Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

to order. I know there are folks who have to leave uh fairly quickly, so uh we'll get moving. Uh first, call to order, please. Oh, pardon me. Roll call. Yes. Here come here. Mayor here. Mayor Curts, Mayor Orut, uh, Laura Black or Council Simon, Mayor Vice here, Mayor Willow, you have a form. Thank you very much. Uh, do we have any comments from the public before we get started?

No. Very good. Uh, next we have the approval of the minutes. Everybody's had a chance to review those. Any changes needed? Motion to approve. We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second. Very good. Any comment? Absolutely. So, we have uh Mayor Daly Jones. Uh and then Mayor Burke with a second. Sorry. No worries. Thank you. Uh all in favor of approving the minutes, please say I. Any opposed? Thank you very much. We're going on to resolution number 260312-a.

Yes. Thank you very much. Uh Eric Engel, principal planner here county planning commission will be presenting today. Eric, I can drive if you just want to tell me. Sounds good. Very good.

Okay. So, resolution number Well, first of all, good afternoon everyone. Resolution number uh 26031 or O2A. Uh this is for a preliminary plan application modification to the subdivision plan and approval of the preliminary plan for the newly proposed phase 5 of the sanctuary and preserve development. The applicant and the owner is Mr. Anthony M. Valori with Valor Builders LLC. Uh the project engineer on this is Rachel Barers. She's with Alurn Rice. Uh so the request ultimately um is for the approval of the uh modification to the master plan here um combining the initial phases 2B and five into one new phase 5. Uh and further the applicant is seeking approval again of the preliminary plan for set phase 5. Um the location is uh subject property is located on the south side of John Road uh between Fitch and Columbia Road. Uh PPM there is listed 262 uh-13-011. And so this is roughly just over 24 acres. The zoning on this is the planned residential development district in the township there. Um and so just looking at the location map here. To the north we have the residential multif family uh renaissance retirement community right across the street there. Uh to the south is uh some woodlands single family residential and then to the east is more single family residential. And then to the west and southwest single family residential uh which includes the manufactured home park and then as well as sanctuary and preserve phases one through four as well. So some history and background here um so builders in January 2020 in partnership with Paul Tomes of Ohio they submitted a master subdivision plan uh for the sanctuary and preserve subdivision for review and approval alongside preliminary plans for phases one and two. county commission uh county planning commission did grant approval

of that uh on a conditional basis. Um and then phase one preliminary plan and the phase 2 preliminary plan and that was via resolution number 20 uh 0213A. Uh skipping ahead a little bit here. Um so uh once those were completed then they came back for phases three and four. So py's phases one three and four um have since then been completed. uh these last phase phase 4 having been conditionally approved by the Kaihoga County Planning Commission in May of 2024 and that was to be a resolution 240509-a phases 1 3 and four created a combined total of 95 residential sublotss uh four single family detached homes um and so since they've gone through that process uh has been working to get the next phases here up and running so since 2023 all conditions for that as I said uh detailed in that resolution number 2302 209A were met and improvements have been completed. Uh and then on June 12th, 2025, the final plat for phase 2A was approved by the Kyogre County Planning Commission. Uh under resolution number 2560, I'm sorry, 25612A. Uh the developer sub subsequently filed to to record the nine sublots and easements accordingly. Uh so since then since last year of mid-l last year Valor Builders uh partnering with Dre Homes this time they began work on this modification plan uh to the overall phasing of the next and final phase here. Um so this will effectively like I said combine phases 2B and five into one new uh phase 5 here. So according to section 104 11B and C uh of the subdivision regulations uh the 2010 the final plat of the subdivision shall conform to the approved preliminary and master subdivision plan. The modifications proposed by velour uh would have rendered the final plat for t phase 2b and five of the sanctuary preserve subdivision inconsistent with the existing master subdivision plan and preliminary plan that was approved in

