City Council - Regular Meeting

I don't think they're carry disease. They can be a nuisance eating beneficial vegetation. How are you this week? And so I don't have an issue with that. you just had a nationwide uh if it's probably I wouldn't be okay necessarily because you won't be here tomorrow hopefully introduc

another guy internally I need maintaining quarter to 5 but at the same not exactly there. Um I'm not limit but I understand that there are sterilization options and I'd be good with that. Yeah, right. That would be okay. Maintain it and maybe deport [laughter] if ICE comes to town. Will someone use that language? I know I'm going to get everyone all whipped up. But uh that's tinder box.

Send them out. send them out to, you know, they they don't sleep then on the way to school. So that's part So last year we had I don't know if you said that to Bob, but last year they were like you say John about a half dozen in my neighbor's yard. This year I kind of set it together. They're not around. My Bernadoodle is not [laughter] right. Exactly. She thinks she is. So I'm wearing it out.

I'm okay with with that. Sounds like you. I would just like to see what what would be proposed in details. Anytime you are trying to [laughter] thought kill something within an area where people live, you got to be very careful with that discontinued them too. Yeah. Yep. All right. [clears throat] [snorts] Should put some solar panels up on that fire. You ready for I am. Everything's streaming and recording.

America. Well, good evening and thank you for coming to uh listen to this year's state of the city address. This is number three for me. So hopefully uh we're improving our presentation over time. I've got a disclaimer I'm going to start off with together with an apology. The disclaimer is something I give to every group and that's um I'm going to talk about the city of Worcester and that's part of my job descriptions. I talk on behalf of the city of Worcester. We got a lot of great things going on. So I talk about those and I want to make it clear I'm not under any illusion that this is anything I've done and it's obviously know to some extent not actually what this council's done before us. So it's kind of a disclaimer. So don't think you may think I'm full myself or full of something regardless, but don't base it on what I talked to you about now because I'm going to brag about the city a little bit and what we've got going for us, but recognizing right off the bat that this is a group effort. Second thing I want to do is I'm going to apologize a little bit to uh There we go. Thank you. I'm going to apologize a little bit to this group because I think this is my fourth iteration of this and usually it's to a crowd of people that's maybe not that familiar with the city operations. So a lot of the stuff I talk about in covering this is stuff that the city council is very familiar with because you were a part of it along the way. And I would almost cut those things out of this presentation other than the fact that this is the one that goes up on the website and goes out to the public. So, you're going to hear about some things that you know as much about as I do, but you're going to get to listen to them about anyway. So, let's start off by uh taking a look back at 2025. Who's doing who's moving in?

Who's got the mouse? Who's got the mouse? Andre. [laughter] Andre is eating popcorn. Is not working.

We're having technical problems. Well, first of all, um, we were again receive recognition as being one of the top 10 micropolitans in the US. Um, we talk about this once a year, and I'll just refresh your memory on this. A meticropolitan is defined by the US Census Bureau as a central county with a population of between 10,000 and 50,000 people. As of July 2023, there were 542 metropolitan areas in the US and Puerto Rico. and new rankings. So this was like last year's uh recognition. We again we are number three. Um it shows I think Finley there is number one. Finley has had kind of a strangle hold on number one. Um the good news just today I think I shared with council and everybody else is that they released this year's rankings. Um this year's rankings we are again number three but uh maybe as significant as that is Finley has fallen to number two and just edged us out. So, we're within a whisker of uh being the number one rated Metropolitan in the state of Ohio. So, that's something to be very proud of. Let's talk about our major capital projects. Um first, the the new ladder truck arrived. Only cost us $2 million and took two and a half years to for them to deliver it, but we have it. Um, it's going to ensure that Santa will never again be forced to use the elevator to make his way down from Winter Wonderland, which is what happened in 2024 because of problems we were having with the old ladder truck. So, uh, in all seriousness, you know, it's not a good sign when you have a ladder truck that can't be used as a ladder truck. So, it's good to have that replaced.

The Guy Chapel roundabout went in. Um, and again, that was 100% ODOT funded. So even though it was within the city, the only thing we did is we did uh provide some lane widening leading up to it. Uh took advantage of the opportunity of the road being shut to take care of that. But the round of that itself was entirely state funded. We made the silver road improvements um there as part of uh the development there at Mechanicsburg and Silver Road. We also used that project to the impetus to put in a multi-use path along the uh venture boulevard there in front of Seaman Corporation. And again, that was paid for in part, both the improvements on Silver Road and the multi-use path with a parcel tiff for that Mechanicsburg uh Silver Road residential development. We made streetscape additions. This was phase five. This is along South Market Street and South Street. This was done in connection with the Lyric Theater project. And you can see the summary there. We had 18 major projects costing a total of $14.4 million. Um and collectively they came in well under budget. So um again I think we tend to budget uh conservatively and uh you know we hope to see things coming in under budget. Major city accomplishments. Um first I want to mention the Jarrett logistics expansion. Um this is an example of the benefit of having sites available for industrial development. Jarrett was looking to expand in Orville but they had utility needs that Orville was unable to meet. They began to look outside of Wayne County, but due to our combination of an available site, sufficient utilities, and a tax incentive, we were able to keep that business local. Rego, I'm glad Kevin could be here tonight. This is his baby. Well, one of his two babies, I guess, at this point. [gasps] And uh I won't ask him which is more important to him, but I know we all know the answer to that. Um although the initial service area only extends one

mile out beyond the city limits, the intent is to gradually extend service throughout Wayne County and and Kevin's working towards that goal. Now the one county hospital er expansion uh open for business this last uh Wednesday, February 25th. Uh it's a new front door to the facility and will improve the experience of everyone involved with the hospital, whether as a patient, an employer, or visitor. the Graham Farm annexation. We've talked repeatedly, I think myself, council the last few years about the need for additional housing. And one of the things we looked at is, you know, how can we get investment in existing neighborhoods, but the other thing is having uh space annexed to the city that's available for future expansion. This annexation should address that second problem for many years to come. Um it's 248 acres on the west side of town. you know, depending on how how they develop it will determine the number of housing units there, but it could be anywhere from 500 to 800 units. Again, depending on how the developer and the owner decides to lay that out. And I touched on this um previously, but just as important as adding those new residential neighborhoods around the margins is encouraging new investment in our existing neighborhoods. 17% of our housing stock is pre-1940. Now some of those houses um you know been here 100 years will be here for another hundred years but some of those houses are are really reaching the end of their useful lives. So we need to u encourage investment in some of those older neighborhoods and I think we've taken a big step towards that. We had a year-long process headed up by Vince Marian and a steering committee of community volunteers resulted in a proposed set of proposed amendments to the residential housing code. Those amendments were unanimously approved by this body early this year. As a result, our zoning code now provides greater flexibility for both developers and property owners when it comes to new construction with the intent of more closely aligning our zoning code with

changing demographics, changing economics in the housing market, and changing consumer demands. Finally, veterans banners. Um, this has been a hugely successful project. We kind of signed off of it at the outset. I didn't think it was going to be as big a deal as it turned out to be, but we've got [clears throat] a lot of congratulations from or I don't know compliments I suppose from people in the community from outside about that. Um again, we provide the labor with all the banner programs. Rotary Club has actually taken care of underwriting um helping subsidize the cost of those banners to make it easier for families to afford and Main Street actually administers the program. So appreciate their both those organizations help in making that excuse me making that happen. All right. So that's our look back. Let's look forward a little bit. [snorts] So one of the first things we want to do is we want to continue to build on our community strengths. And one of those is financial stability. Um start off uh there we go. Um, we got one of our things we have is is strong city finances. Um, right now we currently have 207 days in cash. That's up from a low water mark of 111 days, which is what we where we were at in 2010. And it's, you know, significant that that was before the voters passed that half percent in uh increase in our income tax to take it from 1% to 1.5. And that really changed not only d the dynamics of our cash, you know, our balance sheet and our cash, but it also changed the way we could go about with in infrastructure improvements where we were kind of being forced before into a situation where we were having to band-aid things as the problems arose. And we've much more shifted into a situation where we're being proactive

and getting after issues before they get bad. Um, revenues, as you can see, have grown. uh um for the last 10 years at a 4.3% annual compound rate keeping in mind that we had a little thing called COVID in the midst of that which obviously make those numbers a little less than they could have been and our economic base is strong um we've got about 20% of the county population here in Worcester but we have twothirds of the jobs so um again that that's a strength that we want to continue to maintain the other thing we have going again I mentioned public infrastructure a little bit. Um, we have a brand new fire station number one that was just completed a year year plus ago. We have a relatively new safety service center, street paving and repairs. Again, I talked about that a little bit. We're on top of that. Again, we had a lot of ground to make up when that income tax increase was passed. Um, but they've done a good job of doing that and we're now I don't know if John ever feels like we're ahead of the game, but we're certainly more so than we would have been a decade ago. um the multi-use pass um bike path, multi-use pass. Um we've had a pretty extensive uh uh network of those in the city. Um I think we're up to 8.4 miles and I think that's before we talk about the Miltown expansion that's going to go take place this spring. Um [snorts] and the sewer plant and the water plant. Um council, you probably you know how much money we've sunk into those in the last few years, which is kind of st you know. So the good, you know, the the negative part is it's kind of staggering what the cost is of of staying current in that the the good news is or the reassuring news for council in the community is that we're on top of that. So we have, you know, not only our current our current needs met met, but we have the ability to expand if necessary. Finally, want to talk about our vibrant

