City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to to the city council agenda review on this 05/06/2026. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Comaevs? Here. Kramer? Here. Martinez? Present. McPherson? Here. Melden? Here. Morris? Here. Sorrento? Williams? Here. Driscoll? Here. Gaddis? Here. Hobbs? Here. Jones? Here. Eleven present.

Thank you so much. We will start with the new items from the administration. Item number one, please welcome.

Hi. Good afternoon. Megan Robeson, chief of operations for the city of Toledo. Today, I have commissioner Ryan Murphy, director Joe Fosnau, and commissioner Sarah Stacy joining me. This legislation authorizes the mayor to enter into a five year agreement with option for five one year renewals with Republic Service for curbside refuse and recycling collection.

The first year expenditure is estimated to be 11,731,000 with an annual 3% increase plus additional fuel charges over the five year agreement. We have identified service level commitment language to be incorporated into the contract support in the contract to support timely collection, timely service complaint resolution, quality service, and resident education. We have a committee hearing scheduled for May 20 at 2PM where additional information will be shared. I'm happy to answer any questions.

We will begin with councilman Martinez. But before, I just wanna reiterate that we're having a hearing on the twentieth at 2PM. We will also be hearing the item number three pertaining to the solid waste fees as well at that hearing. I'm sure it'll come up. So, Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, mister chair. Yes. So my question, I will actually also put it by referral. So I'd actually like to know what the true cost of the contract is because it sounds like, especially with gas being $5, you know, a gallon and they're using diesel, it's even more. I I wanna make sure that we're projecting and comparing what this new contract is gonna cost the taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Gaddis.

Thank you. That's loud. That was my concern as well. I mean, they're projecting gas to go up another dollar or 2 with this as, the war with Iran continues. What is that gonna look like for this contract? I'd like to see specifics, especially for, the committee hearing. Thank you, chair.

Absolutely. Councilwoman McPherson.

Thank you. And just to prepare you, I guess, for the hearing, do the same thing. Can you give us what the bid was initially when we were in biddings with priority versus this? And then what in it in this contract safeguards us because it's a five year contract? What safeguards us year to year if they are not meeting our obligations which we have required for them to do in making sure that the residents are receiving the services?

And also is there anything in the contract that could handle subtracting money or funds from them when they do not meet the quota or streets have not been picked up in those, I would like to see that and you can prepare that for the hearing. Absolutely, we'll

have all of that information available at the hearing.

All right, thank you. Thank you, President Williams.

I just wanna say thank you to the community, your voices have been heard, you wanted to make sure that we knew that you wanted to stick with the one we had and I can't wait for the hearing, that's all. I have sat down with Republic and I've met with Republic on several occasions now and I think we're on the track to rebuild our relationship, but we'll earn it all out at the committee hearing, no need to do it here.

Thank you. Council Member Meldon.

Thank you. Same, I'm not gonna get into too many questions. Just for my benefit though as I think about how we're moving forward. So committee hearing on May 20, when is our deadline to have a decision made?

Sure, so the current contract that we have in place with Republic Services expires August 31. So we would need to have a new contract in place by September 1.

Okay. And so from our standpoint, you think about like our summer schedule, mean there's only, what is that, July, August, only one cycle in both of those months. So as we think about whatever comes out of that hearing, I'm trying to just like anticipate how much time do we really have to work through those things. Okay, that's helpful for me. I know I'm certainly looking forward to the conversation as well.

Thank you. Councilwoman Jones.

Thank you, Chair. I don't know if you have this now but would we be able to get a copy of that contract or would that be after the committee hearing?

Sure. So we don't have currently have a contract in place. The legislation before you actually authorizes us and allows us to begin that process and start a contract with Republic Services. So what we will provide though are details on the service level agreements, those key performance indicators, those KPIs that we've talked about that will hold them accountable that would be included in the contract. We're currently having conversations with Republic Services and how those would incorporated into the contract. So we are going to know those and have those in place by the committee hearing and on the twentieth. So we would be able to share that information but we would not have a full completed contract at that time.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, chair.

All right, let's go to Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to piggyback on Doctor. Jones' question, if you don't have a full contract, is there like a template or an outline of the key highlights that would be helpful to help us kind of follow through?

Sure, we can provide something.

Great, thank you. Wonderful, that will go to committee. Item number two.

Good afternoon, council. Commissioner Sarah Stacy, Urban Beautification. Thank you for your time and attention today. Item number two is for the legislation for the set out and bulk compliance. I'm gonna kind of provide some framing and then an overview of the legislation and what it looks like.

This legislation is about improving neighborhood quality and addressing a persistent source of blight and proper set outs, and the focus is on the trash that gets put out at the right of way and at the curb, that is not compliant with the current bulk policy, and and makes our neighborhoods, unattractive and unsafe. We heard directly from residents through talking trash meetings, last fall, and we understand this is part of a top concern, for the city to address, and improve our neighborhoods. So a little bit more of this framework, I can have this like smart diagram. Part of fighting this blight at the curb, there are several kind of like pieces of the pie that go into this. This legislation addresses the fines and enforcement side, but I just want to kind of as a framework talk about the other pieces.

We have our disposal methods, I don't as a personal opinion feel like it's a right for people to just put everything out of the curb endlessly and just do that unresponsibly so there needs to be regulations and rules and guidelines. So we have that framework with our refuse provider in the bulk policy. We also have free landfill days as another disposal means. And then we also will be opening our Clean Toledo Recycling Center as another means of disposal and then offering for hard disposed items on three Clean Toledo Recycling events. And then also part of this framework to address Blade at the Curb is an enhanced rental registry requirements.

As I understand, it's something that the city wants to continue to enhance and improve. Neighborhood participation, so our community leaders stepping up and working with neighborhoods to do litter cleanup events, and we do that a lot with partnerships in the community in our partnership with KTLCB. Proper owners need to be held responsible and there needs to be accountability for that and that's where the fines and enforcement plays an important role as part of this legislation piece. And then our bulk compliance is part of that mechanism to help people have a means of disposal for those items at the group. So all those things, work together.

But, again, I'm gonna be talking about, kind of the fines and enforcement, role of this legislation. So you understand what the problem is. What this legislation does, it creates clear and enforceable standards for bulk waste and eliminates set outs as an acceptable practice. So as an overview, the legislation amends chapter seventeen twenty five of the health code and nine sixty three of the refuse code to address blight and illegal dumping. It repeals outdated eviction set out language and replaces it with definitions and greater enforcement mechanism for accountability.

Again, these are kind of the things we want to address, like these these large set outs where property owners or maybe it's the tenants are acting badly, whether they are doing that maliciously or out of negligence and not understanding the rules. This is what this legislation is meant to address in our neighborhoods. So, again, the purpose is to reduce neighborhood blight caused by these curbside setouts, and we want to increase accountability. So the key changes with this legislation is that it prohibits set outs in the public right of way unless compliant with bulk collection rules. It applies to all properties, it's not just limited to evictions, but also includes move outs and contractor debris.

The enforcement piece of this establishes a thousand dollar fine. So through the complaint or review of service request complaints, our inspectors and QCs would issue a thousand dollar fine. This is a fine that's sent in real time. So the property owner would receive that a couple of days after that field investigation and our documentation in Cityworks. They would have, through a a rubric, a process for them to become compliant and show documentation or again through field investigation to show that they have met compliance.

And we have a rubric that would reduce this fine based on how quickly they're coming into compliance. The operational impact of this is that it reduces repeat cleanup costs for our city, especially the division of urban beautification. And it allows those resources for our staff to shift toward better projects, more beautification projects and neighborhood improvements. This might mean more board ups, it might mean more demolitions, but spending less staff and labor cleaning up after, again, like bad property owners. And I believe this will lead to cleaner, safer neighborhoods.

What the legislation looks like operationally, again, as the concerns are received, they are investigated and a fine gets issued in real time. It's a thousand dollars for that first fine. And again, we have a rubric in place to reduce that fine based on how quickly that property owner is contacting us and getting into compliance. Around day 15, approximately like two weeks after that first investigation, so fifteen days to day 30, there's a second field investigation to see if that matter is still outstanding. If we have not heard from the property owner, you know, they have not contacted us, that inspector QC would know to go back and do a second investigation.

At that second iteration, a second fine can be issued. So another a thousand dollar fine. At that point it will be escalated to UB as a work order to be cleaned up. So there's this window of time, a period up to thirty to forty five days where that property owner is being held accountable for the cleanup until it gets escalated to urban beautification for the actual cleanup. At that point once the city does do the cleanup, that's when we assess the cost for that cleanup to the property owner through the tax assessment.

As part of kind of the educational piece of this and communication plan, we are creating a mailer to put in the utility bill and we're also including information on our website and through social media releases and we're working on sharing this information with the Toledo Municipal Court, Ria and other real estate groups. I think I've provided a good summary. We're asking for first read and I'll take any questions please.

Appreciate the presentation. First could you just remind us what this looks like right now? Like what kind of enforcement do we have right now that exists and what does that look like?

Currently right now when we receive these from Republic as notifications or they're getting called in to engage a service request for property cleanups or improper setouts, non compliant bulk, those get sent to urban purification as a work order to be investigated and ultimately like cleaned up, picked up. We assess our equipment and labor and time to that work order and that's what end up getting charged on the tax assessment. It's a delayed process so that charge may not end up on someone's assessment a year, year and a half, two years later than when the work was performed.

Thank you. Council member Gaddis.

Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. I guess I'm looking for clarity. Now if a bulk pilot is set out, does it take forty five days to clean up?

I don't have an average, in front of me for the number of days from it being reported to us, UB, as a work order for cleanup until that result is resolved. That would vary and I'm sorry I don't have that average in front of me. It could be two weeks, it could vary. I don't have that information in front of me.

Okay, by way of Important point to that question is that we're really looking to change behavior. If we have to give the residents a little more time to change their behavior, it's not so much about issuing larger fines and bringing down the hammer on people. It's about incentivizing them to change their behavior so they come into compliance. So in some cases it may be out a little bit longer than it has in the past. It just depends on how soon we can get to those service requests.

But the goal here is that quickly we start to see less and less of this because people are changing their behaviors and we're issuing fewer and fewer of these fines and urban beautification has more and more time to spend on higher level service.

Yeah and I hear you. I think that that's a valuable part of this but also as someone who's a district rep, forty five days is not gonna fly with the residents in that neighborhood. I've lived next to a pile for I mean that the quality of life in a neighborhood changes when something sets that long. I'm just thinking like how many times are the the guys that pick through the trash gonna pick through it? How many times am if it was in my neighborhood am I gonna have to clean it up because the neighbor next to us is is is not going to do it?

Like thinking about how that impacts the neighborhood, we have to be mindful of that as well. So that's why I'm asking these questions. When we say fifteen days, you said you would you get the concern you send someone out from code compliance most likely they say yes it's out of compliance they then have fifteen days before they get checked again. Are those fifteen working days or fifteen calendar It is

fifteen calendar days.

Okay. Okay and then are we having any kind of education rolled out on social media as well?

Yes, a part of this would be on our website information, the information shared with those real estate groups in Toledo Municipal Court. We can do community meetings and then also the social media about this legislation once it's approved.

Okay, and then so by way of referral can I get what time it takes now for a book set out that's out of compliance to get picked up? And I think that's good for now. Thank you. Thank you chair.

Thanks. And if I could, when you and I started the Talking Trash series, just a few months before that was the moment where we discovered on Colburn that there was a set out. It was out there for two months at the time you and I discovered it. It took an additional month and a half to get it cleaned up. So right now it's taking a very long time and not working. So I'm excited to hopefully try something new. So I appreciate the effort. Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you, mister chair. I I also kinda wanna just dive into the enforcement of this a little bit. So, yeah, so you're gonna get a notification. They have fifteen days to respond to it. If they don't, then there's gonna be another fifteen days. And if they don't again, they would have that point received $2,000 fines. And by the so what would have been, I suppose, the third fifteen amount of fifteen days, that's when we'll actually clean it up. Is that correct? That's when our team will clean it up.

