City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. It is Tuesday, April 7th. Uh we're going to call the meeting to order at 6:37. Teresa, would you like to call a roll? Yes. Mayor Tiffany Hollis here. Ryan Green here. Donnie Barard here. Matthew Huggin here. Kyle Cook here. Jeff Bar present. Nicole Shook here. Uh tonight's invitation will be given by Councilwoman Shook. Everyone's stand.

Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight with gratitude for this community we call home and for the opportunity to serve it. Grant us wisdom in our decisions, clarity in our thinking and humility in our conversations. Help us to listen with open minds, to speak with respect, and to lead with integrity. Remind us that the work we do here matters, that it affects families, livelihoods, and the future of this city. Guide us to set aside personal interests, outside pressures, and distractions, and stay focused on what is right and good for the whole community. Give us the courage to ask hard questions, the patience to seek understanding, and the strength to stand firm in doing what is right. And in all things, help us to build, not divide, to strengthen, not weaken, to serve, not self-s serve. We place this meeting in your hands and ask for your guidance in all we do. Amen.

Amen. 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. We're lost without the Girl Scouts. I know we're lost. Where's our Girl Scouts? It is gone. Uh, okay. We have approval of the agenda. Anyone want to make a motion for that?

I'd like to ask if we can make a change to add or move item 10 to um after item 13 and then have an executive session consider the employment that one before that item. So have executive session at item after item 13 and then item 10 after that one. So add an executive. Yes. Yes. After 13. Yes.

I'm okay if you guys want to move it, but I don't think we need the executive session. Does anyone want to second that motion? I'll second that motion.

Donnie Barard, yes. Ryan Green, no. Hollis, no. Kyle Cook, no. Jeff Bar, no. Nicole Sha, yes. Matthew Huggin, no. Motion fails. Does anyone uh like to make a motion to approve the agenda as written? I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. All in favor? No. No. Motion by Kyle, second by Jeff to approve the agenda as written. Kyle Cook,

yes. Jeff Bar, yes. Nicole Sha, no. Matthew Huggin, yes. Donnie Barard, no. Ryan Green, yes. Mayor Hollis, yes. Motion passes. Approved as written.

And first up, we have a presentation by uh Green Chapel Properties. It's a project preview. So, um I'm not sure how many of you are coming up to do this, but if you want to come up. Yeah, Mr. Dunn. Um the only thing we ask is that we wait until the presentation is completely finished before we have any questions or comments. Let them get through the entire the presentation and then we will open for questions and comments. Sorry. Yeah, I guess I'll kiss kick this off. Um, like I know pretty much everybody here on the council. Uh, for those of you that don't know me, my name is David Dunn and our family owns uh what we uh lovingly call Green Chapel Properties and it consists of about uh 900 acres. uh 400 of them are in Monroe Township

just to the south of where I'm standing right now. Uh the other cop is all down in uh uh Jersey Township. But tonight, what we're going to be uh presenting to the board uh to the council um is going to be our plan for the more than 400 acres of our property. And it's a project that we've been working on for probably the better part of three and a half to four years now. And uh some of the council have already seen this presentation. So if it's a bit repet repetitive, I think I'll apologize right now. But uh hopefully we'll be able to work through this and uh um what we're going to do, I think as uh Mayor Hollis said, we're just going to go through this presentation. Uh let us get all the information out and then take questions from council and and also from the public. We want to be as uh transparent as we can with uh everything we're we're doing here and you know there are changes coming to Johntown. So um you know we want to we want to do something very good for this city and something that we can all be proud of um as a family. And you know as we're talking about some things that are changing um I'm happy to announce that there are some things that won't be changing. uh the the 100 acres of property to the south of Green Chapel, which is where we have our horse facilities, that whole area there, the main farmhouse. Um as as long as we're alive, that doesn't change. So that is continue that's going to continue to be a green space and it's just it's just going to be our home. So, with that, what I'm going to do is I'm going to pass this over to Brian Kinselman, who uh is with MKSK, and he's been very instrumental in helping put this whole plan together. I think I let let him get started, and then we'll take questions after.

Thank you. Good evening. Again, for the record, I'm Brian Kinsel, senior principal of MKSK. Uh thank you for your time. Uh we're going to go through this with some paste, but don't hesitate to ask some questions when we get to the end. We've got we'll tell you what we know and we'll tell you what we don't know. Okay.

So, first off, this is uh what we're thinking of a comprehensive plan. It's still at a conceptual level. This isn't a final development plan. This is at a very conceptual level, but it's dealing with uh first off the step forward is from your comprehensive plan, the city of Johnstown's comprehensive plan. And these are a couple exhibits from that comp plan which suggested when Intel came to land here. uh we all felt the earth shake I think and it's caused the thinking of the of the planning team to suggest that north and east of Intel would be given over to job creation for obvious reasons with the synergy of that industrial undertaking and those areas north and east of the existing city were given over to city people uh uh neighborhood commercial space residential civic uses. And then those outlying areas to the northwest all around the clock to to uh to the south would be uh green space and agricultural land and and growth in that regard. So we're following the tenants of that comprehensive plan. And if I could just get this to advance, that would be great. There we go. Um, secondly, this this area, you can see very faintly on this image the outline. I'm going to point to this monitor, excuse me. Uh, the outline of the Green Chapel properties that David made mention of just over 400 acres that's subject to the conversation tonight. That is contiguous to the city of Johntown. It isn't some suburban piece that is removed. It is right next door, right behind this building. as a matter of fact. So, we understand that there by the comp plan that there's uh uh an opportunity for some commercial

development. If I can get this bloody thing to work. There we go. At uh darn it at Caswell. what the comp plan calls as a stop. There we go. What the comp plan calls an opportunity node which is for commercial development um uh more activity as opposed to the rank and file of the city and residential properties. You can also see there's some other opportunity nodes in the in the downtown core. Be it known that this piece of property is just down the street from downtown. We are not out in the birds. We are a 14minute walk from the Black Diamond to this spot right here. So, we are walking distance, not just driving distance, which is not insignificant. We're looking to expand the city of Johnstown, not replace the city of Johntown. We're looking to augment downtown commercial development, not to replace downtown commercial development, which is not insignificant. Okay, now we go. So, the comprehensive plan future land use suggests that again the green chapel properties outlined with the black dash line really two zone three zones within that mapping. One is civic uses. That's the piece of ground directly behind this building that's contiguous to the to the school campus. an opportunity we feel for a needed expansion of the school over time physically to uh move that expansion into what is now Green Chapel properties. Secondly is a is a planned neighborhood which is just that truly planned with commercial with support facilities not just houses and apartments and residential properties.

It's truly a a piece of neighborhood so it's fully functional. And then as we move south from the city into more um residential single family residential property. So it goes from more activity which is logical in American city planning towards the center of city down to something that is less active. So here are the soon as I get this to work touchy. This first piece represents 402 acres and five parcels. And you can see it stretches down to Duncan Plains. It touches Mink, a little bit of uh of Caswell, but for the most part contiguous to the northern areas of the city. We're starting with I don't know why this is doing this kids. I just keep pushing buttons. As always in my community planning, we start with what mother nature dealt us and that is the beautiful river is creek corridors, raccoon and kyber, the floodway, the waterway itself, the woods that are adjacent to it, the topography of the land. This is not a a scrape and build proposition whether we're dealing with the topography that uh was dealt to us. You can see the wood lots as well. Some of these contiguous greens these tree stands that are roundwater courses and also uh not so but and then the rest of this are cultivated fields. The cultivated fields largely is what we use for development.

So, as I said, that the perimeter roads are where we're going to connect to the city. Mink. We've got an opportunity. Obviously, you're looking at this in two dimensions. There's a lot of topography here. We've got connection out to Mink, limited connection out to uh Duncan Plains and then one connection point from Caswell. Caswell and Mink are very, very different um streets in terms of character. I'm getting the hang of this. Just barely touch the bloody thing. So, back to these parcels. We've begun the planning with looking at what is surrounding us. We got JYAA right next to the to the school campus water treatment uh wastewater treatment, the Catholic church next to us and this property that we're in tonight in the light blue. So, as I mentioned before, we're looking to expand upon those areas with an opportunity to give this school campus some room to grow. Uh, as population picks up in Johntown, which it is going to do, we're going to need more school facilities. We got beautiful athletic uh facilities here now, lovely schools. We're just going to do more of them. This represents property that is directly adjacent. Secondly, as I mentioned before, start with the open space. Not just the open space that's been delivered to us with the creek corridors, but also because we're building community places for new public parks, places for kids to play soccer, passive and active recreation, interconnected trails through these water courses, pedestrian trails, bike

trails, as well as even trail since we've got a lovely little uh farm right down the street. uh and and make those connections to the regional system. So that's that that mix of those types of open spaces, pure preservation land, uh intentional active and passive recreation, the trail system that connects throughout this connects to the city, connects out out to the regional system. And then we've got storm water management. It's very critical and it's it is is required by law that we manage our runoff and make sure we're not increasing or decreasing what is leaving this piece of property. So those detention basins, those basins will be used as part of the natural system and the recreation system. Next would be the mix of use. Again, dealing with the comprehensive plan and the direction it gave us. These orange areas are places for civic uses, commercial, office, um, restaurant, uh, residential, um, any, uh, number of residential types, but that's kind of the higher density, if you will, of the entire development, which seems logical. It's next to the city. It's part of the city. It's an extension of the city. It's also next to the school, which is a great opportunity for our future school children to be able to walk across the street, not take a bus from two miles away because this school campus will become over time in the middle of the city, not on the edge of the city, which it is today. So, we're building city around it. What might that look like? Retail properties upper left. or might have restaurants, uh, neighborhood conveniences of dry cleaners, second

