Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

okay um good afternoon everyone thank you for coming today's kayoga County Planning Commission board meeting if we could call the RO please mayor B here Council mayor Jones director deor mayor May here mayor UT here Michael K for council person Simon here Weiss here whe here for thanks that do we have any comments from the public see none move on to the next item approval of the minutes from the October 10th 2024 meeting I leave it there within the packet not sure if You' had opportunity to review it if anyone has any comments or questions I'll make a motion to approve the minutes second is any other further comments questions seeing none all those in favor say I those oppos that motion carries okay great we'll move on to the resolutions Mary thank you you'll hear um a lot of talking for me today unfortunately which is you know not the usual but I have a few things uh for your attention uh the first item is is resolution 24212 d a this is a resolution amending kog County Planning Commission resolution 90228 Dasa um so this is something I think we talked about at one of the previous meetings and it's something that we talked about with the um bylaws committee looking at um Contracting Authority for the executive director and so the resolution that was originally

created was in 1990 that limited the e executive director's authority to contracts that did not exceed $5,000 um and so at this time we're seeking approval to increase that Contracting Authority from 5,000 to 10,000 and I think the bigger piece of that really is you know inflation I think we calculate it's definitely over 10,000 5,000 from 1990 um and there was actually it was not real clear in that 90 resolution as to what the 5,000 was whether it was revenues or Services uh and as a lot of you know when we do our planning grant program we reduce the cost to the community a great deal and so sometimes the revenues are really um low but the cost estimated cost of the project could be $100,000 and the community is only contributing 5,000 so we really wanted to clarify um what that 5,000 or what the 10,000 pertains to and then also include additional clarification on even those items that are not necessarily a contract but you know memorandum of understanding with perhaps city of Cleveland or someone else that we're doing this work um to really make sure that we have timely beginnings of projects because what has happened in the last rounds of planning grants we come to you with like four or five projects and then they're all starting all at once so our capacity is really cut immediately so we thought if we could um have more flexib and what need you're you're down here councilman um what needs to come to the board and at what time um this would help us um you know Ma maximize the capacity um and I and I think my big statement to all of you really is I'm not trying to bring less to you as board members but I always bring things to informational only sometime you know across the board but I think it's just giving us some

more flexibility on that 5,000 you know versus 10,000 limit um so that was this slide sorry yeah so um yeah does anybody have any questions in regards to this I just um I know that others have made some changes on the approving Authority for executive director do we have other agencies that we can reference that have made these type of changes I don't know Wes part of I don't know if of other off hand I don't of other examples um I know what's the board of control I know there's been some recent discussions on board of control the board starts it 5,000 up to 500 I was G say 250 thank you yeah I believe I mean the Administration has proposed I think raising the thresholds minimum would add that the County Solid Waste district has a $110,000 Contracting Authority as another govern agency um just point of clarification does this apply to both expenditure in Revenue generating so it's really for contracts of Revenue of $10,000 is really what it's pertaining to it's only Revenue it's only Revenue generating so and I think later on in the agenda you'll see we talk about a work plan and so that's really kind of part of the the goal is that I continue to bring information to you on expenses but um we've never been in the habit if we estimate a Project's going to cost $50,000 if it goes over

that like we don't come back and say hey Bard like we've expended more resources than we thought would you improve that additional spend so really understanding that our budget is used for um providing services to the communities and that's what you know typically I'm up and up on what we're spending the revenues on it does you know specifically on revenues any El have any other comments mayor I would just say that you know 34 years inflation obviously is a factor and it sounds like this would be something that' be helpful your to your department um with efficiency so I will definitely be suppor mayor may I I don't have a comment on this issue but a question on on the b or is that coming up that'll be will come up yeah okay fine I'm fine with and I think too just your point on inflation I mean it's not just the higher wages that you know we've paid since 1990 for our um professionals that do the work too it's obviously a factor I'll make a motion requesting the approval of a resolution to amend resolution 9228 a previously adopted in February 28 1990 to increase the contracted authority of the executive director to have a second second second for mayor Kurt any other further comments or questions seeing none all those in favor say I I oppos that motion good afternoon board members thank you for allowing me to come speak and present on the uh work we've been doing on parking in the county it's a the countywide parking study from 2024 uh my name is mik Striker I'm a senior planner

with the the County Planning Commission um I'd also like to give recognize the efforts of Meen Riley uh planner with the plan commission uh Sean Kidd former intern as well as uh Jim son Al our our planning manager uh who had a lot of did a lot of heavy lifting for this uh I was the Project Lead but uh there was a lot of work throughout our our our uh our group of and our staff that that pitched in um so uh just a little background and overview so uh the purpose of this was to understand how communities uh kind of regulate and require uh parking for development in their communities um and then also determine where uh we as a County Planning uh organization could help provide some guidance to communities to help uh mitigate uh issues with parking right siiz parking um and and then reduce negative impacts um so some background where this project came from um was uh as uh County plan has been doing some ongoing work on studying uh transitor and development in the county and as part of that we did a zoning analysis where we looked at the the communities the zoning in the communities uh in that uh in those walk sheds or or to corridors and um parking was a key land use factor that that impacts uh the ability to develop Tod um and only 6.5% of P walk sheds met zoning criteria and throughout that so we realized one that's very important but also we as we look through those zoning codes we realize it's a very complex issue there's a lot of different things that go into parking regulations so so something that we thought we really need to look into further so and as many of you know you you know in your communities and throughout the county this is a lot of what uh parking looks like a lot of what uh retail development looks like in the county so uh the left is uh Great Northern Mall uh on the right is Southland and mber Heights and so you

see all you know and this was this was common development in in area so a lot of parking for for maybe not necessarily a lot of buildings so something we want to say how can we make this better um and so y so part of that we we first needed to kind of say well here's how we're going to look at it so um it was again we looked at 29 communities that were part of the to study um was a lot of communities it was a broad mix of communities so even though it wasn't every community in the county we covered you know from Cleveland to Lakewood to Strongsville to Pepper Pike so we've got a lot of different types of communities a lot of different types of codes as as we found out there's a lot of different regulations throughout the county so um we reviewed 30 criteria so we kind of looked through a few initially just to say what are the different things that are covered um what are the different things we need to be looking for so we identified 30 criteria that we're going look at both qu quantitative so you know how many spaces do you need per you know square footage of retail or space but also sort of more qualitative like do you require um landscaping or uh you know do you have you know shared parking agreement requirements or anything like that so some were a little more yes no is there somewhere a little more let's dig deep you know deeper into what they actually cover so and through this you know we had our key takeaways and then developed best practices to kind of provide address area those areas and provide a range of options for uh uh mitigating those factors or or providing updating PES uh updates and so just a highlight of some of our key takeaways