It's about the approximate timeline. So we would have the service request or complaint investigated and issue the fine. Then, you know, there's like a two week period given for that property owner to get into compliance. At that two week mark is when the inspector's QC should be going back out to do that second inspection and I'm giving them two weeks to conduct those inspections. Based on our capacity and resources they may not be able to be there on like day 16, day 17, but that next two week window is when they can follow-up on that second inspection if they have not heard from the property owner and there's the still may be unresolved.

And at that point is when the second fine can will be issued.

Okay.

So I know you don't know the average amount of time a set out lasts right now, but generally speaking, I mean we have a lot of property owners I think aren't gonna care at all. So generally speaking, do you think forty five days is longer or shorter than the current average time it takes for us to remediate a situation like this?

I I think it just depends on how how it was escalated.

Okay. I think in so far as we have that information, it'd be good for us to know because I don't I don't want a a policy where this ends, you know, ends up having us have trashed it out even longer than it was. I suppose that's but it's gonna take some time to refine this. This is a new approach, so I'm I'm okay with that. But, yeah, I think what we'd wanna avoid is trash that not even longer. Can we escalate the fines? Does it have to be a thousand dollars each time? It seems like if you've gone a full month that I don't know. I'd be more comfortable with doubling that fine after but it seems like something we ought to think about at least. Okay.

In the past, correct me if I'm wrong, mister Molnar, seems like we've had some difficulty actually collecting on these fines. What's gonna be our approach, to ensure that we actually are, you know, receiving I think we do pretty good with the assessments because it's attached to the property tax bill unless that property goes to land bank, we're gonna get that money eventually. But, how are we gonna what are we gonna do to beef up that process to make sure that we are actually holding people accountable?

Yeah. Thank you, Councilman. So, you know, just to kind of start start from the way it exists right now. Right now, you know, when the city does clean up the property, are allowed to, like you mentioned, we are allowed to assess that cost to to the tax bill. However, what it seems like is that cost is less than what the prop these property owners would have to actually pay.

So they're letting the city clean up for them. They're they're letting the city be their property management company for them, letting them be their disposables disposal system for them. Because it's cheaper to just have the city clean it up and then pay the you know the couple $100 that we're legally allowed to assess for a service being provided that we're allowed to put on the on the tax bill. And also mind you that a lot of these property owners will transfer the property in between the time because there's a year and a half lag that we're allowed to put the tax lien on the property. And then they come back and make the argument, well I didn't own the property, know you put it on my tax bill, you should remove it.

And so it's just become that is what I think is the problem. So, but going back to what the question you asked is what are we doing to beef up? So we've recently entered into a, well in the last year or so, first of all we've collaborated with the Department of Finance. So they do have a collections person assigned to our department and it would be for with urban beautification as well to go in where they have somebody that's going and trying to track down these people and let them know that there could be further action whether it be wage garnishment, liens and so forth. We've had what I think is a huge success, that's in relation to the fact that in the last ten years we've accumulated $1,500,000 worth of unpaid fines that haven't been collected.

And so let's say we've collected, we collected with the assistance of the finance department 50 to $75,000 worth of those fines in the last year. So that's first of all where we've already beefed it up. Then back in December 2025, City Council passed legislation allowed us into a party to hire a third party collection agency. That, and thank you very much because that's exactly what we needed. Now people hopefully won't just take that, fine, that letter that they receive and crumble it up and throw it in the trash, which is what it feels like they're doing now.

So from there, we a collection agency in which their attorneys sending out notices to folks, letting them know that there is this fine on your property. They do have thirty days to respond and appeal that case if they feel that it isn't correct. But then after that thirty days then the collection agency is allowed to file a civil case against the owner and put that into court at which point they can file for a judgment lien. And again I apologize I don't know if it's against the property and the owner or one or the other. Apologize for not knowing that exactly.

But essentially if the judgment lien is granted then let's just say for this example, let's say it's against the property. That judgment lien is granted, that lien gets filed in the recorder's office, and now that becomes part of the title of the property. If that property owner then goes to sell that property at that point, then in theory, in order to get a clear title that those fines, that judgment lien must be satisfied, must be paid at time of closing. And so you have these property owners that the city has been cutting grass, picking up trash, picking up these improper set outs who for I don't know how long, let's say at least a decade, have been able to go and sell these properties, put money in their pocket while the city has been taking care of them for them and they're putting the money in the pocket at this point at least the city is getting somewhat paid back for the services that we've been providing to to these property owners that haven't been taking care of the properties, haven't been following the rules that the majority of our community has been following and and walking away.

Did that answer the question?

Yes. I think making sure that we can muddy the title process as much as possible is the only way really that we're ever gonna because because the LLCs will continue to play shell games like they always have. And I believe in an independent judiciary, but the housing court has gotta take this more seriously, and they just they just haven't I'm I'm I'm frustrated with that. But but, yes, that answered my question. The last question I have is if if a landlord gets a dumpster are they allowed to do that for a certain period of time? Won't trigger that, right?

Correct, yes. That would be another responsible means of disposal and following the rules and that's the cost to them as the property owner or as a landlord and that they would you know follow procedures to get that dumpster and place it in the right of way and you know get a permit to do that.

Okay, terrific, thank you very much.

And to go back to the thousand dollar question, the amount is such that you know if they were to get a dumpster and pull the permit, it's gonna be half of that thousand dollar fine. So it's incentivizing them to do the right thing of course. Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, mister chair. So thank you for this. I know you guys have been working on this since last fall, I would guess. Right? So one of the questions I had that I still haven't got an answer in the referral is what is our actual cost to clean up? I know we only charge a necessity of, at the time, $250. Right? But you never answered my question. What is the actual cost?

Based on that equipment, labor and materials?

Everything. So I can do it again by referral, don't want to put you up but this is one of my bigger questions that I have. And the $1,000 okay fine, but then the bigger question is is this enough because if we have to do it and we're only assessing x amount of dollars which we don't know really what our costs are, does this structure make sense? So that was from an operational side trying to figure out basic business. Are we you know at least breaking even or is this really costing us money, right?

So that was kind of like my big question that I've been kind of waiting for. Sorry. Second question, did anyone reach out to any of the real estate investment firms or community like, so you talk about accountability, right? Accountability for whom exactly? Because a lot of these are tenants not paying being set up for whatever reason.

It's not the landlord doing this intentionally. It's a reaction to a business model that is unfortunately being stacked against them to make sure that they can at least recoup their property. Right? So if I'm a landlord and this is it, right? So I'm gonna go first and second cause then I'm gonna attach whatever my fines are. We'll see you guys in court, bring the city of Toledo in, so you can actually go after the tenant who caused this. Right? Or I have to hire legal people. But either way, we're talking about accountability which I totally get. And there are some bad actors as landlord.

But there's also some bad actors as tenants that habitually get evicted and leave places trash and ruin property. Right? So my question is, was the business community at least have a conversation about this to maybe find a more equitable resolution. I I get this is a challenge and I get this is complicated. I I totally seem supportive of trying to figure this solution out, but it can't be just one-sided and heavy handed to the landlord.

So if I own a vacant property and someone's continually dumping on it, I'm getting fined and I'm not even aware of it unless I get these notices. Right? I may live in Maumee, Perrysburg and it's just a vacant lot that I have mowed and you know maintained what I have to because I have future uses for it at some point or whatever. But if someone's dumping, I'm being charged for it with no recourse you know other than clean it up.

Go ahead.

So I think there's a couple things for that. One we can get you that answer by way of referral. We can show you the cost of our blight team and the equipment and all of the associated factors that go along with that on an annual basis. With the responsibility of the property owner and if you do own multiple properties and you're not living in the city of Toledo, I would hope that you would be responsible enough to be visiting that property regularly to be maintaining it and mowing it. And if there is dumping that's occurring on that property, you would be regulating that through the process that currently exists.

This is for the cases when you're not following the proper eviction process through the court system. When people are just setting out huge large set outs like you can see on the screen. We, the intention is not to go after a resident or a landlord or a property owner who is setting out seven items of the five that you're allowed through bulk collection, These are the set outs we're seeing where they are, know people are intentionally bypassing the rules, the law through evictions, and you know handling their properties you know properly.

Great, thank you for that. And I understand that. So, and again this is kind of a conundrum. At the end of the day we just want our neighborhoods to look nice, right. There's a lot of reasons not to have trash building up in our neighborhoods. Totally get that. So my other question is was anyone in the business community or other landlord groups, oops sorry, consulted on this or at least had a conversation with? Was the Chamber of Commerce brought in or any of our business groups or entities?

I would say not directly. We met with representatives from the Toledo Municipal Court to review the eviction process and how that works as far as how many evictions per year go through their system and how many actually get scheduled with the bailiff. That was the group that we had a couple of meetings with as we worked through you know what this legislation looked like. And originally it started as requiring a dumpster and it evolved from there. To answer your question, I would say no other than those talking trash meetings.

Okay great, thank you. So we should probably look at least have a, at the very least have a conversation with the business community to figure out if this is gonna move forward, we have at least some sort of input and say yeah here's what we could do different. Here's some other recommendations. Thank you, I leave the floor, thank you.

I appreciate that. I think it is important to hear from all people. I would also say this. We expect property owners to maintain their property to a certain level. We hold our residents to that. And I would expect that we do the same to landlords. The reality is that once a tenant vacates a property, that property that they leave behind becomes the property of the property owner. So it is not the tenant's property anymore. If they choose to not take it, we're not going to chase them down, but we can certainly hold the property owner responsible for the property that they own that's on their property. Councilwoman McPherson.

Thank you, Chair. A couple of questions. First of all, do we have employees enough to do this work? When you're talking about going out fifteen days, thirty days?

So this is gonna be a collaboration between Urban Beautification and Code Compliance that we're going to team up with with all our with both our QAs and our inspectors. So we don't know, because we don't know how many of these complaints and how many of these things are going going to occur. We already you've heard me say it before, we already don't have enough inspectors. But but this sounds something that sounds like something we can fold into our daily duties, And and it does seem feasible that that by having this tool as part of in in our in our our tool belt that it can, we can enforce this to some capacity.

Okay. Also have, I don't know what my question is, referral when you sit down with Republic, is there a way that they can communicate this information to you because if they drive by and they see a eviction per se, that then they can notify you of this if they don't pick it up. If they don't pick it up, but if they pick it up, hint hint, it's taken care of and we don't have to worry about it. But there should be communication between beautification, you, and republic also on this because that helps. Secondly, why not fine for a set out?

Why we don't just fine when they set out like that eviction, you know what it looks like, Why don't we just fine for that? Why are we going through this fifteen day? Because I would be upset if my neighbor got evicted and that stuff sat out there for thirty days. Once it's notified and it's set, that landlord needs to if he doesn't if it's not cleaned up, because he already know he wronged when he did it, It needs to be fined then. Just to be

clear, that is the process. When we're notified of an illegal set out, it's an immediate thousand It's immediate.

Okay.

After that two weeks, if it's still there, they haven't come into compliance, then there's a second fine. And that's when then we come in and cleaned it up ourselves because it's been there longer than we feel is acceptable.

Okay, and then Councilman Martinez was talking about the landlords and charging owners for cost of cleanups and that kind of thing, but landlords do security deposits. That's for cleanups. And I'm not really interested in what they do and how they don't because landlords getting big money these days for what they're charging in these rents and evicting people for some just cause. So I'm not really concerned with the landlords in the LLCs because they flipping and flopping around here in the city of Toledo and it's offensive right now, and most of them don't even live in the city of Toledo. So, if they were interested in doing the right thing and keeping up their property and seeing, they'd have cameras on their houses, they'd be checking on that, they'd be cutting the grass and all of that, and we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this.

