City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday, 02/24/2026 City Council meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Would you please join me in 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.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Sure. Mr. Humphrey?

Here.

Mr. Brandenburg?

Here.

Mr. Noble? Here. Mr. Spate?

Here.

Mr. Maker? Here. Mr. Neugebauer?

Here. And Mr. DeVitus? Here. Okay.

Thank you, ma'am. Alright. For council study sessions, we have two items. First is TMP 5,248 approval of the 02/10/2026 council meeting minutes.

So moved.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll.

Mr. Neugebauer? Yes. Mr. Noble?

Yes.

Mr. Humphrey?

Yes.

Mr. Brandenburg? Yes. Mr. Spate?

Yes.

Mr. Mager?

Abstain.

And Mr. DeVitus?

Okay. Motion carries.

I'll be here to abstain for a second.

Next is TMP-five 254, approval of the January 2026 electronic financial report subject to audit. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll.

Mr. Nugibar?

Yes.

Mr. Maker?

Yes.

Mr. Humphrey? Yes. Mr. Brandenburg?

Yes.

Mr. Noble? Yes. Mr. Spate?

Yes.

And Mr. DeVitus?

Yes. Okay. Motion carries.

And next is public report. Do we have anybody signed in to speak tonight other than the public hearings? Is this in regards to the public hearing about the utilities? If you'd like to go ahead and step up to the mic, ma'am. Alright. And if you

Here we go.

If you could, please state your name and address for the record.

My name is Joyce McMillan. My address is 3922 Meadowood Lane, Green 44685. Okay. I'll start with the good stuff first. That'll be the best.

I want to tell you that you do a great job of cleaning the streets, and you're doing wonderful at filling the pot, but it was mostly in a timely manner. Then I'm gonna tell you another thing that I think is a problem. First thing, on Butler, Butler, whatever you guys call that road, in the mornings, we go to the y every morning. And we're always going around the time school is coming in, high school. And I'm gonna tell you, those sheriffs are in grave danger.

There's lights coming this way, lights coming that way, lights in the middle lane. They've got their their cars there, but, you know, they're stepping out into the the road. Sometimes their reflectors are not or they're not shining right to the car that's coming and they have those tiny little lights. I was wondering if you could maybe put a spotlight on a telephone pole or something so that they kind of get lit up just because I I want them to be safe. That's my next comment. Now we're gonna get to the good stuff. Okay. Are you ready for the good stuff?

We're ready.

Alright. I was first told when we saw these people with the orange, I don't know, tubing coming around that I was down here to pay my taxes and I asked about it and they told me that they did not have a permit to do where I lived on Meadowood. I'm at the far end, at the Circle Park, you know, the dead end. Okay. So I just thought, okay. Great. Then I saw them coming down the road. They started down here, and they keep coming this way. And they've they're about a block and a half away from Pinewood. And I'm thinking, they're coming the whole way.

I know they're coming the whole way. So I came down here to ask about it. And I wanted to know I asked and a very nice guy named Caleb. He came down from upstairs somewhere, and he was kind, very kind and and tried to be helpful. And he told me that they had a permit. And I said, well, do they have do we have to give them a permit? He said, the city doesn't have a choice. Is that correct? Does anybody know the answer to that question?

Our understanding, yes.

You do? Do we have to give them a permit?

Paul, maybe you could expound on that just a bit. Like public utilities maybe?

Yeah, public utilities generally have the right to go in public road rights away.

Okay. And I know it's 25 feet or 50 feet off the middle of the road, my street. That Yes. You have the

50 foot wide right away at 25 feet from the center to the edge of the right away, but there's often a utility easement beyond that, another 10 feet beyond that for utilities to go into.

So they can go 35 feet off the middle of the street? Yes. Okay. That's interesting.

Typically, I'd have to refer to that plat for that neighborhood, but that's

the Paul,

I was

At least that's an answer.

I was thinking it was 60 feet right of way, but it could be it's either 50 or 60. Yeah. It could be 30 plus 10 or 25 plus 10.

Right.

Okay. So they do get a permit. That's okay. Alright. Now, did the city get anything for giving this permit? No. We get no benefit from these permits. Okay. Here's another this is the next question. Our son, who lives off seats going this way in that allotment down there, I don't know what it's called, but it's like three streets and a little pond in the middle. They have AT and T fiber optic. Why do we have T Mobile fiber optic on this side? Does anybody know the

answer that?

AT and

T chose to go into certain neighborhoods. Was a couple years ago when they were doing well, two to three years ago, I think, when they were doing most of it. I don't know how they chose where they went. T Mobile's being very aggressive. They're going everywhere in green. Not just green, but I mean, they're We're

stuck with them. We can't Okay. Stop I got this. Alright. We have a sprinkler system in our yard. We're not the original owners of the house, so I don't have clue where the pipes go, you know, these sprinkler pipes through the yard. They're there because it sprinkles every spring. And I asked Caleb if when they're running these orange things

Conduit.

Through the grass, if they break our sprinkler system, who's responsible to fix it? Of course, Caleb said, we are. And I said

We are the resident or we are the company? You.

Me. Oh. This homeowner. I am responsible. I feel, this is just my opinion, that if you're gonna damage my yard, whoever damages it, even if they have a right of way, should be responsible enough to fix it.

Yeah. Tech so I don't profess to to to I'm not gonna cite that I know the law. But, typically, if you have anything underground and somebody's gonna do digging, they have to call the one called digs you know, before you dig certain line.

Right.

And then all the people that have buried utilities and whatnot that are belong to notified and then they have to mark within forty eight hours where their utility is. Sprinklers aren't gonna get

marked. Correct.

But so I don't know that they do it because they have to or not, but t mobile's policy is they will repair them. Their advice is they won't know where they're broken either, but when spring comes and you fire up the system and turn it on wherever, you know, let them know and they'll come find the leak and they'll repair it. So that's that's their policy on it. Same thing with like dog fences. They're fixing those.

So they're okay.

They're they're very dog fenced.

They are going to fix it.

Well, that's a big relief.

Yes.

I'm real happy about that one, guys, because I thought, you know, this isn't And we do have on our property, it is on our property, a big box that a lot of utilities go into. You know, I think we've got the spectrum in there, we've got anything that you could put in is in there. So I figured and do these people put in a box too every so often?

Usually, each utility is gonna have their own junction boxes or pedestals or whatever. So so, they will. They do have periodic places where they're putting their their boxes are flushed with the ground.

Chances are we'll probably get that in our property too.

Not necessarily because it's not every property. It's just where there where there's junctions of, you know, cross streets and so forth, so they're not in every property. Now, near each property line and for each service, I think they have a smaller a smaller, if you wanna call it a junction box, think call it a flower pot, but it's a round thing. And again, it's flush with the ground, but that's where this that's where the services will come from their line to the houses.

Alright. Well, this isn't a round thing. Ours is a big, big rectangle that's in our

That they just put in?

