City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, I call to order the agenda review meeting of September 15th, 2026. Clerk, please call the roll.

Meldon.

Here.

Morris.

Here.

Sorrento. Williams. Driscoll. Gaddis. Hobbs. Jones. Comives. Kramer. Here. Martinez.

Present.

McPherson. Here. Sorrento present.

Here.

Six present.

Thank you so much. All right, hey everyone. We will get started with item number one from the Department of Transportation.

Good afternoon, members of Council. Simon Nee, Commissioner of Government Affairs here with Director Michalajczyk to introduce item number one. Item number one authorizes the mayor to accept and enter into grant agreements for two grants for an embankment stabilization project on Summit Street. The first grant is from the Ohio Emergency Management Agency administering FEMA funding for $1,145,144, and this is community project funding secured for us by Congresswoman Kaptur through the congressional appropriations process. The second is from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for $750,000. And this is funding that our delegation in the Ohio General Assembly secured for us as an appropriation in the state capital budget. So we are grateful to our elected officials at both the federal and state level for their support of this project. This is located on the approximately one-mile segment of Summit Street between the Point Place Lighthouse and Cullen Park, where it sits right on the bay. Over time, erosion has really eaten away at the embankment, as well as the multi-use trail sustained pretty heavy damage. Some of the lighting there has been damaged as well. If we don't address this, we will eventually get to the point where the roadway itself, as well as the utilities in that area, are at risk of failure. So this project will reconstruct the embankment and the trail to repair the affected damage. It'll also add increased erosion protection higher level of rock armor and a wave break to provide protection up to a 100-year storm event to make sure that this doesn't continue to happen in the future. In addition to obviously being one of the most important routes in and out of the Point Place neighborhood. This section of Summit Street is also at the northern end of what will be a continuous corridor of multi-use infrastructure connecting Point Place to downtown, to the Glass City Riverwalk, as well as to several existing green spaces on or near the riverfront. So it ties into broader set of improvements on summit that will help better connect our neighborhoods to downtown and to our riverfront assets so the match expenditure for this project has already been authorized in the ordinance for the road and bridge maintenance matches and planning for this year total project cost is approximately four point three million so we our match will be roughly 2.2 million on this. We respectfully request SEP and I am happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much. Councilwoman Morris.

Thank you. I can't talk enough about this. I've been talking about this for five years. And we've made, you, Simon, has made many applications to various funding streams with no luck. And we've knocked on many doors, whether it was FEMA, Army Corps, ODNR I'm sure, I mean you can give me the rundown of all of the different places and we were not successful. And so to be able to bring this federal money back to this area is quite an accomplishment. And as we transition from the Rust Belt to the Water Belt, we have to take care of our infrastructure and we're talking about the light poles, and the utilities along that stretch. Obviously, it's been happening for a long time. Whenever we get nor'easters, they just pound into that bay, and over time, it's really affected a lot of, you know, we're talking the roadway, we're talking about the utilities, and so the tornado did not help in 2023. And so what happened is we saw a lot of the trees that were down. And so having this walkway compromised puts us at risk as a city for liability concerns. So having this money from two different pots is quite an accomplishment. And I just want to publicly thank you, Simon, for all of your hard work on this. And the citizens of Point Place will be very happy once we have this taken care of. The only thing I'm going to say on the record is whoever we choose to do the work, that we have a public meeting for citizens so that they can see what happens. Many times what we do is we choose these folks, and they just ramrod these projects through without involving the public. And so I just want to make sure that I go on record about that as well. So thank you so much for your hard work. I can't be more pleased than I am today. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you.

You know, when people think these meetings can be boring, come on. Thank you, Officer Bilo. Councilman Driscoll, what's your recommendation?

I'll go SEP. I will say that when I got appointed to council and I had lunch with Councilman Morris for the first time, this and passenger rail were the two things he told me he wanted to get done. So I'm glad to see him making progress on this. One thing I'd say is when the design is done, it'd be nice to see what that'll look like because I think every time we get um an opportunity to work on our roadways to think a little bit about um alternate modes of transportation i think this gives us an opportunity to do that so i'm just you know interested to see what the pedestrian and cycling facilities included in this would be but thank you for this thank you so much all right we'll go items two through five from the department of public service

Good afternoon, members of council. I'm Ryan Murphy, Commissioner of Solid Waste. I'll be presenting item number two on the agenda. This ordinance proposes the expenditure of $150,000 to complete recycling audits for the curbside collection program. The city currently recycles approximately 1,300 tons a month, and recent invoices have been approximately $200,000 to $250,000 a month, and we've continued to see these prices increase over time. It's estimated that our contamination rates range from 30 to 60% throughout the city, while national averages range from about 15 to 25%. The goal of this audit is to gain additional data on our contamination and identify areas for improvement to reduce overall costs. Two audits are proposed, one to gain a baseline data and then a second to measure improvements from education and modifications to the program. And working with Keep Toledo-Lucas County Beautiful, we've learned that the city of Akron was able to take a similar approach and reduce their contamination rate to approximately 12% while also reducing their overall costs. We're requesting to waive competitive bidding for GT Environmental to provide these services. They have direct experience with materials management planning and have also completed recycling audits for the county in the past. So it will ensure methods are consistent and results are comparable to any past data. The final delivery will be a summer report, including data analyses and recommendations to enhance the program while also decreasing costs. We're requesting SCP and happy to take any questions.

Councilman Kramer.

Thank you for this. Thank you, Chair. I do have a couple questions. Why do you think our contamination rates are so high compared to other cities?

I think over time, a lot of residents have gotten used to using the recycling tow as an extra trash can, and I think that's what's causing the majority of our problems. So this evaluation, this study that we're proposing for GT Environmental is gonna help us better identify what's causing the issues, if it's specific items that aren't recyclable that are being recycled, or if it's also in a combination with just plain abuse of the recycling program. okay thank you um is gt environmental are they local they are around the area yeah i believe this com this this location i believe is outside of michigan um but i can verify that verify that by referral okay thank you thank you of course councilman martinez uh she asked my question my colleague asked my question thank you love it when that happens uh councilwoman morris

Thank you, and I'm glad that we have Sarah Stacey here because when I came home last night, everybody put out their recycling bins and their garbage, and I've noticed that there was some utility work in our neighborhood. There was a transformer that blew in the last storm, and so they were cutting down some of the trees, and they left the trees at the curb. And so the curb has had a number of brush, good piles of brush. I came home last night, where was the brush? In the recycling bin. So I don't know, do we have any kind of curbside pickup for brush? And honestly, if it's the utility company, First Energy, should be the person who picks up that brush. So can somebody address that for me? I don't know if it's Joe or Sarah or anybody give me an idea as to what should I do in this kind of a circumstance?

Thanks for your question, Councilwoman. As far as the brush issue, I don't want to speak for First Energy or Toledo Edison in what their practice is. I would like to have a communication and continue to develop that relationship with them. That should be the best practice that they're leaving that site as they found it. So they're disposing of that material properly in accordance with the best practices. As far as those residents where adjacent brush is being left by X, Y, or Z entity, Um, there is a mechanism in the Republic contract in the, um, bulk set out, um, limitations and guidance that they can bundle, um, wood debris. It has to be bundled appropriately and be in that four foot section, um, no greater than 40 pounds, but they could dispose of that that way. Um, as long as it's meeting the guidelines that are established. And then we also have the clean Toledo recycling center, um, where that debris from residents or property owners could be brought to. And that's one of our biggest items being brought into the Toledo Recycling Center is that tree woody material.

So in this situation, I'm going to guess that they don't know about the bundling. Is there any kind of educational materials that we have or Republic has, especially given with the new contract? Because even someone related to me said, I'll just call for a bulk pickup. And so I think that we have a lot more to communicate about this contract. And until we do that, I think unfortunately we're going to see people putting all kinds of things into the recycling, the blue recycling bins. So I don't know if maybe Joe from the administration.

they do have a recycle recycling do's and don'ts fact sheet on their website they're also going to help us throughout this contract period educate residents more along with keep toledo lucas county beautiful and and really i think we need to concentrate on the big items which is it's it's okay if you are we can put yard waste in our trash can with our trash or we can put it out with the the bulk collection if it's prepared appropriately correct But it's very difficult, I think, at this point for some residents to understand, still yet, what's truly recyclable and what's not. I think residents coin recyclable with sustainable and green and anything that's plastic and anything that's cardboard. And so it's just going to take a lot more education, and I do think that this evaluation is going to help us identify, target those items to help enhance our education with Republic and keep Toledo-Lucas County beautiful, and as well as still identify ways that we can reduce costs with the program.