story offices for dentists, orthodontists, accountants, could be bank branch, any number of uses, outdoor dining opportunities, places for people to get out and what I hope is going to be in the springtime soon. Also within that mixed use area be attached single family town homes. Folks that don't want to leave Johnstown or want to come to Johnstown because of everything it has to offer but don't want to have to mow 2 acres of lawn. Want to be in walking distance to retail and restaurants and have a high quality residential property. They're going to be multif family. These could be for sale, they could be for rent, they could be twotory, threetory, they might have retail on the ground floor and uh residential above. Also, senior living, thinking about people wanting to come to Johnstown and stay Johntown through their entire life cycle, going to senior living, patio homes into maybe assisted living, maybe even into critical care. So there are steps along the life cycle without being in the city. And then there's some pure commercial opportunities. As I mentioned, we're contiguous to mink and visible and uh accessible off of mink. Uh maybe an opportunity for us to have uh drugstore, something that's more uh regionalbased. uh uh places to to shop and to bank, pick up dry cleaning. And then lastly, filling in what is largely the cultivated land is the single family residential. And that is a mix of product. It isn't just big homes. It can be more modestized homes, what we

call traditional lots. They may have alleys with garages. Think of Clintonville or German Village in the city of Columbus or many portions of Granville that have this type of housing stock, high quality architecture, but on smaller lots with walkable streets and friendly neighborhoods. in the neighborhood lots, what I would I call more of the conventional housing stock for young families, twocar garages, threecar garages, two-story bedrooms for kids, basement. Again, all in walkable neighborhoods and also the patio homes for old guys like me who don't necessarily want to be walking up and down steps or to mow lawns to have a lot of living space on a single level with garages. maybe a second story loft for kids or uh weekend guests coming to visit, but all of those may be will in fact be sprinkled about. You can see these yellow spaces are really defined by one perimeter property lines and roadways, but also it's the green space. It's what the flood plane and the floodway and the green space provides for us in terms of developable ground. So all of those uses together, uh, I'll start at the bottom and work to the top. The open space, the green is 25% of the entire site. So that is a fair amount. That's a lot of open space. That's not just pres preservation, but that's new parks coming online. Secondly, the blue is uh expansion of the academic campus. That's right now shown at 16 acres. That may be bigger, that may be smaller. Uh but it

is directly adjacent to the existing campus. The single family again the cultivated ground is about 40% or 160 acres and the mixed use the core and the commercial space is is 10% of the overall the development character is critical. I I I and I say that in all seriousness. This is not a subdivision. This is a community. We're creating an expansion of the community of Johnstown. We're we're approaching this through conservation development principles, which says we're dealing with open space first. We're going to preserve what mother nature has given us and then we develop around it. The street network is more than just about moving automobiles. It's about public domain for bikes, for pedestrians, dare I say even for bridal trails if we want to have that wide of a light of way, but it is interconnected of all the neighborhoods, not just moving automobiles, architectural style and materials. This does not want to be a monoculture, but it wants to be of a quality that is is consistent with Johntown. It doesn't want to look like any other community that we can point to around central Ohio. wants to be specifically Johnstown, but we'll have a kit of parts, architectural standards, development standards because there will be a number of homebuilders involved and and developers involved in this over time. Everybody's going to be playing from the same song sheet so that we ensure that we have the quality of goods at the end of it all. And then developmentwide identity. We're in Johnstown, but when we get into the community of Johnstown, and this is will be the newest part, uh we want people to feel as if they are truly entering the city of Johnstown, not some other suburban uh residential development.

The next steps will be um I'm going to let Jill speak to this as well. We need to go through the planning process. Your code suggests that for planned development uh zoning, it has to be a minimum of 350 acres. We're just over 400 acres. And we truly want to come in with a planned development so everybody can see exactly what the picture of the long-term vision is going to be. This property is still in the township. It needs to be annexed into the into the city of Johnstown. So annexation and zoning uh two separate undertakings but simultaneous in terms of uh timing. So, we'll be before planning and zoning commission. We'll be before this body over time, and at the end of it all, we'll have a an approved development plan, and we'll move forward over time. David can speak to this, but I don't think there's any schedule relative to development. It's what the market dictates, and we'll build this thing over time, over phases. I'm going to go back to this plan because something tells me you wanted to chat about this. By the by the gray lines on this plan are what we see is the arterials connecting Mink to Caswell and then connecting down to Duncan Plains. A whole series of local streets and roads and alleys within that. But don't think of this as being 55 mph superighway. This is not. But these are going to be broad corridors that have trail system uh vehicular way. Many of them may be bombarded. But uh that's the the skeleton if you will of the whole

development. I'm sure I missed something. Thank you. We'd be happy to entertain any questions. Jill, who is legal counsel? Uh, or David or myself. Mayor, the floor is yours. Does anybody have any comments or questions? Sure, we do. When are you guys hoping to start this project? Not the zoning, but when when would you like to break ground?

Uh, that's a good question. Um, it kind of works around the uh the annual season. I I don't know how long it's going to take to get through all the planning and the zoning and and all the administrative work that we have to do, but I couldn't see us starting in November. Um, if it's going to take us all summer to get through that process, we're probably looking at next spring. How many households do you expect to bring into this area? I knew that question was coming. I've got to follow up with it. So,

uh, you know, we've we've done various planning on how to mix the commercial mixed use, which is a little bit more dense with some of our lower density product. And to throw numbers out there, it could be anywhere from 800 to,200 units depending on how we kind of put the pieces together. But it's all going to depend, a lot of it's going to depend on the math that we come up with when we're working with uh um with Dr. Wagner with the school district. We need to look at, you know, what kind of demands we're going to be putting on the uh the school system here, how we're going to build into that. We want to do this organically with all of our basically all of the stakeholders here. So those numbers can change based on what uh what uh the city council determines as the test of action. We can we can be flexible.

One of my one of my concerns is that currently the city of Johntown has about 1,200 or about 1,200 U households or 12 or 1600. But when you take that and divide it by our general fund, our expenses right now, it's coming out to about $1,200 per household. And the median household in Johnstown is about $90,000. So at a 1% income tax rate, we're bringing in $900 has cost us $1,200 to service a household. So we're we're already underwater. And that's part of the reason why we've tried to bring up the tax in the past is to to fix that. Um what value of homes are you looking at? Um what median income of family? There's there's a lot to go into it because we we can't keep building and digging as a hole where we are financially and add more homes that that are going to cost more. So,

well, I I think you you have two issues here. You've got just the raw number of homes that are coming to the area. Um there's a certain amount of commercial that's going to be coming into this as well. So, that potentially offers a slightly different addition to the tax base than just building a neighborhood. Mhm. So, I think it's going to behoove all of us to get together in a room with our calculators and figure out what the math tells us is the right mix. And you guys are open to that then? We're very open to that. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

I have a question regarding the green space that's surrounded by the residential. Um, when we talk in the presentation, it's it's basically parkland and I know a lot of people like that. And your vision for this is that parkland going to be if the the green space is that going to be deed over to the city of Johnstown for the Johnstown for the city to care for it or because it's surrounded by all the residential being that this is a new residential area. A lot of those have HOAs and stuff. So is that going to be towards the deed to the HOA where citizens maybe in Concord or wherever wouldn't be able to take part in that nice environment that is being built? I guess that's probably the question. probably a combination of all of that. Okay. I think there are certain areas that um

are pretty dog on sensitive environmentally that I don't think we want a lot of feet trapesing through them. So those would be pure preserves. Now somebody's got to own it and when a tree falls you'll need somebody's got to deal with it, right? So I don't know that answer. Now, will there be some uh internalized green space that's part of a neighborhood where there's a play area and maybe a open field to kick a soccer ball? It probably follows would be under the domain of the HOA. Okay. Some combination there. There's uh regional trail systems as well, park systems. So, there's uh various ways of skin that cat, but we just want to make sure that all the sensitive green space is preserved. that that is usable is in fact usable by humankind. So we can bike and walk through and we need a place for kids and adults to play. We need to provide that play and recreation space.

Who owns it? Not quite sure. Let me expand on that question. When we talk about kids playing, do you envision any of that plus or minus acres in the green where it would be 20 acres plus that is ball diamonds rectangular field space for lacrosse and soccer cuz when I see the water corridors going through there that does not that those two don't go together not so well right so when we talk about play you know that's what I think about play with my 12year-old and his buddies.

Um, play could be defined in many different ways, but I don't I don't see a uh plus or minus 20 acres out there of rectangular field space for soccer fields or lacrosse fields when we talk about going out there to kick a soccer ball around. Am I fair to say that that probably doesn't exist? That it's more of passive green space than active green space? I think that I think the green swaths that you see around the stream corridors, you're absolutely right. They're they're they get wet. They're meant to get wet, right? Of course. Now, there's some of those that could be put into fields that do in fact go underwater from time to time.

That's part A lot of parks are built on flood plane spaces um is is is fairly flat. That's cultivated ground. This has been cultivated ground. Might there and that's a huge piece of property by the by, right?

Might there be some ball diamonds and and pickle ball and basketball courts there? May very well. We have not had any, at least I haven't, I won't speak for David, have had any conversations with the JYAA. We've got a lovely facility directly adjacent to us. We have met with Dr. Wagner talked about that campus, but it seems to me that whole corner of the world, JYA, Green Chapel, and the school. Yeah. Right. For from my perspective as one council member, that's something I'm going to want to delve into at great length about what that looks like. Um,

Belt Park is plus or minus 28 acres and I'd say probably a good 12 acres is unusable because the change in topography and elevation and it's already um baseball field serves as soccer fields as well too, which is not uh long-term sustainable. So, yeah, I'm going to want to now's not the time and place, but but uh just putting it out there as you guys start to put this together and and what that may look like. Agreed. Agreed.

When you look at the vision for the mixeduse development, I travel all around so I see a lot of different types of mixeduse development. Are you looking at that as strictly commercial space on the bottom and then putting some apartments on the top of those or kind of like a mixture of some tightly grouped single family with the apartments and commercial on the bottom? Yeah, I don't I don't see it being a one or the other. Okay. The successful mixeduse developments and gals and guys in my business and Trevor you can comment on this. They say mixed use when they don't know what else to say. Okay. And in fact, a mixed use, you can go to our downtown, we've got a mix of use there.

