that their percentage of the budget has maintained very stable. So that means they're getting more money every year than the year before, but they're not growing They're not growing their budget just because they want to grow it. What you see in the middle is you see four electeds. They're doing a particularly, they're doing a good job and there's probably some inherent reasons for some of those budgets to grow because unfortunately state and federal government gives us new mandates that we have to live with and they don't send a check with those mandates. So we have to figure out how to pay for them. What does show is that we continue to have a lot of attention paid to the fact that we're being sued and there's litigation. What you see in the top two lines happens to be the two departments that are taking us to court over not giving them enough money or not giving them what they want. And the issue that we see is that their department has grown not only in raw dollars, but as a percent of the budget. And the angst that that causes is If there's a family budget and the number one son says I want to raise in my allowance and there's no money, then that means number two son, number three daughter, they get their allowances cut. And the same way works for the government. So what we're showing here is we have two departments that we publicly cut back in December and January and said that you've had an extraordinary growth in your budget and we need to revisit that. And when I got here three years ago, the term I used was ARPA hangover. because when the arpa money was flowing we did a lot of things that we wouldn't normally do but that was temporary money and it ended in 24 and the last of its being spent here in 26. and so we're just drawing attention to the fact that that this is the reason for the budget issue And not only do we have to rein it in, but we can't afford, if every department did what those two departments were doing, the request for money would be 150 million instead of 109 million. So we have to learn to live within our means. We've given plenty of notice. Well, since May. And in May, as we promised, again, the commissioners allowed me to take the lead on that, but if you follow, make a public records request, we started in May. when we had first quarter results saying things aren't growing as fast as we think they're going to grow, we better watch out. And then we sent another alarm last month when the end of July results were in, and we knew that we were on target. The money that we had said, the auditor gave us a number for revenue, We even increase that by some, thinking that the economy's gonna show some, inflation is gonna show some things we think we could do a little better. And we're on target for that 90 million as opposed to the 86 million. But we have two departments that are overspending their budget. Actually, we have four, but two of them are kind of minor. But we have two departments that are seriously overspending their budget. And it's going to put the public at high level of discomfort and it's going to put the public in safety in the case of the Sheriff's Office. It could affect public safety because spending all the money till it's gone sometime in late November isn't going to fill paychecks in December. And it's not going to make payments to vendors in December. And so as a result, we've tried to bring this politely to their attention and we have some people that think that we're just supposed to figure out how to print money or whatever that is. And I don't say this, I share it and I take the lead because I want to give the disclaimer. This is not because I'm a candidate for office in November. We've been on this subject since last December and I wasn't a candidate until February. But some people have chosen to make these issues campaign issues, and they're not issues. These are issues for the people and for commissioners as a sitting commissioner. We would be on this issue even if we weren't on the ballot as are Commissioner Moore and Commissioner Gallagher. And one of the things that we are united in is we will live within our means. It's just that our means are less We missed that ARPA money, but we knew we were going to miss the ARPA money. And in the case, I do want to share one thing. Unfortunately, we held our first public meeting with the sheriff. And for those of you that watch Cleveland TV, he was all over Cleveland TV last week. on the holiday weekend that he was not renewing the flock camera contract because it was going from 58 000 to 109 000 or something over two years for two years which is fifty thousand dollars a year and somewhere between And that's the 27 and 28 budget. His contract for 26 is in place, but his contract for 27 and 28 is what he's not renewing. I don't want to be cute or cynical about it, but $50,000 is a lot of money for a lot of us. But we're talking, when you look at that blue curve, we're on a trajectory to outspend the budget somewhere between $600,000 and $800,000 in 26. We've accepted a public budget, but it hasn't gotten the public attention yet. And the budget request from these two departments for 27 dwarfs what they're spending in 26. And it just has to stop.