And what I think that we really need to do is do that actual, like, and maybe they do that. Maybe they sticker things. I don't know. But in this situation, these individuals are probably not going to go to the website to be able to seek it out to get them the information. So when it's a noncompliant whatever it is, I'm hoping that someone is either tagging that or knocking on the door or having, I mean, I'm happy to help with that as a district person, but this just happened to be on my block. So, you know, I can't necessarily go on all the blocks. So I'm just trying to figure out how we as a city make sure that we're protecting what we negotiated in our contract and also holding Republic accountable. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Councilman Sorato.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, we have a marketing and communications department that we spend about a million dollars on each year. And there is no reason why MarCom cannot design something to put in the water bills regarding what you can do for recycling and what you cannot do. What is permissible, what is not permissible. So I call upon the MarCom department who is generously funded by this council to use that mechanism in the water bills because everybody looks at their water bill. If there's an insert in there, they'll see it, or if there's a paragraph about that. We just really need to continuously educate people On what they can do you know for recycling and we've been talking about this for decades as councilman Martinez will testify to so we just got to really Employ our methods with social media with the water bill contents that go out and Just really publicize the heck out of this so we can get these numbers down. There's no reason for this the other question I have is is when was the last time we did this type of audit or survey with consumers?

Prior, the county was doing them annually, or I believe annually. But it was through a contract with the county at that time. And they were working with GT Environmental to complete those as well.

OK. So this company has done these audits before? They have done these audits before. So are we going to be doing this every year?

I think that's something that we could definitely look at and consider, but I think before we commit to that, it's important to see what their findings show us and based on their expertise, what they would recommend.

Well, let's see what the results are and then make a determination whether we need to do it every year or maybe every other year but we we've got to communicate better with the citizenry you know and we have we have new people that come into town we have people that forget what the regulations are we just need to really have it out there in print i agree with councilwoman morris they're not going to go to the website we need to make this consumer friendly easy for people to understand thank you mr chair

of course and before i go to council martinez i certainly agree with a great marketing communications department we also are asking them to do more and more and more in a modern world with the changing media landscape and so we have to be mindful of how many things we're messaging in one particular format or another that's the challenge i mean the truth is people want to know what's going to happen when their road is going to be redone and what impacts it's going to have and where they can turn left and where they can turn right And so we have a lot that we're trying to communicate to them and it's a tall task. So I'm glad that we fund them. I would call it adequately funding that department indeed. Council Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I thought most of my questions were answered until we kept talking about this. So a couple things, since Miss Stacy, you're here. I continue to have missed routes since we're talking about recycling and trash in District 2 around the Harvard River Road, Beverly area. For multiple weeks, the ink on the contract is not wet yet, or excuse me, dry yet, and we're still already having some of the same issues we had previously. So I just want to bring that to your attention. I did let Engage Toledo know. I even let the president of Teamsters know since he wanted to know. So I don't know what's going on, but I know in District 2 there's already missed routes for whatever reason. Secondly, so we've been doing these audits annually, so we should have a pretty good baseline of what the issue is.

Yeah, I'd have to actually go back and ensure that it was done annually. It may have been done every other year. Even still, we should have a baseline. Absolutely. We do have that information available from the past audits.

Okay, so if you can, by way of referral, I'll put this in writing, just give us what the, I guess, recommendations were from last year, two years ago, however. And the reason I'm asking this is, while I think this is needed, $150,000 out of the general fund is a lot of money for an audit. And if we've already had them previously, we should have a pretty good idea what the issue is. And maybe we don't necessarily need a full audit, but maybe a modified audit and use some additional funding for marketing and education purposes. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just asking, is this the highest and best use of these dollars for a full audit when we've already had them? Maybe now it's more for implementation strategy, as my colleagues were alluding to.

moving forward so absolutely so I'm just kind of want to think about this a little bit more sure but I will do that by way of referral so you have it absolutely and if I may I'll follow up that this audit is very detailed they're going to collect data from each district from from five samples a district and it's going to be overall approximately 30 samples so they're going to be sorting through almost four tons of waste So that's about 30% of our recycling stream. So this audit is going to give us a lot more data and information than the previous, I'll call it snapshot audit that was being completed before.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

I have one question too. Is there, when we do these types of audits, is there like a follow-up kind of best practice recommendations on some of these communication tactics that we can look at? I mean, I don't know that the firm to do the audit of breaking down what's in the bin is necessarily the right expert to help us with, you know, new maybe ideas in 2026 of how to communicate.

Yeah, our plan is once we get the information and the more detailed data to sit down with keep Toledo Lucas County beautiful as well with Republic and see what we ultimately think the best approach will be. Great, thank you. Councilman McPherson.

Thank you, Chair. One question. Is there somewhere maybe I'll do a referral. The do's and the don'ts. What is recyclable for the blue bin? What is not recyclable or what should not go in the blue bin? I'd just like to keep it simple so we could pass it out and give it to the kindergarteners and they would understand it. have to agree with other council members that everybody does not go on the website and to this day even when i recycle i have to think about what can this one do you have to wash this out what about the pizza box what those things and i think the educational piece And if we have to continue, and I agree with Councilman Sorrento, that I believe that our Marcon department could come up with a simple brochure, and we could have it at our community meetings, our block watch meetings, our neighborhood meetings, our council members as we go out and talk about different things. We can continue to educate, but if we don't have it and we don't know it, we can't share it. um i would too if you would share that do's and don'ts of recycling with our marcon department that we can come up with something that we could actually have in hand and hand out that would be a great help because i'm sure a lot of people yeah i see them in my neighborhood too using the blue bin for a garbage can yep i understand And that's messing up the purpose of what it was supposed to be for. And it's messing up everything in the garbage collection and the recycling and everything. Because I understand that once they do that, you have to get rid of it. So a teachable moment. Thank you.

Just one comment, not necessarily trying to defend the Marcon's department, but one initiative that we're working with them on right now is to develop a flyer that explains the illegal set out legislation that recently passed. So that's going in the water bills. So we are using that method and working closely with the marketing team to do that. So once that's finished and out, we can absolutely work, what's the next thing we want to communicate using that method. So I just wanted to let you know that we are utilizing that method currently.

We've got some good lights here. I want to make one quick comment, and maybe it would be an interesting conversation. And quickly, Councilwoman Pearson, does MarCom report up through your committee? Forgive me for not knowing that. Yes. Okay. I just wonder if it might be a good... not on the tactics and day-to-day activity of MarCom's, but the various channels we have and what those volumes are. Because the truth is, I would be curious, for instance, how many residents actually get a physical bill? How many have gone digital? What is then the relationship? Some of these communication streams, we have to be at least aware of what the volume is, because that will hopefully dictate tactics. So it looks like you want to say something on that.

Yeah, I just want to bring up, we did have some committee meetings a couple years ago on this specific topic, and we did use marcoms to send some information out to select areas that were reported to be highly contaminated. So it will be easy for us to follow up with them and get that going again. Thank you.

We're going around the horn again. Councilman Sarantu.

Thank you. I also think those that do receive the actual DPU bill, if something could be printed at the bottom of the bill, again, that gets their attention. I know handouts mean that somebody's, they have to be inserted into the bill. I know that's going to take a little more time. But I would state for the record, according to our directory of city departments, there are listed seven people in marcoms. I know of at least five that are in there. So again, we've upped the staff, and again, I think that it is doable, that we just need to work together, your department with Maricoms, and get the message out on a consistent basis. because you've got to hit people with this many times during the year. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm curious, and maybe it doesn't, but do you feel that this audit aligns with the Climate Action Plan, and which piece of the Climate Action Plan do you think it aligns with?

