City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah, especially when we're still budgeting 400. All right. Well, good evening and thank you all for coming. I know we've got uh we've got two new and two existing uh council members to swear in for this this current term. Uh, and at this point, uh, Miss Ooler is going to be administering the oaths of office. And so, at this point, I'm not sure, Mr. Hussein, did I hear you say you wanted to go first? Yeah, I've got the little one here. And in like a half an hour, so we're we're teetering. It's fine. I don't I don't know that there's any uh I don't know that there Yeah. So, you might as well uh it'll be a tossup between him and Andre who

you might as well stand step on up and we'll get her started. Get that out before you.

Wow.

Multi-talented. I mean, that's impressive. I'll have you, whoever wants, if you want to just have your hand We'll have you raise your right hand. I Steven I do solemnly swear domly that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio. Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio. That I will uphold the charter and ordinances of the city of Worcester. I will uphold the charter and ordinances of the city of Worcester. and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of my office

impartially perform the duties of my office as at large council representative for the city of Worcester as at large council representative for the city of so help me

so help Well, Mr. Paul, you might as well be next. Did you want to hold

you raise your right hand? All right. I Drew Paul I Drew Paul do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio the Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio that I will uphold the charter and ordinances of the city of Worcester. that I will uphold the charter and ordinances of the city of Worcester. and that I will faithfully And that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of my office and and impartially perform the duties of my office as at large council representative as at large council representative for the city of Worcester for the city of Worcester. So help me God. So help me God.

Tyler might as well be next. What's funny? Congratulations. Congratulations to you as well.

All right. I Tyler Owens I Tyler Owens do solemnly swear solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio the Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio that I will uphold the charter and ordinances of the city of Worcester that I will uphold the charter and ordinances of the city of Worcester and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of my office and impartially perform the duties of my office as ward 4 council representative as w council representative

for the city City poster hold Sure.

I, Jennifer Warden, I, Jennifer Warden, do solemnly swear domly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio. Constitution and laws of the state of Ohio that I will uphold the charter and ordinances of the city of Worcester. I will the charter and ordinances of the city and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of my office and the duty of my office as war two council representative as two council representative for the city of

the city of All right. Well, that concludes our swearing in. And at this point, the meeting will start at 7. So, uh, feel free to mingle and we'll start it up at 7 o'clock. Thank you. Uh,

Now I know every guy. Thanks. Really appreciate that. I've got the All right. Well, good evening. It's 700 p.m. Welcome to our regularly scheduled meeting of Worcester City Council. Uh it is Monday, January 5th. We are also livereamed on YouTube as well as being here in council chambers. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, January 20th due to the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday. And with that, Miss Hamilton, if you'll please uh please read the roll call. Mr. Abernathy here. Mr. Gaffy here. Mr. Jose here. Mr. Malta here.

Mr. Owens here. Mr. Paul here. Miss Bordon here. All right, we have a quorum and the agenda will remain as presented. At this time, I ask you to stand and join the members of the city council in reciting the pledge of allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. All right. Do I have a motion from council regarding approval of the minutes from our last meeting in December? Motion. Motion by Mr. Abernathy. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Paul. All those in favor signify by saying I.

I. I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Communications from the mayor administration. Mr. Mayor, good evening.

Good evening, Mr. President, council members. Um, just uh really a brief rundown of what's happened recently and I think you can tell by the shortness of this list that a lot of people were enjoying holidays. And I hope everybody had a good successful holiday season and uh looking forward to a good 2026. Um the 16th of December the uh which city schools had a the regular board meeting and again the facilities plan was up for discussion. Um that'll come up again I think on the 20th of this month and you I think there's likely to be some activity out of that. We'll see. Uh and some of that could impact uh the city of Worcester depending on what that decision is made. The 17th we had the bimonthly managers meeting. That's every two months. Uh all the department managers meet here in this room and we do a kind of an update of everything. It's all current events and this one at the end of the year we bring in a lunch um pizza I think was typically it but um we kind of do end of the year recap and a thank you. So that's a nice event. The 19th we had the uh CRA housing council meeting to review the CRA projects out there. I think Miss Warden I think was part of that meeting. Um that's just an annual thing that we're required to do as part of that program. the same day, uh, Kim Farney, uh, many of you know Kim, a longtime Worester employee, had his retirement celebration. So, that was again a nice event. Um, a lot of years, a lot of memories, a lot of service to the community. So, want to recognize Kim and it's always, you know, we always have people coming and going, so you worry about singling out anybody because we're going to miss somebody, but Kim, I think, was is deserving of mention on that. Uh looking ahead, um we're having a my monthly meeting with Superintendent Tutor this Thursday and again gonna have some insights. He has a new board that he's working with, so he's going to have a little better feel of the lay of the land. I think I think they have a work