No, no.

We it was there when we bought

the house.

Yeah. That will be a different that's another utility that would be using that.

So they

would have They have

to add to this. Yeah. We can put another one there with that

Mrs. McMillan, I'm sorry. We typically limit our discussions I'm sorry, to to do three that. If you don't mind, you're bringing up some stuff that a lot of people are very concerned about. So especially if it's in reference to this, I guess, if you guys are okay with it, we'll keep Yes. It

I concerned about it. Okay. But I'm done today. I can come back and talk three minutes.

If you want to continue, ma'am

Let the guy from NOPAC talk.

No. I guess how much more do you have here?

Do you want to

I keep going

just had to say

Mister president, I

can It's okay. He's giving me his

help the resident here.

That they're gonna they're gonna work on that. I'm not gonna worry about that then. It's okay. I'm gonna let it go with that, and and hopefully, we'll be happy.

Yes. I hope so.

I don't

know when they're gonna get there, but

You can also call the engineering department at the city and we'll we can go over anything, any concerns about it.

What department? Engineering? Yeah.

The City of Green Engineering Engineering? Yes. Yes.

I can talk to you, Mr. Pickett. I'll write your name down.

I'm just going to add, Ms. McMillan, you're raising issues that my office and the engineering department work with residents every day on. And we are consistently taking these messages to Lumas and they are responding very quickly and helping residents through these concerns. So what I'm going do is give you my phone number as you leave and ask if you call me tomorrow, I can bring you up to speed on a contact for Lumas that you can ask your questions of.

They'll take care

of you. I'll be back.

I understand. But I guess I want to offer you my office number because if they screw with you, I want

to know about it. Oh,

you'll know.

I'll get that information to you, all right? I

don't have any.

Know if it is.

Really, I'm just telling you, I'm bad.

Thank you, Mrs. McMillan. Byron Cullum? And, sir, if you could state your name and address for the record, please.

Byron Cullum, 4825 Masson Road, North Canton, Ohio. I wanna address the, some signage. I just sent Gerard and Chris a text message about that sign. And I see the when you point out a Global Parkway in there, there's always that 77 signage. You know, it's got the arrows pointing.

And, well, that truck sign would be really even though some don't, some will go north when they leave that. See, all these 77 signs kinda go south on 241. They're kinda pointing south, and that's my point of addressing that. Not that they're all gonna, you know, follow directions because some of them are used to just going north, especially the swift trucks. I don't know what they're doing, but they're they make a lot of noise.

We'll just say that. And then another thing I wanna address is if we could have maybe a truck speed sign. I've been talking with Keenan from District 4, and he seems to be a big proponent with that truck sign from Greensburg down to International Parkway. You know, there's two parks all the way down through there. There's just, I don't know, a lot of traffic, but the truckers seem to be the worst out of all of, you know, all the traffic.

And then the new pavement's already right? Got a crack all the way across the road, kind of in front of my house already. I think that's where Aqua Waterline is. It's gonna maybe resurface. Well, the crack already is. It's all the way across the road. So Keenan did look at that too. So I've been corresponding with, you know, district four. So I thought he'd come down here again and just put it in your guys' ears.

K.

They did drop the speed limit five miles an hour, but, you know, what do we say when, you know, it's the 40s the new 60? Right? I mean, it's insane. But anyway, that's all for now.

Mr. Colm, just quick question. The picture you sent to me, you're saying at when it dead ends at the Global Parkway, where you want a '77 truck, you want it to point eastbound on Greensburg towards Lobby Road. Is that what you're asking? I just want make sure I understand what you're asking.

Well, I maybe got my names confused on the streets. It's the ones it's the street that goes out to 241. Is that international?

Yeah. Okay. Yes,

But you want the truck sign to be put for 77 to be pointed or have a truck sign for 77 to be pointed eastbound on Greensburg towards Lobby Road. Is that what you're asking?

No. Probably southbound on Massillon.

Yeah. When they pulled out of International Parkway, there's a sign that says 77. They got an arrow pointing south. You know, they're trying they're trying to get you to Shuffle, Schuylkill. And then when you get to Schuylkill, there's another 77 sign.

Gotcha.

Where these 7 another entrance. Okay. Where these 77 signs are, that's where I kinda like that, you know, where it says truck route.

Okay.

I may I real quick, mister Meager? We asked for a shield from ODOT. You have to have that from ODOT. Mhmm. Come out to International Parkway because if you're going westbound towards 241, and the idea it does say 77 to the south, a left, down to Shufu to try to get people on the highway.

That's that was all part of Port Green, Port Jackson development. However, with GPS units today, they don't pay attention to the signs. They just look at what their GPS says. And the quickest way to get to 77, if you're northbound, is simply turn right and go up Masson Road and be there. So if you're going we do see trucks going left and going down to Schuylkill, but they're probably most likely going southbound on 77 versus trying to get to 77 the quickest way possible. But that's where you're looking

Yes.

Is a left out of International and a left at Shufold to get to 77 the quickest easiest way possible.

Sure. You know, yes, with the GPS, there's a point about that. But when the driver gets to that and he sees 77 and he sees the truck sign, they just might, know

Hard to say.

I got I got the first.

Just you know, it's just a sign. That's all. It could help. It's not, you know, we have so much signage out here in Greene.

We work to get the seventy seven sign to tell them where to go. I don't know if you can say all trucks or something left, but I understand what you're saying.

Yeah, don't know if we can say all trucks.

All trucks, yeah.

Because that's trucks like the

I I get you. The pictures I I sent these

guess I was thinking about going northbound International Parkway where it dead ends in the Greensburg Road. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about 241 southbound. I do have my own complaint there. I know when I drive home that way northbound on 241, those trucks do take a while because there's lot of traffic going both ways. It is difficult for them to get out to turn left to go towards Shuffle, which might be a reason why they're not going that way. I do notice they're stuck there quite a bit. Mean, Duplat is kind of dangerous for people going northbound at 241, especially at night with those long bed trucks. So I just point that out, could be why they're not taking a left there because they can't it's hard for them to get out.

Yes. And if I may, you're right. If they were to

go the other direction and go to Greensburg, that would solve a lot of issues.

Two right turns versus trying

Two right turns as opposed to turning left or coming down.

Reason why besides the GPS. I know they're stuck there for a while when I'm driving through there.

Yeah. And you do see some of them. They do take Greensburg because they found out about that.

Yeah. Just to avoid your intersection there, if they can go northbound on International Parkway where it dead ends into Greensburg, they can avoid that entrance. But I don't know if I don't see too many people taking a right out of there going on Greensburg. I see mostly on that South or 241 entrance leaving. I don't know why. Maybe I'm just not seeing it myself. But

You know, and then the the truck speed limit, you know, the big flashing light for trucks, just trucks 35. It's just an idea, and it would make the street a little quieter

And safer. Way safer And safer.

