City Council - Regular Meeting

Driscoll?

Here.

Gattis? Here. Hobbs? Jones? Comives?

Here.

Quorum present.

Items one through seven are from the Department of Public Utilities.

Oh, President Williams, sorry. Thank you. I just wanted to introduce the mayor. We're going to move the mayor's legislation up top. Clerk, can you please adjust that and tell us the, what number is that, clerk? Is it number 20 on our agenda? Yeah, it's number 20 on our agenda, so we're going to move that up so the mayor can present this piece of legislation.

I just wanted to let you know also, there's a new version that was put in. It is in your folders.

Thank you. I'll turn this over to Mayor Capsicavage. You can have the floor.

All right, thank you very much, President Williams and Chair Cramer. The administration is here today to talk about an ordinance that at least begins the conversation on how we can make our large gatherings a place where individuals can enjoy themselves and have fun, but also be safe. It is the first response to what happened at the Old West End recently, but it does not have to be the only response. I felt it was important to begin the conversation and At the table here, we have John Madigan from the law department, Chief Carl, the safety director, Austin Mack from my office to sort of talk about the logistics of what this ordinance does. But I just wanted to sort of give an overview, maybe a view from 10,000 feet about some of our thinking. We felt, first of all, this is not necessarily a finished product. To think about this maybe the way you would think about a term paper in college. Let's not think about this as the final paper that we're turning into the professor, but maybe rather as the first draft. It is our hope that city council can work with us to turn this first draft into a second draft, third draft, fourth draft, and to the point where we get the final paper that we can turn into the professor. We felt we understand city council's legislative schedule and we respect city council's legislative schedule. While all public gatherings in Toledo are important, we did feel and do feel that there is unique importance to thinking about the 4th of July gathering in Promenade Park. where I'm certain we're going to have the largest fireworks show we've ever had in the history of the city of Toledo as we celebrate the 250th birthday of America. Austin has helped raise the private funding necessary to make that the case. I know how much money we typically raise for fireworks. We have exceeded that by a great margin, so we're going to have the best fireworks we've ever had. which means we're going to have a lot of people down there. We will have tens of thousands of people there. And we want to make sure that if we believe new policies and processes and procedures are necessary to safeguard the citizens for that event, We knew we had to get this legislation in the packet last Friday. So I guess if we sort of rushed to get something before you, it was with an eye toward getting something passed by 4th of July. I can understand. I'm happy to very briefly, to the extent I can, talk through what this does. I can understand that city council is going to have opinions and might want to influence it and add here and delete there, and we absolutely welcome that. Let's do that in real time. I don't know if maybe a working group offline could be useful toward that effort. We're willing to block out hours, even this week, if we want to do that difficult work. I know sometimes with the legislation like this, there's a temptation to maybe have a hearing, put it in committee. I'm all for that. I just want you to know at the beginning that the purpose of doing this now is to get it on the books by 4th of July, and I just worry a little bit about having this stuck in a committee as a result. So counsel in this wisdom can do what it wants, but we'd love to move this to the extent we can. So what is this? First of all, I think we should be heartened by the fact that other cities are dealing with some of the issues we are. And this ordinance is not a reinvention of the wheel. In fact, this ordinance pulls from policies that are already on the books in places like Detroit, Fort Wayne, Atlanta. is it Philadelphia or Washington? Washington. Other cities are seeing some of the things that we are seeing and the ideas that are in this ordinance have been called together from other cities. While the events at the Old West End are certainly the most traumatic and highest profile events that this community has endured, I do think that the Old West End happened at a time when there were some other events at olph some of these teen takeover events that all raise questions about young people and whether our officers have the tools necessary to protect safety in an environment where All of a sudden you blink your eye and there are 114-year-olds that have descended upon a situation. And it is with that backdrop that some of this has been inspired. It is true that this is an attempt to hold parents accountable for the actions of the young people in their lives. That is true. That is one of the things that I heard as a result of what happened at Old West End, a desire for holding parents accountable, parental accountability, parental responsibility, that probably more than anything else, that was a theme that came through to my phone and my email and my texts and the letters I've gotten as a result.

And this certainly achieves that.

This draft contemplates fines for parents whose young people violate rules and all the way up to even criminal penalties. So there is a real aspect of parental accountability contemplated in this ordinance. Even despite saying all that, I would like to emphasize that in our judgment, this is more about prevention than punishment. This is more about prevention than punishment. The punishment might get the headlines, but this is really about prevention. This is about preventing a bad thing from happening before it happens. This is about setting expectations at a large-scale event, expectations that our young people should have, expectations that grown-ups would have about how their young people are behaving, to establish some rules and some guidelines, hopefully to inspire some conversations before there is a gathering at a large-scale event. We want to prevent the bad thing from happening before it happens. Right now, given what is on our books, if you have an event where, let's say it's a teen takeover, where you snap your fingers and all of a sudden 150 14-year-olds have descended upon a location, Our police don't have the ability to do anything other than to maybe babysit for a while until a fight breaks out or twiddle their thumbs until something bad happens. What this does is give them a tool, at least it is a tool, that could allow them to intervene before the bad thing happens. It allows for the creation of what we are calling special event safety zones. Other cities apply these safety zones citywide. They provide them at all times. we felt that what it was most responsible is to be as targeted as possible because there are concerns about due process and fairness and want to make sure kids have positive opportunities to get all that so instead of approaching this with a blunt instrument try to be targeted and allow for the creation of zones in specific cases let's say like the fourth of july But even at that Fourth of July, even during certain hours, specific hours within the specific events that can be created in a very specified, targeted environment to give our officers there the opportunity to enforce some rules that could prevent something bad from happening before it happens. That's the intent here. Is this legislation perfect? Probably not. would it could have benefit from the input of city council certainly uh... we look to this as the beginning of a conversation and just hope that the conversation can take place in an environment to allow us to get something on the books before the fourth of july this isn't gonna address every bad thing that could happen one of my takeaways from the old west end is that many of the things that we imagine could have helped us on that day really wouldn't have helped us. I've had a lot of talk about curfews. We need curfew. It happened at 5.30 in the afternoon. There was no curfew. Well, we need to have bag checks and entry points and everyone should be wanded or there should be a bag check. The events that took place at the old West End all began with a bag check. So to some extent we have to realize that we can create the best series of policies and procedures imaginable. Sometimes bad things are still gonna happen. But that doesn't mean that we should do nothing, and that doesn't mean that this tool couldn't be helpful in some cases. So we think this is surgical, targeted, it would apply only in certain cases and certain times, but would provide a tool that our police officers don't have to use. but they could use in a way that, again, emphasizes prevention as opposed to punishment, even though there are also parental punishments contemplated here as well. So I know I spoke too long and probably more than I should have. I just wanted to sort of outline the view from 10,000 feet. The gentleman here in front of me can handle more of the logistics. I just appreciate the opportunity for us to have put this on your agenda as quickly as we did and hope that... Instead of it going to some committee for months on end, if there is a desire to tweak this, I'm wondering if there's a way we can do it with some speed so we can get it on the books before tens of thousands of Toledoans descend upon Promenade Park for a gathering. So that is all I have, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

President Williams.

Thank you so much. Seeing as I'm the one that say whether it goes to committee or if we suspend it or not. And I definitely charge every member on council to read through this, questions back and make sure we look through it because there's a few items on here that I actually have some concerns with because the designated areas need to be more specific for me. That's one of the issues that I had. I'm okay with doing SEP if we can get some stuff in here because I have a few amendments that I want to do because I don't want targeted groups and Before what happened at the OS10 happened, we had significant team takeovers, but I also know that a lot of events were not including a certain age group in the planning either. So I agree that we should have something in place so that we can mitigate the situations that happen. But what concerns me is even when we had things in place, these people were 18 years old that did the shooting too. So I am willing to do SEP for this clerk and do some amendments moving forward. And I hope my colleagues take it on as well, because we do need to have something on the books to help with, you know, the 4th of July. But is this just for the 4th of July? I don't want other events to be the target of excluding certain groups. Thank you.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for presenting this. This is definitely super helpful. So District 2 has seemed to have the bulk of these team takeovers and the OLPH festival that happened. And then, of course, we had that Teen dance party at the hall that that young woman died at right out and so that's all having a district to within like the last three months So I've already been making notes and certainly you'll have my amendments here shortly But I am super supportive of this. I think we do need to do something but also I'm wondering if this is an opportunity instead of licensing halls to include halls or banquet halls and this type. So it's more public private. And also what I'm seeing in some of our parks is late night gatherings and drinking and alcohol and stuff like that. So you'll have my suggestions here shortly and I am supportive of this. Thank you.

Council Member Gaddis.

Thank you. I do have some questions on this, so I would be happy to sit down and work. I'm curious if there's going to be signage, how we're going to notify the targeted audience, which are our kids. I don't know if you have any of that worked out now or if

Yeah, I think for the 4th of July specifically, signage in the park would be one thing. But beyond that, just, I mean, the media attention we get from this today on our website, we're doing a press conference hopefully after this passes just to push it as fast as we can in this short time period.

Do you think that will target teenagers? Do you think teenagers are watching the news?

You know, we're going to need everyone's help to get the word out.

Yeah. I just think that it might behoove us to really think about how we're going to reach that audience. Maybe it's Mark Homs working with our youth leaders to do some kind of social media campaign. But I think, I appreciate, I think getting it out to the older people, the parental, this is great, but we really have to think about how we're getting that message out to

I think that's probably the biggest challenge as well.

Of course. I also am curious on if there is, where it says special events, it says city sponsored or city permitted. So would that be whenever we close for a block party? Because that's permitted.

Correct.

Okay, so are we going, is there a plan to work with the organizations that throw those?

Yes.

And you'll be reaching out to them?

We met with the Old West End today, but that was the first group we've talked to.

Okay. And then I know it's not on here, but after the terrible events of the Old West End Festival, I talked to many event organizers, many community partners and stakeholders, and they definitely asked for... a possibility for safety grants. There was a lot of requests for funding because they would like to make sure that they have safety in place as well. So I think that this is great, but I think that this is something else we should be aiming for is some kind of a grant opportunity so that people feel free and safe to still celebrate and have some of that backing. So thank you for this. Thank you, Chair.

council council member gattis if i may add not every targeted not targeted um permitted event or festival is going to be subject to the special event safety zone it's going to be ones that we know are going to bring large crowds and if we have special intelligence that you know something may happen we would the mayor would discuss it with his team to see if he would designate it as a safety zone. But not every event is necessarily going to be designated as this, if that helps.

Thank you for the clarity. Councilman Meldon.

Thank you so much, Chair. I'd love to just maybe, if we could, maybe just walk through it, because I think it's one thing to react to what happened, and we can instantly fall into what's different, right? Well, that wouldn't, like the mayor said, which I totally appreciate, it wouldn't, a curfew maybe wouldn't have mattered. So instead of looking back, Let's say this is implemented. Help me understand the ideal implementation of something like this. So the 4th of July would be meet all the criteria. It would be named a special event safety zone by the mayor is what I see here, which makes sense. Someone has to make the call. That's how decisions happen. And then what happens that evening?

So we would anticipate that event being a special safety zone July 4th from, we haven't decided, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. We have a concert happening from 6 to 10 that day. That's still what we're talking about. So anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent, guardian, or designated adult over 25. No coolers, backpacks, or large bags will be permitted. All bags will be subject to search. And then we would go on to talk about no fireworks, no sparklers, you know, all that good stuff. that we already have on the books, but with the caveat of enhanced penalties can be imposed on parents where a minor is involved in disorderly conduct, refusal to disperse, possession of alcohol, marijuana, assault in that safety zone. That's the caveat with this. Okay, so that's the context.

It's officially now a safety zone. And so let's say we're there, because I think this is what, if you're anything like me, colleagues, this is what's in my mind. So we're there, and a group of young people emerges with no parents. Help me understand kind of what happens next.

I guess what I might say is right now, before this ordinance passes, police wouldn't be able to do anything. Sure. In the environment where this passes, a police officer would see a 14-year-old or a 14-year-old with a backpack and be able to go up to him or her and say, can I see your backpack? Or you're not allowed to have a backpack? You're going to have to leave. You're going to have to leave the safety zone. That is not a power the officer has right now, but the officer would have that power if it passes. actually one of the last things we added to the ordinance, if the young person leaves the safety zone and comes back, then that would actually be an additional penalty that would be contemplated under this ordinance. So right now, that officer who saw the person you're talking about wouldn't be able to do anything. He would have to wait for something bad to happen. In this case, he would be able to proactively engage the young person and say, You're not allowed to be here without a 25-year-old. You're not allowed to have a backpack. You're going to have to leave this zone.