session tonight um or tomorrow night. Uh next week on the 13th is our first WEDC meeting of the uh year. That's every other month. And they're meeting at the career center for breakfast, which is always a good one. if you ever are on the WDC, that's one not to miss. Um, then we've got the the holiday on Mr. President mentioned on the 19th, which means council meeting on the 20th and there is a work session planned before that for laws and ordinance committees. So, um, that kind of segus right to the agenda or I'm sorry, before I jump there, Joel, did you have some things you want to add? I

I thought I' I'd correct you on one thing. We we had a chili cuss off for a manager meeting where they brought in chili and and Phil tried to pass his off. He went and bought some Wendy's chili. He didn't win. So that was that was good. No, I won our lottery. You did? Yeah.

Technically my husband. I did I did want to just bring up a couple of highlights from our last uh memo update. Um buried in there um on one of the pages you probably saw. We had six water main breaks for the month of December, which is pretty high for us, but it had a lot to do with the weather we were having. Um for a total of 30 in 2025. So just give you an idea, our 10-year average is about 32 a year. The last couple years have been pretty low. um mostly weather related, but because of the sort of the extended cold we had, we had a few more um that brought us got us closer to that 10-year average this last year. Um and speaking of the weather, um there was some updates on our our snow and ice control operations and our leaf pickup. So, we were out quite a bit um especially in the last few weeks of the year. Um and just to highlight, we've we had applied at least by the end of the year 1780 tons of salt. the the average salt in the last five years was 563 tons. So quite a bit more. Um and we actually went and talked to the ODO garage to make sure if we needed it, we could get some salt for them if we had another uh storm blow through here. But 13 events where we went out and applied that. Um so I just I say that to to to also um mention that it did affect our our leaf pickup operations this year. So um they are actively out. They were out today and we we did some update and an updated schedule um on our social media here just just this afternoon and they're hoping within the next week to complete what is normally our round two um of of leaf pickup and then they're going to start a round three and they're hoping within about 10 days to two weeks since it should be less leaves they can they can finish that up. So hopefully by you know January 15th or 16th they'll complete a third round. We don't

typically haven't done a third round that so this is a little bit new but with the sort of the uniqueness we've had this year we thought that would be a good service to the community to do that. So just wanted to give you a heads up. Thank you. There be any adverse effect on the budget to that? No I don't think so we I mean a few more hours of overtime and that kind of thing. Nothing significant.

No. Uh in my defense, I was coming from the hospital board meeting, so I didn't get to participate in the fully, but I did make the tail end of the meeting. So, but I had forgotten that. So, thanks. Um looking ahead to the agenda, um the first thing we have, uh we have an opening on the civil service committee. It's kind of explained there in the memo that's attached. I just want to thank you, Red Kramer, for 12 years of serving on that and also to Peggy Schmidtz for agreeing to serve that. that committee doesn't or that commission doesn't meet often, but it's still you have to have it staffed and you have to be ready to go when they do have an occasion uh to be used. So that uh I make the nomination and then uh council's got to approve the uh appointment or I should say I make the appointment, council has to approve. Um three new items of legislation all on first reading. The first is the package of amendments to the residential zoning code. It needs to remain on first reading um as it will require public hearing and that's the subject of next um the laws and ordinance committee meeting at the next meeting. Um the second is the last minute addition seeking to amend the annual appropriation ordinance and Andre will be speaking to that shortly and that will require three readings or a suspension of the rules. And the third item is a budget item to upgrade IT equipment u and it does not require three readings. Uh to wrap up, I'll say we have a lot of important business teed up for 2026. There are sure to be some important items that come up during the course of the year that aren't even on our radar right now. Uh but even with that in mind, I am fairly confident in saying that in my opinion, this uh zoning code amendment package is probably going to be the most important piece of legislation that you're going to see this year as far as the long-term impact. Um, this was a massive undertaking by Vince Marian and the volunteers on the steering committee. And again, I don't think I can say this enough. I want to thank Vince for his

efforts on that and for all the volunteers that were involved. Um, we are not going to see the results from that overnight, but over the course of time, it should result in more investment in our existing residential neighborhoods, more housing overall, and more affordable housing. So, uh, with that, Mr. President, back to you. All right, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. along the lines of the appointment uh for Peggy Schmidtz to the Civil Service Commission. Do I have a motion from councel to accept the nomination from the mayor? Is there a second? Second. All in favor signify by saying I. I.

