City Council - workshop

730 we're gonna go ahead and get started I'd like to call this meeting to order This is a duly noticed workshop meeting of Hudson City Council Held in accordance with the sunshine laws of the state of Ohio section 121.2 to and the city of Hudson Charter article 3 section 3.0 to It is Tuesday, August 25th, 2026, and it is 7.30 p.m. Per ordinance 220.031, titled Workshop Meetings, and item C, I would now like to turn the meeting over to Council President Byrd so as to continue through the remaining workshop agenda items. Council President Byrd, the floor and workshop meeting is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We will begin with correspondence and council comments. I would ask that tonight we have some special guests from AP Gov. Yeah, so let's make it interesting, make it crisp.

Don't they have to stand up and introduce themselves?

Just kidding, they don't have to do that. But if anybody has any correspondence or council comments, get my attention. Patricia.

I just want to remind everybody next Monday, I am having an open forum at the Barlow Community Center at 7 o'clock, and it's about rentals, short-term rentals and long-term rentals. So I hope a large crowd will come, and we can really kind of talk out what the community thinks about both of those issues. Thank you.

I just appreciated the great crowd we had last week at the e-bike and e-scooter forum last week. We had many great ideas that were discussed across the board. All the problems that we see as a city seem to be aligned with what the residents spoke up about. Also, just wanted to clarify that public comments will still be accepted on Let's Talk Hudson until Friday, September 18th. So please get your comments in. Thank you.

Last night I was at the Planning Commission meeting. They had two applicants. One was for a daycare on the corner of 303 and Tarex, and another application was for the townhomes on Morse between Clinton and Owen Brown. This was their second Planning Commission meeting of the month. They usually just do one. So I don't know if that might have been an issue, but they had some trouble getting a quorum. They had a quorum for a little bit, but not for the entire time, so they had to end a little bit early. So just flagging this that it kind of pushed some of the process and the applicants into the next meeting, which kind of caused a delay, and I think there was also some delays. Just flagging that there was a little bit of an issue kind of, I think, keeping questions related to the zoning code and related to our comprehensive plan. And I think that led to some of the timing issues that happened at the meeting last night.

JUST WANTED TO REITERATE WHAT COUNCILMAN WHITE SAID ABOUT OUR FORUM AND SHOUT OUT TO DAFNY OUR LITTLE FOURTH GRADE GIRL SCOUT THAT CAME AND PRESENTED AND SHE DID AN AMAZING JOB. I ALSO WANTED TO SAY WE HAD A BZBA MEETING LAST WEEK. COMING UP WE HAVE SEVERAL APPLICANTS PROPOSING VARIANCES SO WE MIGHT HAVE TO ACTUALLY GO INTO MORE MEETINGS TO GET THROUGH ALL OF THOSE BUT THAT'S JUST MY UPDATE. THANKS.

Thank you. We had a meeting of Park Board last night. A number of subjects were covered. We had a presentation by a Girl Scout, Violet Painter, who did a great presentation on the history of Hudson Springs Park. It was originally the May Family Farm, and she actually found the foundation of a bait and tackle shop that used to run there when it was like a private pay for park you could get in, and she's looking to uncover that foundation and do a project there. So the city staff is, there was a motion made last night, city staff is going to help uncover that foundation and that will be a project probably done in the spring of next year. There was additional discussion on the pickleball courts as far as a reservation system and the potential types of play assignment for each courts. I have a piece I will pass around to the council members here to review the park board plans to move forward with that signage will be made and they will make an official motion to to install that hopefully alongside of the lighting going up in the coming months. Obviously, dream playground. was a great success. Lots of comments on that. Additional topics included discussion on a need for some netting along the Nicholson Trail on hole 11 of the golf course. A young child was struck by a ball coming off the tee box there. That hole runs quite tight to the trail, so there's discussion on putting some netting there protective at about 10 feet high. On the subject of golf, the revenue year to date is at $1.5 million, a 42% increase from this time last year. So the golf, the new clubhouse, the simulators, everything is doing very well. And my last point would be that park products, we will be putting in an order for products to be available in the Welcome Center, park-branded products. So look forward to those coming in the coming weeks. Additionally, I do have one... letter message from a resident that was asked to be read into the record. So I would like to read that now. Members of Council, first thank you for your service to the community and for your time you dedicate to representing residents of Hudson. I AM WRITING TO EXPRESS MY DISAPPOINTMENT WITH THE HANDLING OF THE CANTERBURY CROSSING PROJECT. AS YOU ARE AWARE, THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT HAS GONE THROUGH AN EXTENSIVE REVIEW PROCESS. IN 2023, THE PLANNING COMMISSION REJECTED THE DEVELOPER'S APPLICATION CITING 14 FINDINGS OF FACT. THE DEVELOPER APPEALED THAT DECISION TO CITY COUNCIL WHICH UPHELD THE REJECTION. THE BOARD OF ZONING AND BUILDING APPEALS ALSO AFFIRMED THE DECISION. THE DEVELOPER SUBSEQUENTLY SUED THE CITY AND WAS UNSUCCESSFUL. Given these outcomes, I believe the appropriate path forward would be for the developer to revise his proposal to address the concerns identified by the planning commission and ensure compliance with Hudson's land development code and city charter. The established review process exists to ensure fairness, transparency, and consistency for all applicants. Approving a proposal that has repeatedly failed to meet the city's requirements sends the wrong message to residents and developers alike. It risks creating the perception that established standards can be set aside rather than followed. I respectfully urge the council to return this matter to the Planning Commission and require a development plan that fully complies with the city's regulations. i would like to raise a concern regarding public notification the city manager stated that all adjacent property owners were notified of this matter however residents along stowe road whose properties are adjacent to the development site did not receive any such notification i believe this issue warrants further review to ensure all affected residents are properly informed thank you for your time and consideration respect respectfully tony Havlik, I hope I pronounced that correctly, at 6328 Stowe Road. And finally, I just want to say that I did inform Tony that we'll say the The version that was presented to Planning Commission is not the same as coming with this settlement, but he still wanted his message read. And that is all for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Council President Byrd. A few just quick comments from me. I just want to thank again everyone at WRA for their hospitality this past week with our meeting on campus. Suzanne and her staff have been great to collaborate with and work with, and I sincerely appreciate all of their efforts. So thanks again to Suzanne, Meg, Holly, Kate, Laura, and both of the Andrews. um second comment we will be joining the hudson senior network tomorrow after their luncheon at city hall to officially unveil and cut the ribbon for the new senior transportation van program which is planned to begin in september thank you again to all who helped discuss review donate and set up this service for our more mature residents Last quick reminder and note, this weekend's Art on the Green will be back on the downtown greens and not the Joanne facility where it had been the last couple of years. So please don't go down to the Joanne parking lot. There will be nobody there. The event will be spread out on the four downtown greens, which are the Clocktower Green, the Gazebo Green, across the street where Melody is on the Park Lane Green, and then also into the First and Main Green right down there in the center of all those residential, or excuse me, merchants and shops down there. And I just wanted to also note there's been a few comments on social media about what are we going to do about parking now that this is all on the greens down here and we don't have the use of the Joanne site. There will be parking at the Acme Plaza and there will be a shuttle service running people from the Acme Plaza over here to the green. I'm not sure exactly where the drop off is, Mr. Sheridan, but it'll obviously be somewhere close to the green so the people can get there and back without having to worry about parking.

So that's all I have, thank you. All right, thank you very much. Moving on, next is discussion items. 3A26-0061, excess general fund carryover balance.

