City Council - Regular Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Call the roll, please. Mayor Bailey. Here. Vice Mayor Bateman. Here. Mr. Goodyear. Here. Ms. Hamlin. Here. Mr. Hart.

Here.

Ms. Hazelbaker. Here. Mr. Janik.

Here.

Welcome, everyone. With us tonight, we have our Assistant City Manager, Chris Weinitz, Clerk of Council, Misty Clark, City Manager, Dave Kennedy, City Solicitor, Joe Braun. Our Sergeant at Arms is Lieutenant Corbett, Chief Michael Gabrielson, former Council Members Todd Osborne and Pat Mays. I think that's it. So welcome, everyone. First item is open forum. We have Kelly Rafferty.

Hi, good evening. Thank you so much for giving me some time tonight. My name is Kelly Rafferty. I have been a resident of Loveland for about five years now. I am coming to speak this evening to discuss the concerns of nearly 400 people who live and spend their time and money in Loveland. I have a petition for each of our council members signed by almost 400 people asking for the removal of flock cameras in the city of Loveland. The installation of flock cameras in our community is deeply concerning. While the city's intention is to reduce crime, there is not yet the data to back up the claims of the effectiveness of these cameras. They are promoted as tools to combat unlawful activities, yet it's unclear how much they actually contribute to a safer community. The national crime rate is five times of that in Loveland. We see an average of 53.4 violent crimes per 100,000 people compared to the national crime rate, which is 282.7 crimes per 100,000 people. Our police department does a fantastic job. Our community is safe. There are studies and reports indicating that constant surveillance does not significantly deter crime. According to a review conducted by the Urban Institute, surveillance technology like cameras hardly have a measurable impact on crime reduction. Instead, they often serve as tools to collect data on citizens without offering real solutions to the root causes of crime. For decades, studies have shown that surveillance does not deter criminal activity. Rather, in areas including Claremont County, vandalism has increased due to public outrage sparked by flock cameras leading to their decision to cancel the county's contract with flock. What we are learning in real time, however, is that mass surveillance technologies don't actually help police close cases. An independent study in Atlanta used FBI data to compare case clearance rates before and after the installation of these cameras. They found that the case closure rates are the same. We are giving up our privacy for no legitimate benefit. We need actionable and impactful strategies for crime prevention, such as community policing and restorative justice programs. More emphasis should be placed on building trust and partnerships between law enforcement and the community, rather than relying on invasive technologies that may not yield the desired results. Flock cameras are marketed with promises of security, but the reality is they infringe on our personal freedoms. The continuous surveillance is an unwarranted intrusion into our everyday lives. Residents are uncertain about how the data is collected, how it is used, or even who has access to it. The lack of transparency is alarming and needs immediate attention. Additionally, there is not an external or third-party audit system in place. The only watchdogs ensuring that the policies are followed are internally at the police department and at Flock itself. While we know we can trust our Loveland police department, I think we can all agree that private companies are another story in and of themselves. This information goes into a national database, a network of surveillance that any law enforcement agency at any level that has signed a contract with Flock can access. These are additional eyes on our information and citizens find it concerning. Recently, other communities similar to ours have reconsidered their use of flock cameras. Just this past week, both Clermont and Hamilton County Sheriff's Departments, as well as the Oxford Police, have announced plans to either cancel or pause their contracts with surveillance companies. In Northern Kentucky, Fort Mitchell, Independence, Erlanger, Newport, and Fort Thomas have all agreed with their citizens and decided to remove their flock cameras. From what I have found online, each camera is maintained by a $2,500 to $3,000 contract paid to flock by the city. Again, from what I have found online, Loveland has around 15 cameras, conservatively. That would leave at least an additional $30,000 in the city's budget if we were to cancel these contracts. I understand that your focus is the safety of the community on this matter. However, your constituents right to privacy has been forfeited without our approval. I urge city officials to cancel the city's contract with flock pledge against replacing these cameras with other surveillance companies or cameras and explore alternative community focused methods to enhance safety and trust within our neighborhoods. It is very crucial that we, the people's voice is heard and these cameras be removed immediately. Thank you for your time tonight and listening to the concerns of your constituents and neighbors. I have copies of the petition and signatures for each of the city council members. Thank you. Thank you.

I would just say I'm going to address it only because I've seen this online petition and it is directed to me, to the mayor. I am one vote of seven. Not sure if you all understand that. I don't have any greater power to do anything than anyone else on this council. That said, I do see the value in the flock cameras.

I don't agree.

