Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

you. Please rise and join us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome to the Union Township Board of Trustees regular meeting November 18th at 6 PM. Mr. Campbell, let the record show all three trustees are present. Is there any correspondence tonight? No, sir. I have none. Thank you.

All right. Moving forward, proclamations and special presentations. I'd like to welcome the municipal township trash aggregation discussion andformational session by Miss Hannah Lovers. Adams Claremont solid waste district director. Uh this special presentation uh brought forward by I believe Trusty Becker requested it to be on the schedule for tonight. Always talking trash. So, I was um looking looking forward to hearing it now because I've had a few emails come in to me about uh different trash services and uh it caught me by surprise. So, now I know where it's coming from. So, thank you.

Well, thanks for having me tonight. Um Hannah Loopers with the Solid Waste District as you said and to talk about solid waste trash franchising. And what a franchise is is just when a township enters into a contract with a waist hauler to for that waist hauler to become the exclusive hauling service in the township. And that could be for residential waste services or for commercial. Most typically it's residential services. Next slide. I don't have a clicker, [snorts] do I?

Okay. Thanks. So, the solid waste district, one of our goals is to divert 25% of the waste that goes to the landfill. Townships that have franchises and contracts for waste collection, they get curbside recycling included in their contract. And so, that naturally increases the amount of recycling. So, that checks one of our boxes. And so, the solid waste district likes to offer a program in helping the townships and developing the bids and the franchise for solid waste collection as one of our programs. So, our services would be available if the township wanted to proceed in this direction. We would help step the township through all of the formation of the bid documents. We use an outside attorney that specializes in solid waste issues to help draft all of those legal documents from the bid package um all along to the award of bid. Uh we'd help with any public meetings that were necessary. um any citizen concerns and we can also meet with the solid waste industry reps different waste providers during that process. So we see it all the way through until um award of bid if the township decides to do that. Next slide please. Townships are authorized to franchise for waste collection under Ohio revised code. They may enter into the contracts with independent contractors for waste disposal. However, they must go through the bidding process. There are several benefits in addition to just having curbside recycling um to forming a franchise. One of them being deferred maintenance. When you have an open market for trash, you have several garbage trucks going through neighborhoods. They may only have one customer on a street and you have that heavy truck moving down the street. So you might have you'll have more than one trash truck on the roads. And so that results in more potholes and more road maintenance that's needed. So that's one benefit that we see. You also see better pricing because the haulers can bid on the trash service. They know what kind of customer base they're going to have,

so they're able to offer more competitive pricing and more consistent pricing. Um, and then you'll get more services in addition to recycling. You can ask for many other services um, including large item pickup. So, bulky items. If you have a couch or an old mattress or something like that, you could have it picked up as part of your service. So, just to give you an idea of the pricing, surveyed some Union Township residents um in the open market and the prices range 32 to $45 a month for trash collection and that's just trash collection if you want to add recycling, curbside recycling. The price ranged from $3.50 to $6.25 a month. And some of the waste haulers do not provide curbside recycling services. And then if you want a bulky item pickup or large item pickup, you have to pay extra for that if your waist hauler does provide that service. And I've heard prices around $25 to $100 per item if they will provide that. If you look at the other townships that we've helped form a franchise, I listed three of them here, Vetavia, Ohio, and Williamsburg Township. The average rate that they have in their 2025 terms is $23.40. And that includes curbside recycling and large item pickup. And there's a variety of frequency of the large item pickup. Some townships have it weekly, some townships have it monthly. Um, anywhere in between that. Um, and then of course Pierce Township is a little bit different because they have a waste levy. And that's another option that the township could elect to do. Um, but that might be a little bit harder to proceed with. But what you see there is that they um it's assessed based on the value of the home property. So, the price varies, but for a $300,000 house, it's about $24.76 that they would pay monthly, but that's on their tax bill. So, you would see a savings around $20 per month. It's hard

to say what kind of bids you would get back, but based on the other township prices and what residents are paying currently in Union Township, there would be a savings of about $20 a month, and that would include more services. to next. The township could have two options. If they wanted to go out to bid for this, they could go solely out to bid just Union Township or they could ask me, the solid waste district, we could form a consortium and try and get other townships to join in and that would just potentially theoretically it would invite more competitive bidding because you'd have more households. So, there's around 20,000 households I think. I don't know the exact number in Union Township. we can figure that out. But um you might see 50,000 households might attract a lower price in your bids if you formed a consortium. And that's what um we tried to do that several years ago um unsuccessfully, but in Columbus and some of the neighborhoods there, they form consortiums and um so they have pretty fair prices there with a lot of services. Um, for developing the bid, we would include in the base bid recycling, curbside recycling, and it would likely be a trash cart, like a 65gallon cart. It could be a bigger one. Um, you [clears throat] could include that as an option. And then there would be a 95gallon waste cart. And then there are several other options you could include in the bid package. And then the next one. So, lots of other variables you can include in your bid packet. Um, you would want to just work with me and work with the waist hauler to make sure you're developing a competitive bid. Um, you don't want to ask for everything under the sun because then you're not going to get very fair pricing when they submit those packages and those bids. Uh, yard waste is one that you might consider. Curbside yard waste is an option. you could have that as a alternative um add-on just to make sure that the price doesn't go up too high. And then large item pickup would

definitely encourage including that in the bid. And then you can also have community services. So the township could add in trash service for their buildings, their government buildings. You could include um dumpsters roll off containers for your cleanup days. the the communities in Columbus had about eight rolloffs that were included uh annually 30 yard rolloffs um to the township um or community for their cleanup days and that was included in their monthly residential price and then also special events. So if you have festivals and things like that at the parks you could have trash service included in that as well. Next slide. There's several other considerations. um mandatory participation. I that's something that's an option. I don't know of any communities in Claremont County that do that, but it is an option. It could attract um a more competitive bid, but you'll still get a pretty good price even if you don't have mandatory participation. We would just want to include the amount of households that we expect the biders to service in that and and make sure we specify that you're not getting mandatory participation from every household. So basically, if a resident does not have waste collection now and you go out to bid and award the contract, we would make sure we include it in the language that they don't have to have waste collection, but if they do have waste collection, it has to be with this exclusive provider. Um, you can have hand service or senior rates included. You could have volume based bids. So if you don't generate that much trash, you could have a smaller can and pay a lower fee for that. And then you could also dictate the hours of service. What hours of the day and night do you want the trucks on the road? There's other considerations, administrative considerations. You can have the township do the billing or you could have the hauler do the billing.

All the communities um the townships in Claremont County have the hauler do the billing and that's typically quarterly, but you could change that if you wanted to. And you can have local phone number or local customer service office. in there. And then typically it's a five-year term. And then [cough] I encourage to add a two-year renewal option as well. And then for fees, you could have escalator. You might have attract more competitive bids if you have an escalator in there as well. Okay. So, if the township wanted to proceed in this, this is the timeline [clears throat] um that I would expect to see, give or take a few months, um December, January, we could have meetings with the township uh to work on developing the package, make sure you have all the specifications that you want in there. And by February, you could approve the package and then you could put that out in [cough] in March. And then in April, you want to give like five to six weeks for them to develop their bids. And then in May, you could award the contract. And [snorts] then you could also elect to not award the contract to anyone. Um you just have to have the language written out that [snorts and clears throat] way in the bid. Um and then they encourage the haulers encourage about 5 to 6 months of a roll out period before the service would start. So you'd be looking at October or November. And [snorts] I know Betavia Township's um contract expires in October. So that's one township that might be interested in forming a consortium if you're interested in doing that. But of course, you could go at it alone. That's what every other township has done so far and they've gotten competitive pricing. So that's all I have. Um there is one more slide which is my contact information. Um so I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

[clears throat] Dills and Miss Blue, thanks for coming out tonight. Um, I know you could use your family and I appreciate you taking the time to explain everything very much. So, appreciate that. Um, [snorts] what's the negative feedback that you get from residents?

The big one is taking away the right to choose their waist hauler. Um, you would be surprised at, I guess, allegiances that folks have to their waist hauler, but um, they have a good level of service with them over a number of years. They might not like to be told to that they have to change providers. Um, the other negative issue that we ran into, I don't know if it would be much of an issue here, but in Monroe Township, the carts were they were so big, um, there are some people that have really long driveways, they had a hard time moving the cart to the end of their driveway. So, just have to be creative. There's a lot of um that was one of the first um bids that we did and you can add language in to allow for hand service, things like that. So, they might have to pay another dollar a month, but they can have their own um trash container and not use a cart.

I assume uh I assume this is strictly residential, not commercial, correct? Yeah, you could do commercial, but it would be pretty challenging. um there's already contracts there and who has privacy. I personally like the idea roughly 20 bucks a month. However, I'll tell you um like what was it 2019 or whatever it was that township voted for aggregation for gas and

I hate it. Capital Hate it. I hate it. I wish we never did it. I don't like it because we got we get bombarded with emails [snorts] and honestly they're usually silly emails. Uh, and it's the same question over and over and over. You know, we we'll enter an agreement. It's it saves them 0.2 on a kilowatt hour. I'm I'm just throwing out stuff because I don't know the language. And uh and we enter in an agreement. 6 months later, Duke beats that price. Next thing you know, we've got all these residents upset and angry with us. I hate it. I want nothing to do with it. I I hate it. Uh it bombards bombards Mr. Wright, bombards us, bombards our silly social media stuff, and I hate it. I wish you you all go find it and you're on your own. Well, we have to [clears throat] legally because the residents voted it in. Um, so I just don't want that to happen. If we switch, you know, 50,000 residents, we just, you said 20,000 homes ballparkish.

Golly, I just I don't want to be barbar with that junk of, you know, like you said, I I like Republic. I like I like whatever waste management. Um, the only issue that I see because yeah, I hate the aggregation with gas here. I hate it. I wish we never did it, but we have to. So, um, I think that's all I got as far as questions. Thank you, Trusty Becker.

Yeah, I really appreciate this. Lot lot of good information in here. I would like to spend a lot of your time with Q&A. Uh but just to kind of be brief or you keep it high level. So, I guess the page I'm most interested in is the the contract franchise. You you listed four townships in Claremont County. Are those the only four or more? And these are just highlights. No, there's more. Um, Monroe Township. I did not include the pricing there because when they did their bid, it was like I said, it was the first one and they are serviced by um, Rumpy and they came in really low. It was like $14 a month. And so every [clears throat] other one since then, I didn't want to falsely

lower the average rate and, you know, make you hope for even better rates, but $20 a month is still pretty good. Um, but yeah, Monroe Township is one as well. Yeah. And then what happened um when we pursued the consortium of multiple townships because Union Township isn't big enough that you could go out for bid on your own and attract competitive bids, but some of the more rural townships in Claremont County, um they kind of had to group together to get a competitive bid. And they were approached by some waste haulers and given an option. And if they they were basically given a letter and said your residents will pay this much if you don't go out to bid for waste services and so they have more competitive rates than what you see in Union Township to this day still. It was 10 years ago.

Sure. So sometimes going through the motions. Okay. So lowers the service cost. You mentioned if I heard you correctly [clears throat] Pierce Township has a waste levy. Do any of these other townships have a waste levy? No. Who does So, does the townships actually pay is it singlepayer pay the the the hauler or

the most of the townships with the exception of Pierce Township I believe? Well, Pierce Township I think has the residents. Well, it's on their tax bill. So, um, that's when they pay it. But Pierce Township would pay the hauler. But most of the communities in Claremont County, they if it's a township, the residents pay and that saves or it costs probably a dollar or two a month. If the township wanted to do the billing, then that might save a dollar or two a month on the waste bill, but you'd have to have the staff to do the billing and answer all the questions and everything like that. Okay. So, al also I guess I think if I'm if I'm Rumpky or Republic, is there is there another option or is it just those two?

That's probably the bids that you'll see. There are other options, but I think a township of this size, that might be the only two that would be ready. And I have talked to them and um they're capable of bidding on a township this size. Did you say we had 20,000 households [snorts] here? Approximately. I think it was a little bit higher than that. Okay. So, I guess I'm thinking if I'm, you know, Rumpky or Republic, I I, you know, I'd rather have one bill from Union Township than than have to send out 20,000 bills. Yes. I would think that would be part of the negotiations and part of their bill. Hey, one biller, we can really catch a catch a better deal.

Yeah. Yeah. You could ask for that. And you could ask when you solicit bids um for a price for them to do the billing [clears throat] or for the township to do the billing. I assure you we're not going to want to send out 20,000 bills from Union Town. It's just not going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it honestly it doesn't save doesn't seem like it saves that much um to have the township do the billing. That's only I think the ones I was looking at in Columbus outside of Columbus were about [snorts] $150 a month. Yeah. But I'm thinking it would save the company again Republican save them a lot quite a bit. Yeah. you know, billing billing just sending out one bill for 20,000 people rather than 20,000 separate bills. Yeah.

So, okay. So, you said Pierce was the only one with a with a levy. They hear you. So, the rest of them don't. So, Right. So, then so they are sending out the the bills to the individual households. Pierce Township. No, I mean, the rest of the townships, the residents pay the hauler directly. Okay. That's what I say. and and yeah and Pierce uh I guess so Pierce [snorts] just pays it directly to to Rumpky and you know nobody gets build it's just under it's under tax levy the um so do all these other ones all four of these that you listed do they include is it typical that they include recycling

yes so the way that works is that the recycling is included in the price But you would have to sign up for the cart. Okay. I I guess this when I saw these numbers, I thought, you know, wow. So, I mean, if I'm currently paying 40 bucks a month and we could do aggregation now, I'm paying $22 a month, that strikes me as a no-brainer. And I can't imagine people being so in love with fill in the blank Rump Gear Republic that they're going to be But apparently I'm wrong because I'm hearing people get you'll get you'll get some people, you [laughter] know, I don't know. I mean that's that's a substantial saving. Yeah.

When Bavia Township did it, it was of course they went with Republic and so majority of the residents had Rumpy. So they had a lot of folks that were upset about it. Um but that all kind of calmed down after a while and they're still pretty happy with the service that they have and um the cost savings.