I'll kick this off while Jeff is getting seated. This came up in July. It was the excess carryover from 2025, as you all know. Jeff did a good job of making sure that we showed what we spent year to date. And currently we're at a 2.4 million, 2.45 million. and we have a list of our recommendations down below this was discussed with council in july i don't think anything came to a conclusion so we thought we'd bring it back up in august and we looked at the budgets we're currently looking through the budgets for 27 through 31 and these items rose to the top from the two assistants and myself sitting down and going through everything on what we would recommend but we're happy to discuss any of the projects from paving to more storm water or sidewalk program if that's what council would like Jeff, did you have anything to add?

The only other thing, the attachments that are with the Ledger Star file are the same as they were the last time we talked about this. The only additional one is we attached a list of the unfunded capital projects from the five-year plan. So we pulled all those out and put them in a separate attachment there. We're just looking for direction or any questions you may have.

So, Tom, when you talk about 2.5 or 2.4, there's a salt barn, right? Is that?

Correct.

Is that?

That's down below. That's one of the recommended projects. It's not budgeted. It's unfunded, and we need to get it moved. Obviously, for the innovation park and selling that property, we need to get it moved over to the west end of the property

So that's kind of like we have to do that, right?

Yes, in the next year. And Kevin Powell and our public works, we're trying to team up with getting our salt delivered and then basically using it for this coming winter. And then when it depletes and we completely clean out the salt barn, which would be the first place we do, and then basically we'll be able to move this salt barn structure over. Jeff, did you have something?

I was just going to, if you wanted to, just scroll down under the suggested action. That's where it's kind of laid out what Tom says, and you'll see the estimate for the third appropriations is $500,000. That'll come later this year. It's under the 26th. Just click it.

Staff report. So while they're doing that, I asked Jeff, what would be the average that we would be looking at for an appropriation at the end of the year? And we settled on, it could be a little higher, it could be a little lower, but we just settled on holding a half a million for that. We've already put the first two appropriations in out of this excess carryover. Then the salt barn was a priority for having that moved and then making the site developable. the increased velocity that we're gonna see with some of these extra safety measures. We haven't had that out to bid yet, but we're contemplating it's gonna be about $350,000 approximately. and then we're requesting to hold. Right now we have a Brandy-Wine Creek watershed study and a Tinkers Creek watershed study that hasn't been completed and we think it would be prudent for council to hold the 950,000 as a carryover into next year's future stormwater projects. Those studies will come to final phase about the same time you guys are doing the budgets. So that's the total.

How much is the salt bar?

former six hundred fifty thousand it's the green it's this time what i just read you know it's at the bottom of the staff report can we just can we just bring it up so everyone

I was pulling all this up, but it didn't come up.

Do you elaborate on the velocity fiber to the home cost increase where, you know, what factored into that estimation? Is that covering the increased of costs expected for the year two rollout completing the year one rollout, the entire rollout, like just help me understand where this number came from.

So the year one area two and then

So could I extrapolate then that, excuse me, I'm sorry, year two area one, year one. So finishing year one and part of year two, okay. So is it reasonable to estimate that that, somewhere in that general vicinity is what we expect the cost increase to be for all of the years or is that not even comparable that would that would be just to cover those two those two remaining areas those two areas and so then we have the rest of year two we have year three and year four so you know another 350 000 give or take each time okay increase it'd be about 20 percent

That's what we're told. But everyone, an estimate is an estimate. We're waiting to get bids in September on those areas, and then that's when I'm telling the finance director to start looking at evaluating the system based on this increased cost due to the public safety and everything else that we're doing and we're implementing with the new code. Thank you.

I was just going to add to that. We know the cost is going to go up because of the additional labor that we're going to be asking people to do.

I don't want to publicly say that because the bidders could be listening.

Well. We expect there to be a cost increase, so it would be prudent for us to set aside some money knowing that we're putting through new regulations with new equipment required, again, as you stated, for the safety of this process. We expect that that's going to take more time, and unless there's pushes and pulls in other places, it seems very prudent to put this aside. You said 20%. I think that's... acceptable number. I'm a little concerned that it may push or pull more or less than that. I guess just in general, then, as we're talking about these things that staff has recommended, in my mind, I guess I'd like to go through those and say, which ones are you strongly recommending? And back to the salt barn, I believe you said last time that we had to do that based on the classification that we got for the property out there. And I think there's a timeline to that. So that's something that we need to do. And I believe, Mr. Sheridan, what was the timeframe we have to do that? Is there a window where we have to get that done by?

We'd like to have it ready to go for developing in 28. So we're looking, but also a salt barn has a season with the salt supply, obviously. So, um, you just asked me my rankings. My rankings are, we know we're going to have a third quarter appropriation. We've estimated the 500,000 for that. So that's ranked with number one. We know that's going to happen. We're, we're pretty sure the 500, the salt barn is an unfunded project. It's not in any of our budgets. Um, for next year or whatever. So basically that's why we're recommending that because we have to move that within a year or so. So we're going to go through one more season in an existing location, as I mentioned, depleted, then next summer move it over and then it'll be out of the way the land can all be developed at that time we could sell it to a developer velocity as we just spoke about is the third priority in a sense we don't know what that is but if it comes in under which i'm always optimistic if it comes in under great then we don't have to spend a 350 and then the remaining future storm water projects we were just mentioning you know for council if third appropriation needs a little bit more money, we can take it out of the 950 that you see on your screen. Or again, we don't know what the velocity is and we won't know those costs until we actually bid it in September. So those last two are kind of unknowns. But I do want to state one thing. I think I said it in the agenda meeting the other day though. This is really great that you have excess carryover as a community. It's not a problem. It's actually to no other city. This is a great thing. So we are still being financially responsible, fiscally responsible with everything we do. So that's a great place for any city to be.

So the stormwater are things that could be done this year.

City engineer answer that? No, we still have design and permitting and construction. Depending on how we're thinking of carrying it over.

Yeah, so what would happen? The money wouldn't go away. It would just remain in the general fund for future appropriations. Stormwater. Stormwater.

Okay.

which you've seen some of the budgets that the two watersheds have brought to council in recent months. And they're pretty high, you know, with the project costs. So we're kind of deciding on the air of caution to make sure that council has that excess if they need it for next year.

And then I know this may be getting a little bit ahead of ourselves as far as, cause this is gonna be talked about with regards to the budget, but can you talk, can you say a little bit about, where the income tax revenue that took a hit from Joanne closing, how much from our peak, how much have we recovered from that with additional jobs and are we still down?

I would say we basically flattened out. The growth we've seen in other income tax areas has more or less balanced out the loss of Joanne.

So we're kind of we've recovered say well we I would say we're pretty close to it yeah but it's obviously we're not as good as if we had had all those new jobs and Joanne was still here

We're a little bit above our estimate. I think it was just under 1% above our estimate at the end of July. Positive increase in the month of August, so we'll see that go up a little bit, but we had budgeted decrease in income tax this year versus last year. So we're basically hitting our numbers, so.

We'll add to that. We did ask the economic development director just to see, if you recall, the state of the city, we decided that we were going to have about 450 jobs coming in with different companies and expansions in our community. We feel that we've seen a lot of those come in, but the exact number yet, she wasn't able to get that information, but we will have it by budget, so... i think that's partly also why we're kind of as jeff said kind of evening out is our we got 400 jobs or part thereof a good portion of that has now come back into the city and we're getting that payroll and and also i just want to hold on jeff real quick is i also want to state that you know joanne's is still strongly looking for tenants and we hope to see tenants in that building so

I mean, keep in mind, though, you know, staying flat or flat year over year is not good. We want that to increase because, as we've all talked about, every time a project or cost or anything comes up, there's... Dramatic, fairly substantial inflation, the cost of everything goes up, so I don't want us to think that, oh, okay, we're fine with losing our number one employer and everything's just status quo. There is an impact.