downtown. Another strength and maybe the most norworthy strength of the community. It's probably the hallmark if you have people from outside the community coming to town or visiting. It's the one that maybe sets us apart from a lot of similar communities. And the uh chart on the left um this won't surprise you to to hear that that's a a Jonathan Malay production. Uh Jonathan loves charts and graphs and data and that's a reflection of tax revenue received per parcel um throughout the whole city and you can see the light green is where the the most uh tax revenue is generated and that's centered around downtown. So despite the fact that that's probably the area of town where we've used tax incentives the most heaviest use of CRAAS that is now where we generate the most tax revenue. Um, so again, we want to make sure that our our downtown remains strong and remains viable. So with that as background or foundation of what are our strengths, what's our strategy moving forward and we've boiled it down to three things. Maintain our quality of life, expand our housing options, and strategic economic growth. our challenge and what is going to make these possible and it's kind of a yin and yang thing where you can say okay the challenge is going to make those three things hard but by the same token the reason we see these important is demographics and that's the handout I I gave to you only because the print is small enough on this that you may have trouble reading off the screen but Um, this really shows the the challenges we face and it's twofold. First, the bar graph on the bottom reflects Wayne County

population from 1800 on the far left up through 203 on the far right. And the the bright green uh bar there uh is the kind of the dividing line between past and future. That's 20 23. Make sure I have that right correct. So, the red is projection. But the important thing to see is for the first time really, we are now in a place where we're going to expecting no population growth in Wing County and even uh projecting a little bit of population loss uh few a few years down the road. More significant is the graph up in the upper left corner. Um that graph starts with 2023 on the left and runs 30 years out to 203. The red line projects um the workforce population which right now at least in 2023 was at about 76,000 people but over the next 30 years that's projected to drop to 70,000 people. So that's a challenge. But the blue line is even more concerning because that's projected school age population ages 5 through 19. And we're currently just under 24,000 in that number. But that's projected to fall by almost 25% over the next 20 years before it's starting to rebound. So the workforce issue is is not going away very quickly. So what are the consequences of that? And the other footnote I want to put in there is that um all these projections were made before recent changes in in federal immigration policy which are only going to impact these in a negative way. So what are the consequences? Smaller workforce, an increased burden on our health care system with an increased demand for services coupled with a reduction in reimbursement rates due to greater reliance on Medicare reimbursement, excuse me, on Medicare and Medicaid

reimbursement and financial challenges for all entities that rely on income taxes, which will be greatly magnified if property taxes would ever be abolished in Ohio. The bottom line is that we're facing a very competitive environment in Ohio and in Wayne County and Worcester when it comes to attracting and retaining young people. And when I say competitive, there's going to be winners and there's going to be losers um both at the state level, at the county level, and the city level. And we are not in a position where we can really sit rest on our laurels and say, well, everything's fine in Worcester. Um you know, we can just sit back and let things let the status quo continue. We have to continue to be aggressive in making this a community where people particularly young people want to come to and want to live at, work, raise their families. So that's a challenge for all of us. So let's dig a little bit into those three uh objectives we had. The first one was to maintain quality of life. Um for that we want to continue to improve our recreational offerings. Right now we're in the process of the Christmas Run pool rebuild. uh or I should say more correctly, we've started the demolition part of that with the rebuild to follow. Um I talked about the additional multi- um use trails and that red line there is the one from Melrose to Friendsville and construction I think in that is going to start this month. Continued retail growth um Chick-fil-A, Menard's Texas Roadhouse, we all anticipate those coming to town. And again, we don't build too much around retail growth that it happens kind of independent of what the city does. But what we do is we offer, excuse me, an environment where, you know, those national retail chains want to come to Worcester. And finally, the Bell Avenue street improvements that I touched on or we've talked about before. Um, [clears throat] this is not just going to improve the aesthetics of that neighborhood, improve

access to the hospital, but we're also hoping that it'll trigger private investment along um in that area. And, you know, I refer for more reading about that. You know, our comprehensive plan that dates to 2023 and was adopted in 2024, uh, has more details on what we're looking to accomplish there. The other thing we talked about in terms of the um quality of life is our health care system. Um a center around which community hospital, but not certainly that's not all that we have to offer healthwise, but that's certainly the the key piece to it. Um in addition to improving everyone's quality of life in the community through the services that provides our health care industry and the hospital again in particular is an economic driver in and of itself with the number of people employed in that all of you know our professionals that are highly compensated. So this is you know not just worth having because of what the services they provide to the community but also as far as the jobs that they provide and the ripple effect of that. So the second objective we have is to continue to expand our housing choices. Again, our goal is to improve the quality of our existing housing stock while at the same time adding new developments at the margins of the community um with regards to growth in units. Demand still exceeds supply, but we're making progress. We've added 232 housing units in the last three years. And in the last two years, Worcester has accounted for almost 45% of the new housing starts in Wayne County. As to the former, the improving existing housing stock, I've talked already about the improve the updated residential zoning code, which affects every zoning district, every residential development

in the city. I'll also mention the CHIP program, which is administered by the city of Worcester through Wayne County with the help of Wayne Metropolitan Housing Authority. We've recently received $1 million in funding for this year's projects, and about a third of that will end up being invested in the city of Worcester. As to the latter, the the Graham Farm could provide over 800 new home sites over the next decade, and the revisions to our residential zoning code now allow for more flexibility in what a new development could look like. And again, if you're not familiar with that, that center um graphic is the Graham Farm. Um shows the size that we're looking at there. And the right's an example of some of those different housing layouts that we've now um authorized or approved for use in new construction. And uh you know, anytime you're in in a crowd, particularly if you have a in a crowd of uh uh rural um development people, they will ask about farmland preservation. And [snorts] what we talk about over and over again is that development around a city making use of municipal water and sewer is a farmland preservation tool because it allows much denser growth because of its access to those municipal utilities as opposed to a development out in the middle of a rural area that requires private water well private septic. The last piece we want to touch on is strategic economic growth. Um, Worcester has traditionally relied on the strategic and intentional use of both tax abatements, usually in the form of a CRA, and tax increment financing, or TIFFs, which can come either in the form of an area tiff or a parcel tiff. CRAAS are largely responsible for our revitalized downtown and the industrial expansion of the last few decades. An area tiff made possible all the recent private development along Oakill and

Miltown roads as well as the infrastructure to go with it. A parcel tiff uh was used with the housing development at Silver Mechanicsburg roads. And as I mentioned, it was used to help pay for the infrastructure improvements here on Silver Road as well as the multi-use path along Venture Boulevard. Which leads me to our um challenge going forward when it comes to economic development. Um you know, the a dozen years ago or so, the city of Worcester made a major investment uh up along uh north of Old Airport Road um into what uh our industrial park is now. And at the time, I know um that the people involved in that were a little choked up over that decision um because it seemed like a lot of money at the time. and that has just paid off fantastically for the city. We can almost go project by project, but I'll just throw out two. Uh I'll throw out three to start with. First of all, um Daisy when they came along, you know, we had a spot for them to go. When Wister Brush was looking to expand and they also were looking outside of Wayne County, we able to keep them in town. And then most recently Jarrett Logistics that again was looking to locate outside of not just Wayne County. I think they were looking at sites outside of the state too and we were able to keep them local. Um, so all of those came about and I don't want to slide anybody else that's out there because we have a lot of great companies that have located out there and uh built. But um, all of those came about because we had land available to steer them to. And so that's the good news. The bad news is we pretty much built out that area. And the question now going forward, just like we did with the Graham farm in making land available for future residential development, is where

are we going to site future industrial growth over the next decade? And that's a challenge that we're taking on with Wayne Econ Wayne Economic Development Council. Um, and as you might imagine, um, it's not necessarily that easy to find sites that can accommodate a a facility like some of those, like the Jarrett site, like the Wister Brush site. You've got to have the utilities. You've got to have the roadways. It's got to be properly topography. So, um, there's a limited number of sites available. on this map. I think uh Jonathan could explain better, but I think shows some of the potential sites that that would be uh in consideration for where we could be looking. But again, that's kind of our next challenge. The other big challenge, and again, I'll refer this, this is two drawings uh or charts out of our comprehensive plan. And if you've not looked at it a while, the comprehensive plan is a reflection of where we want to be, where we want to grow, and how we want to grow. And these are just two of many examples in there. And the question is, you know, how at what pace do we go with these projects? And all of them will require will require infrastructure improvements to make them happen. And when you do that, how do we pay for it? Do we pay for it out of our capital budget? Do we borrow money for it? Do we um use um tiffs of some sort, whether an area tiff or a partial tiff to help provide funding for it? So, that'll be our challenge going forward is, you know, we know what we we know we where we want to be. Question is, how do we get there? What pace uh and h and how do we pay for it? So, with that, I'll just turn to my conclusion very quickly. Um, this is our 250th celebration all year long, the semisesqua centennial. I got that