For the parks there and all the people walking down the sidewalks, what have you.

Alright. Yeah.

Thanks for listening. Thank

you, mister Kellen. Appreciate it. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak? Ma'am, go ahead and please state your name and address for the record.

My name is Karen Martin. I live at 3055 Wise Road, the best place in Green to be. Love it up there. But I thought I had read a while back that we were all going to get high speed Internet, and that's what that orange tubing is for, correct? Okay. So if you're familiar with that, there's a railroad track there. I don't think they've come underneath the railroad track or up to our area. There's only just a few of us because then you go into Kane Street, is Lake. A few years back, I asked how we could get that because I thought, oh, Spectrum, now we have 25 houses. He said, don't do that anymore.

He told me it would cost me $46,000 to bring the Internet from up in the hill down to my house.

Could you

say that again?

The figure?

$46,000

46,000 is what the man

told me.

Just to back bring that from coax service.

All the way down, yes. So, of course I said, no. But are we I really almost don't care whether we get it or not because I'm happy with my Verizon, but maybe there's other people on the street there that would love to have it because they have a business at home or something like that. But did they just stop at the railroad tracks?

I think the intention was that every street was going to be served, Paul. Is that correct?

That's

correct. They I'll have to find out. Haven't gotten to many parts of the city yet. And parts they've been to, haven't completed. So it may be that they just haven't prioritized that piece. Sometimes because if they can service a street that has more customers, they'd like to get customers on board. So it may be that they're just delayed. But from our understanding, they're doing every street in the city and everybody will be given access to fiber service.

Well, will be interesting to see because of the railroad tracks. I I'm thinking it's just

have a friend on Killinger who had the same they couldn't get but for $50,000 service down near the reservoir, same thing.

So

when the providers looked at Green and said, We'd like to bring fiber, a lot of us were excited because there are areas that are really underserved. They don't have even spectrum service there.

Yes, that would have been us.

And they don't want to bring it. So we're in many ways, we're relieved that it's here. But we also know that there's a bit of stress and anxiety when they're doing their work, right? But the end goal is everybody has options to get a gig of service for pretty cheap.

They came around to the house one day and wanted to know if we wanted to sign up, it would be $60 a month. Okay, that's fine, but I'm getting it for $35 with Verizon. We don't have a business there. We just it's just two of us. I don't need anything fancy, but again, there are other people with kids and stuff around there that might.

Well, really the bottom line is competition. So whether it's AT and T bringing the fiber or it's T Mobile, Lumos, whatever they call them, or spectrum, now we have competing services, which is going to lower the rates. Know Councilman Mager has already seen significant price cuts from Spectrum because they're aware that there's now competing So and we want the community to know that. So this is the other side of Joyce's comments about the mess and the issues. The other side is we want people to know that you can get much better service, much cheaper now, even if you just go to spectrum and say, I have an option to get I have an option there to C Mobile.

I'd like it. And that's exactly what the councilman did. And that's important to us. I did a calculation that if the average person can save $30 a month, right, so let's say $300 a year, it would really be I can do the math, it's $360 it will say $300 a month. And there's 10,000 units in green.

So the economic benefit of the savings of $300 a month is $3,000,000 of economic impact for our community. That's pretty significant. And if a company is willing to make that investment without charging me or Joyce or anybody else to come put that in, yes, there's a bit of a hardship when they're working in our roads, but that's a $3,000,000 impact. And I think it could be as high as six the savings. Mr. Mager, what do you think your savings is since you've renegotiated with Spectrum? What's your monthly savings? So it was $180

a month.

How much?

$180 a month because you're able to bundle my cellphone with it, too. I'm saving

$180

So let's do the math on that. 180 times 12, you're challenging me, but a couple of thousand dollars that you're saving in a year.

Before T Mobile was in my backyard, they would not even give me an intro price for my current. As soon as I went in there say, I'm signed up for T Mobile, they've been over backwards and they locked me in for two years.

So this is the value and this is why, yes, we can't stop utilities from coming, but we also know there's a value here, right? And so we hope the community really I does

hope that see that done.

I know that if the weather got bad, things happened. Correct. And I know that stopped a lot of what they were doing. And I can just say one more thing. Okay. You know where I live on Wise Road Railroad tracks. We have lovely stop signs there. Nobody stops. If you guys want the policeman to make a lot of money, send them up there because, you know, I could stand out there and do a survey of how many people stop, and it's very few of us that live around right next to the tracks. We all stop because we know that train comes on occasion.

Plus it says stop. It doesn't say, go ahead, you know. So, that's the other pet peeve I have is is the amount of people that do not stop. Trucks, passenger cars, policemen. I've seen policemen go through there without stopping. So, you know, and and our we used to have a quiet road. There wasn't a lot going on down there. And the amount of traffic we have now is much more, and it's fast cars. I mean, you know, there are a few kids there. It's becoming more it's flipped over to more maybe people with kids in there.

Before, it was just an older area. Now, it's more kids in that. So I would hate to see somebody have a child hit by a car that's going 45, 50 miles an hour through there. So, you know, that's all I have to say and thank you for giving me the time.

Thank you very much. All right. Ma'am, if you could please state your name and address for the record.

Hi. I'm Nancy Hagan. My address is 3071 Wise Road. My problem is I live down there by those tracks also with no internet. But the biggest problem is I don't do business in green anymore because of Wise Road.

When you cross that hill to go, it would be you're going west. There's people that are coming, and they're going the opposite direction. They are now straddling the road to make their left hand turn, so I can't even go straight ahead anymore. It's very dangerous because there's two, hills on each side in the first place, and then you're trying to go over Mayfair Road. So we now do our business in Hartville, and it's heartbreaking because I love this big giant eagle and stuff, but it's not worth getting hit. Is there anything you guys can do for that problem?

Mr. Pickett, Well,

act this like it's a four

way stop actually, you know, and it's straight through. Am I the only person you're smiling? No. It's It's

my ward, and I drive that intersection all the time. It's very dangerous.

Paul, I

don't know,

is there any plans in the works for any improvements there on WISE?

No. And the geometry isn't ideal as she pointed out. There's vertical curves.

I've lived there since 1952 and it's never gotten better. It's gotten progressively worse. So Yeah. It's dangerous. It really isn't it. And it's just heartbreaking. I live in this city. I'd like to leave my money in this city. That's going to Hartford.

My opinion Everything.

I mean, think the two most dangerous intersection in Green are in my ward. It's Heckman And Mayfair and then Wise Road and Mayfair. I don't know what's in the works to hopefully get those intersections improved. But that's I see a very serious accident every quarter on Heckman And Mayfair, right in front of Raintree. And why is it it'd be catastrophic because how quickly traffic is moving there.

Oh, yes. When they come down the hill down in that valley, like she said, they fly. Fly.

Mrs. Hagen, we had a group of students from high school that thought that was a bad intersection. They did a project where they would detect cars that came up the hill, and would flash a warning on the stop signs that a car was coming. And that was the project they did, Paul. And they were pretty successful in what they did.