Inflation ingested, we are down.

Yeah, exactly. but we've weathered weathered the storm pretty well uh and like we've talked about before with the we moved all the connectivity projects to unfunded was was a big big help so your questions for jeff

I know we're going to talk about the connectivity rankings in a few. One that I get asked about a lot is Barlow Road. I know we were going to have the design done this year, but I know that's on hold. Is there any way to consider that, though, within this scope?

Anything's on the table. Looking for direction from Council.

So the other thought was, I mean, it's a pretty hefty bill for the full sidewalk, but I don't know if engineering would be able to split it in thirds. Lincoln, or not Lincoln, Nicholson to Tarex and pause, figure out the Tarex stop, and then eventually going to Lincoln. But it's probably one of the most requested things I get. And based on the current rankings, it's well above anything else in the connectivity plan. So I just wanted to put that out for thought. For thought.

Well, and also, in some part, we have this excess carrier over because we didn't do sidewalks this year, is that correct?

This is from 25.

Yeah, the two biggest things, our income tax came in the second part of last year better than we had forecasted. And then secondly, we did not do the... Prospect Street, the bridge, the sidewalk that goes over.

Two million dollars.

It was like 1.6 million, something like that. And we did not do that. But then also, moving forward, we moved all the connectivity, the majority of the connectivity projects to unfunded. So that helped us as we were looking out.

Brad, is the Barlow Road designed? We'd have to start that design. Out of the 2.33 million? 325.

325,000 for design is what we have listed.

That's the old sound, am I right? Yeah, that budget number sounds correct. Designed all the way up to the bike trail. Trail was designed up to the bike trail, so we'd have to refine that.

sidewalk to a sidewalk yeah and we didn't design from the bike trail to lincoln though that was never done right okay that would be so about 300 for design and that would leave six at most that'd be 650 for stormwater kyle you were going to do that math faster for me weren't you

I was going to say I would be comfortable allocating that portion that we currently have for stormwater to do the connectivity.

Would it would it help to split it in thirds like I was recommending like what that 2 million could we phase it.

I would design all at once and then we can talk about what the budget for each for each section would be OK yeah that might make it a little easier to swallow and maybe we phase out of the that part it may construction wise but anytime you split a project in a phase it's going to pay a premium.

Yeah, OK.

I'm just concerned taking anything away from stormwater because the numbers are so big about what we have to do and I probably hear more concerns about that than I do about the sidewalks.

for the connectivity plan since we did sort of pump the brakes for so long, or for at least this year, so. The stormwater budget will be, what's your estimate for next year? Robust. Robust.

Yes, currently we haven't dove into finance yet, but what I've allocated is approximately three million per year. That's not all the projects that I presented. That's a start.

And we have that money?

I'm presented to find out we have what we're going through right now are the meetings with the departments and we will gather everyone's recommendations and requests and so forth and compile them all. Um, and. Sure, the wants and needs will outpace the resources, I'll just say. And so what we'll do then is, as a group, prioritize those projects, sit down and prioritize them. And it's like putting together a five-year plan. It's kind of like putting together a financial puzzle and see how everything fits into that because there are, you know, there are competing Operations with the, you know, it's, it's, it's stormwater. It's, it's the roads where the fire department is being supplemented with general fund money. Um. actually operating. So there's other competing operations that for the general, for the income tax revenue. So we'll put it all together and present.

I guess the question would be taking away the 300,000. Would that affect the stormwater projects much?

Yes, by $300,000.

It's not that significant. We did do a hard stop, you know, on some of the connectivity. So I think it's not like I think it's a fair. It's reasonable to resume some.

Couple questions. Mr. Costco, what is, remind me of the prior run rate for stormwater. Wasn't it around 2 million? So your 3 million, I know you're not being held to it, but is that correct? I don't have that memorized. And I didn't have that in front of me, so I can't remember.

I want to say it was 2-ish, so we're looking at a 50% increase. Some years I may, again, it hasn't been, it looks like he's pulling it up, but some years I'm, exceeding three million, three was an average.

Are you saying another million on top of the two, or you're saying five million in total, if it was two and now you're saying three?

I'm saying a total of three.

Okay. Go ahead. To answer your question, yeah, so for 2026 under stormwater project, 2.6 million budgeted, or estimated for 2027, 2.5 million, 2028,

But Brad when you do the 2.6 million did you get the 3 million from the studies that they if you averaged out whatever their rankings were they know I that's based upon what I put in this very preliminary draft budget for us to debate for 2.6 is going up to 3 million you're saying yeah.

My other comment was gonna be, if we are generally agreeing, and I don't wanna speak for council on the salt farm, the third appropriations and the velocity for the numbers that staff has presented, if we're really talking about the 950K stormwater, either leaving that in as staff is suggesting or finding something that maybe we peel a piece of that off. I guess I would look a little bit broader and say, is there something that is designed that's ready to go? Is there a safety project? Is there something that is critical that we may wanna consider it as a piece of that 950 or leave it in all stormwater? So again, I don't have all those. I know we have a list here. with us attached to the agenda, but I guess that's how I would like to have this conversation. Is there a critical safety piece that makes sense in doing whatever that may be? Is there a critical connectivity that maybe is designed or underway of being designed that we don't have to look at the design piece of cost as well as the installation cost? Is there some low hanging fruit that is high priority?

Any safety projects that we would have been programmed would be in design already. So no, offhand without the budget in front of me, no. And I don't know if I'd analyze any sidewalk project as a critical sidewalk project.

I can say.

And I was trying to look a little bit further than that.

I can say on behalf of our review, safety was first and we didn't see anything that, and again as Brad said, safety projects we normally will bring to council and say we have to get this done now. Be it road caving in or whatever, a culvert needing replaced.

So there's no fire EMS? pieces and parts that still need to be funded with this.

Could be funded with this. We set aside five million. The first phase came in at 2.3 and I believe we overestimated it at over three million and the second phase we're thinking is gonna be around one to one, two million on fire and EMS and we have the five million already set aside. We hope to be around four million with phase one and phase two. So we should be seeing a considerable savings there too. We looked at everything. I mean, not down to the details of details, but we did look at every different department, even is there stuff in the comprehensive plan that we need to do and what have you. So this was the list. And again, we're open to anything. If you guys want to add more roads paving, storm sewer, more connectivity, I think this is a good idea. If you want to get back into connectivity, it's a large project put the design out we've already designed most of it i think we can go back to that consultant and get that cost below three hundred thousand dollars so

I'm gonna ask two questions and I'm hoping to just kind of get some straightforward answers here. Does anyone have anything besides Dr. White's suggestion of, Mr. White's suggestion, too many doctors. Mr. White's suggestion on adding the connectivity to the suggestion actions. Is there any other items anyone would like to add to this list to be considered? I've got silence, I'm gonna take that as a no. My second question then is, Dr. Goetz expressed some worry about taking from the stormwater. Does anybody else have concerns?

I have concerns about it, but we have an excess fund for a reason, so I think the idea of giving it to a different project like that was suggested is a good idea with the hopes that there will be or finance, we'll look into the coming year for.

In my opinion, it would still leave stormwater, you know, alongside the salt barn is the two highest numbers being allocated to. I'm comfortable with it. It seems like most people are comfortable with it. I'd like to get staff direction. So anybody else?

Support for that.