So, in all means, I'm saying go after the landlord. Right now, if you drive down three streets in the city of Toledo, you'll see already where it's rained and we got trash out. Matter of fact, I took a picture and sent it to Cheryl at Republic Today on Ranch Drive, where the garbage is out there and I had a resident call me and it's been out there for three weeks. Hello Republic. And I got the picture.

I sent it to her. And they're driving by and not picking up. So, we've got to work on this, all of us. And, Republic, I'm calling you out because when residents call me and text me and I've been on sick leave and they calling me and texting me and sending me pictures about places that have not been picked up. I got a problem with you.

But on this tip, landlords, if they're not doing what they're supposed to do just like I said in the press conference, we coming after you because our citizens should not have to live next door to where you emptied and dumped out for a week or two weeks because you living in California and don't even know that it's happening and ignoring the mail. Thank you all for the work that you are doing and I also want to follow-up with Councilman Martinez. I would like to see also what the total cost is for a cleanup when we do the cleanup to help our citizens because we need to make sure that that cost is we should make sure that that fine is double whatever that cost is. Thank you.

Welcome back. Councilwoman Morris.

Thank you, and yes, welcome back. You know, we have to do something because what we're doing is not working. I am concerned about the ability to this long to address what is happening. Living next to a pile of junk for forty five days is not something that I want to do and if I don't want to do it, I don't want anyone else to have to do it either. So I don't know if there's a way that we could speed up that process at all.

I don't know the answer to that and if that means we need more staff, we need more resources, then we need to perhaps build into that fine. Because what I don't want to see what we have had happen is that a set out will happen and depending upon how big it is, sometimes the set outs can be picked up through bulk, sometimes most of the times it can't be. So what I don't want to see is I don't want to see us paying twice. I don't want us to pay our our refuse contractor to pick up things that they're not picking up, and that we end up having to pick up and so we're paying for it twice. That makes no sense.

And we need to be fastidious with our with our funds. We have to make sure that we are tracking down these LLCs. These LLCs are killing us. And if it's the state of Ohio, if it's the feds, if it's municipal court, I don't know who needs to hear this, but these LLCs are ruining our city. And we need to figure out a way that that we can stop this shell game, because what I see in my neighborhood it happens all the time.

It's cyclical. What happens is somebody gets gets set out and then somebody actually can even move in before the set out is picked up And and then it's just sitting there, and then you got kids playing in it, you've got people picking through it, it's in the street, it's blocking the sidewalk for people with mobility issues. This isn't what Toledo is about. We don't need to be dealing with this constantly. Since I came on council, this is what we have done.

We need new strategies that are going to help us and yes we need the business community, yes, yes, yes. But we also need responsible business owners, we need responsible tenants. Everybody needs to be a part of this solution. Not just counsel, not just the mayor, everyone needs to be a part of the solution. So I'm really urging us to have a good figure that we need to know.

If we need more, if Commissioner Stacy needs more staff, if code compliance needs more staff or compliance enforcement, whatever you want to call it. You know, if we need to know these these real figures because it's not getting better and it's just cheaper for people to not get a dumpster and to let it sit out, that's not the solution. And so if we need to speed up this process, let's look at that. And so I agree, we need this needs to be in a committee, this needs to be a hearing, this this needs to happen yesterday. Thank you.

Councilmember Melvin.

Thank you so much Chair. Just three quick things. I know we have like other stuff on the agenda to get to, and this has been a good conversation. One, I just want to say on this notion of like talking to the business community and getting feedback, garbage goes in can. And when can is not big enough, we get bigger can. I don't know that we need to get feedback on that. And I'm a big proponent of engagement and public feedback. But with all due respect, I don't know. I don't see that one, personally. I'm like, we are way too close to this if we're kind of confused about that.

So then that was just my feelings. Here's two thoughts. One, I think the fine's too low. I think it's very generous. I almost said Joe, Director of Falzon, sorry. I love the posture, and I think it's visible in this plan, which is very good, that you're trying to change behavior. You're not just trying to drop a hammer just for the sake of it and show we're all big and bad because then we don't even collect and what's the difference? We're just fighting. I do it reminds me a little bit of the parking ticket. I would get a $10 parking ticket and then I would just leave it in my car and be like, This is called a day pass.

And then I got a parking ticket and it was $25 and I thought, Oh no, it's no longer a day pass. It's very expensive. And it was more of a penalty. So just an idea. And I don't know, maybe it's crazy town, but I'm thinking what if it was like 10 ks?

Then if you Hold on. And then if you get a dumpster and you have a receipt for a dumpster within five days, we'll waive it. And if not, like I mean, what are we talking about here? Because if it's $2,000 and the cost of a dumpster is $500 it's of like a $10 parking ticket. Is some we're almost incentivizing convenience. Like, don't live there. I'm gonna pay $2, and I don't ever have to think about it again. Fine. So that's the cost of a couple dumpsters, and I have a full dumpster worth anyway. It's just a thought.

I think that you can thread the needle between a posture of trying to change behavior and a find that might I mean, you all reacted when I sent Ted Grand. Isn't that what we want? A reaction? So just a thought. That's all. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilwoman Jones. Why

do you say my name like that? Yeah, was like that's good. I mean even maybe a tiered response because my question would have been how are most likely piggybacking off of other council members but the out of state landlords and especially if they're big, the thousand dollars means nothing. And then the notifications, they'll probably just get thrown in the trash. I can see that 10,000 fine really hitting, probably not the wave of the dumpster because they'll probably just be like whatever but the like smaller landlords maybe a tiered fine could work but $10,000 yes, that is definitely something to consider.

And then my other question would be, well two other questions, your KPIs, what do they look like now and are they gonna be different after if this gets enacted? I can do that by referral as well and then also when it comes to identifying the set outs, love the republic idea because they're out there going up and down the streets especially since we don't have a lot of inspectors, there's gonna have to be some cross collaboration. So, currently what does that look like besides like are they assigned to different streets every day block, are they going the whole block or is it just to that one property? Like what does that look like now and then when it comes to this, is there anything that's gonna be different versus just being notified or anything like that because you can miss a lot. Case in point, some of these stories you can miss a lot.

So how is that process looking now of how you identify set outs?

Sure, so first question KPIs those service level agreements will have all of that information for you. We can take it by referral but also in the committee hearing. Okay. The second piece currently what it looks like now through urban beautification is we do work with republic services. So collection for example that is not a proper set out or if it's pretty large or it's evident it's an improper set out of some sort, Republic will record those and then they send that information to us so we can log it in our system and get it to our blight team to look at it and investigate. I can pass the microphone to Jim who can go through his code compliance process as

well. As

far as how the code compliance would, the code compliance is divided up into eight different sectors, eight different zones. And so this would be based on when the inspectors are out and they do see the illegal bulk set outs because the alert mechanism that we have built in is with Republic alerting But urban this is also empowering our inspectors if they see these bulk set outs at that point if it's in their zone, that's how that would be divided up.

Okay and I'm assuming Engage Toledo is part of this as far as the notifications are concerned, okay. Is that a daily requirement to go through these different, your assigned sector to identify those set outs? A daily responsibility.

I guess I don't mean to be facetious but are you saying are we going to go down every single street and looking for both No, that's impossible.

Okay.

Yes. There is there is a with the eight sectors, that would be 13,000 properties that we would have to visit per inspector per day. So that's not possible.

But what is possible is Republic is going down those streets. Right. So Republic is going up and down those streets and we know with the new bulk set out where you are have five items for example. If there is something that is that is not compliant to the bulk set out rules, it's gonna get tagged. There's gonna be a sticker on it. And that sticker is gonna identify what the problem is. Right?

Okay.

So that's one piece. Also with that, because Republic is sort of the eyes on the streets for us on a daily basis. When they have those improper set outs they're sending that to us. So we can then work with Jim's team and gets in the log for his inspectors so they're not just going bouncing around to each street. We're actually going where we know the problems We also have the process residents at any time can call in to engage to let Of course those go into City Works as well and we're working through that.

Okay. So as of now because of the capacity is really heavy reliance on Republic right now and of course that will be outlined in the contract. Thank you so much. Thank you chair.

Absolutely. Two things, We are at fifty six minutes and we are on item number two. And so I'm gonna take these next two comments, but this will be added to the agenda for the solid the day of the solid waste discussion as well for the committee hearing. So let's keep these next remarks brief. Additionally, I've heard a lot of requests for referral questions. Please do not forget to write those down and get those to the clerk. Council Member Gaddis.

Thank you. I'm never a long talker. I just want to be clear in my referrals when we do when we identify these bulk set out non compliances currently they are either under property cleanup or there's another word that we put it under, correct, another category. So it's property cleanup that

Like as far as the coding and city works? I believe it's under property cleanup, yes. I might not know off the top of my head if there's another but I could look for you and

see

if Okay. There's

let you know. Non compliant bulk.

Oh, thank you, non compliant bulk.

Okay, okay. I just wanna make sure I'm wording the questions correct. And there were approximately 7,000 evictions last year and most of these are not fully led through the court evictions. These are fly by night evictions not fully gone through the courts so that's why these are harder. That's why this is harder. So I just wanna make sure that's on record too. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Councilman Martinez.

Thank you. I'll make it quick. So one last general question for those that are on the docket and do get evicted, does the courts let us know that there is a pending set out eviction case?

Yes we receive a list from them. It's scheduled with the bailiff or without the bailiff.

Correct and then when does the inspector come out? Or we're just aware of it and that's it?

The current process we're just aware of that.

Got it, okay thank you.

Thank you so much. Item number three and as a reminder will also be on the agenda for an upcoming committee hearing. It's in

committee. Item three is done.

Thank you, thank you and good

afternoon Chairman Komives, members of City Council. Melanie Campbell here from Department of Finance to help present agenda item number three. This item amends the Toledo Municipal Code to increase the municipal solid waste fee. Council might remember that when we put the budget out last November we did propose an increase to that fee. That's reflected here in this proposed ordinance and it would take effect 06/01/2026 as drafted in this ordinance.

The fee would increase, the monthly fee would increase from $11.50 and $6.50 for non homestead and homestead properties to $18.50 and $10.50 for non homestead and homestead properties. This ordinance also does propose additional fee increases at the start of '27 and at the start of '28 with the goal of aligning those fee revenues with the cost of collection and landfill disposal services. Be happy to take any questions if you have them.

Councilman Martinez. Thank you Mr.

Chair. When was the last time we increased the fee? It

was last increased in 2016.

2016, gotcha. So fees are increased and then is this gonna be, what are these increased fees go towards?

The fee covers the cost of the curbside refuse and recycling collection and then disposing of that refuse at the landfill as well as the recycling cost of what's picked up.

Okay, great. I knew that, just wanted it on the record. So with the new potential contracts contract and potential increases since we don't know what the real cost of the contract is. I guess it goes back to my other question about actual knowing the costs to make sure that we are ahead of the curve and not behind and have to keep bumping, bumping, bumping. So will these rates be sufficient to cover the potential new contract with all the potential escalators that are kind of in the hidden fees wrapped up in the new potential contract?

Yes, so we ran a trajectory based on what the estimates that we have, what we know fuel costs are now. We also have ten years worth of data for being in the current contract with Republic that we've used estimates for this piece of legislation with the fee increase.

Okay, thank you. Thank you so much to committee. Now item number four please.

Good afternoon. Sarah Stacy, commissioner of urban beautification. This is item number four. This is for the Ohio EPA recycling grant. This legislation is to authorize a $100,000 grant agreement with Ohio EPA for community recycling and litter cleanup.