We do.

And and it's not just horizontal mix of use where houses are behind a commercial strip, but it's vertical mix of use where I got an apartment or a dentist office above a restaurant and everything in between. So from my vantage point, as long as the scale is right, you know, we're not building these massive huge edififices, which I don't think are in scale for the city of Johntown. They might be for uh suburban Atlanta, but not for Johntown. But if we can get the right neighborhood commercial that satisfies not just this development, but everybody that is currently in the city for the types of services that we need, dry cleaners, banks, fill in the blanks, all the things we do on Saturday morning, plus places where we can walk and get a bite to eat or a cup of coffee, dentist office, attorneys, land planners, any number of things. But that that whole mix has got to be well planned and has to have sufficient parking, sufficient visibility and walkable. It can't be imposing. It has to be walkable. So I can go from this restaurant to a parked car over to the dry cleaners.

Yeah. And right now all we have is an orange block. Sure.

I guess when I was looking at this, if it was something that you guys had thought of, Mr. done. This is a question for you included is did you look at anywhere else in central Ohio that has a newer modern mixeduse new build and I and I think a couple people have hear me bring this up. One of the ones I'm very very familiar with um cuz they're actually a client of mine in my professional world is Evans Farms up in Lewis Center and I don't know if you guys are both familiar with that. So when I think mixeduse development that's what I think of and I I encourage the public to go look at that mixeduse development because it's actually quite nice. It really is. It is. And it kind of when it was first being built was out in the middle of the field, but it's filling in fast up there.

So that's I didn't know if that was kind of like your model, what you were looking at for that. And and you make mention of that project, and I I don't want to cause any of us to be thinking that we're going to go look at X, Y, or Z. We're going to And I'm not suggesting that you're suggesting that, but

that is of a nice scale. It's got beautiful architecture. It isn't necessarily um uh outrageously expensive architecture, but it's very tidy, nice, clean architecture. It's got very walkable streets. It's got some curbside parking, so lazy guys like me can park my car and jump in and get a cup of coffee on my way to the office as opposed to searching for a parking lot. If you're going to be there for 3 hours and go to a restaurant, there is a parking lot. We've got it in in New Albany as well in the center of New Albany. PAL Dublin Granville. That's authentic mix of use in Granville, Ohio. So, um I I think yes to all of that and I'm anxious to get started on figuring out that puzzle of what that downtown looks like.

And I just have one more question and I'll shut up for the rest of council to ask. Do you already in this planning stage have developers in central Ohio local to central Ohio that are ready and waiting for quote unquote an approval for this to get off the ground? They're like, "Hey, we're interested in building. We're ready to come in." We have several okay uh that have been waiting now for several years and uh I the last time I had lunch with one of them and uh we left very cordially and I just basically said, "I'll give you a call when we're ready." and and so they're they're waiting and uh just being very patient at this point.

Thank you for answering my questions. To piggy back off of what Matt said, so you had you can look at it today and say 800 to to,200 residential units. Um but as far as mixeduse commercial units, office type things, retail, all the above, you couldn't put like an exact amount of units on that? No, sir. Okay. Just can't I I do know this that we've got what I think is a very lovely downtown district here and we whatever we do here cannot be sucking energy from that and if done right

it doesn't and we've got examples of that around this region. How do you do that? uh be very careful as to how you tenant it, the kind the types of developers that you invite into it. How do you protect the moms and pops, I think, is the crux of the issue. I look at in the history, I mean, you don't you don't want to make it a ghost town down there where everybody wants to come to the new area. So, how That's right. I think I'm really interested in how you protect downtown.

One is connectivity. Again, I'm a 14-minute walk from here to downtown. 14-minute walk. I walk further than I drugstore in my neighborhood to pick up a prescription on Saturday mornings. So, roadway connectivity so that if I go to Black Diamond and there's a line out the door, I pray to God there is a line out the door that I can jump right back in my car and I can be here in two minutes or three minutes. I can ride my bike and get an ice cream cone here. Moms and pops. um Dar I'll call them the local business gals and guys um got to be encouraged to maybe participate in this development and that gets backfed with something else. It has to um we have we have to be careful with the scale of this so it doesn't overshadow that connectivity is going to be important making making an offering here that might not exist elsewhere in in Johntown as well. So um inviting those folks as part of that conversation would be welcome. I look at uh the city of Dublin and everybody thought when Bridge Park came along that it was going to suck the life out of the historic downtown Dublin. Did just the opposite. They build a $17 million bridge to get from here to there. But uh that isn't where all the the retail traffic is happening. So we build quality here, it's going to up quality there and vice versa. Do you have more questions?

That's all I have. Does staff have any questions? Anyone? Look forward to working with you. So, so what happens here? And and that's my question. This is a informal presentation, but at some point it becomes formal. if you will, which is the request to annex. So, can Yeah, I was going to say some somebody from your team

Good evening. I'm Jill Tangan with Forest S2 Street. Um I think our in terms of process yes the next step would be starting with annexation I think and we had talked with your council it's been a while now but uh many months ago about starting the process with a pre-anexation agreement so that we all get on sort of the same page that doesn't bind you to any particular zoning or anything like that. Typically, it has some language that says the staff is supportive of moving forward with some conceptual plan that we'll continue to flush out. Um, but we usually start the process with that so that you have a chance before we file an annexation and you're required to react that we sort of have a baseline of an agreement that we are going to annex and this is what we're looking you know, we're all kind of moving forward to that. again can't bind a council to a future vote in the agreement, but it's really meant as sort of a a framework for um you know, starting the process and kind of knowing how we're all moving forward. So, that's what we would recommend. Um that would ultimately come to you for the the agreement would ultimately come to you for a formal vote. So, you'll have plenty of opportunity to vet that before it got there. I I see some of my friends and former classmates in the crowd that are that are neighbors to this property and I think Dr. Wagner's here on behalf of the school and uh Mr. Benton. I'm I know you've had discussions with them. Um their thoughts, concerns, I don't know if we want to

Yeah. there if if there is anyone where or or I'm I'm I'm assuming that you've had discussion with them from your perspective of how they feel about it. They certainly can speak from themselves, but

Sure. Well, we'll be happy to turn over the podium, but I think we've um had lots of very productive conversations with the the school district and Dr. Wagner. Um, you know, and I I believe we're we're moving forward in a cooperative manner, but certainly happy to let them answer uh themselves. Now obviously are a lot I mean this is a large project and and I think um Brian put it best when he said you know this is is going to be a long buildout um and it's going to take time um and there's a lot of details to work out and some of those are not only um the details of the development and the standards and landscaping and architecture and all those things that go with it but there's also a financial component here that we all need to make sure um because the last thing we want is is a project that is not um successful and viable in the long run. So I think um back to your point there there needs to be a lot of discussions um and that can be again that can be a roadmap that we build into the pre-annexation agreement that talks about the donation to the schools that talks about um what econ economic development tools that we might use. maybe it's new community authority or other types of things um that make sure that we're building a a development that um is economically viable for this the city ultimately. And so um I think a lot of those things can you know can get flushed out in that agreement.

Um it won't answer all of the questions because there's still going to be more that come um as we go through all of this. But I do think the the value in going through the process and the pre-exation agreement is putting a roadmap together so that we all know this is this is the process. These are the pieces that all need to go in and and some of that will involve the schools. Last question I have is that you know it we talk about over time. You guys have experience in this, but for the sake of my knowledge and those in the crowd, when we talk about is this over five years, is it 5 to 10 years, is it more like 10 to 20 years, and I'm not looking for the the days and weeks, but approximately, you know, a full buildout would be envisioned in what kind of time frame? Plus or minus 5 years.

I was going to say that Brian and I are trying to look at each other to get a number. My guess my guess is 10. 10. Plus or minus plus or minus but um all things being equal as of today I would say 10. Okay. Thank you. With the u acceptance if council decides of annexation obviously the city has to agree to supply utilities, water, sewer.

Do you have and and our plants right now are going through upgrades which is is a good thing. They're needed. Our plants are older. But do you have any thoughts at all on consumption over that 5 to 10 year build out but what this development will need so the city can plan towards further expansion if necessary or

what we recently started the engineers and there's a lot of engineering behind that plan behind me um and looking at that not only that we're dealing with the survey of exactly where these properties are, topography, weapons, understanding the the lay of the land as it were, but then where are those utility corridors, what are they plugging into, water and sewer, what are those capacity needs, and then what do you have in these plants and what are you planning on putting in these plants? That's all the conversation lays in the future. Okay.

And there's something else that you have to keep in mind as well. you know, assuming we develop this land, well, the land just to the east of us will eventually get developed as well. So, yeah, I think uh we might want to all get together and start thinking about how development goes 15 or 20 years down the road, you know, beyond us when we do that planning. But we do have engineers engaged uh and you know we we are aware that there's utility planning, there's traffic planning, all of those things that need to happen um as we build this plan and and even as we start down the path of a pre-annexation agreement, you know, understanding how those pieces uh plug into this are going to be incredibly important.

Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone uh from the public have question or comment? You can come up to microphone so everybody can hear you. I have a question for council because I don't know how it works and then I have comment. Um would an agreement be made to annexation before you knew the exact plan of how many homes and such? No. No.

No. So that that would be cemented before you make that decision. Okay. Um and just a reminder, Caswell Road, the farms on Caswell Road are still suffering from the water runoff of Concour Crossing. So

I that is our biggest concern. It isn't that we're against development. Um and I can speak for only one household, but there has to be a better plan than what's on Concord Road. And now that we're a city, we have to abide by the MS4 program. So there have to be one water water runoff studies prior to any development and the and council is legally obligated to abide by those. So just a reminder to council. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. They're going next.