Yeah, I think the comment that I would offer, and I hate being in this position because I don't think it's very helpful. I don't like saying unhelpful things. But I just want to make the comment into the microphone that it's just so unfortunate that we're trying to even put concrete practices around what is such an abstract thing. I mean the idea of even conflating what happened at the Olosun Festival with these teen takeovers is you cannot legislate against the teen takeover because that is what the teen takeover thing is, is it pops up somewhere, no one sees it coming. So like it would literally be cat and mouse if we were trying to chase those around. So it's just very difficult. The one thing I would want to see, then it makes me laugh at myself, and maybe I shouldn't be this honest in real time, is I would wanna say, well, every special event safety zone should be a place where no guns are allowed either. And then I would think, well, then every event should be called a special event safety zone. And then I find myself directly in conflict with the overwhelming will of our state government, and round and round and round we go. So like I said, that's not very helpful, but it is what I think about. I think there's a lot of issues here. The problem is a bigger issue is doing nothing. And so that's the tough spot we're in as a leadership group. is we it's really hard to do nothing and yet on the minds of anyone who's been following our community giving more reason for police to interact with teenagers doesn't necessarily feel like the best way to go either and so it's it's tricky i mean chief crow i would love your reaction to everything i'm saying there's no one in this room with more experience in public safety than you

I appreciate all of your comments and I understand them completely, but what we're really trying to address here is the predictable risk factors at large gatherings, large events. High density crowds. large numbers of unsupervised juveniles. And we all know what happens when those two things come together. There are flashpoints where there's fights, where there's weapons usage, where the rest of the crowd starts getting scared and there could be a crowd surge. So what this ordinance is going to help us with is it's going to reduce the unaccompanied minors in these large events during the prescribed times. I want to make sure we're understanding. This is a precision safety tool, not just a blanket restriction. So we hope that it's going to reduce the number of unaccompanied kids, and it provides a clear authority for proactive crowd management. and the hope of those two things put together is that it will reduce escalation into a mass casualty type issue or a large disorder event. So that's kind of like conceptually what we're hoping for.

Yeah, and I appreciate it. I appreciate the urgency. I just want to make sure I'm clear about that, too. I really appreciate the urgency and the action. I mean, everything, Mayor, you said about the legislative calendar, I appreciate that. That makes sense. That's the context in which we're operating. Um, I am, I probably have a bias toward trying something rather than overthinking it and doing nothing. Um, I would just say that if we go forward with this, you know, in, in general, the burden of proof is always on those in power, I believe. So it's always on, it's always on law enforcement, for instance, to be right before engaging with someone. If we do this, that would be tenfold true, even more so, which is tough. But that's why we're in this work, because they're tough problems. So I'll stop. I appreciate the time. Thanks for.

If I can just add one more thing that I probably should have said earlier. If there was one thing that I heard from the folks who were at Old West End, and we just met with the Old West End Association up in my office, and they agreed with this point, that about 10 or 15 minutes before the actual event, there was a noticeable change in the environment that everyone who was there said, boy, you could feel something changed. You looked around and it felt different. All of a sudden, there was a different, there were, the crowd had changed. The crowd had changed. There were different, younger people there all at once, all of a sudden. and then the bad thing happened. This would simply give a tool to law enforcement to do something during that moment before the bad thing happens. And again, this might push our comfort zone, but I want us to understand that other cities do this exact same thing. In fact, they do it more aggressively than we're proposing as well. Atlanta, Washington, Detroit, Flint, other cities. We're not reinventing the wheel.

Councilwoman Morris.

Excuse me, thank you. Thank you, Mayor and the administration for bringing this forward. It's unfortunate that we are in this kind of a situation and we want our residents to feel safe. We want everyone to enjoy what we have here, festivals and parties and just being able to congregate. And so I'm happy that this is a step. It's a step on the staircase. And you're exactly right, Mr. Krall, talking about predictable events at crowds. How can you predict? That's a hard thing to do. But one thing we can't do is not act. And what I have been hearing is that some of these takeovers and groups If there is a large presence, police presence, if it looks like it's too controlled, they'll go on to a different event. So I think this is a good opportunity. This helps the people feel safe at whatever event it is. And this also detracts some of the other people who are deciding whether they're going to act or not. One of the things that I would ask the administration to do is to reach out to our state and federal partners. I think we need some overtime. I think we need to help our law enforcement with some overtime assistance. And I also think that we really need to look at how these guns are being trafficked, how they're getting on our streets, how they are getting into the hands of these young people. And then lastly, the one thing that I've been very strong about is having unsecured weapons in a home where there are children and children are having access to those weapons. And to me, I think that is certainly something that a parent needs to secure their weapons. A parent, adult, anyone, you need to secure those weapons because these kids, they don't understand the difference between reality, and fantasy. And we really, this is a hard time for Toledo. This is a really hard time Toledo. But you know what? We'll get through it and we'll move on to the other side. Because at the end of the day, we care about these young people, we care about our citizens, and we care about Toledo. So thank you.

Council Member Comibes.

Thank you so much, Chair. My first question is directly out of the ordinance, proposed ordinance. Under 510.02, authority to establish safety zones. Third point under B, reasonable public safety rules and operational restrictions. Can you give us an example of what those might be that we're allowing the mayor to make?

what those rules might be. We were thinking more that's where the no backpacks would come in. Those kind of restrictions. No coolers.

Okay. And then I want to go back to Council Member Melvin's question about in practice. I'm also trying to conceptualize what this looks like. I'm thinking about 4th of July and all of the folks being downtown and We see a large gathering of young people and then police start to disperse them, but where do they go? Do they just go into downtown, into Vistula? Do they go to the east side? What's the plan if they're moving as a cohort?

I think that's the challenge we all face. You're moving the problem down the road, moving the chess piece on the board. Where do they go? How do you make an attractive place for them to go? Other cities that we've looked at have a lot of coordination around where they go. The philanthropic community is involved on a spot where they have cool enough activities where they want to be there. This starts that conversation. I totally agree with you.

Okay. Thanks. I just appreciate that. And I agree. You know, I think I see my folks from the Old West End who are here, and I know that after last year, there was quite an attempt to find opportunities. I know there were a few opportunities that were created, but I think it's not necessarily what the festival's main purpose and center has always been around. It's, you know, the garage sales. It's the... the porch parties, those types of vibes. So I see the attempt happening. I appreciate that you brought up the philanthropic community. I think that the reality is that we all, all, all have to step up in this moment. I appreciate that I believe the community foundation has already stepped in to help support. I hope that they can continue to rally the private sector around creating these opportunities. I don't know what it would look like at the Fourth of July. I think it's awfully short now in terms of us trying to figure out what a zone would look like for young people, but I sure hope that Maybe this council starts to think about how we can support our Parks and Youth Services Department to engage more young people to find out what those needs are. It's not lost on me that in this conversation there's a bunch of adults talking about young people. So I think it's important that we include them is what I'm getting at. Appreciate this attempt. I am generally supportive. I'm gonna mull it over kind of talk to some folks like the rest of us up here, but I really appreciate the Fortitude to make something happen.

Thanks Councilwoman Jones Thank You chair

I know that this is just the first attempt, but sharing the same sentiments, there are some concerns. One in general would be the adult 25 years or older that has been expressly designated by the parent or legal guardian. How would you do that? Do they have to have a note from their parents? Or is it a phone call? How is that possible?

Seeing that no one jumped to the mic, I'll go ahead and try to answer this one. That is one of the more challenging, I can't see. Yes, little Johnny can be with George Crow tonight. I think we're all honest that that's not going to happen. I think we picked the 25 year age because that's the general age of maturity, a little bit older, but super old, and a lot of 18 year olds look like they're 16, and a lot of 16 year olds look like they're 18, but not a lot of 25 year olds look like they're juveniles. So I think that's where that number came from, but again, that's why we're here, so that we can massage this language to something that makes sense and is enforceable.

Well, I guess when you're talking about the age of 25, that is the age when the frontal lobe is supposed to be fully developed. So that kind of makes sense. But I'm just talking about as they're approaching this area, are they pulling a note from that child's parent saying that I have designated this person to watch over my child while we're in this zone?

It's tough to think about Promenade Park. We're not having a single point of entry in the first place. So it's more of... Crowd control, individual instances.

That's probably where the problem is gonna be. Because especially if- It's not perfect. Yeah, if the police have the ability to approach someone based upon suspicion, that's gonna be a problem. Then with trying to enforce this permission of watching over my child with an adult that's over the age of 25, That can be an issue unless you're just going to have us. Law enforcement station at every point of entry, but then that goes back to the council and Morris's point of overtime. And then also with the geographic boundaries, I'm thinking of yes, 4th of July. You'll have specific areas. But then going with Councilmember Komai's, okay, if they're out of the event area, what about the surrounding businesses, the other buildings? How would that be enforced? And I'm also thinking of G-Fest. That takes up the entire downtown. So it's all of downtown, especially events?

There's a lot of operational things that you're mentioning. But I think what the language does, it sets the expectation. It sets the expectation from the city.

Yeah, we're going to have to revisit some of these. I mean, I get the point. Understandable, but the enforcement piece... That's going to be a challenge. And then also the possibility of specific targeting. On top of, we have to think of the household makeups as well. We have a lot of single mothers. We have a lot of grandparents watching children. What if they can't get in contact with them because the parent is at work? We have to think about this. like really hard because this can unravel into a very large issue that would be on repeat for the rest of the summer and whatever other events that can happen. But I mean, it's a start. But we have to start putting ourselves in other people's shoes as we're going through these scenarios too. But I'll share the rest of my recommendations as well and other comments in an email. it is a start but we just have to can't jump the gun too quick lack of a better term but um it's just something that you know we're we're gonna have to be very careful with this but um yeah thank you chair council president williams thank you just circling back um

As I was sitting here, I'm thinking about the enforcement piece of it. When they get to court, what are we doing? After, say, a child is there, because I know we have a lot of laws on the books that it gets over into the courthouse. And it gets thrown out. And I see the civil penalties and the penalties or whatever. Like I said, I have some real issues with it because I'm more of an inclusive and being a principal at an at-risk high school, I dealt with teens for 10 years as a career. So I can do this, but I'm thinking of after. Have we consulted with the prosecutors, the judges? Have we talked to anybody about this? Because I'm all for holding parents accountable, but if I'm out of town and I leave my child with a 21-year-old, It's just some stuff over there. Have we talked to prosecutors and have they been involved in this discussion of drafting this? I know that it came pretty quick and as a response, but I'm thinking of after. If the enforcement piece is done, hopefully the enforcement piece is done correctly, but how do we go after this situation?

I guess I'll try to answer that, Councilman. It's like any other ordinance, is the burden is always on the city to prove the violation. And we'd have to prove that the parent recklessly, in the cases of charges which would carry days in jail, abandon their child pretty much to go to this event in the special zone without a parent being present or a 25-year-old being present. It's going to come down to investigation of each case if we do make arrests and eliciting the facts to establish that. So in that sense, I don't foresee a lot of criminal prosecutions resulting in this ordinance. I see possibility of civil violations. And the civil violation penalties that range from $250 to $500, those don't require as much proof. And in those cases, notice of liability would be sent to the parent. They'd come in and they'd have a right to appeal that notice of liability. and there'd be a hearing, and it would be an internal hearing. It would not be before a judge. So they would have the opportunity to defend themselves, and we'd have to, again, prove that the child was left there without them being present. So it's not as severe of a penalty, but it also would get, I think, a lot of people's attention. Money is an important driving factor these days, and I think that would help the situation.

That's going to be a little hard, too, because we have a large runaway population, too. And then what if a child is in foster care? Then are we going to charge CSB? So it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Well, thank you for answering, Mr. Rattigan. I appreciate you, Chair.

Councilman Driscoll, sorry.

Thank you, Chair. I just have a few questions. My only comment would be it's a good first attempt, and we've got to do something. So I think it's easy to, we're all just going to, we're here to criticize, I think, and take a hard look at this, but I do think it's a good attempt. I do just want to, I ask a few clarifying questions. So if you were the parent of two teenage sons, if they're 18 and 16, they wouldn't be like if this ordinance was enacted and like a parent would not be allowed to say head on down to the well, I still say 17 and 14. You guys can head on down to the fireworks. Those kids would be breaking the law and so would the parents. Is that correct? If this ordinance passed as is,

The parents would be breaking the law, the children would be breaking the law if they went into the zone and refused to leave. They were told not to enter the zone, or they were told to leave the zone, and then they don't. So there's where the violation occurs. That would be the same, that would apply to the parents as well. So, I mean, it's not a status offense in the sense that I let my child out the door and then he went to this event without my permission. We'd have to prove that he was there and he was told to leave and didn't.

Okay. So it's not, and they'd probably only be told to leave if there was like a reason for it. Right. Right. Okay. The other question I wanted to ask about is searching of bags and coolers inside a special safety zone, whatever we're, yeah, whatever we're calling these. Do we have the right to search whatever bags we want at any time? Do we have the right to search whatever coolers we want at any time? Or we just tell people they're not allowed to have them?

The expectation would be no bags and coolers. But John, Promade Park is our property.

Right, that's correct. And again, we've We've delineated the area where no bags and coolers are supposed to be. And we feel that if we say no, you can't bring these in, we don't have to search them, we can just tell them leave with your bag and cooler.

Okay, so we wouldn't necessarily search them, we'd just tell them you can't have it here.

No, it wouldn't have to if they're leaving. They're not in the zone anymore.

Okay, I guess the last question I have is how often do we anticipate that we would use these safety zones. I mean, we know there's not a whole bunch of new events cropping up every year. In your head, when are we implementing this?