2020. So hence why we're here. So as such um they have are required to submit the review and approval of this plan to you all um in order for those two components to match essentially. Uh in January 2026, Albert Rice on behalf of Balore Builders, they submitted that application to modify the master subdivision plan for the sanctuary and preserve subdivision and for the review and approval of a preliminary plan for the newly proposed phase 5. uh due to missing information, county staff recommended the disapproval of that application. Um we did receive a last minute tableabling as you all recall last month for that um in order for them to to work with public works a little bit more. Um and this was specifically regarding street and storm water infrastructure proposed. Um and so having been in coordination with staff to address the issues, they then resubmitted the application for preliminary plan approval um on February 12th for review and approval there. Uh so moving into details of request as mentioned we're just over 24 acres here. Um the uh they are proposing 41 sublots um which include nine more than previously approved in the overall master preliminary plan thus increasing those sublotss from 136 to 149. Further adjustments to the development proposal include shifting the proposed southerntherly culde-sac uh filling in two non-contributing landscape ponds. The modifications to the master plan include refacing again phase 2b of the sanctuary and preserve to be combined. Um and then redesign of the site further extending the southerntherly culde-sac. Redesign a fort and shell curve to meet county radius standards. This the minor modifications to the lot size and shape of sublots 16 through 40 uh on on the proposed preliminary plot for phase 2b and sublotss 46 through 56 in phase 5. Uh so ultimately reducing those lot sizes from 80 feet to 60 feet. Again just kind of reconfiguring and and

reducing the size there in order to fit those nine nine extra in. So the preliminary plan for phase 5 proposes again the creation of those nine lots um added um on the remaining 24.73 acres um again the 145 from the originally 136. The newly proposed phase 5 will include construction of roughly 1300 lineal feet of added pavement and 6.55 acres of dedicated open space as well as 1.9 acres of dedicated storm water management. Uh so this is the concept proposal. Um I'm sorry Mary was go back to the first please.

Yeah. So, um, as you can see here, this was the, uh, initial, uh, proposal that they had really kind of focusing in on, you see there's a stream going through the phase five there. So, really reconfiguring the lots p our recommendations internally. Um, shifting some of those lots and then reducing the size there. Um, so if you want to move forward, Mary. So then again, yeah, recombining kind of that whole uh eastern side there with everything kind of reconfiguring the culde-sac lots at the terminus there. Um in order to accommodate the environmental on the stream there um was really a better a better solution from a design standpoint. Um so that's really the gist of that. Um so if you want to move on, there's no questions then. So moving on to uh the recommendations ultimately. Okay. So, pursuant to section 10452 of the 2007-20200 county land development regulations and RC7110, the county commission is required to take action on the preliminary plan application within 30 days. We have met that and complete the final plat application or I'm sorry and complete the preliminary plan application that was submitted. Uh so, can planning staff have reviewed the preliminary plans as such um and consider the comments from reviewing agencies. I won't go through that. mostly were recommend they were all recommending conditional approval. Um we did provide those in the packet if you all have any questions on those. Um and so with that um we did find that they uh the proposal does meet the 2010 county regulation land development regulations um in regards to sidewalks, street trees, open space and all other recommended uh requirements outlined in chapter 106 of the subdivision design standards. Uh so with that, county uh county planning staff is recommending conditional approval of the modified master subdivision plan, the phase 5 preliminary plan for the sanctuary improve PRD subdivision pursuant to those comments outlined. Um next steps, I'll just go through that really quickly. Um basically the developer and the designer, they need to address really all comments made by public works

and all the rest of our partners. um and any kind of outstanding tasks indicated in those comment sheets during the uh improvement plan submittal phase uh which will be the next phase moving into uh into really before construction can begin uh really kind of getting into those detailed improvement plans. Um so they do need to get those approvals um from public works and then a pre construction meeting will take place uh before uh construction takes place. So um turn back over to you guys if you have any questions for me. We do have um the project engineer as well as the owner applicants as well as a representative from Dre as well.

Maybe before we ask any questions if the uh engineer or representatives can come up and just make any comments if you have any or Okay, make sure that you're heard. State your name too for the record, please.