Do you Did you want to go? Just so everybody can hear you.

Make it official. Make it official. She's Mike. All right. Um I'll proactively ask uh Mayor Hall some I probably have three or four questions. Is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I want to pick up where Chris was asking because I saw Mr. Kentman nodding his head. So, do you want to formally respond to that? Storm water management. Yeah,

absolutely. I mean, but by by law, we've got to address the runoff from these fields. I have no idea what has happened in the past. I do know there have been some bad things happening with storm water worldwide in the in the past, but we'll be designing storm water management. That's quality and quantity of storm water so that what we send downstream doesn't have a whole bunch of stuff in it. We can't increase that runoff or decrease that runoff. So each of these pods of development will have storm water basins, dry basins, wet basins, ponds so that we hold that storm water and release it in controlled fashion. That is part and parcel of the storm drainage system. The pipes and catch basins and manholes. It's all part of the program. It's baked in as it were.

Just because I'm not familiar with it, is that applicable during construction as well? Yes. During the construction process, there's going to be uh siltation and runoff uh prevention so that we're not sending muddy water down into this amader's uh site, but and then post construction long-term for the duration of the development. Um we've got to make sure we control that. And for example, Miss Hollis, if you look right around the building, the orange that they're putting up is for that exact purpose is to keep the silk fencing to keep the drainage from Thanks, John.

So my sense is by doing that you mitigate the green from getting bigger and wider. That's right. Unless Unless you want to make it wider. If you intentionally want to make it wider for sake of adding a water body. That's right.

Okay. Um then I'll pick up where mayor I mean Councilman Huggin and Barnhard they were asking questions about uh uh not the Tyran warp but the power band. How can you have something like this and preserve the downtown area and my sense is that MKSK is being one of the premier urban designers and planners in all of Ohio. Uh this isn't your first rodeo. So I would ask if you could share maybe an example of another community that's much like Johntown. maybe 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, uh that you uh you were putting together plans like this, but you also uh worked with the city council to preserve uh their culture and their character in their downtown area. Give me some examples of that.

Mr. Kesler assumes I've been doing this for 40 years, but I'll I'll go ahead and answer that. Um I I jumped to Powell, Ohio. Um, I'll go to Dublin, Ohio. When I was a kid driving through there to go fishing with my dad, it was a thousand people. It's now north of 40,000 people. So, it's um that was uh that was monumental growth in Dublin. I think we're going to experience something that is similar, not quite as robust as that. I hope it's not quite as robust as that, but POW Ohio was a crossroads and had some antique shops and a sundre shop. And now drive to Powell, Ohio, and there's restaurants and there's uh residential development directly adjacent that people are walking to those restaurants. They too have put on population 25 30,000 people probably. So, it goes from a a crossroads farming community to a legitimate midsize city. We're working in Plain City, which is looks a heck of a lot like Johntown on the other side of Franklin County. Um, and it is experiencing some tremendous development growth with the same issues of water and sewer and storm water management. Um, but as long as it is planned and is anticipated, you can put the right things in the right place and make sure the roadways work, utilities work, and we're not robbing Peter to pay Paul relative to commercial viability. So, it just needs to be intentional. There's no magic formula. You just have to be intentional and you need to be thoughtful. That's why these things take 20 years to do. This is I'm not going to say how I feel one way or the other in this, but what do you say to the residents because there's there's an there's an old Johntown and a new Johntown. There's a

there's

definitely a divide there. And there's there's a huge segment of the population of not just in Johnstown, but the area that surrounds Johnstown doesn't want to see Johntown grow. And this scares them. This is this is us becoming Dublin or New Albany. And while it's those are beautiful places that we all like to go eat, shop, stuff like that, for a core, for a core percentage of population, they don't want that. So what do you say to those residents that we can say to the residents that things are not going to necessarily change, but it is changing. I think there's a fear. This isn't not the first time I've heard that and this isn't the first community that has, dare I say, the old guard like me who's been here for a couple of generations not wanting to necessarily see things change. Things are changing. Period. End of story. Central Ohio is one of the fastest growing areas in the country. And what Johntown has to offer, like Granville, like Plain City, like Urban Crest, are these one step outside suburbia that have this quality of life, great schools, beautiful streets, lovely neighborhoods, green space, agriculture. They don't want that to change. It's going to change. That is what is drawing people in. Now, how do you accommodate all those folks that come in? You do it in a planned district like that so that I've got places for those folks that are relocating from Warthingington. They want to get out out in the country. Well, the country is changing. Population nationwide is expanding uh almost geometrically. We just have to make sure we preserve the open space. We preserve the agricultural integrity of the place. You'll see in the comprehensive plan that it suggested everything to the north coming around the northeast and down Caswell all

remains agricultural. So we need to make sure we put the housing, put the bodies, put the population in places that we can service them and they don't destroy the character of the place. the architecture, the space, the placemaking that we make on this development, if we do it right, and we're going to do it right, it needs to add to the character of this place, not not obliterate the character of the place. So, I that's all I can say because I'm one of those old guard that certain aspects say I don't want to change anything in my neighborhood, but my neighborhood's changing. So, how do I control it intentionally? Thank you.

Um, let me ask this succinctly for people who don't think as abundantly as you guys. Um, so what's the number one what's the what's the key enabler to this and what's the number one barrier to this question? Oh my annexation.

I I think there's some of the um uh the uh mechanics of of development, community development, sewer, water, storm drainage, roadway, finances. How the heck do we afford this? How do we build this? Uh the last thing in the world any builder or developer wants to do is have a suffering development. So it's in the best interest of the developers for this thing to thrive, which is in the best interest of the city. That aside, I think the quality of the place and it is just this 402 acres. It's this 402 acres added to the rest of this city. What is the quality of the place? It's walkable streets. It's neighborhoods. It's great schools. It's great athletic facilities. It's Friday night football. It's a downtown core with some restaurants. It's new restaurant offerings. We're going to have more bodies here. So, we're going to need more restaurants. We're going to need another dry cleaners. we're going to need fill in the blank. So, it's building that community that draws people to it. I mean, you think about any of our neighborhoods, wherever you live, it's about that sense of community, have a neighbors, walkable, bikable, and I don't have to drive to Warthington to get a quart of milk. I can I can get it right here. So, it's building community at every turn. Architectural quality placemaking.

What's the biggest barrier? Huh? Well, don't don't read the news today. Um, but it's I think it's largely financial, if not almost exclusively financial. How do we afford to build this? And then once we build it, how do we afford to maintain it over time? So, it all comes down to in this capitalist society, how we afford to build things and maintain it. So if we get the right developments, the right folks, the right businesses, the right builders, and we attract the the right, as they say, purses and wallets into the community that can afford to finance it, we'll be fine. He says,

my last question, I warned you. No, it's it's great. That was that was a great question. Probably Dr. Wagner.

Um, so my sense is these are untested assumptions and probably I'm going to say something erroneous, but it seems like we've got a lot of revenue coming in the school district. Uh, no, it feels like it. Anyway, my question is going to be you can you provide clarity. So, my sense is we're going to have a lot of revenue coming in from all the businesses that that are uh in the business park out. Um, but as we grow with housing and things like that and we need more facilities in the schools, I've forgotten more about the school school district than I can remember, but you can't use operating money to to build new facilities. Is that correct? No, that's not correct. That's not correct. You can't.

So, why don't you just come up and provide clarity? I guess what I'm asking is what would the school's strategy be to uh to facilitate and enable all this growth because uh it's obviously going to be a burden on the school at some point in time. How are we going to enable that? Okay. What question you want me to start with first?

Are you going to start with first? Financials with the school district. Um, one of the things with and I I didn't prep remarks tonight, so this is impromptu, but I'll do this off top of my head. One of the things that is um kind of a a myth is that we have all this money coming in from this commercial development. That's not here yet. It should be once there is payroll tax coming in. But, you know, because of the way the abatements are set up, we get a little bit of money because of, you know, real estate transfers and all too, but there are things like I can tell you with Intel, we were just looking at this today. Um, we have an exemption of over $24 million on that property that we don't see that you know that that extends beyond those things were negotiated beyond the school district. So, that's a lot of property that we're not going to see any kind of money. Now eventually there should be payroll behind that and that's the compensation model we have much like the model that we have with the city of Johntown which eventually when there's growth. So I think that's one question. Um from a growth standpoint and and this is the thing I I will tell you I think I can speak on behalf of the school board. It does not incentivize a school district to grow. you know, like there's we're just over 1,600 students. We've lost some students because of homes that have been demolished in the school district, but if we become twice that size, there's no advantage to us. But our role and responsibility is to be reactive to the community. So, if there needs to be more rooftops, which I understand why that needs to be, you know, for housing, for other factors, um, and I I understand that, then we will respond accordingly. We have a plan in the school district and I know I've reviewed this with with most of council um that we can nearly triple the size of the school district um enrollment and to do that we would need a new high school, we need a new elementary school and then we have to reconfigure the whole school district.