I don't know that I see the flock cameras as something that stops crime or reduces criminal activity, but it certainly helps our police department and it certainly is a valuable law enforcement tool for for all kinds of reasons. Just one today, a shooting at a local school and the shooter was caught with flock cameras very quickly before he could do anything else. There's certainly nationwide, the examples are thousands of individuals with dementia that are found using flock cameras. of abductions that have been thwarted because of flaw cameras and that individuals are found. There are, so I don't, I won't subscribe to simply saying there really isn't a law enforcement purpose. I don't buy that. I think it is a law, a valid law enforcement tool. That said, I appreciate your concerns. I listen to those concerns. I share some of those concerns. I would venture to say I probably have a stronger opinion about privacy and small government and government stay out of my life and don't surveil me than most people that probably signed this petition. I would venture to guess. That said, I think there are balances to everything. And I personally, at this juncture, am not willing to throw away a, in my opinion, extremely valid and useful law enforcement tool because of those concerns. I will hear them and we drill down on them. And when they come up, we address them and we make the phone calls and we do the research and we'll continue to do that. And I want to continue to do that. But we, I think, were kind of ahead of some other communities in the very beginning. We have had lots of policies, procedures in place. We had the transparency, the portal that's available, I believe, on both of our websites and have had that from day one. Anyone can see if they has been run. That is, for anybody that's still confused by it, that is all this is capturing. It's not pictures of people. It's not real time. It is snippets of time as a car passes the camera, we get the license plate. So in addition to having procedures, transparency in place, we have trained any of our officers that have access. We limit who has access. We audit the use of our system not only by our own officers but by anyone throughout this country that has access to the system. We know when they access any of our data and we audit that and we verify that and we ensure that there's nothing that is off about whatever access was taken at that time. We haven't had any breaches. We haven't had any individuals that we've needed to address. But boy, if it happened, we would be addressing it very quickly. We can cut off access to any other entity that is not accessing our data correctly. And we certainly would address it with our own officers if that were to happen. So, it doesn't mean it's foolproof, doesn't mean there's not other issues out there that maybe we haven't researched, haven't drilled down yet on, and we certainly will. I'm not discounting, believe me. I don't know of the answers. I want it to be, I don't want to give up this tool, but if we get to the point where we find something out that doesn't square with what we believe to be true, believe me, we'll address it. But, or if there's something else that can sort of take its place in some fashion. But there, I just, I don't think you can deny the usefulness of this from a law enforcement standpoint. I'm not in a position, knowing what I know, and despite my dislike of big government and my belief in, in our rights, knowing what I know, I'm not willing to give up something that could save a child from being abducted. I just, I think there's a balance, and I think we've found it at the moment. It doesn't mean we won't keep looking and seeing what is out there, what we're doing. Today we were chasing down some things that read on Facebook. I thought, okay, if that's true, I have a serious problem with this.

chased it down and and it was not accurate so i that's where i am but again i'm but one vote um if anybody else has something that they want to add or say your opinion certainly happy to hear it mr goodyear so first of all i want everyone to understand that the concern you have or it's not falling on deaf ears certainly um i understand and i think everyone on council understands the concerns you raise and don't think it's not valid to have those concerns I have a little bit of a unique experience here because I've been a prosecutor for 25 years, and I have seen a world with flock cameras. I've seen a world without flock cameras in investigations. And I definitely take issue with the characterization that flock cameras are not useful, that there's no proof there's any benefit to them from a law enforcement perspective, because I can tell you from personal experience, there is no question that these are a very effective tool in solving criminal activity. And there's many, many, many examples I could give you of cases I personally worked on where flock was something that was instrumental in solving very serious crimes. I work in the Warren County Prosecutor's Office now. I worked for 20 years. And just in the last 12 months, I've had two cases of road rage where an individual shot a gun at another person on the highway. And the reason the person that did the shooting was held accountable was because flock cameras existed. Otherwise, those people would not have been caught. There are, uh, there was a case I had where a man was stalking a woman and she was scared to death. Um, she got a protection order, didn't stop this guy from doing it. Um, the police were able to prosecute him. We were able to prosecute him. They were able to arrest him because the flock cameras near her home and near her work showed him going there innumerable times, despite his denials that he had done that. Ultimately he was arrested one street over from her house in a car filled with weapons. And he was arrested because they were able to establish that the crime occurred through flock cameras. There's another case of a man recently, again in Warren County, who had traveled from Northeast Ohio to Gumtown and try and engage in sexual activity with a minor. And that guy was stopped. because they're able to use fog cameras to track him and find him so and those are just a few examples of where again i certainly understand the concerns you're raising but i do there's no question at all in my mind that these are extremely effective use uh tool for law enforcement um mayor bailey mentioned some of the safeguards and frankly the reason why i have some level of not comfort, but why I think that it's a good idea to continue using this tool because we do have very specific safeguards in place for the city and beyond the city as how our information is accessed, how it's used. In the retention period, the information's only kept for 30 days. There's an internal and external audit of every time someone accesses that material, there's a record that is created that does not go away. And I've seen these audit trails. And anyone can access that, the access of the system. And certainly there are safeguards in place at the police department to make sure who is accessing it and it's done for a law enforcement purpose. And right now there are multiple databases that exist in the state of Ohio There's something called OLEG, which is the Ohio Attorney General's Office has an informational database. There's something called LEADS, NCIC, RCIC. There are numerous informational databases that exist that law enforcement use to help solve crimes. And like flock cameras, with every one of them, there is accountability built in. If someone, we're all human, it's certainly possible someone will misuse information, but they're caught quickly and held accountable. I guess the way I look at it is I have a granddaughter who's 10 years old. If my granddaughter was abducted, I ask myself, would I rather live in a world with flock cameras or without flock cameras? And to me, there's no question about that. I'd rather live in a world where I have a chance to have her found. Think about I'm 54. I grew up in the 70s and 80s. You think about when kids were abducted back then and the likelihood of them being found versus now. It's night and day. So I just certainly support our use of this. If there are issues that come up and what Mayor Bailey is talking about, I saw as well today on Facebook and was concerned. We're not going to bury our heads in the sand and not see concerns. But those are the reasons why I said.