We thought about writing that into the ordinance, but we don't even know how many people are exactly coming to Promenade Park. So I've done the fireworks show for four years now. When Glass City Metro Park opened, it really spread people out. This year, I think, because we're having a concert and good bands are playing in Promenade Park on Saturday, I think 20 to 30,000. That's how many fortifies I'm ordering, you know, but we just we can't anticipate exactly whether how many people are going to be there. But we do know Promethe Park is the highest density spot for viewing the fireworks.

So what other events in the calendar year do you anticipate that we would utilize this?

Not many. I mean, I don't know. Well, that's something we can talk about. I don't have that answer.

I mean, I just think before we vote yes on this, I think it'd be good for us to have an expert. I mean, none of these are a surprise. Jeep Fest happens every year. You have no idea right now today at 2.46 PM on this Tuesday afternoon, you have no idea when you would use these except for the 4th of July?

Councilman I really think it depends on the circumstances Obviously the size of the anticipated crowd the venue like I said earlier if there's some chatter that there may be a Group that is planning to do something that would disrupt the the event We would think about it, but I don't foresee it happening often. I

OK, so you. So almost some of the work that TP doesn't TPT does ahead of time with regards to monitoring social media would inform this decision, but you don't think that there would be a standing. You wouldn't say every 4th of July we would be enacting this. Is that what you're saying?

No, we want to keep it flexible.

OK, alright, thank you.

Councilman Toronto.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is a good first start. We certainly need legislation from what happened just a couple weeks ago. And I think it's very important that we as a council think about the innocent victims that were severely harmed. And we think about innocent people at public gatherings that should feel safe with themselves and their families. I like the idea of holding parents and guardians accountable. That's something that we have not done and I think it's critical. One question I had is I don't see a clause here about proof of identification, proof of age. I assume that that will be addressed because some people that are 17 look like they're 25. Some that are 13 may look like they're 18. How are we going to do that? How are you going to address that?

Well, I think that'll be up to the officers that confront these individuals and ask them their question. How old are you? Can you prove it? They're telling the officer they're 21 and they're not. We'd like to see a driver's license. We'd like to see some other proof that you are the age you say you are.

Okay, all right, good. All right, so I clearly think this is necessary. Again, I think we all ought to carefully go through it and make sure that we have some amendments and we present that. But I like this idea and we need to do something. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilman Melvin.

Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of things come to mind. First of all, I want to put a little finer point on this first attempt. I mean, it was 10 days ago. And so in 10 days to try to solve such a complex problem problem is just incredibly difficult. So I think the benefit of the doubt and the credit that I give the administration for leading with something is certainly informed by that. We don't want perfect to be the enemy of the good, or we'd be talking about this for months and months and years and years. I am curious, and maybe, Mayor, you can defer, obviously, but maybe strategically, this is a question, I'm sure informing this you considered simply Or did you consider simply making a piece of legislation around tougher penalties for parents if their children do cause a problem or break a law of some kind and that being it? And making the zone of parent accountability the whole city, just any time that happens. I'm curious if you consider that how you thought about that and why you decided not to do that. It strikes me as I kind of digest this conversation that if you took all the nitty gritty conversation around the zones and the timing and what is and what isn't, a lot of the questions would go away. I'm curious if you could just talk about your thoughts about just holding parents accountable as an initial measure. And I'll tell you kind of why I'm thinking that too.

Actually, we did think about it, and I think we arrived at the opposite conclusion. We felt that the more broadly we made this, the more opposition city council would have. That city council would be more for the very issues that were raised today. that there would be more opportunity for opposition if council felt that we were applying this to every single aspect of a young person's life as opposed to how we framed it which was very targeted not just specific events but hours within the event to be so surgically targeted that it would only apply to those moments where there was a possibility for danger occurring. And look, I understand the point about, hey, aren't we just pushing the problem somewhere else? Well, maybe. But the elsewhere that we would be pushing it would be a place by definition, where there would be fewer people. And so we did think about it. I don't know if that heartens you at all. But we chose the course we did to make sure that this only applied in the most targeted situations where there was the greatest opportunity for public danger. Yeah.

No, I appreciate that. I just have a couple other things I would say then. You know, Austin, when you talk about, a couple answers you've said, we want to set an expectation. I see a lot of this as you're trying to do something formal to kind of give an, get an informal outcome, which is, hey, everyone, not here, not this day. We're not, like, so I appreciate that. And you're talking about communication and collaboration. When Council Member Gattis was asking a question, it was like, how do you get this word out? I am curious if we don't try to really try to solve that and let it... I'm feeling drawn to less about one event and one geographic space for all the reasons we've discussed. You've also mentioned other cities. I guess I would just maybe encourage... You mentioned like there are other, this notion of moving people out of a zone. Well, they work collaboratively with other organizations to have like cool down spots. I think that if we had some of that partnership infrastructure in play, it would be an easier thing, which is impossible to do in 10 days. I understand. But that would just be maybe an encouragement I have as we think about fleshing this out in the future. And the last thing I would just say is I'm going to a Trilby Park block watch meeting tonight. And there was a big issue that happened there. And one of the things that I'm going to end up saying later is whatever we decide to do, we don't want children to be the enemy. And we say this all the time, but children are an asset to us and to be protected and cared for. People who decide to commit crime, we need to protect civilians from them, regardless of age, obviously. but how do we and council president williams has mentioned this and i know everyone agrees with this but how do we make sure that it's in the legislation we're passing um i think that's that's one of the biggest challenges but it strikes me as like a park you can't make a park like well you can't have children there alone we might as well get rid of all of parks right that's not the point and that's the same thing with fireworks and these big events so however we can make sure that children don't feel like they are not only unwelcomed, but the problem, I think would be really important, thanks.

Council Member Gattis.

Thanks, just a quick follow up as I read through in your comments. The adult 25 years or older, are you going to limit the number of kids that could be, I mean, I just, you know, if I'm with my friends and I'm like, yeah, I'm gardening, I'm a gardener to all 16 of these people. Like, is there going to be a limit?

We didn't want to write it in the legislation to have those parameters, but your point is well taken. We thought that's something we thought about.

But yeah, it's not easy. What you're doing is not easy. I just.

I think the whole point is to set the expectation to plan ahead. If you know you can't be there with your kid, your 13-year-old, and you want to send them with another family, another group of people, that's what we want, you to think about it and plan ahead, as opposed to just have them go along.

Right. No, I appreciate that. Like I said, none of this is easy. And then the second thing is what I think is missing to Councilman Driscoll's point is if we cannot define what events will have this, can we at least set a notification time frame? So maybe you have decided that this event and this event are, but So within a certain time frame, we will have it in legislation to get it out to the community.

I like that a lot. And I would offer we have the next two days open to talk about this with the law department. We can have the legislation on the screen. However you guys want to be involved or choose the way to gather your thoughts on this, the next two days, this is what we're doing. So let me know.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much for your work on this. I think it's really, really important. When I thought about a safety zone initially, I thought of fencing. Because to me, that makes sense. I know I went to Tech Lido this weekend, and we had to walk through a metal detector. Our bags had to be checked. I felt great about being there. I felt safe. I felt like I knew everybody walked through that. Has there been conversations about fencing?

Yes. And I think with watershed weekend just happening, fencing primary park anymore is just not what we want to do. It ruins the whole flow of the Riverwalk. And it's just a hard place to fence. It's too big. It's too many entry points. But we did discuss it. I got quotes. We thought about it. But your point is well taken.

Thank you very much. Council President Williams, what is your recommendation?

Okay, thank you.

We will go to number 27 and then 28. 27 is from the Department of Law. Council President Williams.

I just wanted to make a comment, Chair, for everyone in the audience. The only reason we have moved up items is only because it stays on the same vein as the topic that we were talking about. And law was already here, and police is here, so we're going to just move it up. The one and only time that I move agenda items up is today.

We appreciate the mute music. Dale Amch, City Law Director. I'm here to present item 27. I'm here with Senior Attorney Zach Lemon, who is going to give you the details.

Good afternoon, members of council. My name is Zach Lemmon, senior attorney with the law department. Item 27 is an ordinance to authorize an expenditure of $14,277 to settle a property damage claim against the city. City vehicle hit a stone retaining wall and fence. This expenditure would fully resolve the claim. I am also requesting SEP.

Chair Hobbs, what is your recommendation? Councilman Sorrento.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Where did this happen? Was it a residence, a business?

It was a residence.

It was a residence, okay. And a city vehicle, what kind of city vehicle? What department?

The department was urban beautification.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Chair, Council Member Gattis.

Thank you. By way of referral, can we get how many urban beautification settlements we've had this year?

Yes.

Okay. And the amount, please. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Chair Hobbs, your recommendation? Thank you. Number 28 comes from the Department of Police Operations.

Good afternoon, council members. Sergeant Pat Bergman, I have with me Assistant Chief Kevin Braun and Lieutenant Jeff Thiemann. Item number 28 authorizes the mayor to enter into an amended agreement with Flock Group Incorporated for a one-year period for the continuation of services for portable automated license plate readers. It authorizes the expenditure not to exceed $14,000 from the general fund and also waives competitive bidding requirements of TMC Chapter 187 for the reason that Flock Group Incorporated is our current vendor for the portable ALPRs and continuing with Flock Group maintains system compatibility. We are requesting SEP.

Council President Williams.

Thank you so much. I'm glad that we brought this back. It was voted down for the two years. I asked the administration as well as several members of council to amend this to decrease the amount of years and hopefully we can come back and review it after we've had this program for 20 years. It solves numerous of crimes. It's unfortunate that it went down, but I'm glad we're bringing this back. Thank you.

Councilman Martinez.

I'll defer to my colleague.

Councilmember Gattis.

Due to the many emails from our constituents, I'm just requesting that we have a committee hearing on this.

Council President Williams.

Thank you. I'm okay with having a committee hearing, but voting on this first, and then we can bring Flock back after. I don't want to put this in committee, but I definitely will leave it to the chair. I think that we need to not take tools away from police, and I did receive every email as well, and all the ones. I think we should have Flock come in and discuss what they do. along with partnering with police to see how we used it, bring how many crimes that we've solved of this. I understand the community at whole has questions and concerns, and I'm willing to talk about that, but I don't want to hold this legislation up because we don't want the agreement to pause out before we have it. So I would like to vote on this before. I don't know if we can have a committee meeting in between this This meeting and next, which I don't think so, because we'll have to have this meeting this week and we already have one. I think we need to go so this agreement can move forward and we not have a pause in service. Thank you.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question was already answered because I was going to ask what the original time frame was. And I too am supportive of using the flock system. In fact, next month I will be introducing a creative program for school safety using DIP and flock partnering along with public schools Catholic diocese and other public spaces so I'm happy to have the conversation with flock in a committee hearing but I think they're an invaluable tool to our safety forces they are a force multiplier given the fact of our austere budget and I am supportive and would be willing to vote on this as soon as possible but I think there are some concerns about not necessarily with the use, but who has access to data in the data. And I think that is something very relative and should be aired out. I too did receive all those emails regarding the flock system. And I think given the unique circumstances of the current federal use of or abuse of the data, I think that does raise some genuine concerns. uh i am still very much in support of using these systems uh and whatever other tools that we can use and to give our safety forces uh all the resources that they need in fact i want a additional drone and actually i want a harassing drone to all the speeders on the bikes to kind of like scare them and stop speeding up and down the trail and anyway that's neither here nor there but uh i am super supportive of this thank you

Councilman Sorrento.

Thank you. When does this current contract expire?

I believe it's the first week of August.

First week in August. So, okay. I think that, you know, based on my personal knowledge, I think that the flock cameras have been very useful, especially in finding people. People that have Alzheimer's, people that have dementia, that take car keys and get in the car and the family doesn't know where they're at. The family is scared to death. And these cameras, license plate readers, have been instrumental in finding those people. I know of cases that they've really assisted law enforcement in finding children, finding potentially kidnapped victims, domestic violence where the children are taken by one of the parents. So I think that the positives outweigh the negatives. And quite frankly, I'm just not interested in defunding the police. And to me, this is defunding the police if we don't fund this. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Council Member Komar.

Thank you so much. It was mentioned earlier that this is an amendment to a failed piece of legislation. Would that then require a reconsideration of the vote as opposed to a new piece of legislation? And I would like a referral to the legal department to explain that, please. Thank you.

Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you, Chair. So you said the first week of August is when this expires? It strikes me that we have time to wait to vote on this and also have a committee hearing in between now. I mean, I know we have a summer legislative session, but it doesn't seem like we have to vote next week before this would expire. I think we have time for a committee hearing. I was supportive of it. I remain supportive of it. And if I had to vote next week, I would vote yes on it. But I still think we ought to have a committee hearing, but obviously the chair has the right to weigh in on that. Thank you.

Councilman Hobbs. I believe it was a young lady that was killed in the parking lot in Councilman Martinez's district. The way her murderer was found was through the flock cameras. I am asking permission from Council President to have a meeting next Monday, June 22nd at 4 p.m. and then vote us on this on Tuesday, the 23rd, if it is okay with Council President Williams.

Council President Williams.

I'm good with that. I won't be here, but yeah, I'm good with that.

If we need another date that you're available, we can... Have it.

You don't need a meter.

Councilman Melvin.