All right. My name is Rachel Baris. I work for Alurn Rice. I'm the engineer uh designing this and you know we worked really hard trying to come up with how to squeeze 41 lots in in order to make trees homes happy um while trying to navigate all these water features on the last piece of this property. And uh we had to work with uh the highway design engineer of Kyhoga County in order to come up with a solution um to be able to curve the road around the ponds and to get us through over the stream in order to um get the last few houses in. Very good. Um are there any questions from the commission?

All right. I mean I think that said uh we can I entertain a motion to uh approve this resolution requesting conditional approval of the proposed modifications. Second. Thank you very much. We've got a motion from Mayor B. Second from Mayor Gallow. Any other comments or questions? All in favor, please say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, that this one has been a long for those who've been around for a while. This this has been a many phase, many two different developers in the beginning. So he has come a long way and so thank you for the patience for the whole project team and the applicant. Um appreciate that. Thanks for the board for taking care of for his hard work. Thank you guys.

Worried about trees and not me. I don't get that. That's okay. You could you're welcome to make any comments if you'd like. Oh, we're grateful for everything. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yeah. The fact that this resolution began with a two uh tells us how long this has been going on. I know. We're very patient. Thank you. Happy birthday. Thank you. Uh, I understand that we've got a presentation regarding uh the 2026 data book. Yes, we do. Oh, sorry, I'm going the wrong way. Um, yes. So, this is information only. No board action required. Um, I will turn this over to who is our manager of GIS, IT, special research and information.

Hi, uh, Dan Man with we have our little section uh, research and information services. as we kind of support our planners with data and analysis. Um, but I wanted before Kevin tells you all about the the new data book, I wanted to introduce the team uh in no particular order. U Paul Triolo, he's actually in Patrick Huitt's uh planning section. Um Paul has some not so hidden skills in document layout and editing u and a real whiz in uh getting around the software and and adding a lot of good words in the narration. So, he's been been great. Liam Levido here in the corner. He's a GIS analyst. We didn't have a lot of mapping in this particular project, but um Liam offered up some good data sources for uh especially in the transportation section. So, he's uh real helpful in that area. Uh finally, Kevin uh Kevin Leon. He's a planner and data specialist in our section. Uh Kevin pretty well ran the show sifting through all our indicators, keeping us on track and uh managing the database um which so it's not just the 63 final indicators but uh we had 189 tables and charts um and 396 variables in our database. So Kevin kept track of all that and as well as that times 10 for a 10-year trend and 11 counties. So it was a pretty big effort to keep all that straight. So u with that um I'll have Kevin tell you all about it.

So this is our new data book and we have copies for anybody who wants one. And this is the second time we've done this data particular data book. Done the communities data book several times.

It's the first time or second time we've done the county data book. So idea of this is to provide data for local leaders, keep it fresh and make it really easy to understand. First thing we needed to do when doing this was to determine which counties we were looking at as our peer counties. We had three main criteria. The first was proximity. counties that were reasonably close to Chicago County. Second one was size. We wanted uh counties that were reasonably close in population size as well. You can see that we left off Chicago. So much larger around five million people, Cook County, so much bigger than all the other ones. And at the other end, we would have left out counties like um Ramsey County, Minneapolis, I'm sorry, Minnesota where St. Paul is or Summit County that are around half a million would have been too small. And the third criteria would is the presence of a central city. There are some other counties that would have met those first two criteria like uh Oakland County north of Detroit is roughly the same size as Kyrie County populationwide, but there is no core city. The one that's missing here that we would like to include was St. Louis County, but the city of St. Louis is actually an independent city that's not part of the county, and that would have made collecting data very tricky for that. So, we left that off. So, we wound up with Clay County and these 10 peer counties. So, as Dan said, the data book includes 63 indicators. Um, these are six categories. Most of these are the same as before. These are colorcoded with our agency branding. The health section is entirely new this time. That's not something we included last time. And really quickly to run you through the data book how it was laid out. Each chapter begins with this summary of indicators. First column is clickable if you're in the PDF or it just tells you what page number print document and will take you direct to that indicator. The second column tells you which part of that indicator we used as that ranking. Um for the first two total population

