City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm ready. The Columbus City Council meeting for February 2nd, 2026 will now come to order. In compliance with the Open Meeting Act, a copy of this act is posted in this meeting room. Madame Clerk, would you please call roll? Oakley here. Olen here. Bar here. He here. Jablonsky here. Lopez here. Pinsky here. Roth here. Schilling here. Mayor Bley, the role has been called. Thank you, Mr. Council President. [clears throat]

Our father, thank you for the opportunity to serve our fellow citizens. Please give us the wisdom and guidance to make the proper decisions entrusted to this governmental body. May our conduct show respect, honor, and courtesy to each other as well as to all our citizens. Amen.

Amen. Oh, say [singing] does that star spangled banner yet wave. Oh, the land of [singing] the free. and the home of the

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening. Welcome everyone to tonight's council meeting. If at any time during our meeting this evening, anyone has any comments regarding our any agenda item, we'd ask that you please come forward, give your name, your address, and we'd ask that you keep any comments to five minutes or less. All right, with that, we'll move on to tonight's agenda items. First one would be the appointment of a city officer. Item 4 A, Christopher Norquest as the finance director, effective March 9th, 2026. With your permission, the mayor wishes to submit the following name to you for the consideration and appointment of, excuse [clears throat] me, at the February 2nd, 20 26 city council meeting. Finance Director Christopher Norquist. Chris Norquest is a finance professional with over a decade of experience in public accounting and municipal and public sector finance. His background includes budgeting, treasure management, debt financing, and financial reporting. He is committed to physical fiscal responsibility, transparency, and supporting the long-term financial health of the city of Columbus. Chris along with his wife and two children have been residents of Columbus since 2013 and are actively involved in the community. He serves as a den leader and treasure for Cub Scout Pack 276 and is an Eagle Scout himself. Chris also serves on the board of stewardship at Emanuel Lutheran Church. In his free time, he enjoys hunting and camping with his family and values spending time outdoors. Chris will begin his position with the city on March 9th

of this year. Do I have a motion to accept this appointment? Yes. Second. We have a motion and a second to accept. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay. [snorts] Motion passed. Chris is in the audience. We'd like to ask him to come forward and say hello to us. you've started with a unanimous uh vote of approval. So, we you're off to a great start.

I was going to say that's a that's a good thing to start off with. So, I I appreciate it. Um I'm looking forward to uh serving the community here in Columbus and uh like I said, the wife and I have been here now since uh 2013 and it's uh it's been very good to us here and like I said, I'm looking forward to uh serving. So, any questions? Awesome. Welcome aboard. Your wife and children are here with you. So, for my wife to see and my son [applause] and daughter and myself. Thank you much. Looking forward to March 9th. All right, we move on to the consent agenda.

Item five, consent agenda. The following items are considered to be routine by the city council and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a city council member or citizen requests in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered in its normal sequence. Item 5 A, minutes of the January 19th, 2026 city council meeting. Item 5B, minutes of the January 19th, 2026 Community Development Agency meeting. 5C, reappointment of Joshua Johnson to the Downtown Business Improvement Board for a three-year term. 5D, resolution number R26-16, approving the lease agreement with Loop River Public Power District for use of an H beacon for the Columbus Municipal Airport. Item 5E, resolution R26-17, approving the second amendment to the consolidated communications center interlocal cooperation agreement with Plaque County. Item 5F, resolution number R26-18, authorizing payment of various improvement projects and 5G, payroll and bills [clears throat] on file. Mr. Mayor and council members, is there anything you would like removed from the consent agenda?

I move the items on the consent agenda be approved as presented. Second. We have a motion and a se second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed? Nay. Motion passes. Brings us up to special presentations. Item 7A is an annual report from the library board. Amy's not here. So, can we just do our video presentation? You sure can. It's

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Good evening. Uh, I'm Kathy Quapnoski. I'm the secretary of the library board. Um, and I would just add impromptu here, you've got a a copy of that report, but I think what that quick video shows you is the extent of the operations and the way the library staff has continued to expand their offerings. And you can see in that report the numbers of people attending the the summer reading program is off the charts. Um, and they're just seeing increased attendance as they continue to add programming. And it's pretty fantastic work. If you haven't been downstairs to see the donor wall, it's amazing. I encourage you to go down and look at it when you have a chance. Um, and I think if you have any specific questions, I will defer those to Jerry. But

any questions for our library board? Very nice presentation. Just curious, do you have the number off the top of your head for the summer reading program? I think no. It's just always amazed me how many go for that. Yeah, that's great. It was the It was up by like 5% I think this year and then that was over top of it being up like 20% last year. So, and literal hundreds. Yeah. Both of those years are full years in the new building. So, it's just keeps growing. Kelly's doing an amazing job. Yeah, she is. Thank you. It

It's amazing. The naysayers when we were trying to build this library said that, you know, who goes to the library? I guess we proved him wrong. So, uh, outstanding work. Thank you. Very good. All right. Thank you very much. We now will move on to reports of city offices. Item 10 A. Item 10 A, Columbus and Focus. Uh, this meeting is the general administration team. All right.

