Council - Regular Meeting

City Council will order.

Roll call, please.

All rise. Please join Pastor Tim in a brief prayer.

Let's pray. Almighty God, we thank you for these public servants that are here tonight to discern the direction you have for our city to go. Pray wisdom and discernment upon them as they make decisions going to affect our future. We thank you for all of their willingness to serve.

Amen. Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'll receive a copy of the minutes of the last meeting for any questions or comments from counsel. If not, may I have a motion to accept, please? Mr. Lanz, I'll vote to accept, please. All yeses. Under petitions and communications, I have nothing on the agenda. Does anyone wish to address council at this time? Okay. Under reports of city officials, we have the auditor's report. Mr. Eason? I have no corrections or deletions. Any questions or comments from council? Next, we have the treasurer's report. Ms. Stegall?

I have no changes in my opinion.

Any questions or comments from council? Okay.

Next, we have the director of public service safety report, Mr. Foxholder. So tell them when you have the floor.

So yeah, when we built the new plant in 2020, the ammonia levels coming out of one of our well fields is a little bit higher. So it takes, and with EPA, we need to either hit break point, keep 0.2 residual water, I know that takes some flack over it, but it's going to make the operator's job easier. It's going to make the recording better. It's just going to be all around, when we break through, it'll be better for us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions or comments from council? I live on Concord, and I haven't noticed any difference. And moving on, we have no reports from the city council committees. On the third reading, we have ordinance number 202610, an ordinance rezoning 0.437 acres of land between Wayne Street and Perry Street and between Clinton Street and South Street in the south addition of the city of St. Mary's. Any questions or comments from council? If not, this is the third reading. Council votes to pass, please. All yeses, thank you. Gentlemen, you got it. Thank you. Under second reading, we have Ordinance 202611, an ordinance to approve disapproved generation fee abolishment repeal for the Outlakes County Solid Waste District and to declare an emergency. And Mr. Spencer, I think you're here to discuss that.

As well as Mr. Rod Averitt from . You're welcome, David. So I'm just going to kind of give a high level, and then any difficult questions, ask Rob. So the EPA requires a 15-year plan with five-year updates. I've gone through that process, and part of the process as opposed to generation fee. A little history, for the longest time, Audubon County had one of the highest, if not the highest, generation fees at $9 a ton. It was then lowered at the request of a new company that was going to be a large refuse utilizer. even lower than what it actually is. But we went through the process to make it $7.65 for the generation fee. One of the things that we would have had to have done if there wasn't good faith in negotiation both ways to truly make that happen would have been to open up the plan, which the plan cost every five years is about $50,000. is. As it is right now, the generation fee, I think my heart was brought up that that's where the cities goes to as a license transfer station, they are required to collect the generation fee. If a private resident or an industry decided, you know what, It's gonna be more effective for us to just go straight to Jade County or any other county outside of the state of Ohio than that generation. One example that I would give you, let's say that there's going to be a building that's in close proximity that's going to be torn down. And the contractor says, you know what? I can take this straight to Jay County right now and do it more cost-effective. There's no If this passes throughout the political subdivisions, then if a building that would be in close proximity to us gets torn down, then they go straight to Jay County. Then Jay County is obligated to return that fee back to us.

they're gonna get charged with 765.

So under the generation, they collect the 765 currently. Now, if that changes to designation, they will still collect that 765. But they will have to have the proper paperwork when they go over to Jay County so they may recharge for it. So we're not double dipping. I think that's what we were looking for. Yeah. They've got to have it undocumented when you go over to Mahars.

Because you wouldn't think they'd want to get charged for it and then not get the money back. Exactly.

So it's not going to hurt any of the rates or anything. And a lot of it is future concern if San Diego Land Co. opens up outside of Ohio State line and you've got commercial industry, whatever, individuals, whatever, they can go over that new one. outside the state line, they would take a lot of that over and we'd miss out on that 765 revenue. Gotcha. And which goes towards selling waste from operations.

And I'm going to throw one more piece in here and just transparency and hopefully not The district, we have a different title, but it's the county commissioners. Not trustees, but district something.

And in essence, it's the three county commissioners because we are a single county.

So we wouldn't have to worry about opening up a plan, spending $20,000 to do what is the right thing to do at that opportunity to decrease it such as what we had to do a handful of years ago. We could just do that. Yeah, they cannot take. If we go designation fee and they do not sign up as a designated facility, the Ohio refuse cannot go there.

Good question. So what's the option if that's where we're hauling stuff currently now in a larger capacity, I guess? If they say, no, we're not going to do that, where does our trash going to get hauled to from there?

in Lima, which they are obligated as a license to collect that generation fee now for the donation.

Just for example, over the past four years, I think we've lost out on between $8,000 and $9,000, which isn't much.

generation feet. Same dollar amount, just with a way to collect if it is going out of county, or excuse me, out of state.

It's keeping people honest too, I guess you could say, because we have local trash haulers who just say that if they get a load of garbage, keeping them honest, I guess you could say. Got it. Yeah, just a more true system to go designation engine. So if the state didn't state, there wouldn't be a designation fee?

No, and states have to sign up too, right? Yes. And they have to collect the 765 just like they're doing the generation fee right now as well. So it leaves the county. Yeah, so anybody, so right now, I don't know how many, maybe we haven't happened to Maybe it's more cost effective in the future that you're going to put it on a rail car and haul it to the east coast. If that's the case, and it goes to a transfer station, don't have to worry. It's going straight there. It's got to be designated.

