Housing, Community Development & Public Health Committee - Regular Meeting

Piece if you'd like to publicly speak on that. And then there is the last one, which is open for anything else that you'd like to bring before council. I call to order the Toledo City Council joint meeting of mobility, sustainability, and beautification committee with housing and community development of Thursday, August 7 at 04:30PM. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss trash and blight, grassland management, and trees. Kirk clerk, please call the roll.

For housing and community development committee, Gaddis? Here. Jones, Driscoll? Here. Hartman, McPherson, Meldon, Williams? Here. Three present. For Mobility Sustainability and Beautification Committee, Comives, Gaddis? Here. Driscoll?

Here.

Hartman, Jones, Martinez, two present.

Thank you. And with that, I'm just gonna start with some housekeeping. I know some of you have been here, but I've seen a couple people walk in. There is a sign up sheet when you first walk in. Are four sheets because we are separating them by category. If you'd like to talk about public comment for trash and blight, sign that sheet please. There's one for grass and land management and then there's one for trees and the fourth one is about any other topic you'd like to bring before council. And with that, I'd like to begin. Welcome and we're gonna start with trash and blight, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon Chair Gaddis and members of council. Thank you for having us. I'm Megan Robson, I'm the director for the Department of Public Service. Today I am joined by commissioners Sarah Stacy and Ryan Murphy.

I always find this slide to be helpful just to give an overview of what the Department of Public Service does for council and for our residents. So the Department of Public Service is responsible for three the division of fleet and facility operations managing all of the assets for the city of Toledo. The division of solid waste which oversees our Hoffman Road landfill. And then urban beautification, which runs the programs of cleaning, which includes demolition, blight, alleys. We then have land maintenance where our mowing falls.

And then we have forestry, which is where our tree removal and planting and maintenance occurs. Today we are gonna specifically talk about blight and then our land maintenance and forestry operations. So to start, the slide highlights some of our non compliant bulk and property cleanup statistics from our team. You can see the breakdown by ZIP code on this slide over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, as you can see from the highlighted, noncompliant bulk pickups have increased over the years.

We use this data to determine where our block by block and neighborhood cleanups as well as our Clean Toledo stationary events are. So we can compile it by zip code and then determine where it makes sense for our team and crews to be. Maybe a better representation of this is the map here. This map mainly focuses on all of the 2024 data that we use to make our decisions for 2025. So just to give everyone an overview of how the city runs our blight teams, we typically run two to three blight crews per day focusing on collecting all of those noncompliant bulk setouts and property cleanups or blight calls that we receive into engage Toledo.

City crews run a schedule that is two days behind Republic's garbage collection and one day behind Republic's bulk collection day. When republic has identified a noncompliant set out, they report the issue to their dispatch and the resident is notified and given an opportunity to make the compile the pile compliant. If the pile is not made compliant, compliant, Republic will notify the city via email that the noncompliant pickup is needed from our blight team. The city enters the request into our CityWorks software as a noncompliant bulk pickup request. Our blight team will then go out to that property, take before and after photos of each case, and attach those to the assigned work orders.

Additionally, if crews find blight, including other noncompliant set outs, for example, example that may not have been called in and that are not in our city works software, the crews will create a new work order on-site using their tablets and take before and after photos and then go through the same process for that cleanup. This map, as I mentioned, shows the 2024 property cleanups, work orders and noncompliance set out work orders completed by our city team, and we're happy to answer any questions specifically on that in our blight crew.

Thank you. Just for clarification what is the difference between non compliant and property cleanup?

Sure so a non compliant bulk set out is when so every City Of Toledo resident can receive a bulk set out once a month. They call Republic Services and they schedule that to be collected. It is deemed non compliant when that resident maybe has set out items that cannot be picked up by Republic Services. Maybe there are boards with nails, they haven't compiled all of the material into piles or bags. When they're not following the rules that republic has set forth for setting those out, the republic republic will not pick it up and they will deem it non compliant.

They then call that resident who has scheduled that bulk pickup. They tell the resident how to make that pile compliant and they give them the opportunity to do so. If the resident does not make compliant, then Republic will turn it over to our team to have it cleaned up.

Thank you.

And a property cleanup, those are labeled just in our system if it's just something that a resident calls in to engage Toledo and we don't have a record of it being a non compliant bulk set out.

Thank you for the clarification. And so this last chart, we're already at 5,000 and we're only halfway through the year. So that's trending upwards.

It is trending upwards, yes.

Okay. Well, have Republic, I don't know if they would like to come up and please introduce yourself for the record. I think they're just going to use the

We'll just stay right back here if you're okay. Thank you, chair Gaddis and counsel for inviting us today. I'm Michelle Bowen. I'm the municipal sales manager for Republic Services. I have with me today our new GM, and I'll let him speak in a minute. In light of everything that's happened this week, I'm sure everybody's been made aware, we didn't feel a formal presentation was needed today. We're here to answer any questions, issues and concerns and I'll turn it over to my GM.

Thank you Rochelle. Thank you for having us here today. I am Anujit Barwa. I am the General Manager for Republic Services. Unfortunately, is not the way I wanted to come to the first meeting. But irrespective, right, this is a bit of a challenging time for us. I think it's the right time for me to be here so that we can hear and answer any questions that might be.

Thank you. It's definitely a timely time. I've seen Republic out picking up my trash today. I before I ask oh, and I'd like to reflect for the record that councilman Sorantu is here. Before I get to councilwoman Williams, I probably the biggest complaint I've gotten this year is is the is the bulk set out.

So I really made it my mission monthly to drive my district and I only have one sixth of the city and kind of record what I saw and then I've been able to refine that data and work with the city on that. And I'd been talking about it on our first calls but in March I had five ninety four pickups or pots of garbage throughout my district. In April it was six zero four and then in May it was six ninety two. And just like the city is seeing, we're definitely seeing a trend move up. And I think what was alarming to me is between March and April and I'm not done going through April and May, but through we noticed that a 160 of those piles were the same and so I'm really nervous that whatever or I'm concerned about whatever system is in place to report those to the city, where it's falling through the cracks because a 160 piles setting there now, we know for at least four weeks.

That's that's a lot. And I think what was really heartbreaking to me is I went the weekend of Easter and you know, we had all of these families coming to visit their their their celebrate Easter and they're having, it was it was awesome. We were watching. I was able to see so many of the families having egg hunts and their families are parking on our streets but they had to climb over the garbage that's left and I think that's why I wanted to raise awareness. I think that our Blake crew is it looks like they are really working hard and I'm sure we're working hard you guys are working hard but there are things falling through the cracks and I'm concerned for our neighbors.

So that's I think, why it was really important for me to bring this meeting forward. But I would be happy to turn it over to councilwoman Williams.

Thank you, chair. Please forgive me. I just got off the road from Columbus conference, but I wanted to make sure that I got here. Michelle, you are so responsive. I absolutely adore you, so please don't take this personally.

I absolutely absolutely absolutely am tired of having these conversations. For the last five years, I've had this conversation. You're and I and I understand the sensitivity of the times because of of, you know, the strike. Michelle and Sheryl are so responsive and it's not reflective attitude does not reflect leadership when it comes to the drivers. I understand it is a hard task, but they were told numerous times to report if there's piles on the street to the city.

They are not. Me and councilwoman Gatt councilmember Gattis probably has a had the worst districts for trash. And then I understand the the the the work struggles, but I I I swear in May in May, outside of Memorial Day, we were day late every day every week in May. We were day late every week in May. I think I text Megan.

Megan, garbage still out here because everybody's calling me and and we're the conduit and we get the calls. I had a gentleman in particular, he set out his stuff was pristine and nobody had put stuff on it, but Republic said that it was noncompliant. I'm talking about Doug Johnson. It was noncompliant, and the blight crew had to go out, and they charged it and put it on put a nuisance charge on his property taxes. And we're working, and he has pictures of it.

It's just we've had this conversation numerous times, and for a city of this size, it has gotten better as far as the response from management, but it has not gotten better on the street level. I will definitely say that when Rochelle and Cheryl were connected to our council, very responsive, very on time, but attitude is not reflecting leadership on the street level. I we have said it numerous times and quite frankly, I trash is probably the biggest number of calls that I get is trash. Trash and grass, which is why I'm glad we're having this meeting. Trash and grass is what we get caught on the most, and it's unfortunate that we're still talking about this five years later.

I'm appreciative of of the administration hearing our cries and though like you a lot Rochelle love me some Sheryl but I'm ready for it to be over I'm ready for us to get some just get some options here because I I don't want my residents to keep suffering from trash where rats and rodents and groundhogs, and it's just nasty and it's not fair, especially when we see elevated rates all the way around with everything. I thank you guys for being here. I know it's a horrible week for you guys. Appreciate the response of management, but it is not reflective in the in the in the work around the city. Thank you.

Thank you, chair.

Thank you. And we're gonna take time for public comment but I do wanna thank our crews too for all the hard work they're doing. I see them all the time in my district and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for what they're doing for our city. Okay. Well, I don't know if you guys want to sit in the front row and then we're gonna have yeah. Take a couple minutes for public commentary. If anyone has questions for you, maybe we could take some time to answer it. It's just a couple of names for trash and blight. So this is how it goes. I'm gonna have clerk Julie read the names because I'm not always the best at that.