memorized, so I like to use that as often as I can because I can't imagine I'll get chance to do so after this year. Um, Wayne County Convention and Visitors Visitors Bureau is coordinating the events in Wayne County this year in Worcester. Those events are going to reach a crescendo during the 45 days beginning with the Memorial Day parade uh and uh ending with July 5th. Um if you're not familiar um Friday is July 3rd, Saturday July 4th, Sunday July 5th. The again Memorial Day parade is on May 25th. 10 days later, GOA or the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure will be making its third trip through Worcester in late June and we'll be spending two nights in town. Um on Friday, July 3rd, we are planning a bigger than normal musical event on the square sponsored by Main Street. On Saturday the 4th, we'll have the traditional Oll, you know, highlight opera concert on the square early in the evening. And then that evening, Saturday night, uh we expect we're going to have the biggest firework show ever in Worcester. We've uh talked about that briefly here, but we've given Gil Ning the green light to take it a step above and he seemed anxious to do so. Then finally, we want to wrap things up that weekend with a uh kind of a capstone event on Sunday afternoon on the square. details are still in the works, but it's looking at something that's going to tie off the weekend very well for us. So, with that, um, thank you for your patience and listening to me drone on. Uh, I do enjoy giving this talk. It's we have a lot of things to be proud of. A lot of big goals, um, but, uh, I think they're all worthwhile and, uh, we can't accomplish them all at one time, but, we can certainly chew away at them. So, um, again, I thank you for your time. Thank you for your service.

And thank you, Mr. Mayor. [clears throat] Hey, do you want the mouse back? Yeah. Yeah. How was that? Oh, you all right, bud? So, so funny, Craig. Pleasure standing outside with Oh, you did? That's funny. I joked with Craig that we made you the the crowd outside. I was [clears throat] I can try and got it too. I can try and wrestle it. Or do you have you looked at it? It really looks like

I work really hard on that. I don't know if anybody even knows it's there. I used it flour and alfredo.

I know, right? like we need to find another seat for sure. Holy [ __ ] I thought they were all going. We're going to go into that meeting. We're like, that's just going to stand here and keep them out. Show that. Uh John's hair. The flow being is not going well. Hey, how you doing? Yeah, I'm sorry. What's going on? No, no. I I apologize. I have been I had a very long doctor's appointment today. So, yes.

So, anyway, uh anything on here? Nothing. Nothing makes sense to me. Same stuff. By too minious. What's that? furniture by two minus uh by two minutes. By two minutes and a half. Got it. Thank you. Okay, that's fine. Allow for immediate hand. So, this is all budget. Yes. And if you look at my program signing off, I may defer to you on this. Uh usually I have a lot more time to prep and I'm on the fly. I have quite a bit of stuff to deal with before we get to this. And we got mowing on here. Yeah, that I understood.

That's fine, too. Thanks. You got to train up a new guy, huh, Kurt? [laughter] Kurt, you you didn't you didn't have Malta's uh resolution tonight, did you? I don't. No, that would have been fine. Probably Malta has a late scratch. So, okay. I was scrambling. Was that a utility one? Yeah. Okay. Uh from Mike Fritz. I would assume John might be doing it, so it's not a big deal. How are you? How's your trip?

Did Did you have Maltas? Did you have Maltas? All right. So, if I need anything, I'll swing it to you. Roof replacement. Okay. I got through all of mine. I didn't get through everything today. I got a lot of things I'm chasing right now.

Come on. How's your trip? It's very good. It's a little too long though. Not here anymore. That's a long time. And then when he come back, he's like, I need a vacation again. Now I came home and I was sick. I don't get sick. So you said So that makes it worse. Yeah. [snorts] I ran into the earth eggs. You ran into the earth? Yeah.

Yeah. Absolute. All right, good evening. It is uh after 700 p.m. This is the regularly scheduled city council meeting being held here in Worcester City Council Chambers. It is March 2nd, 2026. And the meeting is also being livereamed on YouTube. Uh, our next meeting will be on Monday, March 16th. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the council members that are in attendance. Mr. Abernathy here, Mr. Gaffy here, Mr. Jose

here, Mr. Malta, Mr. Owens here, Mr. Paul here, Miss Warden here.

Uh, and we had uh been notified by Mr. from Malta that he had a family emergency that came up here late in the afternoon. So that's why he is not here this evening. Uh with that loss, we still have a quorum and the agenda will remain as presented. At this time, I'll ask you to stand and join the members of city council in reciting the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I could have a motion to approve our minutes from our last meeting.

So moved. Is there a second? Second. A second. All in favor of approval signify by saying I. I. I. All right. Minutes are approved. Communications from the mayor. Good evening.

Good evening, Mr. President, councel. Um, first of all, my thanks for sitting patiently through uh my bloation here the uh first half hour. Um, but uh I'm going to give you a little more now. Looking forward. Just first of all, I want to point out, I don't know if you caught this, but yesterday was the 223rd anniversary of Ohio State. So, happy birthday, Ohio. Um, second, I want to mention the winter newsletter. Um, again, Landry gets a lot of credit for that. I don't know if she's just she's there in the back row. Um, we also kind of beefed up just the presentation of this a little bit. And amazingly enough, it actually cost less than what we did previously. So, go figure. But I' I've had a lot of good responses. Hopefully, you have as well from the community. And I' again, I think most of it's just in the presentation. Some of it caught more people's attention than in the past because I think a lot of the information we had there is stuff that had been in previous editions. No knock on Landry, but um it was just the it caught people's attention better. So, we're glad to see that. Just to recap the last couple weeks, um on the 19th sat on a WDC panel with the US Representative Max Miller, Ohio Senator Al Landis, Representative Meredith Craig, Commissioners Hosteller McMillan, and mayors Plybon from Orville and Arnold from Ripman. We just talked about local government issues. Some of you I know were in attendance. Um I think that think that went very well. We had about 300 people in attendance from the county. Um and again very well received. They said that's their biggest uh event of the year. So go figure. Um the 19th we also had the open house at the Buckeye A Museum and uh I got some of those questions about farmland preservation that night. So you know and knowing where I was going and knew that was going to happen but it went fine. Um the 20th was Fiesta Friday and uh I'm going to mention that uh for a couple reasons. It's our you know twice a year

we do employee recognitions or not just employee but former employees um volunteers that serve on the commissions. just kind of a nice event. And uh that one was a little special because assistant fire chief Scott Kyper was recognized by the Worester Police Department for his actions following Chief Fischer's brain aneurysm, which coincidentally, and I'm sure he's got this uh date zeroed in, was uh a year ago, February 25th. They happened to be the same date the they opened the new hospital ER. Uh as Chief Fischer so eloquently says, Scott uh didn't save his life. he didn't let him die. So, uh that was kind of a nice uh recognition of uh um Assistant Chief Kyper and again um Matt, it's great to have you back and it's amazing the journey you've been on over this past year and uh just something special. Um, also participated in a phone interview with the the impact group regarding what city school strategic planning issues and we're going to see how that's going. Um, had a chance last Saturday um, at the I guess 10 days ago now the OHUtddle annual dinner. Um, we were recognized really I get the award myself but it was really a city-wide recognition for our support of the OH Huddle program. um which I is a if you're not familiar with it a tremendous mentorship program. It's really throughout the county. I think they've got like 800 kids now in the county involved. Um happy to report that the Wink County I think this was just recently in the paper that Wink County Sports Hall of Fame had their election last Sunday and we've got three former Worster High School athletes being added to the Wink County Sports Hall of Fame. Andrew Bender, Abby Cassandi Majeski and Joy Taylor. uh on the 23rd which is a week ago Monday I did this the presentation

state of the city you just saw was given to Worcester Rotary that same day we met with WDC leadership to discuss that issue I mentioned in the state of the city about um economic development sites where we go to next and and when I say we it's really not just a Worcester city issue it's really a Wayne County issue of you know where because those sites are scattered around through the county and we want to be able to point to both our existing employers and to future prospective employers, you know, where we can site them. The 25th, we had a uh quarterly we have a Wayne County mayor's meeting out at the career center. Um this time the WDC coincident coincidentally did the presentation. Uh on a related note, we are restarting again the quarterly Tri City mayor's meetings, Worester Orville, Ripman. That's going to take place tomorrow morning, I think at 9:00. 8:30 whatever we'll be do meeting here. Um again uh Mayor Plybin and myself are relatively new. We're both starting our third year. Mayor Arnold from Redmond is brand new and it's a good chance for different communities to collaborate. U we have a lot of the same issues, some different issues, some we have more experience in, some they have more experience in. So um looking forward to that. Um the 26th um did a radio interview with Tanya Bohannan from K Love Radio, which I was not familiar with, but it's a national radio chain regarding current events. So I guess be listening for that. I suppose it was very I wasn't clear on when it was going to be trotted out, but hopefully that came off okay. The 26th then that evening we had the chamber dinner. Know many of you were in tenants at that. We had almost 900 people there. uh just a great celebration of the community and and all the positive things we have going on in Wayne County. This morning then was the annual Wayne Health District Advisory Council meeting and I brought back extra copies of their annual report. It's