So we'll just add the 300,000 for the design. So we'll. handle all that. Stormwater will be out there. And again, we don't know what appropriations, but having that stormwater carryover, whatever's remaining, hopefully appropriations come down at the end of the year. So we're hopeful for that too. All right. Thank you. All right.

Thank you guys. Next up is 3B26-0068, 2026-2030 Walk and Bike Plan Ranking System.

Dr. Bird, you had asked for this to be on here, so I wanted to kind of let you speak first and answer any questions anyone has.

This this current ranking system was designed several years ago and I certainly appreciate the consistency of having a Value of having a consistent ranking system. I think it's helpful for this group to completely understand how things are ranked and I And I don't want to I don't want to blow it up. I just want to have that conversation around is there any little tweaks that we might want to make to it. So for example, up on the screen now is the current sort of scoring matrix and are we going to want to think about something that specifically calls out safety and has a scoring related to that. I know that safety is part of this ranking system and sort of embedded in it, but do we want to have a specific thing about safety? Another thing, do we want to have something that speaks to the number of potential people that could be served by this? And the other piece is that the current system may not have the granularity to help us score some of these sidewalks. So for example, the current list has 10, there's a top five, and then there's the next 10. And all 10 of those are basically like, the same score and so if you're trying to rank how you're gonna get there, it might be a little challenging. Because the difference is three or four years on that second tier of 10 as far as who's gonna get a sidewalk. Secondly, is there anything that You know, it's now three years later, four years, I don't know when this was actually, the scoring matrix was determined. But now we've got AI capabilities. We've got the ability to analyze large amounts of data in our GIS system or whatever. And maybe there's an opportunity to help us with that data. scoring system. And then lastly, this has nothing to do with the ranking system, really, but if you look at those numbers from number eight to number, well, I mean just one through 17, the very bottom number, the total is 29 million. So we have not, our most robust, aggressive sidewalk budgeting is, has been what, like three or four million? Or five?

Yeah, well, the program was averaging, it was 20 million, and I believe we averaged about four a year. Sometimes it was higher, sometimes it was less, depending on the cost of the projects.

Okay, so that's, Kyle, 28 divided by four is seven, I think. Yeah, I'm getting enough. So that's seven years. until we get down to number 17. And I'm not saying that we should be going faster. I'm just saying it's very frustrating for those residents who are near the bottom of the list and have six-year-old kids that are riding their bikes in the street. They would love to have a sidewalk. That kid's going to be 13 by the time we get some of these done. so i'm just saying that we we do have a program that we have done assessments of neighborhoods and they get a sidewalk done and then for the next 20 or 30 years they get additional income taxes. That's not what, I mean people aren't like that. I'd much rather have a sidewalk put in by the city. However, I think we have to give people some sort of like awareness to the enormity of the problem, how long it's gonna take us, and if you have passionate neighbors that want a sidewalk faster, then there is some opportunity to get one if everybody in the neighborhood kinda comes together and is interested in that. Amanda.

We have... So I see the original rank and the score. Do we have like how the data behind how it got that score, like the ranking on all the individual components for each thing?

We do. I believe those are in the appendix. It's available on the city website. We can certainly get that to council.

Is there a survey where, do we have a survey with residents that prioritize certain things or did that come from that or was it just a general survey?

The engagement that we did for this current round was in 2024. I believe we did a mix of online engagement and some ward meetings as well as discussing with council to come up with the matrix system. We've used that a couple different times. and working with council over the last 10, 12 years, we have adjusted a little bit, partly as that first wave of projects were done, there was a much bigger spread 10 years ago when we had some really critical segments. So as that first tier had been done over this last 10 years, there has been some adjustment to that system.

Is there, when it was scored or ranked here, it's considering the things in green of what made it higher up, but was it also considering cost, or was cost not a factor when it was ranked and scored?

This initial scoring is separate from cost. It's just ranking it based on these, I'm sorry, on the categories on the page before.

My thought is if you consider, I consider those like benefits, right? Here's the benefits of all of these things, but then you weigh that against the cost, you might have a different ranking of, you might have some kind of lower hanging fruit that's a lower cost but high benefit, and so you might get a slightly different ranking of what to kind of chip off first if we take both the benefits and then also weigh those costs in. And then maybe also something like how many residents would be affected by this.

Some of that, I think some of the people number was is captured a little bit by like major arterial or moderate arterial or something like that. Greg, is that correct?

It is. I think the fact that we strongly prioritize arterials and collectors does provide that more general community use rather than individual neighborhood. When the matrix was first put together, it may have been 12 to 15 years ago, there was a system that tried to capture how many households would benefit. It was a little imprecise as people might travel through on an arterial street and how do you define which neighborhood funnels to that piece of sidewalk. So we did have that at one time and I think shifting to this arterial street was trying to at least prioritize that access to more residents.

I do want to say, you know, for the first 15 years, well, no, for the first 13 years I was here, the sidewalk extensions, the new sidewalks really didn't exist. It was the last thing councils looked at in budget. A couple hundred thousand, but I don't think I ever saw anything really high. especially a city engineer, you know, doing those projects. So in 2020, when the pandemic hit and we had the public input, we started on that first phase and, you know, it was a, it was a lot changed in a short period of time about how many sidewalks. I think a lot of people in town have realized that. So back to keeping that going, you know, I have no issues with however you guys want to do this. I think the staff did a good job both times, uh, getting their rankings and getting the public input. Um, and the first few pages of that report there, I think it went from February through October. We had public input on that little chart. You don't need to go to a Brian. It's just, it's in the front pages of your chart. Um, and, and this, again, this, this was changed from the original plan in 2020. Um, the rankings were changed a little bit because of, of changes in ideas or whatever. So we're happy to accommodate whatever staff, but yeah, they went from February to September of 2024 with a lot of public. Point. So,

This map has a lot of info, but it's very helpful. It shows all the existing sidewalks, proposed segments, and it highlights the top-ranked segments in the current plan.

Currently, in the last five years, the only thing we showed were the top seven, and they were all in unfunded. So any of this would be additive to a budget. It would be new items into the five years.

I THINK OVERALL, THE STAFF HAS DONE THE WORK. ESPECIALLY FOR THE TOP FIVE OR SEVEN OR WHATEVER IT WAS, I THINK THE RANKING IS GOOD. I THINK IT COULD BE HELPFUL PERHAPS FOR THAT LATER GROUP OF EIGHT THROUGH WHATEVER THE NUMBER WAS FOR MAYBE an additional column on there, list number of parcels, something to give us a little bit more granularity because every single one of those has the exact same score. So when we do make our way through to them, it would be a little difficult to rank at that point. Dr. Bird, is your question that we give the residents of maybe it's those ones that are all scored the same, the option of accepting some sort of income tax increase to expedite their sidewalk project? Is that kind of what you're suggesting?

I'm just suggesting that it probably is something that needs to be kind of pushed out and have the public educated every few years that this is an option.

The logistics of that.

It's available now. So if 10% of the people on there want us to do an estimate, we would. And then we would go back and if 60% of the people along that voted for it, it would be assessed to their property taxes.

How do those 10% kind of gather themselves?

They would call the sponsor. Yeah.

And that could be for anything from street lighting to curbs and storm sewers and sidewalks.

We tried, we looked at that with water a couple of times a few years ago. Same type of process. Okay, understood.

And I agree, I don't think the top several ones are gonna change much, but I wanted to have this conversation now. There's no urgency to any kind of analysis, but I think we should keep it on our radar, maybe with some ideas around three council members together with staff, and just get some ideas and decide. But again, there's no urgency. I just want all of us to be aware of this process, how it happens, especially going into budget season when we start looking at some of these projects.