Okay. So for the public watching this on video, if if if you don't want aggregation and you love fill-in- thelank company, let me know because I I'd love to hear from you. So also um you mentioned about being mandatory. I don't I don't know how you I don't even know how it's practical to make it mandatory, but I'm also thinking there's effectively no opt out. So this is what I'm envisioning. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you know if if Union Township goes what let's just let's say it's Rumpky and you know there's a handful of people in the township that say no no I want Republic I don't care what it costs. Well Republic is going to say we're not making enough money off of you to send a truck into your neighborhood and they'll just cancel the service. So it's either run or there's no service. That's what I'm envisioning. Is that is that the case or am I wrong? Effectively, it might happen that way, but if someone did provide service um and you had it franchised, then we would send a letter of violation out to them and then they could be subject to fines if they're providing waste hauling service in a franchise township.

Interesting. Okay. [sighs] What? I'm just The thought popped in my mind that when you're driving around the township on a Saturday morning with your truck bed full of trash, you might get pulled over and fined for unauthorized waste hauling in the township. I'm just saying I see your racket. I had not considered that possibility. That's funny. I would send him a letter for that. [laughter] I I think that's all I have for now. That's great overview. [clears throat] Thank you very much. Yeah, no problem. Happy to come back if you want to talk about it more. Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] Yeah. Um,

I'll just say I I feel like it's a slippery slope when people give up their rights in pursuit of of a dollar. And I guess that's gets to the value of that dollar that you're talking about, John. Um, so free market aspect, I think kind of where you're at, the concern that people have and I understand when people get bothered or they get upset when they don't have that choice of who they want to provide. All right, we'll carry forward with personnel actions known tonight public comments. I have one card. There's comment cards in the back corner if anyone has filled any out. Um, Miss Brenda Vega, the swan lady,

you wrote it in here. exercises. I'm reading it off the way you um

gentlemen. Hi, I'm Brenda Vega. I'm the swan lady for United for Union Township and um I live at 6931 Golden Gate Drive in Turpin Hills. I had was forced to move after 15 years of loving being five minutes away, but a land developer came in and took over all of our properties and put us all out. So, that has been an ongoing thing. The reason I'm here today is I am I was injured. Matt, you know that I was injured recently on a private horse farm. I'm doing some training and anyhow, um so I had I was coming from my sports therapy yesterday at Wellington. I always come up here and do my shopping at jungle gyms and whatnot cuz everything's closed, my red light therapy, etc., etc. Coming back, traffic is stopped in front of TQL because the swans once again are in the middle of the road. The reason they're they're and everybody's like honking. They're not being these. It enraged me because there's no they aren't being fed properly. I cannot get to them right now. I cannot go up and motiv and navigate the up and down hills and I'm not going to put my health at risk and and have to go further because I see have to go see my back surgeon next week. Now, the issue is the reason they're grazing are are looking for food and and going up into the streets and stopping traffic and people, you know, at TQL, they don't give they don't care about anything. Just fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. They're it's amazing that I think the only reason they see them is because they're so bright, white, and large and imposing. However, I pulled over and I have a car that's white swan pretty much and I

pulled right into the median, stopped all the traffic, got out just in excruciating pain and stopped everybody. Got popped my trunk, got my training stick and shued their little butts, furry butts back up into the side where they're supposed to be. And all I could do was put some grain down in the grass for them because I couldn't get down the hill to the pond, you know, and there were no other birds or waterfell around. And obviously the swans were in distress because they they have nowhere to graze anymore because the park that was sold, gentlemen, is now a parking lot. So they have nowhere to get fresh grass or graze if they're not fed corn or mixed grains or whatever scr whatever that the township decides the service department decides to feed Mr. Taylor. He knows all about. He knows me too well after eight years. He knows I'm I'm a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the things that I care about. But we got to figure out what's up with that. We have to please it. I mean, the people that love to come and see them in the parks, they're federal weather friends. Look at me. I'm a mess. I'm supposed to be somewhere else and be faints like and look at me. I'm drenched with rain. My coat is I mean, I'm not a fair weather friend. I'm out there whether it be like you missed in in combat. You're out there whether it's rain and snow and you don't care. Sunny, hot, you know, I'm like a mailman. I'm there regardless. And people don't see that and with this time change they don't appreciate that and they don't care. But a true comrade and a true warrior is out there regardless of the situation taking care of the ones that they are responsible for. I hope you can respect that. So we need to figure out something to

make sure that those birds are not in the street. I made I said well I'm also cruised by veterans. So I did. There they are. There's nobody in the park, of course, because it's a terrible day. Fair weather friends, like I say, it's a good day. Everybody wants to see them, but not with hooks hanging out of their out of their beaks and through their necks like Mr. Deling and I got saved. The one that was in the pond a couple years ago, that whole situation went up on the news. That's not good news. That's not a good reflection of our township. I mean, regardless [clears throat] of where I live now, gentlemen, I will still and always be a a member of this of this township. It's just the way it goes. I would, you know, it is more peaceful where I live that. However, we need to figure out something because the ones that veterans, they were drinking out of a dirty puddle right there by the where you drive in. They weren't on the pond. They weren't by the duck ramp. Of course, I would couldn't have made it that far anyways. So, I need help. I need help, Matt. I need help just for a while. I'll try to do the best I can, but I'm trying to get This is my first day without a without total back wrap stuff nonsense cuz I'm determined. You know, I'm tough and I don't give up without a fight. You know that. So, we got to save these birds because they didn't ask to be put here. And they, believe me, if they could gain altitude and fly, if they if they didn't have a their right their right wing uh flight wing removed, they would be out of here, you know, and so we got to do something. And once you guys move, I know I already know all the business. Believe me, I have eyes and spies everywhere. I know you guys are moving. It's going to be even more hellacious to try to get through the traffic with being that that the time that it gets it's getting darker earlier. I have limited time that

I can do that, you know, I can get to all three ponds. I don't even know what's up with the with the cemetery. I know that Mr. Big has his absesses back needs to be tra needs I mean that's going to be an ongoing thing as well. You just throw grain in the parking lot and drive off. All the other birds swarm and and you know they're swans. It takes them a long time to waddle down that hill from through those graves because they graze. That's what they do if they don't have sustained food. At least once a day is all they need. But there's got to be somebody to monitor them and make sure. That's what I usually do, but I can't right now. So please guys, please help me with this. I've got body bags for him in the trunk of my car. I hate to say it, but it wouldn't be the first time that I've had to pick up a dead swan and put it in my car. So, that's all I have to say. And if you'll excuse me now, gentlemen, I have to be somewhere and uh in Turpin Hill. I have I I have somewhere to be at 7:00. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Please. And you got all my my email address and all that stuff. Okay. Thank you, John. All right, having no further public comment, gentlemen move forward with department reports. Uh, fire and emergency medical services. Chief Austin Clements.

Thank you, Mr. Log. In the month of October, the fire department responded to 154 fire and service calls, 590 EMS details. We had 507 patients and we transported 403 of those patients. Completed 1,569 hours of training, held 18 public education details, and just want to note that we held our open house last month to kick off fire prevention week, and it was appeared pretty well received by the uh by the public and the community. So, I appreciate their support coming out for that. We completed five life safety inspections and 17 inspections with Claremont County Building Department. And that concludes my report.

Thanks, Chief. Trusty Dills. Chief Goodall. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Trusty Becker got nothing. Police Department Chief Anthony Ree.

Thank you, Mr. Logan. In the month of October, the communication center handled 4,982 calls for service for police, fire, and EMS and 5,736 total calls. Our records clerks processed 578 uh juvenile [snorts] and adult court related documents for the courts in Matavia. Uh, we handled 164 court notices for officers requiring a personal appearance in court, processed three rule 16s for the prosecutor's office, handled 164 public records requests, and redacted 49 body camera videos. In the area of public affairs, uh, it being October, our officers attended several trunk or treat celebrations with kids and on Halloween, uh, our officers were in the neighborhoods handing out candy. And as always, that was wellreceived. In the operations bureau, our police officers took 220 incident reports, 98 crash reports, 200 made 273 traffic stops, issued 123 citations, 185 written warnings, made 45 criminal arrests, 50 traffic arrests, and served 48 warrants. Our honor guard was particularly busy in October. Uh they presented the colors and did a memorial wreath service at the opening ceremony for the military wall and they also presented the colors at the closing ceremony. In the area of training, our officers attended 144 hours of training uh both in service and outside the police department. And that concludes my report, sir.

Thank you, Chief Trusty Dills. I wanted to say to both chiefs after you both are finished. Uh just with um I won't get into it, but yesterday's incident. Uh both our our paramedics and police officers did a fine job yesterday and so just uh excellent job. Make sure they're good. Check on them. Make sure their head space is clean and clear, you know. Um and chief uh I finished the um Citizens Police Academy uh just recently and excellent excellent class. Uh what was it? Uh two and a half months, right? I think two two and a half months uh once a week. Excellent. Loved it. And then um and it was funny because for those and Chief Reese came and attended for those that didn't know, I actually volunteered uh to get tased and uh that uh I've been through a lot. That was the worst six seconds of pain I've ever felt in my entire life. And then there there's Tony there videoing it. And so but uh excellent class. you're uh I think Sergeant Wilson uh was in charge of it. Did did a real great job. So he he'll continue to do a good job. So excellent. So appreciate you, sir.

Thank you. Trusty Dills or Becker, sorry. Trusty Becker. Uh Chief Ree, the um first off for Trusty Dills, are you ever going to get tased again or was once enough? If I lose a bet, I would do it again. But it hurt. It hurt, man. It was it was not there is a video too of it but I don't know I'll share it.

All right Jeff Gree so uh last month now this is on the call out reports that uh we talked about an ATM jackpotting that occurred at the Sherfax um credit union in Ivy Point. I think if I remember correctly, you said something about there was a u a virus that was put into the ATM machine and some guys were kind of watching for an alarm going off and there wasn't and so over several days they cleaned it out and got got away with a bunch of cash but didn't exactly get away. So you captured some of them and there's an update this month that there's been u further movement on this case and this is just another example of the police department hitting a home run. So give us the update.

Yeah, thank you Mr. Becker. Uh our detectives continue to work on this case. Um they've worked really hard and spent a lot of time on this. Uh recently late October, uh we came upon some more information, developed another suspect. Uh our detective unit traveled to Columbus, Ohio, served several search warrants. We're actually able to locate uh a subject that we think was particularly the mastermind of this whole thing. Um to date we have four people charged and three of them are in custody. Um the fourth subject that actually withdrew the money. Uh he's still on the land but we do have warrants out for him. I'm also pleased and very proud to report that uh the followup from our detectives led to um charges most likely being filed in both Toledo and Pittsburgh. um those respective police departments were just hitting dead ends with this. Um because of some of the information that we garnered through our search warrants, um I'm pretty confident that we're going to be able to help those police departments come to a successful conclusion with their with their cases. So, a lot of hard work uh that went into this case and I appreciate you asking about it.

Yeah, it's u like I said, a home run. You guys uh it's just another example of the great work you do and helping other police departments around the around the country. I mean, what a feather in your cap. That's awesome. Thank you, Chief. That's all, Chairman. Thank you, Chiefs. Service department, Mr. Matthew Taylor.

Thank you, Mr. Lo. In the cemetery division, from October 1st through the 31st, 18 burials were performed, generating $8,625. Nine resident graves were purchased, uh, generating $6,300. One colarium niche was purchased for $2,000. One cremation scattering garden was purchased for $600. The total amount generated for the period was $20,945. In the parks division, staff continues the daily and seasonal maintenance on township buildings, parks, and landscape areas. And uh park staff installed picnic tables in the new seating areas uh behind the civic center. and the road division. Uh the road department repaired 77 potholes on over 13 township streets and 22 work orders uh were completed on multiple township roads. And uh that and that concludes my report.

Thank you, Jesse Dills. Um Mr. Chiller, good job. Um [cough] [clears throat] good luck soon. I know winner's coming. So, thank you. Good luck. Yeah. Hoping for mild winner. Yeah, me too, sir. Trusty Becker. Yeah. I think it was last uh weekend. I want to say it was Monday of last week. Um we had a a weather event where were your guys out salting the bridges intersections? Yes, sir. We had to do the bridges. Yeah, because I was I was uh I had to take a route on the expressway and uh there's a number of cars that spun out. So, I was thinking about you. All right. Very good. Thank you. That's all chairman.

Uh Matt, um we visited Veterans Park uh the other day and it was so busy. There's so many people out on the playground. The parking was full. Um pickle ball courts were full. Basketball courts are full. People were on the walking track. People were having birthday parties under the pavilion. Um, it was just looking really great, very active. Uh, great return of value for the park as an amenity to the community. Um, versus not being utilized. Um, so I'm really happy with with the work that you and the team and uh, everyone's put into making the upgrades and making the improvements there. Um, definitely a great way to take care of the assets and bring amenities to to the community. Also recognizes it brought people from outside of Union Township here uh, shopping and spending their time here uh, which is um, maybe newer uh at least to come from outside the community to come to our parks. So, it's very pleasant and great to see the obviously it helps activate the shopping areas and and the restaurants as well. Um, one quick question on the pavilion at Veterans Park. Is the seating the same amount of uh seats at the at the picnic tables that are under the pavilion there or do we have the different because we said the real long ones. So, we have the different ones under there.

Are you talking about in the big shelter? Yes. Uh, well, no. The seats are a little bit smaller, but we can move them around more. They're more up to date. Is there anything we can do to accommodate more numbers under there? Yes, sir. I'm familiar with there's a St. Veronica's senior group that meets out meets there regularly and um I believe that they're like down on seats now because they have quite a good group size that comes out. Yeah, I can connect you with that if if you needed hear that, but otherwise um just want to touch base on that. There is room to add a couple more tables.

Okay. Okay. Okay. It's it's looking phenomenal out there. So just great work. Likewise with Clever Park. So thank you. Planning zoning, Mr. Mark McCormack.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. for the month of October in terms of enforcement activities. We had 72 inspections, 11 complaints, four of which were unfounded, three warning citations, two 15-day non-compliance letters, three 30-day violation letters. Um, 10 cases resolved. We had 374 illegal signs removed, 17 violations for the monthly total, 19 reinspections, no nuisances filed. In terms of permit activity, we had two commercial permits, six changes of use, 13 signs, two temporary sales, three single family homes, one multif family dwelling permit um for 183 units. Uh four additions, five decks, four accessory permits, and 13 permits for pool fences. 53 permits for the month with a revenue of $45,051. and the fire department revenue taken in was $1,253. Um, couple other items of note. Um, we, as you know, we received another grant. We've been busy doing grant writing and administration. Even when we're not working on grant writing, we're doing administration to to see things through and get reimbursed. Um, we had one meeting in Mount Carmel recently. We're about to have another one here in a couple weeks to meet with the community to talk about a plan for Mount Carmel Park which we've been working on um with Mr. Taylor um Miss R and um the park board. Also going to meet and talk with the community about streetscape and sidewalk planning um the revitalization grant and maybe a business association. And we're actually going to have that meeting at the new Pigkins on Old 74 which is now open. Um, and so that'll be here on December 3rd, I think, is the date we picked.