We will host three clean Toledo recycling events this summer to help collect tires, household hazardous waste, paint, and electronics, and other items. The project period for this grant is 04/16/2026 through 03/31/2028. The grant does require a 25% match and we're asking that to be funded by 1% for the environment. At our Clean Toledo recycling events, these will be marketed and communicated as for Toledo residents only. And their verification will be the library card, the enhanced library card, a utility bill or a state issued ID.

This is to help us kind of contain those costs. These events are very popular but they became very expensive over the last couple of years. So we want to make them for our residents. Happy to answer any questions and we're asking for SEP please.

Thank you so much SEP. Item number five comes to us from Department of Public Utilities. Welcome.

Afternoon. I am Patika Pope Bannister, Director for the Department of Public Works. And I have with me Andy McClure, and he will be presenting the first three that we have before you. And the first one is the contract for renewal options, hauling and refuse of spent lime.

Thank you. Good afternoon. The Division of Water Treatment is a byproduct of its treatment processes, spent lime. Spent lime was disposed of through two contracts. One of those is through the dewatering facility. It's a mechanical process. This this legislation does not address that contract. This is a contract for the excavation and removal of the spent lime from lagoons. In the lagoon, we've been we've had a good solid ten year program that we embarked on. And we have an annual budget that we expend.

So this it's not a it's it's based on the budget that we have to spend and not the amount of material to be removed. Through the past years, approximately 88% of material new material being removed and about 12 is legacy material. So we have, we're getting ahead a little bit, but very slowly. It would take till about 2086 at this rate to keep going. If we keep up at this pace to completely clean the lagoons, if we're unable to award a contract this year, we would lose about eight years of progress because of that 12% that is the legacy material that we remove.

Towards the end of last year, a contractor that had previously had this contract told us they'd be unable to renew. So we put out a bid for the spent line removal. We received bids. However, we found out that the legislation we'd used had expired and was no longer applicable for this. So we're bringing them forward this legislation to allow us to award contract for the spent line removal from the lagoons. We would request SEP, and I'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, mister chair. So I have a lot of questions around this. As you know, I haven't been inquired about them. I will do a first read, assuming my questions get answered. This contract was started, the bid went out in November is my understanding. You had responses back in December, and now we're in May. And now you're telling us we have to hurry up and do this, otherwise we're gonna lose eight years of potential moving forward on getting disposal, right? Correct. So there's this sense of urgency. And I understand that this is a very real issue for our city, And not just our city, the cities across the country.

I wanna make sure we're doing it right. I have questions about the, actual structure of the bid and the contract and everything like that. I will do a referral, make sure and I have everything by tomorrow, so I'm not holding this up, but I have serious concerns about the award. So I wanna make sure that at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to our residents to ensure that they have a safe place to live and reside and if they're I don't want a repeat of what happened last summer is what I'm saying. So I'm gonna try to get all these questions answered ahead of time.

I don't want to hold this up, but if the answers aren't satisfactory, we'll keep I'll keep pressing until we get some sort of resolution and then or this body can vote as they see fit.

Fair? Yeah, thank you.

Councilmember Gattis.

Thank you. And this might be a better referral question, but I was looking into the Maumee area of concern. We're doing all that work over there by Collins. And one of our goals was that the city of Toledo had to remove ledge, lime sludge, spent lime from Otter And Duck Creek. By way of referral, could you, find out how much the city spent removing that from those creeks and what year that was.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Absolutely. Councilwoman Jones.

Thank you, Chair. On the same line, could, I can do this by referral, but could you provide some information about the amount of debt that the water treatment plant had acquired so far up to date? Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Absolutely, and just to be clear, think I heard first read. Wonderful. Item number six, please.

Item number six is for, oh, we have to advance that. Item number six is for replacement of a valve at the heavy ounce pumping station. There's a fill valve that needs replaced. This is an application that is throughout our system, so we have standardized on a particular brand of valves. So it does also waive competitive bidding. It is strictly for purchase of the valve to be replaced. City crews will do the labor to install the valve. Would ask SEP and I'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation? SEP. Thank

you. You.

Item number seven, please.

Number seven is essentially a it's preventative maintenance at the water treatment plant. It's on big enough scale it's considered a project. This is for the settling basins in Basin 7 And 8. They've been in service long enough now that certain parts need replaced before they break. We prefer to do this on a preventative basis instead of it doing breakdown maintenance. Again, I believe we're waiving competitive bidding here for this expense, and I expect this to occur. It's in a pair of basins, so we'll see this. There's eight basins total, so this will recur for about three years in a row, and there will be another gap that will recur again as we get to the preventive maintenance timelines. I would ask SEP, and we'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation? SEP? Thank you. Item number eight.

We are requesting the Association of Ohio Drinking Water Agency membership fees for the next three years. The Association of Ohio Drinking Water Agency's purpose is to ensure safe and clean drinking water for Ohioans. It acts as a voice for public water systems advocating for secure, reliable, and high quality drinking water by supporting legislation that benefits public utilities. And it's a tool that we use to keep us updated on things that are happening in state government. I am asking for SEP.

And I'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez your recommendation? SEP. Thank you so much. Item number nine comes to us from the Department of Human Resources, welcome.

Good afternoon, Mike Najelski from the Department of Human Resources. With me is Lindsey Ward, she is the co chair for the city's employee engagement committee. Item number nine is requesting expenditure of $36,000 from the general fund, the employee engagement committee account if you will, for the provision of activity with the Toledo Mudhens. This is an annual event that we have been putting on for the last

at least

four or five years. It's a very well attended event. Last year we had ten twenty people attend the event with their families. The amount that they were asking for is part of the EEC's approved budget. It's the same as last year offering, giving, it provides for the same number of tickets which is fourteen forty.

And the employees do have a small cost to each of them for the ticket and they can get up to four tickets. We think it's a really well attended event, it's a family friendly event. Provides some connection between employees across departments and I think the employees really enjoy it. It is the lion's share of the EEC budget, but I think based upon just what it does for the morale, the workforce, it's money well spent. So the event this year is gonna be Friday, July 17, and we're requesting SCP. I'm happy to take any questions.

Councilwoman McPherson, your recommendation.

You, chair. Thank you for continuing this event for our employees. And I want to encourage our employees of taking advantage of this, and it's a good thing. It's like saying thank you for the work that our employees do each and every day. And along with the pancake breakfast, We need to say thank you. And when employees feel that they are appreciated, they work better. They're more effective.

No question.

And I think we need to I recommend that we continue to do this and and support our employees. And if you are around any of our city employees throughout the day, whether they're on the street, in a sewer, in a office, whatever it is, say thank you. Smile and say we appreciate you. Because the one thing that we have to do here in the city of Toledo is keep our employees working right here for us. And if they feel that they are needed and appreciated, they will stay.

So thank you for this and SEP.

Thank you. Thank you. Item number 10, please.

Thank you and good afternoon members of counsel. Tiffany Whitman, Chief Impact Officer from the Department of Community Services. I am joined here today by commissioner David Bush and community response specialist Davion Beach. Today I will present item number 10. This ordinance requests authorization for the expenditure of $542,179 from the general fund for youth engagement and development initiatives, authorizing the mayor to enter in necessary agreements for these initiatives and declaring emergency.

So after review of more than 100 applications, 69 programs were identified aligning with the city's priorities for youth engagement. These represent a cross section of large anchor programs, We also have mid sized specialized providers and also smaller initiatives as well. It's important to note that this cycle, particularly coming out of the general fund, we want to make sure we have enhanced accountability and transparency, so we did require at the point of application that people submit measurable outcomes and indicators, and also we will be implementing a post reimbursement and final in person evaluation. And so overall, this funding supports high quality youth investments, program at scale, creating safe structured opportunities that keep youth engaged and support working families. And in addition, this aligns with the city's strategic plan, objective three, advancing youth, family, and workforce.

And with that, we are requesting SEP and we'll answer any questions.

Councilman Martinez. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you Doctor. Wittmann. Sincerely appreciate all your hard work on this. I think last year's programming was a huge success. I heard nothing but good things. About one of the questions that I have in terms of marketing. I know last year we did like books and are we still doing that this year?

I'm glad you asked. We are not doing this this year. We want to move towards being more cost efficient and so this year we are going to go to QR codes. So we will be marketing the program having postcards, smaller postcards, but also we are right now working very hard. Our chief communications is trying to coordinate with the schools to ensure that we could also maybe get this submitted through their platforms. And I know council president Williams has been assisting with this as well. So again, this is gonna be a big cost savings. We'll still get something in your hand to give out and something physical, it just won't be a big multi page booklet that costs a whole bunch of money.

Great, thank you so much. I thought that's kind of the direction you guys were going, which I'm fine with. But a couple things. Number one, make sure that we have it bilingual.

Yes.

Especially for some of our Spanish speaking residents. Number two, please do not forget the charter schools and the private schools because a lot of times these programs aren't, they're not aware of them until after the fact. And I want to make sure like I physically hand delivered lots and lots of those booklets to ensure that some parents knew about it that would qualify for these areas. So please do not forget about them. Have at least 12 schools in District 2 and maybe three or four of them knew about it. So I just want make sure that we're getting the word out. These are lot of cool creative programming for this year and I'm super excited and I'm super supportive. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council member Gattis.

Thank you. Thank you for your hard work on this. And along the lines of education, I know I say this often, but the teachers are excited we have this. They have told me if they know about it earlier, they will roll this into their curriculum. They will help the kids get signed up.

That's something we've not really moved on and I really think we do. By the time we got those books out, it was far too late. I think that I love the QR code, but we have, educators are willing to help us, we need to utilize that. As many people as we can to help get those kids enrolled in these programs would be really helpful. So if you could just keep that in mind that every year they come to me and they're like, hey, if we would have known, we would have gladly helped the kids get enrolled. Enrolled. So that's a skill set I think that we should really focus on.

No, I appreciate that. And I think that's one of the things that we're trying to do is again get to the platforms. If we can get schools to share it out, text message via that, I think educators getting that right to their email for them to share it out, I think that would be helpful. So that's our goal for this year, but also I will follow-up to make sure if we don't, I will share that out.

Okay, thank you, thank you, Chair.

Yeah, absolutely. Councilwoman McPherson, your recommendation.

Thank you. Thank you Doctor. Whitman and crew. You know I'm a little sad because of the amount of the money, but you're making it work on a tight budget and we had to reduce our budget, but we did not eliminate programs for our youth. I'm glad we are not doing the book because we save a lot of money in that.

I hope that council members can also get the postcards because we have council members that are doing having community meetings, neighborhood meetings, porch talks, and so we want to make sure that we can pass them out also and share. One question, with this year, will we still be providing the bus pass?

Yes, we will still be doing the summer youth blast pass in partnership with Tarta.

Thank you, I just wanted it for the record. I'm excited because we're looking at not just summer programs, but after school programs and with our school district dealing with budget issues. This is going to be key in the summer and again in the fall that our kids will have programs that can help them with their education, socialization, and all the above, and it is imperative that we make sure that our charter schools and our parochial private schools are also invited to these programs. I really appreciate the work that you are doing and have done, Davion, with this budget, And hopefully, we can work something out for next year so that we can make sure that we continue these programs because our young people, and not just our future, they are a lifeline. So, thank you for your work, SEP.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Item number 11 please. Good afternoon council members, Brandon Sellhorse, Chief Growth Officer, joined by April Welch, Deputy Director. Item 11 authorizes the mayor to enter into a grant agreement with the Toledo warehouse district association for re for the reimbursement of up to $25,000 for public improvements along Huron Street. In 2024 the department of economic development commissioned a streetscape enhancement plan for Huron and Madison corridors. This work was guided by multiple downtown master plans and intentionally aligned the redevelopment of the four corners buildings.