But as the engineers in the room know, Mr. Noble, Councilman Noble and Paul Pickett, that there's a manual that says what devices you can use. And if you try to do something that's maybe make it better and it confuses people, it can have undesired effects. And so oftentimes, their engineers are controlled by this book of standards. So but it was interesting that these students in high school recognized recognized how bad a problem it was, and that's what they wanted to spend their time figuring out, a device that would sense cars so you know they were coming and you could hold off going across there because you knew a car was coming.

So it is a known problem. Mr. Noble, I don't know if you want to address it any further, but they are limited and they just can't make up something to put there to fix it. So there's other options that we've discussed.

Roundabout would be great, except there's no room. It's all hills. But yes, I'm one those people that do love our roundabouts.

Thank you. They do save lives. But I understand your frustration. And we are as Mr. Meager said, we are aware of just how dangerous that is. And that being the only direction you can come into the rest of Green. Otherwise, you're headed out to Cleveland Avenue, right?

Right. Yeah. No. So it's heartfelt for me now, and that's a shame. And I'm not the only one. But thank you for listening.

Thank you very much. And is anybody else wishing to Okay. Speak this

At this point, we will go into our public hearings. Thank you, Mr. President. I call to order public hearing of

the Intergovernmental and Utilities Committee. The purpose of this public hearing is to discuss two utility ordinances currently before Green City Council. The first ordinance is twenty twenty six-four, an ordinance authorizing all actions necessary to join Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council's electricity aggregation program and declaring an emergency. And the second related proposed ordinance is twenty twenty six-five, an ordinance approving the plan of operation and governance for the NOPEC electricity aggregation program for the purpose of jointly establishing and implementing an electricity aggregation program and declaring an emergency. We're going to discuss these pieces together because they're both required by state law in order for the city to join the aggregation program.

So brief background, then I'll introduce our speakers for tonight. So from 2020 to 2026, City of Green has been a NOPEC natural gas member community. And the purpose, again, of this public hearing to discuss whether we should also join the electricity sourcing through NOPEC. We have three speakers, our Service Director, Valerie Waxcar Russ McDonald from NOPEC and then Brenda Fargo, broker who helps with our bidding of electricity. So Ms. Waxcar, would you like to start?

Sure. I was going do introductions. You already did this, so that's great. If you two just want to come up to the podium, that's probably the easiest. Nicole, did you catch their names? Yeah. Okay. So as Mr. Brandenburg explained, we already are a no pet customer for gas. If you recall, just for a brief quick history, and I'll let Brenda talk a little bit about this.

If you remember, we were locked into a very good price over a year ago. We were still with Energy Harbor that became Dynegy. Actually, they had a name in between there, and that was closer to 5¢ a kilowatt. And for a lot of reasons that we don't go into we don't have to go into tonight unless you have questions about, the market rate has gone up to closer to $09 to $0.10 a kilowatt. So we did one more year at 9.69 a kilowatt, but we said, okay, it's time to go shop again.

So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Brenda. She'll explain the process about how we shop, and then we will talk about how we landed at NOPEC. And Mr. McDonald's here to answer any questions about NOPEC as well. And I'll jump in where needed. Thank you.

Thank you. It's good to be here again and see all of you friends on council. It's always good to be in green. What we decided to do is go out for full RFP because the last time when we renewed with Dynegy, we didn't feel like we got an advantageous price. So we went for full RFP this time. I sent the RFP to five different companies. Four expressed interest and asked some questions. In the end, two of them decided they were not going to submit a proposal. So we ended up with two companies that submitted a proposal, that's Dynegy and NOPEC. Those that chose not to submit a proposal were IGS, Constellation, and AEP Energy.

So we did go out to five and only got two responses. Of those responses, the best price was from NOPEC as well as the fact that we're already a gas member and expanding and having electricity from NOPEC provides additional benefits that I'm going to let him talk about. But we evaluated all of those things and felt that it was the best move forward for the city to become a full member of NOPEC and join four fifty other communities across 20 states, I believe. 20 counties in the state. So we are going to be one of those very valued members of NOPAC and it brings a lot of member benefits back to the city.

And I'm going to introduce Ross and he can talk about those benefits.

Well, thank you, Brenda, and thank you, Green City Council. Ross MacDonald, Director of Expansion for NOPEC. So as Brenda mentioned, there was an RFP issued by the City of Green on through Brenda. I was a person that responded to that proposal for NOPEC. That's my main function for the company is to seek new business.

The rate, as maybe Brenda shared, that you're currently under is $9.69 per kilowatt hour. The rate, if the City Council were to move forward with NOPEC, will go down to $9.486 per kilowatt hour. So I think it's important to highlight the fact that in a very volatile energy market right now, it's very rare for a community to go an entire year from last year and then see their rates go down. Now it is it's a slight cooling of the price. As Ms. Wax Carr mentioned, there is a lot

of

market volatility. We can get into that discussion if you would like to. But what I really want to make sure that everybody is aware of, if you do become a dual member with NOPEC, there are certain advantages to that. First of all, there's consistency from the gas program to the electric program in terms of customer service, which is really should be a priority of the city with its aggregation programs. You'll see an increase in the annual grant that comes back to the city.

That grant is to be used for all things energy efficiency related, things like lighting, cooling, doors, windows. I believe on the agenda tonight is actually a motion to accept the annual NEC grant for your gas program. So we will see a pretty substantial uptick in that annual amount, which that is quoted in the RFP. So if you need to look at that figure that is in the response with the proposal that we issued. So along with your joining as a dual member, you're considered a new member to the electric program and you have qualified for a $10,000 unrestricted grant that would come ahead of the annual grant.

The point of that grant is to help with the transition process, some of the administrative time that we will need to ensure that there's a smooth onboarding. I had a chance to meet the other Valerie today. I apologize for not knowing her last name right now, but she's your communications manager. And I've already discussed if the council moves forward having a strong kickoff meeting, plenty of public information for your residents to know what NOPEC is all about for the electric program. So with that said, happy to

answer questions from the council.

I will just like to comment. Obviously, we've worked with NOPEC the last couple of years, and we have had very few issues on the gas side. So I do appreciate they're always very responsive to us or responsive to our customers. I'll just be honest, we didn't always have that on the electric side, so particularly this last year. So I So for me, terms of customer service, I think it's a positive move. So I just wanted to express that to the city council.

Thank you. Mr. McDonald, I just have the first question. So what will residents have to do to take advantage of NOPEC as their service provider if we That's adopt

a great question. So in as much as it is an opt out program, we are operating under the same sets of rules that every previous electric aggregation program Green has ever had. So in order to participate, you have to do nothing. There will be a twenty one day opt out period. During that period, at the beginning of it, residents will receive our notice informing them of the fact that they're automatically being enrolled into the electric program.