And then we're gonna set a timer for three minutes. So you have three minutes to talk to us about the issues with trash and blight that you have. And if we can help you in any way, we're happy to do that. If not, we will log that complaint and work with you. So, Clerk Julie.

The first name is Leslie F.

Hi. Hi.

My name is Leslie Eve. I live over in East Toledo. My issue with trash and blight is I live right at the bottom of the high level bridge, and we get trash that blows down from the bridge, gets stuck in the grass, that doesn't get picked, you know, doesn't get picked up. We get stuff that blows down our alley. People just dump stuff down our alley.

I've gone out usually two or three times a year and do a full alley clean of my alley. Our whole intersection at Oak And Woodville, I go out and I pick up the trash out of the islands. Everywhere I just picked up. There was the large island at Oak And Woodville. There was a pile of tree branches that had come down four four, five years ago that I've called the city multiple times over the years to try and get it picked up.

I finally went out this year and pulled all the tree branches out, cut down the weed trees, and put it in a pile to have the city come pick up. Again, my concern is I'm a resident, and my tax dollars are not going to where they need to when I have to go out myself myself and take care of my neighborhood to get things cleaned up. So we have a safe place for our neighborhood kids to be at. As far as garbage goes, our recycling was supposed to be picked up today. It's trash and recycling.

And when I left, our recycling still hadn't been picked up. Our neighbor put out a set out that he called in two weeks ago to be picked up and it finally it took over two weeks to get his set out out in front of his house picked up. So

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for taking care of the neighborhood. Thank you. Okay. Next we have? Larry Lanting. Welcome, mister Lanting. There'll be three three I guess I didn't explain. I could There'll be a three minute timer, and there are clocks here and on the sides.

So,

floor is yours.

Alright. My name is Larry Lanting. I'm a East Side resident. My children and me, we clean up a lot of stuff and cover up a lot of spray paint and blight and trash. One of my biggest issues that I know affects all Toledoans is they don't know who their neighbor is.

They don't have their cell phone number. They don't they don't talk to them because everybody's in this quiet, oh, we don't I don't wanna talk to this person or say the right thing or the wrong thing, but I know that'd be beneficial for everybody in Toledo. But my biggest thing is where I live at, I'm surrounded by million dollar companies and businesses and billion dollar companies between the CSX and the gas company and other people that own properties that got own 50 acres, but I butt up to a light industrial zoning. And I gotta keep my grass cut. I gotta keep my trash picked up, but they got people dumping stuff in between the train tracks, the gas company.

But I gotta do this to control bugs and fleas and ticks and all this stuff that I don't wanna have to deal with to put my children's safety at risk on, hey. I got six foot, 12 foot tall branches and everything else just in the way. But what happens is I'm the one stuck hey. Let's cut this back. Let's go down and do this, this, and this because it just looks nasty, and we don't wanna deal with the bugs and everything else that comes with it.

The rodents, everybody talks about, hey. How bad is the groundhog problem? It's a big issue everywhere through the whole city because me and my children are involved with even Junction Coalition and One Voice for East Toledo. We do a lot of stuff throughout the neighborhoods, and it's an issue everywhere. It's just ain't just one side of town. But the other thing is, like, you go down Star And East Broadway, Dollar General sitting there. The stuff's been laying on the ground for almost a year now. The pillar's been busted down. It weighs probably a thousand pounds. You can't even pick that up.

We had four people trying to pick it up to move it when we're doing a community cleanup over there. But why do these billion dollar companies and millionaires get away with what what's going on? Hey. We're where's it's not let's start finding them. Let's start doing something. And my other issue is, okay. Let let's approve people to get stuff painted on their on these abandoned buildings and all this stuff, but okay. Now we're gonna draw your eyeballs to this. Oh, this looks real nice, but next thing you know, it's four foot grass. And who's out there cutting it?

My children and me. And it's not it's not if you're gonna approve that to happen, y'all should make them hey. One of the thing is you gotta keep this area clean. It's not I don't know. Make it make sense to me. It don't. Yeah. But there's a lot of issues going on, but I think everybody in Toledo needs to know who their neighbors are and at least have a way to contact them. Hey. I have this issue or you don't like what I'm doing. Get ahold of me for I could correct the issue, and stuff would be a lot better than what it is. It ain't like how it used to be in the nineties. Yeah. And I miss that. Y'all have a good day.

Thank you. Larry is an MVP. Him and his kids work really hard in East Toledo. I'm grateful to have them.

Gary Lenhart.

It's like the East Toledo Hall of Fame. I'm so excited. You all came.

Good afternoon good afternoon, everyone. I'm gonna try to do this in three minutes, but I do have testimonials from residents that are not able to be here. So I would like to ask that I have those minutes of those testimonials. The first thing I'd like to say is just thanking everyone for the opportunity to talk about the many, many issues regarding blight, compliance issues, noncompliance issues with what's not getting done. No amount of cussing and fussing is gonna fix a flat tire, so I'd like to talk about maybe some solutions and provide some data and evidence that will help support the changes that really need to be made.

The first testimony I'd like to make, and I have copies to submit to counsel, republic service, and anyone else that would like them, and I am reserving a copy for immediate personnel that have asked. In 10/30/2021, two weeks after I agreed to work as a community builder in East Toledo under the auspices of One Voice for East Toledo, I wrote a letter to Theresa Gaddis, counsel district three, and my supervisor, Jody Gross, at the East Little Family Center. And it's titled it's about blight remediation. Here's copies for others. Thank you.

And just a condensed version, and I'm just gonna go to the back of it because it can be entered into the record and read by others. But, essentially, I am so frustrated as a resident since 1984 in East Toledo. Since 08/00/2009 economic downturn, I have never had a family event where there was not trash on my street when someone showed up to visit me. It's embarrassing. It's enraging. At the end of the document I just submitted, his testimony, I write, I can't get these three words out of my mind right now. Now mind you, this is from 2021. I'm three and a half years into trying to help. Plate. Blight is an ugly rundown condition of many urban areas.

Blight is a thing that spoils or damages something. Vacant properties are a blight on the neighborhood. Blighting has a severely detrimental effect. Flight. Flight is the action of fleeing or attempting to escape.

We witnessed this after the o eight, o nine economic crash as many residents were financially underwater and walked away from their American dream. The o five was hit hard, resulting in excuse me. More blight bloomed and caused more people to flee, resulting in full flight, people escaping as fast as possible. Blight, plight, is a condition in our state of living in unfavorable and unfortunate situations. Sadly, that's what we are living in in my neighborhood and in most of East Toledo.

Plate is being in a difficult and distressing situation that has full problems. Who knows what plight our neighbors had to face or what they have had to endure? And that leads us to the charge at hand, implementing the neighborhood plan that will improve the quality of life and create more vibrant opportunities that can lead our residents out of poverty. That goes back to 2021. Over the time that I've been a community builder in East Toledo, I've developed a large networks of neighborhood implementers and ambassadors.

Larry is an example of a neighborhood implementer. His children are examples. Candice is example and her husband who want to help. Sheri Ishin is an example. I reached out to Pat Jones, a resident and longtime advocate of East Toledo. Pat resides in the Garfield neighborhood where our community plan was written and approved by city council in 2021. And that's thus the the responsibilities I took on to help implement the plan. I invited Pat Jones to speak today, and this is what I received in reply from Pat because she's not able to be here today. And these are available for entry into the testimonials. Gary, this is a very busy week for me.

I'm volunteering at Macomber Lodge on Wednesday, then I'm signing papers on my new home on Friday. I'm between an and emptying out my house, which I already sold as for the blight. All landlords should be required to make each and every tenant aware to call Republic Services for excess garbage. I'm not sure if they are aware that the phone number is from a national call center. Also, if it's late in the day, it will be the following week if it is picked up at all. The city used to send out a separate notice with water bill detailing trash and recycling pickup. They no longer do that at the beginning of the year. Now people have to go to the Wet To Little's website to find it. People are too lazy to do that. Around here, tenants put out recycling totes every week.

Totes are overfilled and lids don't close. As for me, I'm getting out of East Toledo and Toledo altogether. I will be selling off a lot of stuff and whatever doesn't sell, I'll be renting a roll off dumpster to toss all the leftover stuff in, far more reliable than Republic and worth well worth the money. Sadly, I will miss some people, but not the trash, violence, or what this city has become. I invited Christina Salgu to be here, Bev Piper, Mary Frank, Michael Woods, who lives at the corner of Prentice Park on Leonard.

He's very frustrated right now with the cars parking right in the park, right in Prentice Park, up in the grass, three a day. There were four there when I left to come to this meeting. I invited Sharon Gerwitz and Tracy Britt from Birmingham neighborhood to be here, but they are busy. Manuel Mathis, who is also a local young professional who has done survey work with me. Manuel is here. Thank you, Manuel. I hope you're able to give testimony and have been able to sign in. I invite us Larry, who's here. Sherry is here. I had a video of Sherry trying to ride in her wheelchair down the sidewalk in East Toledo.

Hopefully, she'll have an opportunity to show that to folks that are interested. Linda Hedrick's a longtime advocate for East Toledo, I've also been in touch with. So those are just a few testimonials that I'd like to enter into the record, input from these individuals. Right now, I created a database on 10/30/2021 when I started this work. The day after large pickup in East Toledo on a Thursday, on Friday and Saturday of that week in October 2021, I drove 88 miles over eleven hours and documented every pile of trash on the street.