Well, first of all, the number is not 900,000. It's 5.3 million. And the problem is the judges, if you take a look at their averages in the red line, sorry, Marty, you take a look where it was at, 11%, 12%, that's kind of where it was at. But if you take a look at 23, what happened on that year, you see a lot of dips. The CARES Act, right, Casey? I think that was the CARES Act that actually offset their salaries. And so it was federal dollars that was used in order to offset those salaries. And that's why that happened. But they're projected. If you take a look, the average is 15%, around 14% for the sheriffs, for the judges, or the domestic relations column. Make sure we separate the difference between common pleas and domestic relations. I think Common Pleas has done a very good job at managing their budget. Domestic relations always run on 11, 12, right around there. Their ask is 14.28%, which is $2.9 million above the norm. The Sheriff's Office ask, even though you might think, well, it's only going up 5% or 6%. It's not going up that much. It doesn't sound like a lot. But you multiply that out by the $90 million budget, that's $5.3 million more. So when Commissioner Riddell was talking about the flock cameras, at first I got excited. I thought maybe he was going to do it because of maybe citizens' rights and invasion of privacy, which I think I could have got around. If that was the case, then yeah, I'd be happy with that. Take that off so they're not watching us 24-7. But it was for budget cuts. When we're already going to be short this year, he's already, what, $2 million over budget? We were hoping on Friday we wanted to come in and have a discussion. Instead, it was finger pointing. You guys did this. You guys, I'm like, we're the budget authority. And people are writing letters to the editor that all the commissioners have hired all these people. Now, if you take a look at our numbers, we've actually dropped from the averages. You take a look at the numbers at the bottom, and these are your elected officials, like probate court. When you're flat, no matter what it costs for your budget, if it's $1 million or $2 million, But if our revenue comes into 90 million, and it was at 70, and you're still flat, that means you're still spending taxpayer funds based on, you're being consistent with your spending. It's when you see these jumps like this, and like Commissioner Riddell said, it's amazing that the two highest ones are the ones that are suing us. over the budget cuts. So why not the sheriffs as soon as over control of 911 and we could go for two hours on that debate. But anyway, the money that's being wasted on legal fees could probably put two or three deputies on the road. block cameras and flock cameras you want to talk about oh yeah well i don't want to go there it's like no i mean if they're one i know if that was in their budget yeah we might as well get you know ai to start doing work over at jfs too but you know there's a lot of technology that's coming the problem is we're letting you know the public know right now even though we've said it in may we've talked about it in june I said it in July, it's going to get ugly. I'm letting the public know, because we don't want a last minute, because some people like to create crisis and be the reason, you know, I'm not going to say anything about the politics of it, because that's what this is. But they like to create a crisis, point fingers, and they're trying to force us. And you heard Democrats come in here and say, you're not leaders, you need to impose a tax. Okay, yeah, that will fix it. We could impose a tax for a quarter percent and that would fix it. That's it. I want the public to see how these people who don't have to do what we do, which is in the public arena, tell you how we're voting, how we're spending your money. Once we give you a budget, we'll see certain appropriations. We'll see certain things that come through. But we don't control who they hire or who they fire or how much they increase their salaries. We don't control that. How do we control that? We represent you, the taxpayers, and we're the budget authority, and how we do it is right here, right now, showing you how they're spending their money, your money. And you know what? We could debate all day what's important, whose division's important. But we do have to be aware that Common Pleas They're doing a good job. Domestic relations and the prosecutor's office do have the statutory right to take it.

They can do a judicial order and take money if they feel they need it.

And I really appreciate the prosecutor's office and how they're staying within their budget. Because he doesn't want to take it. 25 years ago when I was here, the judges never wanted to do judicial orders because they thought, hey, it looks bad politically, it looks bad in the public arena. Today, it's no big deal. I was shocked at how much has that changed in 20 years, that they have no problem doing judicial orders and just taking the money, forcing us to go to court and fight on behalf of you, the taxpayer, to say we're trying to keep these elected officials in line. And it's gonna, and I'll say it again, it's gonna get ugly. And be prepared, there's gonna be a lot of propaganda, it is an election year, so they're gonna use a lot of stuff, but I thought, why not throw the numbers out, and we're gonna start, like I said, we're gonna do this. We learned our lesson last Friday, I don't know if you guys did, but I'm like, you know what? I thought we could have a nice discussion. Nope. If it's going to be finger pointing and saying this, then we'll just continue to show people updates on what much money. I don't know if you can do that, Casey. I'm hoping to get numbers again at, what, a couple weeks?