The plan identified some near term implementable strategies to activate these corridors while we continue to advance long term design and secure construction funding for full reconstruction. The total warehouse district association is proposing to implement one of those near term recommendations by purchasing and installing seven site furnishings along Huron Street. This project is designed to improve pedestrian circulation, enhance the user experience and introduce creative place making elements that encourage social interaction and support continued activity within the Warehouse District. To support this effort the city is proposing to reimburse the association up to $50,000 for the eligible cost association with the purchase and installation of these furnishings. This investment is structured as partnership.

$25,000 will come for the city center tax increment financing district which was established in 2019 to reinvest the incremental property tax revenue in downtown into infrastructure improvements like this. An additional $25,000 will come from another item on your agenda which is through the district for district improvement program allocation. And finally 25,000 will be invested by the association directly. As required for capital funding the city will retain ownership of the site furnishings however a condition of the grant agreement is that the association will enter into an operations and maintenance agreement for the site furnishings that ensure the long term upkeep at no cost to the city. This is an exciting partnership that implements a really cost effective investment that advances our strategy downtown of supporting place making, enhancing our pedestrian environment and building momentum along this corridor in the near term while we work on the longer term improvements.

We respectfully request SEP, happy to answer any questions that you may have.

How long is the cooperative grant agreements with the warehouse district for their responsibility?

It'll be for ten years.

Okay, thank you. Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is great, exciting, don't have any issues with it as long as Chair Meldon doesn't. But I would, I'm curious, on a referral I'm gonna ask what the balance of all of our TIFFs are. And so long as economic development is managing them, I think and I asked DPU to start doing this, I think, in next year's budget.

But I think that's something that we should probably talk about when you guys do your budget hearing is the balance of each of our TIFFs and also what it is we intend to do with them. Because they're starting to build up, like the Franklin Park one has a ton of money in it. But we need to be, it shouldn't just like, this is a great project. This is exactly, I think, what the Center City TIFF is for. But it shouldn't just because be because one organization knew to ask for it. So I think we need to be thinking strategically about how we're gonna use that money. So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'll do a referral on that. But I think in next year's budget process, I think we should talk about that. Not the finance committee, or when finance is presenting, but rather when economic development is.

Happy to. Thank you.

Councilman Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Echo a lot of my colleagues sentiments in terms of being fiduciary responsible for these funds and it looks like this is a good use of them. One of my questions is really about the, what is the requirement for the operation maintenance for TWDA?

So these are they are really site furnishing, so they're seeding and there's some planting elements with them. So they will for maintaining these furnishings, responsible for the plantings. If there's damage to them they'll be responsible for fixing them. I mean we will be the owner of this but they will be responsible for maintaining that over that ten year agreement.

Gotcha. So then would that And maybe I'm crossing my organization. Would they work in tandem with the downtown improvement

group

that

does This would all separate. This would be just the Warehouse District Association.

Do they not work in the Warehouse District?

They do. They do, but this is the Warehouse District Association leveraging their own funds as an entity Not to invest in to say that they wouldn't have a partnership with DTID. Certainly, I'm sure there's coordination there, but this specifically would be a relationship between the city and the warehouse district association who wants to see this move forward.

So that include like annual painting, cleaning, power washing, plantings, this covers for the initial setup or is there like an ongoing operational cost? I'm assuming that's to maintain them isn't gonna be free.

Our cost as the city is to reimburse them for the purchase installation of these furnishings. The ongoing costs associated with this will be borne by the Warehouse District Association.

Got it.

So there won't be an annual maintenance cost for the city.

Okay. Okay. Then they have sufficient revenue to maintain them for the next seven or how long?

For ten years, yes.

For ten years? Believe so.

Alright, I'm good with it. Alright, thanks. Thank you.

Council Member Melvin, your recommendation. SEP. Thank you, thank you. Item number 12 please.

Thank you. Good afternoon counsel. Melanie Campbell again, Department of Finance. This next ordinance requests authorization to enter into a three year subscription agreement for our OpenGov budgeting software. We've been using OpenGov to prepare our budget each year since the 2022 budget cycle. A couple items to note about this next contract period. The term is going from five years to three years and the price as well is also going down to about 230,000 in year three from previously 283,000. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them. And we are requesting SEP.

Council member Gaddis.

Thank you. Do we keep any records of traffic visited to OpenGov from our community?

I would have to check on that and how it tracks it. I believe it does. I haven't specifically looked at it.

Okay, could you check into that and get back with me?

Yes, we could.

Okay, that's awesome, thank you, thank you.

Absolutely. Councilman, oh, Councilman Sorrenti's not here. Who's the vice chair

of that

committee? Councilman Driscoll. SEP.

Thank you.

Thank you SEP. Item number 13 please.

Hi good afternoon, Megan Robson, chief of operations for the city of Toledo. This legislation authorizes the administration to enact an annual license fee upon the operation of motor vehicles. Under the Ohio revised code section on permissive motor vehicle tax, municipalities can add a $5 license fee to all license plates by the taxing district. Given the continued increase in costs and necessary roadway improvements, the fee would be specifically used to pay for the cost of maintenance within the city of Toledo. According to the BMV data that we have, there approximately 222,000 total registered license plates in Toledo.

So based on that information, we estimate this fee would result in about $1,100,000 annually to the street construction maintenance and repair fund. Just to give you an idea of some municipalities that have already completed this process or are in the process of doing this, Montclova, Springfield, Providence, Sylvania, Ottawa Hills, Sylvania, excuse me sorry I said that already, Maumee, Waterville, and White House. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Dang. Councilman Melvin.

I'll be quick. Thank you. Did you just only list in Lucas County?

Yes I'm sorry I was just referring to those in Lucas County that have already started this process or completed the process.

I just am curious because I think about, you know, I just think about like where Toledo residents might, current Toledo residents or incoming folks who are deciding where to live. I mean, it would just it'd be nice to know the Wood County as well, you know, Rossford Yeah. Some of those other smaller municipalities. The reason is I think the takeaway is pretty undeniable that there's not a place nearby to, like, move away from a fee like this. Sure. Which is the point you're making, but I would just wanna go a little bit south and include some Wood County I can do that. Municipalities as

you. Council Member Gaddis.

Thank you. I see what they could be used for, but what is our goal as a city to use that funding for?

Sure, so these would go into our street construction maintenance and repair fund and those are used for employees within the traffic management division who conduct the maintenance on our roadways.

Okay so would that just be roads, does it talk, is that sidewalks?

This is just for roadway.

Okay all right thank you. Thank you chair.

Absolutely, Councilwoman McPherson.

Thank you. She just kind of answered it, but why are we not looking at repairing I got issues with Vidox. Why aren't we looking at other areas and just with our streets and our roads and it's because I can hear some of our residents saying you know we did the tax thing for the roads and streets. And we did the tax and we did this one and it was roads, reconstruction of roads and streets and then now here we go talking about $5 for roads and streets. Can we expand that or is that just what you have just said?

I mean did you even look at the others?

Sure, we explored it. This vehicle registration permissive tax according to the Ohio revised code can only be spent on certain things and so it can be spent on planning, construction, improving and maintaining our, repairing our public roads, highways, and streets. So that's that's So this this fee can only be used on those things.

So I'm reading this wrong then where it says funds may be used for planning, constructing, improving, maintaining, and repairing public roads, highway streets, and for the maintaining and repair of bridges and vi docks.

That is correct. That's what they can be used for. For us we're using that for the maintenance. It could be potentially

So administration has made the decision that they're gonna use if this is passed that $5 license registration tax just for streets and reconstruction?

I don't think that's necessarily the decision that's been made. It's It's going to, I might have misunderstood your question. It's going to our street construction maintenance and repair fund. That fund is used for the maintenance of streets, of our highways, our bridges, our viaducts. It's also used for for our support for the people that are doing the repairs to those viaducts, to those bridges, to those roadway improvements.

So when you say it goes for the support of those people, now you're getting into wage increases and that kind of thing. When you say support because I'm No I'm just I want to be clear because some people are hearing this when you say for the work, the people.

I was explaining what that fund, what the dollars in those funds can be used for. This is just a piece of that. It would not, the 1.1 that's estimated to come in is not going to cover all of the expenses that we have associated with all of these different things, viaducts being a piece of that. So it's going to that fund to help us support all of the operations that we can do there.

Okay. I don't see at this time that we can as citizens are being taxed and taxed and taxed. Gas is up. Food is up. And and we're here we go again, and we're taxing again.

I I have a problem with putting more on the citizens of Toledo when we are deficit here, education budget deficit, everything, and now here we are asking them for an additional money. That's it, that's that's that's just me, no more questions.

Councilwoman Jones.

Thank you, chair. On that line, so you said the 222,000 registered licenses would generate how much?

Annually.

Okay, so have you looked into like projections because as Councilwoman McPherson said, gas is up so I'm anticipating people will be driving less. Some said that the younger generation isn't really interested in cars. The city is becoming more walkable, so there could be no use for a car. We have aging population, so they are probably giving up their driving privileges of some sort. Was there any discussion of what that will look like in the future?

Sure of course as we wanna make them more pedestrian friendly city and use public transport. Yes this is a conservative estimate.

Okay.

And so we did base it off of data that we had from the BMB that they provided. But we took into a conservative estimate.

Very conservative.

Again it's a one time fee on that license renewal. We we based it on those registered vehicles in the city of Toledo.

Yeah because I would be interested even based upon like past numbers. Have we seen an increase or decrease with licenses being admin?

We have actually seen a little bit of an increase but we still try to keep it conservative to all of the points that you made.

Okay, okay.

Yeah I was just curious because of just things are changing now and the reliance of a fee based upon license registration when all of this is happening, we don't wanna get too happy even though it is revenue but you know we have to make those societal considerations but thank you for that information. Thank you chair.

Councilman Martinez. Thank you mister chair. I have a silly question. So when it says license plate fee in vehicle, what exactly are we referring to? And I I have a bigger question so.

Sure, so when you go to renew your registration on your license plate there are fees associated with that. Typically people do that on an annual basis. You do have the option to do that I believe every three years as well. When you see those fees, the city of Toledo through the Ohio River Advice Code is able to add a $5 fee on that. We will see that come in monthly to us as those payments come in and then those funds are able to be deposited in our street construction maintenance and repair fund.

Gotcha. So totally get all that, right? So and it was kind of a leading question. So my really what I was going with this, so it's not just automotive vehicles. It could be motorcycles, trailers, anything that has a plate.

That's correct. Passenger cars, non commercial trucks, motorcycles, yep.

Right. So that's kind of what I was alluding to. Is it possible to do a tiered version of that because you also have commercial plates, which is a business, versus a residential portion?

I do not know that answer. If it can be tiered, it's my understanding. It's A flat fee. It's a flat fee.

And the reason I'm asking is because if it's a commercial vehicle then it's a business expense, right? So it's a write off and it can be absorbed through the business versus levying it on someone who relies on a standard either what we would think of a car, SUV, whatever, motorcycle for their main motor transportation to my colleagues concerns about everything's increasing. Having a tiered portion between a commercial plate versus a residential plate, two very different things because not only are the commercial plates more expensive than a residential plate, but again it's less of an individual burden that we're placing on the Toledo driver. So I get it. I just didn't know if we had thought about the difference between the personal versus the commercial and then they also have the what is the like the sports, The little forerunners, the little stuff like that that should have plates although I see them running up and down the trail and cutting through neighborhoods and parks.

Those should also have some sort of license plate. And because it's recreational, again that adds a different level since it's not again the individual mode of transportation to make ends meet, it's extracurricular. So my question really spends is it possibility to tier or increase fees based on the type of plates?