oh okay not works sorry so yeah so the first major key takeaway is that that existing regulations encourage parking as you see from those photos that's kind of what it was encouraging uh throughout the county and one of the reasons is you know there's little commonality between codes between communities so you just get a range but it just sort of promotes parking um and one of again another reason is that the median age of these codes that we looked at is 26 years old so mid 90s so uh a lot has changed uh we talked about you know inflation changing but also you know the way we shop the the types of retail experiences people are looking for you know Amazon was still selling books Google's just getting started you know so so a lot has changed but a lot of these uh parking codes have not changed with with those those times and so uh so obviously a need for some some just general updates to to account for different tastes um another Factor so just looking at the amount of parking required so 21 communities required at least one space for 250 square feet for the the to you know at a minimum we said to even be considered supportive of Tod was one per 300 square feet uh most these communities required two one per 200 square feet or less or more so and if you think of that you know if you have a a 12,000 foot retail building uh you're going to end up you know it's one at 250 feet that's 48 parking spaces so if that's the size of like a small you know a Family Dollar or a small shop 48 spaces for that it's it's quite a bit and if you even shifting that by you know 50 square feet to to 200 which was a lot of the communities that's another uh 12 spes I believe so there's there's you know that has a big impact and you're end up B with as much parking space as you do building um also uh 41% of communities uh allowed parking

reduction for mixed use so obviously mixed use is becoming much more popular and desired and a lot of communities didn't address that a lot of communities still said well we don't care if you're mixing uses that operate at different times um or they didn't NE say that but their codes got got the point across that even if you're mixing uses aren't necessar operating at the same time we still need you to have all the parking that you would ever need for those those uses which again just promotes more and more parking space um and then less than 25% of municipalities require are allowed for reductions based on demonstrated needs so even if a use came in and said we don't need that much parking space the code still said you have to provide that parking space and then only eight communities provided parking maximum so a lot of communities that are are updating the park are going from minimums to maximums um because if you don't just have a minimum that doesn't prohibit anybody from just continually adding more parking so this is saying you can have this much parking again it's trying to eliminate those large expanses of of parking um and then a lot of spaces communi codes didn't really address anything other than the parking spaces so uh they didn't say where the code or where the U parking can be located so only 21% said had any regulations like okay can't be between the street and the building or it has to be behind the building or only so much of it can be so to kind of promote you know a a street front uh sort of neighborhood type of walkable commercial and then less than 40% of communities even addressed pedestrian so we have all this parking space but we're not even going to address how people walk through that space get to the buildings so again a lot of issues that that either aren't addressed or or just aren't accounted for or just promote parking for cars and aren't really taking into account the the realities of of the types of development communities want these days can I have ask a quick question yeah

does any of um the criteria address disabled parking uh we we did review to see if if that if it was included most communities had at least a a reference to Ada parking standards and again that's also something that's a federal requirement so even if it wasn't thisly addressed in the code it's still something they'll have to address s but it it was in there yes we did look for that that criteria specifically so and there's a lot other takeaways and a lot of other like I said there 30 criteria that we looked at and different takeaways from that that are in the analysis itself um so where does that kind of Where Do We Go From Here did I lose it again we um so along with all the analysis for all those different uh areas of of criteria that we looked at we develop best practices kind of we looked at a range of best practices like this is if you want to be like the best you just eliminate parking do this but we also realize that that many communities still want still need parking um it's uh or may not be something that's a one-size fitall for the community or locations in the community so we try to give some intermediate steps so here here's some ways in between so you may not NE be necessarily wanting to get rid of all parking but you can limit parking by adding maximums or something like that so giving a range of of best practices to to address these issues and uh and so from that kind of some logical next steps might be uh pursuing developing a model code so that communities can look at and say we want to update our parking here's what we here's a a code we can take and and and address uh ourselves um but we're also doing a lot of zoning work lately uh it's affecting our you know we're using it for our own projects uh we're working on a mall area mixed use overlay for the Great Northern Mall uh in North hestad so that's something I've been working on and we've definitely been uh looking at these best

practices and and they've been open to you know some real uh changes to their parking as something they identified as a real need because as you saw a lot of parking there uh but we're also doing a TOD zoning District in South uid uh so again parking will be address there and we're just uh recently uh are engaging with Fairview Park to do a TOD overload and so be looking to implement you know some of these takeaways in that as well so so definitely very important work um and we're excited to be able to help implement this and help communities in the county so any questions just wondering when um I know you're constantly working on the on the parking stud what's the timeline do you think that we can present these model codes and things to the various so yeah so we've done the analysis we haven't we have the best practices in there so so uh that's up on our website and the documents available the best practices so if if the community is looking for something particular for a specific issue they could go find that uh we haven't yet started on on a Model ordinance at this point but that's something that uh through a lot of our work we're we're kind of getting into a lot of those with a lot of our zoning work so that's something that could probably be pulled together fairly quickly once we're able to really look at that and get the the time to so are we trying to regulate as a countywide practice it it would it would be more of an informational asset that we could Pro you know say hey if you're looking you know if a communties looking to uh to update their their parking regulations they could have a place to start from because a lot of times you know communities are like I want to do this but I don't know where to start uh and having some model regulations they could kind of take in and modify from those but the county itself but we wouldn't be regulating any communities part uh one one more question is this something that we'll present when it's complet to the mayor and managers uh it could be yes we

love being on their agenda so if you want to encourage them to add us for this we welcome it field yeah I just had a question about the next steps um walkability is identified I'm wondering about viability as well uh yes we did look at uh uh at bike regulations and it was similar there's uh there's different aspects that go into that whether it's bike parking or but a lot of times connectivity for pedestrians and bicycles kind of go hand in hand so but it is definitely something that's in there just to say yeah Mark I mean you know this all too well going what's happening in the city of Cleveland and reducing parking or eliminating parking minimums and thinking of Transit and other things and I think um part of the transit Orient development zoning overlay that we created also has best practices of parking in that document uh and I just liken this to the single family zoning work that we did when we looked at all those different zoning codes for residential boiled them all down and said okay now here's a single family um inel code that we can go to communities and adopt locally but and that's a challenge I mean we we obviously don't control zoning at the local level but we want to put forth best practices that then communities can easily adopt without having to do start from start from scratch so um but I think this is a really good point to bring forward some may and managers any question further comments or questions for M I'll make sure we send out the link to the report to everybody after this thank you very much next we've got Jennifer Cara that is going to provide the board with a fiscal update thank you Mary well good afternoon I'm Jennifer karaa I'm the manager of business services for County planning and I'm here to provide to you a brief update of County planning's finances I last reported to you the board back in mid June so wanted to

