City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh, really? Yeah, someone doesn't

I do sometimes try to remember to like use so it always gives people that they can go but you never people's turn signal like these people are driving around like with their turn signal on all day. I got to figure out my readers. So we need magnifying glasses for some of this. Can you pass those down? Well, if you take a picture with your phone and zoom in.

All right, I got six o' So I will call this finance committee meeting to order. We are going to be covering I believe Q1 financials and whatever our esteemed direct director of finance Andre Dorio wishes to grace us with. So with that I'll kick it over to you Mr. Doria.

Okay. So I will expeditiously go through these. If there are any questions or questions that are very important, I want to make sure we get those answered. Then when I'm finished, I'll turn it over to the captain and the captain Joel will go over um operations. Um so we'll head right in. I will say that the budgetary side is remarkably unremarkable. That's which that's the way we want to have it. Um but the first part of the report, I always like to show what I call our activity measures. And I would draw your attention to the top, which is our income tax receipts. You'll see that the bottom line, our total receipts, net of refunds for the quarter is up uh I think 7.7% or $465,000. That's very good considering uh March year-over-year inflation was 3.3%. So this is real real economic growth, not inflation growth. Um, in those individual categories, you'll see that uh withholding uh was up 5% or 250 and business net profits was up a staggering 42.7% or $242,000. I would add that the reason why individual was down about $28,000 or 7.1% is because uh of the refund effect. We had uh greater refunds in in uh this this year versus last year. 63,000 uh versus I think 24 last year. So any all in all that that's looking really good our income tax receipts the other below there other good measures if you'll see our building permit valuations I'll give all credit to Joe back here but I don't know what he's doing to drum up that business but we were at 13.3 million in our building permit valuations last year through the first quarter we're at 32.7 million as you can see that's a huge increase there so that's a good sign for our local economy lodging tax through February down about 3% which is only $1,400 and

that's how we started last year strangely enough and we ended up up 1%. So not worried at all about that either. And water again if you look at our water build we build 9% more which is pretty incredible the this first quarter. Um and here's why it's even more incredible because if I I look back to 2015 2015 we build 412 million gallons. In 2024, we built 345 million gallons. That's 67 million gallon decrease or about a reduction of 2% per year for a 9-year period, which is pretty amazing. And that's because people were conserving. On the other side of the equation, our industrial was up 294 million gallons during that same period. So, it's pretty amazing. Um well we yes it's it's you know our our uh factories or not factories but food producer Daisy Daisy's accounted for a lot of that. Um but the other thing is I won't really comment on that. You'll see I keep the unemployment rates they were uh Ohio and the United States was released through February Janu which Wayne County hasn't released yet. And the final thing I would say which is again more good news, Wayne County sales tax for the period of uh January and February was up six and a half%. Again is above the rate of inflation. Um so I'd entertain any questions if any questions about our economic indicators and if not I'll move right to the general fund financial information. Oh, our captain has something. Captain has something.

Can I add one thing? Yes. I was talking to Joe about the increase in the in the construction valuation and and you'll see this fluctuate depending on big projects but this this for this quarter um some of the largest part we didn't get into the details twothirds maybe of it is two restaurants that were you know those permits were issued here this quarter which were you know um Chick-fil-A and um Texas Roadhouse and then the uh the village network has a very large um building that they're building and those accounted for a large chunk of that increase. So you know all right so if I could draw your attention to page two page two is our our general fund you're going to see our revenues on the top expenditures on the bottom and peg against budget for year-to- date first quarter. So the other thing I did here differently and normally I would group taxes all together but since in since our property taxes are more than what they used to be I thought I would break those out. So since there's three tax components, I broke all three out. So as you'll see, the first three items are income, property, and hotel taxes. So income taxes are from budget standpoint, right on budget. Um our property taxes show they're, you know, over budget, but keep in mind we get those twice a year, March and October normally. So they're going to look skewed much on the budget side. But um there was that I had comment on. And uh under the grants, you see the the percentage is crazy there. That's only because the timing of a grant. We we thought we were going to get it in the 2025 and we got it early in 2026. Um otherwise, we're in a really good place. You'll see our our revenues at the bottom line there were 2% 2.6% over budget. So that's obviously a favorable thing. Uh on the expenditure side, um in every every uh department or program,