change that's obvious but say in the bottom one household size we could have picked one person household or two person households to sort by. We chose average household size instead. And then in that third part, you can see how Kyogre County compares ranking one between one and 11 compared to all the other peer counties. And once you get into the individual indicators, they are all laid out the same. They start off with an overview of the indicator, why it's important, anything you should know about it. At the bottom, there is the most current year data that we have, both as a table and as a bar chart. Um the column we use for the sorting is has it header displayed in bold. In this case, we use the percentage of the white population sorted reverse. So we have the counties with the highest lowest diversity at the top of the scale. And then we have our time whoops. We have our time series there where we have in most cases 10 years worth of data for entire county and the solid line and the average of all 11 counties in the dotted line. There were some indicators where we didn't have 10 years of data but most of them we do just want to run you through a sample indicator for each section show you what's in it. Maybe there we go. So in the demographic section, this is population change. When we look at the here we go the annual change year-toear you can see that Ka County was below the county average lost population in most years had a real dip during the pandemic years and between 23 and 24 actually had positive change. um not be surprised if that trend does not continue because most of that population change was

driven by immigration. When we look at the 10-year change, the county was at the bottom of the list in numeric change. I think it was second to last if you consider that percentage change. The interesting thing I wanted you to see though was when we compare uh population change to the change in households even though the county lost population it gained households. So I think if you look at the um household size, you will see that gradually trick trickling down over time. When we economy section, our sample indicator is self-employment and you can see that that has gone up in most years with the exception of the pandemic years and that Kaiga County is above the average and most of the peer counties. Um this is from the Census Bureau's non-employer statistics. And it's worth noting that um the uh gig gig economy employees are considered self-employed. So they show up here. And we look at building permits. You can see that Kaiga County is roughly in the middle for both single family and for multif family. In multif family, this is the number of units permitted, not the number of structures. Um but that the average is kind of um a little bit blown out by Franklin County there, especially in the multif family. Um the interesting thing is when we did this last time, especially in the multif family, the Kaiger County was well below um almost all the counties at that point. And since then, there's been a lot of new family construction. So it's getting close to where the average is. So it's been a good source of improvement. U it's also worth noting that while these

are all pure counties they are not the same when we look at how big they are wide range in how their sizes county is near the average a little bit smaller but is also very heavily urbanized about 91% urbanized and I think when you go back to that housing slide you that means that almost all those housing developments are redevelopment instead of greenfield developments which many of the other peer counties can take advantage of and develop more easily. Uh public transit writership, we've got four categories here. Fixed bus service in blue, rail on the turquoise, I'm sorry, rail in the blue, BRT in the red, and demand response which would be vanpool or paratransit in the green. Uh Ka County is one of the few counties to have both or to have rail and to also have BRT. And you can see that over the past decade the writership has not been headed in the right direction. Went dramatically down during the pandemic and has slowly climbed up but is nowhere near pre- pandemic levels. And the last one I wanted to show you here was smoking. These are cigarette smokers. Um, Ka County again is above the average here, but it steadily declined every year. So that and we only have nine counties here because of this particular data set. Um, so this is a positive from a health standpoint, but it's something also to keep in mind when considering syntaxes that this number of smokers is dropping. And so get uh data book on our website at countypl.us was our county. And now that we've wrapped this up, we are starting to think about the next edition of our communities data book.