It is my understanding that's not how it currently is structured. It's that one time fee. I can look into what that would look like or if it's a possibility.

Sure, I was just kind of curious but I mean again we're trying to reduce the burden on our taxpayer right. And if they're struggling to get food, gas, this $5 while it doesn't seem like a lot to some, it could be a lot to others. If you have a recreational vehicle or a trailer or a business, know that's extra in a value add and that $5 or $10 or whatever that number is may not be as big of a deal to someone who solely relies on renewing their plates to get to work and feed their kids. So that's all I was going with that. So thank you. Council Member Melden.

Thanks

chair. ORC 4504, can you tell me more tell me more about that? That's what allows us to do this. Right?

That is correct. That's what allows us to do this. So it is the Ohio revised code chapter forty five zero four, local motor vehicle license tax. There are $11.05 dollars levies that are available to be enacted, but only six can be in effect at one time in any single taxing district, so they do limit that. Permissive tax revenue is used by the counties and taxing districts per the ORC chapter 4,504 which includes planning, construction, improving, maintaining, repairing public roads, highways, streets, and for the maintaining and repair of bridges and viaducts. So that's how it is listed in the ORC.

I don't want to try to interpret like the intent of the authors

but of the

it does sound fun. It seems like it is a small revenue source attached to a vehicle to help repair what the vehicle is damaging. That's like the simplest way Director to think about Campbell, if I can, how many opportunities does Columbus give us to generate revenue? Just ballpark it. How many do you think?

That's a good question. Think this is one that comes to mind, but there's

not There's not

a lot. Ton of No. In your tenure here, how many times has Columbus taken revenue away from us?

We've seen decreases in revenue over the years, yes.

Annually to what, the tune of like $18,000,000 $20,000,000 ish?

From local government funds and yes.

My point is, I don't love it. But it feels like that's the environment we're in. And so I just want to say I give credit to the administration for finding even a small amount. Because if the state is saying, hey municipalities, you're allowed to do this, they don't give us a lot of opportunities. That's barely even an opinion. It's just the environment that we're in. And so we don't get to act in the world as it should be. We have to

operate as it is. So thanks. Councilwoman McPherson.

I might have missed it, but I just want clarity. I have a car, my tag $5. I have a motorcycle, my tag another $5. I have a trailer, carries my motorcycle, that's another $5.

Yes. So

I'm charged $15 additional.

It was on the license plate associated with the rest

of Where the some may not see that's not a lot, It can be costly, especially when our tags are costly. It can be a financial burden on a lot of people. I'm just putting it out there. Thank you very much, I wanted to be clear.

Council Member Gaddis.

Thank you. Just for clarity, is $5 the max that we can ask for?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, and then is there anything in the ORC that says we can ramp it up or is it just a $5 Like we can't like first year $1 then $3 then we can't ease the population into this? I is mean money is tight. I've got people Britney and I are doing those town halls and they're crying because we had a woman at the last one balling because her rent is a thousand dollars and her social security is 960 and she like we have real people crying to us. So this weighs heavy on me. I understand we need to make a balanced budget but sometimes if there's easier ways to do this, I'm just saying is that an option?

It is set

at

that $5

Okay, I appreciate that, I really appreciate that. Thank you, chair.

Councilman Driscoll, your recommendation.

First reading, there is time to do a hearing if we had wanted to pass this at the twenty sixth, so I don't mind doing a meeting with the rest you to talk about a hearing if that's necessary. Thank you.

Thank you. Item number 14, please.

Good afternoon. Kristi Sondkrant, commissioner engineering construction, and I have Stephanie Bartlett, commissioner of traffic management with me to present the next three items. Item number 14, this ordinance authorizes the city to accept a $50,000 donation from the Toledo Lucas County Public Library to upgrade the pedestrian crossing by installing a pedestrian hybrid beacon on Central Avenue in front of the Sanger Branch Library. The project will be matched by district improvement funds along with the city's matching and planning funds. Construction is planned for this fall, requesting SCP and we'll take any questions at this time.

I was really excited to see this. I can't tell you how many times I've driven down Central Avenue and watched people waiting in that pedestrian island for the frogger experience to end. So I'm really glad that we're doing this. Council Member Melden.

Thank you so much, Chair. Yeah, ditto. We brought the DIP funds for this last year mainly because I wanted to hit my goal of zero DIP left. And I knew it would take a little while, but also just huge shout out and thanks to the library to have this partnership, to invest in infrastructure in front of one of their busiest locations is really pretty cool. I'm curious if we could get just a little bit of conversation, I know this meeting is not short, just a little bit of conversation around how this ties into our Vision Zero initiative.

I mean, we have a Hawk Signal. The one that is obvious and always comes to mind is in front of the museum, which is nice. Not quite the traffic counts or speeds of this location. And so just curious how you think this aligns with our Vision Zero strategy and also what else we might wanna look at to make sure that while the light is big and bright and wonderful, it's not like a wall's coming up. How do you think we can really make sure this is a safe endeavor?

Thank you, Councilman Meldoon. So this does fit very nicely into our Vision Zero initiative to make our infrastructure safer for pedestrians and cyclists and our traveling public. We actually had five pedestrian hybrid beacons that were installed over the last year or so to add to the two that we already had. So we've done some public education campaigns on how to use these new crossings both as a driver and as a pedestrian. The videos were shared on social media, and then we also have some written information, and there's all appropriate signage up to tell you what to do as a pedestrian pedestrian and as a driver at these crossings.

So compliance on a pedestrian hybrid beacon is fairly high, over 90%. People do stop at them because it is it's it's it's a red light. It's very visually easy to understand. Whereas, you know, the rapid flashing beacons, we use them more on smaller roads, lower lower traffic volumes. Compliance rate isn't quite as great with those. That's another story. So yeah, we're hopeful that this is a good addition to Central Avenue.

Yeah, well thank you. That's great to hear. I'm certainly looking for more of them. I'll tell you one quick anecdote because it's really powerful, I think. So one of my recent town halls, this project came up and I was mentioning it. And I don't think I was proactively talking about it just because I wasn't sure of timeline. And so I just wanted to wait. And someone responded very, very positively and he was there with his young daughter at the town hall. And I remember pointing out like, hey, this is gonna be so great. You can walk into the library. And he said, yeah, of course. But I think the goal is that she would walk by herself. And I was like, oh yeah. It showed two things in that moment. One, just how dangerous that street is.

Because I was thinking, now the parent can cross safely with their child. And he was saying, yeah, but that's not enough. The vision is that we want our children to be able to go to the library. So very exciting. I could talk about it forever, thank you to the library, I'll stop.

Councilwoman McPherson. Thank

you, chair. I just wanted to add because he asked that. We have that light on Hill Avenue when I was out there with Hobbs and that was a couple of years ago, I think it was the first one maybe, and with Hill Avenue being five lanes of traffic and the school there and departments and everything, it has been very effective. The apartment complexes and what I like is that it starts flashing, the kid hits the button, it starts flashing, you can see it if you're on Hill Avenue at Richards Road, you can start seeing it flashing, so now you got time to slow roll because then the light turns red, kids get to cross the street, so it is, it has been very effective, and for sure, Hill Avenue is a a good example of it working, so I see it working very effectively on Central for two things. There are a lot of times there are accidents because people are turning into the the library, and the people behind them are not slowing up and ramming them.

So, it's gonna be I'm looking forward to it. So thank you. I just wanted to add that because of Sam's comments. Thank

you. Councilman Driscoll, your recommendation.

Great work, Councilman Ramaldan. Great work, transportation. This is a cool project, SEP.

Thank you so much. Item number 15 please.

The city has been awarded 9,890,000 in federal grant funding for a Safe Streets for All project as a subrecipient of Lucas County. The funding will be used to design and construct safety improvements for motorists and pedestrians on Monroe Street from Summit Street to the city limits. Specific locations for improvements will be determined after a safety study is performed. This funding is for both the design and construction of the project and will be provided at 80% with the city providing a 20% match. This ordinance allows us to accept the grant and authorize the mayor to sign the sub recipient agreement with the county.

The project will be matched with funds from the city's matches and planning fund and from the West Toledo tax increment fund. Construction is planned to begin in 2028. Requesting SEP and we'll take questions at this time.

Well this is a good sign when no lights pop up.

They're

excited. My my yeah. It's it's super exciting. I'm thrilled to see it. I think with the addition of Bus Rapid Transit and all the work that's happening up and down the corridor, it's gonna be excellent. Councilman Driscoll, your recommendation. SEB. Wonderful. Item number 16, please.

This ordinance authorizes us to spend 1,000,000 from the West Toledo tax increment fund to support a safety study and design within the TIF boundary as part of the Safe Streets For All grant. The funding will be used to design safety improvements for motorists and pedestrians on Monroe Street from Sheltonham to Lasky Road. This funding is for both the safety study and design of the project in the TIF area. Requesting SEP and we'll take any questions at this time.

Councilman Driscoll, your recommendation.

Just similar to the conversation we had with Brandon, I don't know if at some point we want to talk about like a joint committee meeting, but I do think we should be a little be thinking strategically about our TIF funds. This is obviously an applicable and good use of it. But, yeah, SEB.

Cool. Councilman Martinez. Thank you, mister chair. Nothing to do with the ordinance before us. But before you leave and get up to go on to the thing that we as we move on in the agenda, I did wanna say thank publicly thank you, ladies and councilman Driscoll for the the public hearing we had around safe routes to school, and we did get some residents from the Harrow Road neighborhood.

Hopefully, was a little bit more clarifying information. I'm not sure how well it was received regardless if we were in the library or here, but I sincerely appreciate your willingness to come in and speak about this and the importance of these projects, especially three of them are in District 2. So I sincerely appreciate all of your efforts and willing to work with me and the residents even though they don't always like to hear no. So I sincerely appreciate it, and I wanted to take this time to publicly thank you.

Thank you. Wonderful.

Thank you so much. Item 17 through 19 come to us from police operations. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Lieutenant Brianne Holmes, sergeant Pat Bergman, assistant chief Kevin Brown Brown, and finance director Melanie Campbell. Item number 17 authorized the mayor to enter into a Toledo Police impound tow lot management services agreement for initial five year agreement with the option to renew for an additional five years with Vehicle Management Solutions. Authorizes the annual expenditure of an amount not to exceed $2,471,617.35 from the municipal toll out fund, waiving competitive bidding for the reason that Vehicle Management Solutions is uniquely qualified to provide both software and management services for the tow lot at a cost competitive price. Other companies offer either the software or the management services not both. The services include receiving towed vehicles, storage at secure facilities, processing released to vehicle owners, and disposal of unclaimed vehicles.

VMS will assume all responsibility for the full operation of the impound lot including all associated costs, risks, and the Arturo Aries platforms we currently use for our tows. There is the potential for increase in the operation transfer from the tow lot to the general fund due to vehicles can be entered onto a national online auction platform instead of only receiving local offers through our current auctions or our scrap. We are requesting SEP for the continued uninterrupted services for the impound lot.

Council member Gaddis.

Thank you. So who's currently doing it? Is the department doing it?

Yes.

All of it? Yes. And how many many people are employed? How many of our officers are employed to do that work?

Yes, ma'am. We currently have seven officers assigned to the tow lot operations and a sergeant as well.

Okay. And this company is gonna do the whole process then? Yes. So we'll just take the cars and then they'll have staff it, put everything. That's really nice. Okay. Okay. I think that that's good. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Yeah, absolutely. Councilwoman Morris.

Thank you. I'm just kind of curious how does that then relate to what we pay now? I mean is this a better, is this better for us? Would that free up officers to you know patrol? I'm just kind of curious what this means for us.

Yes. So with VMS running the toll lot, there wouldn't be any officers required to be there during that time because their people would run it. So that opens up the opportunity to utilize the officers in other places within their contracts, of course.