Thank you so much. Is Chief Kroll still here? Do you hear me? I don't blame him. I would say this. At that meeting on Monday, it would be great. What?

People have stuff to do. It's okay.

I... A lot of the concerns, I don't know what my colleagues feel, a lot of the concerns that I hear about FLOC is this notion of what do they do with data, privacy concerns, transparency. Those I think are present any, and we've talked about this recently, in any sort of technology that we're using. Private sector incentive is different than public sector values and transparency and that's all. I would just encourage that information to be brought as much as possible to that meeting. Can we just, we know what the concerns are with this particular entity. It would be great to bring some of those answers to that conversation. That might seem very obvious, but I just want to put that word in, thanks.

Councilman Hobbs.

So I'm asking if we can have Councilman Komive's question answered. And then I'm asking for the hearing on Monday. And I'm asking not only FLOT, but I'm also asking if someone can come from the prosecutor's office and talk to us about how effective FLOT cameras are. in that as well. So if we could please have the administration have someone from the prosecutor's office, that would really help us as well. Thank you.

Councilman Hobbs, your recommendation on this?

With all of that being done, SCP.

Thank you. We will move to items one through seven, which are from the Department of Public Utilities.

Good afternoon, members of Council Calvin Harris, Commissioner Sue and drainage services. I'm here today to present items number one, which is proposed legislation authorizing the expenditure from the sewer operating fund of an amount not to exceed $1.18 million. for sewer repairs in one of the city's three sewer zones. This ordinance authorizes a contract for sewer repairs within the public right of ways and our public sewer easements beyond the scope of what our internal workforces can perform. I'm respectfully requesting SEP and happy to answer any questions.

Chair Martinez, what is your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, members of council. I'm Cindy Geronimo. I'm the Commissioner of Utilities Administration here to present legislation today. to enter into a one-year contract with Promise Network Inc. for accounts receivable collection services and customer affordability management services. Promise Network Inc. is a financial technology company that we've utilized to provide us with a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week customer affordability portal. In this portal, Promise provides accessible, interest-free payment plans and we also work with them to provide debt resolution and to provide financial assistance programs. So their flexible plans and then their proactive residential outreach has been very effective for us. So in the five years that we've worked with them, we have spent $1.04 million, but we've collected through that portal $13.1 million to date. So for every dollar spent, it's been a $13 return. So therefore, as we continue to work to reduce our debt, and decrease the amount of council receivables, we're asking council to appropriate an amount, to authorize an amount, not more than $500,000, waive competitive bid, and I'm requesting SEP. And at this point, I'll take any questions that you have.

Chair Martinez, your recommendation? Oh, sorry, Councilman Meldon.

Yeah, thank you. So you think about, like, just, I mean, collections, and this conversation has been interesting and kind of ongoing recently. A contract extension, I should probably know this, how long have we been working with them?

Five years.

Do we, did this go back out to bid to kind of see what else was on the market, or was it just like, hey, we had a five-year contract, or a three with three one-year renewals, we're just doing a renewal?

We did do some renewals. It did come before council. This is the third time it's been before council.

Obviously you feel like they're a good,

They are effective. It is, you know, we do benchmark a lot of cities. They work with Cincinnati. That's one city we always look to to see. They're very proactive in what they do and what they offer their citizens. So we try to look across the board. We stay very connected with other utilities to see what they're doing.

What's the number out there you think that we need to collect still?

The number? So it's about $60 million outstanding.

As far as our water collection, yep, it's about $60 million. So we're making headway on it. One of the reasons why we wanted to come before council and ask for the renewal of this contract as well is because we have started our disconnection process. As we all know, that started again in June after that memorandum was in place for the non-disconnection. Since that time, we have seen a significant increase in payment plan installations and enrollments with both Promise Pay and then of course with Our customer service representatives as well right now with promise pay we are tracking to be potentially the the the highest Customer action as in the highest number of customers enrolling and payment plan programs for the month of June as well as the most money collected from those payments so to try to switch Services now when we've already had customers enrolled, especially as we're rolling out a disconnection program We just felt it wasn't the most appropriate time to to do that and we felt this Was the right way to move forward? I think the numbers the data that we've collected just from the last 15 days since we've started doing this Disconnection processes is showing it is working. I

Do you think, given the shut-off dynamic, I mean, that's a pretty significant change, and you just mentioned what seems intuitive, actually, that that would increase repayment collection. Is there any coordination with Promise Pay to say, can we do a bit of a push here? And then talk me through like the difference in how they would kind of increase their outreach communication.

So they use a very proactive approach. They do a lot of messaging, SMS messaging to customers, which makes it very easy. They include links. They use their logic behind their system to outreach to you to say, you owe this much, this is what I can offer you. If we have any kind of financial assistance, we're gonna push it through that portal. If we offer any kind of program, special program, we're gonna push it through that portal. We're gonna make sure that our customers um have access to anything that we have available they could also be vetted for any of the discounts so it helps us be a little bit more proactive with that like you know our low income senior our senior discount our low income senior discount and our low income discount so just trying to get the message out to as many people as we can so and

Sorry and to piggyback on to what Commissioner Geronimo said I think one of the benefits to a promise pay is they can do that targeted reach so we're currently having Meetings with promise pay with our team on the utility side But as well as our communications team to coordinate that messaging and so as we know with the disconnection and the plan that we brought before council we started with a group of 102 customers That, you know, is who we were moving through. We can do targeted messaging to those customers when we have their information, and Promise Pay can push that for us. As Commissioner Geronimo said, it'll have links in there that residents can directly link, get to the information they need to just sign up for payment plans or pay their bill in full, which we have also seen happen since the first of the month.

102 customers' priority that you're reaching out to, of the 60 million, they account for how much?

Ooh, I might have to take that by way of referral. I'm not sure if I have it on me.

$60 million, what's a legit number that we could recover?

We've run some estimates. We could get those to you.

I just don't think $60 million is a real number. Sure. I'm just going to say it. And the problem is that then a headline hits 60 million. And if it's not a real number, I don't want us to talk about it. And so I'm just curious, like, is there a certain, I'm thinking, I'm just thinking about like the overall strategy. Is there a certain amount of this that we just forgive and move on and say, this is achievable.

And there is based on our debt policies and you know, that's what we have outstanding. Right. But, We have debt policies in place, and a certain amount gets written off after three years, et cetera. So I'm happy to provide all of that information by way of referral.

This time next year, do you have a goal of what that outstanding number is? So it's 60 now. If I asked you next June 16th, what would you say?

Our goal is really to use every tool that we have available. One is to look at the debt policy because this is years. You're absolutely right when you say that. What does that represent? That represents years of maybe not being able to address the proper amount of debt with that debt policy. Years of we had an antiquated system that we did a lot of estimates. People got behind in bills. We were a little bit more flexible and a little bit more lax in the past. I think this is just signals that going forward, we have to continue with disconnections. We have to allow this process to run, but we also, we've spent a lot of time, I worked with the water quality and task force to make sure that we listen to residents, we listen to different organizations, both Councilwoman Gaddis and Councilman Nick Komives were on that task force. And we did a lot to make sure that we built a customer affordability program would allow us to balance that so that as we're doing disconnections we're offering all that we can to our citizens because that's the last thing we want to do is to turn them off we want them to really engage and then we constantly look to see what else we could offer to make sure that you know it's equitable across the system I trust that our process has been humane there's no doubt in my mind and I appreciate that sure

What I don't trust is that we have a goal of what we're trying to do with the number. By the end of this year, you want 60 to be what?

I would like it at least to be 10%. I think 10% reduction would be a fair, you know.

Okay. So I'm just thinking like, because then we have to have some sense of like efficacy of a partner. Sure. Absolutely. Is that working? Is it not working? So that's where I'm coming from. It's not, I want us to have a realistic conversation about what that number is. It's probably not 60 million. Let's get it to a real number. And then let's say, are we improving on this or not? and so so by way of referral i'll put this in officially i would love to just see the process of what that could i mean just you know total playing dumb here what's that process soup to nuts start to finish someone stops paying on january 1 2026 when do they get their first notice how do they get a text what does that look like when do they get shut off i need that whole thing we can absolutely i'm sure yeah sure that's what i'll put it thanks all right you're welcome councilman sarantu

Thank you, Madam Chair. Having been involved in this a lot, I want to clarify something here. We started with $66 million that was owed to DPU. I thought we were down to 50 million. Did you say 50 or 60 million?

When Councilman Meldon asked this question, we answered as in $60 million was the total amount that was outstanding. That has greatly reduced, as you know, as we've been reporting on at the finance meetings. I believe we are around $50 million right now. $50 million is clear. And we will have a report. FOR YOU AT THE NEXT FINANCE COMMITTEE.

YEAH, I WANT TO REMIND YOU, YES, AT NEXT WEDNESDAY'S FINANCE MEETING AT 4 O'CLOCK, WE WILL HAVE A REPORT FROM DPU IN TERMS OF COLLECTION EFFORTS. AND I THINK YOUR LOGIC ON PROMISE PAY absolutely on target they've been doing it I think to collect 13 million and have a cost of a little over a million is worthy of renewal my question is are we seeing on the people that owe us money the residential customers in particular are they having a notice on their water bill that says what the options are including promise pay

Yes, we're working with our communications department even to enhance that, so we're getting more messaging out. We're also working with Chief Dr. Whitman and her team to do outreach and communication so that all residents would be aware of any opportunities they have for discount programs for their water bill, any customer assistance support, as well as all of the options that we have for signing up for installment plans either with the City of Toledo or through Promise Pay.

And that's in addition to the door hangers you're going to have if they're not responding and other notices. Okay. That's correct. I think that's all very important. Again, everybody gets a water bill every month from DPU. So that's important, the door hangers, the personal contact. Is Promise Pay actually calling customers that are delinquent or –

We are going to activate a robocall plan with them.

With them. Okay, good. I think that also will be very helpful. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Council Member Gattis.

Thanks, Chair. Is the promise pay, if you could help my memory, is that residential only or businesses can apply as well?

It's residential only.

So it's residential only. Okay. And then do you guys get data on who is using it via zip code? Because I would be interested in if my district, like how many people are enrolled in Promise Pay.

We can provide that information to you.

That would be really helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Council Member Komar.

I'll be brief. I just want to say that I've appreciated the work that you've done on this. As was mentioned, the Consumer Protection Task Force was thrown together, did a lot of work leading into COVID, which we didn't anticipate would have the impact that it would ultimately. And I remember when we first introduced Promise Pay, At the time, I think we even had them come in and do a presentation here. We also offered a webinar for council members. I think it's been like five years. It might be a good time to refresh everybody's memory on it. I'm assuming none of us are delinquent on our water bills, so we probably haven't had to. interact with Promise Pay, but what I will say is that it's consistent, our residents know it, the folks who have engaged with it know it, and quite frankly, the biggest added value, in my opinion, is just their ability to identify other means or opportunities to assist our residents with other things. So, for instance, I know that they were instrumental in helping people access LIHEAP money that might have been available. money when that was available so there are they they've been really good at helping us to not just ensure that our residents can find a means a mechanism to pay their water bills but also perhaps impact their other bills as well so it's been a really great service in my opinion but i do think of the opportunity for people to review it and see it for themselves again would be a good a good chance chair martinez what is your recommendation scp thank you

Good afternoon. I am Jocelyn Jones. I am the administrator of maintenance at the Collins Park Water Treatment Plant. I am here to request for the authorization and expenditure not to exceed $125,000 for the purchase installation of a chemical feed. Currently, our boiler has outlived its useful service life, and so it is important to the process in order to make sure that we are reliably and consistently heating the hot water in order to make sure soda ash and lime stay at the current consistency and pressure that we need it to. Replacement of the boiler will help preserve the treatment, stability, and lessen the risk of interrupting operations requesting SEP. I'll take any questions.

Chair Martinez, your recommendation?

This sounds pretty important, SEP.

Thank you.

Good afternoon at this point. Christine Miner, Division of Water Reclamation. First ordinance up should be for the Reynolds Area Pump Station improvements. You may or may not know Reynolds Area Pump Station is actually located at 4150 Airport Highway. It was built in 1970, last renovated in 2008. As part of the existing facilities plan for improvements, it's going to undergo reconstruction or revamping. And this ordinance seeks 1.7 million dollars and some change to enter into a low-interest loan with the Ohio Environmental Protection Association or agency water pollution control loan fund and to be able to enter into contracts in order to complete this project Requesting a CP and I'll take any questions Consumer Martinez your recommendation

Thank you, Madam Chair. So just correct me if I'm wrong, this is the second part. The first part was the acquisition of the land adjacent to, right? Yes. Right in that strip center across from Swan Creek Metro Park?

Yes. Okay. Ordinance 142.26 is where we got permission to purchase the land.

Gotcha. So then this would be to, are you going to do a brand new or a rehab or what are we doing there?

Still out to be decided yet, but probably rehabilitation of the existing facility.

Okay, great. SCP?

Thank you.

Christine again from Division of Water Reclamation. Second ordinance that we're presenting today is for an aeration tank cleaning project. Division of Water Reclamation has nine very large aeration tanks. It's what we use to grow bugs to clean the wastewater. Very essential to our facility. We routinely have to clean them one at a time. We've already cleaned two of them in the last few years. We're requesting to clean a third. The ordinance seeks $450,000 for that purpose. I'm requesting SEP, and I'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you.