This is only the second time we did the our county. Is that correct? That's correct. Before we were always doing that, our communities that compared individual communities within the county. Now this is second time metros doing those comparisons and we say what are we doing well? Where are we lacking? How we competing with our neighbors to the east and west. So I mean it really is tons tons of work and so thank you to the whole team. Yeah, we did this about two years ago. So, this is the second time we've done it. Thank you. Are there any questions,

Mr. Chairman? No, no question. Just a general comment that um I I think that this type of information is um is key. I mean, we're, you know, we're talking about the unified zoning code. We're we're talking about things like the AO zone. I mean, we're competing with these counties. or not. It's, you know, it's no more sort of our individual cities um competing. It's it's really a region is competing. And so this is super helpful. And so I thank you also for program.

I know we the we work with the county comm's team and they were very helpful in the press release for this and getting it out. We'll make sure we share in the slide deck, you know, with the the link to every to the report. Um cranes has reached out um to the team. They want to do a followup with us on some of these data. So maybe another article about that too. I mean it's just it's a lot of lift here. Um this I mean the data coming out was late from the Census Bureau. So kind of uh different data

different data but right I mean there's just a lot of things with data but there's a lot of different sources. So um yeah team did a really great job on this but we do we want to make it a resource for everybody and so um we shared it with the cabinet this week earlier and so make sure council has more copies too. doing the county tools really surprised you.

Um the that multif family housing one was really surprising considering how poorly the county had fared in that previous data book. So that was that was good to see. And wrership we've got two RTA board members sitting on our board. So to see those ridership numbers is always interesting and we know I mean ever since the pandemic it has not climbed back but I think one thing we found in our conversations especially with Hannah County and some of these others a lot of them are trying to build new transit infrastructure. We've got it we've got the bones we've got to just now figure out how do we make it from a need to a want and more people to take transit. And so a lot of that work we're doing trans development and other things is really to try and spur development in the right areas so that we have an opportunity to increase that ridership. um a lot of it's very related.

I mean I can certainly say on behalf of county executive this is this is a resource that we use when it comes to driving not just internal county policies but also uh you know what is it that we advocate for at the state and the federal level. Being able to see that comparison between Kyhaga County and our other peer counties really gives us that chance to to you know drive home to our friends down in Columbus and DC what are the things that we really need to do in order to strengthen our communities here. So

yeah and I think just to that point we you know a lot of people with our communities that's ready data that you have. So if you are applying for funding and different grants you've got a ready source that's documented that the information is all there that you can use in your own applications which the county can as well. Do you have an an idea of what the timeline is with regards to our communities where you all are aiming for? not started working on it yet, but the idea is to get it out sometime this year. Hopefully this summer. Dan said two weeks are starting. So, let the ink dry and move on. A little bit of a breather and then dive into the next one. Yes. Yes. Thank you guys. Thank you so very much. Awesome.

All right. Uh director uh director will be quick. I know we've got ways to meet afterwards and people have to leave early so I will keep it very brief today. Okay. So policies and procedures. Thank you data and

um so we um as you know over the last year since I've been here we have been slowly trying to make progress on updating our policy and procedures manual which was last fully approved by the board in 2014. Wes has gone through painstakingly sections with us, Jennifer, others. Um, we have updated probably eight or nine sections at this point, but there is so much still to do. We really tried to prioritize the most important updates when it came to sick leave, vacation leave, parental leave, a lot of those things that we needed to make sure we were up to date so that we had current information. Um, and so some of those, I think professional development, we've updated three times since I've been here. So, some of them keep getting updated. So, we need to make sure we're trying to figure out what's next. So, uh we have not had a, you know, an efficient process. It's always kind of like, yeah, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. But we are really at the point this year is my goal to really get it up to date. We've been talking internally about trying to trying to find a better way to do it and do it whole um wholeheartedly to do a big update and that and I Jennifer talked yesterday and trying to look at is there ways that co-pilot could look at some of our sections and update it with more modern language or reduce um you know anything that's vague or something else because a lot of what happened in 2014 we pointed directly to the county's manual at that time. the county's manual has been updated probably, you know, 20 times since then and we have not been able to keep up with those revisions. And so, um, we are unique that we need to do keep our own, but there's a lot of things that we can lean on the county's policies as well. So, um, we're trying to do that. We've always thought, oh, we can hire an HR consultant one of these years and we have money in the budget. Well, that's never going to come. So, we're going to find another way to do it. So, expect more to come. Um, so April board meeting, we will have Doc with contract coming back. Um that's what we do on behalf of the state that we administer that program