There's a portion of the Climate Action Plan that speaks specifically to recycling. So to make our recycling as efficient as possible ensures that we'll be able to keep recycling. As our budgets continue to tighten, we're going to have to make hard decisions about everything we do. And so this audit is really going to help us find ways to make recycling something that we can continue to fund and offer to our citizens. So I think it absolutely fits with the initiatives in the climate action plan.

Okay, this is not a got you moment. I just pulled this up because I was curious if this is what you're referencing. Action 4.3, assess the Hoffman Road office recycling pilot. Is that what you're referring to? And use learnings to implement full recycling at all city facilities? Is that what you mean? Because this doesn't strike me as city facilities. This strikes me as.

Yeah, that was an internal recycling program for staff. So that's not exactly what we were looking at.

So what part of the climate action plan?

I don't have the exact initiatives memorized, but I can take that by referral.

Okay, I mean, I'll have to go through it, because I really don't, I mean, I appreciate, I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad idea, but to you, I think that, to me, the spirit of the 1% fund is specifically to address the climate action plan. So I'll submit a referral then for that. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilwoman Pearson. Yes. Joe, the piece that you're saying they're putting in the water bill, can we get copies of that? Because just like we're saying, they go in the water bill, some people have gone paperless, ditto. Anytime Marcom puts out something that goes to the community, it would be good for us to have it also so that we can pass it out at the meetings we attend. Because a lot of times with our neighborhood meetings, you know we have to make up stuff we shouldn't have to make up stuff and y'all making up stuff i mean come on let's not reinvent the wheel here sure so that what you're passing out or that you're putting in if you would make sure that we would have it also would be a great i would be grateful i'm sure other districts would be grateful too as we're gearing up and starting to get into the neighborhoods and meeting and stuff it would be great to have that piece sure thing Thank you.

All right, I got a dark board up here. I think this is going to be, yeah, Councilman Driscoll, please, recommendation. So the Chair and Vice are out. You're up, buddy. The request was SEP?

We'll go SEP.

Thank you, sir.

Next up.

I think it's number three. That sounds good. Number three.

Lucky number three. Good afternoon, council. My name is Dave Obrak. I'm the manager of fleet operations. The legislation I'm presenting to you today is an appropriation request in the amount of $1.4 million in the municipal garage fund for citywide fuel purchases. Authorizing appropriation of 1.4 million in various city funds for internal fuel chargebacks, increasing the municipal garage fund, and declaring an emergency. Rising fuel costs have directly impacted our operational expenses, requiring an additional $1.4 million to cover fuel expenditures beyond our original forecast. Police, fire, and rescue alone account for $620,000 of the total cost by departments listed as Schedule A in the attached ordinance. The average regional gas price in late 2025 and early 2026 was $2.75 per gallon. Today, we are paying $3.59 per gallon. The diesel fuel prices in January were $2.69 per gallon. Today, we are paying $5.52 per gallon for diesel fuel. We've implemented several fuel reduction strategies, such as eliminate unnecessary idle time, utilizing one vehicle when employees are traveling to the same work site, and leveraging telematics to optimize our equipment routing. We are also looking into different engine idle solutions that will reduce our fuel consumption, extend engine life, along with reducing our maintenance and repair expenses of equipment. We currently have 11 electric vehicles in our fleet, and two are currently on order. All of our fuel reductions have been negated by the volatile fuel market we all are experiencing. This additional funding will support citywide fuel purchases and corresponding department chargebacks. May I request an SEP, please? And I welcome any questions that you may have.

Thank you for that. I do have one quick question. So, um, when this happens, I mean, everyone, everyone's experiencing this. I don't think anyone's shocked by this. Where does that come from? How do we, how do we cover that? I mean, you know, one point is at 1.4 that we weren't expecting to spend on fuel.

Right, yeah, because at one point, we're hoping, once again, you're hoping, whatever. But we're hoping that the conflict, and we all know what happened, the conflict in the Middle East would resolve itself, prices would stable back down, and we can go back to life as we knew it before in February. But of course, that hasn't happened. and the prices just kept escalating. At one point we thought maybe we could maybe cover it, but can no longer sustain the rate we're going.

Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This might be a question for finance or for referral, but why is this not a budget adjustment?

Okay, thank you. Councilman Martinez.

I think Mr. Chair, that was along the same question I was going to ask, why wasn't it a budget adjustment? And actually, what other potential impacts are we going to have because of ongoing geopolitics that we haven't adjusted for already? I know we have the tariffs. I'm not sure what the impact has been in the finance. Maybe it's more of a finance question that the finance director can answer to make sure that we're adequately projecting the next six to eight months in our budget. So appreciate it. I don't have an issue supporting it. But I think the bigger question is financial impact to our operations as we move forward. Yeah, I don't think anyone ever obviously saw this coming, but the impact is real and it's impacts our taxpayer. So thank you.

Thank you will go again to Councilman Driscoll.

I'm gonna go first reading on this. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council. Sarah Stacey, Commissioner of Urban Beautification. I have items number four and five. Item number four, this legislation is proposing to request the authorization of the appropriation expenditure of an amount not to exceed $250,000. This is for us to enter into a two-year contract for professional services to support a smart tree inventory. These professional services will help us create a smart tree inventory supported from LIDAR data and will provide the city with a more accurate and consistent way to document and manage the tree assets we have and to prioritize maintenance and support future planning and budgeting. These professional services also support the city's continued development of a comprehensive GIS-based urban tree inventory and urban forest management program and this is consistent and helps support the city's strategic goal for expanding and improving toledo's urban forest the funding source for this is the street tree plant and maintenance fund the amount of 500 000 was approved in our 2000 2026 budget and it's part of our request for the 2027 budget pending any questions i can try to answer we are requesting respectfully sep

We will have some questions. This appears to be super cool. I don't know if anyone else is ready to nerd out on this. A couple questions just from this little graph here. Does it measure easement, public-private property? Is that something we can kind of discern?

I think we would already give that as a data layer to the vendor, the contractor.

I think about the issues sometimes that we run into about like where is the tree if it needs to be, and if we could just have that in this database seemingly. That's super interesting. And then also from like a trimming standpoint, I think just might as well get it to you or Mackenzie Woodley Road is virtually Woodley to Central is virtually impossible to turn on now because the trees have grown over the side and people can walk under them which is nice you're under a little but you look left or right and it's tough stuff and I just wonder like is there any this seems I'm looking at it's like hanging over the street is that going to help us with trimming some of those back

Yes, so the purpose is that it will, instead of sending people on the ground to look at every tree, and that takes a long time and a lot of resources, the LIDAR data, you know, through that technology, it can identify outliers, the outliers that have tree defects or the outliers that have these clearance issues. And so that helps us prioritize where we need to have our internal crews go do the trimming, the work, or for us to contract work out.

I'm gonna have to have a nerd out session another time. This is really cool councilman Martinez Thank You mr.

Chair. Yeah, definitely cool Question though the is this a one-time 250,000 or is this kind of gets us to the dance and then there's an annual fee that we have to pay to maintain the system and update trainings and technology

There isn't an annual fee. We're still assessing the bids that we received back. Some of those come with proprietary software. That's part of the purchase for these professional services. One of those vendors, that database or information is left with the city and doesn't require us supplementing or reinvesting it again. That being said, This is somewhat of a continuous process. Whereas cities used to send people on the ground to do the on the ground inventory every 10 years, we have to repeatedly do the LIDAR every three to five years to get that information on where the tree priorities are for that pruning and other types of maintenance. So it's not necessarily a one and done. Over the next two years, do we have a finished final product? but there is ongoing need for the data to be assessed as these are living assets and they change, you know, every day.

Sure. So I guess my question is, so I get it, right? is there training involved is it an annual subscription are we buying to their ecosystem so to speak and is this a standard i guess i don't know enough about it that's why i'm asking these questions right so is it like i'm buying into the apple ecosystem so i have the apple computer now i have to get the all the apple software that is attached to it for additional fees

Yeah, to try to answer a question, I would say we worked closely with our ICT department to try to make sure that the technology was easily transferable to the systems we have, so like CityWorks and GIS. And so those layers, whether it's like a shape file or the software, can easily interchange with our asset manager program and work maintenance program, CityWorks. Uh, and at the end of those two years, we're not left with having to renew a subscription.