but one, our personal services are under budget. And the reason it's not under the um transportation services is because for the first three months of the year, we had a little more overtime on uh the snow and ice control than we had the prior year. That's all. So again, it just um shows that that category, but all in all, I would say we if you look at the bottom here, the bottom again, we're in a good place. We're right about the same on a favorable variance on the on our expense side. So together, that's a 5% delta right there to the good. So I would I would expect that, but we're very again happy to see that. So So I see we're in a good place with our general funds. Andre, you happen to know to know um where the property tax was at Q1 this time last year.

Um let me see. I mean it was very close to this Steve. I'm going to say 25.

So yeah, that was the big bump we got last year over the year prior. So yeah, we're we're just slightly under those. Yeah. So if there questions page three, page three is uh we have three special revenue funds we that we we use to uh do our street maintenance repair. Um you'll see that we are and ju just as a reminder intergovernmental well the first one is taxes. So we we have a tax levied on our license plate. So if you live in Worcester and need license permissive tax that's that would that be that direct taxes intergovernmental are taxes that we get from other governments. So we get those from the state Ohio when you pay your state fees and and some county fees as that as well. But um so you're going to see that again we're right right on on the money as our revenue to budget and then on the on the other side the expenses that side of the ledger were 2% under budget. So again, we'll categorize right on. It's obviously unremarkable good news and again what we would expect, but then there's no question. So I I'll go to the next page which is page four and it should be our capital projects fund. So there's a couple items that we I just want to draw your attention to. You'll see the intergovernmental which is line one under revenues there that that are grant those are grant proceeds and again just a reminder these are reimburseable grants. So once construction season starts up and we we submit uh for these mostly federal federal grants. Thank you. Um we will um you'll start seeing monies coming in there. Um there's something else. Oh, I wanted to also point out that under the miscellaneous section,

uh that 70,000 there was uh it's a donation for the Oakill Pond uh dredging and restoration project which is underway right now if you drive by there. So again, we will get once that's finished, they will get that reimbured for that and you'll see that most likely in quarter two or quarter three $3 donation. Uh no, I'm sorry. It's the 70 and the 70 that I budgeted. The three is just was just somebody, you know, we might have sold something on something called gov deals or somebody dropped it on the floor and you didn't know where to put it. Yes. So, yeah, we try to count it, you know, to the penny. That's the fund that's over to Wayne County Community Foundation.

Yeah. So, that would be from the Wayne County Community Foundation, the 70,000 donations. So, but you'll see that, like I said, soon. Um, if there's no questions, the next page against is the water fund. And there's a there are a couple items to note on here. Um our second category there which again intergovernmental services are are grants. So those haven't come in yet obviously but charges for services that's the big one we obviously watch because that's our big revenue driver and we're you know uh four 40 basis points under budget or I consider that right on budget. Um the other thing I did want to comment on this was that under the miscellaneous in this section um I think it's like six items down under revenue. You'll see that I budgeted 970,000. The big item here was something uh called the Forever Chemicals or PIFA chemical settlement we received which thanks to uh Mike Fritz filled out a bunch of paperwork for a lawsuit. So, we were supposed to receive uh the 9 about 940 in 2026. Well, they sent it at the end of 2025. So, I recorded that 25. However, they've been updating, you know, with these lawsuits. So, we we're scheduled to receive 339,000 this year. So, that's going to budget versus actual is always obvious going to be low. So, just but we did receive it uh la end of last year. So, I got the money and again they they they upped their amount for uh plus received in 2026 and all we all we did is just fill out a uh class action paperwork. That really it I don't want to say downplay but put a lot of time and effort into it but compliment him for doing that. Um and again anyway so under the expenditures here our personal services you'll see and our on andm are under budget. So operating expenses are