Yeah, end of September will be a really good look at the, being three quarters through, give us a good look at where. That'll be the quarterly hospitalization would come out, so that'll give us a really good look at where we stand.

Yeah, and we're going to try to do our best maybe to take a look at the hospitalization so no games are going to be played, right? Okay.

I think that's the disturbing part for us as commissioners and for me personally, Commissioner Gallagher as well, you know, he sold a product in his business and you're limited. You can't spend more than you take in. You know, just the customers, they pay for their product, and that's the money you have left to run the business. You can't just sit there and say, well, I'm going to spend more money and hope the phone rings and more orders come in. But what's disturbing is, again, we need to be careful. Kudos to all the other agencies. This chart we wanted to show everybody's doing. It is possible to live within your means and serve the public. We've got 10, 11 entities there that are doing just that. Even though their budgets have grown, they're within the budgets that were appropriated for 26 back in December and January. The disturbing thing is spending over month to month. We've had eight months that both those two budgets could have been adjusted and figured out what to do to stay in budget. But after eight months, no budget actions have been taken. They're spending money that they want to spend, not what they were allocated. And both those departments are headed for a crisis of funding before the end of the year. And I don't know how you do that. I don't know how in conscience you could do that.

One thing I wanted to point out is if you look at the 2018 as a benchmark and you look at the agencies out there, the commissioners is lower, for sure. We took the biggest cut. in uh overall out of all these agencies and obviously the sheriff and the and the courts have taken the highest increase so the two percent of the budget that we dropped went to one of those two is the way i look at it so the numbers the numbers they are if if we give them their budget these other agencies below are going to get money taken from them And they're already, most of them are running fairly lean, if not reducing their demand on the fund. And it's just a message out there that, look, we gotta stay within our means, and budgets are cut. Based on the increase in costs, we have to do better. It's alarming to see, in my opinion, as a person that looks at math, the sheriff's budget is really skyrocketing. And that is, it needs addressed. And it's not a finger pointing thing. It's really to a point, these are the numbers, these are the facts. When you look at accounting, this is what you look at. And I'm looking at it as, if they're taking 20% of the budget versus 15% of the budget in 2018, it's a 5% increase overall. that that is significant in who's going to lose who is going to lose in that what agency is going to be shorted their services it should be across the board i'd love to see all the lines are slightly up because of economy but it's not and the bottom six kudos to them you know they're they're doing a great job of uh being fiscally responsible at this point with their with their budgets

You take a look. I mean, that's, you know, the clerk of courts, the auditor, the coroner, the treasurer, you know, the prosecutor, the recorder, common pleas, in probate. I mean, they're staying within. Now, granted, the numbers are bigger, but it's within the percentages from 2018. Even look at 2024, two years ago. You know, take a look at that line and where everybody's at today. So what they're doing, when you start seeing people finger pointing, ah, the commissioners are overspending, the commissioners are doing this, you know, we're the budget authority. We set the tone in December and January. We actually had public hearings and had discussions, and they did shave. I mean, I got to give kudos to everybody. They did shave, but not enough, which means, okay, if that's as far they're going to go, then it's up to us to do the rest. And I'm telling you right now, I call it when they create a crisis, which is that's what people are starting to do. It's an election year. They're going to say, oh, look, we're mismanaging. No, I want the public to see who's spending what. And on a percentage of the budget, you can't sit there and say, oh, you know, inflation did this, inflation did that. Well, then how come all these other ones are still flat? They're getting more money than before, but guess what? We're getting more money. just like going to work and getting a raise you get a new budget you're spending more money than last year but you're taking in more money it's okay yeah so they'll be um it just said that the money is being wasted on attorneys instead of maybe employees it's just a waste of money waste of time and you know what you're at 109 what is 109 million dollar ask we're projected at 90. Yeah, last year it was like, what was it, 11 million that we were worried about? And I thought everybody was doing pretty good. I thought, you know, pretty much we were doing pretty well.

Yeah, I think it was 7 or 8 million we had to cut last year.

Yeah, how much next year?

No, last year, well, it was about 7 or 8 million after the departments made their cuts.

After everybody made their cuts, we had to cut another 7 or 8. Okay.

And I do want to support Commissioner Moore. He's correct. The sheriff is not suing us for more money, but he's suing us for control of a department that was running perfectly fine.