If they want to opt out, there's easy instruction on how to get yourself out of our aggregation program. We'll include a business reply envelope so that residents can easily send that back to our customer care center. But to answer directly, they need to do nothing. The big point that I do like to point out though is that folks oftentimes will seek out other sources of their energy through the Ohio apples to apples website. So anybody that's currently in a contract with that, with one of the providers, what we call the retail market, we would not supersede that contract.

However, at the end of that contract, if they would like to join that program your program, they can do so easily and enter into the program without really any delay other than the technical logistics delay to bring them into our aggregation, which is usually about a month to one months. Point

you. You very much. Really appreciate that. Great. Just a question for Ms. Fargo. So the bid from Dynegy, was it less than what we're paying currently or was it more? Is that something you could share?

They gave multiple prices. But for the twelve month, which is what we're talking about with NOPEC, it was $9.84 versus $9.48 from NOPEC. So it was pretty clear. And for a 36 month term, they went up to 10.12. So their pricing was not that advantageous. I did reach out to them as the current provider because when we did the RFP, we were in the midst of all of that very, very cold weather. The market then came off because the cold weather kind of stopped. I did reach back out to Dynegy and asked them if they had a refresh on their price. They did. It still was not as low as the no bank ones.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Fargo. Those are all the questions I had. Are there any questions? Mr. Maker?

Thank you, Mr. Branberg. Thanks for being here, both of you. It's very helpful to hear people are involved in the discussions to come and give us information. So you mentioned that if you're part of a retail program, which I am, we're not going be opt in to invalidate our contracts with the retail program, correct?

That's correct. Okay.

Yep, yep.

So it's actually state law that we cannot supersede your active contract. When we do the onboarding logistics, we actually get something called an eligibility file. Anybody that's actively in an electric contract right now won't even show up on our mailing list.

Okay, thank you.

But I would like to add, if you don't mind, we do what are called sweeps every other month for electric. So one month, we're sweeping for newly eligible folks inside your residence or in your city. So one month, we're looking for new gas eligible, the next month we're looking for the new electric eligible. So new builds, people that are coming into the city purchasing a home, new to them home, they would be eventually brought into the program. But there's always the opportunity to call ahead of time if they know they're moving into the city and sort of shorten the duration that it takes to get in the program.

Thank you. Very helpful. And currently on our bills, if everyone looks at the bills, there is a price to compare, right? And our current price to compare is $0.09 $33 because that's our current aggregation program, correct? On your future bills, you're going to see this new $0.09 $48 as the price to compare, correct?

Brenda, do want to take that?

Yes. And that is the current price to compare through June. Our program starts in June. And the estimate we don't have the price to compare yet. It has not been announced from FirstEnergy. But the estimate is going to be 10.35.

So it's not going to be the NOPEX price to compare, it's going to be the FirstEnergy default.

FirstEnergy. What you see is the FirstEnergy It's price, 10.3

higher than

I think.

It's an estimate. But yes, it's higher than the aggregate.

Yes. I guess I just all those people that are listening online or even here, I mean, always go to apples to apples, fine, if there's a better price out there. But we do appreciate NOPEC. I mean, again, having that baseline, what I find is aggregation is not always the cheapest, but it's the less it's average, it's consistent over time. Make sure you're not doing anything as a termination provision, no monthly fees. So just be very careful. I think the apples to apples website does a good job of weeding those out. Just be careful when you're out there shopping. Don't just jump to the cheapest price because it ends up not being the cheapest. So we appreciate NOPEC coming in.

You. Approximately 50% of the residents don't shop on their own. And so that's why aggregation programs exist, because it provides them a safe place So they're not out there making those decisions that are going to cost them a lot more.

And frankly, the retail people out there can't offer to the whole community. So once that dries up at their price, it dries up. So it's not like you're always going to get if you hear your neighbor saying, I got whatever sense, it might be that might dry up, you might not have the opportunity. So it's nice to have again, the aggregation overall is consistent and it helps the community to price.

Mr. Maker, if I can just piggyback on that. I think that's a really good point because there were some people last year that were very angry because they saw prices for $750 or even lower, and it might have been for 300 people. When it was gone, it was gone. So yes, when we have a pool, we can't necessarily get that price. And sometimes there's some fine print that you got to pay attention to.

Absolutely. So thank you. Mr.

Magruder? Magruder?

Yes. Just follow-up on C. J. Point. What happens if somebody is on contract and then their contract period is over and you said you can then approach them. But what happens, do they just pay whatever supplier's rate that is on their bill until they make another decision?

Yes, if their contract is up and you have not renewed with them and you have a hard stop, meaning you don't have an evergreen clause that keeps the contract going forever. If you have a hard stop, they will return you to the utility and you will be on full utility service until you get an opt out or do something else with another supplier. So the way that the refresh works is you go back to the utility and then the next time we get an eligibility file, you would be newly eligible because now you're on full utility service and you would get an opt out letter, having that same twenty one days to opt out and going through the same process.

So for comparison right now, what would be the full utility rate?

It's $9.33 right now.

Oh, so it's not bad right now, but there may be periods where

it's going up in June to at least 10.3.

And just for context, the current price to compare that $9.33 rate, our current program rate is $8.99 or 8.99. However, we're starting a new anniversary term in June just like when the FE price will go up. So we are actively hedging. But the price that we're offering for the City Of Green is a part of a new member price. It's a unique price for twelve months. And it's a very strong and competitive price in our view. Well, in your consultant's view as well.

And you said that will be the rate from June 1 or July 1?

June 1.

June 1 for another twelve months. That's right. And then we'll be talking about it again next year.

You can assess where you're at that time and have me back in or another member of the NOPEC team.

Mr. Brandenburg? Mr. Noble. So

Mr. Nudgebauer alluded to it and we're going to be year over year with this contract, that's where we're going with it. In the past, we've had a multiyear contract. It was a very favorable contract. Ms. Wax Carr said that. So now where this is what this will be our second occurrence of year over year. I guess I'm going to ask the question, Do we see a time anytime soon where there we feel like there's going to be stability in the market? You guys alluded to we can get into that. I don't necessarily want to get to do everybody knows what's going on with electricity. Are we just going to be in year over year mode for the next few years? Is that where we're going to be?

Probably. I mean, I'll give you the example. When we looked at thirty six months, because we historically done long term contracts and those have been very, very beneficial. We looked at the thirty six month, it was 10.12. There was no way we were going to go over 10¢ and do an opt out with the community and have that be in place for three years not knowing what's going to happen.

You hear all about the AI, you know, data centers and all of those types of things coming in. Until those start to get built, the uncertainty is huge. When they start to get built and people start to understand what they draw, what their real capacity is, all those types of things and reality starts to set in, then the market may show some stability. But for right now, it's crazy. Now the capacity issue that we talked about last year, that has been set to 2,028.