Um that would be about $und00 million in capital expenses to do those to the high school and elementary. Uh the board has been board of education is very conservative and we have a little bit of that construction money available but nowhere near anything like that. So we would have to put a plan together. Um Mr. Bar when you ask about or the discussion was I think Mayor Holl said it too about pre-annexation agreement like we want to have some discussions. I've been open with the Dun family. 16 acres is wonderful but it's not enough

in order to put a campus together. We would probably need closer to about 30 acres. Some of it depends on the buildability and I've talked to Mr. Ginselman about this like if you see the blue area right there when they showed this to me you have a stream through there I need to I need to understand jurisdictional as aspects of that we need to know you know there's some things that we said when he had a few minutes he'd look at that I think a part of that needs to be and we had discussion about parks and wreck as well too like just conceptually when I first saw this I thought you even kind of invert some of those you know the green for the blue because you might be able to put some that's a 100-y year flood plan I don't know what's there we'll have to look into that but you know might be some opportunities but we need more land than that. But I do think parks and wreck would be a part of that. And we talked about that conceptually. Um I think it was about 5 acres or so that we could get some of that flat land now too. So

there anything else I can answer for the council? Thank you. Anything else? Um, I will really tell you and I I've not had a recent conversation with school board about this, but I do agree with the pre pre-anexation, I should say, uh, pre-annexation agreement. I I do think that would be a very good discussion to start laying out all these things. And I I know you said you'd get back to us at some point, but we want to talk about

viability of of some of this from a growth standpoint. Mr. Bernard asked this question. Our residential housing, whether it's a single family home or apartments, typically have generated about 0.8 to 1.2 students per household. That data needs to be updated because things have changed and you know like we have we're watching Leafy Dell with that I think it's 72 to 74 unit apartment complex coming in there at some point. It seems like that's been process for some time. So we have some modeling, but we'll need to we'll need to know a lot more than this. I'm not sure if we're still calling the gateway project, but what we did with, you know, recently in that other area, which I think was a minimum of about 1200, you remember that.

One of the things we requested with the planners on that was to talk about how many students would be generated. I'm doing it off top my head, but um of those possible 1,200 units at that time, I think it was like 60 to 70 students. And it was because of the way the units were constructed, they were, you know, smaller. Yeah. Well, they were targeted, you know, typically young professionals five and older. I mean, there's not going to be and then if I recall about 5% of them were three bedrooms. There wasn't it wasn't really that, you know, there wasn't going to be a gap generating out there. So, those are the kind of things we'll need as a school district to know what's the projection,

you know, and then we can factor that into the model and again, we have that build out. And I know I'm putting you on the spot, but as far as phasing, if your ideal situation for phasing how unit what 800 to,200 units, what would be ideal for the school phasing? Would it be in 200 inc, you know, 200 unit increments? Would that be? Well, first I'll say just planning in general is great that that's going to be the So we put that together. Um, but what Mr. Barnhard ask is an important question when and he asked about price points for units generally like when you think about a school district and we have potentially 13 years we're educating students

if you have a more affordable product whatever that would be you sometimes have to pull you pull students through 13 years that affects your school district you know facility needs Johntown as it currently sits right now my impression I don't really have any data behind this but because values have gone up so much because of all the potential development area. It seems as though we're getting more like second home families now, too. So, it's we're starting to load a little bit more on like I would say middle school, high school, and that's what you sometimes see.

More affordability pulls through 13 years, less affordability, more expensive homes is going to typically load on the back end of that. So, you may be middle school on that. So that would affect your your school district, you know, um in terms of capital needs or building needs during

I know you have a great model for growth based on um enrollment numbers. Um I was just curious how many um and I know that's across the districts. It's a hard it's a tricky question, but um when we're looking at this because we still do have that other 1,200 units too that we're you know we have to make sure that we balance everything. So, and obviously we want to do it congruently with the school and make sure that we're we're growing accordingly. Um, yeah, that that project again was 60 or 70 students. My concern there as we all work together on this is what is that doing for water and sewer? What does that do for first responders, you know, roads, you know, all those other things because we're a part of that as well too. Yeah, I agree.

Does anyone else have any questions for Dr. Wagner? Good. You're off the hook. Okay. Are there any more questions or comments from the public? Anyone? Sure. If um we could email it to if is that okay? It's already it's if you want to send an email to any of us or to Teresa, then she can email you the the document. Thank you. Okay.

Yeah. So, how many different price points will there be and where would they be at and how many of them of of each? Do you have any guess? Don't have a guess, but I think it will be a full range of price points. want to exclude everybody uh from school in Johntown. So I think it could be starter homes, it could be workforce level housing as as as we hear uh some of the traditional uh home sites, the larger uh conventional home sites. There there's places on this piece of ground. I think there's a market for larger very expensive estate lots. People are going to want to build a million half dollar home, $2 million home. You don't have to you don't have to stretch too far to spend a million half dollars on a home these days. But the moral of the story is I think as the adage goes, the market speaks. And what draws people to a place like this is going to be the quality of these schools, the sense of community we have here, and the improved sense of community that we build here. That's going to cause people to come in. All price points, big homes, little homes. What's that mix? No idea.

And there's even some apartments as well. And some apartments as well. Do you have any idea where how you're going to place each price point?

No, I got some ideas relative to the topography and the water courses where you're not going to have big expansive neighborhoods. You're going to have more smaller enclaves. But um really don't I mean I think around that mixeduse core there might be some patio homes places for folks of my generation that can walk to restaurants and don't have to get in the car and drive or go get some sundries. Um and then maybe more traditional home sites that are out in the developable ground a little bit further south. But don't know again as David suggested he's had conversations with some developers. We're blessed in central Ohio to have some of the best home builders on the planet in central Ohio and we haven't even approached that point yet, but I think they will come calling him wanting to see this plan as it moves forward.

Thank you. To follow up on Eric's question, I'm assuming you would probably take into consideration the existing homes around there would be part of your planning, not just the topography, but would exist with um That's right. Right. That's right.

And these edges are particularly uh important to us where we're up against someone's properties right now. how it might be cultivated fields. Is it going to be cultivated fields in the future? Don't know that. So, we're going to have to be very sensitive and talk to these property owners as we start to plan uh that that neighboring development. Yeah. And we can do a lot of work with landscaping to soften the edges around. Sure. That's right. Perimeter as well. Oh, go ahead. Um, if you had your preference, what would be phase one? Where would you start? It'll be the top 200 acres. I think it'll be up here.

I think it'll be next to the blue and the green building here.

I think that's the that's the shorter part. We're tying into roadways that already exist, making a connection. The sewer and water runs are a little bit lesser. So, it makes some sense to start where we've got the utilities um and then work that way. And and and I think that helps to dare I say put a stake in the ground that we can demonstrate visually the quality of the place in that mixeduse development, what some of the commercial spaces look like, some of the residential spaces and really set the tone for the for the signature of the place community. So that being said, the land for the school and the the green portion would come in say the first phase also.

Yeah, we've I I've only had a conversation or two with with Dr. Wagner on exactly what the school system needs long term in that campus. We want to we want to be as accommodating as possible. And I think there might be some other ways to reconfigure some of the stuff up around the school to better use some of those bulb fields and how that sort of integrates with with our property so that they can kind of spill over the property line if they need to. I just think it's important to point out that would be like a year one, not a year 10 piece of the puzzle. Okay. Right up front. Yeah. This is our first conversation with you all, not our last. Right. Sure.

I have a I have a question about your um the apartments. I I know you don't know how many is coming or you know exactly where they're going to be, but I know in our first PD district out there in the in the gateway, we did I do believe and I could be wrong, we put an occupancy rate on those um which was like a onebedroom had two people, twobedroom had more than four people. Um would you be willing to discuss that as well? Sure. Sure. Okay. You open to that occupancy rate basically saying we don't want 15 people in an apartment? No. and and we're gonna we're going to have pretty high standards. Yeah, I I believe I I I don't doubt you at all, but I just want to talk about those occupancy rates,

Miss Shook. That's actually already covered under Ohio law standards per bedroom. So, you can only have two in a bedroom. Just making sure it's enforced. Well, it's already part of the code. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have anything? Anyone in the public? Anything else? Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you this evening. Yeah, we appreciate you coming in. Thank you. All the way from Texas. You want to take a 5m minute recess just to let everyone

There we go. You guys good? Yep. Uh, next on the agenda is citizen comments on matters not on the agenda. Did you get any speakers left? I did get one here. Speak now. You got three minutes. And uh, is the timer working? Yep. Good. just shut off the microphone. I know it shocks you.

Yeah, my name is Mark Bambier. I'm a candidate for Lincoln County Commissioner coming up in May. Just want to introduce myself, but I do find it interesting the exact conversation you had tonight. I've heard it in the task, heard it in Atna throughout Lincoln County. Um, just give you a little background myself. I started out as a as a village council member in Kerville and then I've been a township trustee for over 24 years. in Harrison Township. In 2008, I was appointed as a county commissioner. Um, got beat, I'll be honest, went back as a township trustee. Um, we have a farm family, my brother, my wife, and I called Van Beer and Acres down in Kirkersville where we ate. It's really interesting to watch the kids when we talk about school kids. How many of them come through the farm? They don't understand where their food come from. And that's where it is. some of the different committees I've been on and and you can go to my website citizensforrevanure.com and it'll have everything I've done over the last three years here in Lincoln County. Um I'm on the Westl lookinging joint fire district board and probably the board that really ties to Johntown. I'm on the transportation improvement district and it's really interesting the challenges that you face and the amount of money we are able to funnel from the state to help you for instance on Route 37 and 62 and some of the developments that's coming on the west of town and the pressures you're going to see. I don't want to take a lot of time. I just want to I'm a big believer in local government and the conversation you had tonight with the residents be able to ask questions and get involved. I encourage that everywhere I go. And with that, I'm g quit a little early. Um, if you have any questions, you can look at me in Facebook, my website. I can give you my phone number if you really want it. It's 7448656

and anybody can call me. I don't care if you call me 2 in the morning. I'll may answer. And if you want to meet with me anytime, I'm happy to come up here. Uh, I was here for a meeting with the mayor a few weeks ago. I was telling her I remember as a kid stopping in this building and buying donuts when we used to when I was in FFA and we'd come through Johntown to go to different contests. Um, I graduated from Watkins Moral High School. I have a business degree from Ohio State University and I have an MBA in finance from and Mount Vernon Nazarine University. Any questions? I know you have a busy evening.

What kind of donut did you get? I tell you what they had the long john. I know. That's what he's talking about. You guys laugh, but they were the best donuts. No, we laugh cuz we know. Yeah. Any other important questions? No, that was the most that's the only one I could think of. Visit the warriors here. You can get them still. Long Jones. See, I remember when you had Sub City. Yep. And Plaza Beach. And when all of them I'm done on the chair board, we have no place to eat except those two places. Yeah. Thank you very much. I appreciate you so much being. Okay. Good luck. Thank you.