Now, is it fair to put the media guy up in front of us when when Come on. I mean, that's what I said. I prefer writing, but here I am. [laughter] Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. Uh, thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide an update. I'm with the general services leadership. Who are you? Oh, I should say I'm Matt Lindberg, the public communications manager. Thank you, sir. Good job.

Uh, striking out already. Uh, thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide an update on what the general services leadership team is working on. Everything I'll share tonight is directly aligned with the city strategic plan and with our ongoing focus on turning those goals into tangible day-to-day action across city hall. Uh in the past, we've worked uh to connect with the public through initiatives like our morning brew community chats. Uh while the turnout hasn't always been what we hoped, in some cases non-existent, uh we understand that people are busy. Even so, our mission remains the same, to provide both the public and elected officials with meaningful updates about the work city staff are accomplishing every day. Looking for a new way to better educate both the public and our elected officials, we've developed Columbus and focus. In each meeting, different city leadership groups will present uh to you all, giving updates on the progress and initiatives within their departments. Uh, and since Gene Vanipron and I are part of two of those groups, fortunately for everyone here, you'll be seeing us even more than the rest of them. I was holding for applause there, but

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uh, we we're excited about this new approach and we believe it will provide clear insight into the work happening across city hall while keeping everyone informed and engaged. Um, so I will kick it off and I'm going off the presentation here, but the uh general admin leadership team is comprised of Betsy Ehart, our director of general services, uh myself, the public communications manager, uh Tammy Orander, our human resources director, Matt Sukup, our computer network technician, uh Sheree Schot, our city clerk, and Gene Vanipin, who is our planning and economic development coordinator. uh everyone is is here from the team tonight. So uh the purpose of the group is to align the administrative team around strategic goals, translating them into regular actionable priorities while working collaboratively to problem solve. So our first big priority is the workforce. So our goal is to develop tools to allow city employees to more efficiently complete their work. Uh so some of the things we've already begun working on uh is developing onboarding and offboarding staff procedures um general office procedures about how we work around the uh around the building [clears throat] and the implementation of Microsoft 365. Uh the next priority is efficient delivery of city services. So we want to develop and maintainformational resources which are easily accessible to the public. Uh a few ways we're doing that so far is we are in the process of leveraging uh AI into our phone software so it's easier to navigate and people can reach uh who they want to reach in the building without uh having to make a bunch of calls and not taking up tons of city time trying to make it work. Uh we're working on general office procedures as well as enhancing public facing communications to help residents better understand city services processes and operational

responsibilities. Uh next one is community relations. Uh our goal is to be transparent and informative uh city by ensuring all residents have the opportunity to participate. A few of the ways we're working on that more recently is uh we're constantly promoting the 23rd Street beautifification grant to the public. Um and we are also making uh regular updates and enhancements to our city website to make it easier for users to navigate through it. Uh I know some of the people on there. I know all the people in that picture. Uh so collaboration uh we want to increase public engagement opportunities. Uh so some some of the ways we're doing that is uh we're working with the B board uh on a wayfinding study. Uh and we're working with all of the departments to try to figure or to identify and improve Spanish language and accessible communications related to city services. This looks like a red solo cup. I was like, "What's in that?"

Uh, how we do this? Uh, we weekly review our goals and set intentions. We create action steps to complete complete them. Uh, we discuss goals and how we can help each other with the action items and how we move them across the finish line. Any questions? Will our new finance director be part of your team? Yeah, I was going to ask where does our finance director fit within our group? Uh, yes, he will. He's part of the I may have known the answer to that, but yes, he I did ask. I wondered about that. I assumed I didn't want to overstab.

Yes, we'll be [clears throat] excited to have him on board. Well, and I and I think one of the things we hope to get out of this, if my if I understand correctly, is is having having more information available to the public, you know, which has always been our goal about what is going on, what is happening, and a more accessible way of getting it, an easier way. Uh, you mentioned, you know, the the the brew the coffee brews we had. One of those looked like a red solo cup, but that's another story. But [laughter] but that was definitely maybe we would get more people. I don't know. Um, but I think it's really important to continue to tell the public that we are trying to reach out and we are trying to give them multiple ways to get answers to their questions. We are accessible and and I say we, I'm talking I guess the the elected officials, but our staff and our our people are accessible and and this is just going to be a better way of of highlighting all the things we do and all the ways we do it and get better at doing it, I guess. Am I saying that right?