[clears throat] And then, uh, we have a lot of construction projects underway. Uh, recently approved plans and permits issued. Um, as you know, some of these will be finished here pretty soon, like the Wawa for example. But, um, a lot going on. Um, with that, uh, that concludes my report. Uh, do you have any questions for me? Trusty DS. Mr. McCorm, good job. Appreciate you, sir. Thank you, Trusty Becker.

Thank you, Mr. McCorm. Community engagement for third quarter update. Miss Lisa R. Good evening. our social our social media Facebook page is now at a little over 8,000 followers and we're over 2,000 followers than we were last year at this time. Um although our Facebook user range is 18 to 65 years of age, Instagram, those peak users are between the ages of 18 and 34. So we initiated an Instagram page to gather more interest from our younger residents. So that recently started and you'll see more pick up on that in the coming year. This past October, we hosted the military tribute event and the second annual sip and shop event. The military tribute event was held over multiple days with an opening ceremony, wreath laying ceremony, reading of the names in a candlelight vigil. It was a meaningful way for residents and visitors to pay tribute to those who served and sacrificed in all branches of the US military. It was a steady treat stream of visitors throughout the entire multi-day event. um many people were walking the wall and the exhibits. Um we found that a a larger crowd was around the exhibits because those are were more recent conflicts. Um so if we were to do anything in the future, I think we would do something smaller and u more geared towards that aspect. It was a great way to provide the opportunity to foster unity across multiple generations. So, I want to just thank everyone that's listening. Thank everyone in the audience up up there as well. Um whether you were a resource, a volunteer, a participant in the ceremony or in another capacity or even just came and visited the wall while it was here. We appreciate your dedication to Union

Township. The Sip and Shop event is an outdoor market on the Civic Center campus. This year we were able to expand the footprint um to include the both the north and south parking lots and it included over double the number of vendors over last year which pro was proven to be a great success. RJ Cinemas and Traveling Toms offered beverages for purchase and Cuisine had food options available. It ended up being like a very windy day but we had a steady amount of foot traffic. We got a lot of great feedback from the vendors, a lot of people wanting to come back and um a lot of opportunities for growth as well. The winter newsletters will reach residents in the mailboxes the first week in December. Topics include recent economic development, township snow removal, which I know you're excited about, Matt. Holiday hours, holiday partnerships benefiting the community, and more. We do have some new event ideas coming for 2026 on campus with um improvements over in our amphitheater area as well as uh clearing and improvements on the trail in the back, possibly a storybook trail, possibly some bigger fall events. So, there's some options for 2026. We also have new ways to enhance some existing events that we have. So, I just invite everyone to stay connected on social media and the township's website for what for updates.

Thank you. you s good good report. Appreciate that. Um, we had the aggregation for [snorts] trash up here. I was wondering can is it possible to put out a social media post and solicit feedback just simply yes or no? Are you interested? Ballpark, here's your current rate. Ballpark, here's what it's going to be. You know, can can we just get a survey and put it out there? Yeah, I will get with Hannah and we can we can definitely nothing scientific, but I just like to get an eyeball test. Um yeah, just because we'll definitely get something out there. Yeah.

Get some feedback and I can report again if it or I'll give you I'll send you guys a report based on what we have. No, no, no rush. Just uh Okay. Yeah. Just just my thoughts. Yeah. Okay. Sir, how much is your right to choose worth to you? question, right? This trash service or this trash service? I feel like that sounded way more broad than trash service. Oh my just trying to place the trash service. Trusty Becker. Yeah, I'm [clears throat] picturing the question. Yeah. With the big government overreach hand, you must take this color trash can. [clears throat] Jesse back.

If you support dictatorial government, we want to hear from you. I will keep it brief and simple. You're mandated to answer. Yes, you're mandated. Who's going to collect your trash? Uh, miss are uh continue to be impressive. [clears throat] You've been great events. Uh, you know, since I guess the last one being the the sip and shop, I've been starting to lose weight, so I appreciate that as well. So, uh, keep up the good work. Thank you. Great. Thank you.

Great work. Uh, Neil, again, we continue to have uh robust, I'd say, attendance at different community events and just using the amenities and resources in the township. And I think that those facts truly speak for themselves as well. You know, both both board members sitting here. It's November 18th, so you know, sometimes you say after an election day, congratulations. You guys are both reelected. We also had no opposition which I attribute uh quite a bit to the success that's being the township that's being transparent, accountable and communicating very well and you've been a big key to that. So thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] Congratulations guys too.

I guess he's good. Yeah, I'm good. Uh administration Mr. Porter.

Thank you sir. I have u a lot but I'll just try to summarize and be brief. I think we've heard a lot of good information from all of our department heads this evening. Uh [clears throat] splash pads been winterized. Reception even though it was soft opening was positive and we'll continue to make improvements at that facility. Uh fall junk days was actually manageable this year. Mr. Taylor was able to uh deal with the uh junk this uh fall this past week and uh I guess we came in and had it all cleaned up literally within one day. Was that correct? Yes. So that's good job once again and uh you know hopefully uh we'll be able to roll out uh an alternative uh method next year visav vouchers. Um we are waiting on some last minute additions to the playground set. Uh just some benches and some trash cans. I'll let the board know when uh we finalize the ribbon cutting. It's not ideal weather, but we do get some nice days, you know, in the winter time here. So, uh, we'll try to coordinate the best we can. Um, the trail, as Miss indicated, is now generally complaint. Uh, interesting, uh, thing, we actually hydro seated the hillside with a wildflower mix. So, that will be kind of a nice uh addition to that in addition to uh the mobile areas. So, kind of renaturalizing the area after that improvement. I did hear [snorts] some word back on the EV chargers. I guess Mark was able to get uh some kind of uh direction on that that it is in environmental review and once that is been review once that environmental review has been completed they'll release the funding and we should be able to proceed on the design build process. Uh we've also received the fee proposal back now for the systemic safety sidewalk on old 74 uh which is under review by ODOT at this time. Um we're underway on access control. Uh work continues at the new

service garage. It is really starting to make some significant progress and come together on the Elmont OW or on the Elmont old 74 OPWC project. Uh I believe they're actually meeting tomorrow the district to score those and I believe that we scored very high if you generally make the first page on the rankings. So we hope that we'll get funding on that. So, um I believe uh the Baldwin and Benning OPWC slide repairs were also included in that, but I will apprise the board as as that develops. [snorts] We are uh studying pedestrian accessibility improvements generally along Summerside Road. You know, with the improvements to the parks, we get uh asked sometimes about pedestrian access more so with uh uh Clatty and Veteran or Clatty and Clapper in that area as opposed to veterans because uh it's a bit more of a more rural condition. So, we're we're studying that with the goal of looking at future OK grant money to see if there's any projects that might be supported in that agenda items. Tonight we have a purchasing and tax exempt certificate usage policy that uh is for the board's consideration. This is in response to auditor of date auditor of state guidance bulletins that we received. We're presenting a bal a resolution to hard bill balance bill non-residents of the township for EMS expenses. These policies do not impact our existing residents in any way whatsoever. We have two tiff district uh appeal or repeal resolutions it should should say. This will allow for reconfiguration of parcels at a future date yet to be determined. Probably bring those to you next year. Uh we have a zoning text amendment to codify lighting standards in our zoning resolution. These are reasonable standards. The Mark did a good job, you know, fleshing out with the zoning commission in that. And so we just need to initiate that. We have a cyber security plan uh which

is part of our House Bill 96 compliance requirements. We have another fire billing resolution to allow us to bill for non-emergent calls to various facilities. Uh we have a safe routes to school travel plan grant. We're seeking $95,000 in grant funding. Two nuisance properties. Uh waiting on communications from Claremont County regarding our 2026 road program. My hope is I'll have everything by December. Could be in January. Not sure yet. Um we are moving forward with playground replacement at Mount K. As you're aware, that was made possible through an insur insurance settlement. Mr. Taylor did a good job in, you know, taking a valueoriented approach to to that. Um, let's see what else. Um, oh, public notice. We have posted the public notice. The first of the two required notices for the uh license plate fee increase uh which is required uh or the notices are required pursuant to 454181. [snorts] two different notices, two different public hearings. Hearing in on the 9th at 6 PM and a hearing on the 15th at 6 PM. We will of course notice the special meeting pursuant to our customary requirements and advertise that as such. Just by way of just a little bit of background, the board has invested and we're actually compiling information for a presentation in that board's invested millions of dollars in the roads. We've had alternate sources of funds over the last five years. Uh in order we've made significant headway and I think we will document that in the presentation. In order to hold serve and not revert back, we are seeking the additional revenues which go into our permissive [snorts] tax fund which is used primarily and exclusively for road resurfacing. We have 136ish miles of roadway and that's a lot of miles of roadway at an estimated 200 to 210,000 per lane mile. Is that what it is? 200 to 210?

Yes, sir. 200 to $210,000 a lane mile to repave. So, um that's reality. There's nothing surreptitious about it. It's just about holding serve [snorts] so we don't backslide. So, I just wanted to uh bring that to the board's attention. real quick just on that one topic. Um so two hearings, one is for 12:15. Yes. That's on Monday, 6 p.m. When is the first one? The 9th, which is so which is our business meeting. Yes. So we discussed it on the 9th and we vote on the 15th. Yeah. You actually have to have two public hearings. You have the first public hearing will occur on December 9th. The second public hearing will occur on December 15th.

And we are not taking action or voting on the 9th. We're voting on the 15th. You would then take [snorts] you would then act on the resolution following the second public hearing. Got it. Got it. And that's all prescribed via

Sorry, Mr. L did not mean to have anything else. I do. Um I saw here with with Lowe's not playing ball and wanting to the [snorts] progress on our cemetery. You know this is not a problem that we are going to have to deal with uh in the next upcoming years but it will be a problem in 10 15 20 years. So what's the solution if Lowe's doesn't play ball and sell us? We are exploring other avenues and that's the other avenues available and I've been in constant communication with our law director about that and we are prepared to explore those other avenues if need be.

Fantastic.

Okay. All right. Um you you went over a lot. Um I I appreciate truly what you do and and it's it's it's crazy because we'll we'll talk semi-regularly. They're trying not to bother you too much, but it's crazy how you'll have an agenda and things to do and then you just get curveballs constantly thrown your way. So, um, you know, appreciate you. I don't like the term administrator. I like the term CEO. I appreciate you being the chief executive officer for the township. I really do. And so, um, you know, I I know you have this entire board's full confidence. Um, this [snorts] this past month, we have talked a lot with each other. And so, I just appreciate truly I do. Um, I can't speak much for Hamilton County because I don't know much about them over there. I just know I don't want to live there. But what I will say, and I'll say it firmly in front of anyone, you are hands down the best administrator east side and north of Cincinnati that I know of. And uh, so appreciate you and also appreciate you. Um, you know, I I always believe you got to you got to fill your pipeline and I appreciate you having Miss R. And uh you know in the event you move on which you never will hopefully but eventually you do or get hit by a bus tomorrow you know training placement just uh uh Mr. Hands down the best administrator in Claremont County. So I appreciate you very much.

So that's all I got sir. Trusty Becker. I don't have anything. I'm good. [clears throat and cough] Hey the uh ribbon cutting um the park. I was thinking of that when I was walking through what we were what you guys were going to want to plan to do with the grass and things still needing to kind of take root and grow in. Cool. I thought maybe you were planning to just redo it holding things off until the spring. Is that too long of a delay or it's No, I mean that's really at the board's pleasure. I mean we were going to reopen we were going to do something around the splash pad when we re when we unwinterize it and bring it back online. So veterans an so we could certainly set those. Let's just do when the weather kicks in. I'll do it in spring the grass. March, April, whatever. Yeah, that's fine. Unless you want to do in the winter.

No, no, no. I have no interest in doing a sub 32 degree day ribbon cutting. Yeah. So, it's really up to the board. We can You love the parks. When would you like it? I want him to hang on that that old playground until cutting. Until the ribbon cutting. Just kidding. We We can do it. He said it's very sturdy. Held his weight. We can delay it to April and actually. Good, good question, Mr. Yeah. Just wait till the weather breaks. Not a problem. Are you good with the spring? Sure. I'm a big believer in soft openings so people can use things and get to enjoy them and then gives us a chance to continuously improve. Cool. And then wheel that out. So,

okay, great. Yeah. Um, thank you. We'll keep it moving forward, guys. We have a public hearing tonight. Mr. McCormack, if you can introduce Union Township Overlay Case 7-25- Oscar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also forgot to mention earlier that um we are seeking up to three new zoning board members and we have those applications and available online. And I can also send people an email. If you think of anyone who may be interested, let me know. Meant to mention that earlier. I wonder how much traction that gets as a as a survey or social media post. We don't want to bombard [clears throat] people with exciting content. Um, but I think last time we had 12 to 16 people apply. I'm a nerd. I would be interested in it. We should probably put something on there. See what I mean? I don't know. We'll put something on there. I bet you get a little bit of traction. I think we did. We have a couple already. Yeah.

That I know of. All right. Let's push it out there like that. It's kind of neat to see the cases before they come. Yeah. Hey, anyways, I wanted to mention that. Yeah. Thank you.