always got some interesting factoids in there that um you might find of interest. Um you may read through that. Not surprisingly, uh uh vaccinations are down, communicable diseases are up. Go figure. Um and then this uh noon today I attended the second handout gave all kinds of handouts today. So you have all kind kinds of stuff to take home. Uh Rotary had a presentation from the RT Rails to Trails Conservancy. Um they talked about the Great American Rail Trail. That's a bike trail that's intended to extend from Washington DC to Washington State. Uh and it does pass through Wayne County. It bypasses the city of Worcester as currently planned, but there's certainly a possibility as you can see from the map in here about putting a an alternate route through Worcester. Right now it run from Orville to Fredericksburg along the east side. But certainly if if once that's a reality, I don't know there's any question that someday it will be um that's going to bring a lot of tra um tourist traffic through Wayne County and and some of it could end up in Worcester. So that was really uh good to hear. Just quick uh look ahead next week meeting with Gabe Tutor to get an update on facilities planning. We're also starting we have two you probably have seen the flyers or the announcements coffee and conversations with the mayor events. One's on the 12th that's at Mariel Italian afterwork and then um the next one's on the 14th and that's at the library and that's Saturday morning I believe. Um, also on the 12th there's a Wayne County Food Bank open house at the former JM Smucker store in Orville. We'll be at um the 13th the engineering or I'm sorry, Phil's familiar with this, but we're celebrating Pi Day out at Idis Sue for lunch. Um 3:14 really is Pi Day, but that's a Saturday, so they're

recognizing it on the 13th. Um Joel was not able to be here tonight. a couple things from his newsletter he wanted us to highlight. Um, first of all, he he was gone much of last week. He was presenting at the Ohio City and County Management Association convention down in the Cincinnati area. Um, and you know, I Joel is a government nerd. He loves that stuff. He loves good government and he was uh certainly in his uh you know in his happy place I'm sure while he was down there. One thing he was he brought out that was interesting was there was a property tax panel. They're talking about the whole idea of the abolition of property tax and on the panel were uh the Ohio Township Association, the Ohio Schoolboard Association, the Ohio Municipal League and the Ohio County Commissioners Association. It is rare you see all four of those groups aligned on the same issue. This is one that they were because this is, you know, potentially going to impact all of those organizations. So, something to keep in mind. Um, Gashi Street, the new water man has been installed. Um, and, uh, again, I mentioned the Christmas Run pool renovations are underway. Quick agenda review. uh 202604 which would automatically raise the competitive bidding threshold on an annual basis to keep pace with inflation is on third reading. 2026 which is the proposed CRA with compact and starbaker is on second reading. There are 10 new pieces of legislation on first reading. All but the first item 202608 are budgeted. That first item isn't budgeted because it involves a grant that we hadn't even applied for when the budget was submitted to council in December. Um, WGO can make use of those two additional vehicles as soon as they are available. So, you may decide

that the suspension of the rules is in order tonight. Otherwise, I'm not aware of any particular urgency to any of the other items except I will just always note that managers are always anxious to get going with the bidding process. Uh so the sooner the better as far as they're concerned. Um in addition to the handouts I've mentioned, there's a few more I want to touch on. The first is a is a drawing that may look a little familiar and I just this happened across my desk this week and I just pulled it out. Um this isn't a Worcester City project. This is the Five Points project on 585 and five points north of Smithville. So this apparently um is they're just finishing the engineering part of this. So it's summer of 2027. So we're a year off from that. Um the second is a proclamation that we made um on behalf of the Red Cross declaring March American Red Cross month. So I'm not going to I won't bore you with reading through that or or lengthening this any longer. It has to be, but want to make you aware of that. And finally, I want to speak just a moment with regards to comments made last week regarding that first piece of business on tonight's agenda. There was a suggestion that the bid limit um keeping it where it currently is would somehow make taxpayers funds more secure. That is not accurate. If it were, I would suggest that we go back to the previous threshold of $50,000. The reason that we increase the bid limits from $50,000 to $75,000 recognize that failing to increase bid limits to keep pace with inflation actually cost the taxpayers money. Not only are there actual costs involved in the competitive bidding process, probably in excess of $1,000 if you consider the out-of- pocket cost plus time and labor, but you also will get fewer takers on a bidding process as opposed to when you just go out and try to purchase something.

So, so there becomes a point of diminishing returns when you're talking about competitive bidding. Um, the reality is that the security of the taxpayers's money is assured by the services, excuse me, by the practices and procedures of the finance department as well as the annual outside audits of the city finances. So, I've said this, I think, three meetings in a row. As the administration, we support passage of 20264, but it's purely a council decision. And if you choose not to, that's fine. Um, I just want to make it clear that failure to adopt this ordinance will not make taxpayer funds any safer and it will actually cost the taxpayers a little bit of more money. So with that, Mr. President,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our next item of business is petitions, which we have none. uh communications from the public which no one has signed up related to agenda items. We do have uh nine people that have signed up for the miscellaneous portion which will come later in the meeting which brings us now to committee reports and public hearings which we have uh none of those this evening as well. So, we will move directly into unfinished business, which uh the first order of business is ordinance 2026-04. And Miss Hamilton, you could please read it for us.

Ordinance number 2026-04, an ordinance amending chapter 160, bidding procedures and contract requirements, section 160.03, 03 bidding procedures of the codified ordinances of the city of Worcester, Ohio by increasing the competitive bidding threshold in accordance with section 9.17 of the Ohio Revised Code. Mr. Abernathy, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for uh giving the clarification on some of those. Those are some of my thoughts as well because in in my view a lot of contractors look at much larger projects that they want to bid on. They're they're not seeking and I don't know I know that what was it maybe a year ago year and a half ago uh Joel did show us what the process is to bid. It's it's not as simple as here's my quote. It is a significant process and a a lot of vendors look at that and say for $50,000 I don't want to fill out a book. And so, um, this was kind of my, uh, purpose for wanting to get behind this is it does cost us because we're likely not going to get the best price because we're only going to get perhaps maybe one bid or two bids rather than having a competitive bidding process. So, that has been my viewpoint since we first saw it and now we're bringing it back again. So offering my opinion on that since I was not at the last meeting. But seeing as this is the third reading, I do want to open it up to the rest of council so that we can uh continue the dialogue and if there's any additional questions for the mayor or Mr. Doria,

I did have one quick question, Andre. So the um so the way that this is written, we don't have to approve it every time that inflation number comes out, right? It's just automatically pegged to that and it will stay there. Correct. Okay. Yeah. That's state law written similar [clears throat] to the state law. Yes.

Okay. Um because I remember last year, two years ago, we tried to we tried to get a little wonky and a little ahead of ourselves by separating the council authorization limit and the bid limit. And we saw that list of some of the things that kind of fall into that gray area. I mean, I have it here if anybody wants to see it, but I mean, it's rather mundane, kind of boring stuff that I think at the end of the day just um kind of took more of our time and we had to kind of rush to get some things passed that were just emergency in nature. you know, uh, tree events. If there's a tree event that exceeds the limit, all of a sudden we've got to come back and need council authorization just to remove some trees and clear some streets. Um, and just the final point I would make, I mean it's right here in the ordinance that this will affect the city of Worcester, but I think probably more importantly, uh, this affects the Worcester Community Hospital and the way they do business and the way they do their bids as well, which inflation's probably hitting them twice as hard, if not more, than what we're seeing. So, I'm I'm just I make those points just to say I'm in support of this and um I look forward to any fraud that you might catch, Mr. Gordia.

Any additional comments or questions? I think my only question was kind of what I asked last time that uh the 3% that's set by the state. Um I guess my question was is that something that you know could change? Is it something that, you know, could uh like we're we're thinking 3% inflation, but if the state sets it at, you know, 5% or something like that. Um, the way this is written it, I'm guessing that it would follow whatever that amount is. So, it wouldn't just be a locked in 3% necessarily. It would be whatever the state sets. Is that correct?

My understanding is the amounts would be set by I think it was Department of Commerce. Um I don't have the I should have pulled the resolution back up on my laptop. Um but essentially whatever the state is setting it at is what council or what it would automatically set to. But one thing as a charter municipality at any point, you know, that's it's something that that council has the authority to look at and always revise numbers there's comfortable.