Yeah, councilwoman. Those are There are contractual issues we have to take into consideration. Those are contractual positions but our hope is if and when this happens that we can work with the Patrol Officers Union Union to kind of find a better use for those officers which we hope hopefully will translate into seven more officers out on the street taking calls for service. What that's gonna look like exactly at this point, we don't know. But we do have, you know, we have a new station that we're gonna have to, you know, have somebody at from time to time.

So, are hopeful that if and when we're able to do this with vehicle management solutions, we'll find a much better use for those officers and kind of get the Toledo Police Department out of the tow lot business, for lack of a better way of putting it.

Do the majority of other police departments of our size, I mean, they manage their own or is this company, is it in other cities managing lots?

Yeah, so VMS is in other cities. As far as what other departments our size do that I that I don't know. I don't know how they handle their tow lot, but I can tell you just, you know, Vehicle Management Solutions currently operates in, here's a list of a few Chicago, San Antonio, Dallas, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Nashville, Memphis, El Paso, Louisville. So they are they're kinda they know this work. They're doing it in a lot of other places. And from from what we can tell, from the research we've done, the cities that they have come in and taken the toll operations are very happy with with how it's worked out.

And they also handle like the auctions and such? Yeah.

And that's actually a big part of what they do. So we currently, when we have an auction, it's kind of a local auction. We gather up the cars, we do a local auction and kinda get what we can get for them. What VMS is going to do is they'll have it on an online national platform. So the goal and the hope is the kind of the average sale price of the vehicles that we get now through auction and through scrap will increase because there's just gonna be a larger kind of buyer pool for those vehicles.

Okay. Fun fact, my first vehicle was a 1982 Ford Escort that came from the auction and needed to be started with starter fluid. You know what, there's always a car out there for everyone.

I'm glad times have changed. Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So do we have a projected, which one I want to look for, Not return on investment per se, but an overall expectation of additional revenue. So I know every year and a lot of that money goes, and correct me if I'm wrong, it goes into the trust fund,

right or?

No, it's actually the toll lot fund. There's an operational transfer to the general fund. Gotcha. So for instance with this auction option now like instead of scrapping our vehicle currently at $595 is what we get first when we junk a vehicle. The potential to put them online and get $1,000 for them that increase alone will bring in more revenue per se to give more of a transfer to the general fund.

Gotcha. So have you guys done like a operational cost comparison like all the staff, all the I guess assets that we have to sell expectations. So let me back up. How much do we normally transfer to the general fund through auctions?

Councilman Martinez, it's not just the auction revenue, it's the combination of any of the revenues that come into the total out fund from the fees or the auction compared to the cost for operation and then the difference will be transferred to the general fund. It's roughly about $2,000,000 So ideally with increased proceed auction fees that transfer would go up. And then the officers, the savings on efficiency within the police budget from the officers doing potentially different duties would also overall help the budget.

Right. So I guess my, thank you. That's where I was headed to. So what is the expectation by, because it sounds like we're privatizing the tow lot. Let's be honest about it. And then so there's cost savings on labor, there's cost savings on the, they're not gonna do it for free, what is their operational cost and does it make financial sense to do that?

So they have a monthly set fee of $183,000 per month for the first year and for year two and then it increases every two years at a 3% increase. So the amount that I read earlier is for what it would be like if we did the full ten years of this contract or organs.

Got it. So by way of referral and I'll put this in writing. Director Campbell, me, Chief Campbell. If we can get a comparison to our current operational cost versus the expectation of operational cost and the expectation of return on investment in terms of revenue what can go back into the general fund?

Sure, we can work through that.

Great, thank you. Councilwoman McPherson.

Thank you. Did we put a bid out for this looking forward?

We did not put this out for bid, no.

And what?

Currently we have the software that we use for our toes currently is called Arterra. And then we were approached by the people who helped create that software which is vehicle management solutions.

Okay and you're asking us to approve this, but you have not been granted through labor contracts to to do this. Am I correct? You're still or you're in conversations with them about this?

I I don't know if I understand the question. We haven't been granted by labor to do what

Because you said because of this, the officers that worked over there can be put back to the streets or deployed to other areas. But then you said it has to be agreed upon Right,

our plan is to obviously work with the union to kinda come to an agreement. Those are technically called records positions and the tow lot falls under our records section. It says that we have to maintain, I think it's eight officers in our records section. Now there are, we're hopeful that there's conversations we can have. Take for instance, when somebody works the front desk at the Safety Building or at the Scott Park District Station or at our new station that we're gonna have out at Sylvania And Jackman.

If somebody if if we can come to an agreement and we're hopeful that we can come to some sort of agreement that typically those desks are manned by police officers. If these officers are able to do those jobs, then that would be a net gain to the street because the officer that typically works at that desk would then go out to the street. I'm not saying that that's the plan for the officers. We're just working through all of our options. You know, one of the officers always does security at the front door at the safety building during the day shift.

So that's a position that we know is kinda baked in that we're gonna have to have somebody there for. Probably too when you take into account days off and things like that. So we're I can't give you exactly what the solution is gonna be or what we're gonna do with the officers, but we're hopeful that we can find a better use for them, a more public serving use than

And so in order to do that, would seem to me that there would be a MOU of some sort, memorandum of understanding between TPD or city and the union to allow that shift because it's almost like we're putting the cart before the horse because that's not already established. We go and approve this and then they don't agree

Right.

To make that to make that adjustment then

Yeah. I

think You you got it. You you see what I'm saying?

Right. And and the good news is is that that officer position, that records position, that job description is is not just work the the tow lot.

But you got seven. The

job description covers a lot of different areas that we're confident that we can find a role that satisfies the job description, may not require an MOU, may satisfy the job description, but it's just different than operating the tow lot.

Okay. I would like that to be already negotiated and dealt with so that we can shift and know that that is going to happen prior to us approving this and then going back and having to make that adjustment or maybe not make that adjustment. That's again that's just my thinking and how these things can go and maybe not go. And I got some questions about this company, but I need to read a little bit more upon this company because there are some concerns with the company that you're look that's why I asked had we had we put this out to be it? Are there other companies that we looked into that could potentially do the same thing that this company does at this particular time?

So I am I'll hold. I don't have referrals, but I'm I'm I'm cautioning us in moving fast on this one. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilwoman Kramer.

I think my question kind of relates to councilman Martinez's question. So we're not gonna be saving money on the officers because they will be redeployed, but you're asking for $2,400,000 annually. So I'm trying to figure out, like, we're not gonna have a cost saving, so this is gonna be an additional expense. Is that correct?

Ideally, we're generating additional revenue that would go to the general fund.

And so this these funds are gonna come out of the money that's generated? Mhmm. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Alright. Councilwoman Jones.

Thank you, chair. Basically piggybacking off of Councilwoman McPherson's concern of company, I wanted to bring our attention to an email that council members had received regarding this specific company. So apparently they have been overseizing cars and also selling the property before the actual owner is notified and they have been a part of federal lawsuits as well regarding that. So when we're talking about not putting this out to bid in the nature of how they approached you, I'm just curious as far as what was the vetting process with this considering and I need to do more research as well, but considering that this information has been shared and it is really concerning especially since we were just talking about increasing license plate fees cars are becoming very valuable now for people to get around. We don't want that to be predatory on our citizens either, thus adding more to the problem.

So I just want to caution us to look further into this company because it could basically get larger problem for us and I mean that includes us because we're residents as well, But yeah, that was just something to bring to your attention. Thank you, Chair.

Absolutely. Council Member Gaddis.

Thanks. Could you send us more information on their what they're gonna do operationally as far as the securing of the storage. It's just that whole they had to have given you a package of stuff. Right? Okay. And then were there any goals that you guys set as far as income from the auction? Were there anything that you guys agreed to that they would we would see numbers? Is there anything like that?

Ma'am, I can just kinda tell you based on the presentation and the conversations we've had with VMS. And I will point out that a couple of representatives from VMS are here for you guys if you had any, you know, wanted to go into a deeper dive with them as well. It all kinds of and I may be oversimplifying it, but the way I understand it, it kind of all comes down to the average vehicle kind of sale price between junk and auction. And kind of where we're sitting at right now is here because like I said, we do it locally and we scrap a lot of vehicles. And so we get the minimum for those vehicles that we scrap.

VMS' model is to scrap fewer vehicles, put more vehicles out into that national auction database and kind of drive up that average price. So if our average price now is they'll $5.95 say that their Midwest average for the departments they work with may be, I don't know the exact numbers, but 200 or $300 more per vehicle than that. So, it's kind of all based on increasing that average price, and that's where kind of the benefit to the city will come in monetarily. Now we also believe that there will be just more of a service benefit to the citizens, to be honest with you. It's probably not a smart thing for me to say, but you know, we're police officers, We were never really intended, I think, to run a tow lot.

So I think there will be service will improve, which is important as well. Because we have a lot of people come out there and a lot of people have to deal with the tow lot staff. There so is a hope that there will be a monetary benefit to the city, but there's also a hope and a belief that the service will improve as well.

Okay. Could we invite them up to the microphone to talk?

Good afternoon, chair and counsel. I'm Alan Brasher. I'm vice president for VMS. With me today is Frank Mecklenburg. He's our chief operating officer for VMS. It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.

Could you tell us more about your process and how you do everything? There's quite a bit you're it says that you are going to increase operational efficiency by a myriad of ways. Could you talk about your process?

Yes. So we do this nationally. We're the only national company that provides the solution. Cheap Braun listed 10 tier one cities basically where we do this on a national basis. We are experts in the Artura Ares platform that the City of Toledo implemented at the impound lot in 2023. So that is our go to flagship software technology platform. And then if you break down the processes, I won't spend a ton of time on this, but there's a vehicle intake at the lot. And these are all the enforcement tows. These are crashes. Those are the type of vehicles being towed to the Toledo Police impound lot.

There's a vehicle intake. You have to inventory that vehicle. Most of the vehicles are returned to the citizen, to the vehicle owner in the first couple of days. Those vehicles that go unclaimed there's a lean process. That's a critical function do that rapidly so cars don't build up at the lot.

And then there's that auction process and we are the market leader in getting that average sale price again to Chief Bronze Comments as high as possible. And the city is going to recognize all that upside in revenue. That number for the contract is just covering our cost which is your same cost. So again, we want to make a little call it a marginal profit on each of the 10 places where we're doing this today, not get rich on one contract. So the beauty of that program is the city recognizes all that increase in revenue. You'll be the beneficiary of that.

Thank you for that. Do you anticipate having eight people to staff it as we are currently using eight people to staff?

Yeah, right about that. We may fluctuate between eight and ten depending on what the service level needs, and certainly as we get in if we're able to reduce that we will, but that would be about the same that we would be looking at. Something else I'd like to add very quickly too, Alan mentioned in terms of being able to get vehicles through the process quickly, we do so very, very legally and our system helps us do that. We don't sell things until they are ready to be sold and they are verified through state law, lien letter notifications that our system does help us with and generates those so that everything is tracked accordingly, so they can't physically even be scheduled for an auction until those criteria have been met, first and foremost. Secondly, I would just like to add too as far as benefits to the Citizen and our intake process, we document things from a photo perspective very, very diligently inside and outside of the car as the vehicle comes in before it is put away.

Why do we do that? Simple, because if we cause damage to a car, we want to take care of a citizen. It is not our job to say, you know, that didn't happen with us. That's not there. So we are very, very diligent in making sure that we are documenting that car and taking care of citizens in that regard.

Are you planning on hiring Toledo workers or workers from the areas? Are you bringing people from somewhere else?

We 100% Toledo workers will be here long term now. We may bring people from the outside to help train Toledo workers, to help get this thing off the ground, whatever we need to do. Those people will draw back very, very quickly and what will be left will be Toledo residents and citizens managing that impound lot.