Gotcha. So it's all integrated and it gives us a very comprehensive database that looks super cool and easy to use. And, uh, constant melding can nerd out and, and have lots of fun talking with you guys about this. Awesome. Okay.

Yep, I'm going to not ask any other questions, I promise. Councilman Driscoll, you have your light on, and I'm going to go to you for recommendation.

Okay, I'm curious, were any of you present when, I guess, now Lake Erie West presented all their data? I think they said, they told me yesterday, Executive Director Spank told me that they presented it in front of the cabinet, so would that include any of you?

I was not present, I'm sorry.

Okay, the only reason I ask is they presented on tree coverage as well, and we, in committee, we have our team of COG dues, and I don't want to double spend here, I guess, if another agency's already doing this, and so I want to understand better what it is that we're, what the difference is between what we're doing and what they're doing, because if they've already got that information, and if it is LIDAR, which obviously is better than somebody Individual and it can give you more information than somebody just going and telling you where a tree is So I'm not opposed to this, but I do think we should probably coordinate with Lake area West so my recommendation would be first reading if unless you guys haven't it, you know You can tell me the difference today We will accept first read okay

Before I go to Councilman Sorrento, Councilman Driscoll, would a clarification be helpful if we talked about what costly, outdated system this replaces?

I think so. If Lake Erie West is already using LIDAR and can tell us what our tree coverage is, I don't understand why we would do that as well. And their potential rollout of this is for everybody to have access to it, including council members and people in the district.

Your question makes me curious. What's the difference between maybe an aerial assessment of a canopy, You know, the difference in some of the hot spots, we've seen some of those heat maps versus kind of what this looks like, a ground level assessment of individual tree quality and inventory. Is that a helpful distinction?

I'm not clear what the question was, but we did answer some questions as part of the RFP process about any existing LIDAR that could be given to the vendor and would be compatible to create the Smart Tree inventory. Before issuing the contract, we would just need to confirm whether that exists and what Lake Erie West is already doing or has.

Maybe just sending that out to council would be helpful.

I don't know if you have to call on me.

No, I'm calling on you. I'm calling on you right now.

Yeah, I guess I would just want some clarification. If somebody from the administration can tell us by next Tuesday that what they're doing is not germane to this or vice versa, then we can certainly vote on it on Tuesday. I don't have any issue there. But if it's just because we didn't know what they were doing, I think we should probably go first reading and see if we can coordinate with them more on that.

We should be able to get those answers by next Tuesday, but if we don't, then we'll do the first reading.

So for clarity, should the recommendation be SEP and move it, or keep it first reading and vote on it next Tuesday?

I would leave it on first reading, and then if we need to pass it, we will.

Okay. We did a lot there councilman Sorrento Thank You mr.

Chair well tomorrow we do have that meeting with chairman Driscoll on Lake Erie West and we should ask that question and Find out so we we may have answers before the end of the week on that my my other question Perhaps you said this and I missed it. But have we ever done a survey of this type with the trees in the past and

Councilman, not to my knowledge have we conducted a full inventory, a tree census. I don't know necessarily where our tree assets originated just from note cards, actually like index cards that became part of that asset history. The only date I have to my knowledge is 2012 when those assets were transferred into some type of like, into City Works were kind of like But the last time an in-person inventory of full tree census was conducted is greater than 15, 20 years.

Okay, because in the last two years, we embarked on a tree planting program throughout the city. So I'm just wondering if you have that data in terms of how many trees so far have been planted and the results.

Yes, absolutely. So we're really good about keeping current records. So any tree we touch, trimming, pruning, removal, planting, those assets are getting updated. But there could be a street out there where we haven't visited that tree, whether it's, you know, we just have not been requested to go there or inspectors haven't gone there. There could be that tree where the data hasn't been updated in more than 10, 15 years.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. We have a recommendation. Before we move on, I have one more. Just a plea. Whatever the device is that is going to do this inventory, whatever it looks like, just put in a good word to whoever is doing this that we should dress it up like the Lorax. and just watch it happen just watch what happens in the world okay i love that recommendation thank you google the lorax if anyone's wondering what i'm talking about we'll go on um item number five i think you have five two right all right yes thank you um item number five this legislation is requesting to amend

The Toledo municipal code, um, our chapter nine one seven, which is trees. Um, the purpose of these updates, um, were driven by our urban forest commission. Um, they were recommended by the commission to make these changes, um, to summarize them for you. Um, the three main changes are to update these sections, to get, to get rid of a reference to commissioner of parks, forestry, and open space planning and, um, replace that with director of public service. Um, to remove any pronouns, um, referring to him, uh, to update, um, the chapter nine one seven, uh, zero eight, which is about prohibited trees. Um, and instead of codifying that list of species in the chapter that we would have an online directory that would be updated and available on the website. Um, so that, um, that section doesn't need to be, um, consistently. updated in code but would be maintained on an online directory. And then finally the last change that is notable is any reference that permits that are issued for the removal or planting of trees have no cost. We are striking that verbiage to support future permits that would require a fee. for tree removals. There aren't a lot of those that we receive as a department. They're kind of case by case when things get escalated. But I would like to be able to have those permits be revenue generating if people are trying to remove healthy, mature trees. Of course, we would take action to remove hazardous or diseased trees, so no permit would be involved. But in the cases where it's escalated where a property owner wants to remove a healthy mature tree I believe that should require a permit fee.

Okay, we will go to Councilman McPherson. I just need to pause for just a second.

Yeah, because I just, the last part of that, I guess I want a clear understanding. If there's a resident that has a healthy tree in their yard and they want it removed, you're saying that they would have to pay to have that tree removed? Is that my understanding?

Correct. It's the department's, recommendation that the tree not be removed and they want to supersede that opinion and request a permit, they can do that and file for a tree removal permit, but I believe that should come at a cost and not be free.

Interesting.

Quick clarification, where are you down by the way? Okay, no, it's okay, no? Quick clarification, on their property or public property? Like, I wanna remove a tree in my front yard on my private property.

We would not have any control of removing trees on your private property, so this relates to trees in the tree lawn or within the public right of way.

That question gets filed under assume nothing. So thank you very much. Councilwoman Cramer.

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to just clarify Councilman McPherson's question. So the question was, if there's a healthy tree and it belongs in the city's area, we would charge the resident to cut that tree down if they wanted to and it was a healthy tree, is that correct?

As that request gets escalated, generally try to start with, it's not the Forestries groups, you know recommendation or termination that the tree needs to be removed We will prune it or you know, we will monitor it. But if that escalates and they feel They would like to pursue removal that next step would be to apply for a tree removal permit Maybe you know, it would get granted but I believe there should be a fee to remove that healthy mature tree.

Okay

The clause that gets removed from the original text is that all permits for which provisions in this chapter are made shall be issued without requirement of any fee. And that's what I'm trying to remove.

Okay, got it. So that's kind of, maybe residents might be annoyed by the leaves or something like that. Okay, I got it. I appreciate that you guys are taking the time to look through the charter. I'm sure it's tedious But I also just want to thank you for thinking about pronouns I think we all need to think about pronouns and I appreciate that you mentioned that because it should not just be His yes, so thank you very much

agreed it's almost shocking when you run into those things out there but um yep good catch councilman srantu thank you mr chair so commissioner what percent of those that apply for a permit to cut down a tree on city property are approved i would i would say they're all approved but the percent of people applying to remove remove those and get a permit is very low it's not something you know

we have on our website for them to look for that permit. It's kind of like by request.

Trees in the public land. Okay, the tree lawn. What kind of a fee are you thinking of? Have you thought about a figure for the permit?

I don't have a fee. I would take that by referral. You know, other municipalities would base it on the circumference of the tree as, you know, try to capture some mitigation for the loss of that healthy mature tree. That would be very progressive if we were to go that way. but I would want to account for at least our staff time at a minimum.

Right. Okay. And then one final situation I want to run by you. If you go down Lasky Road between Douglas and Secor, there is a medical office on the right-hand side if you're heading west on Lasky. They have a tree on their private property, but it's a huge limb hanging over Lasky Road. So I guess my question is, Do we have the ability to notify owners of private property where trees look very dangerous? We had that tragedy on Secor near Lasky Road. I don't know if that branch was actually hanging over Secor, but certainly somebody got killed and somebody got severely injured. So I just want to get your thoughts on that.