program for them. Uh we are working on finalizing an update to the travel policy and that one is important because it really goes right along with the professional development policy because there are required forms that go with both of them. We want to make sure that they're consistent for mileage and for advanced authorization and all of those. So I'm hoping we will have that one in April and I'm hoping to have at least one more if we can. um unified zoning code. We are making good progress with that. We are having some really good conversations around funding sources um tapping our network of resources, people that we know in various positions around here locally who have the knowledge of potential federal resources. So, we had a really good call yesterday. We're looking into um a national agent, a national fund that um someone has local ties here. The Federal Reserve has written a book book on zoning. We feel like it's a nice introduction that someone local here that we know can make for us. And so that's what we're really still doing the crowd sourcing, but um land bank is committed to some funding. U we will be back in touch with the communities that have signed on to a letter of interest. Um but what we'll need to do is establish a committee of this board. Um and it doesn't have to be you as members if it's one of your communities, but you can appoint somebody, but that's part of our bylaws already give us authority to establish a committee. So, we'll be talking about that in April to establish that committee of the board that will then be separate unified zoning code um pervy specifically. Um a lot of the funders that we've been talking to too wanted to have make sure that they would be engaged along the way. So, we'll probably have some kind of funders group as well that we'll have to make sure we keep them updated, but still trying to figure out exactly how that works. Um our hope is by April we'll be able to have contracts um to the board here with the individual communities. So Wesley will be talking more and trying to figure out how those exactly look. Um but that's our hope for for April at least. Um beyond that at this point I

don't know but I thought I'd give you a little preview of what's what's to come. Um and then coming soon is our 2025 annual report. We're doing a new format. All this is done in-house and I just want to thank the team that's been working on this. We do a lot of work as a team. It's really hard um to dissect it down into one report. That's something that's nice looking and digestible. Um, they've really been working hard at that. Susan and Susan and Phil and Kevin have been really leading that effort. So, we're really trying to make it more graphic, less um, narrative so that we can really hit some facts quickly. Um, I'll say the reason we want to do that this year is because this in 2025 was the first year we actually had the the monthly newsletter. So, we feel like we've been getting all of those stories out along the way every month. So we don't need to kind of recapture everything that we've done in the annual report that we have before. So um that is coming soon, published by the end of this month. So fingers crossed it's moving forward pretty well. So um and last month I told you about Justin Finny, our new inter attorney, our new intern. Um he has agreed to stay with us for the summer. Um it's great to keep consistency as we get someone on and they're doing a really great job and he's involved in all these projects. So we offered him an extension through the end of August and he has agreed to accept that. So that is wonderful. He's in uh Cleveland State's Masters program right now. So it's perfect. Um another opportunity we're going to have to get additional helping hands um is we've been working with Annie Peas who works in the executive's office. Um Keithley Instruments has a scholarships um with Cornell students and so Annie is a Cornell grad. Um Keithley Instrument provides funding and Cornell provides funing provide a paid internship to Cornell students. Um, and so they like to pair them with Cornell grads and so Annie has interest. Um, she knows we need help. Um, especially with safe streets and roads for all and unified zoning code coming up. So it would be a

shared resource between the two of us. We would not have to pay anything. She would handle all the um HR and onboarding piece of it. we really would just have a resource on our team that would be dedicated to helping on a specific project from like June till uh August. So that'll be awesome. So um I think they did they did interviews late last week or early this week. So they three candidates and I think they kind of selected one. So that'll be awesome. We need all the help you can get. So um that is that and I think that was it for me. Keep it short and sweet. Any questions? Any old business? Any new business? Motion to adjurnn. Do I have a second?

Thank you very much, Mayor Burke. We are adjourned. Don't go anywhere.

