City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome. I'd like to uh start this meeting out with a a little uh uh note here that uh we have somebody in the audience, Sarah Crawford. This is her last council meeting reporting for the Gazette. So, she will be missed. And and with that, Sarah, I'd like you to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. So, I'd like to call this meeting to order. 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. Wait, don't sit down yet. Yeah.

Uh, do you have anything to tell us of your experience of covering us for all these years? What are some of the words of wisdom that you could lend to us? I'm not sure. I think the biggest thing and I always tell people this is that I've just truly appreciated the collaboration that's done throughout the city and the county and everything with the different organizations. I mean we did everything with feeding Madina County and everything in between. And I think that's the biggest thing is just keep doing that collaboration and keep working from there. So well thanks and you're always welcome to come back and watch the meetings. Sounds good. Not online in person will be better. Okay. Okay. Sounds good.

I would just Sarah, I'd just like to add and I've told you this personally. Uh, whoever's going to take your place is going to have some mighty big shoes to fill. Sarah not only attends all of our council and most of the time finance meetings. Uh, some of our our committee meetings she attends, but she also attends, I would say, 99% of all the ribbon cutings that the the city does, you know, monthly. And you're just going to be missed. We we really appreciate you. You've been fair to everybody up here and I feel you've been fair to the administration. Wish you the best of luck and I know you're really going to excel in your new job. Thank you. I have comments. Yes. Thank you. Oh,

and I'd like to say Sarah, I I really have enjoyed working with you over the years since I've been on council and one of the things I truly appreciate about your work is that it's factual. Uh, as an accountant, I'm I'm a black and white kind of person and everything has to balance. And I I know and knew that every time I would read an article that you put in the paper that it was based on fact. And and I wasn't going to read the article and go, "Was she at this meeting last night?" Cuz because what you put was was factual. And it it makes a difference uh especially to those people in the community that are not able to attend the meetings and then they read your article and they know what exactly we were doing. So, I truly appreciate your professionalism, your uh attention to detail, your fairness, and and your just being here and being around in the community uh everywhere. So, thank you, and we're going to miss you.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Thank you. Okay. Will the clerk please call the role? Oh my gosh. Okay. Um Isabella here. Lamb here. Simmons here. Simpson here. Coin here. Dalvo here. Here. Reading of the minutes. Mr. President. Miss here. I move that the minutes from the April 27, 2026 and May 4th, 2026 special meetings are as prepared and submitted by the clerk of council be approved. Second. Any discussion on the minutes? Will the clerk please call the role on the approval of the minutes? Lamb. Yes. Simmons. Yes. Simpson. Yes. Coin, yes. Dalo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Motion passes 70.

Reports of standing committees. The finance committee met prior to council this evening and we discussed several items that'll be on the next council meeting. We'll meet again in two weeks on a Tuesday, not on a Monday since it'll be Memorial Day. Um, health, safety, and sanitation. Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. President. uh health, safety, and sanitation will have a meeting on June 8th at 5:30 prior to the finance committee to give the give an opportunity to the uh police department, fire department, and sanitation uh department to give us an update of what's going on in the department currently and uh projected projects for the rest of this year. Thank you. Public properties, Miss Hair.

Thank you, Mr. President. I have no uh nothing to report and no meeting schedule. Special legislation. Mrs. Dalvo, I have um no meetings scheduled at this time and nothing to report yet. Streets and sidewalks. Mr. Isabella, uh we've been given some information from uh Greg Huber, our law director, with some uh you know, example, uh ordinances for other cities, how they operate their sidewalk programs, and our engineer, uh Mr. Patton, has uh been working through getting proposals for surveying our sidewalk. So, we'll be talking about those sometime in the near future, but no meetings as of yet. Water and utilities. Mr. Simmons. Uh, thank you, Mr. President. No meeting scheduled and nothing to report. Emerging technologies, Mr. Lamb.

Thank you, Mr. President. No meeting scheduled and nothing to report. Thank you. Request for council action. We have several for finance. 2694. Advance request Prospect Street and South Huntington Street bridges. 2695 budget amendments. 2696 capital improvement PO for Madina City Schools. 2697 purchase vault restroom and accept a donation from Manana Soccer Association. 2698 grant application for airport obstruction and removal study. 2699 renewal agreement with GIS system for the engineering department and 26100 bids for job number 1180 uptown loop multi-purpose path reports of municipal officers. Mayor Shields.