The [snorts] case this evening, 7-250, applicant is Zermba Group LLC. Site location is 4585 Eastgate Boulevard. uh the old big lots which was prior to that of the old um Toys R Us parallel numbers reference herein. It's a 4.25 acre site business in the central retail commercial corridor. Uh it's a reuse and redevelopment of the 42 foot existing structure property located at 45 85 Eastgate Boulevard. It's right there by the mall entrance. Um immediately adjacent northwest to the Eastgate Boulevard. Uh Eastgate North intersection and um north and south of the mall to access derives off of uh Eastgate Boulevard. Property zone business, everything around it within 400 ft or more zone business. Um, in terms of the comprehensive plan, again, it's in that 32 32 central retail corridor, which is a primary primary commercial area of the township. Uh, some things to keep in mind, uh, that that area calls for architectural standards promoting cohesive attractive design, additional investment, enhanced quality of life, shared driveway and parking configurations, river practical, and site development to maximize land use efficiency and infield development. We already have sidewalks on the site, so I didn't put that in there, which is one of the other things that's called for in terms of the focus overlay reference to the zoning resolution. That's article 13, section 1306 [snorts] followed on page three as well. Background again, the site was the um used for the purposes that I mentioned earlier for retail. had two previous cases. One was for the big lots. One was

for the um creation of an outlot for Chase Bank in 2022 that you may remember in the southeast corner of the site that never materialized as we had um one of the key mall property owners block the proposed land division in use. And I'll kind of come back to that here in a moment. Proposed user is Autozone. Um these pictures represent uh their proposed view uh elevations of the site. So they're proposing new windows and um some awnings. There's not as much they can do at the building given that there's the um mall easement restriction and operating agreement that doesn't expire until 2030. So anything they do that's more substantive to the building becomes more of an issue. and I'll come back to that here in a moment. This is a picture of what the site would look like um rendered with the enhanced landscaping along the mall entrances. And this is a picture what that would look like on the ground. And this is an area where they're depicting a proposed area to be donated as an easement or perhaps is for acquisition for like a pocket park. And I'll come back to that here in a moment. So um already mentioned that this how this where this area falls in respect to the plan. Uh review of the applicant's proposal indicates the overall structure is not congruent with the aesthetic requirements for the area particularly with respect to traditional high quality building materials um that would include but not be limited use [snorts] of pillars offsets and materials such as brick or stone. Um however, as I mentioned, the applicants proposing add windows, awnings, decker, lighting, and other enhancements. And um along the southern and east facing portions of the building,

any any new signage is going to have to be wall mounted. No new monument sign is allowed per the mall restriction operating agreement. Applicants proposing eventually to remove 78 parking spaces at least here in that southeast corner. And um again, that's through potential perpetual easement or potential acquisition to be determined. There's a two-phase landscaping plan along the mall entrance there on the southern side. Um what you're seeing here in this picture, I think represents phase two and some enhancements along the other mall entrance, which would be the north side of the the rear of the the structure. No lighting plans been submitted. Uh this is what the enhanced landscaping will look like on the ground. Uh these are the pictures of the site as they as it exists today. I'll pause here for a moment. So that easement mall easement restriction and operating agreement is in effect until 2030 for the roughly 109 acre site. There's five key mall property owners. Uh there have been two instances in the last five years where or last three years where the mall property owners have or [cough and clears throat] blocked potential development redevelopment of the greater mall property. Uh while that agreement is in full forced effect um it really restricts what can be done on this property and some other properties in terms of any exterior significant um you know additions or separate buildings or subdivisions of parcels. um that coupled with the vacancy on the site and inactivity on the property is negatively affecting the property values and investment in this area u and should be taken into account when evaluating projects and making land use decisions. So this is the this is a site that existed sort of the last year or [snorts] more what it looks like. You can see sometimes there's trash or vacant things being left there.

Uh this is looking at the main facade as it exists. This is looking northwest from that south and east corner. It's looking west from Eastgate Boulevard. Basically, this is looking south from the northern mall entrance area. This is looking southeast. And this is looking north along Eastgate Boulevard where that proposed green space potentially would be added. looking east along the north property line [clears throat] for the north access. Looking south along the west property line. This is looking basically again at that proposed green space area in front of the proposed building. In terms of the proposed recommended modifications, those were listed in the staff report with the most significant being the building facade particular on the northeastern facing side would would need to be enhanced a bit more. Um lighting plan would be required would need to have acceptable terms provided with respect to the proposed area timing and allowed uses of the perpetual easement or land donation. still kind of up in the air how much land that it's going to involve and whether that would be a land perpetual easement or something that the town could potentially acquire. Um there are other appropriate repairs and updates that need to be made um that were pointed out in the staff report and then we would need an acceptable site plan that met all the requirements of election section 1131 of the code. Um haven't had any uh comments sent to staff. Haven't talked to anybody about this case in terms of the public. Um, that concludes my report. Do you have any questions?

Trusty Dills. Thank you. Uh, Mr. McCormack, have have the five veto powers voted on this yet or no? Not that I'm aware of. No, I I believe the applicant can speak to this. Um, I think they've reached out and talked to the if not all of them, at least the more significant ones that have blocked the other applications. And do you have do you know their feedback at all or is that a question for them? Uh I believe that they will attest when when they come up to speak that the one that's been blocking the owner's been blocking everyone is supposedly okay with what is being presented. Okay, fantastic report. Good job. You put a lot of time to that. Appreciate it.

Um okay. Yeah. Trusty Becker. I'm good. You guys want to open public comment? All right. Uh, yeah. We have a motion to open this public hearing. Uh, so moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Log. Yes. The public hearing is open at 7:09 p.m. All right. At this time, I'd like to welcome uh the applicant up. I'll swear you in for the case. Public hearing. You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So, I hope you got it. I do. And can you please state your name and record for the address, please?

Finley. My name is Tom Michaels. I'm a development manager with Surrender Group. Our address is 14600 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood, Ohio. That's a Cleveland suburb. Cleveland suburb. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Uh first off, just wanted to take a moment and thank [snorts] the board for hearing us this evening. Uh also wanted to thank Township staff, Mark in particular, who have been very helpful and uh you know, in guiding us throughout the process. uh pleased to be here tonight. Uh Mark, very good comprehensive overview of the project. Um so I don't need to go through all the details, but I'd like to add just a couple of things in a little bit of context and then um you know, walk through kind of the three portions of the uh of the proposal before you. Um the the background, why we're here in the first place. Uh as you know, AutoZone has been in the community for a number of years. A little bit to the east of the site, the uh current site is a building that's shared with Pep Boys. You're probably familiar with that. And uh what has happened in recent time as you know with the uh overpass project the eminent domain that was associated with that auto zone has lost a lot of parking. They've also lost an access point uh to the point you have to you know go through that whole you know construction and the the limited access and and go way past the site and back into it. Uh so that store is is actually underperforming today uh likely because of that. So, uh, AutoZone's at a crossroads that they most likely would need to, uh, you vacate that premises whether they, you know, regardless. So, uh, AutoZone has a strong preference to stay in the community. Uh, that store has been a good performer in the past. Uh, so they are excited about the opportunity to, uh, come over to the subject property. Uh, obviously, it's quite a larger facility. It's an exciting opportunity for them to, uh, really expand and and, uh, and and do what they do bigger and better. So, um, they were, you know, excited for the idea. Uh, this process started last summer with, uh, what we originally thought would be a simple change of use. Uh, and in [snorts] receiving feedback and and corresponding additionally with township staff, uh, we understood that, uh, we would ultimately come through the overlay, uh, application process and come present to you. Uh, in in the process, we have heard feedback from the township on, uh, some of the, you know,

desires for the property, uh, some of the the hardships there. Uh, of course the the mall and its vitality and and future are uh distinct but but relevant. And so um what we've come come up with is um you know how do we do what we can um as Mark has described uh to a certain degree where we're we're bound by the existing building. We're also bound by a Fortune 500 who says ah it's zone for put the building in. Uh but ultimately uh we're we're kind of bound by um various forms of reciprocal easement agreements and operating agreements and so forth with some contentious mall owners and we're limited in what we can realistically do. Uh what's being presented [snorts] um before you um you can be accomplished uh without u you going through you know conflicting mall owners and and we believe this is deliverable. So uh the the three big things here are number one the the building itself. Uh so you've you've seen the uh the renderings the elevations of the building. Um again with doing what we can without completely reinventing the wheel. We acknowledge that it's a it's a legacy building. It's been there a long time. Probably would have been built differently had it been built today. Uh but it is an existing viable building. Uh we've um you added a number of enhancements to uh increase the curb appeal to soften some of the walls a little bit uh and and attempt to um make it a you know just you know a little better you know vista coming into the mall. Um you know we talked about you know a number of things uh I I tried Mark with Autozone you know some of the murals and so forth uh just kind of stayed outside of AutoZone's trade dress and things that Autozone uh corporate was comfortable with. So um they are comfortable with the the the softscape things that we have added and uh and our request is to consider those as as a step in the right direction to make the building work a little better. Uh items then two and three uh number two uh is what we're calling the the today and

that is to add a number of landscaping areas um that are not existing today. Those are areas that are just uh you know basic grass today. um you add um you know shrubs and and you know flowers and so forth. Some pretty dense landscaping would also run irrigation out there to to you know give them a chance to grow properly. Uh and again and just doing what we can to you know soften the the entrances into the mall. Um and uh and just and and try to um you soften just you know this the sea of parking that's out there. Uh and then number three, uh what you're seeing here is uh as Mark mentioned, we have uh we're limited in what we can do. One of the things that we cannot do, uh for the next four years is reduce the number of parking. There are 289 parking spaces today, way more than anyone ever needs and probably ever will for that property. But we can't do anything about it now. So what we are offering is um and we put the language together today. we would record it today, but to make an offer to the township that um the area that's shown that is all green, it would be uh primarily the parking area that is to the southeast of the property at the uh surrounding the existing Eastgate Mall sign. Uh which by the way is controlled by mall, the mall ownership, not by the subject parcel. So we can't touch the sign itself, but everything around it. Uh offer that as uh you future public uh green space for any type of public programming. That could be a pocket park, it could be just a nature area. um you you that sort of thing. Um our you know sole request in in doing so would be that whatever is is planted or constructed there just needs to be uh sufficiently low to the ground so as to not block the the the vistas of the building itself. You know as I mentioned uh we don't have the opportunity to install monument or pylon signage. So we are relying solely on the uh building signage to to make the building visible. So, we're just hopeful that that that that doesn't get blocked in the future. So, um as as Mark alluded to, um we're also stuck a little bit

with subdividing the property and so forth. Um so, uh our hope is that we can accomplish this via uh at a minimum a perpetual easement. Um that would be uh it would carry with the land. It would run in perpetuity. uh it would not be restricted in terms of how the township can treat it and take care of it and improve it except for just the vertical component. Uh if the the township would prefer um you again we can't get into splitting it off today but we can put some language in there that the township could have an option to uh you know take control uh you know fe simple of that property you know either as an outright donation or you know a dollar type of arrangement. Um, but that's something that would just have to be captured today and then actually acted upon in 2030. Uh, so, uh, with that, I welcome any, uh, your questions or comments or, uh, things you, uh, would like clarity on.

Trusty Dells, I appreciate it. Uh, tell me, tell me your name again. Sure. Tom Michaels. Tom. Okay. Okay. Mr. Michaels, the uh, are you are you the the GC? Are you the owner or do you represent AutoZone? We represent AutoZone. In fact, I probably should have mentioned that up top. uh you know we are uh my company our company I work for is a national retail developer uh AutoZone is a client we develop nationally for Autozone okay okay um and same question I proposed to Mr. McCormack, there's five powers of veto. Have you contacted all of them? And what's their temperature?

So, uh, I personally have not. Um, the lease that's in place, uh, between AutoZone and, uh, and the the landlord who is who was here this evening, um, those conversations have been at that level. I did do you have an answer for me? So, so no, I do not have an answer. Um I I believe that what we're proposing uh is [snorts] uh is permitted and does not need you know special sign off. Wait, so you're saying that Hold on. So you're saying the five powers of veto do they have they have no say in this at all? I I do not believe so. Oh, okay. Okay, fair. Okay. Okay. Um uh so from what I understand, you're wanting a I'm making changes.

Is it Am I hearing correct? Autozone three things. You want a warehouse? Uh, you want an auto repair store and then you also want a store itself, like an Autozone store. You're buying I can buy wipers there or I can have you all service my car. And also you want to be able to be a warehouse as well. Uh, is that correct?

Not not quite, sir. It's um, so this is an AutoZone parlance. It's a mega hub store. Autozone is not auto repair. They're not um, you know, warehousing. This is a largecale retail store. You know, there's you walk in, the front section is just like any other AutoZone. You know, the car care products and so forth. And then the remainder is, you know, when you walk in and you need an alternator or starter, it's what they call the assisted sales. Those are things that people walk in, but the associate runs back and picks it up. This is a greatly expanded version of that. Okay. Okay. Um I assume you want to be permanent here, correct? I mean, you represent Auto. I know you're not out of the zone. You represent them. Um

Okay. And then you said subdivide. So, if the township doesn't take any of the property, what's your plans? Who who would you subdivide it to? So, at this stage, uh we would start with uh granting an easement, which would not require any subdivision. It would just simply be uh you just a just an easement with a legal description associated for the portion of that. And then, uh if the township desires, we would offer an option, you know, for that portion in in the future when when the REA allows it to happen, which would be 2030. [snorts] Okay. Okay. Um, do you plan on speaking at all or just Oh, you do? Okay, I'll wait then. Uh, Mr. Lo, that's all I have, sir. Just do you, Baker? I don't have anything.

All right. Good for the time being, too. Thank you, Tom. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Michael. Thank you, Mr. Michaels. Thank you. You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So, help you got I do.

All right. Please say your name and address for the record, please. My name is Roby Hackne and uh I live in Richmond, Virginia. Uh and and good evening gentlemen. I uh just wanted to give you a little bit of background on my perspective. Um I am I work with the company that's the owner of of this building. Uh this is we are a small family-owned company. my older brother and I started in 2007. Um, essentially we go out and raise uh money from individuals mostly in our local community of central Virginia uh to buy uh buildings. And we ended up uh when Toys R Us went through bankruptcy and they auctioned off all of their properties. this one didn't sell and we it kind of fell into our lap with Big Lots and uh that was that we didn't really think there would be too much to do with it and uh when Big Lots uh filed for bankruptcy and left that was a big surprise for us. Um you all might remember the bank that was going to go up front there. Um that was all said and done. We were on the one yard line when the group that purchased the mall um used their rights under the REA to block that. Um and at that time and obviously should have been sooner, but we really did a heavy crash course on exactly what was in that REA and what we could do and what we could not do. Um, the reason the bank couldn't go in there is that you

can't subdivide it. Um, and you can't put a new building on there and there are lots of restrictions as to what can even go in that building. Um, but we found AutoZone who fits everything in there perfectly. Uh, and then without needing to go to the other owners, which is one of your questions about uh when we need to get permission and when we don't. Um, believe it or not, when the mall was built, there were actually multiple auto parts stores there as part of the mall. And one of the stipulations is is that you can only put in businesses that are typical of the mall. So, we we sort of fit perfectly in that, which is great. uh we didn't we didn't understand or anticipate that we were going to as as Tom said through uh this process but I guess the last thing I would add is that although I wasn't expecting this process I sort of thought this was for a new development not a change of use um I have appre have a much better appreciation for the process and u Mr. Wright and Mr. McCormack spent a lot of time sitting down with us, understanding what those restrictions were, understanding how narrow our window was, and and working with us as a give and take. And I really appreciate the time and the work on that.