Thank you. Anybody else? Anything they wish to say? Mr. Hart?

Yeah, I would just I mean, without without continuing down the same roads a little bit or too much here, I would just say that one of our core tenants here as council people is to is to ensure the public safety in our city. And I voted to approve the use of these things a year ago. And I feel like a lot of the anxieties that are stemming from this right now, unfortunately, are coming from a lot of misinformation. I do think that it is wise to continue to be prudent and to continue to ask questions, to continue to follow up as Mayor Bailey and Mr. Goodyear said, to continue to follow up on things that come up where residents are concerned. I'm like everybody else. I don't want... know big brother government breathing down my back either i don't want that um but i it's i'm very reluctant to remove a safety tool from our uh law enforcement's toolbox if it could help solve a crime or save somebody's life so at this point um i'm still supporting of the use of flock cameras um does that mean it's forever supported it does not it means that we need to continue to be to be watchful of their usage and make sure that we're keeping our policies in place and make sure we're watching how they're being used and continuing to surveil the use from our side. But at this point, I think that it would be unwise to take them away from where I'm sitting.

Ms. Hamlet?

So, I think this is one of those issues where there are legitimate concerns on all sides. I think residents, myself included, have every right to ask how this technology is being used, who can access it, where that information is shared, and what safeguards, guardrails are in place to prevent the misuse. At the same time, I also don't want to lose sight of the fact that this technology has proven its value. There are real-world cases where Flock has helped law enforcement locate a kidnapped child. Like Mr. Goodyear mentioned, I too have a granddaughter, and if she were to come up missing, I would want every tool available in the arsenal that a police department has to find her and prosecute the person responsible. So for me this comes down to finding the right balance and ultimately I think this also needs to be addressed not only at the local level but also at the state level because Loveland could and should, put excellent guardrails in place. But if another community can access our data without being bound by the same guardrails that we have in place, then our local protections may not be enough. So we need to ensure that we have clear and consistent rules across all jurisdictions. And I think it would benefit all of us to make sure that these same concerns are shared not only at the local level, but also with your state representatives.

Thank you, Mr. Karen.

I have a statement. I would like to bear with me, everyone. As a Loveland dad, God forbid one of our Loveland children ever gets abducted or seriously hurt. If we have a tool that can help law enforcement quickly identify a vehicle, locate a suspect, help a parent or grandparent with dementia or Alzheimer's find their way home, or prevent a catastrophic attack on our schools or community, I believe our police officers should be able to use this tool responsibly. As a United States Marine Corps veteran, I take the Constitution of the United States very seriously. It's one of the most supreme documents that I have lived and defended. I believe strongly in our Fourth Amendment, our protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Driving a vehicle is a privilege, it's not an absolute right. That is why we are required to go to the BMV and register our vehicles and display a license plate. When you are driving on a public roadway, your license plate is already visible in the public. And there is no general, there is generally no reasonable expectation of privacy when you are in public. I do not believe the responsible use of flaw cameras violate the constitutional protection. These cameras do not These cameras are not inside people's homes or searching private properties. They are reading license plates and information that is visible on public roadways. That does not mean we should not be unlimited access. There must be clear policies, oversight, and consequences for misuse. Chief Gabrielson gave me his word that those policies are already in place. If the technology can help bring an abducted child home, locate a dangerous suspect, or help a parent or grandparent with dementia and Alzheimer's find their way home or prevent a serious attack on our community, I believe it is a very valuable tool for this community. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other ones? Ms. Hazelbeck.