share some highlights we've been very busy this second half and I would walk you through each of these okay some highlights all right so staff is nearly at full capacity while we did lose one longtime employee in August and we haven't officially replaced her position yet we are staffed at 21 FTE which includes two principal planners that were HED midy year as well as a full-time fellow that we retained this year and next which were not originally part of our our approved budget because of these and a couple other Personnel changes including our midyear Merit and some pending Equity adjustments County Planning was recently granted additional appropriation $150,000 to cover salaries and benefits where short call was projected before year end uh another Financial highlight from this year is that we were awarded a $600,000 grant for a safe streets for all Safety project and while this is a pass through kind of Grant and not necessarily revenue for our agency um it's important because we'll need spending authority to hire a consultant and then conduct the targeted work with that County Planning continues to generate outside revenues uh we generate those dollars through contracts and fees for services and bring those back to the county general fund and have continued to do that and then we have continued to administer the healthy Urban Tree canopy grant program managing it as the Fiscal Agent on behalf of Department of

sustainability so we've been doing this grant program since 2019 and our team has handled $950,000 in annual reimbursement grants each program year since its Inception this year we've actually made great strides um to increase efficiencies at running this program we invested time and resources uh into neighborly software and that's helped us both with applications for us to manage review awardees to apply and then for their reimbursement so it's been a great help but neighborly is actually only active for the current year for py5 awardees so we're still kind of processing payments uh through our other mechanisms which have been successful which helped us build neighborly actually so in 2024 um we have actually issued over $75,000 in reimbursement payments back to awardees 85% of those were for program year four awardees and they've had active contracts to the end of this year and then we've already actually issued over 15% for py5 awardees which runs through the end of next year so we're doing pretty good and generally we issue over 90% of each of the program Year's Grant Awards I will say that there is another round of funding that County Council approved and put into our 2025 budget uh so right now we're in closed conversations with Department of sustainability both their director and deputy chief on what does that look like for 2025 so more to come on

that okay in terms of our 24 operating budget which is fully funded by the county general fund it was approved and adopted by County council at 2,978 at the end of 2023 right and as I mentioned back in June at my midye based on operational expenses throughout the year we had shifted some dollarss among our accounts to better reflect where our non-labor expenses were posted and paid so given that alignment and this additional recent appropriation of 150,000 GR in from Council County planning's final 2024 budget is nearly $ 2.24 million now that 150,000 additional appropriation was intended to cover both salaries and benefits costs but it did just post in full to salaries uh and that's what's shown in dark blue combin however the total Personnel costs still remain about 97% of our overall operating budget what you will note is that in the final revised budget there are slightly fewer dollars in contracts and more within our operations accounts yet combined both that yellow and the aqua blue categories still equal the $8,800 they're just aligned differently so how do we do sir so the contracts went down right we shifted some dollars out of there okay so this graph shows our 2024 budget broken down by each major category with four points of reference we have our original County Council

approved budget shown in dark blue our revised final spending Authority in light blue which is then compared against the third quarter 2024 actuals shown in green and then in Gold our forecasted end of year expenses so I think this is clear that our Personnel is our largest expense right and by the end of third quarter 2024 we were on track to exceed our original salaries appropriation we were about 80% spent already at the end of September 30th same with total benefits which are a direct factor of total salaries benefits were on track at the end of third quarter to even exceed a final revised budget appropriation so uh we knew that we were trying to act proactively and we forecast that we will end benefit costs at the end of the year at just over half a million dollars in our operating and other expenditures accounts we had that original appropriation of about 39,000 and while we had spent a little less than half of that aligned final budget by third quarter in those operational accounts my team did anticipate a flurry of fourth quarter activity giving um we process expenses like software membership dues things that were expiring at some point during the fourth quarter and needed to be renewed so we anticipated that mov some dollars over and we're able to even make the County Fiscal office deadline this week to process a flurry of of payments those remaining payments so we're forecasting that our end of year non-labor expenses within operating is

about $48,000 and we to councilman Simon's point we're able to afford some of those higher operational cost by shifting appropriation out of contracts which was actually only originally budgeted at $821 and which was not the case right but so we moved money in and then we ended up moving money out ideally it was so that we could use funds for some of that additional logo and branding work other contract contractual work perhaps the website upgrade um things that actually didn't get off the ground in full this calendar year but at the end of the day County Planning opted to use existing Appropriations from contracts and other existing accounts instead of going back to council for more appropriation mid year I think overall we will end 2024 under budget right and that's given that Mary and her team we've closely monitored transactions balances and we're proactively working within OB knowing that our total expenses would outpace our current appropriation so we're planning to end about 2.21 million now County Planning does continue to generate revenues here's a look at outside Revenue collections in recent years charges for services they were lower in 2020 as to be expected because of Co we did resume invoicing and then we actually received some pass through funding for tlci projects in 2021 that put us over 250,000 received brought in our highest recent deposits in 2022 and that was primarily from interde departmental contracts with

Department of development and Department of Public Works right for the lakefront but also contracts with opwc and a lot of other communities that we're working with last year we did bring in uh revenue from various sources we had survey work that took off we had subdivision fees that we collect lots of zoning map updates and then those recurring contracts with opwc that we had total collections last year over 230,000 this year so far we've deposited over $212,000 and we do have outstanding third quarter invoices that we would potentially deposit before year end those are still coming in so we project that we will have collections this year to be about $220,000 which is on par with our recent four-year average of revenues received since 2020 and looking ahead okay our 2025 budget which is column for the column with the colorful shading this was originally built as part of the banal budget it had a similar spread as our 2024 approved budget which is shown in column one one difference between 25 and that approved budget was our 25 approved budget was built to include an average 2% cost of living increase and our midyear Merit and then higher overall benefit costs over the 24 uh appropriation however when compared again against column two which is county planning's final revised budget you can see that our 2025 approved budget all of a sudden is inadequate to cover both our

labor and non-labor accounts and so what I've done is I've shown in column five those percents that there's no net increase in Personnel when you compare the two years approved budgets you see a significant shortfall of non-labor expenses at that uh funding allocation we'd see a 72% decrease in non-labor and then an overall decline in our total budget of 1.3% so what I've done is I think a more realistic comparison of our 2025 approved budget is against that aligned and projected 2024 budget shown in column two okay that does still show a n shortfall of 29% within our total non- labor accounts but it does Net a 1.2% increase within our total Personnel accounts and then an overall positive budget overall of 0.4% right so while I do think it's better when it's viewed against that Benchmark I will say I don't think it's sufficient it's going to be sufficient for 2025 so we anticipate working again with OBM on various things throughout the year but in early 2025 we'll have to adjust our current appropriation within the appropriate accounts so that we can align our budget where those expenses post first things first and then later we will address where those projected shortfalls in our Personnel budget and our overall budget are going to be knowing where we Ed this year um I think there's lots of moving Parts um we will come back in early 2025