So we know what that is, but the actual energy, when we had all of the cold weather a couple weeks ago, prices were almost 11¢ on the open market. So it's that volatile right now. So locking in long term is not something that anybody's doing, to be perfectly honest.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. I just wanted to get that out there for everybody because, you know, the citizens agreeing, but not really the citizens agreeing to citizens of Ohio, whatever, across the board, everybody was really, right, upset about what happened over the last year. And so we had a pretty robust education program, not only through things that this meeting or at this city council, but also on our website.

We did a lot of education, and it was very beneficial to everybody. But I want to reiterate again, I guess, to anybody that's listening here that, right, you always have the option to opt out, right? You're not obligated to be in the aggregation program with the city, as Mr. Meager indicated he does. But we had some lessons learned that we really promoted.

Last year, we went through this. They're still applicable, and that's what to watch out for. It's to watch out for not just the rate, but monthly fees that are association, early cancellation, termination stuff or whatever. So it this continues to be something that we see across social media. There was just a post in one of the neighborhood groups that I follow in my ward where somebody is posting, yes, I just got through this company, this rate. You guys should all do this. And I immediately went to apples to apples to look to see what it was. Right? And it was like a penny cheaper. But it also had it was temporary.

It was twelve months, and it had a monthly fee associated with it, and there was early termination fee or something. So there was like all these things that were stacking on top of it that made it not real.

And

so from a residential standpoint, we just we want everybody if you're going to do that, just understand what you're getting into, understand the term, understand the fees, understand all of the what we would call small print.

Yes. 100%.

That's right. Well said.

Mr. Branden, I just have one question. So when people are going out to apples to apples to look at what the current rates are, they can see all of those rates. How does someone very quickly find out in the green aggregation program at any given time what the rate is. Is there a place on our website

that's On our website, we have a section on our website called Utilities, and then it has gas, electric and trash. I think trash is in that category. So you can go right there. And currently, like NOPEC for or gas says there's NOPEC, we actually connect right to their website.

Okay.

And we'll probably do the same thing with electric. Because as they're updating things, we want to make sure that, you know, people are seeing that.

I know what you're going to say. So I think I appreciate what you're saying on the linking to our electric pricing, but we would not want to do that because your pricing would be possibly a little different than the rest of our aggregation, as you recall just from the new community pricing.

We'll have a special price.

But yes, exactly what Brenda is mentioning is that as a member of the NOPEC electric aggregation, we do offer products that are twelve month, twenty four month fixed as well that any of the residents would be free to shop and decide that could be more advantageous for them. So again, we do offer a twenty four and twelve month fixed product for electric and for gas. Green. And 100% green, if that's something green in terms of renewable energy, not the city. But we're proud to have you hopefully.

You. Mr. DeVitus, did you have a question?

I'm good. Thank you.

You're good.

Okay. I guess just one final point for everyone listening at home. I mean, I think Green has been very fortunate in our aggregation programs in the past. So we do see a big jump from PACE because we did such a good job in the past of having a long term aggregation program. So we're seeing the pain now, but a lot of times those communities didn't have as long aggregation programs as we did. And they might be cheaper on us now, but that's because they're locked into a program. So it's very difficult to compare amongst communities. But we were very fortunate in years past to have such a good program. So hats off to administration and Brenda for all the stuff you guys have done.

If I may, just for Mr. Noble, something that he had brought up a moment ago, was the discussion gosh, I'm losing it now. You were talking about the various great products that we offer. Jeez, man, I lost my train of thought. I'm so sorry.

Well, I talked about the contracts and the fees and long term stuff, Yeah, but

that's right. So I think I wanted I apologize. You were talking about looking out for some of the provisions that exist on the apples to apples website. So I wanted to report back from our afternoon public hearing that we did have a nice dialogue with two residents about some of those features to look out for on the apples to apples website. But one thing that NOPEC will do is have community outreach events with your senior centers or the senior center to do what's called bill review.

So if somebody comes in and they're upset about their electric product, maybe they didn't realize what they signed up for because on occasion these retailers will be outside of public venues or outside of say Giant Eagle with a clipboard and a shiny $100 Visa gift card and people will sign up for these products that are wrought with really dangerous and not consumer friendly fine print as you said. So we did have a really strong dialogue about that this afternoon during public hearing number one. And so our counter to that is just through public education, through reaching out to citizens, any citizen in Green to have those kind of discussions and do the bill review. So thanks for hanging in there with me as I got back on track.

So I think to add to that, if somebody shows up at your door selling a product, whether it's an electric product, a gas product or bug control or whatever, whatever it happens to be, they must have a permit from the city of Green. And we encourage everybody if they do not have a permit issued by the city of Green not to talk to them. Okay? We want to know who's walking the streets. We want to know that they're reputable people, and we have a permit process.

If they don't have that permit, we don't want you shouldn't be talking to them. They shouldn't be there without a permit. Yeah, so Other than Never give your bill to anybody. Do not do that. Thank you, Mr.

Noble, for those points. Okay. So do we have anybody from the public who would like to speak or ask questions? Please approach the podium, state your name and address for the record, please.

Karen Martin, 3055 Wise Road. They were talking about a grant to the city. How would you use that money?

Mr. Brandberg, I'm happy to answer that if you like. We've done a variety of projects in the past. We've done some HVAC upgrades. We have two electric vehicles that we leased that was through NOPEC funds. I'll be announcing a new program definitely in the next council meeting, but we'll be sending a letter to the city council soon that I don't want to get into tonight. So we are constantly looking at ways to use those funds. But they're always for energy efficiency, those kind of upgrades that try to benefit the whole community.

Would you consider helping people off with solar in, something like that? Could you do something like that with that money?

We generally don't have it for, like, an individual I don't even know if that would be even something that would be probably even eligible because it's supposed to be more like a community type of thing.

Well, with all this stuff coming in with the AI and that, and I'm considering solar.

I think you probably should talk to mister Weethy. Don't know what our regulations are on solar, but in terms of our zoning.

I've seen them around. So But yeah.

That probably wouldn't be eligible for a grant from OPEC.

I just wondered if you would consider that even if you did it for the buildings here.

We have we actually have done some feasibility studies about five years ago. We because we did do an energy efficient plan here at the city. It actually didn't go through NOPEC funding. We did it as a performance contract, and we did do some solar feasibility study then. It just really wasn't, at that point in time, a good payback. Okay. So we keep we keep an eye on that. I know on the commute or the economic development department just did another feasibility study on some property. So we keep an eye on that, but we just haven't Okay.

Where I I worked at before, he put in solar, started in one building and put it on another and another and And he said it wasn't so much that you were making tons of money, but when it was producing, it was going back to the electric company. And he said even on cloudy days, rainy days, there's still light out there, so it's still producing something. And that's what made me think that it somehow I would like to consider finding out how I can get solar that would be reasonable cost. I thought, oh, well that would be something interesting there, wouldn't it? So Thank thank you very

you, Ms. Martin. Anyone else from the public with questions, comments? If

I can just give a brief just be careful with solar. If you get a savings estimate from a solar company, when they say they're going to put these on your house, etcetera, you need to try and independently verify that and make sure that it is truly the amount that you're going to get back from the utility when you sell that excess generation to them. So I just caution as

you're The looking word at for that is net metering. So if you have someone talk to you about net metering, Brenda's right, make sure you really understand because it's not always as simple as it appears.