I think just to, I think everybody's made good points here. A lot of good concerns brought up from the community and appreciate that. I think for me, as I, I mean, for the past month, this has been going on in a lot of communities. So the chief, the sergeant have all been really open to answering questions. I was, when it comes to transparency for me, I had those same like layers. And I appreciated that we did have the portals up because some communities are just now starting to put their portals. Like I know we'll just put a portal up. Well, that's not good enough because we've seen it's not good enough because we already had them. They were a good start, right? Every time we clarified a question of that, they followed up with good answers. And so we have those answers starting to be collected and we'll make sure that that information is shared. so that you have that. And I've appreciated that each time that does. But it has unraveled more questions every single time. And so we still have questions that we need to answer. And I think to the Mayor Bailey's point, we're going to look at those and we're going to make sure just because we have good policies in place and we trust, I think you even said it, we trust our police department if that data is shared, do we make sure that across the United States that that data is used properly? I think that's a fair question and we're continuing to dig into that. And I think just for me, I think this has been the most challenging. I think what me personally, what, you know, I believe and what personally I've heard from across the aisle, I think it's been a very, oddly enough bipartisan across the aisle of questions around this technology I think is fair. And I do trust that it is a tool in this toolkit that has done a lot of good actions into the community. Our job is to protect the city and to listen to residents. And so that's what at least my personally how I'm holding this here. And I think we still have multiple questions out to both the city and chief. And as soon as we have good clarity on that, I think we'll continue to see how this evolves. But I think as you have information, continue to share as well, because that's what makes I think our community strong is that we work together, we find good balance between how to protect the city, protect our assets, and make sure our residents feel safe and where they're roaming as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor?

I just want to, to piggyback off of what a lot of my colleagues have said. Before going into that, just to thank you for taking the time to bring this to our attention and to foster this dialogue. I think looking at the folks who have signed this, there's a lot of familiar names and friends. For me personally, it will be an opportunity to have earnest conversations with folks that have maybe differing opinions about this issue than I do. So, I think that that's where understanding and that balance that Councilmember Hazel Baker was, I mean, Hamlin was referencing, we can work towards that. I'll just say, you know, that I think Typically, you tend to see bureaucracy and institutions and government struggling to keep pace with technology. But one of those areas that you don't want to fall behind is in public safety and law enforcement. And that's one of those things that I think we've been at the forefront of is continuing to invest in our law enforcement agency and the resources that we equip them with. and they wouldn't have come to us had there been doubts with this program. And we wouldn't be continuing this under their advisement if there were serious doubts. And I think that that is a, is a status which can be maintained as new information comes out, as this program evolves. So I personally have a lot of good faith, trust in our leaders that are monitoring this and our law enforcement agency to maintain public safety and balancing that with personal liberties and freedoms and the security that you all expect clearly with this petition. So I'm sure this isn't the last word on block cameras, but I hope that at least coming out of this impromptu open forum, you're able to get a sense of where we stand on the issue and likewise us from you. So thank you for taking the time to bring this to our attention.

I think that's everyone. So, yes, I appreciate everybody. I appreciate you coming and speaking. I appreciate the opinions that everyone strongly holds. And we continue to need to welcome them and certainly not discount them. And we'll keep doing our due diligence in that regard as well. All right. Thank you, everyone. All right. Next is review and approval of minutes from the August 25th meeting. Any changes or additions?

Move to approve as written.

Is there a second?

Call the roll, please. Mayor Bateman. Yes. Mr. Goodyear. Yes. Mr. Hamlin. Yes. Mr. Hart. Yes. Ms. Hazel Baker. Yes. Mr. Jernick. Yes. Mayor Bailey. Yes. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you. Mr. Kennedy.