It's a challenge. It's risky. I would be curious what laws guidance would be for the city of Toledo to be making those recommendations and how we get ourselves involved in that. We do have the ability to provide that notification, but I would say it should only be our responsibility when it comes directly to us to make that inspection or we receive it as a direct service request or concern to look at.

All right, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilwoman Morris.

Just a real quick question. So there's a public tree in the right of way and maybe forestry doesn't think it should be removed. I do. I apply for the permit. Do I enlist a private company to remove it? Is it forestry that removes it? How does that work?

That would work. We've said no. You know, it's our recommendation. We don't think the tree needs to remove. They apply. The property owner would apply for the permit. they would hire their own contractor to do the work. So it's at their cost. And in these instances where this has happened, sometimes it's like, I'm tired of my driveway being uplifted by this tree root. I want to fix this. We agree. OK, remove the tree, but we're not going to remove it. And they fix the driveway. They show they got a permit to fix the driveway. They cover all the costs.

OK. I just wanted that clarification. I wasn't quite sure. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Martinez.

Thank you. I was going to ask the question, but since you just kind of briefly touched on it. So if a healthy tree is damaging personal property, the department says, no, it's a healthy tree. We're going to charge you even though it's damaging my personal property. And so there's no recourse for the homeowner to recoup any cost to repair any said damages. But also now they have to pay an additional fee.

I think it's fair to protect the infrastructure that the trees are providing as you know, green infrastructure. I think it's a fair compromise.

So if the tree has a limb that's on my house and the house gets struck by lightning as an act of God, it was a healthy tree. I had come to you prior and say, I have a concern. You say, okay, you can cut it down at your cost. I choose not to. Now it damages my house because that's what I was trying to prevent. Would the city be liable or would it still be me as a homeowner responsible for it? cannot answer i need more time to think about that question so i'll take it so i know it's a very specific question but but here's my concern right so if we put the onus on the homeowner to cut a tree that for whatever reason they decide and i get preserving the trees no issue with that but if it becomes a case of potential harm to my personal property right, in even a hypothetical situation, if I can at least prove there's the potential or possibility. I don't know if I should necessarily be charged. Then I guess the other question is, in terms of enforcement, if, you know, are we going to let the professional tree trimmers know that if this happens that, kind of like any other contractor, should pull the permit or has to pull the permit, or is it going to be the onus on the homeowner to pull the permit to take down a tree and then right away? under on their property.

It would I would say would be either on the property owner or the contractor to secure the permit.

Okay, so is there going to be some sort of guidance or informational? Because I'm guessing, it's just like when we changed the sign code, we had been operating for so long, for so, you know, a lot of people didn't know that they had pull permits, even though they should know, but didn't necessarily pull a permit. And then they said, oh no, it's the owner's responsibility, and then they get stop work orders. So I had that on, at a fairly, well-known grocery store in my district that it happened, right? So I'm trying to navigate this. I hear what you're saying, but I also want to be conscientious of the homeowner to making sure that we're not penalizing them or adding additional costs to something that could damage their personal property. And if the city isn't going to pay to have whatever's been damaged, even though there was a known issue because it was brought to your attention, That's what I'm trying to figure out. So I don't know if I necessarily agree with the fee structure.

Can I ask a clarifying question? Sure. This is not bringing new permits into the code. This is just saying that there will be a fee associated with it?

Correct. It's not bringing new permits into the code. It's removing a clause that said permits would be issued without a fee.

Correct. So your hypothetical was true for the last maybe 100 years that you needed a permit to remove a healthy tree that had a limb hanging over your house. This is just introducing a fee with it. I just mean like I understand the hypothetical you're asking. I don't know that the fee necessarily changes the math.

Don't disagree, if I may respond. Don't disagree, I guess the big question is I didn't know there was a permit required. And I'm guessing most homeowners don't. I think you might be right. And then if we're going to do a fee, which is fine, whether it's $1, $1.50 or $1,000, I don't know if I'm comfortable adding a fee when we don't know what that fee is or if it's going to be based on a scale or something.

While we're doing these updates, it was something we wanted to look at. It stood out to me as something that In my mind, we would want to capture a fee for those trees being removed that are healthy and mature healthy trees, where our recommendation was the tree did not need to be removed, but if the property owner feels very strongly they want to proceed with this, they can apply for a permit to remove the tree. We would grant it, but I believe there should be a fee related to that removal of, again, a healthy mature tree. To reiterate, these are, very few instances where this is happening. It's something we choose not to publicize in the permit database that's online. These things come to us through things getting escalated. Forestry is inspected at once, twice, and the property owner's not seeing any progress or change in opinion from the forestry department and doesn't like the opinion. So what other recourse do they have? They could get a permit to remove the tree.

now you just raise another question right so now there was a permit that we didn't really advertise so no one really knows about but if it happens and you go through the process you can get a waiver or you can get for a fee you can get it removed right so that just raised a lot more questions about hidden permits what other permits are we not telling our residents about and then potentially Penalizing them if they don't have a permit that they didn't know that they were supposed to get so I think most people want to pull permits and do it the right thing and I get the whole right away and protecting the canopy and Totally get that on board with that. I guess my question really just goes to making sure people know what they're supposed to do and how they're supposed to do it and and then say, oh, by the way, if you don't disagree with us, we'll just pay a fee and you're good, right? That doesn't seem right, but I'll yield with that.

I don't see any of the lights before we go to Councilman Driscoll. I mean, I just want to make a comment. It does strike me that this is what agenda review is. This is an agenda, and we are reviewing it. This does not strike me as urgent. I don't want to give Councilman Driscoll a recommendation, but it seems like the nice healthy process to get some of these answers and understanding would be first reading. It's up to you, sir.

I think we should go first reading. I think anytime we change the code, we should go first reading. So this will be first reading as well. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you so much for bringing all this forward. Item numbers six through nine from the Department of Public Utilities.

All right, Andy McClure, Commissioner of Plant Operations with the Department of Public Utilities. I will be presenting legislation number six. uh... as this city council may recall there's emergency legislation to continue our calling of spent line from the spent line to wiring facility some months ago this is legislation to support new contract moving forward that's not emergency for disposal of spent line that's produced at the water treatment plant spent line disposal facility we're requesting To the contract annually 1.5 million dollars for removal of spent lime through the dewatering facility The terms of the contractor will be a two-year contract with up to three one-year renewals We'd request SCP and I'll take any questions right now Councilman Toronto Thank You.

Mr. Chair. So We're we're bids entertained and bids go out to

Yes, we have bids. We have a recommendation ready to go once this legislation is approved.

Okay. And how many responses did you get?

There were two.

Two? Okay. And are you at liberty to tell us who you're recommending?

I'll defer to Rick on that one.

Our current recommendation before it goes to the Board of Awards is going to be with BCA Industries. They are located in Genoa, Ohio.

Okay. Now, have they done this kind of work for us before? No.

They did the work like 10 years ago previously, and they are currently the holder of the contract that was awarded on an emergency basis.

Okay, and when does this go to the Board of Awards? This Friday?

No, sir, once this ordinance is approved. Once it's passed, you're right.

I'm sorry.

No, that's all right.

Okay, all right. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Cramer.

So thank you. My question is, where will the spent line be taken for disposal? Is that going to be somewhere local?

Currently, BCA is land applying to agricultural fields within the area.

Okay. So it will be used for fertilizer?

Yeah, that's the division's goal. Okay. To have it be a land platform and agricultural.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So obviously we've been following this in this committee for a while. So they were one of the three bidders that originally bid on this spent lime contract. Polcat was ultimately awarded, Rocky Ridge, and I think BCE also. I think they're based out of Northwood area, and they have a proven track record of responsible lime. uh... application so i have no concerns uh... with this potential contract uh... but i i'm going to ask you p on this thank you and seven

Number seven, this is again for the water treatment plant. Cranes at the water treatment plant, and there are several cranes that are in place for handling the pumps because they're so heavy if they have to go in and out of the building. But these cranes are inspected annually, and sometimes from the inspections, repairs are required. This legislation is requesting permission to enter into a contract with crane one. Crane, they attempted to bid out, well, they bid out the inspection services, and Crane 1 was the only responsive bidder, so we'd like to move forward with them because they already invested in the project to facilitate the repairs to the cranes that are required. It's roughly $26,000 required to get all the crane repairs made that were recommended by the inspection. I'll take any questions, and we'd ask SEP, please.