Correct. So just be cautious.

Ms. Parga. Okay. Since we have no one else signed up to speak or coming forward, I'll go ahead

and close this public meeting. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, counsel.

Thank you. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, mister Brandenburg. Next on our agenda is the reading of correspondence.

Okay. We have the, 02/18/2026 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting agenda. The 02/09/2026 charter review commission meeting minutes, the 02/23/2026 charter review commission meeting agenda, the Summit County Sheriff Department January 2026 activity reports, and, a number of resident opposition letters regarding the proposed CUMU commercial development at 3921 South Main Street. And that is all.

Thank you, madam clerk. And next is reading of new legislation. Okay. We have 2026

dash r zero six resolution modifying appropriations within certain funds in order to provide sufficient funding and declaring an emergency.

That will be referred to the finance committee.

Twenty twenty six dash r zero eight, a resolution authorizing the mayor to accept the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council twenty twenty six energized community grants, funds, and declaring emergency.

That will be referred to the intergovernmental utilities committee.

That's all I have.

Thank you, ma'am. And next is our report

of council committees. First up is finance committee chaired by mister Humphrey. Thank you, Mr. President. Finance did meet this evening.

All members were present. We had several items of legislative business. The first was a third reading of twenty twenty six R01, a resolution approving change order number two and three for the increase in the Barbacus Construction Company Incorporated contract for the Graybill Road Turn Lane project at Green Elementary School, making an appropriation and declaring an emergency. The amount on this legislation is $41,821.23 There was a change order. If a change order exceeds 10%, then they need to come back to counsel in order to get approval for the excess amount.

There was, as a result of a grade, they had to fill in with different material, dig deeper in order to adjust two sanitary manholes to grade. And so that's why this change order is necessary. This is third reading. And so at this time, I would move to adopt 2026R01. Second. I have a

motion and a second to adopt 2026R01. Is there any

discussion? Hearing none, please call the roll. Mister Humphrey? Yes. Mister Neugebauer? Yes. Mister Brandenburg? Yes. Mister Noble?

Yes.

Mister Spate?

Yes.

Mister Mager?

Yes.

And mister De Beas?

Yes.

Okay. 2026 dash r zero one is adopted seven zero.

The second piece of legislation we had on third reading was twenty twenty six zero two as amended an ordinance amending chapter 30 of the codified ordinances of the city of Green to authorize the recovery of credit and debit card processing costs and bank fees associated with certain payments to the city. This just allows, the city of Green, for certain transactions to charge a convenience fee if somebody wants to use a credit card. In instances where the city of Green is going to be requiring credit card payment, we will not be charging those for example for parks and recreation where the city requires credit card use for the city's convenience. We wouldn't be charging convenience fees for that. But the city was losing a significant amount of money because if you're charging $50 for something and then losing 3% of that on a convenience fee for somebody using the credit card that is charged back by the credit card company, the city is losing out on that amount and so you either have to raise your prices or charge a convenience fee.

It seems more equitable to charge a convenience fee for those who want to use a credit card because there's always different ways that you can pay. And so this legislation authorizes the use of those convenience fees. So this is a third reading. So at this time, I would move to adopt twenty twenty six zero two as amended. Second. We have

a motion and a second to adopt 02/2002 as amended. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, please call the roll.

Mister Humphrey? Yes. Mister Neugebauer? Yes. Mister Brandenburg?

Yes.

Mister Noble?

Yes.

Mister Spate?

Yes.

Mister Menger?

Yes.

And mister DeVitus? Yes. K. Twenty twenty six dash zero two is adopted as amended, 07/02.

The final item of legislative business we had in committee this evening was a second reading of twenty twenty six r zero three. This is a resolution authorizing the city of Green to enter into contracts with various engineering, construction management, and testing companies for professional services for a three year term commencing 01/01/2026 and ending 12/31/2028 and declaring an emergency. This is a result of a piece of legislation back in 2010 that we maintain these lists of vetted companies that the City of Green will use for professional services, engineering, construction management and testing companies. If you're going to do business with the city, you're on this list for a period of three years, that list can always be amended if a new company needs to be brought on, but this is a convenient way for the city to be able to have ready access to contractors understanding the charges that they will have for various professional services. This is second reading and so the committee would request time.

Time has been requested. Time will be granted on twenty twenty six R03. We had no older new business,

and we adjourned our committee at 05:09PM.

Thank you, mister Humphrey. The next committee to report this evening is environment and parks chaired by mister Neugebauer. Thank you,

mister president. Although all members were present this evening, there was no items of legislation before the committee, and there

was also no old or new business, so we did not meet. Thank you, mister Neugebauer. Next committee to report is public safety chaired by mister DeVitas. Thank you, mister president. Public safety did meet tonight. Myself, mister Humphrey, and mister Neugebauer were all present. There was no items of legislative business. However, we did receive an update from our communications manager regarding the new implementation of our new emergency alerting program. There's currently a testing process. So if you were enrolled in our emergency alerts before and you get a text this week regarding the emergency alerting service, that is a real text and it verifies that you're enrolled in the program.

Unfortunately, not everybody got enrolled from the previous database. So the city is encouraging all residents to use the links provided on the social media outlets that the city has to go in and submit your information for your phone number, address, and certain types

of feeds that you're interested in,

which would be your emergency alerts, weather alerts. You can even opt in the road updates or parks and sporting events. If there's any auxiliary things like that that you may be interested in, any real time updates. But basically, the city is currently making a social media push on that to get everybody enrolled. And there will also be physical correspondence at least by the means of our quarterly newsletters to encourage everybody to sign up for that.

And I certainly would encourage all residents to do that as well, mostly to stay in touch with any emergencies that may be going on in the city or even specifically in your portion of the city. That was the only thing discussed in public safety. There was no older new business brought to the committee, and

we adjourned. Thank you, mister DeVitus. Next committee to report is planning community and economic development chaired by mister Noble. Thank you, mister president. Myself, mister DeVitus, and

mister Humphrey are all present tonight. We do have we did have one item of legislation. It's on second reading. It is twenty twenty six dash zero three, an ordinance changing the zoning classification of approximately 2.76 acres of land located at 988 East Turkey Foot Lake Road from r one single family residential to b one general business. This rezoning passed the PZZ five five zero and is scheduled for a public hearing on Tuesday, 03/10/2026 at 7PM in Council Chambers.

As such, we, we didn't have any, discussion or debate on this. We'll have that, at the time of the public hearing. So I'm gonna ask for time on twenty twenty six dash zero three. Time has been requested. Time will be granted.