Okay. And as a side note too, I mean every county township that runs statutory regulations which basically mimic or or follow the state verbatim. They already have this. They're already operating under this process.

I would say that and you touched on it. the challenges we face at keeping costs down from a medical basis through the hospital system override my concerns of maintaining the purse strings. Um, having served on a couple committees now, I can tell you that our hospital administration works diligently to keep those costs down. And if this is a tool that they need to continue to do that so that we can provide premium services through the hospital, then this has my support. Okay. It is a shame that Mr. Malta can't be here as he had very uh passionate opinions on it. Um, personally, I like the fact that we are a charter city and can leverage things as we so choose. And, you know, we talked about it last time. It's about 10ish extra things that come before us. I don't mind looking at 10 extra things.

Any additional comments or questions? Then with this being the third reading, I motion to adopt. Motion to adopt by Mr. Abernathy. Is there a second? Second. Second by Miss Warden. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Abernathy? Yes. Miss Warden? Yes. Mr. Gaffy? Yes. Mr. Owens? No. Mr. Jose? Yes. Mr. Paul? Yes.

Okay. So, motion is approved. Our next item of unfinished business, ordinance 2026-06. Uh, Miss Hamilton, will you please read it for us? Ordinance number 2026-06, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Compact LLC and Starbaker 2570 LLC for community reinvestment area tax incentives and allowing for immediate enactment. Mr. President, I'll be recusing myself. All right. Thank you, Mr. A and with that, Mr. Abernathy, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. President. Well, we have our CRA for compact here. This one's been talked about quite a bit. Um, we will not be able to move on it tonight uh without a super majority. Anything else we want to discuss on this? Any additional questions? Perhaps for the benefit of all of those in attendance, we may just want to talk about a little bit of what all it entails, right? Of not only will the city grow some jobs, but also um the particular parcel of land. If we could scroll down to it real quick. So, uh where the facility will go is actually sitting on it was a 30 degree incline,

30 foot

30 foot elevation change. though that area will need to be bulldozed, extensive earth work. So in addition to jobs, the city will also get a nice new facility and also an area that is fit for development and uh use. And there's a little bit of history behind this as well as uh council had seen a similar uh project like this in the past uh and passed on it and the 10 years would have been up this year and uh a township outside of the city is reaping the benefits of it. So uh there's a new opportunity from the same company. So, we think that this could be a good opportunity for us to uh work with this company again and like you said, build a continue to build that rep relationship and bring new jobs in and have a nice piece of real estate that we can continue to develop. So, any additional conversation around it?

All right, we'll leave this on second reading and move it to the next meeting. All right. Thank you. All right, [snorts] we'll move on to new business. Uh, ordinance 2026-08. Miss Hamilton, if you could please read it for us. Ordinance number 2026-08, an ordinance amending the annual appropriation ordinance and allowing for immediate enactment.

Mr. Abernathy, the floor is yours. All right. So, it appears that we got some grants to get some new buses. We got quite a bit, but there is going to be a bit of a gap that we need to fill and we're going to have to uh appropriate some funds to get those buses. So, [clears throat] I believe um Oh gosh, Kevin was here earlier. Is Kevin still here? Kevin, why don't you kind of tell us a little bit about those grants and uh what all they entail and tell us a little bit about the buses. You can pick me up. All right, cool. All right, so hi everyone. My name is Kevin White. I'm the public transportation manager working on the WGO project. So if you've seen the the city buses going around, uh so specifically this grant is outside of the normal state transit grant where it just appropriate um funds every July 1 is one of those funds. This is outside of that for u specifically um workforce projects. So we've got fixed route loop in Worcester and the vehicles that we currently have that got a great price from other systems. We actually didn't pay anything for them. They were transferred to us from ODOT. They work well but they only have eight seats on them. And when you go to the college and so many other places that a lot of people get on impact, we quickly fill up eight seats and our choice is either leave that person behind or u between two and six. We have the most riders. We actually run two vehicles. So, um we applied for this grant um very close to the deadline. We're very fortunate to get um and this would get us two new vehicles that would go still below the nonCDL limit. So, we wouldn't have buses like they have in Cleveland or Chicago, but uh we have one bus has 14 seats and then um we have one wheelchair in the

back to that one. And then we're getting another bus that is um 13 foldable seats or foldable seats in the back that could have four wheelchair spots. Um so that's kind of what we're um looking to purchase. How quickly could we expect to get them if we were to pass tonight and give you the go-ahhead and you start ordering.

So the vendor has a 3 to six month lead time. So not as bad as a firetruck but still not not until kind of midsummer. Um and then also in the so it's an 8020 match. So 80% would be coming from federal funds and 20% would be the city's portion for purchasing just the vehicles. Um this we have a little bit more. So like a 22% local match because um we have to put the decals and the different signage which isn't covered with the grant. So um sometime in late summer I'd really like to get moving on it so we can [clears throat] be ready for next college year. But then when August hits they're going to get all their dorm stuff that first week we are just crazy busy. So really helpful.

Okay. So Kevin, are these costs we're looking at? This is the total upfit charge then. Yes. Like it's purchased through the state's um shared purchasing agreement. [snorts] So they give us what's called a BCW vehicle cost worksheet and we select the different options and we work with the vendor to to kind of make that bus work. But it's all kind of create. So we don't go through that bing product. We actually pay our portion to ODOT and then ODOT places the order for us. Okay. And then based on the the paperwork you included, we as a city are not actually spending $265,000 like technically, but our portion is more like the 65 grand, right? Because the the grant is Yeah, that's probably our portion is a 65.

Perfect. Um, what are we going to do with the existing vehicles? I assume those will still be used but perhaps leverage in less high demand times or Yeah. So the right now we are struggling to keep a spare vehicle ratio because there's not a lot of places in Wayne County to fix like transit doors and stuff that break. Um so shortterm they help us with the spare ratio but also we're working with Orville and some other different connections um around the county. Our goal is with with going to Waco and rural transit system is we're trying to get to like a countywide system. So we're starting here in Worcester in a one mile radius, but once we kind of leverage some other agreements and and areas, we'll be able to use those vehicles for for other services.

Excellent. Kevin, will this give the uh WGO program an opportunity to expand hours? I know that's been something that's limiting and maybe that's based on manpower versus uh buses, but I know that's also something that people have reached out and want to more coverage.

Uh so actually today we had a a slight change in our service hours for demand response. We have two different services. So there's the fixed route service. Those hours didn't change. Um, Toby, we're still running 7 am to 8:00 p.m. the later hours right now because we track all our data and everything, it really drops after like 6 p.m. for both services, but especially for our demand response. Um, as far as like having vehicles, it's really just ridership. We don't want to put a lot of vehicles and um we work with the contract. We don't put a lot of hours out there. Uh, we don't have a lot of ridership because this is a competitive grant for vehicular systems. But um as demand grows and things that always potential for hours, but nothing with this specific item would completely change any hours.

What I'm familiar with and I think that I think that you are too is um I know that one of the facilities in town that um is operated by Goodwill or maybe I guess it is a Goodwill um facility that they start earlier than than our buses start running. though for their employment population, a lot of whom rely on public transportation, it is challenging for them to get to their job. So, so they're starting to I may have missed but today we actually moved our um demand response up to 6 a.m. to accommodate that. So, I misunderstood that. Sorry, I I think I said 7 a.m., but um 6 a.m. we now start because with all the industrial growth we've we've seen and all the different employers, they're using it um to get to work, but they're getting a lot of special accommodations to be like 10 15 minutes late to for a job that starts at 7.

And again, we we look at the data and it is like right out the gate, we're crazy busy. So, we bumped up our hours to 6 a.m., but we did drop that um 700 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. time slot. So, that just started. We have to because of the federal funds and everything, we have to go through public notice period. So we just started on yesterday. So for the first day, we got to do like 30. Thank you,

Kevin. Good evening. First of all, I want to congratulate you. We get a tremendous amount of positive response for WGO and I'm sure that that has a lot to do with your hard work. So, thank you. Um, we have a great safety record. Tell us, will there be additional safety training for the drivers respective to these vehicles? How will that work? So all the the all of our Waco drivers have to go through a twoe training process. So that would continue with the I don't believe we're anticipating any new hires right now with this, but any future drivers to go through that. They all have to do a drug and alcohol pre-employment test and then random drug and alcohol testing. That's fine.

And then all our vehicles are equipped with two-way cameras. So camera facing out and a camera facing in. And I know we it's popular, but AI, we're using AI in there. Our contractor is where it'll tell you, you know, if you're following too closely. If the driver checks their phone, you know, it'll tell you, put your phone down or whatever. So, there's a lot of of safety going into toes.

Thank you. You expect with the increased capacity that there will be an increase in revenue like more people demanding rides? Uh so the increase so right now on our fixed route the general public pays $1 and then anyone over the age of 62 person with disabilities or veterans ride for free. So it's not really a revenue generator but I definitely anticipate cost um savings on not having to run that 4hour shift of a second or like you call a sweeper vehicle.