Okay. Next on the agenda is uh council committee reports. Design review board met um they did not meet on March 24th. Next meeting is April 14th at 5:30 in council chambers. Planning and zoning met on uh March 25th. Next meeting is April 14th at 6:30. Kyle, do you have an update on that? Yeah, we uh unfortunately had to take the mural off the table. Um they didn't show up again. So that's for

Mhm. So if they would like it, they'll have to reapply, unfortunately. Um we did two lot splits, uh one for the city and one for the Granville Milling Company so that they could, you know, fulfill their drive-thru. And then we did get light manufacturing pushed up uh to council. I was uh Teresa, I thought that might be on this agenda. Was that there's some requirements for uh I can't send it like less than 20 days, so it'll be on next agenda. I figured it was something like that.

Cool. That's it. Uh okay. Safety and service met tonight. Um, next meeting is May 6th. Uh, Ryan.

Yep. We, uh, discussed key fobs and entry into the building and how that's currently working with our staff and council members and the school board. Um, we had an update on our damaged well. We discussed um further road repairs and future planning for those um and our strategy and uh briefly discussed the DORA um which we will talk about in other business as well. And uh that was it.

Facilities committee um will be scheduled as needed. Does anyone from facilities committee have any updates on anything or comments? We're still continuing to work with the American Legion on their amendment to their lease. Um we we hope to have a a final so that they can uh that that's palatable for both and continue to house them there and kind of work with the plans that they want to do. So yeah, at this point it's in their court. Yeah. Okay. They they've got it. We're waiting on them. Okay. we've done our due diligence and good work.

One question that I have to piggy back off of that um for business from our last meeting. Um Dave, have we started work on the CIC yet? Yes. Okay. Actually, Frost Brown is actually Okay. Thanks, Dave. Did they give any kind of timeline, Dave? Did they give any kind of timeline on how long that would take to get that? Uh, Em was Kelly was working on it. I'll reach out again next week. Okay. A week or so.

Okay. Uh, rules committee meets as needed. Um, Matt, did you have anything for We haven't scheduled any type of rules meeting since the last one. We haven't even put in a chair at this point. So, I have put myself up for chair. So, I we probably should schedule one at least to make a formality of addressing a chair. Um, and anything else anybody else wants to talk about with rules? You want to do that right now? Um, we can. I can't Who else is on rules? Uh, Donn Ryan. Yep. Oh, okay. I think we could probably keep it relatively short. Do we want to do it? So, our meeting the 21st, we have a work session.

Mhm. We have a work session that day. Is there finance also? There will be finance that day. So, that's a full meeting. What do you need? Maybe 10 minutes. I don't really think I mean unless somebody has something they really desperately need to bring up the rules committee that's a they believe is a huge violation or a change of the rules. any ultimate discussion. Is there anything that would keep you guys from just voting on it right now? I don't think so. We'd have to call a meeting to order. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. We would have to Can I mean, we'd have to advertise 24 hours, call a meeting to order. Do we just want to schedule one for like May or June and just do it then and knock it out then? We could look at like half half the year and say this is what's been going on.

Yeah, we I mean I I mean I'm fine with that. Okay. So, we have May 6th. Yeah, we can do it May 6th. I'm It's a Wednesday. That good for you, Donnie? Yeah. Yeah. So, we're moving council's that night. Sorry. Yeah, council's that night because of the election, I guess. So, are you splitting the time with safety service or just Can we just meet at 5? Yeah, we'll meet at 5. Safety and service will be 5:30.

Perfect. Okay. Um, next is the Greater Johntown Parks and Recck District. Um, Miss, do you have any updates? Um, yeah, they met um the last Thursday of the month. They, um, didn't really, um, they doing a bid for their liability insurance, talked a little bit about, um, their participation in the fireworks committee, also talked a little bit about their comprehensive community event planner and website committee. Um that will be discussed I think more at the nonprofit organization meeting which I believe is they're getting together again in April and um community needs and survey review. Um they wanted to do schedule maybe a working session to figure out their goals, priorities and initiatives. And that is about it. It was a a little over an hour.

Okay. Uh next on the agenda is director reports. Um Jack, do you have anything?

Yes. I'll I'll be uh brief with this. The pain points here is item number one, the water plant uh update. Construction is really taken off now. We've got a little bit of better weather. We're doing a lot of underground work right now. Um tying in the new main lines from the well fields uh to the plant. We are having to do a lot of shift manipulation so they can work and tying because the plant can run or tying the new 16inch lines in and tying the wells into the new 16inch line. So, a lot of work's really going on there. I'm just going to give you an update. the clear well. The new plant was originally designed to have a clear well, an additional clear well, additional below ground holding um to use in case the plant was down or or or just during heavy flow situations due to cost. We eliminated uh that from the project, which it is a critical piece of the water plant. So, I have asked the contractors while they're there to get me some numbers and the engineers to look at it to see what it would cost to put that back into the project because it truly is a necessary piece. And uh so as soon as I get that together, I'm probably going to meet with uh our manager uh Jeff and we'll discuss that and then he'll probably have a presentation to to give to council on on the necessities and why that should be added back in. So I'm just giving you a little pre-notice on that. It'll we'll probably be ready to uh meet with Jeff first and then with council probably sometime in June. Um, jumping on down, the EPA still has the, uh, design plans for the wastewater plant upgrade. Um, so those plans are still 90%, we can't complete them until

we get the EPA comments and then we respond back. Um, for the month of March, we had no leaks. I can't say that for April. We've been been at it already in April. Um, as I said earlier, uh, item 5 J2 is back in operation, but it's in a temporary mode. But after the plant gets a little further along and we'll start replacing those pumps, uh, we do have to make a decision what we're going to do with that well on the screening and the casing and what size pump we can get in there if we do line that pump. So, more information to come on that. Good news, we had two positions open at the water plant. We have filled one of those positions with a very qualified uh good individual and he's paying dividends for us already. He's helped on these last uh two water breaks. So, we still have one position out there that we're looking to fill, but we have got one filled. Uh the last item I want to bring up here is uh I and uh Jeff have been meeting with EMHT almost daily on different projects. As we know, EMH&T uh's primary contract is done, well, was done the end of March. And so, we are in a transition period, handing these projects off, getting me brought up to speed on them, and working with Ferris, who has a contract through Jeff, that was the 1 of June, their contracts up,

I believe. So, we're we're transitioning to them and then we will have to make a decision on who our engineer will be for the rest of the year as we may have a second transition again. But, uh, Jeff and I have discussed probably be good to work with multiple engineers based on their skill level at the different type of projects that we're doing. Sorry, go ahead. No,

I I I just briefly I I've found in the past that that no one engineering firm is good at everything and that it's to an advantage to have two or three firms that are familiar enough with the community um that that uh can be available to work on different projects depending on that company's strength. And so if you're good at building roads, you may not do waterways one. Uh so rather than have a default firm, I think it would be to the city's advantage to have a couple of firms that are available to assist us as projects arise that aren't put out for bid or so forth. So that's what uh that's what we're looking at now. Uh I'll have more information and a formal uh recommendation to you at a later date. So, as I told you, you know, I've been very busy, but a lot of that is being brought up to speed on all these different projects. I'm sure you're all aware of the town has six or seven different projects getting ready to start construction

or new fiber lines coming through, two different fiber uh companies and easement work, and it's it's just taking quite a bit to get caught up on those projects right now. With that being said, any questions for me, water, sewer, or street related? Thank you. Thank you, J. Thank you. Okay. Um, next we have tabled legislation resolution 2026-26, resolution to approve a temporary employment agreement and to appoint interim city manager. Uh, first we have to remove this from the table. So, if anyone would like to make a motion to take this off the table,

I'll make a motion to take it off the table. I'll second. Yes. Jeff Bar. Yes. Shook. Yes. Matthew Huggin. Yes. Donnie Bernard, yes. Brian Green, yes. Mayor Holland, yes. And this so were you asking what this is specifically? Yeah. Yeah. It's um huh just for clarity. Yeah. So originally um Mr. Sheridan was hired under management advisory group basically as a cons I don't know what you can use that consultant. Yeah.

Um upon legal advisement it's better for him to be an employee of the city. So we had to change that. That's why this got tabled and now it's coming back and he's going to be a employee of the city as an interim city manager while we continue search. Understood. The uh temporary employment agreement was attached. I don't know if everyone has a copy of that if you had time to review it if anyone has any questions about that. Um that was that did go through all of legal. Yas and Mr. Reapen off as well reviewed that.

Couple questions on on item number two. Should we state the period that we're going to want him to stay? I I know he works at will of council, but should we have like a twoe period once if he's not the city manager that we pick that the new city manager that we specify a date range that he agrees to like as a handoff period. Um, it's nowhere it's nowhere said stated in there like how much notice we've got to give him if if he's not the person or anything like that. I just want to be clear on that. It doesn't have an exact date, but under number two there, it says employee shall serve as a temporary employee of the city intended to serve until the city's subsequent appointment of a city manager or further action by council, right? We kind of cover ourselves, but

we do. It's hard to It's hard to I agree with you. It's hard to set a target date, though. I would like to at least have two weeks of crossover if I may. He's a employee of the city, right? So he could give a twoe resignation right now and be gone or sit there and say, "I'm done. See y'all later." I don't think there's anything legally that we can bound him by as a city employee. I I would want Ripenhoff to weigh in on that on that piece because it's not like we're hiring a a contractor or consultant where they're bound by the the the scope of what that says.

But what is like but the interim city contract this contract here isn't that kind of I I don't know. I I understand what you're saying. I don't just I agree with you. I just want to keep the city in the best position possible. if we don't go with Mr. Chair. So, and then the other item I have, um, number six, the the rate is really 4,000 a week. It's 3450 after the withholdings and taxes. I just I think that should be worded. That was my question. Number six.