Water reclamation again. This is just an amendment of an ordinance 08-24 for solid handling boilers. Our initial ordinance back in 2024 specifically named two boilers. Indeed, we need four boilers. And so this ordinance is just amending that to change that language to not specify the number of boilers. No increase needed. We have the funding necessary to pay for it. We just need to change the ordinance to reflect that also requesting a CP and we'll take any questions Councilman Martinez your recommendation a CP.

Thank you

Hello, I'm Noah Ganger with the water treatment. This proposal authorizes the expenditure of amount not to exceed $750,000 from the water operating fund and to authorize the mayor to enter into a contract to facilitate the emergency services to haul and dispose of spent lime from Colon Park's water treatment plant, Solids Dewatering Facility. I'll just call Solids Dewatering Facility SDF. Our water treatment plant, we produce about approximately 50,000 dry tons of spent lime or solids annually. It's a byproduct from our water treatment process. This spent lime has to go somewhere. For us, it goes either to Six Lagoons located at the plant or it goes through our SAWS dewatering facility where we dewater that solids and then it gets hauled away for beneficial reuse. Between these two options, running our spent lime solids through SDF is far more cheaper and efficient than Lagoons. That's just because Just between Lagoons and SDF, SDF is just taking out solids, put into a truck, gets hauled away and lawfully disposed of. Lagoons, when we fill that up, top that off, it has to be excavated. It takes a lot more equipment and manpower to do so. So annually, we spend about five, we budget for 5.5 million to remove spent lime from Lagoons, 1.5 million from SDF. Just based off our previous contract bids or contracts, Right now with SDF not running, there's about a $6,900 difference of our sludge going to legumes than not running it through SDF. We request SCP and thank you.

Councilman Sorrento.

Thank you. I couldn't hear that last part. Is the administration assuring us this contract will not be awarded to Charles Stansley or any of the related companies he owns?

Hi, Megan Ropeson, Chief of Operations for the City of Toledo. So this legislation is for an emergency, authorizing an emergency expenditure in order for us to enter into contract with a different vendor. This, if council recalls, was a contract we had with a one year contract with the option for a one year renewal. We are opting to not renew. So therefore, because we still need spent lime removed, obviously, we are seeking proposals to do that. And we would like to enter into contract on an emergency basis for that.

Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilman Sorrento. That was my question. So SEP, thank you.

Thank you. Item 8 is from the Department of Human Resources.

Yes, hi. Good afternoon. Mike Nijelski, Director of Human Resources. Item 8 is requesting authorization to enter into an agreement with a company called Doing Business as Part D Advisors Inc. for the purposes of doing a dependent audit for our health care plan. Earlier this year, we went out to bid for this service, and we had four responsive bids. Two of them I would characterize as just not competitive. They were significantly more expensive. The other two, ClearTrack and PDA, were competitive, but Part D Advisors is the better option. We had our healthcare consultants with us, and we scored the two, and they were competitive. Part D Advisors was the better choice for a couple reasons. One, they have a regional presence. They're based out of Livonia, Michigan, whereas the other company was based out of Alabama. And then the other, probably the more important thing, is that the company had provided for some performance guarantees. Typically, this kind of an audit can produce savings from anywhere from $500,000 to $1.4 million. And we certainly could use that in our health care fund for savings um and we're asking for this uh because we haven't had a dependent audit in some time and um this this amount this uh for this service was in our approved 2026 budget requesting scp and happy to take any questions

Vice Chair Gattis, your recommendation? Councilman Sorrento.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chairman Gattis, Vice Chair Gattis. I just want to say that this is good because, again, our health care costs have increased significantly, particularly in the prescription area. So anything we can do to discover savings, I think, is very good for our budget.

I agree.

Thank you. So thank you for bringing this forward. And please advise us the results of the audit. If there were discrepancies and people covered that shouldn't have been covered.

Happy to do that.

We'd like to. Council needs to know that. And a dollar figure of what we're saving. Thank you, Director. And thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilwoman Gaddis, your recommendation?

Thank you for your work, SEP.

Thank you. Thank you.

Items 9 and 10 come from the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.

Madam President, City Council, thank you all for having me. I'm Malcolm Cunningham, Director of Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement. I have two pieces of legislation in front of you all today. The first is authorizing the appropriation and expenditure of funds in an amount not to exceed $69,556 for case management, wraparound support, and high-risk conflict mediation. to reduce gun violence. So we are authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract and execute necessary instruments to waive competitive bidding and to declare an emergency. So this is with the Hoodstock Foundation. It is a grassroots organization that primarily works in the Junction, Englewood, and North Toledo slash LaGrange corridor areas, but does have citywide touchpoints. Since engaging in a contract with us the previous year, they've been engaged in 17 coordinated incident responses 14 high-risk conflicts, so we're talking about social media violence intervention, we're talking about ceasefires when those things do occur, non-aggression agreements, restorative justice, things of that nature. Hoodstock Foundation also has a very small caseload of very high-risk individuals, so typically returning home from DYS or from juvenile detention, with gun charges and with some gang affiliation or group involvement in that way. So Hoodstock Foundation would continue to provide these services and also would be able to provide more training and support to individuals that are beginning to step into the space of violence and eruption. So we are requesting SCP for this and are open to any questions on that front. Go to the second one.

Vice Chair Gaddis, your recommendation? SEP. Thank you.

Thank you. And the second piece of legislation is authorizing the appropriation and the expenditure of an amount not to exceed $34,560 for youth workforce development. So this project is a partnership. It includes goodwill. It includes funding from the Toledo Community Foundation. local community-based contractors, and of course a number of departments within the city of Toledo. It's called Mobility Aid. We provide lawn mowing services for elders and people with disabilities within the Save Our Community focus area. So that's the north side in the LaGrange corridor. That's Junction and Englewood. That's a bit of the east side as well. So we provide youth employment for 16 youth that are enrolled in the Save Our Community program. Again, we're working with those youth that are at high risk of, to be frank, shooting or being shot. And they receive 144 hours of direct training and support. They're providing, again, this intergenerational support and meaningful work within their community. It is a match to year two of funding from the Salido Community Foundation. We anticipate additional supports coming down the road, but until they are in our hands, I guess we cannot speak to them beyond that, right? So we are also requesting SCP for this as well and are open to questions. Thank you.

Council Member Gattis.

Thanks. I've got some questions. First of all, could we get a list of the 27 locations? And how many cuts will this provide?

It's biweekly lawn mowing services beginning, it'll likely begin in the first week of August this year.

And then the organization that's going to cut, I mean, I've been out driving, grass is high. Will they have the equipment needed for that first cut or are we expecting our young people to weed whack all that?

Absolutely. So the Toledo Community Foundation actually provided funding in year one and that funding went to the Goodwill. So the Goodwill actually has all of the equipment and then they are working with a community-based contractor that will then provide the day-to-day management of it. So the The equipment that they have will certainly suffice to take care of some of those higher loans. Great to hear.

Thanks. I think this sounds like an incredible program and an incredible opportunity for our youth and then also for our elders. Councilman Meldon.

Yeah, thank you so much. Quickly, I just want to compliment the name. We didn't really pause on that enough, I think. Mobility is lovely.

Thank you for that.

Every time we talk about cutting grass too much, and Chief Ropes, man, I am striking out. She's not here either. Every time we talk about cutting grass, I'm just like, are we ever gonna experiment with overseeding with clover or something different to maybe, you could save two, three cuts a year, it makes those resources go further. I'm curious, since we have some philanthropic investment, if we might ask them, maybe we look at that next year. I know you're like, I'm trying to do really hard things, and Council Member Meldon's asking me about planting clover seed. I understand it. I planted in my backyard because I don't want to mow my backyard, and it's been great. So just an idea. I would love to pilot it. If it saves a little money, it could be worth kind of going more broadly.

We are certainly open to innovative ideas, certainly.

Councilwoman Dr. Jones. Thank you chair.

Well, definitely love this program and really hoping for its longevity, especially as we're dealing with cuts and then also just the stability of our neighborhoods. I'm curious as far as what are the metrics that you use to choose these households?

So our initial list was actually from the Snow Angels program. So Valerie Fatica does the outreach initially to those that are within our focus areas. So we have eligibility requirements for income as well as for age range and as well as for disability. So she is doing all of the verification. But then we also do outreach through flyers, through I mean, honestly, very large flyers inside of the different libraries. And then we also, I mean, we have an excellent team that is just always doing groundwork. So they're distributing it to, I mean, elders that are within our neighborhoods that are working through that way. I believe we had 52 total applicants last year. And, you know, certainly just depending on the time that we received the funding and we're able to start, we're only able to provide it for 27 households. So we're beginning with that group of 52. Valerie has actually, I believe she sent out a letter I believe it was late last week or maybe it was, I mean, what is today, Tuesday? So relatively recently, she sent out the initial letter. So that's where we start. Our goal is to get up to 60 households this year to provide those services. It's two cohorts of eight each. They're paid a living wage. I believe that one of our participants actually came to city council last year. He had some involvement with juvenile justice for a gun charge and engaged in the program, has worked very closely with one of our staff, Eduardo Adams, and just had just really excellent outcomes. I think, to be honest with you, it's one of our more successful programs when it comes to some of the longer-term impacts, including reduced recidivism, including some of the changes in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors. So I'm going far beyond answering your question, and I'm very sorry.

You are always a wealth of information, so it's okay. Which brings me to my other question. Well, I would say comment, because I'm thinking of just, because out where I live, it's a lot of like high grass, but it's mostly like storefronts, so the Rite Aids and stuff like that. So with that, were there any consideration, I know this is focused on the elderly population and those with disabilities, but Could you see this potentially expanding as a way to help our city services to take care of something like the retail or other type of business corridors as well?

It's certainly possible. I think it's always a resource or an input question on our end. We certainly have enough participants that would be interested and willing. They're almost always competing for spots, I'll say that. uh... and i'll also say one of the other key pieces that perhaps is not i guess that's teased out is there's this real intergenerational interaction between young people that typically are not perceived in the best light but are having these really meaningful interactions with elders within their community. So there's this real creating community connectivity, creating this like meaningful support as well. We wouldn't want to lose that, but I also do think it makes perfect sense to expand when the inputs are available to expand those.

Yeah, because I was even thinking just to also just expand this program. Of course, the funds are available. Looking at, I know you're working with Area Office on Aging or the County Department of Developmental Disabilities. I'm pretty sure they have some information about who may need these services. Also looking at apartment complexes and passing out flyers there, especially along airport. That's what I'm thinking. around their airport door area, even some Reynolds area, just to kind of expand that reach. Because I'm always advocating for just the outer neighborhoods because they are starting to see decline and we can do two things at once. So why can't, looking forward, just looking at that expansion for this program and still keeping that essence of that intergenerational connection too. But those were just some of the thoughts. But I love this program. Oh, another thought. Since they are dealing with grass, probably the connection for career development with horticulture and things of that nature. So they can start on that track if they're interested. So that can definitely get some other skills in future horticultures, however you say that, in our fields as well too. That's where it just comes. Well, thank you so much, and this is a great, great job, great program.

Thank you, Chair.

Vice Chair Gattis, your recommendation?

SCP, please.

Thank you. Item 11 comes from the Office of Community Services.

Thank you and good afternoon council members. Chief Impact Officer Tiffany Whitman from the Department of Community Services. I'm joined here today by Commissioner Dr. Stephanie Covington. We will be presenting item number 11. This ordinance authorizes the reappropriation of 25,000 in the general fund for the Office of Community Services budget for the Junior Achievement of Northwestern Ohio's incorporated fifth year programming. Authorizing the mayor to enter into necessary agreements with Junior Achievement of Northwestern Ohio for the purpose in declaring emergency. With the overall goal of advancing the city's strategic plan, as well as our broader goals for youth development and workforce growth, we know that participating in JA's fifth year programming is a great first step. And with that, I'm gonna turn over to Commissioner Dr. Covington to talk more about what our participation will look like in this program.

Good afternoon, Council. So many of you have had the opportunity of speaking to Junior Achievement when we've had them here for site visits. And so with this collaboration, expanding our work with them beyond site visits and even some workshop things I've done with them, it would be hosting four Junior Achievement interns this fall. And so for those that aren't familiar with the Junior Achievement fifth year program, it's a gap year opportunity for high school graduates. Within the program, they are participating in life skills workshops. I believe this year they will be residing at the University of Toledo campus before they were at Lourdes University. They also engage in site visits with different organizations within the Toledo area. and then there's three days of internship time so with this we would be able to offer internship placement for those youth to further understand the workings of the city of toledo and what we know to be true is that when we engage young people in internships they're getting experiences and opportunities to learn more about what we do and then we can hire them like uh chief of staff frank's there and then a few other people i know davion beach on our team was once an intern and is now employed so being able to provide these opportunities and exposure for these youth would be really great and some of them may enter into public service from this type of engagement yes and we are requesting scp council president williams

All right, thank you for this. Now, this is a question that I meant to ask when we were talking about it initially. Have you guys been involved in this safety zone discussion? If not, join us. I believe that these programs add a lot to the topic that we're speaking on and what I've said numerous, I wish they were here, I've said numerous times throughout this is we have to be more engaging as well and be inclusive and not exclusive. So I would love to have these discussions with all of us at the table because we got till next week. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate that, Council President Williams.