Any opposed? Okay. And moving on, we do have we have no communications from the public related to any legislative pieces, but we do have a liquor control request, which Miss Hamilton will read for us. We received a liquor control request for a new C1 and C2 license for Bell Stores, Inc., Bell Stores, 1168 4784 Cleveland Road, Worcester. And then I put in a little description about what each C1 and C2 means. And I believe this is the one that's going in up there in Madisonburg at the corner of Cleveland and Smithville Western. Okay, makes sense. Motion to wave.

All right. Well, save me from even having to explain it. So, not a problem. So, at this point, motion to wave hearing. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor of waving the hearing signify by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Just trying to help you, Craig.

No problem. Because we have such a long agenda this evening, we don't want to consume too much time unnecessarily. I understand. All right. Well, we move on to committee reports, which at this point we have none. Uh we have no public hearings this meeting, but as the mayor stated, we'll just say it again for the sake of repetition that um on the 20th we have a uh public hearing with the related to the new zoning that we'll hear about this evening. Yep. And what time was that meeting going to be?

Uh the committee meeting at 6:30 or 6 o'clock. Public hearing has to happen during the council meeting. Yes. All right. And we have no no unfinished business. So, we'll get right into our new business, which is Ordinance 2026-01, which Miss Hamilton will read for us. Ordinance number 2026-01, an ordinance amending and replacing part 11, planning and zoning code, of the codified ordinances of the city of Worcester, Ohio, and the official zoning map. Mr. M, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. President. Uh yes, this is an update that the city's been working on uh with uh under the purview of Mr. Marian who's in attendance uh to update our residential zoning code. Um we I was going to save questions and comments until our next meeting for our planned laws and ordinances committee. Of course, all of council's welcome to attend and that'll give everybody some more time to digest um kind of what's before us. Um and the uh it does come with a full recommendation from the plan from the planning commission as well which they approved it last month. But yes, if anybody has anything, Mr. Marian's here. Otherwise, we'll leave this on first reading. Okay. Any questions for Mr. Marian?

Um I have one. Um so I know part of the goal is to increase the number of lots which increases the number of houses that can be built and you know thus more affordable housing. Do we know as the city how many more lots like decreasing the sizes will allow there to be? So specific number of lots uh I don't have a specific number.

Uh the way uh that's a good question. The way it will work is if adopted uh there'll be two new uh zoning districts uh introduced into the into the uh code. They're called transition districts that will allow for greater flexibility of use in terms of uh multifamily uh duplexes, triplex, quadplexes stacked higher in some in some areas. Uh but a more significant uh or just as equal uh uh opportunity will be the revising of our single family residential districts, our R1 and R2. Uh currently we have two primary uh uh residential districts outside of the downtown area that are R1 and R2, both with different size lot standards. Uh R1 is your traditional almost a quarter of an acre of land, a larger home. Uh R2 is just a smaller same exact regulations, just smaller lots,

different setbacks. Uh the proposal is to eliminate the current R2 zoning district. uh uh for the majority of the city and uh merge that into the R1 with the R1 adopting the current R2 standards for lots. Uh uh I I think we might be able to work on getting an area of what that would equal to uh for the next meeting.

Okay. Yeah. And even just a you know general sense of like percent how many more we could have. Right. Now, of course, uh some of that's going to be dependent on the amount of land that's available for development. Uh everything that's been developed over the last uh three years has been developed under the R2 standards with the smaller lots. Uh and everything that's been annexed uh up until the most recent one has been zoned R2 for smaller lots. Uh we could do a comparison of what those developments would have looked like R1 versus R2, which will give you an idea of Sure. the difference. Thank you. Yep.

Okay. Any other questions? And I also do believe Mr. Marian, you said OM would be here for the committee meeting as well. Yes. Uh uh the the gentleman who was uh working with us through OHM through the uh the the draft process will be present for for questions also. Very good. So yeah, we'll uh look forward to seeing everybody uh 6 o'clock for laws and ordinances talk about this in greater detail. Okay. Well, and we've given it its first reading. Thank you very much. Moving on. Ordinance 2026-02. Miss Hamilton, if you could please read it for us.

An ordinance amending the an Ordinance number 2026-02. An ordinance amending the annual appropriation ordinance and allowing for immediate enactment. Uh Mr. Rabber Matthew, the floor is yours. Well, Mr. Doria, what did we get ourselves into? I thought we were done with the budget. I had one job to do. I messed it up. So, so I actually Yes, I I I omitted one line that's kind of kind of important. Our street uh lights budget. So, out of the 3,000 lines of budget, I missed that one. And uh got to get that added in there.