Thank you councel and Mr. President. Uh bear with me. The lot's been a really busy couple weeks here. I want to start with uh Cups Cafe and on Monday, May 4th, city council and the city administration. There's a picture up there. We're able to volunteer and serve community residents and our neighbors dinner at Cups Cafe. I want to thank all of you for spending the evening at Cups, helping our community members that needed a little assistance, whether it be a meal or some company that evening. It was a great experience, and it was very nice talking with the residents who attended. Uh, Cups Cafe is a 501c3 nonprofit where hope is served daily with no cost and no conditions. Located right over here at 126 North Court Street. So, if anybody needs a place to get a meal or some good conversation, um, please stop by Cups. And I'm hoping council we can do this again. They, uh, were very happy to have us here. And I I do appreciate special shout out to Council Member uh, Isabella for all the dishes. He got put on dish duty that night and was a lot of dishes. It was, but he did a great job. So, thank you, Ed.

Happy to help.

The next thing I want to talk about is we had a very special uh visit this past week um from what's known as crew. It's the commercial real estate women of Akran. They did a bus trip to Madina on Wednesday, May 6. They toured Castle Noel, the Farmers Exchange Building, Black Cat Books, Legacy Hotel, and H2 Wine board wine bar. I was very fortunate to spend some time at the start of their tour and then I got to accompany them on a hard hat tour of the Legacy Hotel. Uh the group was really impressed by the city of Madina. Made several comments about how friendly and how much there was to do in our community. And I just want to thank Kimberly Marshall and the Madina County Convention in Visitors Bureau for putting together such a great day for this group. And it was just a real honor to have uh all of these people here. And all of them said they would be back to stay at the hotel to visit Castle Noel and just to spend time in Madina. So it was a great event. Um also last week on Tuesday we had celebration of economic development, small business week. The city of Madina was honored to host the US small business administration here at the city for our monthly city economic development committee meeting. We are proud to highlight two small businesses that day. Both in ward one partake kitchen provided the uh breakfast and coffee colony provided the um coffee that morning. but just a really nice morning. Also, last week on May 6th, in honor of National Treatment Court Awareness Month, the city helped sponsor an event at Memorial Park. This event was organized to share the Madina County Common Police Court programs and participant success stories to the public and encourage community outreach. Uh the specialized docket programs were celebrated. These are certified by the Supreme Court of Ohio and consist of Judge Kimler's mental health intervention program and the Madina intervention program which is a drug court along with Judge Hudson's Madina County recovery court. Uh just very motivational, very um people who are in

recovery and are doing their best and their stories and their sense of appreciation for all they've been through and these specialized dockets make a big difference. So we're very lucky in Madina County to have resources like that. And then also last week uh there were several events in honor of the National Day of Prayer. That was Thursday, May 7th. There was a prayer breakfast hosted by the Manina United Methodist Church, followed by a ecumenical prayer service at St. Francis and then a community prayer service held at the gazebo. I just want to thank pastors Michael Wilson, Pastor Art Ruffen, Deacon Paul Kiptool, um and Jennifer Webb of St. Francis for helping put together the National Day of Prayer Events here in the city. Um it was a great day. So, I thank everybody for making me feel so welcome and part of the day. And then I also want to take some time on behalf of the administration as well to thank uh Sarah. Um Sarah, I read a story about you that said as a child you loved to write stories about your pets and about your friends. Um and you knew from a young age you were going to be a reporter and you've turned in to be a really great reporter and we're very fortunate to have you here in this community. I was going to ask you what's more fun reporting on your pets and your or writing stories about your pets or friends or all of us here at the city of Madina, but um Sarah is a proud Kent State graduate. She was a journalism major plus political science and public relations minor. So very impressive and she has done freelance work for Cleveland magazine and Ohio magazine. And I know she also helped several nonprofits with their press releases and social media. And it's been a real pleasure and honor to work with you. You're very fair, thorough, and just a kind, good person. So, we've all enjoyed working with you. So, thank you, Sarah. That completes my report.

Thank you, Mr. Durham, Director of Finance. Thank you, Mr. President. There's a couple things on the agenda that I'll address when we get there. Mr. Huber, law director. Thank you, Mr. President. I have no report. Mrs. Marshall, economic development director. Sarah, best regards.

Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. President uh Sarah, congratulations on your new position. We're going to miss you and thank you for all the coverage of the hundreds of ribbon cutings over the years. We really appreciate the support and I know the small businesses uh appreciated that as well. So, don't be a stranger. I don't like to say goodbye. So, we'll see you along the way. And um the other item to note for council and the public this evening, we have this Friday, May 15th, is our next ribbon cutting day, which is a joint collaboration with Main Street Madina Madina Chamber of Commerce that we have two events in the afternoon. One of them is at 2:00, which is the Rios Guitar Company and Music Store located at 645 Lafayette Road. And then at 3:00, uh, new business called the CC Hair Salon at located at 754 North Court Street in Unit E. So, uh, hopefully um, council, if you are available, we'd love to see you there. And, uh, that's my report. Thank you.

Thank you, Lieutenant Wagner, Police Department. Thank you, Mr. President. I have nothing to report. Thank you, Mr. Fry, director of communications. You're on again. I'm going to get you every meeting now since you're back there.

Well, thank you, Mr. as president. Uh wanted to remind everyone uh with next week uh we have commencement ceremonies happening on Madina TV. You'll be able to capture the Madina County Career Center awards ceremony on Wednesday evening. We'll have that live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. And then on Friday, we have Madina High School's graduation uh also on both both of those formats. So if anyone is has relatives out of town and wants to be able to to watch, they can do so. And of course, we're in Northeast Ohio. If the weather's not cooperating, uh you can stay dry to watch there as well. And then also just wanted to pass along uh best wishes to Sarah. I know we I run into her a lot of places whether it's schoolboard meetings, county commissioner meetings over here at city hall. Uh it's been great to have her here in her coverage of Madina County and wish her the best in her future endeavors.

Thank you, Mr. Pulli, service director. Thank you, Mr. President. I have no report, but I too would like to uh wish uh Sarah good luck. She's always been great to work with, and I know you accomplish great things, so continue the good effort. Mr. Patton, city engineer. Thank you, Mr. President. I have no report, but I did want to say thank you to Sarah. We will miss you. Good luck in your future endeavors. One of the things I appreciate most about you is whenever I gave an interview, when you included comments in the paper, you always made me seem a whole lot smarter than I really am. Thank you, Mr. Wley, parks and recreation director.

Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, Memorial Day is quickly coming up and we are working hard to make sure that everything is ready in the parks department. That includes the splash pads and the swimming pools. I know everybody in the community gets excited about those. So, our uh our splash pads will be open Memorial Day weekend. Uh again, Greenwood Park will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Ray Miller Park will be open from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. And to uh check out madinarc.org for updates on the memorial pool hours and uh season membership rates and any reservations that uh you might want. Uh, and then lastly, uh, Sarah, congratulations on your, uh, new opportunity. I appreciate being able to have a genuine conversation with you about a project or a problem and know that, uh, the the work that you were going to do was going to represent that conversation well. So, appreciate that.

Thank you, uh, Mr. Dutton, planning and community development director. Uh, thank you, Mr. President. I'd just also like to uh extend my thanks to Sarah for her fair and accurate reporting and note that she also covers our historic preservation board planning commission and board of zoning appeals which can sometimes be a 3 to four hour marathon of meetings. So that's very appreciated. Thank you. Confirmation of mayor's appointment. We have Richard Reer recreation center advisory committee for a term expiring 123128. Miss her move to approve. Second. Uh, any discussion on the mayor's appointment? Will the clerk please call the role? Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Coin, yes. Salvo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb,

yes. Motion passes 70. At this time, I entertain a motion to remove RCA request for council action 25205 uh 1014 from the pending matters list from Mr. Simmons. Mr. President, Miss I move to remove RCA 25-205 pending matters. Any discussion? Mr. Simmons.

Yes. Uh, this item came before council in late 2025. Uh, Mr. Rose was here and headed up that committee at the time. Uh, they did have one committee meeting. Uh, several department heads uh were asked questions about their roles and responsibilities. Um, after Mr. Rose departed, it it kind of fell on my shoulders. Um and I really felt that uh setting of salaries, review of department heads, uh and then it was trickling down to review of supervisors really was not the role of city council to be played out. Um it should be done by the administration. Uh everyone reports in the whole system funneling up through supervisors, department heads up to the mayor. So I really thought that those uh setting of salaries should be done through there since they see the responsibilities they see the uh the work that's performed uh morale efforts everything. So I asked that it be removed from council and given uh to or back to administration through the normal process uh of of of business.