Trusty DS, Mr. Hacking, so you drove in for Virginia today. I flew in. Flew in. Okay. Appreciate that. And you said Cleveland, right? Lakewood Cleveland. Yeah. Appreciate that very much. The, uh, so, uh, have you spoken to the mall owners, Kroger, Grandma's, any, you know, J C Penney D? Have you spoken to any of them to get their opinion on it? I have spoken to Kroger and I have spoken to the main mall owner, which is the whole group. Correct. U,

what was their temperature? So my conversations with the whole group were primarily at with the bank situation where we were trying to get approval and when that did not go through we actually reached back out to them and said why don't you just buy the whole parcel then you can do the bank yourself because they were the only ones holding us up and that didn't go through and then I said we're looking at an auto parts store because that fits and we don't have any permission and I never got a response back from that. So, it was quiet. Okay.

Um, when I spoke with Kroger, I know Kroger because there's a lot of Kroger's in Virginia and so we've had interaction with their real estate team and they're primarily focused on their big giant large issue. And I did get a call from another mall owner's attorney who wanted to kind of pull us into this. If we all get together, we can try to make and I said, I don't need to get together with anybody. I appreciate that you're calling and I wish everyone the best, but we have our own thing. We're going to fit inside of it where we don't get sideways with anybody. And this is how we keep our property from being vacant for the next five years. Um,

and do you do you are are you so if I heard you correctly, Mr. Hackne, do you own this property or do you work for the company that owns this property? Well, to be technical, uh, we form this company, we raise the money. So, all of our investors are the owners and I am the general partner with my brother. So, I I control it as if I was an owner with my brother, but I am [clears throat] not. It's not my money that can [snorts] I see. Um, Mr. Lug. Thanks, Trusty Becker.

Yeah, you said um something I want to follow up on with you on because I'm I've been kind of racking my brain here trying to picture something I thought I heard you say that in in years past there has been other auto type places at the Eastgate Mall. Yes, it when it was originally built, what was there? I think it was a Sears auto parts store. The only reason I know is because I was looking through all of the documents and I saw reference to it. But and I I [snorts] was like, "Ah, look at this. This fits." Is that the only one? There may have been another one. I'm not sure. But I just It was kind of a casual, you know, the stack of docks is thick. And I was reading through them all and came across that.

Yeah, I think you're right about the Sears and then I think it moved over to um near Best Buy. Okay. and it's obviously gone now. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you, chair. Okay. Okay. Hey, thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. All right. At this time, are there any proponents of the case? Okay. At this time, are there any opponents of this case? Okay. Seeing none, we can close public portion of the comment. Open up to board comments. You guys did close it down though. You guys ready for that? Yeah. Yeah. I have a motion to close public comment. So move. Second. Roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Log.

Yes. Public hearings close at 7:27 p.m. [snorts] If it's okay, Mr. Lo, before you call on me, I'm going to defer for a minute. Let me gather my thoughts. I don't if Mr. Becker wants to go ahead if that's all right. Yeah. We'll open up to board comments. Um, yeah, Mr. back here. You want to share?

Yeah. Just Yeah. Just a few thoughts. I guess um I guess I would like clarification if uh the the the the five uh superpowers that control them all if they have um uh you know veto power over this proposal. I guess that's not clear in my mind if that's the case or not. Also, um, you know, so you know, currently it's a it's an empty building. Um, you know, it's it's not going any better looking than it currently is. Having something there is better than nothing. Um, how you know how they kind of dressed it up with I guess on facing East Gate Boulevard, that's a lot nicer than it currently looks. So question is, is it better to have something there that's productive or a vacant building? I would tend to lean toward the uh have something there. U so you unless there's a legal issue with uh the veto power of people, I don't uh I don't have a major objection. Um, go ahead.

I would, um, first off, I appreciate you coming to Claremont County, Ohio from Cleveland and Virginia very much. And, uh, and I agree with Mr. Becker that, uh, uh, nobody wants to see a a blank vacated building just sit there. Uh, so um, so I I agree with him on that um, completely. Um, I would ask this question because right now the mall and Kroger are in the court of appeals and this is a ballpark that I'm hearing and it's a very educated guess is that we should have an answer, Lord willing, uh, roughly April to May. And so, so I'll tell you gentlemen, two two things. Um and and and it might be difficult to understand cuz this is all transactional and all money and we all want to make money in business. I get it. Um but with due respect um a bunch of investors own this building and then uh the [snorts] Eastgate Mall is is it sounds crazy but it is a very sentimental piece of property to Eastgate. And I don't say Union Township, I say Eastgate. That's what everyone refers to East Side as Eastgate. very sentimental and I don't want to make a mistake um [clears throat] with this and and because it's the Eastgate Mall is it's just it's just sentimental to this community and uh we cannot fumble the ball on this one. We just can't. Um and and I don't know if you you know the uh the the planning that that's made out for this and the road map, it's taken a lot of manpower and dollars and I just don't want to fumble the ball in this one. And so my first question is is and you don't have to come back up to answer. You can just say yes or no on it from your seats, but any chance that we could punt the ball

and table this until after the appellet courts make their decision? Because when that happens, we're going to see a more clear road path of of Kroger's going to get their way, if the mall, the Hall Property Group is going to get their way, and then what's going to be decided um or if we're going to have to wait till 2030. Um, but the mall's sentimental and I I don't want to make a mistake on the mall, you know, and so if if you say no and you're not willing to punt the ball until after the appellet courts makes their decision and not having any of the five power vetos here, I'm going to have to unfortunately vote no on this. However, if you're willing to punt the ball and and wait until the appellet courts makes a decision and also I I'm not kidding when I say this is sentimental. We live here and and no offense to you all or the investors, but y'all don't live here. Um I'm not going to screw up the Eastgate Mall. I'm not going to. And so we have a vision. Uh we spent a lot of money on this vision and um we had a company come in here and solicit ideas and it's supposed to be you probably never heard of this since y'all aren't from here but something that's called like the Liberty Town Center type of you know u mixeduse first floor retail having a pond a bridge over it four or five stories of nice condos apartments a park you know even talks of a bridge being over top of 32 connecting [snorts] I point to TQL I mean it's a big beautiful vision that the whole property group is all for um and I cannot I will not screw that up at all. I won't do it. So um so with with the chairman's permission, it sounds like you want to come up and say more. He might let you come up, but uh if you're not willing to punt the ball until the appellet courts makes their decision, then I'm going to be a no vote tonight, gentlemen. Um if you are, then I would ask that we vote to table it until then. Um and I'm sorry that's not

the answer you're looking for, but that's where I'm at. Sounds like Mr. Becker might be a yes. Um, and I don't know how Mr. Lo feels, but um, out of everything in this entire township, 50,000 residents, I don't think you understand a sword I have to die on is this mall. Um, we are dying for this mall. Like, we are the residents. And so, I can't make a mistake by putting AutoZone here if the mall owners and the the planning for this and the residents don't want it. Um, now if they want it and if it's in the plan and it's [snorts] not going to mess up the mall's plans and if the temperature of the five veto powers are Yeah. thumbs up, then then I'll I'll I'll consider it. Yeah, let's go. But um I got to I got to hear from that. So, um Mr. Chairman, I'll throw it over to you. Uh yeah, so thank you both for your perspectives. Um this plan and that property obviously has some uncertainty surrounding it still. uh obviously the REA and to help us have an understanding as to what the community actually wants is again you reference the community listen listening sessions. I'm happy that we paid to be able to hear from the community and have the community tell us what they want and part of that plan in which they said of items and things that they want was this piece of property here and it it didn't does not look like that and so it doesn't match up with what the residents want and you know I'm elected by the residents. I'm here to represent the residents and the plan I think is not in alignment with what the residents want.

Uh the potential of that property, the uncertainty surrounding uh the REA uh continuation and when that finally dissolves. So, uh from that perspective, uh vacancy or not, um it's not a win to the residents if it's if it's filled with something that that they're not interested to to see. and that's not what was given to us in the community listening sessions. So, um I know that that's what I heard I know that's what I heard from the community from the community and the residents. So, with that, I I know these guys have a lot of time tied up in things. Um I think it'd be a pretty far push to get me to move to something that supports that. And I wouldn't want to see you languish and drag things on uh because time is money for your investors and you'd rather just get to that no if that's what it is faster. Um it's about all I can share I think at this time.

Yeah. If if the mall owners can work their plan because they're they're serious about developing this uh the right way and you know because like for example we don't know [clears throat] if Dillards and JCP are going to play ball or not. So they're they've got a plan to work around their existing buildings and all that. Um, and obviously the Kroger, you know, we won't find out for a few more months about that. If they can work their plans around it, I'm I'm fine with it. I'm all about, you know, free enterprise and business. I'm all about it. Um, but if they can't, that's why I want to get the the whole property group's temperature. Uh, and and also the other four veto powers as well. Again, the grandma's family. Does this meet what they're wanting to do? But Mr. Log is right. Uh we spent a lot of money to solicit ideas from the residents and nobody mentioned daughter zone or any kind of uh thing like that. But if it can fit in their plans and they can work if they can make [clears throat] make this fit into their plans um I'm I'm fine with it. But I gota I got to hear from them. I'm not I'm not messing up the mall, guys. I'm just not. So it's the one property that I'm I'm going to die on. So, um, so I would, so we have more clear understanding. I don't know. Um, and Mr. It's your call if you want to bring them back up to talk, but I would almost entertain a motion to table it till after the appellet courts make their decision to at least see what they have to say. Now, if they time is money for them, they don't want to do it, then I understand that. Um, well, what's what's your thoughts?

Uh, I got to ask question first on timing. Uh because is there not a time period from when this is in what what's the longest that it would be able to be tabled? Yeah. Yeah. He can would choose a withdrawal and do that. Yeah. We can we can ta we could put if the applicant would voluntarily ask to table it. We could we could have them submit a letter to table it and then re reposition it, you know, contingent on that. [clears throat] I I don't know. Oh, I mean, you probably [snorts] could you could table this. Uh they could withdraw it and resubmit it. We would obviously reopen it under the same case file, things like that. If that's something

is it is it kind of the same pathway if it was a denial. Yeah. I mean, they could re Yeah, it's just resubmit same case file. Yeah. I mean, that would get you to the same outcome and they at least have an answer. Yeah, they they that would they'd have an answer for now and then knowing the context of the conversation that was on the record here, Mr. Chairman. Yes.

So, my I I appreciate what where Mr. Dills is coming from. I guess my concern is, you know, I I don't know when the appellet court's going to rule and nobody knows how they're going to rule. This could wind up in the Ohio Supreme Court. It could be who knows how long, maybe years. I don't know. I don't know how these things work or how much time takes work these things through the system, but I know they're not quick before we even know with certainty who wins or who loses. And of course, [snorts] we know we're five years out from the the you know, those covenants expiring entirely and then, you know, the veto people lose their veto power. um you know how how long are we asking them to hold off on this or you know if we're going to table it for how long is we talking a few months or are we talking five years or somewhere in between? That's all.

Um you know I mean that's a time is money and it's potentially unfair to give them any type of firm answer. That's why I think I'm I'm in of the perspective to ask for a motion for a denial of it. Um, if you're concerned about vacancies of buildings, I think it's could be noted that you still have a vacancy in the township because if they were to build into this store, then that Pep Boys or whatever that old store location by 32 is vacant right there now, too. And so, like, unfortunately, that's a result of the circumstances. and they may choose to move out of the township regardless, but I think that it's a booming township with a lot of um need and and if they've been down and underperforming that store, I'd say it's because the ODOT construction is not complete right there. As soon as that ODO construction is complete, it's probably going to be one of their top sales performing stores on that side of town. And um that's that's probably all I can can share or say say about that. But I I'm just that dynamics of my mind that you're trading one vacancy for another vacancy. And um that's just a perspective. But I I know at the end of the day, it's what the residents gave us the um um gave us the the the command to to basically move forward with uh for for the mall property. Trusty Gills, do you have something?

I'm patient. Okay. I don't I don't [clears throat] think uh you can replace Autozone with any business. Um I want the mall to be developed the right way. I don't want to get it right. So um and I I would like to hear Yeah. I mean I need to make sure it fits into all plans. So the vision. So it's either a no vote or b we table it. That's that's where that's where I'm at. So it's okay for either one of you. Do you have further comments? Yeah. Yeah, I can bring you back up.