and share that with you once things kind of settle down but I wanted to give you a sneak peek comments questions thanks I just have one comments when we think about the revenues and I know we've had new board members this year and um those revenues that come in get deposited back to the general fund so that's how that operates now and so that is something talked about in the past where we thought we'd have a shortfall and we got spending authority to hire a consultant to do a retreat the one year and so there's times like that when if we do need spending Authority on a portion of those revenues then we've been able to do so and um we've got ideas towards the future what it could look like on keeping some percentage of those revenues and putting them back out to the community in terms of the services that we provide so not happening yet but just something that we've talked about you know in a variety of ways and not you know it's not something we publicize uh a lot that those go back but I mean we are supported completely by the general fund and so years ago when we were um a special Revenue Agency we had to really charge more for the services so that we could offset um use those revenues to offset our costs for as an agency in addition to what the general fund provided so just some history and background sorry so just a cost benefit analysis dumping into the general fund and how that enhances their right potential work to community being hands right and I think you know obviously we don't want to take the revenues away from the general fund and then get less in general fund I mean because then it's just offsetting where we we been talking about this for years and it's very frustrating I'm sorry but I just I appreciate council's support I mean and ob's been working with us and I think as we identify these shortfalls early it's not it's noted early on and then it's just starting to figure out when the right time again because some of these shortfalls don't happen till much later in the year and that's why we knew come October you know we had to get this in

front of council that we need an appropriation before the end of the year and enough to do so so we appreciate your support is there a mechanism in place to offset some of this keep some of this money are you creating that is that what you're looking for there's not yet and I think the big question is you know what approval would be necessary for that it would be board approval but it also have to go before Council I would assume to to get approval for that be comfortable with a something that has a cap on it right but has some flexibility yeah we've got a draft internal kind of policy we've been working on for the past several months and it does align a little bit with the next um version of our planning grants and kind of what can we do with those dollars if we were to keep some of them and um just a lot in discussion right now but nothing official okay any other further comments thank you thank you Jennifer we lean we run a she runs a tight ship lean and mean all right so the next item is the bylaws um and this is just for discussion today I just want to thank Lesley um and councilman Simon and mayor Willow they've been our small But Mighty bylaws committee and um just to give you more context the last the last uh time the bylaws were amended were in June 2020 so obviously things change um and there's been a lot of De resolutions and a lot of things that have happened along the way and so today the way the bylaws are written is that we must discuss it at a meeting prior to it being voted on so this will be brought back in the new year um and I apologize for the mess of a version that you've got right now but I had to be able to show you the changes um and since we've printed this you know we I've s found some other things that need to be changed so it's not clean and I've just found a few like CCP that still exist and other things that we'll

clean up um for the revision um but really long story short you know this is how I I go about policies and procedures trying to clarify and really consolidate um language and so that they're really straightforward the reason this bylaw packet is so big is we did not have an appendix before we referred to reference documents in the last page of bylaws we never included those um C county code County ordinances in there so those are in here now just in writing so that you know what they are um and we're going to have hot links in the document in the final draft so if you want to go look out to wherever that reference is you can click right out to the website to pull up the orc code um but really what we found was there was so many references to orc or County ordinance or county code and then we then listed the entire language of those codes or that section and we're like this is silly like we don't have to redo it because if we're referring to that we just can say this is where it's from and then you go look um and so I think that'll really tighten up the ship there the other thing is we really Tred to clarify ccpc you know mostly now we're going by County Planning but what was very confusing in the document was ccpc referred not only to us as an agency but it also related to you as a board there was no distinction in some areas if I was talk if it was talking about the board or County Planning itself as an agency so now we say ccpc is you know count is County planning and then the County planning board so we tried to clear that up throughout the document so I know we've missed a couple here and there but um those were big really big sections of it um I think we really I think maybe you're uh Weiss this probably goes to your question for the executive director duties that's in here maybe maybe not um

but it was really light on what my duties were um and the only thing we really had in the organizational meeting was um selecting the chair and vice chair and I feel like there should be some more meet in those meetings and looking forward to what we're doing for the upcoming year so the piece about the work plan is really I wanted to bring forth something to you as board members of where we anticipate spending our resources in the coming year um and I can talk more about that later but you every year and throughout the year knows we have to we have performance measures that we're measured against with OBM because that's where the general fund funding comes from and we have to anticipate you know how many Regional plans how many local plans there's a lot of this that we we should go back and forth with OBM um but that's not something you see and so I think it's probably good that we share that information with you as well um and so they will be that and then also again the budget where we stand going into the year you don't approve the budget that's approved by Council but letting you know at the beginning at the organizational meeting what budget we have to work with um for the coming year I don't think I have any other slides on this but um we can pull it up if we need to I just wanted to give people the opportunity to ask any questions or look at specific sections um if there were questions on anything anybody have comments questions just one question maybe in here just I haven't found it um and there was like we took out the language 04 about alternates process alter is now code and maybe that's where it is but I assume we still have to disclose that we have an alternate if someone sitting in yeah and I'll I'll let Wesley speak to this too but again you're right that was already it's in

the code and so we didn't want to reite the the doc the words that were in there and the way that the code really does state is that alternates have to be approved in the same manner in which the board member is approved and we've got a case in point right here with um assistant director Mara interim director for the state of Cleveland um so typically this board has not required board members to have alternates beyond the County Council appointments and the city of Cleveland if you can't come to a meeting it's okay you know we don't say you have to be at every meeting or your your and so um it doesn't it really does in the code it doesn't specify only Cleveland necessarily gets an alternate but what has to happen is so for mayor bib ideally what would have happened is we had mayor bib's um reappointment letter and with that the same time we had the designation of an alternate that then went to council so that his alternate was approved by council at the same time his reappointment was um so I don't know if that is that that's correct correct I mean the one other thing that we had in mind with the bylaws as a whole is to avoid potential conflict between what's in the bylaws and what the county ordinances say and what the Revis code says um and so that's why we as much as we can refer to the ordinance and the Revise Code if it changes but then we don't catch those changes in the language of our bylaws then we're out of step with the ordinance um the other thing we found which was really interesting which I think it's in this section there is a section 20612 I think it is where from the county side County Council side um and it was about the makeup of the board it then pointed back to our bylaws and our bylaws pointed back to 20612 so we had to go all the way back to 1989 and reference that resolution that

said the Planning Commission board members will be made up of they use the emergency planning regions um will be used to distinguish the the regions for the Planning Commission and here are how the board seats were named so we were going like this within the bylaws which obviously is not ideal so I think we fixed that in this now and you will see um you know the the executive director duties or Powers um it's in section 802 so what's referred to this in the Str changes is the resolution that was just approved today for the Contracting Authority so it would obviously if it didn't get passed it would come out but um so that is also attached in the appendix because now that's changed from the 1990 um Authority that was previously established anybody else have any comments questions thoughts just wondering on the 501 5 so there was a lot of strike throws um I know you stated that we're we're listed somewhere that we County Council supposed to sit on this board was this because it refers out to 20612 of the county code um which I don't know which appendix sets in but it I it outlines this um appendix E I don't know there's P numbers on this yet um but it's in there somewhere else it it literally so all the text from 20612 is exactly what was in our bylaws before but I think to Wes's Point uh we run the risk if something changes with that 20612 if it's amended then we've got to