Six. Because if I'm reading it's 3450 subject to all applicable tax and withholdings agreement. If we can have our finance director shed some light on that. That is the gross right there. So the 3450 is the gross. It's not the net. It's, you know, the gross is that $86. Okay. I thought it was the other one.

U in the agreement it was 100, but it was reduced by CRS that the city has to pay and Medicare to come out to $86 and some change. So if you take the $86 and a quarter I believe times it by 40 comes out. Okay. So what was the it wasn't originally 100? It was originally 100. Uh we reduced it by the PRS that since he's an employee the city has to 14%. PRS 1.45 of Medicare. So that was

so it's still 100. We're still putting out a 100 an hour because of those two things. Correct. Well, is there a reg?

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Does anyone else have anything comments or questions about this? What is the will of council on resolution 2026-26? I'd like to make a motion to approve resolution 2 2026-26 as written. I'll second. Matthew Huggin, yes. Denny Barard,

yes. Ryan Green, yes. Hollis, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next, we have resolution 2026-27. Uh resolution authorizing the acting city manager to enter into a professional service agreement with management advisory group. This is um also um the contract for the city manager search as well as consulting and advisory services and it's just an updated contract and this also went through uh legal as well. Yeah. As in Mr. Reenhoff as well.

I I do have a question. Go back to the last one real quick. Does that mean that Dave Delandi is not the We have an acting and an interim. So even when we had even when um previously with city manager, we still had a designated acting city manager. Okay. So Dave's gonna be the acting or he's going to be the interim. Is that correct? Still I would like to know that. Well, as a as as a city employee now, do we need him to actually be the acting to fulfill the charter? Well, I think we had Oh, we always have someone doing this fulfills the charter. Yes. So, we don't technically need Dave in that role, but for all intents and purposes, you still have to have it named. Yes.

Yeah. Can he sign? You're looking at seven. You can get clarification from Mr. Reapenhoff, but I believe that's a good point, Donnie. From Mr. Reapenhoff. I can add be able to be a ser now. Yeah, I can because he's an employee of the city. I can give you an educated guess, but it seems like this satisfies everything in the charter. Either way, you still have the signatory power on any of the finances. So, really, it's kind of semantics, but we can get clarity from legal. Teresa,

I think what I think what you're referring to is there's a requirement that the city manager designate someone in case he should become incapacitated or out of service. So I don't know that it's necessarily the acting but it would become the acting if that happened. So okay I mean right now it's and it continue to be there I'm sure but I'll get clarification. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. So just to be clear with the public about resolution 202627 um is that this is basically like a finder fee for the MAG associate or the um the search firm for providing us with the interim manager. It's to fulfill the contract that we had with Exactly. But just to be clear for everybody here because you know they're just being transparent. This is we're not double paying them. You know, we're paying them a finders fee or a a cons a search firm fee to find us a city manager and then we are also paying them a finder fee because that fulfills Correct. Is that correct? It's two different

Exactly. So, I'm just trying to be clear for the public. I know, but I'm just trying to explain it to the public. What is the will of council for resolution 2026-27? Make a motion to approve as written. A second.

Ryan Green. Yes. Mayor Hollis. Yes. Kyle, yes. Bar, yes. Nicole, yes. Matthew Huggin, yes. Yes. Next, we have uh resolution 2026-28, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement to participate in the Ohio Department of Transportation road salt contracts awarded in 2026. Jack, would you like to elaborate on this?

Uh yes. Every year we uh get into a contract so we can bulk buy with Licking County and the other uh state agencies so we can hopefully get a break on price. So last year we used 515 tons of salt and we actually could have used more but salt was in a shortage last year. So what I'm doing here is uh I've talked with Theresa. I'd like to order 650 ton of salt this year that we get our salt temple filled back up. I think that'll give us a good supply for next year. Okay. Did our uh Middle Eastern salt make it in? Yep. We made it in and we used it.

Oh, good. Was it magic? I'm glad. Sandy looking. I'm glad it made it in before everything happened. And this we're and I'm guessing this salt won't come from there. One comment on his salt. His budget for 25. We extended it over into 26 as we did, but looks like we're not going to have salt to purchase. So, we'll probably end up closing that PO and and we'll be coming back and reappropriating those funds for 26. Good. Okay. What is the will of council for uh resolution 2026-28?

I'll make a motion to pass resolution 2026-28. I'll second. Yes. Matthew Huggin. Yes. Bar. Yes. Ryan Green. Yes. Holland. Yes. Yes. Approved. Next, we have ordinance uh 02-2026, an ordinance to amend chapter 1187 of the city's codified ordinances. Uh this is an introduction and you are on quue. Thank you.

Good. Good evening everybody. I just wanted to provide a brief overview uh for this ordinance that you have uh being introduced to you this evening. So, as you'll recall, in early February, we basically uh the council adopted a resolution initiating this change to chapter um 1187. This is all tied to the design guidelines update that was started at the end of 2024, if I remember correctly. Um so, we worked with council at the end of last year and the de design review board to come up with kind of the the appropriate procedures for these. And so, that is what you see now. Uh this is the ordinance that will amend the codified ordinances. So basically this is the language that allows the design review board to review the applications that they do. At the next meeting there will also be a resolution that contains the actual design guidelines document itself. My understanding is the intent is to if you choose to adopt those documents there will be like always a 31-day delay in the effective date of the ordinance. My recommendation is go ahead and adopt a resolution from new design guidelines that night and probably I I would recommend putting a a delayed effective date on that basically so that the design guidelines and the accompanying ordinance all are effective at the same time. Same time.

Yeah. Um other than that, I wasn't going to go back through all this. I know we've discussed it several times at this point, but if you do have any questions, I'm happy to try try and answer them. Thank you, Trev. We do not need to take any action on this tonight. It was just an introduction. Correct. It is the advertised public hearing. So you want to open it up. Okay. Um open for public comment. Does any member of the public have any comment or questions regarding this hearing? None. But you're correct.

We won't we won't take a vote on any of this tonight. So we can move on. Uh, next we have introduction of legislation ordinance 03-2026, an ordinance authorizing the city manager in the city of Johnstown, Ohio to accept the public dedication of the rightaway to the city from the Johntown Land Company. Uh, Mr. Roenamp, are you here as Jamie?

Good evening. I'm Roen Campb Parkway. Yes, I'm I'm Jamie tonight. So what you have before you is um two rightaway de. Um this goes back to some of the the when Mink Street was widened and there was an extensive and complicated agreement between Jonestown and the city of New Albany that basically put the city in charge of or responsible or New Albany I should say uh responsible for the maintenance of big road. the same time we were going through a bunch of different annotations and zoning. So, this is kind of playing catchup because we could not do this earlier. Um, both of the ride ofway segments are east of Clover Valley and west of Mink Road on the north side of of uh Green Chapel. Be happy to answer any questions.

Does anyone on council have questions for Mr. Rosen Camp? Does our staff have anything to add to this? Seems pretty straightforward, but it's really just housekeeping kind of in it essentially. Yeah. Hopefully it'll be the last one. Yeah. Okay. What is the will of council for ordinance 03-2026? This is a first reading. Sorry. Yep. I It's only first reading because it's an ordinance. So you'll have a public hearing and vote next meeting. Okay.

I will add that they have asked for emergency passage next time. That would be effective because they're closing at the end of the month. Okay. Yeah. This also just what um what Theresa was referring to is um we are you'll also see I guess planning commission will see a lot split for licking rural electric for a new substation site. Um, and that's what's closing the end of the month. So, she's correct. We would like to get this as an emergency when it comes before you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay, moving on to other business. Uh, Miss Shook, do you have anything? Uh, yeah, I have a few things. Um wanted to ask about the temporary land use that's across from Witz. I see that they're setting up camp again and I just want to know if they've been in contact with I think I I've been in contact with you about um our temporary use code and they're going to I would like to make a suggestion this time. The last time we did this um we did not make the fence um

yes alto together because it was said um that there was uh that that hill behind it was um enough coverage that they didn't need to. I highly suggest that we make the a complete circle of fencing so that doesn't fall down every 5 minutes like it did last time and look absolutely horrible. So, if we could, that's my suggestion to make sure that we do that fencing all the way around so it's joined and stays up. Yep. Thank you. You know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? I reached out to Teresa last week on the same project. And is there a way that we could get that through zoning quickly or at least work on something with the fence to where it's driven temporarily into the ground

because I mean with the wind that we have around here, it's how they did it last time isn't going to work. No, it's not. It's needs to be staked or something. I'm glad they put sandbags down and it was like they can have temporary chain link that's driven into the ground. I mean, it just needs to be very sturdy and stayed up. I mean, last time it was a disaster. Yep. Disaster. And it's not the same group. I don't think I group, but it's it was it was very non-appealing. Do you see that? Another option would be to put some penalty down for a period of time and not replaced. Driver,

just just to add in really quickly. Um I wasn't aware of the issues last time, but yeah, I believe I'd have to go back and review the temporary use permit code. I do believe it does specify that everything on the site should be temporary in nature. However, if you have a specific example like this, meaning like it's really not feasible to put temporary fencing out. I think you could put a condition. I want to look in the code and make sure it doesn't preclude you from doing that. But I don't see why you couldn't put a condition that the fencing has to be like staked into the ground and then removed at the end of it just like any other temporary. Yeah, it was it was I think we need to do that because the group last time I mean it was a learning experience for us. That's our first layown site that we've worked with.

But they were diligent at putting it back up every day and it was down overnight. Yeah. So, I mean, I will say even a team that wants it to be up with the winds that we have here probably isn't going to stay up. I would expect that site will get utilized again in the future for the same purpose.