This resolution and before council has to do with committing the funds for the city's upcoming request for funding for the Appalachian Regional Commission for the first phase of the city's downtown streetscape plan. The city's downtown streetscape plan was adopted almost exactly four years ago. It was one of four plans that this community took on, master plans that we did over the course of about a two or three year period of time, which is very, very unique. Since that master plan was done, although we haven't had the funding to do any of the defined phases, city has done a good job at sort of picking away at pieces of the plan and certainly using it as our guiding force for what we do in the downtown. The improvements that we did around the town clock, the dining areas that we added in front of city hall, The sidewalks, when we expanded the city hall parking lot, we forget when that used to just sort of be that defined area there. All the work done around the mobile station, what is getting ready to start next week on Carl Brown are all elements of the streetscape plan. What we're trying to do and what we have been trying to do for some time is Complete the first phase of the streetscape plan, that most visible phase, that area that runs from 2nd Street to the edge of the bridge. This is a significant streetscape project. It is in addition to sidewalks, curbs. Street trees, it also includes a lot of underground utilities that you will not see. Water main replacement, some of the oldest water mains in the city used to be what was up on Main Street. We called them our Teddy Roosevelt. water mains because they've been in prior to him being president the next oldest is this section in downtown and we know from 2017 how important those are uh stormwater but also we the city is looking to partner with metropolitan sewer district just as we did from east loveland on the project we all recall the east loveland bridge replacement where the city of loveland claremont county engineers and metropolitan sewer district all teamed up for one of the biggest individual infrastructure projects in the history of the city Well, what many people may not know is Metropolitan Sewer District at that time went from Third Street to up past Fifth Street, replacing faulty sanitary sewers. The plan there was also to go then to go from Third Street to the West Loveland Bridge. They have the funding in place and have been waiting patiently for the city to get the funding to do our portion of the project. They have been very patient. The city has made multiple attempts to put together this funding. Streetscape is a tough project to fund. We are going at it with the ARC. We submitted a pre-application to the Appalachian Region Commission. The project scored well. We are going after that funding to move forward with that project. One of the commitments and why we're here in front of city council is that We're trying that all funds must be committed for the application to be submitted. So we have the Metropolitan Sewer District Fund commitment on behalf of the Metropolitan Sewer District that has been submitted to the ARC. It says it meets their standards. The city will be going, this fall will be submitting for $874,702 through OPWC, Ohio Public Works Commission. We will not know the results of that funding until after the October 1st deadline date for the Appalachian Region Commission. So with that, we need to commit those funding. So the way we have this project funded is we are looking for $500,000 for the Appalachian Region Commission. That's due October 1st. The Metropolitan Sewer District is committing $842,000. There is approximately $425,000 worth of water main replacement. There is currently $1.6 million in the WMR fund. We will cover that. The remaining $842,298 would come from the downtown TIF, the general fund and a portion of the road program. About $56,000 of this project would be road improvement. That project would have easily been included in previous year road program so that is a very justifiable use of that program. So what the legislation before council is doing is committing THE ALL FUNDS EXCEPTING FOR THE 500,000, WHICH WE'RE SUBMITTING, AND THE 842,000. IF THE CITY GETS THE OPWC FUNDING, THE CITY'S TOTAL SHARE WILL BE $1,267,298. THAT WOULD COME, AS I SAID, ROAD PROGRAM, DOWNTOWN TIF, WMR, AND THE GENERAL FUND, ALL OF WHICH WE HAVE THE FUNDING FOR. WE WOULD ACCOUNT IT IN THE the 2027 CIP. If we don't get the OPWC funding, City Council has two options, completely punt, ask MSD to wait again another year, or request OPWC to give the city a zero interest loan. The city's commitment was to not take any more loan funding through water projects. This would not have any impact on our water fund. This would be all general fund. could actually be accommodated within our known revenues for the downtown TIF. If the city can't get a zero interest loan, we can punt on the project and apply again. I will be honest with you, my fear is, And this is totally just Dave's talking. They've never threatened this. But there is a fear that the Metropolitan Sewer District may say, look, we've got faulty sewer mains. We've waited for you. You failed. We've got to go through. The city might fear then the downtown businesses, the residents, the visitors will see what would still be a major infrastructure project, but not included in that project would be the sidewalks, the street trees, the water mains, stormwater. I don't know if many of you have had a chance to look at the downtown streetscape plan. It is really a pretty cool plan. It has to do with lighting, but it also takes, for example, the four spaces front of the Brown building go away and that becomes this very premier tree dining area visualize that that is really a spectacular addition to what makes our downtown district and the goal of sort of spreading people out so not all not everybody hangs out at the town clock you got another area to go how cool would that be to have that area squared off trees dining tables and so on and so forth so I'm sorry I went a little long on that, but this is a big commitment, and I just wanted to make sure that I explained it fully to council. You do have options if we don't get the OPWC. City Engineer Kelsey Richards did something we don't typically do and took the option to submit a pre-application. We feel the OPWC will score well because she took the time to submit it, get some feedback. We know what's good and we know how to sell it. We had our road pavement re-rated because Worse is better. And we know the condition of the utility lines. We have great letters of support from Chief Huber stating the importance and so on and so forth. So that's it. I'm open if anybody has any questions.