Vice Chair Gaddis, your recommendation? What did you ask for?

SEP. SEP, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Items 12 through 15 come from the Department of Communications.

Good afternoon Members of Council. Rachel Hart, Chief of Communications here with Jenny Jaquay, our Commissioner of Customer Service. Today we're presenting four items from the Department of Communications. If it's all right with you, the first three are all sort of part of the same project. I'd like to present them together. So these three pieces of legislation, items 12, 13, and 14, work together to help us use our brand as a city to engage externally with the public internally to support our workforce and also create some operational efficiencies that reduce reduce waste and improve oversight So item number 12 authorizes a contract to create the city of Toledo swag store. This has been something that's been highly requested for a long time. This is able to be done at no cost to the city. The city doesn't have to bear any of the financial risk. The storefront would be open to the public and operating through a vendor that will handle the production and fulfillment of any purchased items on demand. that think this is a great way for our residents to be able to engage in their city pride and purchase items that would generate a small amount of revenue for the city of Toledo. And I think it's really just a win-win for us. The second one, item number 13, is a contract for the purchase of bulk-ordered merchandise. This is sort of the complementary piece to the public-facing swag store. This contract would streamline city purchases of branded merchandise, whether that be for employees, for distribution at different public events. There are times when the things that we would like to purchase for our employees or community We wouldn't want those to be available for public purchase. So this contract would allow us to sort of streamline the purchase of those things. There is an authorization of $50,000. I'd like to just emphasize that this is not new spending that we are creating here. This is rather just an approval of existing budgets. So departments that have already had money, whether it be for uniforms, volunteer t-shirts, those types of things, that is what is included in that $50,000. The number is sort of based on what we were able to identify from last year's expenditures, but it is sort of just a best guess and a ceiling not to exceed. And the final piece of legislation, item number 14, creates the Employee Engagement Trust Fund. So I mentioned that the swag store will produce a small amount of revenue from the sale of those branded items. And this new trust fund is being created to help capture that revenue and sort of set it aside so that it can be dedicated to employee engagement uses moving forward. This trust fund would be housed under HR and sort of able to be used at their discretion. But I think that in a competitive labor market, these types of employee engagement activities can really go a long way. And so taking that newly created revenue and sort of dedicating it to this purpose is what this fund is set up to do. So that is sort of the whole picture of what we're trying to accomplish with branded merchandise, both for the public and internally. And I'm happy to take any questions we are requesting SEP. Councilman Martinez.

I think Councilman Sorrento is first. I'll yield.

Councilman Sorrento.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. I just had a question. Who is doing the production of these goods?

Yeah, so there are two contracts here. We did go through a formal RFP process at the end of last year and decided to, this originally we wanted to do this as one contract, but we decided to split it into two and plan to award Wilkinson's with the public-facing swag store and Juke Mode with the internal bulk merchandise contract so that we can support both of those local vendors. Okay.

great thank you thank you madam chair councilman martinez

Thank you, Madam Chair. Excuse me. Super creative. I like the direction this is going. Very supportive. We should have done this like a dull moment. And I think that's a great way to continue engaging our employees and not necessarily burning the taxpayer dollars. It was great that we were able to do it in the past. Now that we're a little bit more austere, this is a very creative solution to continue showing how much we appreciate our employees. you and the administration for doing this. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Comives.

Thank you so much. Love the trust fund. I think this is a brilliant idea. I definitely have always supported and try to be at all the events that we do. I agree they're important, so thank you for the creativity there. While Wilkinson's is a local vendor, they're in Sylvania. They pay Sylvania income tax. They don't send that income tax here. I'm just curious what made the difference between choosing a non Toledo company versus a Toledo company on this.

Sure. So, um, those two vendors were the only from the only vendors that responded to the RFP from, I think the state of Ohio. Um, and Wilkinson's was able to set up this public facing store without any upfront expenditure. whereas the juke mode proposal did require an upfront expenditure to sort of establish that store. So that was primarily the reason that we decided to split that up and kind of use those two different contracts to play to both of the vendors' strengths.

Do you know how much that cost was?

I think it was about $10,000. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Gattis.

Thank you. When we talk swag, is that TOL? Is it the flag? Is it the city seal? What falls under that?

I think we envision it as any and all. The TOL certainly is fair game. I'd love to be able to sell city flags. But I think this is also an opportunity for us to highlight some of the strategic initiatives that we have around Retree, Retree Toledo, our lead safety campaign, Vision Zero. So I think it can really be a host of different items. that could rotate seasonally. We could sell things for different times of year, different events. I think it gives us a lot of flexibility. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Gaddis, that's a great question. As you started talking about it, I was like, ooh, we could get some Lock, Save, Live shirts for next gun violence awareness month. Absolutely.

Yeah, okay. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you. Council Member Gaddis, what is your recommendation?

What did you ask? SEP, please. For all three? For all three.

Do I have to do each one?

Clear? No? SEP.

Thank you.

Thank you. And item number 15 will be presented by Commissioner Jakeway. So I'll turn it over to her.

Thank you. Good afternoon, President Williams, Chair Kramer, members of Council. As Director Hart said, my name is Jenny Jakeway. I'm Commissioner of Customer Service, and I'm pleased to be here today to present proposed legislation authorizing the annual expenditure of an amount not to exceed $23,346 for agent interaction call recording services, waiving the competitive bidding requirements of TMC Chapter 187. This ordinance authorizes the city to enter into a one-year contract with two one-year renewal options. I'm respectfully requesting SEP and happy to answer any questions.

Councilman Sorrento.

Thank you. Commissioner, what do we gain from having this contract? What are they really going to provide for us that we don't have now?

Thank you. Well, we actually have a contract currently. We have recorded our calls in the call center inbound and outbound calls as a matter of best practice. Historically, I started there in 2011, so prior to that. And what we gain is quality assurance and training for our agents, but it's also, as I mentioned, a best practice for our customers. Customers often on the utility side may want to dispute a utility bill. They'll go through that formal bill dispute process. The internal board of review committee and potentially if it goes to a utility appeals board review, that recorded call with the interaction between the customer and the agent can be vital in some times. Sometimes I'm requested by law department to turn over call recordings But as I mentioned on a daily basis our supervisors to ensure that quality customer service that we expect To deliver for our customers the way that we do that is to randomly monitor calls and this company this contract Is that to have call recording services as an option?

Thank you very much.

Thank you madam chair councilmember Gattis I

Thank you. This package, is it by minutes? Is it just a monthly sum regardless of 15 calls or a million?

Correct. It's software as a service, so it's subscription-based, and what we're paying for is the licenses for each agent to have the availability. It has nothing to do. It's the same rate no matter how many calls we receive.

Thank you. And is it for Engage only? Does this apply to the water or to taxes?

Great question. So it's for the contact center. So it's any inbound and outbound call that we take, whether it be through the 245-1800 number for our utility customer service or for the Engage Toledo. It's for both services.

So if they call in to engage, it gets recorded. If they get forwarded to another office, is it recorded?

If it's forwarded to another office, it will not be recorded because the office that it'll be forwarded to, say the city council, you don't have call recording as a service. So it will only be recorded. The call will capture what happens at the agent in the call center.

And then how long do they keep recordings?

So our records retention policy states today that the recorded phone calls are for however long is administratively necessary, so that gives us a little bit leeway.

Is there like an average time?

So I can take that by way of referral, what that average time would be. I think it's determined based off availability of space, but I will follow up and answer that by way of referral.

Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Gattis, what is your recommendation? SCP, please. Thank you. Item 16 is from the Department of Development.

Good afternoon, members of the Council. Brandon Selhorst, Chief Growth Officer. As you all know, we have partnered with Metro Parks Toledo on the transformational Glass City Riverwalk project. As we continue to launch construction on the Vestula portion of the Riverwalk, We have been partnering with Metro Parks Toledo and the Arts Commission to re-envision the Maritime Plaza space, which is underneath the MLK Bridge between the downtown portion and Vestula. So think about Water Street. If you were to take that by Toledo Pickle and take that to downtown, there's a plaza under there that is activated from time to time with public events, but it's a public space and it's largely underutilized. And so as a part of Our ongoing efforts to think about the Riverwalk and activating public spaces, we have partnered with Metro Parks, Salido, and the Arts Commission to re-envision this space. And it is largely, at least this ordinance, is for a dynamic lighting display underneath the bridge that would kind of mirror the dynamic lighting display that was done on the sides of the bridge, which we lit for the first time this Friday. It looked absolutely great. But this is a transformative project to kind of link that connection between where the Riverwalk currently stops today, which is right there at the edge of downtown and going into the next phase of the Riverwalk project into the Vistula neighborhood. So this ordinance authorizes a $100,000 grant from the city center TIF. For those of you that aren't familiar, there is a TIF that is established over downtown. The increase in property revenues get deposited into the TIF funds, which we use for public infrastructure improvements and placemaking projects such as this. The grant is being matched by the Metro Parks Toledo and Arts Commission. The total project is $375,000. Metro Parks Toledo will be responsible for installation and operation of the lighting display and the Maritime Plaza activation. So this ordinance also authorizes an amendment to our development agreement with Metro Parks. Many of you remember we entered into a development agreement to kind of govern all of the different property transactions and things that we have with Metro Parks. So this amendment will allow us to add language in there that makes them responsible for this project and activation of that space over the long term. If approved by you next week, the installation is expected to be complete by this fall. We are respectfully requesting SCP. Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you chair. Uh, this is, this is a cool project. Very supportive of this. This is like a criminally underutilized public space. So I think it'd be, this would be an awesome addition to the river walk. My only question about this, like what's, what, what was the Genesis of this project? Whose idea was this first and foremost?

It really started with Metro Parks. I mean, so we're constantly looking about how to activate public spaces that are underutilized along the Riverwalk, but also how to start to bridge the gap or the perceived gap between portions of the Riverwalk and different neighborhoods, right? So this particular part of the bridge is kind of a, could be seen as a a point in time in the riverwalk where the project stops and we're wanting it to continue down water street we're wanting to invite people to come from downtown and invite them into vistula and this is kind of an exciting different way to do that but also there it's a pretty unique space like if you haven't been down there i encourage you to do it i think that there are you know some events that happen there i think cherry street mission has a annual fundraising event there it's underutilized and it has some cool factor and this is just an opportunity to increase it and hopefully be able to utilize it better. So it really started with the Metro Parks and then of course the Arts Commission has been involved in the overall dynamic lighting display on the MLK Bridge and then of course because it's our bridge and our public space, we're involved because we're the owner.

I couldn't agree more. It's necessary. It's going to be cool when it's finished. I guess what I'm driving at, though, and I had the same issue with the recent expenditure from the city center tip for the warehouse district, some of the placemaking we're doing with the seating and stuff that we're doing on here and on the street. I'm not opposed to the project, I guess. I think maybe later this summer, I think it might be necessary to do some sort of committee meeting around all of the tips that we have, because it doesn't yet appear to me that we've got a strategic vision for how we're utilizing our TIF funds. And the reason I ask the genesis of this project is, well, Metro Parks is a very politically astute organization. They know who to talk to. They know that the TIF exists. And they've got a project that they think we might support. But there are limited funds in that TIF. Uh there it could be the case maybe that there's an even better project out there That's been conceived of by a group that does not have the same political cache as the metro parks And they don't know how to ask for tiff funding or to set up an agreement and so and it's not yet been made clear to me that we know everything we want to do with these tiff funds and what I and i'm i'm um I'm loathe to use this term, but what I don't want to happen is for these to turn into a slush fund, and we just, okay, that's a great project, let's do that. I think there should be some strategy, and perhaps the strategy is to have some nimbleness to be able to react to new projects that pop up, and I can live with that, but we've never enumerated that either. Does that make sense? What I don't want is for us to be hamstrung if... without some sort of plan. That's what I've always lamented, not having a plan for the city of Toledo, and this is yet another example of it. That being said, very supportive of this. We'll vote on it next week. I'm gonna vote yes, but I think, I just think it would behoove all of us to enumerate the projects and things we want to accomplish with each one of our TIFs, the city center just being one example of it. Great, welcome to that conversation.

Councilwoman Morris. Thank you. I'm familiar with this. I used to walk this all the time when it was not improved. And I know that there's a lot of information about our maritime industry. Is that going to be moved or is any of that stuff, is it just installing the lighting?

It's just installing the lighting and putting Metro Parks in the seat of being able to activate it in a way that they can't today. Because in order to come through there, the city would have to give permission to activate that space. And so we want to be able to partner with them if they have events and things like that, that they can think about that. But nothing, this is still Maritime Plaza, nothing regarding the existing signage and historical information is going to change as a part of this.

And so, and who owns this? Is it maritime, I mean, because it's underneath the bridge.

City owns it.

So it's a city-owned bridge.

Correct.

Okay, and so we're authorizing the expenditure for the lights, for the way?

For the lighting, specifically, correct. Okay. And then this ordinance also does amend our development agreement with them, with Metro Parks specifically, that allows them to activate the space.