Any other questions for counsel? Thank you, sir. Thank you all. Appreciate it. This will be back for its third reading at the next meeting. Under new legislation, we have ordinance number 2026-12. May I have the motion to read, please? Mr. Lunds, Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you. Ordinance 2026-12, an ordinance vacating a portion of Plum Street Road right away located in the J.H. and D.A. Barrington subdivision of Outlot 61 in the city of St. Mary's. Mr. Fox. Mr. Mohler is going to talk about this. Mr. Mohler.

So Plum Street right away brought to our attention that by joining neighbors there, looking to split up some land to build another house between the two existing houses that are down on South Pine Street down there. There was a piece of land that really wasn't owned by anybody. And we jointly determined that it was still a residue piece of Plum Street right-of-way. The city has no need for it. We wanted to try to reserve an alley uh along the side of that piece that would give the request to be vacated uh so it only made sense that the vacation of this piece of clump street goes through just so it gets sucked up by the adjoining neighbors it's all actually owned by jacob mcadowney uh so he can use it for whatever housing or whatever he needs to use it for um but you know it's just a little piece out there that can't figure out where it came from probably right or something but it's there so we just figured we'd go ahead and vacate that for you.

Any questions or comments from council?

Why aren't we selling it then? Why aren't we just giving it away? It's not billable as far as by itself.

It's in that triangular piece in there so it's not billable. It's best used by the adjoining properties.

We're not even sure if we really own all of it either. I mean, there's no record showing everything. So we're kind of doing this as like a catch-all, blanket, preventative type of thing. And then we're kind of saying, okay, owners that are there, it's yours to figure out. Any other questions or comments from council?

Okay, this will be back for the second reading at the next meeting. Next, we have Ordinance 2026.13. May I have a motion to read, please? Mr. Acuero? Ms. Slater? Council Member Therese, please. All yeses. Ordinance 202613, an ordinance vacating a portion of an existing 12 foot wide east-west alley being bounded by Outlaw 48, 49, and 50 in the city of St. Mary's. Mr. Moore.

Spring Street reconstruction design for Main Street to River Bridge here determined that we needed to vacate about six parking spaces along the south side of Spring Street between Main Street and Front Street. And part of our resolution for the parking situation is we'll add more parking along Front Street if we turn that into a one-way street. we would put reverse angle in parking along the east side of Front Street, which altogether would add two additional parking spaces. So we're taking away six, taking away the parallel along the east side, adding that reverse angle in parking. So we'd gain two spots if we vacated this alley. So by vacating this alley in that particular area, which is on my cost from the north and south of it, it would gain us about three parking spaces. If we left it open as a current drive approach or an alley approach, we wouldn't be able to gain those three spaces. So it would be in that loss of parking spaces along there. So we talked to Mr. Kaufman about it. He was okay with the proposal to vacate that particular section of that alleyway You know, you look at it, it is very tight. They're air-conditioned units. They're both going to stick out like a garbage truck, a box truck, stuff like that where you can't get through it. Basic car, pickup truck could squeeze through there. It's not pleasant, but you can get through there. And with the bank, the old Chase Bank right there, you know, no guarantee that anybody can go through there but that's still a parking lot but if that's ever closed off you still got the alleyway to exit to the south to south street down there so that's why the request was made to vacate this portion and i think in the ordinance too it says that this would be maintained as a utility easement so that means there's no building or anything like that that would be built in there mr clauserman stated as a current owner Yeah, you ever need through there, you gotta drive over the curb, you just drive over the curb in an emergency situation, you know, type thing. So, yeah, so it's never gonna be built on, it ought to be remained as an open easement to pull into that current alley.

Mr. Muller, I see on here that during the planning commission, one of the members opposed the request. Do you know why they opposed the request?

So there was a little opposition from the property under that, it's on South Street, right at the corner of the alley. Well, you know, the front street and South Street, that corner there. She come in, had some concerns with us closing that. She said because Summerfest was shut off that road so tight that she couldn't use her driveway. So she went out that alleyway off Front Street on there. So through our conversation with Planning Commission, we can make sure during Summerfest that she has access to her And the people to the north in those apartments also have access down South Street and into the back of there.

While we're on that, is there any reason why we're not just completing the hack there and doing the rest of that alleyway that's, you know, when it goes from past Klosterman's property to thereby the bank property?

So we wanted to make sure that the bank property had access to the back of their property in that parking lot. We didn't want to take it any further than Klosterman's building, the old Kellermeyer building. We didn't want to take it any further than whether there was public access to the back of that chamber. So if we vacate a dike, it'll cost you to own half of it and then sort of own half of it and that gets pretty complicated. Okay, thank you.

Any questions or comments from council? One thing that I didn't say in the last time, Josie, kind of relating to this, but the city doesn't actually own our right-of-ways, like a street or alley. We have control over them as right-of-ways, but we can't sell them because we don't own them either. So even if we could prove that we own that last one, we can't necessarily sell right-of-ways or anything like that. In fact, when they get platted, it says that if the city gives them up, then it gets divided to the adjacent owners, which is why we work with the owners whenever we vacate alleys or streets and that sort of thing.

I just want to say this is Zach's last meeting with us. And I want to thank you for your dedication to our community and the time you put in. And we appreciate working with you, and I look forward to working with you this fall.

Yeah.

Is there anything else coming for council? Mr. Lunds. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn by Mr. Lunds, second by Mr. Gilliland.