Sure. Sounds good. Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. All right. We'll move on to Oh, reports of council committees. Item 11 A, committee of the whole of February 2nd, 2026. Item 11 A1, the city of Columbus purchasing policy and procedures update. The committee recommends approval. Move the report be adopted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt this committee report. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Brings us up to new business. Item 14A, quote from SEI in the amount of $12,69 for camera upgrades for the aquatic center. Mr. Mayor, I move the quote from SEI for camera upgrades be accepted. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve this quote. Any discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Item 14B, quote from SEI in the amount of $29,18 for camera upgrades for the transfer station. This is CIP24-38. Mr. May, I move the quote from SEI for camera upgrades be accepted. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the quote for camera upgrades. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay.

Item 14 C, quote from Corin Mine in the amount of 19,000. Oh, sorry. [laughter] Did I jump again? You sure did, but that's okay. Motion passed. Go ahead and jump. [laughter] Item 14 C, quote from Corin Mine in the amount of $19,200 for six fire hydrants for the water utility department. Mr. Mayor moved the quote from Corin Maine for six fire hydrants be accepted. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay.

Motion passes. Item 14D, comments from the mayor and city council members in compliance with the open meetings act. No disc no discussion may be held on this item. Do we have any council members with comments this evening? Yes, sir. Mr. Bar, I would just like to thank everybody that came down and helped pause for closet with their fundraiser. They made a little over $11,000 thanks to you folks. Oh, wonderful. And all the crew here that I invited down that didn't come down. I've got your pie for [laughter] Rich was there. I was there and didn't get any pie. So, I didn't get it either.

Or tortilla or nothing. Any other comments? All right. And seeing none, we'll move on this evening to resolutions. Item 15A, resolution number R26-19, approving the land lease agreement with Yellow Airplane LLC for land at the Columbus Municipal Airport. The board of airport commissioners recommends approval. Um, we already got the insurance, so Okay, Mr. Mayor move that resolution number R26-19 be adopted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-19. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay.

Motion passes. Item 15B, resolution number R26-20, approving the agreement between the owner and design builder um with Commonwealth Electric Company and a guaranteed maximum amount of $125,000 for design and construction phase services for Frankfurt Square Lighting. The full amount to be reimbursed by the Downtown Business Improvement District. Mr. Mayor, I move that resolution number R26-20 be adopted. Second. We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-20. Any discussion? Could we just have an explanation of maybe the scope, what we're trying to do with the lighting? Is it just uh up tree lighting?

Jean, I think you would probably be better at doing that.

Jean Vanipurn, planning and economic development coordinator. The B started this project about a year and a half ago. Um, they were looking at ways to keep the downtown active after dark, especially like in the summertime. And we talked about they talked about using Frankfurt Square more. Well, if you've ever been down there after dark, there's not a lot of lights in Frankfurt Square to make people feel safe. And so they looked at this project. They wanted to replace the light that um shines on the mural across the street. They wanted to um replace the light on the flag pole so that it's more visible. They wanted to add lighting to the back of the band shelf so that mural is um lit up at night um because currently it is not as well as enhance the lighting in the center of the square around the monument. And there's two security lights right there. And so they're going to have those replaced, too. But they also wanted um to do like color changing lights or something that we could utilize throughout the year to um just bring more attention to Frankfurt Square. So, um, part of this project is adding ballards around the sidewalk areas that we can, um, maybe make green and red during Christmas time, pink during breast cancer awareness month, purple during, um, domestic violence months and just things like that. So,

very good. That is not in this scope of this work. Okay. at this time, but we are still looking at that. So, Jean, is it my understanding still that they're going to illuminate trees as well? Highlight those or not? No. Um, we switched from doing the uplighting to more of the Ballard lighting to help um with security along the sidewalks too, so that people feel comfortable walking, you know, just at night. Jean, what about the flag pole holders for Memorial Day? Are we leaving all of those? None of those will be touched. Perfect.

And then of course we all this is really being financed by the B. Yeah. Because uh they will they will reimburse the city for these expenses. So kudos to the B for you know this project. And yes Rick I'd like to add something on that too. Um Comalth Electric does have a $4,100 Goodwill donation on this as well. So we appreciate that assistance from them too. Well, we appreciate their goodwill and the the B did get a donation of $25,000 from an anonymous donor, too. So, awesome.

Very good. Well, those are always appreciated. And uh any other council comments? I mean, I I just personally think anything we can do to just continue to highlight Frankfurt Square is just a huge plus for not just our downtown, but our whole community. So, I mean, this is just this is really I mean I think of the great comments we get for the for the 33rd vioaduct with our lights, you know? I mean, we'll be able to see some of that same thing here, right? Um anyway. Okay. Uh any other comments? Thank you for your leadership with the B board, Jean. Thank you.

All right, we have a motion. Uh we do have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Item 15 C, resolution number R26-21, adopting the City of Columbus purchasing policy and procedures. Mr. Mayor, I move the resolution number R26-21 be adopted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-21. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Meeting adjourned.