Okay. Thank you. Any other comment on that? Will the clerk please call the role? Simpson, yes. Coin, yes. The salvo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Motion passes 70.

Notices, communication, petition, there's none. There's no unfinished business. So, introduction of visitors. Members of the public are permitted the opportunity to speak on any issue or concern which pertains to the city during the portion of the council agenda devoted to introduction of visitors. All comments shall be directed to the chair and a reasonable time limit of approximately 5 minutes will be imposed. If there's a group, please appoint a spokesperson. Speakers should approach the rear microphone and state their name and address so it can be entered into the minutes. Members of the public before the opportunity to comment on other portions of the meeting is determined by the chair by a vote of the majority of council members present. Is there anybody that wishes to address council at this time? Nobody. Okay. Um, we got introduction and consideration of ordinances and resolutions. At this time, I'd entertain a motion to suspend the rules requiring three readings on the following ordinances and resolutions. Resolution 7426, 7526, ordinance 7626, 7726, 7826, 7926, and 8026.

Mr. President, Miss I move to suspend the rules requiring three readings of the following ordinances and resolutions. Second discussion on the motion to suspend the rules. Will the clerk please call the role? Coin. Yes. Dalvo. Yes. Hair. Yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Motion passes 70. Resolution 7426, a resolution authorizing the mayor to apply for and accept the Ohio Law Enforcement Body Armor Program Award for the purchase of bulletproof vests for the Madina Police Department. Mr. President, Miss Move to approve. Second. Uh, discussion. Lieutenant Wagner.

Thank you, Mr. President. The police department respectfully requests permission to apply for and accept grant funding through the Ohio Law Enforcement Body Armor Program. These grant funds would be used to offset the cost of purchasing seven replacement ballistic vests for the department personnel. Thank you. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Dalvo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Point, yes. Resolution 7426 passes 70. Resolution 7526, a resolution authorizing an application for grant assistance from the Madana County Drug Abuse Commission, MCDAC, for funding to support the Madana Police Department School Resource Officer Program. Mr. President, Miss Her move to approve.

Second. Discussion. Lieutenant Wagner. Thank you, Mr. President. The police department again requests permission to apply for and accept the funding from the 2026 MCD grant to support salaries and benefits for the school resource officers. In addition to serving within the city schools, the SRO's actively engaged with the youth through mentoring programs, community events, and their programs. The grant would support continued collaboration efforts and continue to enhance safety within our schools. Thank you. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the RO. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Point, yes. Dalvo,

yes. Resolution 7526, passes 70. Ordinance 7626, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to accept the fair market value estimates FMVE appraisals to accept the easement for the North Huntington Street project. Mr. President. Mr. Hair. Move to approve. Second. Discussion. Miss Hair. Okay. U Mr. President. Miss. The emergency clause has been requested and I move to add it at this time. My second includes the emergency clause. Discussion on the ordinance and emergency clause. Mr. Patton.

Thank you, Mr. President. uh for the in order to complete the North Huntington Street reconstruction project phase three, we do need to acquire a number of easements. Uh these uh your passage tonight will allow us to negotiate with the property owners and offer them the amount of the fair market value estimate. In addition, if the property owners agree, we would be able to record the easement immediately. We're asking for an emergency clause because uh this we'd like to get this project going. We still need a number of these ements to be completed. Thank you. Any further discussion? Will clerk, please call the role on the adoption of emergency clause. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Coin, yes. Dalvo, yes. Hair, yes. Motion passes 70. Will the clerk, please call the role on the adoption ordinance. Lamb, yes.

Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Coin, yes. Dalvo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Ordinance 7626 passes 70. Ordinance 7726, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to advertise for competitive bids and to award the contract to the successful bidder for the 2026 concrete street repair program. Mr. President, Mr. Move to approve.

Second discussion, Mr. Patton. Thank you, Mr. President. This is a program that's our annual program of concrete street repair where we replace entire panels that are uh in need of replacement um throughout the city. We are asking for 700,000 this year which is increase of 50,000 from the last couple of years. Uh reason being the cost of concrete has gone up significantly and we would like to keep the program as strong as it's been in the past. Thank you. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the role in adopting your ordinance. Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Coin, yes. Dalvo, yes. Yes. Isabella, yes. Liam, yes.