Thank you. Any questions or comments?

Thanks for going through. You answered a lot of questions for everybody that I had around just the kind how the different portions of the funds break out. So I appreciate that. For if, so if we don't get the funding, we have options. So I appreciate that. If we do get the funding, can you talk through when this timing would start? I do appreciate that, you know, we're working with MSD. We have this infrastructure tied to streetscape. I think it's a smart way to approach it. But could you talk about when it would hit?

So similar, first of what we would do, if we have all funding in place, either OPWC grant, we've got the ARC money and we are ready to go, or we got the OPWC council's agreed to take a zero interest loan over the life of the project. So about a 30 year zero interest loan on 874,000, none of it coming out of the water fund. FIRST AND FOREMOST, WHAT THE CITY WOULD DO IS THE CITY WOULD THEN COME TO CITY COUNCIL, AND JUST LIKE WE DID WITH THE EAST LOVELAND BRIDGES, WE WOULD ASK CITY COUNCIL TO ADOPT AN AGREEMENT WITH METROPOLITAN SEWER DISTRICT, WHERE OUR SETUP, OUR FINALIZED PLANS, Full set of bid plans will include the Metropolitan Sewer District sewer line. We don't want bidding on two separate projects with Metropolitan Sewer District reimbursing the city for every penny for the sewer portion. That could potentially be done this fall if everything falls in place. That would allow the city to spend the winter and into the spring doing full-fledged plans, biddable documents, the whole shooting match, including the Metropolitan Sewer District, which I'm sorry, I did not mean, our streetscape project is from second to the bridge. The Metropolitan Sewer District is in third to the bridge. The paving would go there, but because there's future development in that block, we would wait on doing that portion of the sidewalk. I want to make that clear. Then the project, if all goes well, would go out to bid. So with OPWC, the project cannot begin until July 1st. Council cannot award. In a perfect world, we are in here at the first meeting in July, whatever that is, in 2027, awarding a contract for this project. then the project would begin late summer, would last about 10 months maximum. That's what Chris is thinking it would be, because of the OPWC requirement. A lot. I was just trying to explain that there's a.

Take a breath. No, it's good. I know I appreciate that.

No, I was just spooked by the 10 months.

The 10 months definitely has, it's a big impact. I should have just said 10 months. It's a big . Yeah, it is. Good.

When you're going under, we're going under, we're going under a railroad with sewer mains. That's no way that's easy.

Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I will just say this is at least the, what, fourth time, the fourth try at getting funding for this. So let's hope this is the charm. It will be awful for all of us, but it will get done one way or another because they are coming through. And what we don't want to do is have MSD do their thing and us come back in three or four years and tear it all up again. So we'll do it all at once. Let's all keep our fingers crossed this one works.

I want to read the resolution, please. Resolution authorizing the city manager to submit an Appalachian Regional Commission Area Development Program grant application and committing local matching funds for the downtown streetscape phase one project. Call the roll, please. Mr. Goodyear.

Yes.

Ms. Hamlin. Yes. Mr. Hart. Yes. Ms. Hazelbaker. Yes. Mr. Janik. Yes. Mayor Bailey. Yes. Vice Mayor Bateman. Yes. Resolution 74 is adopted by a vote of 7 to 0. Can it.

THIS APPLICATION IS, THIS RESOLUTION JUST AUTHORIZES THE CITY TO EXECUTE A CAPITAL BUDGET GRANT AGREEMENT FOR PHILLIPS PARK RESTROOMS. THE CITY WAS FUNDED FOR $56,800 TO FINALIZE REPAIRS, COMPLETE REPAIRS ON THE FINAL OF THE FOUR RESTROOMS THAT CITY COUNCIL COMMITTED TO BEGINNING IN 2023. Typically, when the city submits a grant application, there's a provision in there that city manager can execute agreements if awarded. Capital budget applications do not require council approval, so this application was submitted. It was approved, but they are now waiting for the city manager to execute the agreement for the funding. Our share would be $6,321. Any comments or questions?