You want us to... I mean, we can play some scenarios here with safety, adding more of a score for safety, for example, and seeing how that runs the rankings. And we can just come back to the full council in, you know, a couple of six weeks or whatever and report since we have a lot of time and we're going to be going through budget at that same time. So we'll run that scenario. We'll check AI. We'll look at safety and we'll be happy to communicate out the assessment process. It's been around for a long time. And anyone who ever calls, just so you know, when they call they usually get engineering and engineering will say yeah you just have to get 10 and just to kind of give everybody the communication right now it'll only take one minute is basically you know someone can sponsor it they get 10 it's for example if it's a water line or a sidewalk it's the 10 of the people it's going to directly affect and they just have to get them so They have 100, they have to get 10 people to sign a petition. Then engineering does a full scale engineering estimate. They'll do some survey work, do all that, come back with a certified estimate for the homeowners and divide it up amongst the affected people. And then that gives them an idea of what their taxes are gonna go up. It's usually a 20 year. We don't like to go over that with a bond. And then that goes into effect just so you know. a year after the work is completed and approved construction-wise. So it's several years before that actually hits their tax bill. This gives you a brief overview of the assessment process. But if the 10% can get the 60%, then it just moves into building the sidewalk. And the design and everything gets wrapped up into that bond. So a little background on that. But we'll go ahead and do that for this if that's okay. I'm sorry, Mayor. I didn't mean to.

Just wanted to let you finish. I just wanted to get in the queue. The discussion here on the assessment, I'm not in favor of that. Knowing that we've put so many millions of dollars in the last several years into a connectivity plan, I can't imagine the resident who is saying, you know, My friend's neighborhood down the road got sidewalks in that five-year plan for the $20 million, and now I'm looking at an assessment why. The fairness from that standpoint, I'm not sure that would be received very well. So I'm extremely cautious on that aspect. And then going back to if all the sidewalk projects have been moved to unfunded, Is our intent when we get into the budgeting process to have some of those pulled back in or is that still in flux of we may not pull any of them in because I still think we need to continue. My question is what is that rate? What is that clip that we would want to continue? I'd hate to see them remain on the unfunded as we move into 2027 and not have any connectivity plans. So I know... Councillor White, we just talked about the excess fund carryover and that design for that one project. So I just want to understand, is that even something that's on the table or am I reading this wrong?

Yes, it's on the table. Everything's on the table. When we get to budget, we're giving you our recommendation on how to balance the budget. Back to Dr. Gretz's question. Do we have enough money? we've always done with council wants because you know what becomes your decision on what is a priority we cannot do all the stormwater projects and we cannot do all the connectivity we're at a right now you can pick and choose you can do all of one or you know whatever but again that's what we've always done every year in the budget and the one great thing about the city again i want to the horn to the residents out there in the in the council and everyone else you have a five-year operating in a five-year capital budget A lot of cities don't have that. You're planning out five years. But to answer your question, Mayor, we'll bring that all to council, and as you know from budget meetings in the past, council will decide where they want to spend their money.

I agree. My last comment was I do like your suggestion on maybe looking at adding safety into the matrix that we've used so far. That's been a common theme in some of the previous discussions, so I think that's good.

Yeah, we'll run the scenario.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, everybody, for that discussion. Moving on, next is for Greg. Thank you. Brian, thanks. For proposed consent agenda for September 1st, 2026 council meeting, A is TMP-8818, motion directing the clerk to send notice to the Ohio Division of Liquor Control indicating no request for hearing regarding a new permit to sell alcoholic beverages for Ohio CVS stores, LLC, CVS Pharmacy, 4359-5783, Darrow Road, Hudson. Any questions about that? Next is B, TMP-8817, resolution accepting the amounts and rates as determined by the Budget Commission in authorizing the necessary tax levies and certifying them to the county fiscal operator and declaring an emergency. So, Jeff, this is because we are the taxing authority for the library?

For the library, that's correct. And this is something that we do every year. We're required to... just more procedural approval that the County Budget Commission has determined. Our rates for the city, they don't change. We have inside millage, so that just brief education on property taxes, inside millage, the revenue that is generated by inside millage, it increases as the value of the city increases. outside millage, those mills will be adjusted by the county so that the revenue that's generated from outside mills doesn't fluctuate very much. But ours increases. To reference the schedule there, we have the general fund receives about $4.5 million. Our cemetery fund receives about $250,000, and our police pension, about $440,000. The library flows through the city. We're just a pass-through, more or less. As you know, they have their own board and set their own budget. Studies come due, they're not coming due for a while. Studies are approved by city council to put them on the ballot. But that's statutorily required because the library can't do it on their own.

Okay, good, all right, thank you. 4C TMP-8824 resolution amending resolutions 25-182 and authorizing city manager to increase an existing purchase order for superior beverage. This is because golf is doing so well, right?

I think what I just heard earlier that the golf course revenues are up and So we need to get more of Superior Beverages PO to be increased in order to keep up with that demand.

The 4D TMP-8822 resolution amending resolution number 25-182 to increase funding for the snow and ice control program contract for road salt and conveying and declaring an emergency.

This item is we'd like to buy the salt at the cost from this last year. It's going up approximately 20%. So this legislation is giving us the ability to go ahead and purchase the salt at last year's prices, which will save the city money. We have to have that done by early September, I believe. That's why it's on consent.

All right, next five proposed legislation for September 1st, 2026 council meeting. A is 26-113 ordinance amending chapter 478 of the codified ordinances and declaring an emergency. This is scheduled for a third reading next week and Mr. Sutton set out some amendments to us.

to comment on them. Summary in the memo.

Did you have one question on the amendment? Generally supportive of the majority of it. The swapping of, I believe it was some sort of sticker for requiring the registration be in the vehicle and accessible. Can you give your thought process there? My understanding of the benefit of the sticker was to be able to visually differentiate between, FORGIVE ME IF I GET THESE TERMS INCORRECT, THE LOW SPEED VEHICLE FROM THE UNDER SPEED VEHICLE, I THINK THE UNDER SPEED VEHICLE ONLY BEING ABLE TO GO TO APPROXIMATELY 15 MILES PER HOUR. AND THOSE ONES I BELIEVE ON YOUR AMENDMENT ARE STILL LIMITED TO 25 MILES PER HOUR STREETS. SO THE STICKER ALLOWS, YOU KNOW, ANY LAW ENFORCEMENT TO VISUALLY KNOW WHETHER THAT IS A LOW SPEED OR UNDER SPEED VEHICLE.

Unless the police department is planning on 4 different types of stickers, the sticker would have no value because under this amendment, all. Vehicle categories are allowed on some form of a road. Additionally, I think it's. Kind of a ridiculous ask to force a resident to put a sticker on their vehicle. Or that for any other vehicle in the city of Hudson, you already have to carry a registration for your license plate with the vehicle. I see no reason. You couldn't just wrap your inspection. Paper around that registration and store it in the same place effectively serving the exact same function, which is to prove that your vehicle was inspected.