Um so right now [clears throat] a revenue hour costs us about $60 on our contract. So each week we spend about $1,200 running that second vehicle just to pick up a few stragglers. We don't have to run that in a year. Pretty significant cost savings. We don't run it over all the whole year, but when the college isn't in session, we can kind of taper that. But most weeks running a second vehicle right now. Okay. Any additional questions or comments? Then I'm going to motion to suspend the rules. Motion [clears throat] to suspend the rules. Is there a second? Second. Second. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on suspension of the rules. Mr. Abernathy? Yes. Mr. Gaffy? Yes.

Miss Warden? Yes. Mr. Jose? Yes. Mr. Owens? Yes. Mr. Paul? Yes. A motion to adopt. Motion to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Second. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Miss Bordon, yes. Mr. Jose. Yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. All right. Thank you.

Uh, next item, resolution 2026-09. We'll switch it up and go to Miss Warden. But first, we'll have Miss Hamilton read it for us. Resolution number 2026-09, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for the construction of parking lots on city-owned property on North Street and on Bell Avenue within the city of Worcester and allowing for immediate enactment. Men, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Um, this resolution involves city- owned lots that are located um on North Street between Beaver Street and Bell Avenue as well as the southwest corner of North Street and Bell. If approved, it would authorize the administration to seek bids to construct paved parking lots on those properties. And that would add a total of 50 public parking spaces to our downtown area. With the success of the business already operating on the east side of downtown and the additional development that's being planned, this will be a strong benefit to that area. The estimated cost of the project is $350,000, which is already included in our budget. Um, and I did have a conversation with Mr. Rice the other day to just find out exactly what was going to be planned. I think landscaping is mandatory now based on our um planning and zoning booklet, but we are still looking into um what we might be able to afford in terms of lighting, um signage, those types of things. Um and this will all be free public parking. These are not leased spaces. So that is u music to my ears. So um as this is budgeted I make a motion to adopt.

Motion to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Second. Uh is there any conversation, questions, comments? I know I have a question to for Mr. Rice. Is this aisle width and uh actual parking space is going to fall more under our standardized required under the city's zoning code or are we going to go back to are we going to do what we did down here at the by muddies and create these mini spaces that you can barely drive a vehicle through?

It will be more like the one on North Street that it's going right next to. So, it's going to be 90° parking. And it's not going to be the angle parking. So we're back to a 24 foot aisle width and 9 ft by 20 foot 18T. Okay. You got Yeah, cuz that mini space down there is Yeah, you'll be able to park your truck in it. I was going to say you can tell I can park my truck in the small one downtown, but at this point everybody can get by. Everybody touches me when I do it. [laughter] Yeah. All right. Well, with that, Miss Hamilton, you please call the role on the approval. Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes.

Mr. Jose, yes. All right. Motion [clears throat] is approved. Uh, resolution 2026-10. Miss Hamilton, if you'll please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-10, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for the reconstruction of the intersection of Foster Path and Popppler Street and allowing for immediate enactment. Miss Warden, the floor is yours.

Thank you. This resolution addresses the intersection at Foster Path and Popular Street, which is currently in very poor condition and continues to have significant drainage issues. If approved, the city would um be authorized to advertise for bids to replace the pavement and adjust the vertical alignment of the intersection so that the water drains properly. This has been an ongoing frustration for the residents in the area as well as for city maintenance crews who have had to repeatedly address the problem. Estimated cost to replace the intersection is $100,000 and funding for this project is already included in our budget. And so I'll motion to adopt. Motion to adopt by Miss Warden. Second, second by Mr. Mr. Abernathy. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Abernathy,

yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Jose, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh, next item, resolution 2026-11. Also will be introduced by Miss Warden, but Miss Hamilton, please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-11, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for the construction of curb ramps and allowing for immediate enactment. Morgan, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Um, this resolution requests authorization to advertise for bids and enter into contract uh for the curb ramp portion of our fiscal year 2027 resurfacing project. Um, this work will include 51 curb ramps at 12 different intersections along portions of East Bowman Street, Palmer Street, and Long Road. Council previously approved the ODOT LPA agreement for the overall fiscal year 27 resurfacing project under resolution 2025-60 and this is part of that effort. Uh, in addition, this project is necessary in order to meet OD ODOT's ADA requirements and it is required in order for the city to receive the ODOT funding for the resurfacing project. The estimated cost for the curb ramp work is $275,000 and it is already included in our approved budget. And so I will again motion to adopt.

Second to adopt. Second. Second by Mr. Paul. Sorry, I just had a quick question. Do we know how much of the large city funds we're getting for this project? We're not getting any for this project because it would be taking away from the resurfacing project, right? I meant we need it to be able to get the access to those that those it'll be around $500,000. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. John, what portions of Long Road? I'm trying to picture where it's going to just um out by 585. That's the only place. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, cuz probably the only other curb ramp is probably right there at the Enterprise.

I was going to say I don't see many pedestrians going up and down Long Road. Yeah, most of the work's going to be on East Bland Street.

All right, Miss Hamilton, please call the role. Miss Bordon, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. Mr. Jose, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Okay, next item. Resolution 2026-12. Miss Hamilton, if you'll please read it for us.

Resolution number 2026-12, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for the installation of storm sewers on North Market Street and a portion of West Lwell Street and lining the existing sanitary sewer on North Market Street and allowing for immediate enactment.

Miss Warden, the floor is yours. All right. This resolution requests authorization to seek bids again for improvement work, this time on North Market Street, so right out these front doors here. Um, as well as a portion of West Larwell Street. Uh, specifically, the project includes installing new storm sewers along North Market Street north of Larwell where there's currently no storm sewers, which I was surprised to learn. Um, it will also include lining uh the existing vitrified clay sanitary sewer on North Market Street to help reduce infiltration and inflow into our sanitary sewer system. Construction will take place on North Market from Liberty Street to West Bowman. So, basically all of this [laughter] down to the square. Um, council previously authorized submitting this project for Ohio Public Works Commission funding under resolution 2025-37, and I'm happy to share that it's been approved by OPWC district for funding. Uh, the total estimated construction cost is $1 million. OPWC will contribute up to $500,000 of that amount, 350,000 as a grant and 150,000 as a loan. The remaining funds are already included in our budget. I believe that covers everything without getting too technical. Mr. Rice, is there anything I missed? No, I know we talked about a few things on that. I will say he's very excited that he can um very easily oversee this project from his office window.

Yeah. Yeah. No, but this is not a fun way to spend a great deal of money, but it's something that needs to happen. So, I'm going to motion to approve. Motion to adopt by Miss Warden. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Abernathy. Uh my only question is what's the timing on this? It will be probably August for the start of this year because even though OPWC has approved it, we don't [snorts] get the award until after the state fiscal year starts and we can't award a contract until after that. Yeah. Okay. So we we'll miss part of it and part of it we won't.

Oh well. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. mayor owe something just I want to point out that you know part of that is as indicated by this one is a loan it's a 0% okay so nice deal okay how long do we have to pay that back typically 20 years okay 20 year probably been anywhere 15 to 30 g as far as 30 but typically 20 years all right well Sam, please call the role on the adoption. Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Paul, yes.

Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Jose, yes. All right. Very good. Uh, next item is budgeted resolution 2026-13. This will be introduced by Mr. Paul. But before that, Miss Hamilton, if you could please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-13, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for the phase 3 city hall window replacement project and allowing for immediate enactment. Mr. Paul, the floor is yours.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Very simply, this is a three-part three-phase project to upgrade the windows at city hall. In doing so, we gain energy efficiency and uh we put, you know, 60-y old windows typically need replaced. So, uh this is a budgeted item. I think it's pretty cut and dry. It will save on cost. It will increase our energy efficiency and we should finish the project. I will open the floor for any questions or where's the final part of the building that needs done. Just curious stuff center. The two wings including in here, [clears throat] right? Okay.

Yeah, that's my understanding. So, that that should hopefully help with some of our climate control. So, when summer comes, we won't melt to death. Does it warm us up this time? [laughter] Hopefully next year it'll warm you a little bit more. Jonathan's guarantee on that. Um I I do have a question. Do we know if we are using um bird safe glass as we are in a a bird migration corridor? Um and as a burer myself, I do worry about bird strikes and things of that nature.

So our building official would be the best person to help. Oh well, um I'm I do remember that conversation. Sorry.

Good evening. My name is Joe Boddar. That's B is in boy O D N A R building official here at the city. Uh Mr. Council President, members of council, thank you very much. Um to answer that question, we had not incorporated that specifically. There are tempered glass units that then when they are within a certain walking distance, height and parallel that that's a that's a tempered glass product. Um, I can look into whether or not uh we don't have the requirement for the upper uh at the molan or the mutton uh location where those very high windows come together. I can double check to make sure that we get that included uh into that one and put that up.