And I've been reporting those into the database I created ever since that date. Presently as of today, there are thirteen thirty one total properties in East Toledo that I'm tracking. There are 1,002 open issues, three hundred six forty seven open issues, excuse me, three fifty five that have been closed, $8,000,000 $396,000 owed by Vim Homes with open issues. I have copies of that for others. Open issues, and I'll just stick to blight blight.

I can divide it out by any category. Presently, I show 270 properties with 323 open blight issues as of today. Action needed properties, I'm tracking a total of 639 properties in East Toledo with action needed. That because it could be because it's abandoned, there's blight, it's had a fire, many reasons it might need action. Other cat I can break it down by categories.

The fire structures list. Legislative aid was able to provide me with info on the last five years. I entered all of every fire in the last five years into the database. There are 171 burnt homes in East Toledo. Only 46 of those are on the demo list, 42 have been demoed. That leaves over 130 homes that need to be demoed. Five of these are within eyesight of elementary schools. They need to go before August ends. It's crazy. Lots of other open issues broken down by categories.

For the record, I'd like to submit also that I can report the data by neighborhood. Garfield is our star neighborhood with a neighborhood plan. There's presently 78 properties with open issue with 100 open issues. I have individual printouts of specific properties by address that I would like to call to counsel, republic service, and anyone else who would like to listen's attention. These particular property properties, and I would like to submit the entire package of them to counsel as evidence and testimony, really display all of the systemic problems within the large item and blight issues.

Each one's a little different. This person's been trying to get a can for two years. They call the landlord. They cannot call Republic Service and get a can because they're not the owner. How ridiculous. My neighbor's can today is sitting without a lid. Trash is blowing into my yard. I took a picture of it. I have it with me to submit. I have a picture from 800 Block Of Euclid today, five minutes before I left to come here because trash pickup was late today, as Teresa already has mentioned, council district three rep or council member.

Teresa has already mentioned that, that we had recycling cans not picked at late time today. Leslie had mentioned it, I think. But my I witnessed Republic Services come at, like, 04:12 today and dump one can on the side of the street by my car, and that can sort of gotten away when it was set back down on the street. It slid over in front of another can of garbage. They just drove on, then moved the can, and emptied the other can sitting by it.

I moved it to the other side of the street before I left so that it would get dumped today. So these are issues I'd like to submit. These are each individual properties that will tell a story. Some are about no cans. One person has I have a property on Greenwood Avenue that is three pages of complaints over the same issue, trying to get the trash dump for four months now, same property. We cannot seem to get a sofa, a mattress, or a couch picked up in East Toledo. I know residents personally that have witnessed Republic service workers pick up a couch. The sof the seats fell off when they picked it up to throw it in the truck. They left them laying drove on. They do not care.

They don't care. When I heard about the strike this week, I made a note at the end of my notes because I knew I'd have limited time that so the frustrated and the scuttled republic service workers have been doing as little as possible over these past many months, and niece Salido gets the brunt of the blah blah blah again. That was my feeling.

Thank you.

I have copies of this. I'll yield my time. There are copies of refuge collection and improvement suggestions I would like to make. I'll leave those for counsel. I also have records of about 35 suggested improvements for refuse collection that were collected at our May 2424 meeting.

I'm very concerned about city legislative issues. When I read the packet of individual complaints that I gave to Evan Snap, many of those have issues directly related to the legislative issues that should be being covered by these problems. But they're not. Because these are residents who are complaining about this home is burnt. There's no door on it.

The windows are broken. Well, this legislation says those are to be boarded. So we have so many systemic issues, and we need to address them like fingers on a hand, all of us working together. It's not this problem, this person's fault, or this person's fault, it's everyone's fault. We need to figure out a plan to manage this in a more efficient way. And I've listed some suggestions in these documents to do so, and I'll yield at that.

Thank you. And thank you for that. Thank you for the information. I think that you brought up a really you brought up many good points, but the one thing when I was doing my drives monthly, I noticed in fact, I kept a tally sheet, and it was predominantly couches, furniture, televisions. It was things that you would think didn't have to be set as certain, you know, just a one pickup.

Right.

Is there a reason that Republic is struggling picking up the bulk couches? Rochelle, what do you have? Like, have you heard or the television flat screens, lots of flat screen televisions?

Not knowing the specifics, but what we find on a lot of these narrower streets is the two sided parking. So you have cars on both sides. It's very difficult to get the truck through. If they don't feel they can safely maneuver a large screen TV entertainment center or couch around it, they air on the caution, which doesn't help any of us on the street. They leave it. If we go back a second time and it is still blocked, at that point, that's when we turn it over to the city. Is it perfect? No. But my guess is not knowing, just knowing the streets. That is probably what is happening.

I know in our contract that and why I don't like the idea that it is in the contract that if the cars are blocking you do reserve the right to tow in order to clean up an area. How many times have you towed vehicles in the city or asked for them to be towed this year so you could clean up trash?

That, I do not know if we've ever done it this year.

Okay. Could that be something you could check into us for us?

Our attempt and like councilman Williams had mentioned, Cheryl's our dispatcher has been with us forever, was originally with the city is tremendous. She'll go through Google, Ares, all the options to try to find the owner if we don't have a name or a number. She will make several attempts. We do not go back to the following week. So, again, you have that larger window where it's still sitting at the curb. If we still can't through, then that's why we're switching it over to the plate department.

Okay. Thank you.

Mhmm.

Candice Kirschner?

Okay.

Welcome, Candace.

Good afternoon. I am Candace Kirschner. I am an East Toledo resident. I am a habitual government caller. I am one that I'm just not gonna take no.

While there's been a little bit of beating up on Republic today, I do have many issues with them with some things, but most of it is my local government that I'm having issues with. As I I take the board of that should be adjourning right now and should be many more of you sitting at this table, hence the problem I have. I know that the blight is not just on Republic. This is on our city, our mayor. Our mayor who I believe this is dereliction of duty.

He has not kept us safe. He does not want to keep us safe from rats, from infestations of rodents, and anything else, children being harmed in bladed homes, children being harmed on trash that is being left on curbs. I think it also falls on our commissioners that that is our Lucas County when there are taxes owed on a blighted house. $30,000. I owned my home and a parcel next to it.

It's a $178 for six months. If I forget to do that, I get a pink slip the next month. Oh, I forgot that one. Let me get that. A pink slip for that next a $178. Well, there's a property on Goodwin that owes $30,000. Every window is knocked out. Every door is off and there's children. There's a playground. It's off of Miami Street.

There's a playground 14 steps. I got out of my car, and I walked it 14 steps from this home. With that being said, such as Gary, with all the information, I too have pictures. They're not my only copies, but if you'd like to see, I'm sure many of you already have seen, but if once you, you know, want to see, you're welcome to see that these are and some of this is stuff that the city has left me. I'll call and say, hey. Can I get a cleanup? And they put more roads. They do more destruction. It's ridiculous. And there are people within our government.

Oh, by the way, I'm gonna take up the other half's time. I'm sure he'll yield to me. There are people in our government whose not their jobs. Megan in front of me, it's not her job to take my calls monthly. It's not her job. It's not Theresa's job to listen to all of us at such lengthy times. It is a higher power that is neglecting us. It is more than just you people that came together and thank you for that. That's the problem we have. You know, I know in numbers.

I got out and started speaking to people. I told better stop, but I was just pulling up to people. There's a gentleman on Oakdale, been there forty five years. And again, to the park. Oakdale Park has been cut once this year. Do you know that we have one Blake crew in East Toledo? It is crew thirty eighty three. I I actually chased them down. And was trying to I come in a little hot, then I have to apologize. One blight crew. Why is there one blight crew? That is who's cutting grass. That's who's reporting back. I don't understand why we have one blight crew in East Toledo. That it is a gentleman and a young kid.

That's it. That's who's cutting our our grass. I was told that we're supposed to be on rotation. As you know, from my deck my deck alone, I have five abandoned, blighted properties. Five. One actually was used for fire training with the the fire department. Wasn't even supposed to start the training unless it was on the teardown list. Oops. I let that slip with mister Molnar. It's now on the teardown list.

If it will get tore down, who knows? The other one's been sitting for eleven years. I don't understand why there is a disconnect in our time in this day and age of computers and high speed Internet that Gary's information cannot be something that you all can tap into, and that your information isn't something that myself and Gary can't tap into. When I call Engage, do they know nothing? When Teresa asks engage, hey, why do they know nothing?

When is it going to be time for us to have accountability for higher ups to say, hey. I I I've done wrong. Just say I've done wrong, and I need to, you know, start helping or I need to move along. And that's where I'm at. My like I said, Republic, You do need to pick up the speed on some things. I'm curious. I don't know the question for Republic I have is if there is Republic is, like, with their management? Is anybody local here? Are they out of the area? You do have local people on the ground, local boots on the ground?

Yes. Like that come around and that's what and how does that work? Like what is the the, like, turnaround for the information getting to my city? Like, from you to, like, what is days, weeks, how long does that

Are are you talking about one specific

Yeah. Like, so when you're asked

Rochelle, if you could come near the mic so it's recorded for everyone. When

you're asked to report back to the city Mhmm. How long do you report back?

We immediately try to respond to

email. Via the computer?

Phone, computer, email, text. They all know they can get ahold of me morning, noon, or night. I live just outside the city, born and raised here.