YEAH, I GET WHAT YOU'RE SAYING. I THINK IN MY HEAD, AND THIS IS MAYBE MY MISINTERPRETING THE STICKERS, YOU COULD HAVE, YOU WOULD ONLY NEED IN MY MIND TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE STICKER, ONE FOR ALL VEHICLES ABOVE UNDERSPEED AND THEN A SEPARATE ONE FOR UNDERSPEED THAT DENOTES THAT ONE IS LIMITED TO 25 MILES PER HOUR STREETS. I STILL KIND OF LIKE THE STICKER APPROACH, BUT THAT'S MY KIND OF ONE CAVEAT. OTHERWISE, YOU KNOW, WE HAD SOME POSTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA. I SAW A MAJORITY OF PEOPLE NOT EVEN REALIZING THAT THESE UNDERSPEED, LOW SPEED VEHICLES WERE ALLOWED IN HUDSON AND THINKING THAT WE WERE ALLOWING THEM WITH THIS LEGISLATION. SO I DON'T SEE THIS BEING A BIG ENOUGH ISSUE CURRENTLY TO PUT ALL THESE ADDITIONAL RESTRICTIONS THAT THE original legislation includes. I'd like to give people more freedom rather than less if this isn't currently a large problem, and I don't feel it is. So overall, I like Mr. Sutton's amendment. And I'd like to speak with Chief Perry, his thoughts on the sticker. But that's all for me.

Do you like the chief to come up?

Sure.

Thank you.

Samantha.

So my recommendations are per the comprehensive plan that we're instructed to follow so closely. One of our biggest issues is traffic. So if we have a vehicle that cannot even go the speed limit, I would think that would impose a pretty big traffic issue in our city. and I can foresee residents becoming very upset that vehicles are not going said 35 miles an hour. So to your point, Kyle, I agree with the stickers, but I also think that we should amend that if the vehicle does not go past 25, you can only cross streets that are of 35 miles an hour to get to another spot. So for example, if you live near Barlow, you would take the roads across at the intersections that you would need if you then wanted to get to downtown. But I can only see more people wanting golf carts in our affluent area now knowing they are approved. So I think, yes, maybe it's not an issue now, but I can foresee it becoming an issue with a lot of complaints. So I think allowing vehicles that can even go the speed limit are going to be an issue.

Thanks, so Skyler, with your amendment, the under speed vehicles are allowed?

In this amendment, under speed vehicles are restricted to neighborhood interior streets. Our existing code defines those streets as local streets and minor collector streets. I believe is an example of a minor collector and the streets that hang off of that would be defined as local streets. I may may respond to the traffic statement. Street sweepers, garbage trucks, construction vehicles, roadside mowing, bicycles, e-bikes, and pedestrians all go slower than the speed limit. They're all perfectly legal vehicles operating on the road today, creating all the same traffic concerns. We have 12 of these vehicles in the city of Hudson. This is, it's a non-issue.

Can you explain about the tires?

Is there a different certification for the tires?

Um, so currently the national highway traffic safety board does not allow any of the. The tires for these vehicles to be certified as certified. I did some searching, there are manufacturers that sell them and I'm putting that in air quotes. I don't know. I don't know how they're able to sell them because they can't legally. They must be stamping these illegal illegally for lack of a better term.

Because there is no standard for these these vehicles.

And it's basically because NHTSB is interested in road tires that can hold a 55 mile an hour speed limit. They're interested in the highway.

But the manufacturers have some way to say these tires are adequate for this.

Yeah, I mean, it's tested too. Each tire has a speed rating on the tire. That is a standard, and you can check the tire sidewall, and it will tell you the rating of that tire, and it'll go all the way down to like 15 miles an hour. But the original request was that it had like DOT certified or something. Those don't exist legally.

They may exist illegally, but... And then the DORA restriction, does that mean that If there is a restriction, they can't go into the downtown Dora area?

No, they can. That's removing the Dora. They can go to Dora.

Well, he wants it. So originally it was that they couldn't go into Dora? It was proposed, I believe.

There was a 6 o'clock curfew at the Dora on the original legislation.

And were we talking about, yeah, you did change it to daylight hours, which made more sense than a particular time.

It says low speed vehicles, 25 miles per hour, limited to 35 mile per hour streets. So that's stating if it only goes 25, you are permitted to go on a 35 mile per hour street. You said that's not the case. I'm saying if it's only if the max speed is 25, you should not be permitted to go on a 35 mile per hour street consistently. That's what I'm proposing. because you can't even get up to the speed of the speed limit. And we know people don't already follow are already going faster than 30, 35. So the low speed, I don't think of a max of 25 should only be able to cross areas that are 35 or higher to get to where they're going. So for example, downtown.

I uh... I like a lot of the suggestion suggested amendments uh... I agree with uh... Councilman Doramo that there is research out there that the differential in speed and it doesn't matter if you're a car a low speed vehicle or whatever but that differential in speed causes that safety hazard Chief I would love to hear if I'm stating this incorrectly but that differential in speed can be not only a traffic issue but a big safety issue so matching The speed to the street makes it safer, helps avoid accidents, especially if we end up seeing more people get these vehicles in the future. I do think they should be able to cross the road. I think that's fine if you just have to cross or go for a short section, but going for long sections of road where you're at least 10 miles per hour or more if the car semis going faster, I think is an issue where a town that has three golf courses and amazing downtown people want to get to, but we're also a town that has two state roads where semis drive 35 miles per hour and we have significant traffic concerns. So I think we have to kind of weigh both of those together, allow people to have it while also considering the safety concerns that we know is in the research though. Chief, I would love to hear from you if I'm stating that incorrectly.

I think that was well spoken. Um, you know, one of the concerns that I originally had was the speed disparity. Again, you've got the speed vehicles out right now, but low-speed vehicles, by definition, they go 20 to 25 miles per hour. Traveling on a 35-mile-per-hour road was a concern. One of the original things that we did talk about was the allowance of verbiage in the updated ordinance that would allow them to cross at an intersection to cross a

Chief, if you might talk on the original implementation you had in mind of the stickers, were you thinking of a separate sticker for those, let me use the proper terminology this time, under speed vehicles versus the low speed and faster moving than the under speed vehicles, or was it just gonna be one sticker of just you've been approved?

On the right track with conference, something's amended legislation that would change my original understanding that was, we weren't going to even consider under speed vehicles. Those are like, the 15 mile per hour vehicles. So, taking that part out, you were correct. As far as the thought process was 2 stickers 1 for the low speed vehicle vehicles that could be travel on 25 mile per hour roads and 1 for the utility vehicles and the other vehicles that fall in the category that could drive 35 miles per hour.

Um, okay, then thank you. Uh, I think. I would prefer that if everything else is fine with me, I, we can discuss the crossing. I'm. I don't have strong feelings on that 1, but I would like if we're going to allow the under speed vehicles some way for our law enforcement. to be able to visually differentiate and know, okay, this one has a low speed vehicle sticker on it. It's fine on this 35 mile per hour road, but that under speed vehicle, it's got the under speed vehicle sticker. It should not be on this 35 mile per hour road. That way they don't have to guess.

I could circle back really quick to the speed disparity. One thing too, you know, you have the... safety issue right which uh you could create we i think we take uh you know hundreds of accident reports per year if you look at that corridor the state rock corridor in particular down there a lot of them are low speed accidents however they're acd accidents which occur from speed changes and stuff like that in those areas you also have a potential issue for vehicles to get frustrated and pass a vehicle that's going 15 miles per hour under the speed limit and it already congested area that we all drive daily. So you have another potential area for accident there as well. The driver's frustration. So...

My concern is about somewhat about this whole process going back to August of 2025 and that this was involved, involved traffic, this involved, should have involved more of the chief of police. I don't think you attended workshops then. Were you able to then? Did you?

There wasn't a lot of discussion on this at the time. was this councilman something was correct um or i think somebody had mentioned um that uh Technically, the golf carts, or mostly the vehicles, were okay. The fallback was the Ohio Advice Code with that, but when they made the change, what happened was, just like what we're seeing now, is as people learned as the ordinance was passed, we had to either opt in or opt out at that time. That was no different than before. It drove, but what happened was it created a lot of attention. And over time, we're getting more requests and more interest in the vehicles.