That'd be great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bunner. Any other discussion? Mr. President, you move to adopt. Motion to adopt by Mr. Paul. Is there a second? Second. Second. Is that you, Mr. Jose? Miss Warren can take it. You can call dibs on it. I've talked enough tonight. [laughter] Okay. [snorts] All right. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Paul? Yes. Mr. Jose? Yes. Mr. Owens? Yes. Mr. Gaffy? Yes. Miss Warden? Yes, Mr. Abernathy.

Yes. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, next item, resolution 2026-14. Uh, Miss Hamilton, if you please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-14. Resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for furnishing by 2 minutes material and allowing for immediate enactment. Uh, Mr. Paul, the floor is yours.

My tomiest material, asphalt. So, uh, anybody that has been walking around on our streets and seen the wonderful job that our snow removal did will also see that our curbs in our streets have taken a beating from that snow and ice from the last year. So, having asphalt on hand to help plug some of the potholes, get get the streets smoothed out is essential for efficient operations in town. This is a budgeted item. Um, I open the floor for discussion. With no discussion, I move to adopt. Motion to adopt by Mr. Paul. Is there a second by Mr. Abernathy? Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Paul, yes.

Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Jose, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Okay, we have asphalt. Next item, resolution 2026-15. Uh, Miss Hamilton, if you please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-15, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for mowing services for city-owned property and allowing for immediate enactment. Mr. Paul, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. President. Well, it's springtime. Grass is growing again. We have a lot of grass in Worcester and for us to keep it well manicured, we have to hire out to do that. Uh this is a budgeted item. Um and uh you know grass is growing, we need to start mowing. Simple as that. Anything for from the floor? Um I know it mentions in here that it would take 240 man hours per week to to do all of this in house. How many like how many properties is that exactly? Oh, I think there's Sorry, not to stop. No, I think there's like 50ome properties parcels in different locations. Okay.

Any other questions? Mr. President, I move to adopt. Motion to adopt. Is second by Mr. Owens. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Paul, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Jose. Yes. Mr. Abernathy. Yes. Miss Warden. Yes. All right. Next item. Resolution 2026-16. Uh, Miss Hamilton, if you could please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-16, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to purchase a dump truck and allowing for immediate enactment.

Mr. Paul, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, if you see if you saw the snow removal in downtown, the dump trucks were getting piled up and taking the snow out so the businesses could get up and running. Those of you that own yards, we're Tree City, USA, we have a lot of leaves in this town from the canopy. It's important for us to have the material to do that. Um, salt, I think deicing. I think we can, we've covered that. Very simply put, our trucks take a beating. You're in, you're out. It's time to replace one. This is a budgeted item. I'll open the floor for any discussion. 2005 International. Boy, got some got some use out of that. Sure did.

Uh you going to plan on trading that in or you going to hold on to it? Um well, uh the plan is to to sell that ongo. Okay. Oh, good job taking care of that. Got a lot of got a lot of use out of it. Those are hard miles. Yeah. I think it's important to also note exactly what you're talking about. Our city workers have done a wonderful job maintaining the vehicles that we're purchasing. Uh so we're not throwing our money into something that's not costeffective and ultimately everything has a life. It's time to time to upgrade. Yeah. 20 plus. Yeah. So well done. I move to adopt.

Move. I was just going to say also good on finding one that we can get in August instead of 16 months from now. Yeah, we hope. We hope. I'll second. All right. Motion and seconded. Miss Hamilton, please call a role in the adoption. Mr. Paul, yes. Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Jose,

yes. Okay. Okay. And our last new item of business this evening is resolution 2026-17 which will be introduced by Mr. Abernathy. But before that, Miss Hamilton, please call the role or uh please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-17, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to advertise according to law and enter into a contract with the lowest and best bidder for the replacement of the water resource recovery facility roof and allowing for immediate enactment. Mr. Abernathy, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. President. Well, it looks like we have a 50-year-old roof and it's held up pretty good. Uh this coded about 20 years ago, but the coating is beginning to fail, indicating time for a full replacement. So, you [snorts] know, own a building. This is part of the cost of doing business is we have to replace roofs every once in a while. I don't have a whole lot more I want to put on that. John, anything you want to add to it? It's a roof. You got to you got to replace it at some point. It's not as fun as a dump truck or new [laughter] fire truck, but when the roof's leaking, you got to get a new one.

Yeah. Any other questions or comments? Uh, do we have any idea about how long it'll take to replace the roof? Not exactly sure, but I would think by fall we should have a new roof on there. You to get 20 years on an existing Y system that got coded was pretty good. We're very fortunate that we got that much life out of it. With that, it's a budgeted item. So, I'll motion to adopt. Motion to adopt. Second by Mr. Gaffy. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Jose, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Paul,

yes. Okay, we'll move into miscellaneous. Uh as I had said previously, we do have uh nine people that have signed up. Uh I will simply say this. Um we will limit everyone to two minutes. And um I don't want to sound rude, but if I'm going to start hearing the same thing over and over again, I'm just going to gave you down and ask you just to please sit down. So, at this point, uh, the first person that signed up is Kefir Dillard.

Hi. Uh, I'm Kefir Dillard. Uh, 208 East Henrietta. I'm a community member. Uh, as you may have seen out front, there's a lot of people and, uh, no Kings protests and all of that happening recently. There's a significant number of people concerned about ICE and the presence of federal law enforcement, um, DHS ICE within the community. Um, it is a federal issue that is increasingly Sorry, not at all. She told me how to do it, but I think the owl thing is in the way. [laughter] Please continue. Please continue, Mr.

Sure. So, uh, it's becoming increasingly local issue. There's some issues Orville, obviously, Springfield within the state of Orville more locally. The college of Worcester has a lot of international students uh and agriculture and even some of the local industry is a pretty immigrantheavy uh industry. Uh and I would like to suggest uh a town hall in order to more publicly communicate um our policy. Uh we do need a little bit of dialogue and it would be useful for the community at large to to understand what our policy is. What if ICE were to show up in this community tomorrow? There would be friction. Um, and what generally is our response? A town hall, including the mayor and other officials, would be very useful. Uh, flot cameras, uh, the presence of a 285G agreement, um, and with DHS, uh, and worries about, you know, local resources and tax revenues being sequestered by federal law enforcement. Um there are a lot of concerns that the community may have regarding um cooperation with or and uh ICE sequestering resources. I hope that we can have constructive dialogue, a town hall. Um and I think that would be useful to reduce friction, increase transparency and uh address this issue in a constructive way. Do more talking uh with than talking at.

That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh Dustin Huntsburgger Dustin Huntsburg on 1651 road. Um I'm here also to talk about um ICE presence in the city of Worester. Um uh I think you know if you're paying attention to what's going on agents are clearly poorly trained and organized. Um any community or organization that gets entangled with them at all is in a mess. Um opening themselves up to constitutional rights violation lawsuits and severe negative press. Um I think the city of Worcester must do something to protect itself from that threat of this outside thing coming in. um trying to disrupt our community. Um uh I would ask that we pass some sort of resolution to make our stance concrete, something that's not um you know, we'll see when we get here, you know, something that says, you know, when they show up, they're not using our prisons. Um they're not using our local surveillance, they're not using our resources. If the federal government would like to go on a witch hunt, they should use their money and resources, not ours. Um, and this is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. It's clear that, you know, ICE is not stopping. It's not slowing down. It's getting bigger. They're hiring more people. Um, there's just a news article today about them buying millions of dollars worth of weapons. It's going to last them the next however many years. So, this is a thing that's going to be coming and we have to be prepared for it. Um, and have to have some kind of um solution in place. Um, and if you know, uh, if anyone's worried about voter opinion on this, uh, the most recent mayor poll said that 65% of Americans agree that ICE has gone too far in its enforcement. Uh, that's almost super majority. You

can't get Americans to have that kind of agreement on basically anything else. So, um, I think this is really important thing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hunsburgger. Uh, Herbert Weber. [clears throat]

My name is Robert. I live at 2110 Fisher Drive here in WA. Good evening. Uh I'm a 33 year resident of Wan and a newly nationalized uh US citizen. I work for one of the largest employers here in Wor and we have a global footprint. The growth of this company in Worcester is partly due to immigrants like myself and short to long-term foreign residents. We all contribute to the local tax base and the growth and the well-being of Wor as our community of choice. The fear and terror is CBP strikes into our hearts is directly opposite to what this community, the United States and above all the constitution stands for. As a community, including law enforcement, local representatives, and most importantly as friends and neighbors must stand strong against the at times illegal and unconstitutional practices of ICE and CBP. Local law enforcement and the city council must work towards protecting the rights of all Wor residents be they residents with a temporary a permanent status or US citizens. Skin color, difference of opinion or an accent does not make you an illegal or a criminal. Being afraid to leave our house, take our children to school or go grocery shopping is not what we stand for. Under the current administration and its actions through ICE and CBP, we all are unsafe. The city of Worester needs to have a clear policy in place to keep all residents safe from arbitrary, indifferent, and at times illegal detentions and arrests. I ask that you commit to not signing a 287g agreement, which would obligate local law enforcement to help carry out the work of federal immigration enforcement in collaboration with ICE. And I ask that you pass a city ordinance that reaffirms our community's values and prevents any local cooperation with ICE. We are all neighbors and we all build this community. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr.