amend our language where if we just refer back to that we'll just have to keep track if that is further amended or something changes we would change that reference but it is was verba on the text that was in 20612 it really helps with house okay so in regards to process then so this is the the public notification and then our next meeting is scheduled for got attended one in January we need it but February 13th is our organizational meeting where I this would come back we should be able to move on it so um if you find anything else in here um between now and February please take the time and send me a note and you know write up something mark it up send it over to me and we'll make sure we address it I know we've got to go through the fine tooth comb as we clean up the version but I wanted to make sure you saw um the various changes that are being reced appreciate everyone's hard work on this yes yes I just have on page 19 here 7.02 I got my highlights in here of ones I missed okay thank you we'll go back and do a search and find I found a few on a couple different pages that I missed so we'll make sure we update that thank you okay there's nothing further on that we move on to the director's report thank you okay so good news um just a few things I want to highlight and um we'll try and wrap this up so that remember you have to stay for salad waste

meeting um but wanted to do Kudos Corner which I haven't done a lot lately but we've got some really exciting news lately um both Moren Riley and Paul triolo passed their aicp exam um it was supposed to be a week ago Saturday and then the snowstorm happened and so the test was canceled and they found out the night before after months and months of studying luckily there was some quick um turning by APA and they got new dates and so they just passed it which is fantastic so our entire planning team minus one uh staff member in that planning Services section are all aicp certified which I think is outstanding for a staff of our size that we've got that kind of credentialing so very excited for them um also Liam lito uh our GIS whiz um on our team he was previously a GIS technician and um it GIS Enterprise GIS posted a position for a GIS analyst and he looked at it and said I I do all of this and probably more and so we had a job audit situation uh discussion with uh HR and PRC because we didn't have anything between a GIS technician and a GIS manager ailable to us uh at Planning Commission so it went through the PRC board it went to County Council and the gis analyst position was opened up to County Planning Commission as well now and so he will become a GIS analyst so very excited for him he is just kind of doing a lot with mapping and a lot with a lot of our partners on um data integrity and other things so very excited for him uh and just yesterday I think or the day before we just found out that we are received an award of excellence and the category of best practices for our single family zoning work uh this is by the APA County Planning Division and the National Association of County planners so really excited about that it was really

wonderful to hear uh they also encourage us to submit for the national um award so they would said they would help us do that so they sent us a press release that I've shared um with the upstairs Communications team and um just to make sure that we get the recognition here locally too so fantastic team that's worked on this and I know we've done work in South uclid and um uid on single family zoning and others and so I just it goes back to that best practices and parking I mean this was kind of how all that started with the single family zoning work so um it's nice to see the reward there at the end so we'll be working with Jennifer kma also for suburbs just to get um more news out to to folks so um and then just this week Channel 19 uh we did a interview on Cleveland Heights Adu U it was one of those where there was a voicemail that was left at 6m and by 8:30 a.m. they were calling back saying we need to do this interview I said sure I have time we want to talk they're like actually we're outside the building can you come downstairs so if anybody saw it it was on the news the other day like Afternoon News and so there's an article um about Cleveland Heights U the work that we're doing there Eric zamp from Cleveland Heights was also interviewed so um you know and it goes back to the city hired us to work on the Adu piece and they said look we don't want this just to be for Cleveland Heights we want what you do to then be applicable to other communities and so it's been a really great um relationship with Cleveland Heights on that and then also I got to be a guest on Brian Zimmerman's podcast um tales and trails at the metrop park started I'm like there's nothing this man cannot do but it was super fun um and so that was just a nice way it's kind of making its way through Linkedin and other things that kind of happened and there was a little news and then there was nothing but it was a full-on studio Corporate College it was a lot of fun so so that was fun um and then board appointment um thank you to all of you who agreed to continue on with us mayor orcut mayor

Gallow and mayor bib um I'm sure most of you know but director Wong from Cleveland Heights has left the city and she is going to the Cleveland foundation and so Mara Fields has been the exe assistant director at the city of Cleveland and the Planning Commission and she will be our alternate um going forward it's going to go to council hope in January um to get her approved as the alternate so she's here but she cannot vote today so that's kind of the back story on the alternate situation so welcome Mara um and then County Council I know I've already talked to staff upstairs for um appointments because um councilman Simon and Conwell your terms end this year so I've been making sure it's on their radar for Council per um council president Jones to do his appointment 25 so that we have you guys situated for um our organizational meeting so and then just quickly a couple project updates um yesterday we had an amazing meeting uh East 22nd Street small area plan that we are doing in partnership with the city of Cleveland um I don't know how many I think we had every stakeholder in this area minus two or three it was a two hour Workshop it was fantastic everyone rolling up their sleeves talking to people that they needed to talk to um really convening big stakeholders in the same room and talking about visioning and what we want to make sure we're retaining there what we need to imagine there and all the different plans that are happening so it was really a great um a great meeting yesterday and I the hard part's going to be like what comes next everyone's like well what's next and who's doing it and so I said we don't know yet but um it was a really good meeting we did brief council president Jones last week so he was aware um given this is a lot of you know his stakeholders too a councilman star was there so it was really great um and a couple weeks ago we briefed the city of Cleveland um Chief and directors too so that they know and again this is not just in planning this is HHS this is so

many different varieties of departments um that you know County owns property that every property and provide service to the residents um and I know there's continued coordination with Brandy Carney and thinking about intervention and Center Neighborhood Family Practice and the center going in there um so just a lot of moving Parts but um it's it's the big thing that we've you know got our eyes on now is timing of demolition um you know the Juvenile Justice Center is there and receive Brownfield dollars that is like the front door to Cedar Estates um and working very closely with um CMHA to make sure that as they start relocating folks to redevelop that area we're timing it right um with demolition so that it's not impacting residents um you know unnecessarily while they're there living there um if I can you I'm not sure everybody knows this you know if you could just give Sor I'm summary of what I'm not sure everybody has detail change so much so often so right right so this is really going all the way from the Wolstein Center down to Broadway the post office um and what we found was that there was no one group convening all these stakeholders the changes that have been happening with St Vincent's The Sisters of Charity um they've got slated demolition projects CMHA is looking to redevelop Cedar Estates but their model really is that they re locate people um in other CMHA housing they've done this for Wood Hill and then they give those folks who lived there previously the first right of um re-entry into a new home in this area um the Juvenile Justice Center project you know coming down the interbelt project happening there which is going to slice off a portion of the County's property there we've got William pad Day muris Taylor scholar house tric everyone has plans um we've talked to even scouting