So with that law that happened in June of 2025, most cities, actually, Talmadge, Rocky River, Solon, Twinsburg, Macedonia, Brecksville, Stoke, Kent, Green, Chagrin Falls, they have no ordinances. They did not respond to that state order. legislation because you didn't have to. If you didn't put anything on the books, then it wasn't allowed, and it defaulted to just not being allowed. So I'm concerned that you weren't more involved with it two years ago, or a year ago, and my concern is also that you don't make legislation, but you are the chief of police, and you have big concerns about underspeed vehicles, and I am not gonna support any... them back in because the chief of police has big concerns about them.

When we first started talking about this, sorry. Sorry, Dan.

No worries. No worries. Real quick, as far as the inspections, do you think one-time inspection is adequate or do you think something like every three years would make more sense to see where the vehicle is at that point in time?

I think the one year would suffice. I think that's reasonable, I think, to do a one year inspection with a sticker. One time. Yeah. One time.

Only other comment would be, regardless of what we do, reading Councilwoman Dr. Weinstein's post, no one in this town had any idea this was legal. So we need to have some sort of communication and education campaign similar to e-scooters and e-bikes about what's allowed, what's not allowed, what to do, what not to do, stuff like that. So I think we need to be a little better about proactively communicating that out.

One of the things we could do, too, like if council moves forward with any type of inspection or or whatever the variation is, is that if we do the inspection, we can give a pamphlet to the person right there, and then we give the inspection, have a conversation with them, let them know where, you know, based on their vehicle, where it's allowed and stuff like that. So we can use that as an education platform too. There's only 12 in the, yep. Go ahead.

I also respect the chief of police's opinion, but I do want to call out in my memo on page 3. On May 11th, I asked for a copy of all complaints and police reports related to slow moving vehicles in the last year. And the response was after looking over records, we found there have not been any reports related to low speed vehicles in the past year. This is much ado about nothing. I understand his opinion. I respect his opinion. We don't actually have any reports of incidents or accidents, so I don't know what we're trying to legislate here. It's a lot of nanny stating, if you ask me.

The idea with this is to be proactive rather than wait for an accident or wait for incidents to happen is that we address it now because we are starting to see the increased interest in these vehicles.

Sam.

Yes. So the reason why we started the safety committee was to prevent, it's about safety to prevent things from happening. That is the point of safety, especially for our community members. I definitely did pull back on what I was originally saying. I agree they should be in Dora. Originally I was thinking, throwing around the idea of not being on any state routes. which I also have retracted. But for example, where I live, you could come out of my neighborhood going 45 miles an hour. So a golf cart going 25 low speed would probably not be great. So I was thinking with the vehicles permitted to cross intersections with higher speeds, as long as they remain on a street that has a high speed limit of 25 miles or less, I think I missed my, where's my, I lost my train where I wanted to say where we're going to cross. So the vehicles shall be permitted to travel not further than the nearest through street in a 35 mile per hour zone. So still allowing to go downtown at the door area, just kind of going through the areas with a lower speed limit.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the discussion here tonight. This is what our informal workshops are meant to be. Councillor Sutton, I appreciate your time into the amendment and some of the details that you've provided here, your perspective, and some of the numbers. Chief, obviously, I respect your opinion, but I made this comment this past Thursday in our agenda review meeting. This item is on a third reading coming up here a week from today. So with all of this discussion, with additional questions, additional thoughts and ideas, I just want to remind council that if we feel that we need more time, we can certainly next week, if there's a motion made to move this forward, we can certainly postpone this to a date certain. GIVE US MORE TIME TO REVIEW ALL OF THESE THOUGHTS AND IDEAS TO LOOK INTO MAYBE EVEN COUNSELOR WHITE'S COMMENT ABOUT I AGREE THERE'S A LACK OF AWARENESS OUT THERE AND WE'RE BRINGING THIS UP NOW SO I JUST DON'T WANT THIS BODY TO MOVE FORWARD BECAUSE THIS IS ON A THIRD READING IF WE STILL FEEL THAT THERE'S PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION EXCUSE ME PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION TO HAVE THAT IS ALWAYS AN OPTION FOR THIS COUNCIL TO POSTPONE TO A DATE CERTAIN IF WE WANT TO VET ANY OF THESE OTHER DISCUSSIONS AND IDEAS BUT AGAIN GOOD DISCUSSION ON BOTH SIDES OF OPINIONS BUT JUST REMINDING EVERYBODY OUT THERE THAT NEXT TUESDAY WE ARE NOT IN A RUSH UNLESS, YOU KNOW, IF THERE'S SOMETHING THAT NEEDS FURTHER DISCUSSION WHETHER IT'S WITH THIS COUNCIL BODY OR THE PUBLIC LET'S TAKE THE TIME TO DO THAT IF WE FEEL THAT'S NECESSARY. SO JUST REMINDING EVERYBODY OF THAT. THANK YOU.

The inclusion of the 35 mile an hour limit for low speed vehicles was to address the concerns of two residents who happen to live on a 35 mile an hour road and effectively track them at their location. They don't have the ability, it's a T intersection. There's no way for them to cross. There's nowhere for them to cross. They must go on a 35 mile an hour road to leave I would be open to modifying that. I'd have to check with legal to figure out the right language, but some sort of way to say you can use a 35 mile an hour road until you can get yourself to a 25 mile an hour road. But that was the intent of taking away the 25 mile an hour restriction. With that in place, you have effectively banned those residents from using their property.

I like what you just said there. I think it could be a crossing or some, I'm not sure if you know the length of the area or some length. So we know it's a transition. They're not traveling a mile and a half down a road. I'm not sure how far the length of road is, but I think it could be a crossing or some length of road that they're allowed to travel on there before they get to a lower speed road would be fine with me.

Would it help to find these hot spots, I'll call them, like Mr. Sutton's saying? We also mentioned the other one was at Bard. You have a short distance there going down to Starbucks, and then it turns 25. But for people in the Colony Park, if they were able to get downtown, that's a short distance. I mean, maybe there's a neutral zone, but I'm happy to look at that with staff on our GIS. We have a GIS department to help us do that. I just, I love all the discussion. As the mayor said, I want what's easy for the police department to enforce. I think we all do. So I don't want them having to, you know, if then what, I don't need them to have sort of a diagram to go down to. So whatever we do decide, I would like the ease of that for the police department to be able to enforce.

I want to support you, Chief, and your ideas of safety. I lived in an era where people said you didn't need to wear seatbelts, and it took a lot of getting data about it, and then it became a law that you had to, and people were still against it, but it has saved many lives. So I think your idea that we need to be proactive is really solid, and I support it.

I think that we, I mean, it sounds like we're pretty close to coming up with a, maybe a lot of the safety issues, but still allow some use of the golf carts and low-speed vehicles, so I appreciate that.

I WANT TO ECHO WHAT THE CITY MANAGER WAS SAYING ON, LIKE, IT NEEDS TO BE REASONABLY SIMPLE TO EXPLAIN AND UNDERSTAND WHATEVER, IF WE'RE GOING TO COME UP WITH SOME SORT OF CROSSING, LIMITED DISTANCE TRAVEL, BECAUSE NOT ONLY DOES THE POLICE DEPARTMENT NEED TO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO ENFORCE IT, BUT THE RESIDENTS AND THE OWNERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY'RE ALLOWED TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO. I'M OPEN TO HEARING SOME SORT OF CROSSING, LIMITED TRAVEL, DISTANCE IDEA, BUT I WOULD JUST CAUTION ABOUT COMING UP WITH ANYTHING TOO COMPLICATED.