Councilman Morris.

Just so I understand, so this is saying that they have inspected and they have found repairs that need to happen? Or is this proactively saying if we find that they need to repair, this is what we're planning on doing? Help me out.

The cranes are generally still functional when the inspection is done. So when it is, if something is found during the inspection, it's a potential safety hazard that needs to be corrected.

So have they been inspected already?

Yes, the cranes have already been inspected and these problems have been noted. There's a list of items to be repaired. Okay.

All right. Just wanted clarification. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Councilman Martinez, what is your recommendation?

SCP.

Thank you. Item number eight.

Number eight is again for the water treatment plant, potassium permanganate feed facility. It has been in service for at least 15 years now, and some of the solids handling parts of it that actually handle the potassium permanganate. It goes from the truck into a storage tank and has to be mixed with water to be fed. It's in disrepair, a lot of maintenance call outs, and it needs refurbished. the division put out bids for a contract to design those improvements, and they had estimated that work to have a value of $300,000. After they got the bids, the low bid came in at $442,000. And after speaking with those consultants that put in the bids and determining what they may have missed, they just didn't realize some of the level of work required for different aspects of the refurbishment. particularly in the design. So this legislation is just asking for the additional 142,000 so they can award the contract for design of improvements to the permanganate facility. Request takes SEP and I'll take any questions.

I got to tell you, every time permanganate pops on the agenda, I get all excited. That is one of the most elegant words we will review all year long. Just consider it for everyone listening. Councilman Martinez, don't rush it. What's your recommendation? SCP. Thank you.

Item number nine.

Good afternoon council Connor McClure engineer associate with water distribution Presenting the hydrant replacement program to replace old hydrants money for this program has been planned in the Department of Public Utilities capital improvements program it is the intent of this ordinance to authorize the appropriation expenditure of an amount not to exceed three hundred fifty thousand and from the Water Replacement Fund for the purchase of hydrants, hydrant valves, and other related material. We are also looking to request SEP, and I will take questions at this time.

Thank you so much. Councilwoman Morris.

Thank you. The other Teresa is not here today, and I am actually asking this on her behalf, and also perhaps Councilman Hobbs might weigh in. We have been notified that some of the hydrants have been put in the middle of a sidewalk, thus impeding accessibility for individuals, and so I don't know what street it was in Councilwoman Gaddis' district, but I know that Councilman Hobbs had one, I believe, in his district. And so I'm curious, what's going on with the hydrants?

Great question. I'll take this one, Connor. So that was on Oak Street. And what happens is those are existing hydrants that have always been in the sidewalk. While it looks so different now, is we did a service line repair next to it, and there's a brand new sidewalk poured around it. So a new ADA-compliant sidewalk's a little wider, it has a new curb, so it stands out. However, once you brought that to our attention, we're developing a process to put an extension on those hydrants or obtain an easement, because leaving them in the sidewalk is clearly not okay. On a lot of these streets, there is no green space. So we either A, have to obtain an easement, or B, Unfortunately bringing out closer to the road, which is a little problematic, but that that hydrant in particular we're going to address That sidewalk should never been poured around it. Yeah, that was an existing hydrant. That was not a new hydrant I just want to be clear there.

Okay Do you and I don't know if you know this off the top of your head if not I will do a referral Do we know how many hydrants we have in the city?

Yeah about 12,000 You know just shy of 13,000

And how many will we, we're doing 70 with this?

Yep, roughly 70.

Okay. And how do we decide what needs to be replaced?

A lot of times they're hit or they become inoperable. They just age out. They do have a shelf life to them. So a lot of these are replaced from the 1940s and older. So as we find them, we replace them.

And what is the average shelf life of hydrant?

I heard 70 years, but I could take that by referral with a little more homework because I do not know that off the top of my head.

You know? Yeah. They're important. It's 50 years. Oh, 50? 50 years. Okay. All right.

I learned something today. Thank you, Connor.

You know, I talk about this a lot, but, you know, having had a house across the street from me that caught on fire, you know, having accessibility to water is a big issue, obviously. But even we're going to be having a meeting about some of the industrial accessibility to hydrants. Specifically, I'm concerned about OmniSource. and being able to get back into some of the private property. So, you know, I can't understate or overstate, I should say, the importance of hydrants. I mean, they're just, they're so important. So thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Councilman Sorrento. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I brought this up over the last few years, but we have a lot of hydrants in town that really need painting. They are ugly, and people take care of their properties, then you drive by and you see a hydrant that really needs painting. How often are we inspecting hydrants and how often are we painting hydrants?

We do have an annual inspection. This is a requirement by the Ohio EPA. So when we say inspection and maintenance, we open it and make sure it's operable. That's priority one. Secondary is painting it. We would love to do it right then and there but the base function of our requirement a regulatory requirement is to make sure it's operable So it may look terrible, but we want to make sure that they're you know, they flow water can put out fires You know, we've talked about this different programs maybe getting the community involved to help paint some of these because it's resources We have four people that are trying to maintain 13,000 hydrants in a year and it's it's a lot. It's a big undertaking.

I

Does one person go to the hydrant to pain or a couple?

Usually they're split into zones in the four quadrants in the city, so as they they're they're operating them and maintaining them and greasing them. If they can paint them and if it's if it's absolutely necessary, they'll come back and paint that. But of course living in Ohio, we have a finite time period. Yeah, exactly. So now we're really down to half a year when you can. We could paint though, so it it is difficult to keep on top of that.

Okay, I'll just bring it up because again, I get comments from residents and I know we only have so many people, we have so many dollars to work with, so I appreciate it. Thank you, thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilwoman McPherson.

um two questions you said you took care of the taking care of the fire hydrant that was on the east side the one in i'm going to say in councilman hobbs district are we working on that one too i would need that address i i don't remember that one off the top of my head if that was a new installation or if that was existing but i would need i would need to okay we'll make sure you get that in that that address Also, they're with curb stops and leaks. And we've had this one, the one over on, I do believe it's Giant Street. How do we, I know you determined that if it's on their side or the resident side, then they have to fix it and you leave them a note and they have to get a plumber. But if you come out the one time and you fix it, and then you come out the next time when they call again,

So a lot of times what will happen the leak is right beyond the the city-owned curb stop So to check that you shut it off the water stops leaking, you know, what's beyond that? We will make an effort to to verify that it's not the connection at the curb stop So if it is we'll fix that we want to do that for the homeowner and a lot of times we'll fix it and repair it It'll break again closer to the home and closer to the home. So Once we've made that repair, and we'll put several feet of new pipe on that, and if it re-breaks, you know it's beyond that.

It's on them.

Yeah, encroaching that private property.

okay that address that's a a senior a handicap you saw the lift wheelchair and financially they got the thing and sometimes i just think we just got to be good about helping our residents sometimes when you guys go out there and see some of those things i it's hard it is hard and we are

We do want to help. We are very empathetic when it comes to that.

Because that's an $1,800 to $3,000 bill for some residents that's barely making it. And if we're out there, I know, I'm sympathetic for my constituents. If we're out there and if we can,

And we do we do it a lot of times. Like I said, we'll we'll dig it up and if it's within a reasonable. Footage, you know, short of getting clear by the House next to the portable will take care of it. We do.

OK, so you won't go back out there and look at that one. Thank you. I appreciate you. I'm saying this because right now with water bills and everything that everybody is dealing with and then you get a curb leak and you call it and you got this. And then you think, hey, it's an easy fix. And then next time they come back and they tell you, no, you got you got the note on the door that says You got to call a plumber and that's a 1,800 to $3,000 bill. Here we are trying to pay our water bill, trying to stay current. I just think that I know we are having some financial issues too, but I just believe that we can extend sometimes specially, to those that we know that are struggling and you can look at their record and see that they've paid their bills and paid their taxes and a good resident that we should offer some grace. I'm gonna say to you, Mr. Rick, for the situation that you helped me with, with the family, they are immensely grateful that they have water. And that was a trying situation too. You find out how real people are really struggling with what living conditions and water is essential. And I'm just grateful for what you guys do. I know I'm hard on you a lot of times, Mr. Todd. But I appreciate it in the end that you go out and do the second looks and the second calls and all of that. The emergencies on Easter Sunday, all of that. I do appreciate it. But our citizens deserve that. So thank you.