And I

just want to add on, as far as our contracts are concerned, we've never had a contract not re awarded or renewed on the impound operations specifically side to address any issues about us as a company. Wanted to state that.

How long have you been in business?

Since the 70s. We started with City of Chicago and then we got San Francisco in 2004 and then that launched us nationally. And not every city has an impound lot. It's really a segment of the market nationally. Most of the city's tow companies tow the vehicles back to their lots. In Ohio, there's a thing with city managed impound lots and a few other places nationally, but I wanna make that clear as well.

Are you active in any other Ohio city? No. Cleveland, Columbus

Not yet. Akron. Working with several, but nothing I can announce yet.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Absolutely. President Williams.

Thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you to TPD for bringing this forward. And I know they vetted it and I'll defer to the Chair where he lands with it, but I wanted to bring this to your attention, the email that we did receive with the case in San Antonio. Are you familiar with that case? Yeah. In 2020, you guys were sued. The company illegally auctioned off at least two twenty seven vehicles belonging to active duty service officers. Was that prior to having that subscription service or software service?

Yeah, is accurate and I can expand on that as as as the DOJ is concerned and what we've done with them. We actually are partnered with the DOJ as their partner across the country to actually improve this process. So through this I think the DOJ has recognized and what we've recognized is that there are gaps in that process that led to that, the DOJ has admitted that and so have we. The software service that we have now absolutely prevents that. We work with a company called LexisNexis and TransUnion, so we work with them directly.

As partners, everything that we have nationally gets ran through that service and is tracked within the system that we are now using. And again we are on a committee with the Department of Justice to help improve this not only for us, which we've already done, but to improve it for every tow company across The United States because every tow company that has an auction that seizes a car is supposed to run these vehicles through the SCRA database. Nobody does because it's virtually impossible. You have to have a birth date or a social security number. Those are things that we typically do not have. So we're working with the Department of Justice to try to figure out how do we bridge that gap nationally, and they're actually using a lot of our processes that we've implemented to then distribute those out to other folks that they are working with. So it's an important partnership for us and one we're proud of.

Okay, thank you. And a question that I have, we pay for the software currently, right? Will this be included with the service so we won't have to pay for the software and your service? Or will that be encompassed in the 2,000,002,400,000

Correct. We will actually, it will still be your contract as it's active, but we will pay for the software in that regard. You guys will no longer have to pay for that.

How much is the contract? Do you have that number? I can do it by way of referral of the software contract.

I don't know the yearly amount but it's a little over $15,000 a month.

Oh yeah, okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Like I said, I'll defer to the chair. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are you a union shop in any of these other cities by chance? Are your employees unionized?

In one other particular city, the Teamsters are in San Francisco. We've been working with them since 2004 and we have a very very good relationship with them.

Alright. Thank you so much. Councilman Hobbs, your recommendation?

I'm gonna ask for a first read. I want to if you could, officer lieutenant Holmes, if we could get over the last three years, how much have we brought in with fees and auction on average? And then, what will we know as far as about the 2.4, what is our net gain or loss once we have those numbers, please?

Yes.

And then I've already talked to I'm waiting to hear back from another union person just to make sure we have that because I've talked to the command officers and I'm just waiting to hear back from TPPA on that and so I can make sure that's clarified. Yeah. So we'll go first read and then we'll come back and go from

there. Great.

And whatever other questions our council members had that needed to be answered.

Thank you.

Wonderful. Thanks for being here.

Hope you enjoyed Appreciate your

time, Thank you.

Item number 18, please.

Item number 18 authorizes the acceptance, deposit appropriation and expenditure of $152,792.78 from the Department of Justice Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, the expenditure of an amount not to exceed $5,000 from the general fund. The grant expenditure will include a year of forensic forensic digital extraction device software, and the remaining funds will be used to purchase radios. This ordinance authorizes the acceptance of bids and awards a one year contract for the forensic digital extraction device software. Authorizes to enter a contract with Motorola Solutions for the purchase of the radios, waiving competitive bidding requirements for the Motorola Solutions as the manufacturer and the state contract vendor for the radios. The forensic digital extraction device software is vital for digital forensic unit for processing evidence and assisting in solving cases faster.

The new radios will replace some of our obsolete radios. We are requesting SEP to expedite the receipt and expenditure of this grant.

Thank you so much. Can you tell us a little more about forensic digital extraction?

Yeah. Please.

Okay. That software, I don't know how much I wanna say on this, but do you want me to take this by referral? Because I can dig into it.

Chair, the software that we're referring to, to kind of oversimplify it, is it allows us when we recover a cell phone from a crime scene, from a homicide, whatever, software, it's the technology we use to be able to access the information on that phone that ultimately helps us solve the crime.

Gotcha. Okay.

Appreciate that.

No lights. Councilman Hobbs, your recommendation?

SCP, please.

SCP. Item number 19.

Item number 19 authorizes the acceptance and deposit of $331,951.92 in grant funds from the Ohio Peace Officers Training Commission for the first quarter of twenty twenty six. Authorizes the appropriation expenditure of these funds and the acceptance of bids and awarding contracts for developing, delivering, or attending training for officers. These funds are reimbursement for the mandatory training officers are required to attend on a yearly basis by the Ohio Peace Officers Training Commission. The reimbursement assists the city in covering costs for additional training for officers and must be kept separate from other funds. Some of the tradings include firearms qualification, legal update, wellness, de escalation, etcetera.

We are requesting SEP to provide continuing professional training to officers.

Councilman Hobbs, your recommendation,

SEP, please.

SEP. Thank you.

Thanks very much. Have a nice day. Items number 21 through 23 come to us from excuse me. 20 through twenty twenty 20 through 23 come to us from the Department of Housing and Community Development. Previous or current? Current, do you wanna go first?

Thank you, chair. I want to also remind my fellow council members, we do have a committee meeting on the fourteenth to go over the CDBG results, so all of the questions can also be answered at that time as well.

It's CDBG and ESG, all of it, all four? All of it. Cool, just checking. Thank you so much. Director, welcome.

Good afternoon, members of council. I'm Ross Clements. I'm the chief of housing in neighborhood sustainability. I'm joined today by Monica Brown, is my manager for community planning and development grants. As Councilwoman Jones have indicated, three of the ordinance today is to accept and approve our annual entitlement allocations for CDBG Home and ESG.

We will be going over those allocations and our process in more detail on the fourteenth of this month, a special working meeting with counsel to go over those schedules. However, item number 21, we would like to do that with as an SEP item where we're disappropriating some ESG funds and reappropriating it to winter crisis center. And I'll start by having Ms. Brown go over that ordinance.

Can we can we do we wanna keep that one separate or and do you wanna make your recommendations for the other ones first or

do we have any questions?

Since she it was already noted that '21 will be SEP. We can just go in order if that's fine, just to keep it.

The others will just say are committee,

I assume.

Yeah. For sure. Just checking.

Thank you. Then we'll focus in on '21, please. Item '21.

Start with 20. How do you want us to start? Number 20?

I think the recommendation is going to go committee for 2022, and '23. And are so there questions on '22, '23 from council members? No? It'll be in committee. Wonderful. So yeah, we'll just focus on 21 for today.

Afternoon members of council. The legislation that you have before you is authorizing the disappropriation of $7,550.18 from the previous emergency solutions grant year authorizing the reappropriation and expenditure of that same amount $7,550.18 from the unappropriated balance of the ESG operating fund and declaring an emergency. The financial impact of this ordinance is the ability to use the prior year ESG funds to help support the winter crisis shelter for Toledo's communities home communities Toledo community homeless population during the coldest months of the year. Excuse me. Saint Paul's Community Center has been operating the winter crisis program for over the last sixteen years with the support of the Lucas County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board, United Way, the Lucas County Homelessness Board, and also with our department.

What they do is they keep people safe during the coldest months of the year. Saint Paul's provides dinners, a hygiene kit, cot, blankets, breakfast for each guest. They also allow them to have access to hot showers, donated clothing, socks, undergarments, laundry facilities, and charging stations. Additionally, the staff from St. Paul's provide security and act as a source for community referrals. And I can answer any questions at this time.

I'll just say I'm grateful to see that we're appropriating some more. I know that it's quite an expensive endeavor for St. Paul's or anybody that's providing this service. And this is just leading me into saying that I'm hearing that St. Paul's may not offer the winter shelter next year, so I'm hopeful that we're thinking about what, who might fill that gap if there is a gap for next year as well.

Councilman Martinez. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you for doing this. I I know last year was was a challenge with with funding and I I'm impressed that we can we have the ability to continue to do this to care for our most vulnerable during these really cold months.

And and I I really just kinda wanted to compliment you on, you know, looking at charging stations that are mobile. Right? Because especially if you're trying to communicate with people and you don't have you know there's never a good spot to charge your phone or whatever you need to to charge if you have children with you. So thank you for thinking a little bit more modern and outside the box in terms of modern needs. It's one thing just for the bare basics, but it's others, those creature comforts that well a lot of times we rely on for communication with family, friends, and stuff like that. So I thought that was caught my eye on that. So good job. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman McPherson.

Thank you. I just wanna say thank you. Yes. Wish we had more to appropriate to give to them. Kudos to pastor Cunningham and his staff, Reggie Williams and what they're doing with the Clothing Closet, weekly, monthly.

Yes, Saint Paul and all of them are working together. Yes, the church and the community center and all downtown there on Madison. It's just been great and I just hope we can do something that Saint Paul Community Center will not close because it has been a lifeline to our unhoused community. So Doctor. Clemons, if there's anything that you can wave a wand and work with them to make that happen, please appreciate it. Thank you for what you do.

Council member Gaddis.

Thank you. I too am grateful. Do you know how many days we had warming shelters last winter, I know through the whole winter season. I know that the winter crisis shelter is different, but do you have a gauge on how many days we did warming shelters?

I can get you that through referral, etcetera.

Okay. And are we, I'm sure you are, but just for the record, are you planning to make sure that we have enough for this upcoming winter? I know we've got the summer, but the seasons go fairly quickly.

Well, we intend to start early this year. But I know last year we got some philanthropic donations and we tend to start early this year preparing for next winter.

Okay, thank you. And then one thing that I just want to put on record that I'm hearing this is probably for the sidebar discussion, a lot of our residents are talking about people sleeping in their cars. And I know in some cities they provide safe parking lots for the night. I didn't know if that was something as a city we can explore. The more that Doctor. Jones and I are out and about the more we're hearing about what our residents are facing and that seems to be there's no safe place to sleep. The shelters are pretty much at capacity. We're in our car anyways. We've got dogs. We've got kids.

Is there a safe place? And I know looking into it, some cities have parking lots, some use parking garages, but if that's something that we could explore as a city, I think that would be incredibly helpful. Thank you for all your work. I know it's tireless.

Thank you. Thank you.

Wonderful. Councilwoman John's recommendation for item 21.

SCP. Okay.

Thanks very much.

Thank you both. We're done. Continue out the agenda, clerk. Okay.

And we have one item under the clerk reports, a resolution declaring the intent to vacate Bismarck Street, lying north of Swan Creek. We received an application and the filing fee. We have two resolutions in attendance. The first is recognizing the fiftieth anniversary of WGTE FM ninety one. Then we have a resolution celebrating twenty five years of the crisis intervention team.

Under new items from city council, there are three items, from the DIP program. Purchase and installation of speed feedback signage in District 1. Purchase and then the next is purchase and installation of lighted stop signs in District 6. Then we have a third repealing ordinance four eighty three nineteen. It says in grant with Toledo Warehouse District Association for street furnishings. And that completes the agenda.

Wonderful. That completes this meeting. Thanks all for your time and attention. This meeting is adjourned.