Okay. Okay. I'm not critical of it, but I'm just trying to understand who has what and how it's going to be put together. So, okay. All right. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So along those lines, supportive of the project, my question is twofold. Number one, who would be responsible for maintenance and cleaning after events? Like if I wanted to host a fundraiser there, I gotta go to the Metro Parks?

Yes, that's the point of amending the development agreement that puts that onus of operations and maintenance of not only the space, but also the lighting on them.

And the cost of the lighting? Correct.

Okay. Correct. We're contributing to help cover the cost of the installation, but the maintenance of it will be on the Metro Parks to do. And the development agreement is what will memorialize that. Got it.

And then, so good to know, and then I guess the other question is just more around safety. Are there cameras or anything going to be installed there, or...

I could take that by way of referral. I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I know that there are cameras as a part of the larger Riverwalk project. It's not in the scope of this project of what we're funding currently. But I could verify that and get back to you. Great.

That's it. Thanks. Council Member Gattis.

Thanks, I see that the expected installation is fall of 2026. Will that space be activated then, or will it be like waiting until the next watershed weekend?

No, that's a great question. No, it could be activated now. The installation of the lighting is what will be complete by 2026.

Okay, I just know that when they did the watershed, that's where they put the toilets, correct?

Yes, that was where they did that, but there's a higher and better use then.

I love that. I love that. I just wasn't sure if we were holding it for another event or if it would be activated right away.

Yeah, it would be activated right away. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

I certainly appreciate the partnership here with the Metro Parks. I was down at Watershed Weekend several times this weekend and everything looked fantastic. Do we anticipate there will be like light shows down there? Like what are they going to be using the lights really for?

I mean it will be in sync with the lights on the opposite sides of the bridge that we lit this weekend and you know those are all in sync with the high level and the Veterans Glass City Skyway. Theoretically, there's a light show every night down there, and this just kind of creates a cool feature where you can get up and close with the lights and the space and kind of have unique events at nighttime that you can't do with the bridge currently. Got it.

Okay. Since Chair Meldon and Vice Chair McPherson are not here, that falls to Councilman Meldon to make a recommendation. Oh, sorry, Driscoll. I was looking right at you.

SEP.

Thank you. I don't know. Items, sorry, 18 and 19 come from the Department of Finance. I'm sorry, I threw myself now. I'm really sorry. Item 17 comes from the Toledo City Planning Commission. I'll get it together up here.

Good afternoon, Council. Lisa Cottrell and Bill Harbert from the Toledo City Planning Commission. We're here to present the local landmark designation ordinance, authorizing the expenditure of $125,000 from the city's general fund to pay for the local landmark consultant. And I will have Mr. Harbert take over from here.

Thank you. Bill Harbert, Associate Planner, City of Toledo Planning Commission. So the expenditure is going to secure a professional consulting service to prepare documentation for presenting to the Planning Commission and then ultimately to City Council for 20 sites to be locally landmark designation. We did do an RFP where we had four applicants present their information. We did a competitive scoring on that. We do have someone selected. However, we're not presenting that until an ordinance has been passed. As you may know, back in 2025, we did a study on privately owned historic sites that are architecturally, historically, and culturally significant throughout the city. City Council asked us to do that again in 2026 for publicly owned sites. So we've done these two studies. What we found as part of that is that these sites were vulnerable. And what they were vulnerable to was no public input in terms of their use or and or demolition if that's said be. So what this new what local landmark designation will do it will provide that additional layer of review as well as public input prior to action being taken against those. So the consultant is going to prepare that documentation we're going to present at the The plan commission, once the project is complete with those 20 projects, the plan commission staff will then take onus of that local, future local landmark designations, and there won't be any additional funding required as part of that project. So with that being said, I'm happy to answer any questions you guys may have.

Council Member Gattis.

I don't have questions, I'm super excited about this. 20, that's great. These historical structures, this is our fingerprint, right, in the Midwest, and so many other big cities, when you go visit, you do historical tours. Saving these buildings, the ones that are savable, that's really important to who we are, remembering who we are so we can move forward. And I just want to thank you for all your hard work, and I'm looking forward to this. Thank you, Chair.

We do request SAP.

Chair Morris, your recommendation?

SAP.

Thank you. And now we'll go to items 18 and 19 from the Department of Finance.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Kramer, members of council. Melanie Campbell from the Department of Finance for items 18 and 19. I'm joined at the table by our debt and CIP manager, Jamie Takacs. Starting with number 18, this is an ordinance related to the district improvement program It's kind of a companion piece to an item on the agenda that you'll hear under new items from city council. But this one specifically authorizes the reappropriation of funds within the district improvement program. It does not overall increase or decrease the total amount of funds. It just sets up project accounts so that we can track more easily by district what's going on in each of those district project budgets. Be happy to take any questions if you have them, and we are requesting SEP on this one.

Chair Sarantu, what's your recommendation?

I recommend SEP.

Thank you.

And then agenda item 19 authorizes the expenditure of just over $19,000 from the general fund budget for annual membership dues for the Ohio Municipal League. We're requesting SEP on this one, and I'd be happy to take any questions.

Councilman Sorrento, your recommendation?

Madam Chair, I recommend SEP. Thank you.

Thank you. Items 21 through 26 are from the Department of Transportation.

Good afternoon. Christy Sonkrant, Commissioner of Engineering and Construction. And with me I have Todd Psalms, Commissioner of Water Distribution. Thank you. item number twenty one this ordinance will fund the replacement of lead and galvanized water service lines on our twenty twenty seven roadway and waterline construction projects in the city of toledo this will include both the city side and the homeowner side service line it is a zero percent entrance loan interest loan The US EPA has begun enforcing a strict 10-year guideline requiring public water systems to identify and fully replace all lead service lines across the country. Systems must identify all lead pipes and replace them completely. Incomplete or partial replacements are no longer considered acceptable for compliance. Water utilities are also required to publicly map and make available our full service line inventories to allow property owners to determine if their connection is made of lead, galvanized, or copper. The city does currently have a water service inventory map on our website that homeowners can access to see the material type. I did go in and even check it before I came here and it works well. You go in there, you type in your address and we have a nice map that you can just click on the line then and it comes out what it is made of. So I'm requesting SAP and we'll take any questions at this time. Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam chair. Um, so this is really great. Um, super supportive question though. What if, is it just from the main line to the house?

It's yes. So it's from the main line to the house. So it's, it's the city side and the homeowner side. So we have to do them all. So it will be complete all the way from the water line to the customer's meter.

Right. Okay. So I just want to set up my base here. So what if there is a detached garage that has water and it's either a lead or a galvanized line?

Would that be covered or no?

That would be an absolute anomaly.

I'm kidding. Usually those will, the plumbing would run through the house to the garage in the rear.

Right. But if it's separated, it's underground.

Or iron, so anything downstream of that meter, we don't touch. Right, so just to the meter. That's correct. Just that meter setting. After that, it's...

So the reason I'm asking, I'm thinking of River Road where there are detached garages and there's a lot of individuals that have water to their garages or pools. And the reason I'm asking this is because they're long stretches and I didn't know where it started and stopped. And then there's also homes in like the Beverly area also that may not have an attached garage that have a detached garage that may have that same situation so i just want to anticipate questions when i start blasting this out to the d2 facebook page so because i'm sure that's going to come up so i want to ask the question first yep just to the meteor setting if you find lead inside the home one in a blue moon have lead internal plumbing we can have that conversation help you know get them some some additional aid but gotcha okay great thank you council member gaddis

Thanks. Will this require you to dig up roads?

So that's part of the reason we are doing this now. We are doing it with all of our projects. So engineering has taken over the program to do it with our projects so that we will not be going back and recutting up a road when this is what to do it later.

Okay. What about the roads that are already been replaced? Because I know when, it wasn't us, it was the gas, but boy, they left, they did us dirty. And on the east side, it's so bad. Parker, like, they didn't fix the roads correctly, and we just laid, we just did them a couple years ago, so I know we're not gonna, my lifetime, I'm not gonna see another road down Parker redone. And so when they cut the sides and then they patched them, They didn't patch very well. They didn't seal it. They're coming up. It's already really bad So what are we gonna do to prevent the same thing happening?

Well, I was gonna say so in the future because of course we have thousands of line tons of thousands of lines that need replacing and I'm sure that we're gonna come to some that we have resurfaced five years ago or 10 years ago. So if that main is in the road, we will have to cut into it. But the city will make sure that we do it correctly. And if we end up going down the whole street and doing it, we'd probably do an overlay. We wouldn't just patch 50 patches across the street.

Like the gas company. Are you working with any of our partners like the gas company to make sure we do everything all at once so there's no other touching of the road?

So that's kind of part of what we normally doing during the construction. So when we are determining what we're going to do, we let all the utilities know. And then the utilities actually are supposed to send us the plans before they do any of the work. so we can check them out and see what they are planning on doing also. So we do try to coordinate with them and we do utility coordination meetings throughout the year with the companies also.

Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Komar.

Thank you. Do we know how many we're talking?

for total that we have. So right now it's about $52,000.

And are we going to do this? Are your crews doing all this? We're going to contract this out?

Yep, that'll all be done by the contractor when we replace the water main.

Okay.

We do kind of the one-offs, if you will, still internally, but this money will be contracted.

Okay. And we think this money will cover all of those?

No, roughly $750,000. $750,000. And about $8,000 apiece.

Okay, I'm going to math for a second. Thank you.

I've done it. Do you want me to tell you? Well, if we only do $6 million a year, it'll take us 65 years.

To meet the deadline.

To meet the deadline.

Of everything. It's about a $30 million liability if we were to meet that 10-year. It's about $500 million if we were to go out and replace all 50,000 today. Today's money. It's quite a heavy lift.

I see. Okay. Thank you. Good luck.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Jeremy Michael Isaac, deputy director for the Department of Public Works. I'm here to bring you legislation number 22. This authorizes, this ordinance authorizes the expenditure of $250,000 from the 2026 capital improvement budget for traffic signals and signs upgrades. The city of Toledo required is required by federal mandate to meet minimum traffic signal and sign requirements. These funds will allow the Division of Traffic Management to purchase materials to replace existing non-compliant signals and signs and related equipment that have reached their useful life throughout the city. We're asking for SEP, and I'll take any questions.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you.

Item 23 is authorizing the mayor to enter into a cooperative grant agreement with and accept assistance from the state of Ohio Department of Transportation for design and construction of the roadway departure safety project. The Division of Traffic Management and Road and Bridge Maintenance have successfully applied for and received funding from the state of Ohio Department of Transportation to add or replace safety features at approximately 20 different locations. These safety features include permanent rumble strips and guardrail improvements, including end treatments and attenuators. The city of Toledo will administer the design and construction of the project Matching funds will be provided through the Division of Road and Bridge Maintenance Matches and Planning Fund. Design is scheduled to begin in 2026 with construction in 2029. The amount for this is not to exceed $180,000 for design and $1,120,280 for construction. We're asking SEP, and I'll take any questions for this.

Councilmember Gattis.

Thanks. I understand what rumbles are and attenuators. What is type E anchor assemblies?

That's the type and method of how the ends are anchored down on guardrail.

Okay. So on the sidewalk, not on the roadway guardrail? No.

No, the roadway guardrail. Yes.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. I'm excited. I think the neighbors are going to be excited. So thank you for this.

And a lot of these attenuators that we're replacing, they're outdated and a new standard has come out for them. So that's why these are being replaced and, or they've already been destroyed and we have to update them.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that, especially in my district. There's a lot that I've seen better days, so I thank you for this. Thank you, Chair.

Council Member Comives.

Thank you. The slip lane going to Glendale off the trail has not permanent rumble strips, correct?

There are rumble strips there. There are rumble strips there, yes.

Are they not permanent ones?

No. The ones that we have installed in the last couple years They're not really considered a permanent because of the way that they're installed. We also have them on Enterprise where we've had a lot of street racing going on there. We've noticed with those, with the couple of winters that we've gone through, they do kind of break up and have to be reapplied.

I see. Do we have an example of permanent ones in the city right now?

The permanent ones would be like the ones that are like ground into the pavement.

Got you. So like an example of those that aren't just like along the side of the road, do we have any in Toledo already?

I don't believe so.

Okay. Thanks.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is great news. So I'm a big advocate for these rumble strips, and I appreciate the willingness of the administration and the roads to actually install them as a trial. They have worked amazingly, especially around the roundabout. So we, knock on wood, we haven't had any vehicles go up and the TOL is still there and I want more. So I was just going to tease you and say, well, we're kind of missing some here because I'd like to see some on Broadway near the Harvard Circle because we're still getting a lot of speeders. And then if I could put them in every major long stretch I would. So thank you for doing this. And I'm glad it worked out that we're now making them permanent. I know it was kind of like a pilot project and it seemed to work. And I know there was some concern that these aren't what they're supposed to be done for. But it seemed like it's worked out. So thank you for your willingness to install them. Thank you.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you.