So Amanda sorry just real quick.

I just want to appreciate and thank all of the residents that input and provided input whether they were concerned about golf carts or not concerned or concerned about traffic or any of the vehicles. I appreciate all the input. It really helps us think about these issues. Councilman Sutton, I appreciate you working through these issues and trying to figure out a way where we can balance these competing interests and appreciate the discussion.

As thoughts come along and people want to suggest an amendment, feel free to do that. And to your point, if necessary.

Okay. We're working on that GIS map so we can hopefully have it this week to all of you. Thank you.

Thanks, Chief. Thank you, Chief. Next is 5B, on proposed legislation for next week, 26-115, ordinance enacting section 11 of chapter 1419, engineering standards for infrastructure construction and amending section 1016.04P and section one of chapter 1419 of the codified ordinances. Kyle, do you have a comment?

Well thank you, yes I do. I have both a comment and I guess a general question to the group. I've only received so far feedback of frustration on the delay and of the state of yards and when is this going to be done. I have not personally received any active feedback from residents about don't do this. I've read things, but just not directly to me. So has anybody received a serious amount of communication concern around this legislation to this point?

I've received frustration just as you have with the state of things, but I have had residents reach out, not concerned with the legislation, but worried about resuming drilling and seeing drilling resuming too quickly. They're worried about what happened in Twinsburg might happen here, so I've heard just general concern that they don't want what happened in Twinsburg to happen here. Not concerned about legislation specifically, but just both concerns.

Daniel.

I echo the same comments. Anyone I've talked to is frustrated. They want velocity badly, but they don't want their house to blow up. So obviously. So I think we're going about this the right way personally. I would like it as well. But if we take the time to get this passed on third reading, I believe there's language in it that we could still enact it after that third reading. We don't have to wait so many days.

You'd add emergency clause to it? when we move to pass it or we could postpone or suspend the rules next week as well, right?

We could suspend the rules on a second reading. Again, our rules state that six of seven members have to affirmatively agree to that if there's seven members present. If there's only five or six members present at the meeting, then we need five affirmative votes. So a super, super majority, if you will, to suspend the rules. If I can, since I have the floor, we could amend the legislation to add emergency language, I believe. we could do that to where it just removes that post-30-day pause if it does pass. So if you look at it from that standpoint, if the legislation gets to a third reading or it's postponed and passed on a second reading, postpone the rules, if it's passed, then it's eminent that it's going to be put into action. The emergency language just talks about the 30-day pause post-approval. It just speeds it up, really. It doesn't do anything else other than get rid of that 30-day pause.

Dan, I'm sorry. Finish your thought.

Sorry. So I'm not advocating to pass on second reading. I'm thinking third reading and then maybe that emergency clause to allow us to get to work kind of right away. That said, I think, similar to the last conversation around golf carts, some communications need to go out to explain what we're doing differently, why this is a much safer way to do this. the steps we've taken to do it. And I don't know if we have to get into the cost. I think we all know it's going to cost more, but the safety piece is the most important piece. So we don't want someone in front of their house freaking out because we're back and they didn't hear about it. So.

I do, but back to any excavation, any construction work. We're doing some sidewalk work on South 91 here, and people were calling worried about that sidewalk construction work. So Public Works and Engineering is sending out letters to anybody about construction just because they don't know. I mean, you know, they're not into the plans like we are. Back to the other stuff is we won't be able to get bids in until, you know, like... the fourth week of September for those projects that we've already done. I'm not trying to change council at all. I just want you all to know that we're not going to have projects bid out and receive bids until the end of September. Now, you could go and finish up the two sections that we have short a couple hundred feet here and there. I'm happy to communicate with them back to what Dan just mentioned to those neighborhoods and tell them exactly what we need to do. I'm not trying to postpone anything. I just want to give everybody the chance to come in and speak and the readings. That's all. So that was the reasoning.

Well, just my final comment then. I just don't anticipate we're going to make any change to this legislation. I think the vast majority of communication we've received has been frustration around the postponement and as said, worries about safety and that's what this legislation does. It allows us to do it safely. I plan on making a motion again next week to suspend the rules and then a subsequent, if successful, motion to add emergency language. That is my plan.

It's not a secret plan. So thank you for sharing that. It's good.

It's a non-debatable motion.

It's a good plan. That's right. You got the chatting out now because you can't say anything next week.

I will not take so many liberties next week.

Okay. So looking forward to September 1st. Next, final, is...

I have a conflict of interest and need to recuse myself.

Okay. Next final is, final one is C, TMP-8844. Resolution authorizing a settlement of the Prestige Builder Group LLC versus City of Hudson lawsuit and related claims surrounding the Canterbury Meadows development. And I'll read the complete brief description. This legislation authorizes the city manager to execute a settlement agreement and release the Prestige Builder Group LLC, George Vizmeg Kuchar Limited Liability Company, Canterbury K Farms LLC, and Prestige Canterbury Farms LLC concerning the proposed development of approximately 94.56 acres located on Ravenna Street and Stowe Road. The settlement agreement resolves pending litigation in multi-million dollar administrative hardship claim concerning the property and establishes the terms for the now compliant development of the property as a 32 lot single family open space conservation subdivision parentheses quote OSCS unquote close parentheses substantially in accordance with the September 12th 2025 preliminary plan reviewed by the Planning Commission. There are three attachments and I will read one final statement. After years of protracted litigation, this resolution authorizing settlement of the pending zoning lawsuit against the city is being considered in what the council believes are the best interests of our community. Council has retained an independent zoning consultant to provide an unbiased expert opinion on whether the proposed plan complies with the city's land development code. A public hearing will be held at the second reading of September 15th, 2026, and we genuinely welcome residents to come share their views. On the advice of our attorneys, council intends to reserve comment and debate on this matter until after that hearing so that everyone's input can be fully heard and considered before any final decision is made. All right, next is number six, items to be added to future agendas.

Yes. The clerk and I have worked on a proclamation for Jacob Meacham. for his good deed and heroic action within the community recently. We are looking at potentially adding this on the 15th. I know we have a full schedule that day. One of the family members is not available. The father's not available on the 1st, so we're looking at the 15th. And I just had a thought. I guess I'll mention it here. We could call a special meeting before the workshop next week if that works. Maybe. I'm not sure. I'd have to look at the rules on calling a special meeting just because we have a full agenda on the 15th.

This is the workshop. Next week will be a council meeting.

Yeah. understand i'm i'm sorry i'm talking about the the workshop in between on the first and the 15th okay so the workshop on the 18th um that may be an option just trying to to act on this uh without pushing it into october i just don't want to push this into october so can i just ask you you said that twice the concern on the 15th i i mean we've all we we can we can add a proclamation it's a full agenda and i'm okay with it um but uh The family is not available on the 1st. Next week, next Tuesday from now, I'm checking with them on the 15th. If for some reason they are not available on the 15th, I may come back and see if we can tack on a special meeting to the workshop on the 8th. That's why I said, I don't want to push this into October.

Mary, you've done a good job of getting this flag brave. So really quickly. So, I mean, I don't know of a proclamation. It was just a week ago. I announced to all of you the incident that happened. So you really took this and I know Dan did too. So thank you for that.

Aparna did most of the work, but thanks to everyone involved.

Okay. Anything else? Hey, is there a motion to adjourn?

I move to adjourn. Second.

All in favor of adjourning?

Aye.

No. Okay, adjournment passes five to one. We are adjourned at 21.04.