Thank you for the opportunity to come back up and and certainly appreciate the conversation and the discussion. Uh some very, you know, fair and and good points on on all sides. Um a couple of of of thoughts, some of which may be off the cuff, some of which may um you know, or have been in the initial presentation. Uh, one thing to consider is that um, AutoZone is not acquiring the property. Uh, that is typically what they do. In this case, this is a lease. Uh, that lease is for 10 years with a couple options. So, uh, that may be something to consider knowing that the mall is is in limbo and knowing that you and and to your point, Mr. bills the uh there's a rumor that there might be a ruling on on the Kroger scenario but that probably may likely get appealed and that may languish for years which leaves everything around it in limbo um for that entirety and uh and and that certainly that timeline certainly is one that that we can't weather you know if this is 6 months a year 3 years whatever it is that's you know we need to consider other options u so hopefully the notion of uh of having a lease in place uh it solves olves a need and that need is to fill a vacant building that is is you know you a very obvious blight on you know right on the east gate frontage there u it it fills that space it's productive the whole building is functioning and then in 10 years when that lease is maturing if that's no longer the highest and best use and it may not be at that point uh you know at that point the mall may may be in redevelopment we don't know but it may be there may be other serious changes there uh you the retail climate may have changed mixed use may have changed. We don't know what that climate will be. Um so this is in in some ways a an excellent in my opinion way to fill the building um make it productive uh you know keep a a good a good retailer in the community for a number of years and then um and then at that time it's something that can be revisited. Um so just something

to to consider. Um, another thing to consider too is, um, you know, I come to a lot of public meetings and, uh, for other retailers and I'm very used to hearing a lot of residents opposing something, um, that there are no residents here. I understand that they've, uh, you know, considered and heard a master plan, but, it appears that no one is staunchly opposed to this project. It has been publicly noticed and and, uh, and no one is upset enough to to come and speak against it. So, um, I think that's always an important consideration as well. Um and and a final thought there too is it is a property that um you know we're we're bounded by all the various agreements but it is a separate fee simple parcel. Um I don't imagine a scenario in which there would be eminent domain that would be appropriate or other vehicles to um force this property into mall redevelopment. this is a standalone parcel and so um at such time um you know the hall group or whoever owns it at the time would need to approach the the building's ownership and and purchase the building just like any other um you know private sector you know transaction would be. So um you know there is a a fine plan. It's it's a terrific you know master plan for the mall but it would require a private party sale of this [snorts] parcel to involve the parcel and whatever redevelopment for the mall. So just you know again just a couple of off the cuff thoughts but just wanted to to share those things if that helps or or hurts you know your thoughts on this.

Thank you Mr. Michaels. Um you you said you represent national clients nationally. What other clients do you represent? Uh my firm represents uh Dollar General. We get a lot of complaints about those. Um we also work with Bridgestone Firestone Autocare Centers. Uh we work with uh Racetrack the gas stations in the southeast. We work with um um Dutch Brothers, the the coffee drive-throughs. Um in the past, we've worked for CVS and a number of other of other, you know, large Fortune 500s. Okay. Trusty Dillsy Becker. Anything further?

You actually bring up a lot of good points for what it's worth. If I was an attorney, I would argue the same points. So, well, well done. uh the uh uh once we approve it, the 10-year agreement, I mean, it's approved. So, who's to say you don't do it for another 20-year extension, though, is my only thing. And and no one has any say over that. Um question, it's probably more for Mr. Hackne, though, is [snorts] why or how did AutoZone fall into your lap and why them as a tenant as opposed to somebody else? So, ultimately, I I'll I'll defer who they approached you.

Um, so we've had a a number of people reach out. Um, pickle ball was one option. Uh, that's a good idea.

That's very popular. Uh, [clears throat] Goodwill would love to be there. Uh, one group is very interested in turning that into a large office building. Um, all of those were uses that would likely be very problematic with the other mall owners that would require them. Um, when we had the issue of the bank coming up on the corner, um, that became a money thing. Hey, you want to put the bank there? The bank's not bothering anybody. I mean, it's a beautiful Chase Bank. Um, but it was a if you want our permission, we'd like some money. So, I get a little bit nervous when I hear you saying like, let's reach out and see what they say because that's like an invitation to what are you going to do for us to say we like this, which they don't have any right to. I mean, it is it's its own parcel. And now we're gonna have to go crawling to these guys to get their permission for something they don't have permission to block. Whatever they want to do [snorts] with the mall is not going to impact. There is it's different ownership completely. As far as I know, it's a fight between it being a Kroger and a Costco. What they want to put there. What we put here is not going to impact that. their plans should in no way be coming across our parcel because they don't own it or control it. Um, but back to your question as to how we ended up with them. We use a national broker to go out there and look for tenants and it has been it has been I feel like I've been very much caught in

the middle where uh I've got AutoZone saying, you know, we don't have to be here. We don't have to be in this township. We don't want to agree to anything. we don't want to agree to anything. Uh and then and and you know, I've got the township doing a very good job of saying, "Hey, we have this master plan. We need some concessions. You got to you got to you got to work with us." And there's kind of me in the middle being like, I got a group of people who invested with us back in Virginia. I totally understand the township's perspective of let's do the right thing for the mall, and I want to do that. That's how we operate. I don't want to lose this tenant that I think is a it's probably the only first class tier one retailer that's going to come in and make this look nice. There's a lot of guys who will come in and not keep it up and not put a lot of money in that would take that all day long. Pickle ball is hot right now. It's probably not going to be hot in five years. It's to me that's like frozen yogurt, you know? It's it's a big deal. But this is a first class retailer that is in front that is a part of a retail complex. Um and it's it's probably the very top tier one. So, the whole grass thing that you're seeing right there, that was us saying like, "Let's give Oop, sorry. Let's give up. Let's do what we need to do to to sort of give to the township to and and if we need to do some more, I want to do some more because I'm the last thing I want to do is say, hey, you know what? This was this is not a development. The zoning code is written for a development. This is a change of use. One retail to another. [cough] we shouldn't even be going through this process. Um, I'm not trying to make that argument. I'm trying to say, "Let me

meet in the middle and get you guys." But I'm I just the way this pushpull has been going, if we go back, AutoZone is going to say, "You guys failed. We're going to go figure this out." And I think that it's not at all guaranteed that if this thing sits vacant for five years that at the end of that five years, there's just going to be a slew of retailers ready to show up and lease it. I mean, it could be vacant for 10 years because who knows what's going to happen with that mall. I hope that's not the case, but I know we would really struggle mightily to pay the taxes and keep it going and operating vacant for that long.

Does your investment company normally and the the folks you represent, do you normally buy and sell or do you buy and hold with these leases or normally? What's typical?

Yeah. So when you invest with us, what we say is that we have to sell within seven years because it's illquid. You want to know that you're going to get your money back at some point so we don't just hold on to it and collect management fees the whole time. If something goes wrong like we hit COVID and nothing's selling or we're in the great recession, we can get some extensions. But it's it is a it's a cycle. And in this case, we raised them in groups. So this one we started in 2014, I think, or maybe 16. And it was a group of 13. And this is the very last one uh of that grouping. And selfishly, it has nothing to do with what we're here for today. But that's the one. I mean, it it's meaningful for us to be able to finish it and go to our investors and say like, "Look, we did a good job. We finished this. Uh we we gave you all your money back and we did a great job with all the properties.

So So um whoever autozones the tenant, but you'd probably put the building up for sale once they're in it in it to give the money back to the investors. [snorts] Is that is that correct? That is correct. Yeah. That and that's the idea of the easement, too, is we're going to put all of the pieces in place now [snorts] so that they are they're there. It doesn't matter if they are or not. I I understand. Um, have you seen the master plan? Yes. I think one of the slides had [clears throat] a big fountain right in the middle of the where the building is. And

so you have my full blessing to go find yourself a different property. Um, but uh when you say AutoZone says to you that they don't have to be here, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. This is Claremont County. This is Eastgate. We're we're gonna find the right I whether we messed up or not earlier a couple years ago on a vote with the mall. I don't know. It's here to be seen. I will not mess up again. And and I this mall is a gym of the east side of Cincinnati. So you have my full blessing to go and and find a property in our township. U [snorts] and Mr. Wright is the best. He'll find a different one for you. But if AutoZone says to us and to you we don't have to be here. I got to tell you, I got to tell you the east side that that property is so valuable and I'm not trying to I I guarantee your your bank account is probably 10fold larger than mine will ever be. Um, however, I know the value of that property. That's why that's why we're very picky choosy and I would say that uh I don't think we have not we but whoever won't find any problem once the master plan is laid out to find a tenant or a builder for that. Um, that's why Chase was interested in it. That's why AutoZone is interested in it. I guarantee you that's why the next big A+ tier one tenant will be interested as well. I don't think there would be a problem finding it. But if Autozone says they don't have to be here in East.

Okay. I don't want to put words. We We have 50. I [clears throat] don't think you understand. I don't think you understand. Um go ask Costco how bad they want to be here. Sure. Go askards how they know. So So there that pro that property is a gem. But if AutoZone's saying to you, "Hey, we don't have to be in Union Township," I would say, "Okay." Well, I I shouldn't have put words in their mouth. So, but uh um what

could I just ask one question though? Um, I'm anticipating what might be an issue is if we go out and and we're marketing it and other retailers are looking and they're going to say, "Well, if you didn't get permission, why should I take the time to do this study and go through this long period of trying to do this and get a lease done only to say, "Yeah, we don't like that or we don't like this." Um, and since we might be tableabling it or if we're not tableabling it, we're going to deny it, maybe come back. Is there a way that we could um get you all comfortable that it's not a mistake? I just was hoping to get a little bit more color on the like, hey, how do we do it to make sure that you guys are like, this is exciting and you know, this is it.

Can't speak for the two. I only speak for me. Um but um I would want to plant your autozone on the master plan. And since you have to have all five, but since Hall Property Group controls I'm going to throw a percentage out, the majority, we say 60% 70% of the land. Um I want it to fit in the master plan and it's got to look good. And I I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Your job is to fill a tier one tenant and go sell your investors, sell the property and get their their money back and make some profit. My job, you don't understand the residents will rake us over the coals if we don't represent them the way this small property is more valuable. Not valuable dollar-wise, it's sentimental. I don't think you understand when I say sentimental. I don't think you understand that it's sentimental. And so, um, and I I, if I was a resident, knowing that the mall has been dead and we want to do it the right way, um, it's just got to be done the right way. That's why I would say, "Hey, go look across the street. Go do and Mr. Lo's got a point. When that overpass of Glenn Fast Winsville is opened up, I bet you Autozone's business does tick up, but I don't know. I'm not an expert. Um, but what I'm saying is, oh, I will, this is a sword that I'm willing to die on is this mall. I will not get it wrong. That's for me. My votes one of three, but I'm not gonna get this wrong. So, if you show me the master plan with AutoZone on it, and I have the experts, the experts being probably the mall owner and probably Kroger, probably grandma's. I don't I mean, JC Paint deals, whatever. I'm I'm going to dis I'm not going to I'm going to discount them. Um, [clears throat] right.

You show me they got their blessing with a mall master plan that we put a lot of money and energy in that the residents will love. Rock on. Okay. But you don't understand. This is a sentimental for us and it's sentimental for the 50,000 residents. This is the number one thing in the entire county, you know, entire county. So, um, we got to get it right. That's really helpful. But if Autozone says we don't have to be an eastkate, I said I shouldn't have said that, but they didn't say that. They didn't say that. Just just so you know. Yeah, you know, I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, fair enough. Trusty Becker.

Yeah, I want to talk about the knowns, the unknowns, and the ideal. So, the ideal is go in reverse sequence. the mall goes to this grander development and it's a regional attraction. [snorts] That's what we all want to see and I hope that occurs and sooner the better. Unknowns. What's going to happen with the the the Kroger lawsuit in the appellet court could go either way. I you know I don't know. It's an it's an unknown. Then the known. So we have a blighted building. There's no prospects of it becoming anything other than an auto zone at this point. There's also when you we talk about the current character of the neighborhood, so to speak. There's a fire zone right there. There's an advanced auto parts right there. Autozone doesn't sound like that's out of character with what's currently in that immediate area.

That's a good point. So, I'm I'm in favor. Okay. I'm only one vote. Okay.

Um, so I've heard two or I've heard two additional pieces of data real fast and that's, [clears throat] you know, public meeting. So I know time is money and it costs you guys money no matter what, but at the same rate you shared some of the the fund strategy and I get that. So, but just for the board that they're hearing what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is they've got their last building in the fund that they've got to close to return money to the investors. So, they need to get it leased up. So, in two years or something, they can sell it and get return of investment, which is going to be why, right? What they want to do get the highest return for the investors. Highest return for the investors. Sold Autozone for the next 20 years. Who knows? It's someone brand new. the value of that property, sorry to be said, but it's now incrementally higher. It's incremental change, incrementally squeeze for a couple more percentage points back to an investment group in Virginia. If it doesn't go forward and it sits vacant, it sits blighted or per se that term or sits vacant, it doesn't artificially and incrementally bring up the land value around the mall and value is not overpriced for the redevelopment cost that truly has to occur there because our investment group is our residents and you know that's that's where I'm standing on it and that's where we kind of have to be um they not ask for incremental change they ask for something significant I think that they understand that it's going to be time a little bit of time we'll be able to track it. So,

I'm going to call for a motion in accordance with a section uh 1310 of the zoning resolution [snorts] um to receive a motion to deny uh the focus area overlay district application as submitted. So, moved. Second. Call a roll call. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. So, can you just to deny it? So, a yes vote is to deny. A no vote would be to approve. So, the motion [clears throat] is in to deny it. And a yes vote would be to deny it. A no vote.

Can Can you switch it up to make it easy and just say you vote to approve it? Mr. Chairman, I believe I could be mistaken, but I believe under Robert's rules, every every motion has to be in an affirmative. Correct. Yes. So, so you had to make a motion. So, let's make the regular motion to make it a motion to approve. Okay. Yeah, there you go. Does that do it correctly, Corey? Yeah. I mean, actually, I'll have to defer to We don't actually We don't have to We actually don't have to follow Robert's We actually don't have to follow Robert's rules at this board meeting. I dug into that years ago. So, you I agree with Mr. Beck. It makes it easier. So, So, we've done it both ways. I know Mr. Campbell's been here a long time. I've been here a long time. You know, we've had a motion to approve, motion to deny. Um,

we don't really follow it. Mr. Becker spent a lot of time at the state house. They're probably more rules made motion to deny and a yes vote denies it. Okay. We don't have rules. You're chairman. As long as he gets a record correct that it's denied. So, so for the So, for clarity sake, if you're making that motion, a yes vote is denial. A no vote is approval. Yes. Is that what I'm hearing? Okay. Okay. So, the motion is to deny or or if someone would want an approval, then they'd raised the motion to approve and the mot and the motion would either pass or fail. Right now, it's a motion to deny and that motion can pass or fail and then you have another motion.

Mr. Campbell, I think we've had motions to deny before. Yes. So, that we I think we can we have rules or otherwise. Yeah. We don't we don't we don't have we don't follow it's not in our board rules. You okay if I make a clean one? Whatever you want to do. I'm sorry. Well, it's your call. It's your I just I just want to take a vote. We're ready to vote. All right. So So moved. Did you second it? You did. Okay. So call the role. Motion to deny. Mr. Dills? Yes. Mr. Becker? No. Mr. Lo? Yes. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks guys.

Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you for the time. Thanks guys. Discussion. Do you want to make a motion to recess? Yeah. Well, uh I'll entertain Yeah. I'll entertain a motion to just recess for five minutes. Oh, sorry. I was asking. Yeah. Yes, I moved recess. Brief recess. Brief recess. Five minutes. Motion. Second. I'll take a motion. Yeah. Second, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Log. Yes. You want to take a brief recess at 8:03 p.m. All right. Okay.

Becker is the one with the gavl typically. I I've always thought it's kind of ornamental like you hang it on a tree. Just let me look at it. All right. Motion to return from recess. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Lo. Yes. We're out of recess at 8:11 p.m.

All right, gentlemen. Um, old business. Seeing none, move forward with new business. Got the consent agenda. Item alpha. This items one, two, and three. Uh, approval of minutes at item one for Alpha and Bravo. October 14th, 2025 regular meeting minutes. October 14th, 2025 zoning meeting minutes. Item two, the approval of payments is prepared by Mr. Campbell, fiscal officer. Item three, the approval of monthly financial reports prepared by Mr. Campbell, physical officer. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move. Yes. Second. Hearing no discussion. Roll call. Mr. Campbell. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Lo. Yes. Motion carries.

Item Bravo. Motion agenda. Item one's approval purchase orders. Um, any Mr. Right. Do you want to introduce any of the purchase orders?

Uh, let me make sure my mic's on. Yep. Uh, first purchase orders for the service department, JCM Maintenance LLC. This is to retrofit uh another ambulance that uh we were able to salvage uh one of the international diesels that we were able to salvage uh from the fire department as part of their repositioning last year. And uh the first retrofit was successful and this is the second retrofit that is for 38,2669. The second purchase order uh and is actually related to an agenda item we have this evening uh for a disposal resolution. Uh truck uh 59 uh truck 59 is an '04 F550. It failed DOT inspection this year. Uh the word I got is it is not safe nor uh will it ever be safe or roadw worthy and uh we are pursuing a scrap disposal on that. This is an emergency replacement for truck 59. Uh this is to Rush Truck Centers of Ohio for a 2025 Ford F600 snowplow truck. So an F600 looks like a 550 to everybody. It's got a little heavier duty, you know, chassis and other stuff and be able to do a little bit more. And that's 125,000 59135. This is sort of an emergency purchase for snow plow for snow operations uh as we need to backfill that. Talked to Mr. Campbell. We have the funds available to handle this purchase. And this is literally a unit that as I understand it, we can take somebody up with a check and drive it back, right? Like within a day or two. Correct.

Yep. Friday. Okay. Two days. Sorry. So those are the two purchase orders I have for the board this evening. Okay. Uh gentlemen, entertain a motion to approve the purchase orders. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes, Mr. Lou. Yes. Motion carries. Uh item two, Union Township purchasing card and tax exempt policy. Mr. Wright, do you want to say Sure.

Just be brief. Uh we actually have a purchasing card policy. So that's not new. What we did was we amended the policy to also include a taxexempt policy. There was some recent auditor estate guidance that came out regarding the use of the township's tax exempt certificate and the amendments to the policy are generally related to um guidance from the Ohio Department of Taxation which is pushed down through the auditor's office and local governments. Basically, if you use a tax exempt certificate, the local government has to buy it. If somebody goes and uses, you know, and gets reimbursed for an expense, they have to pay the sales tax at the time of the exemption or at the time of the transaction, they then can get the sales tax reimbursed by using a special form. And don't ask me the number on the form. I don't know. I think Lisa knows the number of the form. I do not know um or I forgot. uh but you have to submit a form and it's so the department of taxation can track and so that people aren't cheating with regard to sales tax exempt certificates. So really exciting. Uh but that's something we have to do for compliance purposes for the auditor of state because literally when they come in for their audits they look at on their checklist do you comply with bulletin this? Do you comply with bulletin this? Do you comply with this bulletin? And so this is just a housekeeping issue. So

okay that motion to approve. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Campbell. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Lo.

Yes. Motion carries. Item Charlie, legislation agenda. Uh motion. Um All right. So, we've got resolution 2025-61. This is a resolution regarding the EMS billing fees and practices for non-residents. Uh it's amending the practice of charging fees for emergency ambulance transport services provided by Union Township Fire Department and authorizing amended practices and the policies procedures that govern the assessment and collection of charges for said services from non-residents and authorizing touch administrator to execute agreement or any documentation is required with medic and management uh to really collect on those uh services. Uh do we have a motion to approve? So moved second. Any discussion we need to have?

Yeah. Roll call. Mr. Dills? Yes. Mr. Becker? Yes. Mr. Log? Yes. Motion carries.

Uh resolution 2025-62. This is resolution repealing uh Pearl Apartments TIF. Um Mr. Wright, can you give us a little bit of background on that? So when the Pearl Apartments tiff was established in 2019, the township did not control all the land in that vicinity and we were only able to tiff the areas that we controlled for the project. Since that time, the Icult roundabouts project has gone through for the township to deliver a larger project. And so it's actually easier to end a tiff that is not performing at all and reform a new one than that. I don't actually think you can add partials to an existing tiff. So, it's [laughter and clears throat] just a matter of you get rid of the old tiff and then if and when a development advances due to that assemblage, which has been our past practice in history here, uh we would advance a new tiff concurrent with that probably early in 26. So, okay. Uh gentlemen will uh seek a motion to approve resolution 2025-63. I'm sorry. -62. So move.

Second. Roll call. Mr. Dills? Yes. Mr. Becker? Yes. Mr. Log? Yes. Motion carries. Uh, likewise item three, resolution 2025-63 is a resolution repealing the termiff. Uh, gentlemen, do you have a motion to approve? So move. Second. Hearing no discussion. Roll call. Mr. Dills? Yes. Mr. Becker? Yes. Mr. Lo? Yes. Motion carries. Item four, resolution 2025-64 is a resolution issuing zoning text amendment. Uh, do we have a motion to approve the zoning test? So move. Second. Have any discussion? Hearing none. Roll call. Mr. Campbell. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Lo. Yes. Motion carries. [snorts]

Item five, resolution 2025-65 is a resolution adopting township cyber security plan. Do you have that motion to approve? So moved. Second. Hearing no discussion. Roll call. Mr. Kendler. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Lug. Yes. Motion carries. Item six, resolution 2025-66 is a resolution establishing reasonable charges for Union Township Fire Emergency Services. Gentlemen, do have that motion to approve. So moved. Second. Do we have any need for discussion? Yeah, I'd like to hear some details. I think the public would like to hear some details. [clears throat] Sounds good. Let's do that.

Sure. So, uh, part of the, you know, our continuous process here is to identify areas where, uh, operationally we can be more efficient. One of the main issues that we have um is that um the an increasing or everinccreasing sort of use of uh the fire and EMS services for what we would call non-emergency responses um particularly by businesses and so we EMS bill residents we are now going to EMS and balance bill non-residents uh and there is a need to build businesses for not for repeated use of our services for non-emergent calls and non-emergent transports due to abuse. Basically shifting their liability onto the township and this is something that that I think is becoming more and more commonplace. So this does give the township the ability to bill for that. Now, there is a policy that allows us to to look at extenduating circumstances, whether businesses are in a special taxing district like a jed or something where they're paying another way. But basically, what you have right now is the ability to pay [snorts] for repeat offenses where they're calling for bad labs or a lift assist or whatever. And

[clears throat] uh we still want people to call when it's an emergency. Absolutely. We will never deny and it's specifically in the policy and in the resolution that we will never deny a transport if somebody wants to take a ride on an ambulance. But this does allow us to bill for excessive use of uh fire and EMS for non-emergent calls. That's essentially what this does. This is about cost recapture and making sure that we're operating efficiently.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's great. I um started tracking just what how many calls for service that were going out to the uh different centers throughout the township and it's exactly that. You can see it. It's a higher count. Uh it's it's it's really actually terrible because a lot of businesses operate in which they charge um you know when I was quoting stuff from my parents you know $10,000 plus type of month for a service that should be high quality and then they employ people um that either are underst staffed or underskilled um that in the event there's a simple thing like a fall or uh a lift assist meaning like you're in a chair and you can't get up they call the fire services and they call in our people. It shifts the cost of the business cost to the taxpayers. So anyway, glad you guys are able to keep on top of this and kind of run the traps on it because something we need to do. Yeah, trusty bills. So, Mr. [snorts] Wright, just for clarity sake, um I already know the answer to this question, but just for the record, if I'm a resident of Union Township, I get in a car accident, I need an ambulance, there's no charge.

Well, so because because [snorts] residents [clears throat] aren't charged for an ambulance. No, no, no. They we EMS we EMS bill residents. Okay. But they soft build. Correct. We don't soft bill. We don't send our residents to collections. Basically, people submit it to insurance. The insurance pays. Medicare or Medicaid pays. That's basically what happens. Correct. For residents. For non-residents, they're going to get sent to collections. That's the prior That's the prior resolution. This charges the facility for the use of non-emergent calls. So, if you have a business that constantly calls us Yes. and it's a non-emergency. Yep. Got it. Okay.

We want to encourage the right behavior. All right. Um, just really alignment of incentives really. So, uh, roll call, please. Do we have a motion? We have a motion. Yeah, we had a motion. Second, Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker? Yes. Mr. Lo? Yes. Motion carries. Item seven, resolution 2025-67 is a then announced certificate uh Joner's building maintenance. Do we have a motion to approve that? So second hearing. No discussion. Roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. [snorts] Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Log. Yes. Motion carries.

Resolution number eight, resolution 2025-6A's resolution authorizing safe routes to school grant application. Do we have a motion to approve? So moved. Yes. Do you have a need for discussion? No, he's ready to go. Second. All right, roll [snorts] call. Mr. Dills, yes. Mr. Becker, yes. Mr. Luke, yes. Motion carries. Uh, resolution 9. Uh, the resolution 2025-69 is a nuisance abatement resolution. Uh, do I have a motion to approve? So move. Second. Any for discussion? Uh, just a comment. I did uh a drive by of both of those properties uh today and uh the one on uh Forest uh

Forest Haven it just it just looked like from what I could tell drive by in the rain just somebody just needed to mow the lawn and u Roar looked like there was a bunch of um disabled automobiles several that are in the driveway on the property. So uh yeah I concur with both of those they need to be cleaned up. Okay. All right. Roll call. Mr. Bills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Log. Yes. Motion carries. Item 10 is resolution 2025-7070 resolution authorizing disposal of obsolete property. We have that motion uh to approve. This [clears throat] is uh the 2013 Ford E350 ambulance.

So moved. Uh second. Hearing no discussion real quick. Yes. You want discussion? Yeah. Yeah. Just tell us Mr. Right. Tell us I guess I'm more interested in some of the details of why it wasn't roadw worthy. Was it a sudden failure of the frame crack or what? That's resolution 202571. Am I in the wrong one? Yes. This is a ambulance that we've gotten 12 years of service out of that another political jurisdiction is going to purchase from us. There was an update to the agenda. You have this is you have the item. I Okay. I got the wrong agenda. Yep. [snorts]

My bad. No further questions. All right. Uh, roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Lou. Yes. Motion carries. Item 11, resolution 2025-71's resolution authorizing disposal of obsolete property. This is a 2004 Ford F550. Um, do we have that motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Sure. I can provide an answer to Mr. Becker's question if it pleases the board. Yeah. Once again, I got ahead of myself. Uh, so we do a DOT inspection on these. The word I got back was the only thing holding the front end together was the snow plow brackets.

So over time, these vehicles, they see a lot of salt, a lot of abuse. It's a 2004 and it's 20 It's 21 years old. years old and it's basically Swiss cheese and it's and the the DOT inspection report was so bad that we're recommending that we're not even going to auction it. We're just going to send it for scrap. We we can't in good conscience auction that vehicle frame rusted. Yeah. [snorts] I thought I saw something somewhere where Woodlon was buying something from us. That was the ambulance. Okay. Yeah, it's village of Woodlon purchased the ambulance. That's the resolution you just approved. Yeah, I was confusing those two. Thank Take care of it, Mr. Chair. That's all. Chairman. All right. Uh, roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker.

Yes. Mr. Lo. Yes. Motion carries. All right, gentlemen. We're two comments from the board. Uh, Trusty Dills.

All right, gentlemen. Something a little bit um I don't know if it's popular or not popular, but uh and Mr. actually I owe you an apology because you are chairman of the board and you should get first dibs and I apologize. So last month, uh, Channel 12, I think, contacted all three of us and, uh, and I met with, uh, one of the news reporters out at the, um, front of the Sears building, Kroger building, front of the mall, and, uh, normally I would have kicked that one to you, and I appreciate you letting me have that one. Uh, so basically, and actually the reporter was slightly off, uh, and it was, uh, the message. So there there wasn't homeless [clears throat] people at the mall. There was homeless people at the um Sears building, Kroger building. Uh and and uh and it wasn't like they're everywhere. There's just a handful or a few of them. And then but somebody called and reported it and that's why the reporter called us. Uh so I don't want to be long-winded, but um I think it's it's embarrassing that our county doesn't have a um an answer for the homeless problem in our county. And I have talked to a number of our police officers. I've talked to our chief. I've talked to several uh sheriff deputies and I say, "Hey, is in your opinion is homeless, is it an issue or no?" And and it's unanimous. Everyone has said yes. And I say, "What do you do when there's a homeless person in front of a uh you know, a store or what somebody calls or whatever, there's nothing they can do. They basically take them somewhere and just drop them off. There's nothing they can do." Uh, and then the entire county, uh, if you're in Pierce Township, Betavia, Gan, Ohio, Tate, doesn't matter where you're at, and they get a coupon, a voucher. The only way they they can be housed is at our hotels on Beachmont Avenue, which there's two hotels. I thought Beachmont Motel was a part of, but I guess they recently rescended. They no longer accept vouchers. Uh, but the uh, the Days in and the Red Roof in are the only place in this entire county where homeless are sent to with a

voucher. And, uh, that's it. And so, um, you know, the homeless shelter was shut down back during CO and they sold the building. And um, I think it's a shame that, and I I' I've spoken to two out of the three county commissioners, and I like them. I get along with our county commissioners, uh, but I think it's a shame they've not done a darn thing about it. Um, they kind in my opinion, kicking the can down the road, and if they see or hear this message, that might make them upset, but tell me where I'm wrong. And I also think it's embarrassing. Uh, I like dogs just as much as anybody else, but we spend the county spends nearly $1 million on an animal shelter and we spend zero on a homeless shelter. I think that's inhumane. And honestly, I I don't see how anybody can go to church on Sunday and sleep at night knowing that we spend a million dollars for animal shelters and nothing for for homeless people. So, we're coming up to winter and there's basically one church in this entire county that spearheads it and that's one way church out in Bavia. So, a small little church out there uh houses homeless when their temperatures get frigid, but the county doesn't do anything except for give them coupons and put them on um in Union Township. So, the the the the frustrating part is whenever there's an issue uh and and if this homeless person's from anywhere in the county and there's an issue at their hotel and the police are called, it's our police officers that are handling it. it's our EMS that's handling it and it's it's our taxpayers in Union Township and it's unfair. So, um I'm going to give the commissioners and their administrator a chance to develop a plan which doesn't appear there's any plan and uh and if they don't then I hate to put it on Mr. Wright but he's a master at this and R but uh we're going to conduct a plan and um and present it to them of some sort. Uh I don't want to do that. They should be able to do that because it's this is their territory. It's the whole county. But um it's kind of one of those things if if not me then who and if not when then you know now. So um and I'm not

asking for either one of you two to jump on board with what I'm saying. You don't have to comment at all. But um we there's an issue. We have 220,000 residents. Roughly 1500 of them are homeless and there is absolutely zero um being done about it. So uh and I've tal I've tal and I I'm not a mental health expert. I'm not here to solve problems as far as why somebody became homeless. Uh but the fact that our county doesn't have anything yet there's several homeless shelters in Hamilton, Warren and Butler, and zero in Claremont County is embarrassing. So uh um maybe it's popular, maybe it's not. I'm probably going to make a lot of elected officials very upset. Uh and and my my shoot from the hit plan would be county pays for half of the bill and then you take it and distribute it amongst the townships proportionally evenly. So, based off population and we all pitch in and do our fair share and and make something happen. But, uh what a shame that we don't have anything at all. So, um I'm going to um start poking the bear and uh I'll have fun with it because uh we're going to get something done. So, that's all I want to say. Thanks, sir.