five and a half% under budget on every scenario. For the most part, you're going to see our capital under budget. That's because I think I mention this every first quarter is that our construction season starts right now. So it's 52 starting to ramp up through obviously through the third quarter. Um so that's all all I really had to say on again that's good news on the water fund. Uh next slide please. Next fund would be our our water boost pro fund. And and again I draw your attention to line number two. That's our charge services char services are basically 80 basis points 1% over budget for three three months. Again that's a favorable uh thing. And then um we did on the down below that we did have a big debt proceed payment. It's it's an EPA loan that BPA gave us. So we had some uh expenditures in the fourth quarter that were significant and we got reimbured in the first quarter this year. So that's why it looks like it's over budget just from that perspective. But all in all, you'll see that our revenues came in at 6% over for the first quarter. But again, my concern obvious is the charge for services, which is our bread and butter. Um and on the same thing on the on the uh water push control fund on the expenditure side you'll see that uh our total operating expenditures were 5% under budget which included a 2% in the personal services and then a 10% under and m uh so again favorable first quarter results for our water pollution control fund and I would also reiterate to you that so if you look at it so if you look at um if you look at uh usage the gallons treated residential 215 versus 2024, we we treated 74 million gallons less, but under the

industrial, we treated 320.6 million more. Again, that just flip-flops just like the water. Before we move on, just before we move on, yeah, on the fines, licenses, and permits. Yeah, those are is that due to construction or So, you know what that normally is? somebody doesn't bet on that's so

good question. So and then you're going to see the theme continue. The next slide number page number seven is our storm drainage fund. So we're basically statistically right on for our charges for services. Um, let's see. Interest income I believe was a little over and uh miscellaneous, I can't remember why miscellaneous was. I'll have to catch the next meeting that one, but uh so you'll see we're about 2% or 1.8% actually over uh where we should be budget wise. And same thing on the other side where our operating expenses are 4% under budget including purchase. a good thing and our uh our I think we have two projects budget they haven't started yet that's why you're seeing zero under the capital aside so again favorable is there as well and then a little bit of a yawner here on page eight our trash fund again we contract this out so most often it will be within um you know within a couple uh either no variance or within you know 20 to 50 basis point variance That's just to fill you in. Now, something kind of exciting. If if you turn to page number nine, that this is a snapshot of our our port our our portfolio summary at March 31st, 2026. So, for a little comparison sake, let's go back and look uh one last year quarter. So, this year we're averaging 3.95 yield maturity, our weighted average yield maturity. Last year at this time, we were at 3.23, 23 which is a 72 basis point difference. So and if you look at the value of our portfolio 106 million bucks there if you do the annual math on that that's like 700 that's $750,000 that's significant dollars people. So we are taking advantage obviously of our

current integrate environment and we will continue to do so. Um our our measure of maturity which is our weighted average maturity in years uh last year was 206 is up a little bit at 208 this year. Um and it should be noted that we our average credit rating in this portfolio is double A+ which is good. Um is there anything else I want to uh Andre could you just explain? Yeah, pardon my ignorance weighted average life in years. Yeah. What's that signal? Well, our weight average life in years is significantly pretty much the same as the weight average maturity, but there's slight differences in their um

I guess what's that measuring or what should I consider?

So, well, so life in years versus maturity some some of these are callables. So, there's just slight variations in that. And for our purposes, you can see there's there's no difference. Now the portfolio effective duration is a price uh sensitive uh to interest rates which is a measure of risk. So that's why it's showing you duration because it is uh it's showing you those um colorables and what else we have I think we just say some colorables. So that's why that that effective duration is slightly lower because it it includes those calculations of that.

So just pretty much the average length of what we have inside the investment portfolio. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you. And then there's a little snapshot which shows you in the middle there US agencies, treasuries, CDs and money market funds. We've been able to take advantage of favorable yield rates with inflationary pressures things going on right now. Can we expect that to continue or do you plan to see it decreasing?