americ you know that's there and they want to expand and um one thing we've heard is you know I need a commercial kitchen I need a commercial kitchen I need a commercial kitchen oh I didn't know they had a commercial kitchen I mean so some of this where there really are feeding the needy and taking care of our most vuler residents you know whether it's drug and alcohol addiction Rosary Hall um there's just so many pieces that are really intertwine the library um and how do we really make sure that we're doing this so that it feels like a neighborhood um and a group of assets rather than just institutions on East 22nd and residential um kind of more residential side on East 30th obviously there's other big news with you know the Slavic Village connector which is going to come alongside Broadway and and dur at east1 14 so you know Cleveland State's really trying to figure out how do we get our students from the north down to the South to get on these trails and get um you know take care of take advantage of some of these assets um the highway divides this neighborhood you know and it's like in a multiple different ways um and then you know there's been discussions about potential of extending Scenic Valley Railroad from the national park all the way up to downtown um and they're looking at potentially this area as well as a Terminus there's the pending potential women's soccer stadium down there in the corner there to the southwest and so there are no shortage of moving pieces um in here I guess the one thing that's not moving is the post office which that's like 30 Acres of land right there and it would just be such a huge opportunity but we did do an interview with them and they have no plans but they said hey if you want to build us a facility somewhere we'll move you know but it's it's the first time all these folks have been like in the room together talking about what they're doing and talking about the timing um you know the St Vincent's closing um really had a big impact on the residents

there who um you know might not be able to get somewhere else so closely and so knowing that the centers are coming in and Neighborhood Family Practice are coming in it's like starting to put those pieces back together um and the Sisters of Charity are really dedicated keeping Rosary Hall there and their food service you know that they provide um and they are building a religious women's archive facility um they're going to build a new building there where it's religious orders from I don't know how many different groups that they want to have a building that not only provides services but also has an archive Library there of religious artifacts and other things so it's like the things you just don't hear about um are happening there so it's part [Music] of I think up by got their drawings I feel like it's either up by the centers part in like part of that parking lot or somewhere Over by NE Neighborhood Family Practice they really want to continue to be part of the neighborhood um they didn't want to just go somewhere and be somewhere by itself and so they really want to be continue to play an integral part here but um they are you know S vincon I don't think exists now it's SS of Charity health systems or something but um you know there are buildings that have been slated for Demolition and so now it's just trying to figure out the timing of all of that so yeah more to come okay and then real quickly I know we've talked about to so many times um but we did put out a survey in partnership with um gcrta to really try to get from developers what what is holding back what are you you know what's holding you back from doing to type work in um Koger County because we're not seeing enough um that as we should be um we've got top three barriers identified and you know kind of cumbersome processes and lack of

incentives to do things but um we had you know 64 total respondents I think 30 of the developers who responded said you know we want to talk we want to keep talking about about this so we've had conversations with um dep Department of development Sarah Parks Jackson's team and Housing Community Development and you know debie part of the integrated development and Annie as a transportation adviser what can we do as a county and working with other agencies um to really start helping figure out what's the holdup and how we can maybe make things go smoother and not to say we have to come up with this brand new fund but you know there are programs that development has um where they do types of loans and things can we start trying to get to in the front of it and I think today you know as we keep hearing about these projects and re Redevelopment of older buildings and things that are close to the street and give people an opportunity to take transit instead of having a car along with the parking conversations um it's really something we want to take to the next level in 2025 I mean we've been working on zoning and best practices and it's going to take a long time for us to get through zoning in 59 communities um to make it friendly to to um but we looked at what building permits were pulled in 2022 and I think in kyoga county for multif family building permits there was 623 only compare that with Franklin County in the same time period there was 6,238 so we are ranking like 10 out of 11 with our peer metros and who are really doing uh work to advance to in the communities and so we're going to keep trying to chip away at this um and we're going to have a meeting with some of the folks upstairs you know in early January and then try to get together with a bunch of the developers and start really working knocking down some barriers so okay um in your packet it's new from the packet you sent out we had to change

one of the dates um the board meeting that is a draft list but I wanted to make sure you had it so you can start putting them on your calendars it'll be officially voted on at the organizational meeting on February 13th um and then just to quickly talk about that work plan which again is something we haven't done in the past but to introduce something at the organizational meeting that really identifies the priorities for our agency initiatives that we're continue to work on um we're rebranding our planning grants as Community planning Services Program because it's been very confusing because it's called a grant but it's not a grant um it's actually us providing Professional Services to communities so we wanted to clear up some of that um and Micah left but um we're coming up on the 10 years of the program um next year and so we're going to kind of have a campaign about that what we've seen what we've done where we're going how we can continue to improve it um and so really and again Planning Commission is way older than that but that program was established 10 years ago so it's pretty exciting to see all the different work that we've done and again that work plan just like I said um and again thank you for your vote of confidence on the you know um Contracting Authority because I think it will help us better align our capacities with not starting all new projects at one time um and I really believe in defining metrics for ourselves as an agency to make sure we're measuring our success and so I see that work plan being brought to you um you know can be adopted approved or just information and then quarterly bringing that back and talking about the performance and where we're at um with our anticipated um tasks so any comments questions okay is that it Mary that is all right anything in the old business column nothing new business you g to make a motion to adjourn so we can jump back

into the next meeting second motion made seconded all those in favor say I motion carries thank you thank you of our meeting and I just want to thank all of you for your time your support this year and I hope you had wonderful holidays with your family and friends and it's been a great year so thank you do you want to sit up here I'm like I always feel bad like I shouldn't still be sitting I'll leave the clicker for you I'm going to call the solid was policy committee meeting to order for December 12th 2024 can we call roll please mayor Burke here here Gallow here or here Council than so much okay I'll turn it over to B thank you and I'll make it brief because I know we're well beyond an hour um so today we're just going to review um a couple of points all have been journeying with us on our update of the current Solid

Waste Management plan so we are going to review the oa's nonbinding advisory comments that we received with you and then we will briefly talk about what our next steps are which will um incorporate each of your communities so I wanted to go over those so you can get those dates on your calendar um as antip we did receive right on schedule from the Ohio EPA their non-binding advisory comments and what those are is you had um approved the district submitting to the oepa the first draft of the new Solid Waste plan they had 45 days to review that document and respond to us with comments suggestions and um you know any changes they wish to see so this is the letter that we received and um Mr D received a copy also as the head of our policy committee um I wanted to share this with you because we received only a few pages worth of comments and this was the most exciting one which that they really liked our plan so um we were very pleased with that we had put a great deal of work with staff and our Consulting team into this document hoping that we would get very few comments back from them so um I wanted to share that with you the few comments that we did receive back really were that um they the EPA had double counted items that because of our very thorough checking and checking again when it comes to the surveys that we sent out to processors and communities and businesses we always make sure that things aren't double counted and that you know the numbers are reflected correctly so it was um a bit fun to let