Ordinance 7726 passes 70. Ordinance 7826 an orn authorizing the expenditure to Madina City Schools for renovations of the Madana community recreation centers lobby tile and entrance. Mr. President here move to approve. Second discussion. Mr. Orley.

Thank you Mr. President. The recreation center is requesting a purchase order from Madina City Schools in the amount of $225,000 for renovations to the rec center's main lobby concourse and redesign of our front desk area. the ceramic tile and cabinetry original to the facility. Um, many repairs have been made over the years, but it's certainly showing its age. So, uh, we'd like to, uh, do this project to improve the customer experience and cleanliness and match aesthetics throughout the rest of the building. Uh, like most recent building renovations, the recreation center is requesting to pay for 100% of the project utilizing the city school district as a pass through. The uh project was discussed with the school board and uh the tile was approved on April 21st of this year and we're looking to get this completed uh around the week of the Dina County Fair August 3rd through the 9th.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Cler, please call the role. Simpson, yes. Coin, yes. Salvo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Ordinance 7826 passes 70. Ordinance 7926, an ordinance authorizing the finance director to make certain fund advances. Mr. President, here. Move to approve. Second. Discussion. Mr. Durham. Thank you, Mr. President. These are advances to cover the grant share of the projects. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the RO. Coin, yes. Dalvo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes.

Ordinance 7926 passes 70. and ordinance 8026 an ordinance amending ordinance number 21825 passed December 8th 2025 amendments to the 2026 budget Mr. President move to approve second discussion Mr. Durham thank you Mr. President, there's a number of adjustments. The big ones are for the advances that we just passed. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the role on adoption ordinance. Dalvo, yes. Hair, yes. Isabella, yes. Lamb, yes. Simmons, yes. Simpson, yes. Coin, yes. Ordinance 826 passes 7. Is there anything else? Uh, council comments, Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. President. Anything I want to say tonight is a reminder to be kind to one another. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Couple things. Um, I appreciated the fact that uh, Mayor Shields asked council to participate with the Cups Cafe uh, last week. Um, I was aware of what Cups did, but I learned a whole lot more about the program there and I was really impressed with what they do and how they treat people with dignity and respect and it's a great place to to come for a meal, no questions asked. uh camaraderie, conversation, meet new people. So, thank you for asking us to volunteer. I really enjoyed uh participating in that in that uh that night. And yes, sign me up for the next time you want to uh need some volunteers. Also, I wanted to just take a moment to uh to say that I uh volunteered for the beerfest with Main Street Madina on Saturday. It was a very wellattended and very well-run uh fundraiser. Uh lot of people, a lot of fun, and uh glad to see so many people from our community participating in this fundraiser that helps benefit our city. Thank you. Be kind, be uh respectful, treat other people the way you want to be treated. Thanks. And good luck, Sarah.

Mr. Simmons.

Uh thank you, Mr. President. Uh shout out to Jenny Go. She did an amazing job in uh assembling the uh LST openhouse. Uh very well attended and it was just a really great event. She did a nice job. Um America 250, we've got the first farmers market starting up this Saturday, the 16th up on the square. And the Friends of the Cemetery have a a great event uh May 30th. It's the historical walk where they will give uh portray five or six different people who are interned. It's at Spring Grove Cemetery. And then new this year, they will have an an open house, I guess we can call it, with a mausoleum. It has a new roof. The in interior has been totally redone. So, if you want to come take a look at that, uh, it's really great to see. So, and Sarah, it's been great. Thank you so much. Excellent coverage,

Mrs. Salvo. Um, thank you, Mr. President. Um, so the school that I work at, McKinley High School, we had our prom this past Saturday. And I just wanted to say in addition to knowing um, several students here from Madina City. It was a great event that was very inclusive of all of our students, including um, some of the ones that I've had the opportunity to work with um, who are starting on their graduation journey and I am going to miss them desperately. So, I just want to say congratulations to them and congratulations to um, our class of 2026 from Madina. Um I had an opportunity to meet several of those seniors um at the recent Madina County Leadership All and and what a great group of kids they really are. So congratulations to them. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Isabella.

Uh thank you, Sarah, for your work at the Gazette. Uh city of Madina's uh better and well informed thanks to your work. Um and likewise, congratulations to our Madina, you know, Madina High School students. So thank you. Thank Mr. Lamb.