Well, it has a lot of extra money.

Right. But I would say that based on the curve of the graph that we're seeing, his attention should be towards what he's already got.

Well, not only that, he's doing a good job. He is doing a good job as our sheriff.

And it's nothing but services either, obviously.

We don't want to do that, but unfortunately, we've got to live within our means. And live within our own lanes. Some people just want to be everything, I guess.

Commissioner, the prosecutor, the lawyer, the judge, everything, right?

Everyone likes to be a lawyer. No. No. Oh, man. OK. I don't even mean by being a lawyer. And I do have some other ideas on which to generate some revenue. But we won't bring that up probably until during some of the budget hearings that we're going to have. But we'll wait until November when we start having those hearings. And I've already sent a letter out. No, I publicly. Didn't I say? Amy, is that in here? I think I publicly stated that if all these elected officials are asking us to impose a tax, then let's have that discussion in public. Did I say that in May or June? I think I said it in May or June. Yeah, I heard crickets. Because that's a button nobody wants to touch.

And part of having the lowest sales tax in the state of Ohio is really part of that.

Yeah, it is. But you know what? We've got the lowest sales tax, yet look how much more money we're still receiving. $90 million. I mean, inflation and everything else. So, I mean, the sales tax that you used to get, I'd say when the first time I was here, was we'd get $6.5 million annually from our per quarter percent. And now we're getting about $14 million. Okay, so that's what happens. Things start to grow. And unfortunately, people's spending is growing faster than the revenue right now in their budget. Stay tuned. You know what? When you start hearing, I just wanted to show facts. That's all we're doing. And we're going to continue to do this. The budget hearings are coming up in November. And it's going to be what it is. And you know what? If the domestic relations is going to do the same thing and order their budget, then we got to take it from another department. That's just the fact. So maybe we should ask them during the budget hearing if they're going to do that. Because if they are, then we're going to have to revisit the budget and say who's going to have to suffer.

My concern is, I have great concern over 27 budget. But I think we have something more urgent than that, and that is the 26 budget that's not being followed. Because all that will do is force us to take money from 27 and pay 26 bills, and that will make a bigger hole for 27.

Hence why we'll do quarterly.

Deficit spending, you can't do it.

Oh, for a little bit, and then you're out of money.

Then it compounds, and then it becomes more of a crisis.

And just for Teresa, did you get that out for the meeting on Monday? Did we ever confirm we're having a meeting on the jail?

No.

Couldn't confirm it?

I don't believe it has been confirmed because there's criminal dockets going on for Judge Cook.

Yeah, I thought he said 2 o'clock he could do it.

Possibly. Okay. So it wasn't.

It's being handled by the staff of the committee.

Of the committee.

Okay.

So Lisa was working.

Lisa's working on that? Yes. Okay. So we are working at looking at other revenues to plug some holes and stay tuned. Unfortunately, the jail commission meetings were not televised. But they are public hearings, and people show up.

Amen.

Okay, that is... Oh, wait a minute. One more thing. I let you read... Before I go on to the next thing, I've had some little birds whisper in my ear that we changed the agenda. So they said we should have voted on that. I mean, is that going way, way extreme?