Thank you. Before I go to Councilman Martinez, I just want to make a quick observation that the photo that I saw of the hydrant that grew up in the middle of the sidewalk, which looked like a bit of a miracle, it's the picture of the difference between technical accessibility and disability friendly. because in the several weeks and months after a sidewalk is placed in that photo it was true and in most sidewalks i've seen you have to kind of dig out further than the sidewalk which means you pour it and then you remove the little wood pieces and so there's a gap so now you have a tiny technically accessible alleyway for a wheelchair to get through which is right next to the ridge and i've seen a child in a wheelchair kind of miss by an inch and you fall over So like, I wasn't out there with my measuring tape, it looked a little narrow to me, but I mean, if we can do sidewalks around trees and different things, this cannot be that complicated. But it just struck me, I wanna make actually a disability friendly point. It is the difference between technical accessibility, where we go, oh, check, it's fine, it's good enough, versus how people live their lives. So I know you know that, I just wanna say it on the record, thank you for taking that point. Councilman Martinez?

scp thank you we will have two resolutions in attendance from councilwoman kramer recognizing susie's coats for kids and hannah's socks on the occasion of their 20th year anniversary and then from Council Member Gaddis, Councilwoman Morris, and Councilwoman McPherson will be recognizing and honoring the Toledo Troopers. We then have three new items from City Council. Amending Toledo Municipal Code to create a Chapter 741 in order to enact licensing of hotels, motels.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this was a collaborative effort with my colleagues to address some nuisance hotel operators in our districts. This would roughly impact about 30 hotel motels that according to the auditor are in operation. And this basically would allow local control over a lot of the nuisance issues that we don't really have control over. As of right now, the state of Ohio is the one that issues licensing for the hotels and motels. We tried to work with the state to get some of our problematic hotels and motels with anyone who would be willing to work with us. So whether it was the police, the fire, any of the safety forces, ATF, nuisance abatement, I'm thinking of some other organizations that I'm sure I'm forgetting. And then we also brought in nonprofits to help residents there to ensure that they have access to the resources they need, whether it's 211, the Abilities Center, Veterans Center, the homelessness board, anybody who would really talk to us about getting some of these residents that are there the proper resources they need so they can get housed properly. What we found in my particular instance is that there were children going to school there and staying there. There are people who have been living there as their primary residence for over two years, which is against the state code. And so the challenge becomes is bringing everyone into compliance. So that's really what this is about. The $400 is a fee no different than what we've already done for the convenience stores. So we've been able to basically mimic that, and that's basically what this would do. So we're not trying to penalize anyone. What we want to do is make sure everyone's compliant and creating good, stable, habitable places for individuals to stay. And that's what this does.

The next item is from- Councilman Sirantu.

Thank you. Just a quick question. Do we know of other cities that have done this and what the results have been?

Yeah, so in the memo that was sent to everyone last Friday, Maumee has something similar. A lot of the surrounding municipalities have it. We're probably the only large municipality that doesn't have anything like this in the state of Ohio. So it's not unheard of. We're not trying to over-regulate, but the reality is the state won't do anything, and it's best at local level to help make sure that we're enforcing our local regulations. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

From Council President Williams and Councilman Hobbs, resolution requesting an audit of the city's use and oversight of the FLAC system and declaring an emergency.

Councilman Hobbs. Thank you, Chair Melvin. So we just wanted to, I know that you all have seen and gone over the resolution and just is looking at, because there have been questions concerning the city's use and oversight of the flock system. And so this is, you know, residents have expressed concerns regarding the use, access, and sharing of information through the flock system under the control or supervision of the city of Toledo. And so this audit, we are hoping to have, as you all have seen from the packet, all of these things addressed and to be evaluated, audited. And if there's anything on here that you didn't see that you think should be included, please make sure that we add it. We're hoping that this will provide information clarity so that this conversation has been up and we just want to make sure that we are properly evaluating our employees or the use of the city of Toledo and how they are interacting with this flock system. So that then we can, you know, have proper understanding and also the on Thursday, we will also have a public safety meeting and a part of that meeting will be a discussion of flock cameras. believe TPD will be here to talk about flock camera they will talk about the you know where they find it useful and that type of thing also Kevin Dalton of the for the union for teachers union reached out to me and he also is planning to be here because he wants to talk about the other side of it and TPS and you know say yeah we want to Because we want to make sure that we present information thoroughly from both sides so that there's a discussion And I just wanted to you know, also make clear last week when we talked about The pause and I just wanted to make sure that everyone understood that I'm not what I'm saying is I don't want it to because of what's happening in other cities and others law enforcement or whoever may have been using the system wrong i don't just want to assume and pause that ours are doing this and we don't have any information i think we owe it to our law enforcement our city whoever it is to have the information present so we can say yay nay yes no and so i think that a healthy conversation So if you have community members or someone that wants to come out and talk during that time, express their different organizations throughout that may or may not like or dislike the flock system, let's have that conversation on Thursday. Certainly. There have been great thought processes brought up by Councilman Driscoll, Councilwoman Kramer, Councilman Komives, and so I really am very thankful for this very healthy conversation that we're going to have on Thursday concerning flock cameras. So thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Councilman Driscoll. Thank you, Chair. I want to thank President Williams and Councilman Hobbs, the Public Safety Chair, for taking this on. Edit, I guess I would have is I think a lot of people have some serious questions about this out in the community and I think it would be valuable. Most of our city in our city auditor works really hard, but most of our city audits take more than a few months and I think like an early check in maybe a month or two into this process. I think from the city auditor, depending on what the findings are, would be helpful from a transparency standpoint. But other than that, I appreciate the work done here. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Hobbs. Sorry again, Chair, and I wanted to say SCP. Sorry.

The next item is being sponsored by Councilwoman Brittany Jones and Councilmember Teresa Gaddis, enacting a new Toledo Municipal Code Chapter 1766, Retaliation Prohibited. And it's my understanding Mr. Thomas is going to present this.

Yeah, the co-sponsors are not here, but we have a packet from the Fair Housing Center and very patient members of this important organization. Thanks for listening to all of our talk of potassium permanganate.

I was mostly here for the entertainment value, but I'm glad that... Have you ever considered... I actually didn't know I was presenting, but I'm happy to... Have you ever considered it?

I'm sorry. To get started, what is your position on potassium permanganate?

I'd like to take that as under advice.

Pro, pro, I hear it. Referral. You've been so patient with us and we look forward to hearing what you have to say. We do have a four o'clock hearing right after this. Okay. I have a hunch that won't be an issue. I just want to let you know.

Absolutely.

Welcome.