And if that's something that you foresee is going to happen over time, like let's say the next 5 or 10 years, we could always adjust the code to change it from a temporary use to a permanent use. And then you could have actually more stringent criteria of like solid opaque fencing that's permanent. You could have landscaping requirements. it. So, I'm not saying it needs to be done, but if this is going to be a repeat request for the same temporary use on the same site over and over, it might be worthwhile just changing the code to accommodate that and at the same time adding some additional uh requirements with that to help with screening and buffering and those sorts of things. So, just something to think about. We can look at that in other business. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a good suggestion. I agree.

Thanks, Trevor. Um, so another one was um Jack and thank Jack I wasn't here last meeting but I think Jack and Rusty together for getting that back removed from Leafy Dell because it was such a um it was actually deterrent for getting out there safely. So thank you so much for getting that done. I appreciate it both of you uh tag teamed on that. So thank you. Um also um got a question about will we be adding the city manager report to the agenda in the future? I know that Sean's used to be and I don't know just because now he's a he's got voted in. Yay. So, um, inter manager for added that to the report by any chance.

Yeah, I think monthly is good. I know I know Jeff's been sending us weekly emails, which is great. We'll do a version for the public. Yeah.

Great. Thank you. And then um this one I got to be really careful about but um the inter manager and council priorities for the next 90 days um is that can that some so they align about top priorities maybe top five about like what we feel as a as a top five what you feel after doing your research as a top five. Um I don't know if we can do that in a working session or if we can do that needs to be an executive session um because of the sensitive nature or perhaps job performance. So I I'm not real sure. I want to be real careful about that. So, um, but I think it's important that we talk about those 90 days, um, the next 90 days and what priority count of council's priorities may be, top five and Jeeoff, the research that you have done, what your top five might be. So,

I think that would be great. The more clear direction that you can provide me, the better. So, I'm just putting that out there. I don't know how we want to do that or legally can do that. Okay, I'm done. Thanks. Uh, Matt, did you have anything? No, ma'am. No, thank you. Tony? Nope.

Yeah. Um, spoke to you a little bit about it, Jeff. Uh, but I wanted to talk about council's um if everybody thought it'd be a good idea to maybe do an NCA and light manufacturing. So, our current light manufacturing district on anything that comes in that's new putting together something like an NCA. Would it fall under the same one? No, let's do a separate one. No, no. I mean, but that for that particular area for light manufacturing, but I'm not even saying we would limit it to that, but if we I wanted to see if we're are we opening. No, I think it's a great idea. I really do too, Kyle. I don't know if you can make the current businesses join it. That's why I said new business. New business coming in. Yeah, I like I do. I like that. Okay. Okay.

But there's got to be a way if a current business were to expand. Well, they'd fall out of that grandfather. If anything, it would be in zoning, I would assume. So, if they wanted to update their property or anything along those lines, they would have to come out of that and join the NCA. We could also do some advising to get them to join. Oh, yeah. That too. That too. What's the process look like that with that? Should we take that to I would suggest Yeah. would be the best law director to advise on the steps to do that, the pros and cons. I think it makes sense to me, but I've not done one in that way, so I can't speak to the experience of that. Okay. So, is council okay with having Jeff look into that with

Yas? Great. Cool. Thank you. Right. Yeah. So, I have um we started the conversation earlier. Um this is one conversation we started earlier. So, the choosing of the engineer. Um, I agree with the idea of having multiple engineers. Um, I know that we've had engineers apply um to the RFQ that we sent out. So, just wanted to be open with the process and and what all of our expectations are with that. Um, I don't know how many submissions we had exactly. Seven or eight, I believe.

Seven or eight. So, would we have would we choose one out of that seven or eight to be of record? I would suggest no. I would suggest it depends on if we can agree on two of the project. So we'll have we'll have two or three defaults correct for specific areas. Okay. Okay. And then will we as far as the interview process is council going to interview or are we going to have staff handle that or how's everybody last I mean we've done We did it. We've done it both ways. We've had

So, last time we had a broad search council interviewed everybody. Everybody presented in an open meeting, but we have brought engineers on in the past. Um, OM I think is with us now, and that was done just through the manager hiring. Can we have the manager narrow it down to two or three? And I I would suggest that you allow the manager to make the recommendations and you either accept them or not. If you want to meet with the two or three to get to know them, that would make sense. Yeah. I guess clearly if if I select a fir if Jack and I select a firm and at some point you're not comfortable working with them, all you'd have to do is let me know and we'd find an alternative. Okay, that makes sense. I'm not trying to Yeah.

Yeah. I just wanted to get us all on the I'm going to tell you what our experience has been working with those firms for years. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to get us on the same page as far as because we started down the road but we're in a different world now. So yes, that make sense? Yep.

And then my the other conversation we started earlier in safety and service u was our DORA discussion. So safety and service um generally seemed to be semi in favor of having the door discussion um in a broader scope. So we wanted to bring it to council to see how council felt about it. I mean, obviously, we're not going to discuss the whole thing tonight. Um, wouldn't be fair to us or the the public out there watching to dissect into a rabbit hole in another hourong plus meeting. But, um, we need to figure out where we're headed on this. It's a project we've kicked around now the last few years. um if we want to do something with it to be able to have events this year. Um we have a tight timeline on that because it will have to come through our process, go through the ordinance process, go to the state, be approved, and come back. So there's quite a few hoops to jump through before we could enact it. So just wanted to start that discussion amongst council and see what the flavor is. I'm supportive of developing a door.

I'm supportive on an event basis. I also support looking into it. I mean, we said that earlier. You got your four. So, I think is everybody in favor of this or is there people that aren't in favor or there like Nicole said, there's specific She's in favor, but there's specific things. I'm in support of a limited base for the time for a first year or two to see how it works before you roll it out basis um on a daily. I think that would be something like that would like we talked about that would be fine. Yeah. For law enforcement perspective, I think that would be the best. The event basis would be the best. That would be my recommendation. We started as a a vet process.

I think if you talk to the businesses on Main Street, they would disagree. See how that goes and then u the businesses that are going I I think they would disagree having it based on events basis. That is something that we need to look into too and I'm sure you've talked to them is um are all businesses going to participate too that that can you know that have alone involved you know um I would think there would any would be any push back

maybe we bring in a the we do this at a um a workshop where the public can come in and u make comments invite the business the businesses uptown that do have alcohol and that don't have alcohol what ones would allow them to come into their shop with alcohol that no longer like I don't know if the ice cream place is going to want people coming in with alcohol. I don't know. I'm not speaking for them but or if they're or if they're allowed under this. That's what I'm saying. I don't know. We don't know. I don't know that part of it. But I think being able I know people do sip and shop they must be allowed in some capacity. In most cities it's it's up to the business owner. Yeah. The business owner. Yeah. specific before we

I think it does complement an event obviously, but it also I mean the original like basis for DORA being um formed was to drive foot traffic during the time of like COVID and things like that to help um revitalize business districts. So I think that is part the one thing we do have to look at and I think this will severely harm DJI. Mhm. Because I know they get a lot of their revenue from alcohol. I believe I think there's opportunity here that we can make sure that they're they're made whole because I mean just long I just don't want to hurt an organization. Going to the meetings and things and discussing this with them. I think they're

I don't know the revenue so I don't know how it works but I thought they I thought they said they get a big part but they may not. Yeah. Well, they they I think es and flows. Yeah, it definitely es and flows but in that vein of discussion um I don't know if they're limited. They could buy the cups and do the door as well. There are mechanisms here or they could just that cup they they get a there are mechanisms where they can have their own event and have permits and things that they do. There are also mechanisms where they can piggy back off of a bar, I'm sure, and have a joint event

just to try to get us back online that we weren't trying to discuss details tonight. That was in the future, but it sounds like generally speaking, most of council was willing to sit down and develop some kind of door that we could all be supportive of. So, the next step here,

the next step here, and I mean this is something that we've discussed for the last few years. I mean, previous to all of us being on council, this idea was discussed. Um, so I think it's been vetted pretty well. Uh, we brought it in public previously. I think we can obviously bring it public. They're all going to be done in open meetings. I've got this about 3/4 of the way written out. Um, this is a permit process. So I think the question is where do we go from here? Are we It was in a committee earlier tonight. The comm council was good with it would go back to committee. Committee would work on it.

It could go back to committee. If everybody's good with that, it can be done in work session. It can be done a few different ways. But ultimately, if we're going to enjoy the benefits of this this year or even early next spring, we need to get moving on it just because of the general nature of the permit itself with the state. I would be curious to see the financial implications to the downtown businesses, what what their tax revenue looked like this year, like the years before versus the years after to see how much of an impact it does make on the downtown businesses. Cuz if we do do a door and it's successful, the businesses, the city should reap yes,

some tax profit from it. So, I'd be curious to see how that what that benefits like. there without the businesses with there's no DORA there is no you know so it takes I think ultimately you're driving foot traffic to businesses

hopefully if we open this up I mean at least me as one boat I'd be favored of doing this on days off days that aren't typically popular because you're giving them an incentive to go down there but regardless if you drive foot traffic you're driving revenue you're driving tax profit how much. We don't we won't know. Um and I had asked other cities in my research, they weren't always readily available to have that specific metric.

Will there's businesses be open? So like if you want to drive traffic with the door, is it just for the businesses that have um alcohol or is it and or is it for businesses who may close on Monday because there is enough foot traffic may open their doors on Monday to to drive that. So, I mean, it has to be a it kind of has to be a whole um the business is going to want to be open and we're going to do the door. So, I mean, it's not like we're going to do the door and then nobody opens their doors except for the people selling the alcohol. I mean, that's how you drive. I mean, that's in my opinion how you drive traffic. So, the businesses have to be open to drive it. And that would make sense then to have it open on days that aren't just events if that's what if that's what the majority decides. I think we got I think we have direction though. So, we can take it from there.

All right. We'll take it back to safety and service committee. Other than that, uh, that was all I had for other business. Uh, anyone want to make a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second. I'll third. I don't need that.