That would now do you feel that that would be better implemented if it was just one system such as like an online where everybody is just using that one software, that one program that everybody's talking about instead of well hey, Bill called in and Bill called me, meaning you, and doing all of these because now we're passing the buck. What kind of system can we do to make sure that that buck isn't being passed?

Republic Services is ready to roll out an application for all residents. You can just go in and sign online. It's kinda like track my truck is what we call it. Okay. So you guys can report misses. You can report your setouts, your bulk pickups. If you wanted to pick up if you need a can exchange, all that will be available. We are in the process right now of testing that. I didn't wanna just roll it out in light of making sure we didn't test it.

And it But

that would be

a way to communicate quick and easy with Republic Services. You can do it by computer or a smartphone. But, again, I meet and talk almost daily to a lot of people in the city to make sure we're responding to everybody's needs.

Yeah. And that's what with this find my you know, track my truck, would Teresa be able would I be able to call in Teresa? Not in my track the truck. Would she be able to get on there and see that information as well? Will it have, like, some sort of invoice number that allows me to let her see it also?

I'll let you do your address. Okay. And, again, I apologize. I don't know if you can go in as a district. That is a great question for me to be able to follow-up with counsel on and to see how we would relay that to you. I can go in and see it, so there would still be that relationship of Theresa and I being able to confirm that.

Right. That's what I I would like to see. That's what I think that's wonderful. Thank you for that.

Thank you.

And thank you. Thank you for all your time, and hopefully we can get some things going.

Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Brian Kirschner?

Okay. Okay. All right. Well thank you. We want to move on to GRAS. Appreciate everyone's patience. Okay.

Hi, good afternoon council. Sarah Stacy, Urban Beautification Commissioner. Our internal crews and 45 community mowing partners help maintain grass. The mowing season is April 15 through October 31. Parks, boulevards and right of ways this year are cut 20 times.

This is two less cuts than last year in 2024. Beginning in August, we reduced the weekly cut to a biweekly schedule as the grass growth slows down and things get drier. For 2025, the neighborhood cyclical program had a general fund operating budget for nine cuts. This was approximately a 50% reduction from 2024 where 18 cuts were scheduled. Nuisance properties are cut on a complaint basis.

Our SOP is that a property gets added to that cyclical program once we perform a third cut. By the numbers, we contract out a 100 right of way parcels, a 100 parks and almost 6,000 neighborhood parcels. Selected contractors provide the labor materials, equipment and service on a schedule as we direct it. What that means is that we delegate and release work orders to the vendors and this allows us to control the mowing schedule to adjust around it's really rainy or drought conditions. So like this year, we actually started the grass season one week later than the April 15 start date because it was so rainy.

Next.

Lastly, as requested, this table shown here shows the charges for the nuisance abatement program, new add. Costs are still being assessed for 2024. There's kind of a delay when these costs show up on the tax assessment. Looking at 2022 and 2023, we collect approximately 40 to 50% of what we assess on that tax bill. And I'll kindly take any questions and look forward to hearing comments.

Thank you. I did have a question from a resident. A lot of our houses that we have demoed, they've been newly laid with grass and several of the community members have stepped in to mow in between the slated, but they have often complained about debris left over from the demo and it damaging their blades, dulling them, and they want to play an active role in their neighborhood to help but with the leftover debris and I've had several complaints throughout my district. Have you heard of that and is there a way we can mitigate that?

I haven't heard of that. I thought your comment was gonna be more about we need to pick up our scheduling of the mowing for those properties after we finish that stage of the demolition, the seed and straw phase. And we do have a plan in place for that. As far as the debris left on some of these parcels, whether it's yard waste, woody debris, kind of like tree branches parts, whether it's illegal dumping or things left behind from the demolition. We would tell people to call that into a gauge.

We can do those as property cleanups and then we greatly appreciate kind of that neighborhood assistance that people are trying to commit to improving their adjacent neighbor properties, those side lots and lots on their streets.

Okay with that Councilwoman Williams.

That's what I I'm glad you brought that up, thank you chair. So you know the property that we've been talking about, Megan, the land bank actually owned it and and and they tore it down. I and you know how they went up and then didn't cut the rest and then now I've gotta figure out. So, anyway, there's like bricks and the even the contractors I think were complaining about it and had to use a different equipment. That's something that has been said numerous times to me this year as well.

Is the actual bridge from the demo on the lots and that's tearing up some stuff. Also too, like, when they're the they are cutting after the long rains, they're leaving, the grass there on the sidewalks or even just there where it turns to straw. And, you know, I don't cut grass. I'm sorry. Don't.

I don't I don't I can't open I can't start the lawn mower. Just saying. And I do have someone that cuts it for me. But he says when you leave the grass on there, it causes more problems than not the next time he cuts it. Is that something that you guys kinda address? I know we talked about this before when they when it's a tall grass and they go and cut it and they just leave the rest of there. I don't know how they get it up, maybe they rake it, I don't know. But he said that that causes more problems next time they come cut because now it's this long cut grass.

Yeah and we have heard that and that's something we've been working on over the last couple of years specifically with our contractors with making sure they understand our quality control process and what signifies a nice cleanly mowed property for the city. And one thing we're moving towards in finding some solutions and working with some other teams and departments is maybe having going out and actually having a physical training with our contractors to show them the before, the after, and then this is how they clean up those properties specifically for those longer blades of grass that leave it behind as well as the litter. Picking up the litter not just mowing over it, etcetera. So having that on-site training is something we'd like to move towards.

Okay, thank you because that was one. But the bricks, they can't dig the bricks out. What are we doing with that?

Yeah. I can't speak to that specific one. I think that was a land thing Yeah.

That was a land thing demo.

But for us we always try to go out and take as much of the debris as possible. Know we dispose of everything. Sometimes there can be broken glass and stuff that we just don't see. We do go out, we grade the properties before we seed them to try to take out some of, you know, as much of that debris or broken pieces of wood or items that may have been broken up from the demolition.

So we

can make sure to keep checking those properties

as we're And doing I wanna make sure that we say it again publicly, I know you mentioned it and kind of grazed over it, we did, we changed how much we cut the lots that we have from every two weeks to every once a month. And a lot of our constituents didn't know that. And can we talk about why? Can we say why we stopped from every two weeks to every month? I mean, we've gotten a lot of rain this year, we got a lot going on as far as a lot more lots being added, and we have a smaller number of contracts sued this year.

Can we talk about why? Sure, mowing grass in the city of Toledo is very expensive.

The city of Toledo mows over 50% of every blade of grass in the city. Each year we have more grass than that we are essentially responsible for. And to help save on the budget, we reduced the number of MOEs that we were doing from last year. We put out every year bids on all of our packages and properties that contractors can bid on. We put those out in November and then those contractors have two months to review the packages and see what they can do, submit their bids and then we select those before the mowing season begins in April.

Obviously as all costs have risen, the costs of our contractors have risen as well. And as we know we are demoing nearly 1,000 properties utilizing the ODOD grant and ARPA and all of those properties are the city's responsibility to seed and then mow. We are trying to find better solutions. As you know some of the things we have done is implementing slow growth seed for example, that helps reduce the number of times we need to mow properties. Obviously we're actively working with the land bank, they have a great program where they are trying to find a productive productive use for these vacant lots and these properties and so we're working with them to have the neighbors, they can adopt a lot next door, take care of it, they're responsible for mowing it, create a garden, a nice little community park, maybe it's just an extra piece of yard for them to enjoy.

So we are trying to work on better solutions to help reduce those costs and then also keep the grass mowed.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you chair. So I had a couple of questions. Do we pay the contractors by yard or by square foot? How is it that you assess how much they're going to get paid?

They place a, through the formal bidding process, they make a bid on a package or different right of ways but then all these packages. And based on that price for that package, it basically breaks down for a square footage, price per square foot. So when their work gets invoiced based on the number of work orders that they complete, it's based on square feet.

Thank you. And then is there training for them when they sign in so understand like what is expected of them?

I would say there's not a physical training as Megan talked about that we could utilize to enhance our services but there's a training for how they manage and enter the work orders in a review of the work scope that the QCs help oversee that through that relationship between the vendors and the QCs.

Okay, I appreciate that. I think one of my concerns and and I did a GRAS audit in 2023 which I I shared with you and and and as I'm out monthly driving our district, I really see issues with quality control. When our team, when the city is out there doing it, they're doing a great job. They got they're in their riders. They got a five gallon bucket between their their knees.

They they're grabbing the trash while they're cutting. Our teams are phenomenal. But what I have found with our contractors is I don't see the same quality that we get from our workers. So I find a lot of fences not getting weed whipped, curbs not getting weed whipped, grass which which is probably my biggest pet peeve is grass will be cut but instead of being blown into the safety of the yard, it's on the street. And in my district, we are a lovers of motorcycles.

And if you know, wet grass is terrible. It causes many accidents. And so when I see our contractors out there making those mistakes, do you is there a way like, if I'm a citizen driving and I see that, do you want that stuff reported? Like should I be telling my constituents to report that stuff? Is there a mechanism to make sure we're ensuring that they're doing their job?

I'd say absolutely, we want that reported and that's like the essential role of those QCs. Again to be checking that quality of work and providing that assurance that those contractors are getting paid for the actual performance of the work and the performance of the work to the standards that we set in the RFP and that we should be holding them to. So absolutely and those are some improvements that I will address with our QCs to improve that.