I don't think it was necessary to vote to change these. I know. There's a lot of discussion. And I'll just go ahead and talk about this. I didn't know if you wanted me to talk about it right now. When it comes to something like Robert's Rules of Order, that is a tool that is used to help meetings like this go in a particular structured manner. If the board wants to change its agenda with regard to how it presents this information to the public, that's really up to the board. And what I really want to stress is that This is a board meeting that is being done by a board that's instituted by statute that has statutory responsibility. So everything that's being done up here is being done because the Ohio Revised Code says that it has to be done. As it turns out, just like you said, Commissioner Moore, your functions are some of the only functions that have to be done in front of the public. And I don't think that there's any objection on the part of any of the Board of Commissioners members of doing your work that's in the public. But obviously when it's in the public there are possibilities for people that are not members of this elected body or other elected officials to come up and have some sort of a say because you've been gracious enough to allow them to provide public comment. And public comment is important but it's also important that this body be able to do its work in the manner that is most efficient for the body. That's the reason that everybody's here today is to make sure that the government work is being done. Resolutions need to get passed because this board has to pass them because the statutes say they have to be passed. So what I want to say with regard to the matter in which Robert's Rules of Order is viewed is it is important and it is actually enforceable in terms of how this board makes its motions. Whatever it votes on, those are the kinds of things that can be legally enforceable. And you have a whole category here of old business and board business. And when we get to the end of board business, that's when public comment comes in. Board business is not a part of public comment. That's not really supposed to be the business of this board. That's not a responsibility of the board. So the ability for the board, in my opinion, to be able to comment in a manner that most efficiently furthers the business of the board makes the most sense. I don't think there's any reason for the public to dissuade you from being able to say things or to do exactly what you've done just now in doing new business and making all of the statements that you've made. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Having an agenda that most appropriately fits what this board's business is doing is going to be the best thing for the board. And it certainly isn't anything that's legally enforceable or legally unenforceable by any member of the public who wants to say otherwise. And I guess I want to say that because we've all been here for kind of a while now. We're all being paid by government taxpayers. People that are paying their taxpayer money are paying our salaries. We need to make the very best use of the time that we have here. I need to make the best use of my time doing my job. And so does everybody who's sitting in the audience who's employed by the government. So this is the way that you've determined it would be the best and most appropriate use of the money. And I don't think there's any reason for anyone to object to that.

Okay. Well, if you know, on Tuesday, we changed the agenda to basically, we used to read what, what Teresa is about to read was item number eight, because sometimes we don't go into exec. And so why, you know, so we put that more at the end, we put new business after public comment, because we figured like, what just happened today, you know, you let some of the agitators speak, and some of the good people speak, and you know, you kind of take the good with the bad. They're all good people. They're all. They are. I know. I talked to them before the meeting, and they are. They're good people. They just get emotional and like to campaign for others. But anyway, the new business, I'd like that near the end in case something comes up because we want to at least let the public be aware of some of the things we're looking at and whether or not something should be put on the agenda for the following meeting, which is what that should be. And then the next one, number L, which is like right now, I'm sure Teresa wouldn't want to read that whole thing if we were not going into exec. But we are going into exec. I appreciate that.

That's her favorite thing to read.

Oh, she does. She loves by it.

And I appreciate your comments, Lee, and I hope I'm going to couch this not only politically correct, but legally correct. And that is, when it comes to the decorum of the meeting, there are people that some very acidic and very inappropriate comments have been made for all three of us commissioners. and yes they have first amendment rights but out on the sidewalk first amendment lives and breathes well in the meeting in here we're also responsible for the decorum of the meeting and the productivity of the meeting as you said and i particularly take some exception to the to the uh to the campaigning as we heard today trying to bring political campaigns into the business of the board and trying to somehow interfere with that but i've also had people that said they would like to come to meetings and they would like to speak but they're afraid of being characterized by those that aren't holding decorum and they have serious things that they want to say so they send them in an email instead of coming to the meeting and making it out there for the public to use and consider and it would be more appropriate if they came to the meeting and spoke up and promoted conversation and thought but they're afraid to come because they they feel the environment is it is not going to give them you know respect they're getting they see this tax And they're going to be mischaracterized as these other people that have a very singular and toxic agenda. So I appreciate your comments at straightening that out today.

Yeah, thank you. Would you like to read letter L? Sure. Of course you would.

If there's no other new business, L, county commissioners may recess an executive session to consider the appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, demotion, or compensation of public employee or official along with any other matters as specifically identified by motion in accordance with the Ohio Race Code 121.22g 1 through 8. unless expressly stated otherwise during executive session matters discussed in executive session are designated by the county commissioners as confidential because the confidentiality of such matters is necessary for the proper conduct of government business any disclosure outside of executive session is prohibited by ohio vice code 102.03b while an executive session the county commissioners may discuss and deliberate at the matters at issue but no votes may be taken until open session resumes

Okay, I move to approve, adding in also language that says contract negotiations and legal litigation. Second.

Discussion? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Murdao? Aye.

Thank you guys for coming in and speaking about that. That was so important. So how's your husband?

Commissioners have reconvened from executive session.

Thank you for waiting. We are adjourned.