Don't go anywhere. Solid waste is next. trade seats with Oh, yeah. Take this one.

Okay. All right. Ready? Very good. All right. We'll call the uh meeting of the solid waste district policy committee to order. Uh do we need to do a roll call? Yes. You're going to do the roll call, are you? didn't wait till you sat down. Look at this. Um, Alberado here. Mayor Burke here. Council President Conwell present. Mayor Dy Jones here. Mayor Gallow here. Mayor Fields, I'm sorry. Mara Fields here. Promotion.

Mayor Orelle Wilhelm. Tim Weber, you have a quorum. Thank you very much. Uh uh we have the minutes from the October 9th uh policy committee meeting uh in review. Any motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Thank you very much for Mayor Burke. Second. Second. Thank you for Mayor Dy Jones. Any questions? All in favor? I any opposed? Thank you. Updates.

Hi there. Well, the most important thing I know you are all waiting for this was to find out we did receive our final approval from the OEPA. It came in truly one day before the end of their deadline which was February the 18th of this year. And um and then um with that letter of approval which was um sent to the policy committee because you all that is your responsibility to submit that um were our findings and orders and which basically said go forth implement your plan. Awesome.

So we have already begun those activities and um I just wanted to review with you since this journey had been almost two years in the making. Um what we said we were going to do in the plan. Um the first part we wanted just to review what we will continue. So there are a variety of of programs that when we met with your service directors and other interested parties. They wanted us to continue such as our technical assistance programming um which is everything from helping you create brochures for your communities for education outreach to to helping you with your contracts. For example, one of the contracts that we are working with um with your communities on is what we call the East Side Consortium, which consists of about nine communities that are selfhaulers um helping them find an outlet for the recyclables as well as um good pricing for disposal. So, we're working on that already. Um we will continue our work with the um environmental crimes task force which is a a multi- agency task force that we spearhead. We have representation from City of Cleveland Police Department, the Sheriff's Department, Prosecutor's Office, the county, and the county board of health. Um, and they've actually had a very, very good year. Um, they've had a variety of felony prosecutions as well as misdemeanors. So, they are making great progress. Um, we're going to continue with our outreach and education program. Um and also for our business program, we are going to continue with our business champion um recycling program that's calling out businesses within the district that have reached specific levels. We have a green, silver, and gold level. um kind of think of leads and based on the more that you

do that is reducing landfill clients the different level you meet and stickers and lots of um outreach and education to promote that and um we're going to continue with our code enforcement our litter collection program we contract with court community services those groups which starting this year there will a third crew. So we put in the budget that we would underrite a third crew to get out to your communities to collect litter along rights of waste.

Question about the litter collection tire collection. Um is all cities in the municipalities within the county eligible for this cost? Um we underwrite the cost. Okay.

So it is free to the communities. um the litter collection program. If you have a a dire need, give us a call. We just reach out to C community services and say, you know, there's a specific intersection or area that needs to be addressed, you know, beyond their usual rotation through all the communities. The scrap tire program we do every fall. And so what we do is we ask um your communities, the scrap tires that you find abandoned in rights of ways and public areas, you collect them, keep them to the fall and then we contract with Liberty Tire and we execute a what we call a milk run. So Matt from our office contacts your service directors and then we go community to community to fetch all of those tires every year and it's again free for your community. The cleanups from court community service are especially good if you've got an event that's taking place and you're able to say up ahead of time, you know, we need to have a cleanup taking place before such and such fair or whatnot. They've been really good about that.

And we one of the things we heard is that we needed an additional crew. So we've added that this year. Awesome.