I mean for Yeah, right now we're we're I want to say optimistically bullish on current integrated environment for the next at least through November. And the other nice thing that we're taking advantage of is the yield curve, as you know, even the short side is fairly significantly high compared to what it was. Um, we're actually like taking playing the float aggressively. I'll say in three days like over the weekend we're dumping you know dumping the even for three days and even if we're going to make 2,700 bucks or you know I mean so we're we've been aggressively doing that so oh I know what I wanted to say interestingly enough I look back at 2023 we our yield to maturity was 173

so significantly higher anyway so yeah optimistic so it was a good first quarter So, Captain, what's next?

Oh, there's some the rest of the presentation something Andre and I worked worked on together. Um, this is just a snapshot which was just published in your spring summer newsletter. So, Andre already went over the first three bullets there, but one of the things we wanted to point out, especially with all the talk that's going on with property tax and taxes right now, is uh that just so everybody is aware of this and Andre talked about the sales tax or yeah, the county sales tax going up, which is great, you know, and a good indicator, but a lot of a lot of our public don't understand that we don't the cities in Ohio anyway. It's different in different states, but in Ohio's municipalities don't receive zero sales tax. So, but you know, and this is something I worked with with uh Jonathan on here, Worcester accounts for over 45% of all of the county sales tax, which makes sense. We're the county seat. There's a lot of a lot of your, you know, your purchases and things, but that's pretty significant. Um, and if you look at all taxes, property tax, sales tax, um, it's it's just under 27% Lorist generates for the entire county. Um, so in so when you look at all everything else together, I'm sorry, with property taxes. Then when you look at everything together, it's almost 34% of all county revenues are derived from taxes generated in the city of Worcester, which is which is significant. Um, so just just thought that was an interesting point. Um and then these uh these graphs here are right out of what we call what finance and um generates every year called the annual comprehensive financial report which is on it's usually like a year year behind. So these are up to 24. But when we were talking about looking at the first quarter, we thought, you know, there's really some good information that that gives you sort of a a 30,000 foot view

or how are we doing as a city as we're every year budgeting, every year putting money into capital, every year issuing debt or paying off debt. Um just to give you, you know, an overall how how have we been doing and where are we going overall? Um as you're seeing these things. Yeah. Then you'll find those at the end of at the last section of our our annual comprehensive financial report. Right. And this graph just it says not net finance position but if you're familiar with public I'm sorry private sector it's like over your equity or your overall net worth. So the city's net worth as you see it's going up which is I guess a good thing. Yeah.

Between this one and the next page what happened in 20 in 2017 and 18 to account for that. Well it wasn't co I can tell you that a good question. Um, I mean it looks like according to the next slide, our liabilities jumped, but I was trying to rack my brain. What happened? Yeah, let me think. Safety center. What's that? Safety center. When was that? Safety center was 16. It might have been something hit. Yeah, I don't know. Steve, I will check that and get back to you. Let me just curious. No, no, that's a great question. But um, yeah, and yeah, these two are both both related. You know, this is just a combined of the two

and you can see where the liabilities take up. You know what I I this probably was so we had to start this is going to sound strange but so we have to add our oper liability even though we're not responsible for that and and I'm I'm pretty sure that was it. So it it ticked off. Yeah. So I think that was that was Oper's liability and with better investment returns you're seeing that liability less on that side of the opers. That's exactly what it was. Okay. I just had to talk that through. Yeah. And obviously assets are what we what we own and liabilities are what we owe. So those are our cars, roads, buildings, and then liabilities or our bonds, notes, and is that opers, comps, accounts payable. Anyway, sorry.

The nice thing what it shows is our assets, you know, are greater than our obligations. So which is that's where we want to be, you know, which is good. And and because of the trend you're seeing, you know, that's, you know, that's showing an upward trend. just is we're just that's just continually more financially secure every every year. So that's it's all good just but we thought it' be it's good information. We've been publishing it every year and it's like you know this is really something this is just separating those two out but you combine them you get you get the previous one and so you're going to see that same thing here. See how that jump and that was the implementation of that that um opers and this is only our governmental funds. If you look at the business type funds, it's even worse because the hospitals in there, you know, with their large sure employment base. But

anyway, but we had to file, we had to follow the the government county standards practices even though again we're not we at the city of Worester are on the hook for our opers. Some a lot of states they are most I would say they are for their like Kalpers and their other state funded pension plans. Anyway, but what you're seeing is here is we're the trends. We look at the trends and then you see we're on the more sustainable side.