Wean Burns. Um I'm Ian Burns and I live at 1516 Burbank Road. And um I just want us to pause and think about what will happen if uh when ice does come to Worcester. I think I agree with the previous speaker that it's a matter of when. Um so we our community will then see warless invasions and violations of our fourth amendment because that's what ICE is doing. Um our community will see children um joining the ranks of over 3,000 children that are in detention centers. Our community members will be racially profiled because that's what ICE is doing. our community will see a rise in anti-immigrant racism and that's going to target um our international students um and the those are students at the research center and at the college of we if we cooperate we're going to see our hardworking neighbors who have contributed to this community um and made it um their home ripped away I I think there are two important examples that we need be thinking about um one is um uh Ruben Ray Martinez. He was 23 years old. He was an American citizen. He was killed last September in Texas. His mother voted for Trump, so nobody's safe. Um there was Mr. um um I'm sorry, Naru Amin Sham Alam. He was a 56 um legal refugee living in um from Burma, living in um Buffalo. He was partially blind and disabled. He was um picked up by ice

even though he was legal. He was abandoned at a closed coffee shop in freezing conditions with no shoes. He froze to death. He was five five miles away from his home. He couldn't get home because he couldn't find it because he was blind. Um that's what I doing. Sorry, that was real. That was my [laughter] Anyway, I ask that we live our values, which is actually to love our neighbors and welcome the stranger. Thank you. Thank you. Abby Fischer.

Hello. My name is Abby Fischer. I reside at 63 Goshi Street. I did not anticipate speaking to you this evening. And to be honest, I was in the middle of working out when I found out that there was even a protest this evening. Uh, I own Illuminate Mental Health in downtown Worcester. I've had years with many of you. I've worked with some of your children. I probably have provided some therapy services to some of your family members um through my organization and through my community work over the years. I just feel like it's very important that I use my privilege and my voice to acknowledge that the fear that the people that live in this community who are not the same color as me are very much so living in. I get to talk to vulnerable populations every single day. The people that come into my office are very frightened about what's happening around the world. I don't want your jobs if I'm really honest. Like I would rather pull my own tooth than to sit on another board. I respect you very much that you guys dedicate your time and your energy and represent people in your community. I just ask that we consider representing all members of our community. If you have not had the opportunity to talk to some of the individuals who are being affected by the fear that they live in every single day of ICE, I know it feels kind of like an eye roll that your evening probably got extended quite a bit because a giant punk of us came in here to have this conversation, but it is very, very real. There are individuals here that work in ministry and work to help secure and support individuals who are going through difficult times. I encourage you to be in contact and reach out with them. Uh, Open Arms Ministries, if you have not communicated, not heard them before, they are located in Orville. I have had the privilege of volunteering with them. The fear that those kids felt who were impacted by ICE over the summer

and the presence in Orville, it will be present in Worcester. No child deserves to be impacted the way that those kids were. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Michelle Eie. All right. Uh Scott Gregory. [clears throat] Good evening. I'm Scott Gregory. I'm at 2255 Little John Lane here in Worcester. I agree with everything that's been said so far about this ICE situation. ICE scares me. I often use the example with people like when you get pulled over by the police, people are usually upset, ticked that they're going to get a ticket. But there are those of us who are when we get stopped are scared to death as to what's going to happen. And that's what I'm asking you to do is think, use some empathy here and think about other people who because of their skin color, their accent, the way they look are going to be targets. And we have lots of residents here in Worcester who will be targets. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you,

Jace McCall. Hi, I'm Jace McCall. I'm a transfer student over at Worster and I come from San Diego. And over break, I've seen a lot of horrible things happen there in San Francisco and in LA at the hands of ICE and other federal agencies invading communities. I think Worster is a beautiful, diverse, and amazing community. And I do not think that this council or this city should give any resources to ICE agents. And that is all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chase.

Uh, Desiree Weber. Good evening, council members. Um, Worcester, as you all know, as people in this meeting know, is a place that people from all walks of life, backgrounds, outlooks, and nationalities call home. We, Worcester residents, are from lots of different places. If you go back two or three or sometimes as little as one generation, we lots of us have ancestors from all over the place. And unless you belong to an indigenous uh group or native tribe, you likely have ancestors from elsewhere as well. And that mix of cultures of backgrounds, no matter how many generations back, makes up the fabric of this community. The recent escalation of federal immigration enforcement across the country is already threatening and tearing at that fabric as others have attested to here this evening. We already have community members who are scared to leave their homes to be seen or to be heard in public meetings like this for example. We already have had ICE presence in our community. Now, luckily, ISIS presence has not been a constant daily siege of our whole community yet, like we have seen in other places across the country. So, I urge you and ask you to join us to act now to prevent that from happening. I ask that you consider first to maintain the status quo of not signing or considering 287g agreements with DHS and ICE. This kind of an agreement would obligate local law enforcement to use local resources to join in federal immigration enforcement, which again is not what is currently um in place. Connected to that, I ask that the city of Worcester not use any jail space or sell buildings to ICE or federal officials. And secondly, I ask that you

hold an open community town hall where all community residents can share their concerns and potential policy ideas for dealing with ICE and immigration questions. And lastly, I ask that you consider passing a city resolution that Worester shall not support or participate in ICE or Customs and Border Patrol enforcement policies. Again, keeping the status quo in place. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [snorts]

Well, that was everyone that signed up related to speaking about that topic. And with that, we'll move on to the rest of our miscellaneous, which will be I think we'll start with you, Mr. Fuse. You have any further comments or questions? Uh, just uh if my brother is watching at home, I'm pretty sure he's not. Happy birthday. He turns 40 tomorrow. Welcome to the club. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Paul.

Good evening, Mr. President. Good evening, folks. I want to thank the community for coming out this evening. It's very difficult to speak about toxic issues, and this is clearly one that is disturbing most Americans. So, I want to thank the eight people who stood up and spoke their mind courageously this evening. That's part of democracy and that's what makes our country and our city tick. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Abernathy. Thank you, Mr. President. Tonight you uh all had a chance to have your first amendment right and in a peaceful way. So thank you for exercising that. And with that I yield my time.

All right. Thank you Mr. Owens. Good evening everyone. I'd like to thank you all for coming out as has been said for you know participating in the democratic process with your first amendment rights. It is scary sometimes to put yourself out there. And I appreciate all of you doing that. As elected officials, we can't always know how to act unless you tell us how you feel, right? And so I I appreciate each and every one of you who has come out and made your feelings, thoughts, and in some cases fears known. Thank you, Miss Warden.

Thank you. Um, okay. So, last week we had I know the mayor addressed this earlier. We had uh the Chamber of Commerce dinner um up at Greystone, and I'm drawing this to kind of just use it as an illustration of why we're so proud of this community. We've got these um agencies and businesses and community members who have done, you know, really amazing things that make this a place that people want to live, not just white people that were born here. So, I I support what you all are here to speak about tonight. Um, I would encourage the city to uh make public what their policies currently are and be open to that conversation with the community. Um, one thing I did a little research today once I found out everyone was coming and I did see that um I believe at the state house there's currently some legislation. Um, it's pending. I I don't even think it's it's hit the floor yet, but it would require um all federal and state officials to who are who are out in neighborhoods such as ICE agents to not cover their faces. And I know that that's actually something we've talked about with utility workers. So, I think that would be a really easy first step for us to take just to kind of mandate that for um federal law enforcement, state enforcement, things like that that you can't hide your face. I mean, I would be fearful of somebody whose face was covered um coming up and and provoking a conversation or worse with me. So, um I think that that might be a reasonable step. I'm sure that there's much more and I think that there's a lot that of conversation that can be had with our police chief and his team as well as with the city administration. Um but I appreciate all of you coming and at least getting that conversation started. Um we'll look forward to further communication from the city to find out what we can look forward to. Thank you,

Mr. Gaffy.

Yeah. Um as as many of uh other council members have have stated, uh truly appreciate each one of you coming out and the courage to stand up and speak and share with us um you know your where you're at on on this issue. I do think it's an important issue and uh one that definitely deserves further further discussion. Um also uh encouraged by the progress uh that we learned about with WGO um and just being able to see people that otherwise don't have transportation have options now um to get to work and and you know get around our city. Um I think uh that's that's some good progress on that side. Uh and with that I have nothing further to add.

All right. Thank you very much. And with that, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Motion. Is there a second? Second. Second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. We're adjourned. Thank you.

Preparation. Yeah. very well. Luckily for me, they were they were te they were teed up for me, so it was good. I've I had a a long day of medical tests today, so I wasn't trying to do that. No, I had I had um had conversation with I can show you the memo. No, no, no. Actually, I had a conversation