Yeah. So, it's kind of got kind of important. So, I apologize, but that was human error. And I think it's the first time in 34 years I've done something that stupid. But well, I was going to say the budget. Sorry. Careful what you own. My Anybody else want to give Mr. Dhy a hard time or ask him uh any questions about the street lights? Well, my only question would be where's the money going to come from then since we didn't haven't appropriated it? Okay.

So, the money it was technically accounted for. It was just not explicitly stated in the budget. Okay. Um Yeah. But at least I didn't bring seven tips in front of you tonight. That would have been worse. That you wouldn't have done that if you made Jonathan do it. It's fine. This we can do. Oh, Andre. Okay, with that I'm going to motion to suspend the rules. All right, motion to suspend the rules. Second. Second by Mr. Hussein.

Good. Mr. President, can I address Mr. Owens's question a little bit and just make it clear on this. So through the budget we at the end have days in cash left. We have the cash reserve left and that number is in fact we were close to the cap that we we had and it's just going to go to the bottom line. So we'll have about four days less cash in reserve than as originally seen. Okay. Obviously more cash reserves better. I'd prefer to have the money than not have it. But as far as impact in other areas of the budget, it's just that bottom line number.

Okay. And we we do literally have to pay to keep the lights on. Um Joel, this might be a question for you though. Um is there anything that we as a city can do or are doing to bring the lights to be more efficient so that way we are not spending half a million dollars on lights a year. Yeah, there's and there's been some discussion around that over the last year. I'd be happy to share that with you. But yes, we're in a sort of a long-term multi-year project with a to install LED and as well. Some areas want more lights.

Okay. All right. Miss Hamilton, you call the role on the suspension of the rules. Mr. Abernathy? Yes. Mr. Gaffy? Yes. Miss Warden? Yes. Mr. Jose? Yes. Mr. Owens? Yes. Mr. Paul? Yes. Mr. Malta? Yes. Motion to adopt. Motion to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Owen. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Miss Warden? Yes. Mr. Jose? Yes. Mr. Owens? Yes. Mr. Paul? Yes. Mr. Malta? Yes.

Okay. And our last item this evening, resolution 2026-01. as the mayor mentioned is a budgeted item will be introduced by Mr. Abernathy, but Miss Hamilton, please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-01, a resolution authorizing the director of administration to purchase a network structure upgrade and allowing for immediate enactment. Mr. Abernafy, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Uh this project is to replace the servers, storage and the uh virtual environment infrastructure with a new hyperconverged infrastructure, the HCI. Um it's an IT framework that combines uh computing, storage, networking, and virtualization into a single software system. So essentially the the current server and everything's just it's past its useful life. Um, we've been piecing it together for a while, trying to fix it, but at this point it's becoming more expensive just to try and fix it and cobble it together. It's more costefficient and honestly just better for the city as a whole to just get a whole new system together. So, uh, I'll open it up for questions if anybody has any questions around it, but it is a budget item and it's going to modernize our systems here. Seeing none, I'll

Sorry, I have a question. Um, will there be any conflicts with the um the security measures that we have in place? Is that something that we're going to then also need to upgrade to work to coincide with this new system or hopefully not. It actually will enhance our Okay. Security. And is this cloud-based or is this a physical server that you will have in house as well? Um, for the most part, this is inhouse stuff. There will be some command and control that's in the clouds, but for the most part, thank you. Any additional

just for the new council people? Thank you, Joel. Um, this is maybe the one time a year you come if you're lucky. About once a year. Um, do we know about how long it'll take? I know obviously with the AI boom, it is, you know, causing lead times to increase. Oh, uh, do we know how long it will take for us to be able to like purchase the system and get it in? I know there are starting to be a lot of crunches with RAM and all of that stuff. So,

why we're trying to, you know, get on it. We've been working on investigating and check what brand what stuff we get last quarter of the year. And uh so that's why we're hoping to get this approved because we've kind of got the deals worked out. We're purchasing off a state contract. It looks like the times we're pretty good right now, but like you said, any additional questions? Motion to adopt. Motion to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Paul. Miss Hampton, please call the role on the adoption. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Jose, yes.

Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. Mr. Malta, yes. Okay, we have new computer equipment. Well, we will when we receive it, but we'll move on to miscellaneous, which at this point, uh, we had one person from the public sign up. Mr. Barnett, I want to step up and good. Enlighten us, please. Happy New Year, Happy New Year.