them know that they had some double pounded numbers in then so um so we were able to correct those and um move on so the document that you had approved still stands um as is because we really didn't receive any um significant corrections to that document I did want to review with you quickly again just toind to what the uh programs and priorities or are in this current plan so we're maintaining all of our existing programs um we did meet earlier this year in January with the service directors from your communities and ask them to be honest with us as to sharing what do you like about us what don't you like about us and what would you like to see change and um they were very Frank as they are to to be and uh they said well the first thing is we need to see a little more money in your Grant programs you thank you inflation and um you know it just our money isn't going as far so one of the things that we did incorporate into this update is additional money for our grant programs we are going to be in this um Plan update revamping um some of the eligible criteria so we can pursue or your communi pursue more operationally oriented and and program oriented activities um such as you know you need containers for collecting cardboard for multif family or you does your community want to look at maybe purchasing a Bor for compacting that cardboard and getting it to Market or having it more easily um picked up by a processor um we heard loud and clear that they do like our scrap tire Roundup program so we will be keeping that

they did let us know that our work with court community services we do hold a contract with them they did want to be able to have direct contact with court community services and what court community services they have two teams that are in a constant rotation throughout the county picking up scrap tires and illegal dumping and the rights of waves in your communities and the service directors asked could they please have the line to to court community services in the event that they encounter something that needs to be addressed before the usual rotation of court community services would get back to them so we've Incorporated that in our new contract with court community services and um and the other thing that we had heard from the services directors is they're interested in having the district help develop um more drop off program infrastructure for m family or just within the different just within your communities and I'm going to point to um our pumpkin collection program which we piloted last year in three locations this year we expanded to 10 we did not um choose ourselves as a location because our our location at the office wasn't um used so we really went from two locations to 10 and um in 2023 we had colle around 7.5 tons worth of compost for or excuse me pumpkins for composting this year we collected um 18.2 tons at our 10 locations all of which went for I know went for composting so that's a great diversion we got wonderful feedback from your community and have already started a list of of your communities that want

to participate in next year's program so in this plan we we have increased the money from $10,000 to 20,000 for those types of programs whether they may be seasonal or or in a more permanent those were the kinds of things that the service directors wanted to see something that your residents could take advantage of but we somewhat manage so it's it's not a burden on them so those are the programmatic changes based on the pr priorities that we heard coming from your communities um the budg is going to remain pretty much the same on the revenue side we are currently at $2 per ton as a generation fee and a generation fee is charged on every ton of garbage that is disposed someplace in the state of Ohio and we are going to maintain that fee um through at least through until we go to update this again in another five to six years um we also are going to maintain 180 days worth of an operating balance in our fund balance we want to make sure that we have that type of money set aside goodness forbid you know for any kind of emergencies Capital Improvements um you know our building is is sound but just in case anything where to go sideways there um our current fund balance sits at over $4 million so we are in good position and um in the upcoming years of the plan we're looking at expenditures of being around 2.4 with Revenue coming in at about 2.5 million so um you know we we may in in future years because we did build into our budget escalators for inflation

depending on the line item we have um inflation escalators between 1 and 3% so um we just you know we're trying to be very realistic we kep Revenue very static to be conservative and increased the um the cost of expenditures and I do want to talk about the schedule because this is where we are going to need your help um on the community level so on here you can see um you know we are here today reviewing the nbao from the Ohio EA EPA um we don't really any updates to make to the plan which was great but we did build into our schedule a buffer there um statuto we do need to conduct a public comment period we need to publish that run the public comment period for 30 days we currently are looking at kicking off the public comment period on February the 13th and then that will run for 30 days we will be placing a notice on our website we also plac it with um the plane dealer which will be both online and in print um each your communities will be receiving correspondants from us kind of reviewing this schedule saying when is the public comment period um at the conclusion of the public comment period statutorily we then have to conduct a public hearing so we have statutorily 15 days from the end of the public comment period um to conduct a public hearing we be sharing that with all of your communities obviously you don't need to come to a public comment period or a public hearing if you need to reach out please do so via email or phone if you know as you're reviewing the plan you want to discuss something or have a recommendation both of these activities

allows you know whether you your residents or communities or businesses which are generators of solid waste to comment on where we're taking the district during this next five years of our plan and um you know we we note things and if there are any changes at the conclusion of the public hearing then as you can see on the schedule here what we do is um we will then incorporate those changes into the document we will be back before you at the April meeting so um I believe that's April the 10th we will be back here revie with you any changes that we receive any feedback that we get through the public comment or public hearing um and we will at that point have for you that revised document with um the recommendations in it we will be asking you at that meeting to please adopt that final final version because that will be the document then that goes out to ratification and then our uh once April 10th occurs um we really jump into in early May the ratification process and I wanted to review with the you what is involved in that so there are some um statutory things that are required for plan ratification um we will be sending to you in two different correspondences um a prototype of a resolution that you will need to take to your councils um it is required each Solid Waste District um and this kind of goes over what we need to include in our plan which we had just went over in the prior slides but for ratification purposes we need to have a vote from

each of our 59 communities most importantly we need to procure a vote from the city of Cleveland which is our largest political subdivision and then we also need to procure affirmative votes totaling inclusive of the city of Cleveland totaling 60% of the district's population and um the thing that I want to stress to you is um according to the rules if your community does not take action that is doesn't pass any legislation affirmatively or negatively it unfortunately counts as a negative vote a no vote so it is important that everyone do because this is going to fall over the summer unfortunately or fortunately and we know some of you have recesses we know sometimes you you you know reduce your schedules with Council over the summer so um Jessica and I in particular will be U reaching out to you frequently to see if you know if you would like us to come and speak before your councils prior to entertaining a piece of legislation for the plan we're very happy to do that um have car will travel so um so that is really it um we then will you know convene before in the fall at the conclusion of that 90day ratification period which will be in September at which point we will present to you an actual tally of you know all the communities all the populations those that voted yes um hopefully we have no votes or or or no missed opportunity to vote and if that calculates to 60% of the population inclusive of the city of Cleveland after which then you certify those votes we package all those lovely um ordinance or resolutions up and the final document

of the plan and we send it to the EPA for them to review one last time and um then hopefully put their stamp on approval early in 2026 so hard to believe but 2025 will fly by before we know it and um we just wanted to let you know that we will be probably seeing a a lot of or you a lot of us during 2025 and um we look forward to answering any questions that you have and um do keep an eye out for the packages that we will be sending you that contain the notification for public comment and the public hearing as well as the Prototype for res the resolutions and so my question is is once you want to come to Mayors and managers um well that that is actually um that is on our list and I were we had a more extensive list than what we shared with you but um working is working all that so yes we would like very much to come to Mayors and managers probably during the winter and so any other comments ratification process the reason you're doing this it takes every five years every five correct yes yeah our plan here yeah new to me our plan requires us to have a to document a planning period of 15 years but it's it's rolling because every five years we have to update it so if we get approval in 20 early 2026 we will have to then in the latter part of hard of believe 2030 begin that update process again so so every five years it's good one other question the generation Fe when was the last time this was raised this was raised in the beginning of