Okay, I appreciate that so much. Okay, we're gonna go to public comment and we're gonna be really mindful because this is gonna be a long meeting. Let's be mindful of the three minutes. Make sure that the time is on the clock and with that, clerk. Bianca Lanting. Come on up, Bianca.

I just wanted, like, to address the fact with, like, there's a lot of kids that walk down, like, our main streets to go to school every day. And school starting up, there's still a lot of grass that has not been cut, and, like, I I understand it's summer, and it's been raining a lot. And so there's been, like, a slowdown on the cutting of the grass, but there's still kids walking around going sparks. I've I've seen kids slip and fall from the grass because you're not, like, blowing it back into the yard. There there's kids falling.

And then with when they're walking through the kids like to take shortcuts, and they're falling because there's bricks in the grass, and there's other debris. There's tree branches that they're tripping over, and it's just like it's not being well taken care of. Yeah. And another thing is there's like there's weeds and there's like there's the bugs. Kids don't like bugs, so they they try to stay they try to stay away from it. And so they they take a different way, and they walk in the road or they ride their their bikes in the road because the sidewalks all messed up, all this. And it's like it's just it's like it's getting help to a certain extent, but then again, when it does, it's not getting well, like, taken care of.

I hear that. I hear the frustration, and that makes a lot of sense. You wanna be safe. You gotta walk somewhere where it's safe. You, thank you for sharing and thank you for all the hard work you do. Leslie

Eve.

Leslie Eve. Like I said earlier, I live at on Clark Street right at bottom of the high level, Oak and Woodville. We have a total of five islands and three right of ways on both sides of Woodville Road, plus a property that the city takes care of. We've had contractors out for the last four years cutting these properties. Contractors do not have any type of marking on their vehicles.

We have no idea who they are. They park behind our house, like behind our garage. So if I go to get my car out of my garage, I have to go hunt people down to find them to have them move their trailers so I can so I can get out and go to work or, you know, wherever I need to go. I've had contractors literally throw garbage into the alley that I've had to go pick up and move and tell them to come back and pick up. They'll run over garbage.

They blow all the grass into the alley. They won't weed whack. The right of ways on both sides of Woodville, they refused to cut them. They said it's not part of their contract. I've been calling in for years.

Councilmember Gattis has heard from me almost every day on this issue. So myself and my neighbor have gone out and started cutting the islands, cutting cutting the lot behind our garage, and cutting the right of ways. My concern is if we're out doing this and taking care of our neighborhoods and our tax dollars are going to these contractors to get paid to do this job, you know, do they have to take a picture of the property before they cut it and a picture afterwards to verify that they're the ones that actually cut it, not us doing the work and they're getting paid for

it?

Yeah.

It's it's super frustrating and half the time it's like a crappy cut. Like, there's huge chunks of grass that they just completely miss. Or how many times I've had to stop a contract and be like, hey, you know, you have to cut this entire thing and they'll stop halfway over and they'll start calling people like, no. I'm like, no. This is trust me. I understand where your cutoff is. You need you need to do this entire thing and they will sit there and yell at me until it gets done.

I think one of the frustrations because I know we've we've talked to Lynn about this. Yep. And one of the frustrations is on the boulevard map on the city page, all of them are colored in for that property, but yet the contractors refused to do them. And so our neighbor got a zero turn. He's now cutting stuff. Leslie is cutting stuff and they're concerned that is this guy, is the contractor getting paid for the work that they're doing and is it better to just where's the fairness in that?

Yeah, thank you for bringing that to our attention. So all contractors do have to submit photos and then we have the quality control specialists that go out and verify and do spot checks before those contractors are paid. So for that one I'm glad that you mentioned you did bring that to Lynn's attention so we could address it with the contractors. We have had contractors that unfortunately we have had to take properties away from them for certain instances like this or that they maybe bid on a number of packages and then they quickly realized they did not have the capacity to complete those. And so then we remove those packages from their contract and then we go to the next lowest and best bidder for those.

So we have had to do that and in this particular case we can look into it and see if that's something that we need to do.

Thank you. I think the reason from what I've heard in every neighborhood in my district is those entryways into a neighborhood is so important for the people in that area. Thank you.

One quick thing. I am a quality engineer for, like, my trade. So having these quality auditors going out and checking the work that these contractors are doing, they're they're not checking it because people aren't coming back and going back and fixing what is not being done. So I just wanna make sure we're aware of that.

Thank you. Thank you for putting that on the record.

Manuel? I'm gonna guess on the last name.

As Manny walks up, I'm like I said, there's so many people from my district. I'm excited. But the thing about the East Side, at least in my mom's generation, is people don't cross the river. So for them to cross the river, they're very passionate about this, and I'm really thankful. Floor is yours, Manny.

Thank you. Good evening, counsel. I don't wanna be an echo chamber. You know, we've kinda heard some of the concerns. For starters, I just wanna give thanks to miss Mary Wilson as well as Gary Lenhart who have kind of been the lead in a lot of initiatives in East Toledo.

But more particularly, I wanted to focus in on the one of the byproducts of the grass not being maintained as thoroughly as it it could be is the concerns of rodents. I think that's an issue that a lot of people I don't know if they don't know who to speak to about it or how to get those things addressed. I mean, these are residents who do pay their taxes, who are up to date on those things. So I would I'm just curious to know if there's any proactive preventative measures that are put in place to address these things rather than, you know, rats chewing through homes, chewing through cars after the fact. So I'm curious to know that that's not only a health concern, but it it becomes a social determinant of health in in the places that these people occupy.

So I don't know if that's a code enforcement thing. I don't know if that's a health department thing. And if there could be some more clarity provided on how residents could receive resources with those concerns in their neighborhoods. I also wanted to mention the grass on Girard Street more specifically in this intersection. We have a high flow of traffic as there is a train track station as well, and there's two schools in the area, Oakdale and East Broadway Elementary.

And that starts from 1102 East Broadway I'm I'm sorry. Girard Street. Actually, it's Panama. 1102 Panama that leads all the way down to, I wanna say, 1204. And that area is consistently filled with grass, and it isn't regularly maintained. Similar to what the young lady said, school is starting back up. I feel like kids should have a clear access path. It's very dangerous. Like I said, it's a two way intersection. When the train is blocked from one way, kids have to then walk on the street.

So, I mean, having this grass that's about five feet, four feet long, it becomes a thing that blocks people from being able to see, you know, to exit out a stop sign. So it overall, it's just it's not only a health concern, but it's a safety concern. And I would like to see that be a priority. I mean, I know East Toledo isn't on top of, you know, the communities that we wanna do things in, but we deserve the due diligence of the people who take care of what they have. Like, how how do we expect them to wanna do more, be more if we can't even have the decency of having these basic services met.

So I just kinda wanted to echo that. But like I said, you guys have heard this a lot. I run into council member Sorantu at some of the East Toledo meetings, so I appreciate you for showing up despite that it's not your district, but I I appreciate that. And as well as you, Theresa Gaddis, the work that you do, and miss Williams as well. You're always present whenever these things are here, so I appreciate you guys that, you know, hear us out and actually take some of these concerns and and to the decision makers and and try to implement some of these things. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Did you wanna talk about rats before I call on councilwoman Williams?

Sure. So the health department is who we work with for rodent abatement and it is something that does seem to be more of a concern in our neighborhoods especially with new construction projects that are occurring and of course the demolitions that we're doing. So we always work with the health department, they go out and they do rodent abatement for every single demolition property that the city conducts. We are trying to find a better solution. I don't know what that solution is to be honest with you. We are trying to look into what other municipalities do. I know we have a meeting at the end

of this

month, Doctor. Council Councilwoman Jones is having so that we can bring people to the table, code compliance, Department of Public Service Council members, the health department, etcetera, to figure out maybe some better solutions for it.

Thank you. Councilwoman Williams?

I was gonna talk about the rats too because they're pretty bad in my district too, but the bulk of the problem with the rats isn't the demo or the build, it's the trash that republic leaves on the curb and it's sometimes people put food in there. So one of the solutions is getting rid of the republic, getting some more options to take care of our trash. Our trash, I'll give a prime example, Pearl Street, we actually hired a this was prior to Megan being the director. We hired an exterminator to come on Pearl Street, but it was so much trash on Pearl Street, it was it was a non starter before the before the exterminator could even get. It was just one block, the 200 block of Pearl Street, it was so many rats over there.

I did not wanna get out of my car and I I used to have rats in my house at home. So I'm not scared of rats, but I was scared of those rats and then they were big rats. They were huge rats and it was like I thought they were possums, no they were rats and it's because of the trash. The trash, the trash, the trash. Yes, I have woken up. It's the trash. Thank you.

And thank you.

Thank you, Manny. I appreciate you.

Thank you. And now we're gonna go to forestry.

Excuse me, thank you council. Forestry operation manages the city tree inventory of over 90,000 street trees. Our operations are funded mainly by the tree maintenance assessed fund. This includes costs for planting, maintenance including pruning, some pest and disease control, and removal. As part of reestablishing the city sidewalk program, the SUS fund will also be used to rehabilitate sidewalk damage caused by tree or the roots within the drip line of the canopy.

That's something we're preparing for 2026. The costs associated with these operations are assessed to all property owners based on the property frontage which is the length of the property abutting the street. We also have additional support through grants like Retrie that you know of and ARPA funding And we also grind and provide approximately 20,000 yards of mulch per year. And the sales of this mulch help fund program initiatives like our Arbor Day celebration and some purchase of capital equipment. To talk about our numbers this year, in spring, we planted almost 4,000 trees.