Thanks, Trusty Becker. First off, uh just comment for Mr. Dills. I I love your passion. You you really have a heart and and and it shows and it's a great trade. Thanks, sir. And I, you know, I I really appreciate I think the public does as well. On to my own comments. Mr. Chairman, what I think I might start doing this being the first episode of uh CheapKate 101. I'm saving receipts. And I got them in front of me because at the last meeting, you might recall Mr. Dills laughed at me for going to Arby's for a steak dinner. I still going to laugh at you. Well, sure enough, guess where I'm going?

Dinner for two at Arby's. $12.50. 53 that includes steak dinner. Did you watch uh what's what did you rent from the what did you rent from the library? Uh it NCIS or we don't rent. It's free. [laughter] Uh it's renting from the taxpayers. John, I I'm just saying you say you don't tell me. You've taught me it's the taxpayers money. So you you came here to tell us about your $12 dinner at Orbeez. I'm not done yet.

Oh, okay. We rout routinely go to Gold Star Chili. Well, pe people complain that it's expensive to eat out and they are correct. I'm pointing out there's a cheap way to do it. And if anybody knows cheap, it's me. Gold Star Chili dinner for two. $9.80 before the tip. Oh man, that's a weekly. Gold Star Chili $9.80.

Mount Caramel. Yes. McDonald's dinner for two $7.58. Now, a little context here. The Arby's was some kind of discount. The McDonald's, it's like this, you know, order from the app. The app special, you know, filt of fish, get free fries, whatever. Something else, total order. The um the gold star I fill out a survey every uh every week. I get a survey to fill out. Survey gets me a free cheese coney and also I get these points that because I'm using their app that develops points as well. So I get a free soft drink in addition to that.

I got one question for you when you're done. And and and so I had so I'm running out of coffee. So I use a uh I think it's actually a Mr. coffee brand, but it's a cheap version of a curry. You know, the single serve little K cup things. 22.7 cents per cup. I get those at Ali's down on Beach Avenue. Now, that was also after a 15% off coupon. And And here here's an example where I it must have been temporary insanity where I just went whole hog on just blowing the budget. Ho hog on blowing the budget. Let's hear it. It was over at Clean Eats. Went to check that out. Oh, yeah.

Dinner for two and it was good. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, but it was out of character for the way I spend money. $228. Hell. Okay. My one question, John. Mr. Becker, sorry. I'm Mr. The um What was the last time you went to, you know, I'm going to say a nice nice restaurant? depends on your definition of nice, but this Saturday we went to I know pigkins. So, so, uh, that wasn't cheap. I did a I did a 100 mile race a few years ago and me and my four other buddies I did it with every year during winter to celebrate because, you know, that's was a big accomplishment for us. We go to Jeff Ruby's precinct every year. I'm going there this Friday. Awesome.

So, my one meal there will probably be more than all those receipts there combined. Oh, no doubt. you you'll spend more than that one meal and I spend in a month eating now. But hey, restaurant. It's just once a year with the guys, you know. Well, the the the the Pig Skin Bar and Grill. Um I was in there Saturday night. It was the top. I mean, you know, they got a there's a guy in there with guitar and and singing and people were singing and dancing. And did you dance? Did you dance? Oh, no. Oh, okay.

So, uh you know, if you It's loud. It's not you know the you know it's it's not Gold Star Chili. It's a happening place, but um yeah, it's definitely uh I say it's it's a home run from what I've seen. That was a good move and it looks like it's going to be successful. So, they have my stamp of approval. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Wait, what? What? No, I'm actually being serious. When When did you go to Pig Skin? Saturday. Like night for dinner? Yes. Evening. Okay. Yeah, got it. Okay. Yeah. What time? I need Yeah. Five fiveish. That's good. Okay. Cool. You can keep top that one. You gota ask me how much I spent at the pig skin. No. [laughter]

That was more than that was about the same as all these combined. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Everyone can um prepare if you're not cooking and hosting a Thanksgiving at home. You can join Mr. Becker and his wife at Arby's for $7.99 or five for five or Hey, they got a a a roasted turkey thing they got uh special right now. I'm looking forward to trying that roasted turkey with Mr. Becker on or grilled t whatever deep deep fried turkey. We can do a a social post about that. That's gonna be Thanksgiving dinner.

I don't think we will.

So, thank you. Um yeah, appreciate the uh the color and the context there, Mr. Becker. And yeah, Mr. Dills, uh uh you definitely have the passion for it. I um um I'm curious to to literally learn and hear more. Uh because I knew at one point in time the homeless and the voucher program was a bit of an issue and I think we had that tampered down. Um, and moving forward, I'm hearing Mr. Becker or Mr. Dill's perspective on his feelings with the homeless. Um, fire and and police. I don't think we track an interaction with homeless right now. I would like to try to throw that in there as part of the call for service. Let me get some understanding. And I don't mean like you and you and you both showed up and saw the same homeless guy and now that's three homeless people. Like I'm not going to say identify homeless people, but you know if your officers had the same re reinction with the same homeless. So it doesn't have to be completely scientific there, but is that possible to be able to to have some type of over the month over the next month? Um, I want to get a better understanding cuz I've not when the reporter reached out to me as if there was this concern. It was kind of news to me except for I drove past these two people in the last uh uh week prior to that. Uh they were camping out front of UDF on Chamber Drive. And then a couple days later, I saw them going up to the Milford trail head in Milford crossing the bridge. Um, and I haven't seen uh anyone. I mean, I was I watched David Winter's news report. Um, and I thought maybe I'd see a homeless person in the

video. Um, maybe that's like a PII thing, but I didn't see anything. Um, so just to me I felt like he was um I don't know trying to um I don't know shine light on something that I'm not fully aware of right now and I want to become more aware of. So um I've like I said I definitely have seen seen these people but I don't know if that's the same two people. Is it the same two people moving around or is there more? So that's what I would love if there's some possible way to have an interaction count. um maybe that would be helpful so we know what the impact is and that will help with the plan that uh if there's a plan that's going to come together or not or at least we know what the impact is around all that. So,

so to put in perspective, u I'm sorry to answer your question. How is that possible, Chief? What we can do is when our when our people go out with somebody that we believe we can verify, we can do what's called field contact. That's a measurable quantitative piece of Okay, we can have our records track that track. Okay. Okay. I don't I don't imagine that's going to be like a you know an annual long term, but maybe with this the visibility of it right now kind of as a special interest item. Um [snorts] I think that'd be great. Is that Are you good with that?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um when when the temperatures get so so one way church is actually adding on to their building simply for housing homeless not from full-time just during the winter during first temperatures. Uh I I was there last winter and uh and and the whole place is packed. So, um, it exists. It it does. They're obviously just not they're not out and about. Is that like short term like overnight?

Yeah. You know how it work? You know what I mean? I rules are rules and I get it. You know what else is frustrating was I think I don't hold me to this that if if they held if they held them for more than four days, three days or four days, they had to get a permit and it's just a way to for government to get money, which is garbage. You think they'd wave that for them? So they had to literally take the homeless, drop them off for 24 hours, then repick them back up to bring them back so they didn't go past the permit line or whatever it was. And I'm just like, come on. You government red tape. So So what what's what's one way church use? Is it like a gymnasium? No, they have the the youth room. A youth room? No, but they're building onto it. What's that like? Is it just an open big open room?

Just an open open room. Yeah. They clear out all everything for it and they put CS all over and everything. You see it? It's just it's just ridiculous. It's just frustrating that Come on. The problem is it's a money issue and if they really wanted to try to solve it, they'd solve it. They haven't exhausted all grant efforts. They haven't exhausted all public private partnerships asking if a business would step up to help sponsor it. They haven't asked for donations. They haven't asked the townships to put pressure on townships to help pay. They haven't done anything. So, it's just it just honestly really pisses me off that they haven't even tried anything since they sold the shelter and they've kicked the can on the road and that they're putting them all at our hotels on Beachmont and there's no solution. It's like this is why you're elected. It's like come on. and and uh but to dump a million dollars to help animals, I trust me, I got to help, you know, trust me, I get it. But the zero zero, come on. How do you sleep at night? Especially this winter while all of our uh you know, our commissioners make over six figures. They're sleeping in their nice houses and yet there's 1500 people in Claremont County and they have literally not even a plan. Like they should be embarrassed. I said what I said and I'm friends with the commissioners. I said what I said and uh I I don't know how they they can not even put a plan together at least get the ball rolling even if it's not for another year but still it's uh it's ridiculous. So just do the right thing. Sure.

So, it sounds like it's one way church is at its capacity and you you're you're in tune on this. Um, are you proposing or would you be in favor then of if they're at capacity to like open up our gym since we have the capacity in there and we have like showers and facilities? Is that what you would I would have to defer to Mr. Raid. I have no idea if we can do that or uh or or or the manpower or how that works, but uh I'm not opposed to it. But still, that's a band-aid and we need a homeless shelter and uh we got to get the ball rolling on it. So, I just want to make sure I'm hearing you.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um I I want to say one other thing on um well, since it's since it came out, I'm not going to say much on it, but um since since I don't know, there's been I think several different places that have publicized this. there was a uh utilization of our of our safe haven uh box um for a baby. Um and so um I think that's again um it was used and uh and then I also believe that there was an attempt to surrender a baby doll. Was that correct? Is that a confidentiality? Is that a PII? Is it It's not a human. It's a baby doll, right? Is that correct?

There was a baby doll that showed up. A baby doll actually showed up and triggered the alarm. No, did not trigger alarm. Did not trigger the alarm. I was like, [clears throat] that would almost be either Okay, but that's correct. Correct. So, that baby doll was not actually inducted into the system. Correct.

Okay. All right. Good. Good catch. Good catch. A little little tricksters out there, I guess. Okay. [clears throat] Upcoming events, gentlemen. The Union Township Zoning Commission will meet on Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 at 7 p.m. to consider and review a single development case to discuss additional text amendments of zoning resolution prior to finalization. The Union Township Board of Zoning Appeals will meet on Thursday, December 4th, 2025 at 7 p.m. to consider a single application. The Union Township Board of Trustees next regular meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 9th, 2025 at 6 p.m. Union Township Government offices will be closed on Thursday, November 27th, 2025 at Friday and Friday, November 28th, 2025 Thanksgiving holiday. Wish everyone in Union Township a joyous happy Thanksgiving. Please consider utilizing township retail post office looking lower level civic center as the perfect place for conveniently handling all of your Christmas and holiday shipping needs. Uh gentlemen at this time would like to entertain a motion to enter into executive session. Um I entertain a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to higher code section 121.22 22 Golf as follows. To consider the appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, demotion, or compensation of a public employee or official pursuant to higher revised code section 121.22 Golf 1. Item two, to confer with an attorney for the public body concerning disputes involving the public body that are the subject of a pending or eminent court action pursuant to higher revised code section 121.22, Golf 3. Item three, preparing for conducting, reviewing, and negotiations or bargaining sessions of public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment pursuant to a higher revised code section 121.22 Golf 4. unapported. Consider confidential information related to the marketing plan, specific business strategy, production techniques, trade secrets or personal financial statements of an applicant for economic development

assistance or to negotiations with other political subdivisions respecting requests for economic development assistance provided that both the following conditions apply. Alpha the information is directly related to request for economic development assistance that is to be provided for administered under any provision of chapter 7157251724 or 1728 or section 701.07 3735.67 to 3735.70 to 5709.40 to 5709.43 5709.761 to 5709.69 69 5709.73 to 5709.75 or 5709.77 to 5709.81 of the highrise code or that involves public infrastructure improvements of the extension of utility service that are directly related to the economic development project and bravo unanimous quorum of the public body intermines by a roll call vote that the executive session is necessary to protect the interests of the applicant or the possible investment or expendure of public funds to be made in connection with the economic development project pursuant to higher advice code section 121.22 22 Golf 8. Do we have that motion?

Yes. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Dills? Yes. Mr. Becker? Yes. Mr. Lo? Yes. We're into executive session at 8:48 p.m. That really is impressive how you can read that like that. I can't

to entertain a motion to exit executive session with no action taken. So move. Second. Hearing no discussion. Roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Lo. Yes. We're out of executive session at 10:12 p.m. with no action taken. Entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Dills. Yes. Mr. Becker. Yes. Mr. Log. Yes. We're adjourned at 10:13 p.m.