2023 and prior to that it hadn't been raised since Jessica or seven yeah so um overall in the state we have one of the lowest generation fees in the state we're a staff of seven of us including myself and um you know we're charged with trying to you know divert as much material from lands as possible so we may be small but we're what goes into the process of raising um we can't do that except through the plan process so the last plan that occurred five years ago my predecessor in doing their budget they had anticipated that they would have to raise the generation fee to you know inflation and the fact that you know they had heard at that point from um the public and the service directors that they wanted some expansion of programming so that necessitated raising the generation fees and it went from a150 to $2 per ton two years ago so they had scheduled it in the context of the plan that we're currently under but several years after the beginning of the plan so folks had an opportunity to get their budgets in line and so during for this fivey year cycle we are not planning on raising that it are you limited if you make this Commitment if we you cannot or you just not planning it so passing a generation fee is uh is really going through ratification again so if we you know goodness forbid for example our building were to burn to the ground and insurance didn't cover it and we needed to look at increasing our

Street we can't statutorily do that we can do it outside of the confines of the plant but it's it's its own entire ratification process so we would have to publicize it you know have a public hearing send it out to you and conduct a vote and actually at that point we need 75% approval of the population inclusive of the city of Cleveland versus if you do it within the construct of the plan is you're doing like we have this past year and have been in front of you a great deal and getting the message out it only requires 60 so um typically people don't like to do that so we we look very seriously at the budget to make sure that we would be whole you know through this next five year period is there a suggestion to raise the fee I'm just curious I just asked the question you know right now you know we're we're good you're good budgets but just looking ahead and how other departments look ahead to course see if things go up right and you know that's why you know I mean we update every five years we don't want to I'm not going to sit here and tell you oh no for the next 15 we'll never raise the generation fee we know that during the confines of this plan we don't have to know if if we hear from you communities that for example you want us to double the amount of grants that we you know provide communities we're going to have to look at that in the next plan Rite so so but it's also Market driven Global Market factors which we saw an increase in generation fee because of and Sh to the global market so thats right the decisions we've made over the

last 10 years and we've taken rather conservative look at the next five years um we because of changes in Market we're going to have a change in presidency we wanted to expand programs but not ridiculously so because that's a future we just simply can't predict and there could be you know recycling is an it's a global market as as councilwoman Simon mentioned um although KN would after the China sword and after the pandemic we have um really increased our domestic recycling capacity which is terrific so that leaves us a little more insulated but you know my unfortunately my crystal ball is no better than anyone else's for predicting you know what may happen in the next five years so we just Tred to remain kind of expanding a bit but not I think open any other questions were in thebody of usun quite a few people it's in the next magazine they like little cities and we the largest ones we need to move up and I was like okay but if you're going to you know we really need all of you to get out there so it's going to be interesting to me to see where we go in the next year too as a community because they really took it seriously like at block parties and that I was very surprised I think they that on the city

like and the biggest their Villages and I didn't realize it myself so you know we for us we're really looking to see if our residents are gonna buy into this even more than what they already have well I would en encourage all of you our our um 2025 grants are posted on our website and we always try to encourage the service directors you know think about you know maybe looking at what your current programming is what use our grant money for what can you do to help in that case move your needle to either increase you know the recycling or increase your yard waste collection you know maybe Venture into that food waste composting area um and and it was interesting because we brought that up at our meeting with them in January and most of the service like oh no I just don't want that Mas BL blah but there but really the the pumpkin collection program is just that you know you know it's they were undecorated pumpkins that we collected and it's going for food waste composting so we we're hoping to to make an example of that that it wasn't the ooey gooey mess that I think many of them had anticipated and so I want to challenge the Mayors here I want to use a grant for an audit a part of your community because even though these numbers might look good when you get into the weeds of the rec Road you know the curb side people are putting everything but the Kitchen St still into their their recycling and it's something I think we really need to drill down on so part of the grant um opportunity will be to do an audit it's a happy positive program I remember you were concerned that it was people would be chastised or you know it's more just like smiley face

if you do it right and maybe a little frown if you don't with stickers and we had kids from um who did the audit for the one we had who did the audit Brooklyn but there were who did the audit the work on the ground students College andol college and high school students we get to intern so mayor's here if anybody's interested please come see us and I want to really drill start drilling down on education of um what goes in those events I'm telling you also invite them out we had a great one at our s Community Center where they came out and presented and you know they actually show pictures that of that the recycling really goes and you know then they showed how you know even the envelopes with the windows how they spin it and then you'll see the that little plastic stuff on the top and everything and you know I think that really like got people excited about it it was pretty I mean I just kind of sat back and watched um it was pretty interesting to see people want to do the right thing but everything has changed so much you know they were looking at the the triangles on plastic is it a six a five it doesn't matter anymore is is a bottle of jug or you know whatever right so it it changes so quickly so um so it doesn't matter on the numbers anymore no no um so we we encourage people to look at the shape and we could and and please do one one of the things that you know we do is we have um two Educators plus myself you know we can come out and you know conduct presentations um Plastics particular are constantly evolving and um and now there's a whole new thing called Advanced recycling which is is is going to be interesting watching that because it's kind of reverse refining you know because plastic is

made from oil so yes we would love to come you know and we love to talk trash so we assum everybody else likes to hear about it so you know I was just GNA say I've never understood why Kimble Republic waste man why don't they just put it on the BS like on the top of you know put a little label thing here's what ches all the time it doesn't change I mean like Republic um I mean it was the same way that they did just recently added the tubs but it was the same pretty much for at least five years yeah it is the reason they're not doing the the pre-printed integrated is because it is changing I mean rumy for example in the last three years they've added a new material each of the last three years and so and and not everybody is I mean because these are private companies it's their investment for their recycling facility some some are more agile and eager to increase what can be recycled than others but it's open market so but yes we'd love to come and talk to get the Grant and for the grant we did uh magnets ones and then did the cards that we we pass out at our Memorial Day because everyone's having kick so you a lot of people will have those magnets for those cars magnets are great you put them on the fridge it's in the kitchen so you're that's usually where you're handling something know the recycling facilities we just went through an a we take Packer full of waste run through their plant tell us how efficient we are or what penalties what they're going to pay us for the recycling they use that as a barometer do a spot check to make sure they we're in compliance so there's a lot of different mechanisms that they're using to make sure maintain a certain

level of efficiency well and and you know recycling right at the curve follows all the way out to supply chain because if it's good then they can capture more they can broker cleaner material and gets a higher value in Market which helps drives down the processing cost so it's just that's what we went through people did you have a comment no I just wanted to ask if before we adjourn you want to approve the amend from oh I'm sorry yes I didn't want us to that would probably second motion to approve the minutes from the was the October 7 meeting and it was seconded by mayor Burke any other further comments questions all those in favor say I those that motion carries okay any anything else I hope you all have a great holiday season you know don't you know pleas we would love to come talk to you so thanks Beth Jessica Marie great appreciate thank you thank you and we stand a j