Okay, item number 24 is authorizing the mayor to enter into a cooperative grant agreement and accept financial assistance from the state of Ohio Department of Transportation for design and construction of the Alasky over Shanty Creek Bridge project. This authorizes the acceptance, deposit, appropriation, and expenditure of grant proceeds in the Capital Improvement Fund in an amount not to exceed $168,000 for design and $894,341 for construction of the project. The Division of Road and Bridge Maintenance has successfully applied for and received funding from the State of Ohio Department of Transportation to rehabilitate the Lasky over Shanty Creek Bridge. The City of Toledo will administer the design and construction of the project Matching funds will be provided through the Division of Road and Bridge Maintenance's Matches and Planning Fund. Design is scheduled to begin in 2026 with construction in 2029. We're asking for SEP and I'll take any questions.

Councilwoman Morris. Thank you, Chair. I'm trying to figure out where this is on Lasky. Do you have any point of contact for me?

I don't, but I will send it to you. Okay. Off the top of my head, I can't think of where it's at.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out if this is in District 5 or if this is in District 6. I think it's in 5, but I'm not sure.

I did have a picture of it, but they did remove it, and that's been a while.

What's this world coming to? All right, if you could just follow up with me at some point. No, I will follow up. Email's fine. I don't need to have a referral, so thank you.

Okay.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you.

Item number 24 is authorizing the expenditure of an amount not to exceed $4,600,000 from the capital improvement program for the bridges, matches, and planning program. The Division of Road and Bridge Maintenance is requesting the authorization to expend an amount not to exceed $4,600,000 from the capital improvement project fund for the bridges, matches, and planning program. This funding will be used to provide match dollars for state and federal grants and loans. The appropriation for this funding was authorized through ordinance 126-26 as part of the 2026 CIP plan. The matches and planning program provides funding that is needed to supply match dollars for outside grants and loans. The division has anticipated and secured as well as to plan for future larger scale projects with required design testing right away and environmental work. this year's program includes but are not limited to the coleman bridge over norfolk southern railroad and the anderson property burdan bridge over ottawa river summit and miami street embankments laski bridge over shanty creek the roadway departure safety project and burn road over grand trunk railroad projects we're asking for sdp and i'll take any questions

Chair, Council Member Gattis. I snuck in there, I'm sorry. I get excited when there's, there's so many bridges in my district. So you said not limited to, so perhaps there will be more in the designing phase, depending on how the bid goes?

yes yeah all of these are currently in design so we're not uh quite exactly sure what like the construction cost is going to be just yet okay okay thank you for the clarity thank you chair chair driscoll your recommendation scp thank you Item number 26 is authorizing the expenditure of an amount not to exceed 200,000 from the Special Assessment Service Fund for the Division of Road and Bridge Maintenance for the purposes of a snow and ice control study. The Division of Road and Bridge Maintenance is tasked with snow and ice control operations during the winter storm events. The Division seeks to enter into a professional services contract for a snow operations study to evaluate the current procedures, equipment, and operations. This study will be used to optimize the Division's snow and ice operations. We're asking for SEP and I will take any questions.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

Just have one quick question. What do we expect? What do we think the results of this study? How will it augment what we do? Do we expect to save money operationally at the end of this?

all of the above uh... when we were the division of streets bridges and harbor it was all house under or the responsibilities for all house under one division now that we're split and we also use urban beautification and now road and bridge maintenance that is kind of complicated some things with us so what we would like to see out of this is new set of work rules some best practices of what maybe other cities may do differently from us we also would like them to look at our equipment and tell us you know maybe uh maintenance plans on our equipment a replacement plan on our equipment another thing we would like them to look at is our routes Are the 33 routes with the three phases still optimal for us to do, or is there something different that we need to do? One of the big things that I would like to kind of see maybe change or be looked at is how do we incorporate residential routes every time it snows? Is it even possible to do? Why couldn't we do it, or why aren't we doing it?

One question, and he had to leave early, but Vice Chair Hobbs was going to ask about clearing alleyways of snow in certain neighborhoods where

Everybody if you're parking is strictly in the back We don't do that now That is that something that could be studied as a part of this that is part of the list of things that we would like them to Look at it also kind of jives with the equipment. We want them to tell us if the type of equipment we have is appropriate Not only for our main routes, but downtown. We also have to when it snows a lot. We have to show it and we have to pile that up and then haul it out. Is there a more efficient way of doing that? Things of that nature. So yes, anything that you may have that you might think that we're not thinking of, please let me know and we will make sure that it's included in there.

Okay, I'll go SCP, but it does look like there's another question.

Councilmember gas Thanks, just real brief. I know you said hops councilman hops brought up the alleys. I'm the same I would love to have that in there. I I am at the base of the bridge so I have an emergency alley and it was cleared for years and they've stopped in the last 15 years or so and it would it's supposed to be cleared so if there's an accident at the base of the bridge they can divert traffic down my alley and but I pay the plow guy to do our alley, and I think that we should make sure we're checking emergency alleys into this as well. Thank you.

SEP, thank you. And item 29 comes from the Department of Public Service.

Hello, Joe Fosna, Director of Public Service. I've asked Erin Westrick, our Manager of Special Projects, to join me today. She has stepped up to really lead the effort in planning these Levitt concerts, so it only makes sense that she's here to tell you about it.

Hi, as Director Fosnaw said, I'm Erin Westrick, Special Projects Manager for the Department of Public Service. I'm here asking for this ordinance to authorize expending up to $30,000 over three years to provide match fundings for the $120,000 grant received from the Levitt Foundation to support free outdoor music concerts and parks throughout the city of Toledo. Overall, this funding will support eight to 10 concerts per year, currently scheduled in Promenade Park, Glass City Metro Park, Junction Park, and Danny Thomas Park. Toledo was chosen for this through competitive grant, as a grant competition, and as a public voting period. Programming reflects Toledo's cultural diversity, featuring local, regional, and national artists, and we're spanning through gospel, soul, Tejano, hip hop, and more. And I will accept questions.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No questions, but I just want to point out that I have a beautiful park in District 2 called Walbridge Park that has a place for bands and music. Just saying. Throwing it out there for next time. Thanks.

Chair Komives, your recommendation?

SCP, please.

Thank you.

That ends the reading from the administration. We will have one resolution in attendance. This is from Councilwoman Gaddis and Councilwoman Morris, recognizing Dean Davis for silver medal in national mural competition. Two second read items. One is recognizing Dr. Trax on his retirement. That was from last week. We're trying to find a date upon which he can appear again. And then we have the real estate purchase, which is 235-26, real estate purchase agreement with Toledo Lucas County Public Library for property at 1865 Finch Street and 423 Shasta Drive for the library for $1. that was requested to be first reading. We have one new item from city council. Actually we have two, I'm sorry. We have amending ordinance 362-18 to update the process and supervision of the DIP program and this is being presented then by Council President Williams and presented by Chief of Staff Frank.

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Lucille Frank. I'm the Chief of Staff for Toledo City Council. With me, I have our wonderful Chief Growth Officer, Brandon Sellhorse, who oversees the Department of Economic Development. And also in the crowd with us is the Director of Finance, Melanie Campbell, and Manager of Debt and CIP, Jamie Takacs, who we've all been working on this project together. TODAY WE'RE PRESENTING LEGISLATION TO AMEND THE ORIGINAL DISTRICT IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM OR DIP LEGISLATION ORDINANCE 362-18 AND REQUESTING SEP A LITTLE BIT OF BACKGROUND ON THE PROGRAM IT WAS ESTABLISHED in 2018 to enrich the quality of life for individuals, families, and business owners throughout the city and empower community members to take steps toward long-term improvements. The purpose of the district improvement program was to give community members an opportunity to have direct input and influence into the improvement of their neighborhoods. The emphasis of the program is to help fund capital projects not currently planned by the city that have community-wide benefits. With the legislation in front of you and the companion legislation from the Department of Finance that was presented earlier, we are hoping to transition the management and supervision of the DIP program from economic development to city council, clean up the CIP funds on the back end, and continue to have a robust program for many more years to come. A few notes about it. We do have this sponsored by Council President and District 4 Councilwoman Vannies Williams. This legislation transfers the supervision of the program from the director and chief Brandon Selhorst to myself at city council. We've been discussing this since 2024. And some of the main priorities for this is to allow the time required to manage and supervise the program to be transferred from economic development to council, to increase clarity on the application process, eligible projects, and eligible applicants through changes to the ordinance and application language. And this ordinance is at no cost to the city for us to do this legislation. And just as Director Campbell said earlier, The companion piece of legislation is not adding or removing any dollars from the dip program. It's just simply Rearranging where we have our funds and in the future when council members are bringing forward legislation with account codes We won't have to worry too much about those account codes moving forward each district will have one Outside of the ordinance and part of the management of the program, we are developing a webpage that will be under city council. And it's not only to inform the public about the program and the application process, but also to highlight the DIP projects completed since 2018, which is over 70 of them in each district and allow for the application to be downloaded and filled out directly from the website. Additionally, we will have a new suggest an idea area on the webpage where residents and community members can simply suggest an idea for a DIP project to council members without going through the entire application process and owning the project. These ideas would then be submitted to council members for further review and discussion. And whether or not you want to take the program on or the project on, that idea is in front of you. Chief Sawhorse, do you have anything you would like to add?

Yeah, I would just like to add thank you for the opportunity to help launch this program back in 2018. I think it's a very, very useful program. Anytime we can set aside dollars to kind of meet projects where they're at. I mean, we can't always budget for these things, and I think there's been some really transformational type of placemaking and park improvement projects, and we've been able to leverage these programs to get grant dollars into this. I mean, it's just very proactive. There's no question this program needs to continue. I think one thing that we've learned managing this program since 2018 is it was written in 2018 and we haven't really revised it since. And we put the onus on community groups and private citizens to understand our procurement process and to bid things appropriately and to know all of the inner workings of how the city works and how to get projects through. And as you know, it's very complicated. And so I love the idea of just having people pitch their idea. Let us know the idea. If the council member is supportive, let us kind of work within the administration to make that idea come to reality and see if the funding is there through the procurement process. So I think these slight tweaks will make the program even more usable to our residents. I know there's been concerns about just getting the dollars out, and I think a part of that is just having good ideas to put them towards, and so this is a good way to have those ideas come in a lot easier. I also think, I mean, while we've tried to do the best job that we could in economic development to manage this, this really is a council program. I mean, you all are out there, you're meeting with constituents, You're talking about the program. There's so much, I think, that Chief of Staff Frank will be able to do to help support you all in advertising the program, advertising what we've done. I mean, there's over 70 projects that have been done. I know there was a recent Blade article around some of the projects that were done. I mean, just continuing to talk about these exciting things and let people know that this program is available if they have an idea and want us to consider it further. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to help Lucy through this transition and be a part of the process because I've learned a lot myself and want to ensure that it succeeds. So thank you again for the opportunity and happy to answer any questions.

I do want to add just a little update on the DIP program in general. So far in 2026, we've legislated three different DIP projects in District 1, 4, and 6. And we have a number of projects in the pipeline that are expected to be legislated, if not in the next legislative cycle, sometime before the end of this year. And 2025, we had 16 pieces of legislation. 2024, we had 19 pieces of legislation. And as of June 2026, we've had 74 pieces of legislation that are related to DIP, which is over $3.5 million of capital investment in each of our six districts. throughout these different programs. And before I end, I just want to say again a huge thank you to Chief Selhorst for the management and supervision of this program over the last seven plus years. I've learned a lot working with him the last two and a half years to get ready for this moment. And so I really appreciate the support and the vision that you have even with this transition. I also want to give a huge shout out to Jamie Takacs, the manager of debt and CIP, who is really the backbone of the program when it comes to legislation and then everything else, making sure that the departments are getting the correct account codes that they need, that we're submitting things appropriately and tracking that spending so that when the project's done, if there's leftover money, it's going back to you and into our program. so that we can use it for other things. So huge shout out to Jamie and Director Campbell for all the work that they do in the background. And with that, any questions?

Council President Williams asks for SCP.

Thank you.

And next we have from Dr. Jones, recognizing July as postpartum month.

Councilwoman Dr. Jones?

Yeah, so this recognition is just to highlight the phases of bringing new children into the family as well as adjustment in life and just the impact that it can have as far as just really changing your life of being a parent. and that would include postpartum, which is a major change within the woman's body due to just hormones and just getting adjusted. And I felt that it was appropriate to recognize this, especially since it's really tied to mental health, as well as there are different variations of postpartum, and it doesn't just stop within the first six months or first year of life. And so with this, I hope to not only just bring recognition to this phase Well, I wouldn't call it a phase, but just that new journey and the difficulties that it can have, but then also really begin the prioritization of different services that will focus more on postpartum and just to help women or other guardians navigate that and to be that support system. Because sometimes things can be overwhelming. This is a way to also show that we care just as a city that if we're talking about building population, this will be part of it. We have to be sure that the residents are taken care of when they're in this era of their life. I want to continue this conversation. I've been mentioning this, not just this resolution, but just mentioning this to other organizations. About really bringing this to the front mainly tied to that mental health aspect so I just asked my colleagues to really support this and to Really start to think about what does that entail if we're talking about attracting new families and building a new population? This will be part of that. So let's be proactive with those services and support groups So that and if you have any other questions, just let me know but thank you for Tolerating this and and also just hopefully hoping for your support for this month as well.

Thank you Seeing no further business this meeting is adjourned I