So the municipalities need to connect call you directly. call us, correct? And you can just either call myself or Matt Walters on our staff and we'll get you scheduled. Um, new programming. One of the things we heard loud and clear from from all the service directors is we need to increase the funding for our grant program. So, we're going to not only increase that funding by about $100,000 annually, but we're going to revamp the structures of the grants. We're wanting the grants to be um kind of more pointed towards operational changes that will have a heavy impact on reducing materials that are going to the landfill. So, we um just recently made our announcements to all of your communities. You may want to check with your service directors, your economic development directors for grants to be awarded for the 2025 year that was under the old programming. And we'll be working you all this year, but then come next year, we'll have kind of a a new training as to what the new program will look like. We're going to continue promoting um drop offs in your communities through this East Side Consortium. For example, one of the things we're encouraging your communities to look at is offering a cardboard drop off maybe your service department under this contract. Um, also we're looking at making more available to your communities readymade templates. So whether it's a postcard or it's a calendar or things of that nature where it's pre-populated with the district icon. So there's continuity across the county and um what what does you know stack of paper look like or what does you know a can icon look like? And that way you can simply drop your logo in other pertinent and be good to go. Um, and then the other big thing that we're

going to be working on is a textile recycling analysis. We want to understand because that is an everinccreasing material that's showing up in the waist stream at landfills. Fast fashion has not been our friends. Um, exactly where is it being generated from? What volume is that? And you know what are the current end markets? You know, we know we have a very good use um market in our district. However, a lot is still ending up in the landfill based on what that material is. What can we do with it? What other kind of recycling can be done? You know, is it just wool? Is it just polyester? And also looking a little bit as to the um circularity impact of that. We look at, you know, sourcing materials more locally and um kind of more nature based in in generation um budget concerns.

It's a really short slide.

Um just to let you know generation fee as we said has said in the plan is going to remain stable at $2 a ton. Um what we are looking to do is we want to keep about 1.5 million um in reserves. Our fund balance is very healthy. It is well over four million, but we want to always make sure that we have 1.5 set aside just just because one never knows. But um as we had said in the plan, we're going to do a little um digging into that fund balance to implement some of these programs, but it will not jeopardize our outstanding cash reserves. Special programmings. Um, similar to the planning commission, we too are working on our 2025 annual report which will have the listing of all the communities. The recycling report section will be in that. We're working on that currently, but we do have our data together for our special programming in 2025. Um, and this is just a recap gives you an idea of really what we manage in the way of the special wastes in the county. Just a couple of things I wanted to point out. Our household hazardous waste we actually increased going from 2024 to 2025 and that does not include latex paint by the way. It is the really pernicious stuff that was up by 19%. So we have managed to to still get the message out and people are still cleaning out basements. So um the other big program was our pumpkin composting program. Um although we condensed locations this year, we've gone from eight locations to 10 because we wanted to, you know, maximize our our dollar. Um we increased what we collected by 45%. So the tonnage we

increased from 24 to 25 even with two less locations was up by 45%. So definitely congratulate your communities for doing the right thing with their their pumpkins. Um scrap tires as we touched base on before that program we actually collected about by weight 20% more tires in 25 than we did in 2024. So um that's a commendable effort to all those folks in your community for getting those tires up and out of the public rights ways and public spaces. Um again we're continuing to collect televisions and other things. We have begun collecting as new items at our facility um vapes and empty pill bottles. So you can share that with your communities. We have that on our website and you can always drop those off while we are open. Uh just a kind of an FYI of things that are coming up. Our um reduce reuse repair fair will be on March 21st. So kicking off spring truly and We will be at the Independent Civic Center. We continue to increase our attendance at this event. So, we have a variety of vendors who um are either creative and reuse or offer other types of things such as um you know repurposing furniture, upholstery, clothing, that type of thing. And then we are also still working with uh Fix It CL. workshops and then we will also have our first of two zero landfill events at our facility in May. And with that, that concludes my report. We don't have any resolutions for you since our our heavy

lifting with the plan is over now. We have to get busy with all kinds of things. And I there questions I can feel. Well, thank you. Uh I will note that the um you know we talked about the budget the generation fee at $2 a ton uh it's noted here in the plan is very low compared to uh other districts across the state where that average is more like 475 475 right a lot if there are no discussions have a motion to adjourn

you have a motion a Miss Fields. All right. Thank you very much. We're done.