Read the resolution, please. Resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a capital improvement community park recreation conservation project passed through grant agreement with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for the Falls Park Restroom Renovation Project. Call the roll, please. Ms. Hamlin? Yes. Mr. Hart? Yes. Ms. Hazelbaker? Yes. Mr. Jerenick? Yes. Mayor Bailey? Yes. Vice Mayor Bateman? Yes. Mr. Goodyear? Yes. Resolution 75 is adopted by a vote of 7 to 0. Mr. Kennedy?

So what we're doing now is we're sorry, I lost track because I was meandering on like an idiot there before. I'm sorry about that.

Councilman.

Chris and I break these up a little bit, so I'll go through my portion real quick and let Chris jump in. Under the secure funding to complete the Safe Routes to School travel plan, the city was not funded the grants for the Safe Routes to School. We reached out to ODOT. ODOT told the message from ODOT was we are earmarking the majority of our funding for construction. and we don't even know if we'll be having funding available for the December allotment. So you might wanna consider. Mayor Bailey and I spoke about this in detail and we felt that we should maybe potentially just jump into the plan ourselves. So we reached out to ODOT, got some firms that have done the Safe Route School Plan. Chris and I met with one of them that we feel has a good grasp for what the city wants. If that proposal comes into where we think it should be, then we would hopefully, maybe even before the end of the summer, bring in your proposal for the Safe Routes to School. They are putting a tremendous amount of funding into the sidewalk, the construction portion of it. The vast majority of our sidewalks connect to schools. So we feel like we would have a good plan and maybe After two failures, we move forward. All Nisbet Park, the amphitheater construction should be completed by the end of November. Meanwhile, we're working on for what we are working on next year for the trail lighting design with Duke. The restroom renovations are going to begin the Monday after the Oktoberfest. We are also working with Holdhouse Sign and KZF for the Gateway. And we will be submitting for the Place set for the final funding for the place that November. 1st, I was also we were also not successful in receiving the build grant funding for the study for the downtown for the trestle and the 5 points. We're currently looking working with. engineer to break that into pieces to see if we can start biting that off. The Appalachian Commission downtown streetscape plan, I just went off onto that. The market, the chestnut, we feel like potentially we're stuck a little bit on advancing the chestnut property due to the need to fill about 2.2 acres of the eight acres, their area. We have a defined fill zone area and are currently working with a logging company to potentially for value of timber. At this point, we've only submitted all the data to the timber company to see if there's a way. The fear is that fill opportunity may come forward that the city would have, but we aren't able to accept the fill under the current condition. The reserve policy, Mark is not here. Finance Commission went over the draft policies, asked Mark to just confirm whatever they write would be in compliance with ORC regs. And lastly, I think that's it.

Mr. Wyeth.

Thank you. The first one is the level Madeira Road corridor improvements. As you saw the polls on phase one, the Duke polls got moved. We are pushing on Spectrum and Alta fiber to get off those polls. That's what's holding it up right now. As soon as they're off of those, they will rip those poles out and the sidewalks will start going in. Phase two is in design. That's the middle section that's in design with Choice One Engineering currently. And then phase three, it's been pretty active here recently with right away acquisition ongoing. So I've been out with a lot of the business owners, meeting with them talking through the project talking through why we need to take certain things, what's not going to be left behind, like some trees, unfortunately, are going to be removed. However, As part of the landscaping plan, we're bringing some of them back. So talking through all that with all the business owners, it's been actually pretty good so far. Fingers crossed with all the business owners, which can always be dicey. So that's been good. Riverside Drive project. Last time that we talked about this, they had put us on hold based on funding. We had restart meetings about a month ago, so they're back into design. They still anticipate that it will not be until 2028 sometime for construction. I'm still holding out hope it will happen by then. But this project has been very slow. The PFAS, the new water plant that we're in design, as you know, we received an award for the $4 million in principal forgiveness and then the $10 million in 0% interest loan. Those are going that $14 million will go towards the approximately $17 million in construction. The EP, the permit to install so the detailed plans were submitted to epa today for their review and then the 90 drawings will be done i believe i believe they're done in october sometime in october um which will set us up so with that funding just to re reiterate um We they're anticipating that we will be able to go to bid or they want us to go to bid in May of next year. So we will potentially or we will be under contract for construction in the summer of next year for that project. As you saw out here, the bike trail signalization, the project that has been like molasses also, you saw that the signal heads have been put up finally. Those went up today. Once they go into what they call flashing mode, they have to be in flashing mode for, I think, 14 days before they're going to be active. So once those go flashing, you'll know 14 days from that time. is when the signals will be active and the bike trail will be signalized as well as traffic on West Loveland. The new development opportunities, even though this is kind of a round level, we do want to highlight the Commerce Park is now at 100%, well, will be at 100% build out. We just approved the site plan review for Dominion Concrete at 119 Commerce. So we just wanted to highlight that that was something we've been working on that I know has been sat vacant for quite a while. So that's exciting. um and then the um our city-owned facilities and keeping eye on them as you know we hired uh brett carlson who began as the facilities manager back in july he hit the ground running he has already done some things that have taking, taking a lot of off of Dave and I's plate. Um, as far as HVAC stuff, as far as he hit his first week, we had a sanitary sewer break within, in the safety center. Um, so he's, he knows what he's doing. He's a go getter. Um, so we're, we're thrilled. He's starting to pull together. Actually, he's already pulled together a, uh, what he's calling a three-year CIP for the park, some of the park facilities that have sort of been not neglected, but put to the side. And he's developing by building a CIP plan for each of our facilities. So things are going well with that. That's all I have.