Additionally, I gave a brief summary of the planning and zoning commission last meeting SELU, commercial development, that was in front of the Planning and Zoning Commission that a number of us received emails regarding. So I get an update to counsel on that development and that development did pass the PCC by a margin of five to zero. That was the topics that was discussed at planning, community, and economic development. And that concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Noble. Next, we need to

report as rules and personnel, which I chair myself, mister Mager, and mister Brandenburg were here. However, we did not have any legislation. Therefore, we did not meet. Next up is transportation, connectivity, and storm water chaired by mister Mager.

Thank you, mister president. All members were present. However, there are no items legislation before us. We did meet to receive a report from mister Pickett regarding, the upcoming bid

process for

the Arlington Road corridor. We're expecting that to kinda kick off next week. So stay tuned for those bids, and then hopefully the construction of that coming in the near future. So after that, we

adjourned. Thank you, mister Mager. Last committee to report this evening is Intergovernmental and Utilities chaired by mister Brandenburg. Thank you, mister president. Mr. Meagher, Mr. Noble and I were all present and

we met to discuss three items of legislation. The first item was twenty twenty six R04, a resolution approving an agreement between the city of Greene and the legal defenders office of Summit County Ohio Inc. Declaring emergency. This piece of legislation the annual renewal of an agreement between the city of Greene and the public defender's office. The purpose is to provide legal services for individuals charged with violations of laws in the city of Greene are unable to afford an attorney for their defensive trial.

So, this particular agreement will cover 2026. Previous agreement covered 2025. During 2026 the city's going to pay 18 percent of the total cost of each case closed the prior month. The case total cost is $250 so the city will pay $45 Our finance director provided some perspective to say that last year was right around a thousand dollars and one of the highest years back in 2021 was around $4,000 a relatively low cost to the city of Greene. This item is on

second reading so the committee will request time. Time is requested time will be granted.

So the next two item legislation were ordinance or related ordinances proposal 2020 six-four an ordinance authorizing all actions necessary to join northeast Ohio public energy council's electricity aggregation program and declaring emergency and in the related ordinance 2020 six-five an ordinance approving the plan of operation and governance for the NOPEC energy aggregation program for the purpose of jointly establishing implementing an electricity aggregation program and declaring an emergency. So for this particular for these pieces of legislation we had two public hearings today. The first one was at the beginning of our council meeting. I'm sorry the second one was at the beginning of our council meeting. First one was at three p.

M. Today. In our committee we did not ask any questions as they all ask at these public hearings. So, we'll next discuss NOPAC on March 10 at which time we can take a vote. You can ask additional questions or committee or the council meeting later on. So at this point, I'm gonna request time on both the ordinances.

Alright. Time has been requested. Time will be granted on 02/2005.

These were the only items of legislation to come before committee. Committee had no other items of holding new business, so we adjourn.

Thank you, mister Brandenburg. Alright. And now it's

time for the mayor's report. Thank you, mister president. As more residents are now utilizing electronic payment and filing methods for taxes, We've decided to no longer mail income tax forms citywide to all residents. However, these forms are available on our website, in our office, or at the Greenbatch Library. And we will be happy to mail paper forms to residents who still want to file things the old fashioned way.

We are hiring summer seasonal staff. We're looking for seasonal staff for the following positions, summer day camp staff, site sports field monitors, park groundskeepers, road maintenance crew members, and full time positions currently open at the city include income tax administrator and service worker one and two. We're currently accepting applications for appoint appointment to the City Tree Advisory Commission. Applicants must be residents of the city of Greene. Interested citizens can apply online on our website by 4PM, 03/02/2026.

Members of the Tree Advisory Commission should have experience in arboriculture, landscape, the forestry industry, or other related fields. The tree advisory commission will meet on a quarterly or monthly basis. City employees are taking part in a suicide awareness and prevention training on March 11 at 10AM. The training is called QPR, which stands for question, persuade, and refer. It's paid for through grant funds.

We still have several seats available for those interested. If you want to attend, you can call (330) 896-5500 to register. The city of Green is selling Veterans Memorial Park banners through May, through May 1 to honor local veterans. The cost is $100 apiece. The banners will be displayed from Memorial Day through Veterans Day.

Purchase banners at cityofgreen.org slash register under commemorative items. In honor of America's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, Green is participating in the America Heritage Tree Program by selling tree sponsorships for our new Heritage Tree Grove at Greens Veterans Park to be dedicated on April 24 Arbor Day. The Grove will feature 25 trees. Sponsorships are $250 apiece. The deadline to sponsor is March 31.

Call our parks division to learn more at (330) 896-6621. The Steve Green's Drug Task Force is accepting applications for its twenty twenty six Drug Task Force scholarship for college or other continuing education for a Green resident graduating from high school. The criteria for the $1,000 scholarship includes currently residing in Green and has been impacted by substance abuse and lives or have lived apart from a parent or guardian due to the parent or guardian substance abuse. Also, you're eligible if you are pursuing a career in addiction recovery services. You can apply at the the website cityofgreen.org/drugtaskforce.

The deadline is April 24 at 4PM. By way of events, my first mayor's morning meetup for 2026 is this Friday, February 27 at the core. This year, I'm adding movement to my meetups. Not only do we get to enjoy coffee together and chat, I'm leaving a walk this time at the end of that for those who wish to participate. So I invite all to come join me at the core for a few laps around the track. I'm gonna walk and not run. If you're not a member of the core, the day rate will be waived. However, we ask that you bring your driver's license to check-in, which is required for all day passes. The city is proud to be a partner of a new event hosted by the Green Schools Foundation. Battle of the Slice is this Saturday, February 28.

This is the new iteration of the celebration of education. We're encouraging people to buy tickets in advance. It involves a pizza contest to determine who is the best pizza place in or around town. There's going to be Italian themed and lots of fun with a lot of the old, details from the prior celebration of education. It's a nice, fun, new twist, so I encourage you to come out.

For details, please visit greenschoolsfoundation.org. Hope and Healing Sunday is March 15. This annual event in collaboration with many of our area churches shares a message of hope and healing for those battling addiction or mental health issues. Literature and drug disposal bags are distributed at each of the participating churches. Thank you again for our local clergy who partner with us to share this message. And finally, I wanna congratulate our finance director, Shelly Goodrich, who will be recognized tomorrow evening at the Leadership Akron New Leaders event. Thank you, and congratulations, Shelly. Mister president, that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you, mister mayor. Is there any unfinished business to come before counsel?

Any new business? Alright. Can I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam clerk, please call the roll.

Yes. Mister Neugebauer? Yes. Mister Maker? Yes. Mister Humphrey? Yes. Mister Brandenburg?

Yes.

Mister Noble? Yes. Mister Spate? Yes. Mister DeVitas? Yes. Okay. Motion carries.

Thank you. We are adjourned.