Thank you, Mr. President. Um, as as you've heard, there's a lot of really great things going on in the city. The mayor gave a report, talked about things going on, and some of the council members have given that report because there are so many good things going on. We are lucky to live in a community like we like we have fortunate to live here. Um, but we also have hard work to do and and I just want to I want to make sure that we we talk about that as well. You know, we're working hard on on improving the safety on the public square. safety for traffic, safety for pedestrians, safety at the mid at the midcrosswalks. Um, we can probably now before we complete a plan, move the traffic away from where people do go in those crosswalks so that we can make them safer before we have to wait to get a comprehensive plan back to see what we can do that's more fundamentally important to ensure that it's that the pedestrians and are safe and traffic moves moves well without causing injuries. Um we are hard at work on on putting together a a a truly comprehensive um program for deer and we will have that completed you know in the near future and I appreciate the help of the administration and and and and the parks director in particular the time we spent on that. I have visited a number of other communities that didn't come to Madina to talk but I was able to go and see them so that I can better we can all better understand what all this involves to ensure that at the end of the day when all the work and effort and money goes into it that we have actually made an improvement and we are not just marking time. We have a comprehensive plan that was completed a number of years ago that I still do not think council has looked at and probably we do need to look at it because we are generally do one every 10 years and we're about midway through this one and haven't really looked at it and the comprehensive plan is the guide um that we follow for what we intend to

do with the community as we go forward. So, it's a good document to look at and it does definitely need to be reviewed with with council and with the administration as well um to make sure we're not continuing to overlook things like like the sidewalk program which we are hard at work on to get that sidewalk program started this year. Um because for beyond a decade, the sidewalk program that was that was legislated actually didn't take place. and sidewalk safety is is as important as safety on the streets and safety in c on the crosswalks. It's a lot of hard work and I appreciate the work of city council and the president of the city council with the administration to get these things going, get them done um and to do it in a reasonable amount of time so that we actually have the work out and in the community and and the community can benefit from it. So that said, I also would mention to um to Sarah, the Gazette reporter, two things. One is we are also lucky to be one a small community that still has a local newspaper because so many local newspapers have gone have gone. And um Sarah, you were a terrific reporter. You were fair. And the only thing I I I could say other than that is I did miss you when I was on council during the budget meetings. I I I'm not sure if you were at all every budget meeting, but um I'm sure that you know you felt bad about not being here, too.

She watched them at home. I'm sure cuz they were riveting. I know they were. Uh I just want to say that prior to council this evening, we had an opportunity to walk through the court facility, the 1969 courthouse to see the progress that is being made with respect to the relocation of our municipal court. and it's coming along. It's almost finished. It's going to be a great addition to the square. We're glad that the uh you know, the pillars up front, if you guys drive by, are are redone. They're new. It received somewhat of a facelift to bring it back to its uh beauty that it once had. And uh it's still going to be a beacon of the square. And I noticed when we were there, Nino mentioned to me that they put hangers up in in front of the thing to hang the wreath. Remember, anybody know about that wreath? So, he put some hangers up there so it doesn't hang off the pillars anymore. It'll be uh structurally sound into the crossmember beams up top to to hold the the wreath. That's that's very important. But no, it's going along well. I think it's supposed to open the 1st of June to the middle of June, just depending on the last items that need to be completed. And then there will be a move of the court from our current facility over to the other side of the square at that time. So, that's going to be a monumental task to move everybody over there. uh get everybody situated and open up uh as doing business again, you know, within a few days. Uh because I don't think you can just stop having court proceedings because you're moving. You have to continue to move those things forward. But uh that was very uh very good to see that that's moving forward because if I remember correctly when I got on council back in 1990s we were talking about a courthouse back then and you know we struggled over the years trying to figure out what's the best way where to have it, how much it should cost. Um I've always leaned towards doing a a joint facility because it just made the most sense. uh back in 2008 we talked about that but that's when you know the economy kind of took a

tank and the county wasn't ready to do anything with respect to a joint facility but we finally got it together uh with the current commissioners since they were building a new facility and now we have a facility together more of a complex so when people go to court they don't have to say where am I going because there's only one place to go uh unless of course you go to Wadssworth there's another place to go but in Madina there's only one place to go which is on the square so with that uh everybody Everybody enjoy the evening and I I believe the Cavs are playing tonight. So, we'll see if if they can make it another game. Meeting is adjourned.