Okay. Thank you both. Any comments or questions on any of that?

Mr. Weinich, regarding the signalization, we've talked about this many times, but the question I have for you is obviously we're talking about a pretty major change in the flow of traffic and trying to get people that are coming on the bike trail to understand that they don't have a choice. They need to stop. Is there a plan of how the city is going to assist in the transition process? where people go when the civilization actually begins, obviously there's going to be a lot of change. Is there some transition plan for that?

Yeah. So first off, there'll be plenty of public PSAs being put out through, through our website, through the, through social media. I'm, I'm waiting on ODOT to get, but they're supposed to, As part of the project, they are supposed to assist with the PSAs, but we're trying to meld those together so that we don't have any conflicting information going out. So there will be plenty of PSAs, and we've talked with Chief Gabrielson. We will be active because, like I said, it should be done before the weather's still going to be good. So we will have police out there actively in the area just talking to people about the new signal. So we're going to do as much as we can to get the word out. But we you know, I think the biggest thing will be through our social media, through our through our website. The other thing that's very critical is we are sending notification to I believe there's two different prominent biking clubs in the area that we're sending information to their to their groups that they can disseminate out also. OK, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Yes.

It was a good segue over to communications, and I think you would know that I was going to ask this question. But with that, like, I appreciate that, you know, kind of adding the PSAs and all those things. From the goal around communications, I saw a site update that we looked at an agency and then back through and maybe put up one downtown piece. Could you kind of talk through, it feels like, I don't feel that we're like quite aligned right on strategy of what it would be. I think there's some tactical approaches because I want to make sure that we are educated. I mean, even just of this, just making sure people have the right information about what we're doing at the right time, making sure they're engaged, getting that feedback, and then celebrating, you know, all the great things Lovin' does. So could you give a little bit more of an update around the communication side as well?

Yeah, so one of the things, and this isn't necessarily the technical or the social media type side, but we do, there is the, and Mr. Gannon can talk about this too, but the new downtown kiosk that's been installed downtown, we are working out some bugs on that a little bit. But so that's something we've done in the downtown area. But what we've tried to do, and I think we've seen it a little bit more prominently through our message to, to the residents with whatever it may be. We're trying to make things more visual to people. As you know, with social media, everything's gotta be quick, one hit, right? So nobody wants to read anything. So we've been trying and attempting to create and model some more of our posts and more of our information around quicker hits. In fact, you'll even see it here in the next, our next newsletter that goes out, our next magazine newsletter, you're going to notice, in my opinion, based on the previous ones, you're going to notice a little more quick-hitting type of information. I think that's how people are consuming things. Now, we're also giving the option or putting out that option that if you want the longer form of some of this information, That can be found on our website also. So we're attempting to do that a little more, a little better as far as how we're communicating to the community.

All right, anyone else? All right, announcements. The Loveland Sims Fire Department will host a 9-11 memorial event this Friday, September 11th at 7.30 p.m. at the Police and Fire Memorial. It's located at 200 Harrison Avenue. Community is invited to join us as we come together to remember and honor those who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. City is also hiring a full-time maintenance worker to join the Public Works Department. Applications are being accepted through September 22nd, 2026 on our website. to apply. Anyone have any other announcements? We have a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. Call the roll, please. Mr. Hart? Yes. Ms. Hazel Baker? Yes. Mr. Jernick? Yes. Mayor Bailey? Yes. Vice Mayor Bateman? Yes. Mr. Goodyear? Yes. Hamlin? Yes. Motion carries 7-0.

Thank you all for being here. New faces.