A good amount of that is again through some of our grant initiatives and programs. But between internal crew work and our contracts for each tree and ARPA, that's a really big number. We anticipate removing less than 1,700 trees. This number meets our targeted ratio to maintain that one to one replacement policy. To date, we have pruned a little bit more than a thousand trees.

Forestry, we need to discuss the possibility of hiring contractors to assist with this pruning. This is not something we've done in the past. We may also need to look at scaling back our planting efforts to kind of refocus in on preventative maintenance. Effectively, we are pruning about 2% of the population of street trees a year. So to be able to proactively manage trees on a seven year cycle, we would need to prune about 14,000 trees a year.

Some cities because of budget limitations are pruning trees on a ten to twelve year cycle, but that would be stretched out and kind of beyond what would be recommended by the industry. Stump removal requires specialized equipment. We have deployed a series of contracts and different purchase orders to knock back our backlog of these requests. We have seven eighty six stumps under contract right now and anticipate completing close to 1,300 stump removals by the end of the year. Our objective service agreement level would be that stumps are removed within twelve months or one year's time.

And this is what we feel is realistic and practical based on the staffing, funding and equipment we have, and it's also consistent with what other municipalities are able to provide. I would miss an opportunity to share that forestry completes a lot of what we call specials. For example, our crews just had to provide clearance pruning for emergency alarm signal that broadcast the emergency alert. They get assigned tree removal work for our demolition properties, work to clear tree debris again from our property cleanups so that our cleaning teams and mowing teams then come in and do that nuisance abatement. All of our operations do these priority projects to support the service mindset that I believe the city of Toledo stands up for.

But these projects all pull forestry off their bread and butter, their main work to provide that maintenance for the street trees. I just want that to kind of be understood. In conclusion, our forestry urban canopy is as critical as you know as our roads and sewers. And these assets like anywhere else require maintenance and the maintenance requires dollars. The positive and good news I have is that we have this great assessed fund and it's a great financial model that divides that cost for the maintenance across parcels so that to me these are affordable cost in exchange for the benefits that our tree canopy provides. I'll happily address and try to answer any questions.

Thank you. Trees are near and dear to my heart. We have the tree canopy. We have less tree canopy than the city of Las Vegas, which is a desert. And that to me is mind blowing, but I am seeing growth and people are excited. I had fielded questions. I know I was out over in the Highland Park area by Ogden, Toronto. Those streets have new trees. What are we doing? Do you want the residents to report if their trees have died?

Because a lot of the new trees that have been recently put in are pretty dry. Yes, please call that in. We

need that information to know if our contractors have been effective, if

it

was nursery stock that failed us, that our internal crews planted, we do need that feedback and we want to know how to improve kind of our planning for when we put things out to contract, how to enhance that follow-up water establishment period, how we can improve our communications through our comms and marketing team to better educate residents, how they can help provide assistance and help steward these assets. Again, it takes all fingers on that hand, the city being a couple of those fingers maybe in this example, but we do need and rely on the support of those neighbors to help care for these young new trees. And it's as simple as filling a water bag once a week. And we can further discuss incentives and ways we can help community members help steward those trees. But yes, please encourage people to call that in and we want to be doing that kind of post assessment of these projects.

And then when we plant the trees in front of our residents' houses, and you had mentioned the water bag, do we provide information to them about like what that is for and It probably could be enhanced, but there is a door tag that

is provided prior to the tree planting that tells the resident or property owner that a tree is coming and some of the simple few things of what to expect and who to call for help. Okay. Thank you.

Councilman Sarantu.

Thank you. Commissioner, how many tree how many trees have to be trimmed? In other words, how many do we have like on a waiting list?

On a waiting list? Yeah. I don't know the number off the top of my head. I'll have to take that by referral. I would say it's above in the hundreds that are on a waiting list or who have maybe a work order in the system. Okay. We need to move away from that type of system that's driven by complaints and we need to move to a proactive preventive maintenance system where we're in a cluster or like an area of the city conducting that maintenance, again like 14,000 trees per year and then the next year we move to another area, then the next year that third area and go around and complete seven areas basically. So we're on a seven year cycle. That's what we we need to get to.

Okay. I'll I'll send a referral then. I was just curious. And also in that referral, if you could address estimated time of completion of those of the tree trimming so we have an idea. I know there's a lot of trees out there. No question. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.

Okay. We'll start with public comment. Again, we'll have three minutes. They'll be on the clocks on the side and up front. Kaden Lanting.

Welcome, Kaden.

How's it going? I'm Kaden Lanting, and I'm a resident of East Toledo. So

I used to

ride my bike to school every day. Not until I got my license, but there is always a tree on semen just, like, just around the Hecke's Pond, and there's, like, always, like, big overgrowth where it's just, like, covering the sidewalk. That's a major hazard. And then once you go down Seaman onto, like once you go into the South Ravine Road or whatever it is, there's a tree on your left hand side when you're going down from, like, semen. You're there on your left hand side, there's a tree that the people let drop rotten fruit onto the sidewalk and that rotten fruit can cause like bees and bugs and rodents and whatever else, but it also deters people from riding their bikes on the sidewalk like you're supposed to or just walking on the sidewalk in general.

Yeah.

And then on the corner of Consol And Bakewell Street over there kinda by like Tony Paco's. There's a big overgrowth in the front yard of somebody's house that blocks the stop sign to where you can't see when you come to a stop. I'm trying to think of any other problems I'm trying to think of on it but those are like my main big things for the East Side that I see that problems are for like trees and overgrowth like that sort of problem.

I appreciate that. We don't always get perspective from someone on a bike so that's really important. I wrote those down and we'll make sure that we can see what we can do.

Thank you.

Thank you. Blair Johnson?

This is a district three rock star too.

Hi. I'm, Blair Johnson. Yeah. I stay on Woodsdale just shy of, Arlington, and, I had a little bit of a perspective on the, the the tree program. So it's good that we're getting trees. That's not a problem. But when we're placing them in front of properties, it would be nice to have a conversation with the homeowner for placement. You know, I know they try to space things certainly, but, like, when I look out my door, I have a tree, you know, directly in front of my door now, and that's gonna continuously grow, which if it was over a few feet, I'm okay with that. You know? It's just being able people like to be able to look out their houses and stuff in their certain situations.

And you gotta think when this thing grows full size, it's gonna be a different situation. In addition, one of my trucks I drive is a f four fifty, and I say that for reference in its size. It's a larger truck. I'm pulling out of my driveway. I know the trees are fresh. They're babies now, and they'll eventually grow where the bases will be longer. But right now, I have a blind spot in my truck, a very large truck. So anything smaller than me would also have a blind spot. And I know if I'm having this in my driveway, you know, it's going along. So I know there are studies and different things, but, you know, you gotta think about different different people and how they sit in the vehicles.

That's a safety issue. In addition, with the trees being planted, I know there's some sort of process to where somebody goes around and checks the area and see what can be planted and whatnot. But also what I think is we're not focusing on our older trees as well. So we're planting all these new trees. It's good that they replace they're gonna grow. But our old trees have a lot of, I don't even wanna say deferred maintenance because the maintenance hasn't even been deferred. It just hasn't been happening. So per se issue a couple years ago, my tree, I've been on Wizzdale since 2012. My tree always had a rope high up it. I didn't think none of it.

You know, picked up a branch when it fell, but because it was in the easement, I didn't do anything unless I had to call on it. One day, I'm sitting out there. A branch has completely broken off. I'm here in a creek, and and they evaluate that the tree was dying and had been dying. So the branch is probably, you know, 15 feet or so, you know, 15 feet up, you know, and probably at least 200 pounds. And so I'm saying this to where if this tree that I look at every day, I'm not an arborist. So I don't you know, leaves go green, they turn red in the fall. I think it's okay. But we got a lot of trees that are doing this, but they're dying. They're they're weak.

And then also when I grew up in Parkwood, 2700 Block, we've been over there since the nineties. Same thing. We had to we had a lot of issues with our trees. And, you know, know the departments are being a lot more active now with those type of things than they were in the nineties, but it's still some of the same issues. And I'm just when they're going to evaluate their planning, it'll be nice if they evaluate the the older trees in that section because they're going, you know, I would assume block by block, checking charts. Let's look at the older trees too. And, you know, even if it's a guy who just has minimal saying, okay. You know what? I think somebody needs to come and take a double, you know, second look at, you know, better eyes on it. Just so we're making, you know, balance because back in May, there was a tree mocking and worn.

It fell. It was in the easement. It just completely fell up from the roots. Now I know there had to have been some signs in of that that falling, you know, and the full across it was like three feet from the guy's house. So, you know, those I know we got more trees like that and some, I don't even there wasn't even high wind that day, and it's a full size tree. So I just wanna just see what we're gonna do to work on the overall program as a whole because it's we got a great start. You know, I'll be clear, but we got a lot of things that need to be added in and tweaked as well.

So Yeah.

Those are some thoughtful suggestions.

Thank

you. Commissioner, is there any way we could work with MARCOMS and maybe some information on what neighbors should look for? Because I'll be honest, I love trees but I couldn't tell you. Unless it looks dead, I don't know either. So would there be a way we could maybe educate more of our residents?