Thank you. And my name is George Thomas. I'm the CEO and general counsel for the Fair Housing Center. I think Dr. Jones and Ms. Gaddis asked me to present or maybe hoped that I would present because in collaboration with them, we've been working on updating our local housing code to better protect against retaliation. But just to kind of give you really quickly the context is that Dr. Jones and Ms. Gattis did a series of events across the cities or tenant listening sessions. And they also distributed a survey to just try to better understand what's going on in the landlord tenant marketplace in our community. And it's a really important question, I think, in Toledo right now. As just demographically, Toledo has mostly shifted to having more and more tenants and a little bit fewer and fewer homeowners. And we still do have a majority homeowner-occupied city. but the overall rate of tenants has increased quite a bit and it's just around 50-50. Like I said, it's a little bit more owner-occupied, but that has been the trend all across the country and that's certainly been in Toledo. Tenant issues are increasingly important. At the same time, I think all of you already know this, but Toledo has relatively low prices for real estate as compared to most cities across the country. And so we do get a sizable portion of investors coming to the community to buy up properties. And indeed, the Cleveland Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Bank that serves this area, they also did a study and found that Lucas County was up there at the top of this Midwest region that they studied as having a significant portion of particularly the out-of-state investors coming to the area. So interestingly, some of the results from the study, the survey that Dr. Jones and Ms. Gaddis did was uncovering that really awful issues that people are dealing with sometimes, that they're complaining about with unresponsive landlords, can't get in touch with them, and also the issues that they're complaining about, like our community members are living with pests on health and safety issues, I personally attended a lot of those sessions. There's a lot of really powerful stories that people were telling about the conditions that they were living in. But one thing that really came out too unexpectedly was that people are just afraid. They're afraid to say very much. They're afraid to ask for repairs. They might have rights under the Landlord-Tenant Act, but they're afraid to say anything. And I would note there, too, that from my experience, a lot of times it's seniors are our most vulnerable community members. They're particularly worried in the midst of a housing crisis, where else can you go, right? Where else are you going to move to with the price of housing being so high? So long story short, the Fair Housing Center also did its own survey specifically on retaliation as a concern. We had just under 200 folks responded to text messages that we sent out to individuals who had contacted us. And more than 50% of the respondents found that they were on a scale of one to five at the maximum level of concern about retaliation. So, of course, we asked, like, well, what can we really do about this? We looked at other cities. What do other cities in Ohio do? Which is always the question that comes up. I heard that even here today. What do other cities do in this space? So we did see that Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland have all made some updates to their local housing code because it's one thing that we can control locally is the housing code. And in Cincinnati, for example, they changed the rules to basically shift the burden from the tenant to the landlord to prove retaliation. So if the tenant engaged in a protected activity within a certain period of time, Then it's really up to the landlord to say why this wasn't retaliatory or why they did have a good cause if all of a sudden the landlord says, I'm just not going to renew your lease. I'm not going to give you any kind of reason or I'm going to suddenly increase your rent. Well, a lot of times that is in response to someone asking for repairs. And hopefully, this is not, I want to be very clear, this is not a complete solution to the problem, right? It's a step in the right direction. But what this would do is it's modeled after the Cincinnati retaliation rule. It's very, very similar to that. to make that kind of change to our housing code. We also have drafted, because I don't want to use up too much time here, some FAQs that go into a little bit more detail than what I would do here. Those FAQs would be really helpful. So as constituents, maybe contact you or as you yourselves have questions, this FAQ document hopefully will help you. We've already sent that to Dr. Jones and Ms. Gass, but I have extra copies here to distribute if that could be of interest. Last thing I'll mention is we did have an event with some of the tenants. We just reached out to tenants in our community after all those surveys that were done and say, well, this is what we'd like to do. Does this make sense to you? Would you support this? We had a really good showing at the event. It was at Kent Branch Library. And the tenants there all completed, most of them completed cards, because not all of them are going to be able to come to a hearing like this or show their support. So they completed cards that indicate their name and address and have their signature saying, yeah, I do support this. And we showed them copies of the law and tried to educate them on what it would do. So my understanding is that Dr. Jones and Ms. Gaddis would I would like this to go to a committee hearing, which would be scheduled on the 24th at 3.30. So that would be the next step for this, I suggest. But while I'm here, I'm happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability.

Thank you very much. Councilman Sorrento.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for being here today, Mr. Thomas. So my question is, is there not a state law that talks about retaliation? And how would this proposed legislation differ from the state law?

That's an excellent question. Thanks for getting us right to that. There is a Landlord-Tenant Act that is statewide, and it does say, in very basic terms, a landlord cannot retaliate. However, that's extremely vague, and how that really operates has been kind of left to the courts, and unfortunately, There's a lot of very bad case law that says if a landlord just gives no reason at all to say, well, I just don't want to renew your lease, then that has not been found to be retaliatory in most of those situations. And what we can do locally then is we are allowed to have a local housing code to fine tune that a little bit more to say, like, here's how we're we are going to implement or ensure that retaliation is actually enforced in our local community. I'm painting that with like really quick kind of broad strokes, but that's basically, yes, there is that rule, but it doesn't really function very well at all to protect people in reality. So this would fine tune that in the way that other cities like Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland have done.

I'd be interested in getting that packet. Oh, sure. You know, it's... frankly it's disgusting what's happened for example executive towers yeah uh you know and i mean we really we really need to curtail this type of uh environment for people to live in where pretty much it's just a non-response to the best of my knowledge as one example right the landlord is not cleaning up the matter so um

Absolutely. And that's really just one example. There's another recent one. We're now assisting folks at the Saxon House Apartments, which the Blade recently covered. That's another situation. It's very complicated. The ownership structure is complicated. There's a receiver involved that's a company from far away. It's just yet another example of that, yeah.

And you know what's funny is those two buildings were tremendous facilities at one time. They just were unbelievably luxurious and people really took a lot of pride in living there.

yeah and i think you touch on some of the the potential of the loss of it right if we don't act if we don't secure some of these properties we don't have basic rules enforced over time the the value gets completely extracted and that's going to have to be demolished where the real big picture strategic plan of the city is to increase housing increase population we're not going to be able to do that if we just keep losing housing units from from blight and demolition yeah

Okay, well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually, my question is more about the data, more so than anything else, and I don't want to bore this council, so I'll just have an offline conversation.

The question was more about the what? The question was more about what?

The data. the data because I'm curious about the LLCs because versus the S Corp, C Corp, you know, major corporations versus an individual mom and pop shop putting their building into an LLC to protect themselves from other liabilities into the grittiness of that stuff. That was kind of some of my questions.

I would love to get into the grittiness, but I'm 100% confident most of you would fall asleep. That's why I said we'll do an offline conversation.

Okay, I don't see any of the questions.

I have a simple, hello, hi.

Oh, okay, the first reading is what we're going to go with on this. That's what they asked for. Does that make sense to you?

I do not, I'm not the right person to ask, I think, but I think there's a committee hearing on that 24th.

You had an inquisitive reaction to me. Thank you for being here. I also would love to chat sometime, but the whole investor out-of-town situation is... It's such an important issue. Thank you for that, yeah. threading the needle of being business-friendly, investment-friendly, but with some values and caring about people.

Because there's a lot of great investors, too. Wonderful, too.

Totally understand. And we have a light. If I talk long enough, Councilman McPherson.

know a slow thinker um and you just said that so is there a way that we can regulate or even look at that bad investors bad persons that purchase and don't do right by our citizens have are there

I definitely think there's more we can do. And one thing that kind of came out of those series of listening sessions and the surveys was this is, we see this as giving some more protection to the tenant so they can speak up a little bit more, they feel a little bit more comfortable. but it is really only the first step, and I think there are more things that our community can and should do, and there's a lot of ideas percolating, so I'd be very happy to meet with you to talk more about those different ideas, more that we can do, yeah.

Yeah, because in some of the apartment complexes, the tenants were leery of putting their rent in escrow and doing it collectively. And I thought, oh, yeah, if you do it collectively and everybody's in on it, now you've got support. But a lot of them still did not want to participate in that. And they would rather pay their rent and live in disarray, for lack of a better word, but it's like, at least I have a roof over my head. If I fight or if I do something else, I may be out on the street. It's still not good, but I think in listening to a lot of the residents, that's kind of like where they were.

Absolutely, and I think you touch on why we see this as a fair housing issue specifically, which is that the most marginalized, the most vulnerable communities are the ones who are the most afraid, right? Because they're going to have the hardest time finding other housing.

Exactly, exactly. So thank you, and yes, we need to, because we have, everybody deserves a clean place to live. They don't have to worry about mold and animals and those type of things and hot water. you know, are not afraid to use their restroom because of things backing up in it. And it was very disheartening to go in some of the complexes and see what people were really actually dealing with and still paying their rent.

Right, yeah, and thank you for doing that with them, to go there and see those conditions, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it is disheartening. And we're dealing with it more now because there's not a lot of places that they can move to. exactly and if you're on section eight you're limited to where and now the list is so long and so yes it is and that's why we're dealing with so many seniors right now on the streets yeah it does ultimately um lead to homelessness too to your point yeah i was astounded yesterday to hear that uh dr durant said that toledo public schools has over 2 000 2,000 young people, students that are homeless. It's shocking.

It's absurd in this day and age.

But thank you for your work. I'm done, Councilman Sam.

Well, thank you. As the screen says, thank you. And seeing nothing further, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you. Thank you.