Uh, last summer I was walking into one of our local stores and young man I know, he said, "Hey, old man." He said, "I need to talk to you." I said, "Okay, let's talk." He said, "Uh, you know, you're wasting your time putting that sign in your yard." I said, 'I ain't. Why is that? He said, 'Well, I know a couple guys that work for a construction company. Their boss said the city hall, somebody down the city guaranteed that the roundabout would be built. I think that that's how the system worked. I don't know. But I'm telling you, people are thinking this is ODOT funded. This is grants. It isn't that. People need to know exactly where this money is coming out of our budget. It's coming out of everyone's pockets. You know, I just there's five seats out there I can vote for and every one of them seats is filled by somebody I voted for. I can probably say that. I'm a registered voter. I don't miss an election. If I have to, I'll knock on every door and whisker and let the people know where this money's coming from. I will. It won't kill me. I got all the time in the world. It's It won't kill me. I understand you got to work with Joel and Mary, but you don't work. You know who you work for. I don't have I want to thank you for your time.

Thank you. All right. Well, I guess Mr. Gaffy, we'll start with you this evening.

All right. You really like going right every uh every time here. Um don't really have a whole lot for this evening aside from, you know, with the zoning stuff coming up, but it is important and I know it can be a little bit of a a heavy read. um especially if you're not used to how the stuff is worded, things like that. I know Mr. Marion is very uh very helpful and does a very good job explaining some of this stuff and having been on the steering committee for this thing, I will say uh he did a very good job um putting together uh I think a pretty good compromise with some of the issues and things that that came up throughout the steering committee. So, I just wanted to put a plug in for you there because I I do feel like you did a very good job kind of coming to a a good solution here and bringing it to to city council. So, that's it for me tonight.

All right. Thank you, Miss Warden. Thank you. Um I just want to welcome our newest members of uh city council. Tyler, really you're the the true rookie now since Drew was able to sit here through a couple of meetings. Um, I wonder if somebody at city hall could look up um whether or not Drew's uh first term was a record. Um, but anyways, it's it's nice to have both of you on board and I look forward to serving the next four years with you. Thank you. And that's all,

Mr. Malta. Thank you, sir. Happy New Year to everybody. Thank you all for attending and all those that are watching. Welcome aboard, everybody that's new here. Two new faces. Drew's been here a little bit, but uh yes, welcome. And that's all I have tonight. Pretty good. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Thank you. Um thank you all for coming out. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Happy New Year, everyone. Um excited to uh get to work for the people of Worcester this year. All right. Very good. Thank you, M. Ruse.

Yes. Hope everybody had a happy and safe holiday season and looking forward to getting after it this year. We'll see everybody on January the 20th. Mr. Paul,

I have two things. Number one, I want to thank the road crews for keeping our roads safe during the holidays. There were a lot of people in Worcester from out of town and they noticed that we were out. Even though it wasn't the easiest of conditions to mop up the roads, there was definitely effort on the part of the city. So, thank you. Secondly, I had an opportunity uh on well technically Sunday morning from 3:00 to 5 in the morning to chaperon a um an event that was hosted by Rotary. All of the Rotary Exchange students in Northern Ohio converged on Worcester and I had a meeting here and I thought it was great to see people from all over the world literally coming to our town and having us be the opportunity to represent what America stands for. And I thought that was pretty neat. I want to thank Rotary for doing it and uh I want to compliment the young individuals who were there. I think they represented their countries well and we're fortunate to have them in our country right now.

Thank you, Mr. Abernathy.

Welcome back, Mr. Jose and Miss Warden. And uh welcome to Mr. Owens and Mr. Paul, although you've sat by me for a couple meetings now. So, um I know election season is awfully fun and glad to have it's over and you're back in a in your seat and for a couple of you getting to finally sit down and join and I'm just uh curious. First meeting is a nice speedy one, but you're on the other side finally. So, um hopefully it was a good experience, but uh I want to thank Mr. Barnett for coming and and enlightening us as as he always does. I appreciate you coming and speaking your mind. Always good to have you here. And with that, um, I have nothing else.

All right. Very good. Uh, I do I do have, uh, just as an FYI, I will not be here on the 20th. Uh, Mr. Abernathy will be, uh, conducting the meeting. And so, at this point, if it goes poorly, it's not my fault. And with that, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I we are ajourned. Thank you. 29 half hour. Wow. Okay. So, zoning in this thing is Thursday or is it uh the planning commission? Yeah. Yeah. Where is it? Is that here? Here. Okay. At six. Are you