Yeah, it's something we're working on currently with MARCOMS. I did provide that in the responses to you, that basically would be some of the language and education that we want to provide through a variety of channels.

Okay, thank you, and thank you. Sarah

Apps.

Another district three rock star. I am a lucky girl today. That was the last time. Okay. Welcome.

Just pull it down where you need it.

Okay. I'm here about a specific place in Highland Park and I was very happy last year when the crew came through and did some tree trimming and trimmed a lot of the evergreen trees up. They did that on a red pine at the corner of Woodstale and South, and there was a garden that I've tended for the last ten years or so right in front of that pine tree. So when the tree got trimmed up the poison ivy underneath it, which had been in the shade and really wasn't doing much, decided it wanted to flourish and all kinds of little tree seedlings are flourishing and so now you know the flourishing stuff that was under the tree is now like this. It has not overtaken the garden that I tend yet, which by the way I obviously don't own, it's in the park, I just help take care of it, but I don't do poison ivy, so I handle a little bit right on the edge, but I can't go in with poison ivy this high end with a shovel and dig it out.

I'm just wondering if there's any hope that any of the forestry services will address that.

Did you want to take that director?

Sure. So we always recommend that residents call in to Engage Toledo because that way it gets logged as a service request. We have the exact address and any other additional information that the resident would like to give the call taker at Engage and then we can take that with our forestry crews and address it or the proper crew that may need to do it. Sometimes we go out and we do have issues of poison ivy for example that we need to cut down and take care of and we can do that in a safe way by wearing gloves and high socks and equipment and boots.

Okay, did you want to try that? Yes. Can do If you take a picture and send it in that way and then I'll I'll keep a track in touch with you to make sure we get

that done. I I have pictures. Should I send them to Engage Toledo?

Yeah. Or if you wanna send them to my my email as well, can follow-up too.

Okay. All right, thank you.

Thank you. Oh, all right, we've reached the end of TreeSol. Now is anything on anyone's mind? So if you guys wanna leave, I understand. Thank you for staying and answering everyone's questions. You've been a wealth of knowledge. I really appreciate all the hard work you and all the teams are doing. Okay. So we're gonna do this is anything on your mind, so this will be exciting. I don't know what we'll get, but it'll be three minutes. Clerk?

William Farnzell.

You, Madam Chair. Thank you, members of City Council Committee. My name is William Farnesyl. I'm with NeighborWorks Toledo region, otherwise known as Neighborhood Housing Service of Toledo, 704 2nd Street, East Toledo. I have three topics I want to talk about real quick. First, the last time I was at the committee meeting, I made an appeal for help for community development block grant funding. And I'm happy to report that I'm sure through your advocacy and pressure, the Department of Housing did extend a contract for us. So now we're going to be operating the next four months providing our services to the financial wellness center. Thank you. Thank you for the kind consideration.

Thank you deeply for your advocacy. I'm number two when I was here. I asked the committee to put forward legislation to release the debt on four low income housing tax credit projects. And I'm thrilled and I want to thank you for your advocacy on that to release that debt. And I understand there's gonna be a committee hearing on that.

I expect to come and provide testimony. It is the right thing to do because no other city in this state collects that money back except the city of Columbus where a house sells for more than $250,000 We do not have any $250,000 houses in District 4, District 5, District 3, none of the districts. So that to be taken off the table. This city needs to do the right thing like every other city in this state. Item number three.

This is some information. I happen to be an appointed member of the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. I am the chairman of the multi family committee. I see every multi family housing deal that passes into the state of Ohio for tax credits. And I'm here to tell you that the qualified allocation plan for '26 and '27 has created five districts in the state of Ohio.

Each district is composed of a certain number of population because that's how the tax credits are allocated, and I'm here to tell you that Northwest Ohio, 19 counties including Lucas County and City Toledo will have an opportunity to compete in its own district. There will be two tax credit projects each year. 26, two tax credit projects and 27. So Toledo is going to be competing with all of the other towns and municipalities in this 19 county area. So if Toledo wants to use the tax credit financing mechanism to get more affordable housing built in Toledo, it's gonna have to sharpen its pencil and it's gonna have to work with developers to make the most competitive proposal possible.

So Northwest Ohio is going to be competing against Northwest Ohio. We're not going be competing against Cleveland or Cincinnati or Columbus or Southeast Ohio. So just a heads up. But the competition is going to be very tough because now you're going to be competing against Napoleon and Bryan and Liberty Township in Henry County and all these other townships. So just a heads up and to the extent that I can advocate for my community, I will. I have some limitations, but I just want to give you that heads up and encourage you to work with developers to make a competitive proposal. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilwoman Williams?

Thank you Mr. Farnesyl for being here. And as far as the loan forgiveness, it's become a little bit of a hot topic. It's a lot of folks aren't educated on it so we do need to have that committee hearing especially because we're getting a little bit of pushback but we want to lay everything out on the table. So our community is aware of what the year 16 projects were.

A lot of folks are thinking this is just us. I'm not somewhat, I think someone said I need to write a personal check for myself to forget the loans, this is not that. We are going to have a committee hearing, thank you to council member Gaddis, to understand the full gambit of this discussion and I think it will be a robust discussion and I'm hopeful that the administration will be able to explain their stance and I'll explain mine and you can explain yours. I am happy about the OFAA discussion because OFAA is changing every day and if you're not familiar with OFAA, it's a tax credit project And with us competing for the Choice Neighborhood Initiative, which is in fact in Trump's his budget, Choice Neighborhood is still there. Having those tax credits as as well to compete for will be an amazing thing.

So I'm hopeful that that will happen. I appreciate you and we'll see you at that committee hearing. Thank you, chair.

My office will get in touch with yours as soon as we get a date. Councilman Serrantiou.

Thank you madam chair. I just want to say mister Farns that we sincerely appreciate all the work that your organization has done and we know it is vital to the city's future And you're helping to strengthen neighborhoods, and that's what it really is all about. That's what we're here for, to improve and strengthen neighborhoods. So thank you. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Gary Leinhardt.

Thank you, council chair. Thank you, city council for being here. I wanted to make a couple suggestions about what might strengthen and improve the blight situation and picking up of trash and large item piles. I would echo councilwoman William's voice. I personally do not feel that republic has the capacity to do what is really needed in our neighborhoods.

And I would like to encourage the city to try something different, and I have several suggestions which I'll leave with legislative aid for those to peruse. I think that with all of this involved presently with large item pickups, we have so many things that are not picked up. All of this tracking of piles, all of the waiting and frustrated residents, which the individual complaints that I'll leave with with counsel will demonstrate the complexity of it. If the city were to just use one NRSA neighborhood, and for those that aren't aware, that would be a neighborhood revitalization strategy area in East Toledo and three other neighborhoods in the city are strategy area neighborhoods. I wanted to suggest that we just hire our own team.

And we have urban beautification when they did the block by block cleanup in East Toledo. They picked up over 300 piles of trash in a five hour period on a Saturday, like, from what? Early morning till 1PM and had a couple to finish up on Sunday. Just put your own team in there and pick everything up every week. Now the benefit of that is you're not gonna have all these engaged Toledo complaints and enraged citizens to deal with.

You're not going have all this tracking and people running out to verify what's done and what's not. It'll just be done. And just see how that goes. I think that and I would recommend that when you do that, you implement, you you work with your with your employees, and you propose input from them to make the changes necessary. For example, one of the ways that we solve staffing and capacity issues in juvenile court with massive detention, number staff issues is we offered four ten hour days, three off.

What a difference that made. All of our productivity increased, people calling off decreased. When you send the crews out for five eight hour days, you have all this startup and shutdown time every day and driving around for five days. If you go to four ten hour days, your employees will love it. The union will agree to it. I would be confident in that if they have input on it and how it would work. You rotate teams. Teams work seven days a week. One team's doing three twelves this week. Another team could be doing four tens.

You can flip them back and forth, give people input, they can cover for one another as long as they complete their hours. The union would agree to this. It would be more productive. Vehicles would have less wear and tear. So much more work is done because you have ten hour shift. You get out in the morning. You start. You have more productivity. You wrap up for the day, you're doing that four times a week instead of five. All this driving around, waste of time.

I wanted to suggest that there are ways to schedule that would make it more effective. If we were to choose to contract with another another service provider, such as Republican, like the way it is now, we're really going to have to address some of the systemic issues and the flaws in the system. We have broken garbage cans that residents can't replace because they're not the owner of the home. We have lids off. They don't replace the lids.

They could carry less. They just drive around and keep letting the trash out blow all over. We would have control of what's happening then. If the city were to take on its own teams, we would need to be prepared to replace the garbage cans that need to be replaced to start fresh. But I do believe it would be a cost saver because of all that would not be happening as a result of the actual picking up of trash like it used to be every week.

Now if we go to a contractual provider, I would recommend something different. I would recommend that we then immediately implement street sweeping in those neighborhoods in one NRSA neighborhood like East Toledo. Every two weeks, send in a crew of sweep street sweepers, have a tow truck with them, post signage that street sweeping is this day and time. Urban beautification comes through. They pick up any trash piles remaining every two weeks.

They sweep the streets behind it. Any cars, junk, campers, trailers, and crap on the road, you tow it because the sign will say it's not to be parked there that day. That would immediately resolve all of the parked cars and crap all over our streets and another engaged Toledo. Chaos of all this stuff. Trailers, campers parked here. We used to come through on on it would be music to my eyes. I'd leave for work on a Wednesday morning, see all the street sweepers, eight of them come across the bridge. They would sweep the entire East Toledo. They would tell every caller that was abandoned on the streets it would all be done in one day. Yes.

I'm gonna leave this with some other suggestions. I'll I'll leave it at that. I want to make those suggestions. Thank you.

Thank you. Those are really great ideas. I hope that our mayor hears that. Candace Kirschner? Hey, Evan, can you grab that from Carrie?

Hello once more.

You could just pull the mic down.

Hello once more. I wanted, now some of the panel are gone. I had questions for Megan and also Forestry about stumps. I don't know if maybe you I'm curious on these stumps. Where they're located? Are they doing damage to sidewalks, sewer systems? Are they just somewhere where they're just naturally being stumpy, you know, or what and how much money is allocated for that and could be elsewhere if they could just reside a stump somewhere? So I'm curious about the stumps on that one. One. Also real quick, because I really wanted to talk about rats and poop, but back to grass.

As you Councilwoman Williams was talking about how it's only once a month now. Am I correct? It's also once a month and the day they come out, if it's raining, it goes right back into the month circulation, and so that actually is two months. That's what I was told by Engage Toledo, that if they come out on that day and it is raining, that Michelle from Engage Toledo on 07/23, she said that if they are out mowing and it is raining starts to rain and it for that month on that they goes back into the cycle is what I was told by and Michelle had engaged Toledo. So I wanted to bring that up.

On that note, back to the rats and the the poop. I don't know what is going on and how the city I've been mister Modine at the EPA. I've been working with him on the tires and other situations that I have, but we have residents that their water has been shut off for years, and they are using their land as their restroom. And it has to be addressed. This has to this is a health issue.

Not only are the rats a health issue, this is an even bigger health issue. There are communicable diseases transferable like this, such as C. Diff and strep and staphs that people don't realize that anybody walking in their shorts, flip flops, go near this. The Ramirez's, My neighbors who were living right next to it were not even aware that this was happening. I spoke with Chris Coakley from the health department.

He said that they know. City knows. Back to 2020 at least, maybe even 2018 that this is happening, at least on the 1709 Tracy and other residents I've heard are happening on other streets in East Toledo. I don't know if it's happening citywide, but it's definitely happening in numerous homes over there. And I would like to know what, like I said, we're going to do. Like I said, I love trees too. I know stumps are kind of unsightly. We need to tackle poop and rats. I mean, there's nothing. We are and these children like, that have given testimony today, the safety, how are we allowing this?

How are we because I'm just curious. You know, my panel, if you all have children, are your children walking to their parks this way? They're not. Are our mayor's children and grandchildren walking to parks like that? They're not. So why are we in East Toledo allowing our children to walk near rats, poop, glass, and not be honest accessible to a sidewalk or a park? Something has to change. That is all. Thank you for your time.

I appreciate you. Councilwoman Williams. Thanks, chair.

I just wanted to address the grass. Some contractors tried to do that to put it back in, but that didn't go for my district, I'll say that. So they've been coming out on Sundays. If it's raining on the day that they cut it, they'll come out the next day that they have available. They are not supposed to wait to put it back in another month. And they complain now that their stuff is getting messed up because the grass is too high, so that if they're doing that, you need to call what lots that is because they're not supposed to do that.

Thank you. I'll check into that. Know. And I I hear you I know we'd spoken early. I hear you about the the poop and it is becoming an issue in East Toledo.

Brian Kirchner? Bree Hitchin?

Welcome.

Okay. Good evening, council members. My name is Bree Hitchin, and I'm here on behalf of the fellow downtown property owners who are objecting to resolution 27,725 in the Downtown Toledo Improvement District and its special assessment. I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today. I admit that this is off topic, but we don't have the opportunity to speak before the next council meeting. But I will be brief. Earlier this afternoon, the Easy Street Condo Association filed a detailed written statement with counsel. The dissenting property owners I speak on behalf of here today would like to sign on to that filing. But since that filing is somewhat lengthy, I'd like to call out the paragraph at the bottom of page one, which states the following. If you read no further than this, please consider the following.

First, you've been misled. Connect Toledo did not have the necessary 60% signatures they represented to counsel, which was a requirement for counsel to pass resolution two seven seven two five. Second, this process has been procedurally unlawful. The city did not follow the notice rules, and the equalization board was not lawfully appointed. Third, the plan has been riddled with conflicts of interest from council members tied to plan voting to approve it to objections being considered by biased connect Toledo insiders on the equalization board.

And finally, on top of that, the assessment fails the most basic test. It does not provide a special benefit equal to the property's assessment. This isn't just unfair, it's illegal. And we feel council has no choice but to either allow all unwilling property owners to opt out and only assess those who signed petitions or abandon this process entirely and start over. To be clear, we're not here as adversaries to downtown or council.

We're here as supporters of the community. And like all of my neighbors, I care about Toledo and specifically Downtown Toledo. We're all invested in Downtown Toledo, working, living and spending money and time downtown. We care about the vitality of downtown, but we cannot stand for taxation without representation and certainly not without a special benefit. For over 200, the law in Ohio has been clear. If a local government wants to assess a property tax, they have to follow very specific rules. But that hasn't taken place here. As I stated at the outset, Connexlio lied to city council when they represented they had petitions from property owners representing 60% of the front footage in this district. That was a key requirement and they don't have it. And whether it's a sloppy oversight or an intentional misstatement, it really doesn't matter.

An audit and a reconciliation of the petition shows they don't have it and that is detailed in the statement that was filed this afternoon. Crucially, this misstep invalidates resolution two seven seven two seven seven two five, full stop. So I close with this. If Connexalito wants $1,200,000 in taxpayer money, they need to start over. They need to do the work and gain consensus, revise the map, collect the legally required signatures, and submit an honest petition to city council.

Otherwise, any property owner unwilling unwillingly included in the expanded district will have the option to challenge the assessment in court, and they will win. In reality, many of these property owners have been here before and in 2020, counsel repealed the map and only assessed the properties that affirmatively assigned approving petitions. That's why we urge counsel to delay voting on ordinance three fifty four dash two five and allow dissenting property owners to be meaningfully heard beyond the equalization board, which summarily dismissed their objections without discussion.

Thank you. Thank you. And you are always welcome here no matter what topic. This is your you're the people. This is your hall. Catherine

Shrine.

Welcome. Good evening, everyone. Catherine Shrine, 745 Washington Street, Bartley Lofts. I am going to add a little bit to what Brianne has said. As most of you, all of you ought to know by now, this has been an ongoing problem or challenge, I should say, to help the city council and other members understand why this whole appeal by Connect Toledo just isn't following all of the rules and regs that's set up by the state of Ohio.

But I would also like to make it very clear, to news media and other people within the city, that the people that are currently living in the Warehouse district, in the downtown district have been strong supporters of the downtown area. Many of the people that are currently backing what both Breanne and I will be saying have been residents for decades. And we are going to continue to promote the development of downtown, the warehouse district, but at the same time, we believe there's a better way of going about it than what is being presented by Connect Toledo. I would just like to elaborate a little bit on what Breanne has said. For instance, on the information that had been shared initially about how to come to this meeting wasn't followed, and I will I will give you some dates on this.

We received a letter from the Clerk of Courts of Council, I mean, dated June 18. The postal date on that envelope was June 26. We all received not everybody, by the way a notification of certified letter left in the mailbox on June 30. I couldn't pick it up until July 3 for a meeting that was going to be held on July 9. So we have a challenge right there in the legal amount of time required for notification of this type of meeting.

We're we're curious about the map. Don't understand the map was designed. Why were some properties included? Some were not. And I will state that in the initial map that was put out in 2020, the Bartley Lofts were not included.

This time around, the Bartley Lofts were included. So we have some things that we're not understanding, and we're happy that if Connect Toledo wants to pull us out on this one, of course, but that doesn't mean we're not going to support all of our neighbors on other things that need to be done. The signatures, as Breanne has already indicated. By the way, I think all of you have already received multiple information packets, whether it was via e mail, written letter or perhaps listening to the minutes or the recordings from the three meetings that were held by Connect Toledo. And I would advise or ask you kindly to listen to those because you're going to hear a lot more than Breanne and I can share with you in this limited amount of time.

But to come back to the signatures required in order to pass this, it said 60%. Excuse me. 20 of the properties that are included in here equal 82% of the approved petitions, by the way. We couldn't vote yes or no. The only thing we could do was to sign the petition to say yes, we would be in on that.

So that became a very confusing point for many of the people. Also, it's interesting that because there was a lot of research done on this data, it was discovered that and I won't name names. The assessor, number 1904001, signed the petition saying, yeah, want to be in this thing. And the front footage for that particular assessed property was twelve eighty eight frontage feet. Well, as it turns out, there are 13 separate properties within that assessed frontage.

And the person who signed it was just one individual, and that individual only owns 31 front the footage. So I believe Connect Toledo counted that twelve eighty eight frontage foot footage, whereas it should have only been 13. That's just one example. There were others. So there's been a lot more research than that done.

The other thing is all about the budget. Oh, my goodness. We do not know what is it that we would actually be getting for the monies that we're going to put into that other than the salary for the new individual who has taken this position just a few months ago. And it's public knowledge that that's been put out as 2 and $25,000 to $250,000 Now according to the state, you also have if

you're