Yeah. So total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects every year. So here again this one you want to see the trend going down which you do see um which is good. You that if it's falling we're gaining you know we're we're obviously continuing to have more revenue than our than our obligations. So the next slide is Joel's favorite because it talks about building stuff. So yeah, current values of the of the city's physical aspects compared to their original cost. Um so you know really what it's telling you is how well are we keeping up with our infrastructure and our assets. Um how how well are maintaining that infrastructure. So a low value would mean that things are aging and wearing out. But since it you know and if if it's declining trend that means we're falling behind on our mains. But if it's stable or rising so it's just stable we're keeping up. We're just keeping up. But if it's rising, you know, we're we're doing more than keeping up with our assets and with our infrastructure. So,

and and the key is it's netbook value, which means what we paid for it less depreciation. So, every year appreciation is showing that you know like this like the bros have less useful life, safety center has less useful life. So, that number is shrinking even though but yet our our percentage is increasing because we're actually reinvesting in our assets. And when we get into more of the the nuts and bolts of the operations, then you'll see why that is. You know, we'll talk about some of those things. I'll show you right now. So now these these are uh data also out of some of the statistical and sections in the uh annual comprehensive financial report. Um but this is getting a little more granular. Um so what you're seeing here is streets and transportation which includes public transit, street maintenance, snow and ice removal, all those things together. And so you see the total cost, which has been pretty darn consistent, you know, for the last five, five, six years. Um, but the other thing you see are the cost per mile of street. So you're you're taking account how much it costs, inflation, everything else, but also we're adding miles of street anytime there's an annexation, you know, so you want to look at this and see how are we doing overall. Um, so you see that the cost per mile is, you know, going up. It's measured going up a little bit. That's probably mostly just inflation for materials and things. And then then just looking at feet of street per citizen. So how many you you hear people talk about, oh there's been tons of annexation, tons of you. Well, not not really because if you look at this, you'll see that it hasn't really, you know, population's gone up a little bit historically. It's starting to go down now, but uh historically. So you're you're basically not gaining more street overall than you are a little bit of population. So

what do you just to attribute this? This is pretty incredible given inflationary rates over the last five years. Joel, how are we maintaining essentially the EKG of a rock on the total cost, right?

So Kurt guys do a great job, you know, so we do a lot we do as much in-house as we can, you know, and so we do both and and John Rice and Kurt do a good job of dividing up the projects and doing a lot. So you're saving a lot in labor if you can do some things inhouse. Um, I don't think we've seen a huge increase in asphalt. We probably will be, but we haven't been for the last five. This is just the last five years. So, it looks different if you go back, you know, 20 years, which we have, if you're interested in that. Um, but, uh, I I think we haven't seen that huge increase, you know. Um, so I think that's part of it. Um, the other one is we haven't when we when we have done some annexations, you haven't seen a big increase in mileage. you know, it's been areas of land like the grand farm, which wouldn't be in this calculations yet, but that was mostly land, not 11 miles of streets. Um, so, and we're just doing a good job keeping up with stuff. Um, you might see a little jump because we'll start booking some of those transit services, you know, you'll probably see in future years, but even then, got a lot of grant money that takes that down. So, that's good as well. But I think this just shows, you know, we're doing a pretty good job. maintaining. The only thing is we just haven't been increasing people. So we're even though you might see some more miles of roads and things like that and um we haven't really you we barely increased people. That's been if you look at over the years hasn't been a significant increase. Next one this is just strictly roads. Um and so this was data right from you know engineering and maintenance of actual just streets. nothing. It doesn't include snow and ice removal. Doesn't include transit or anything else like that. Um so and it also this also includes any work ODOT did inside the city of limits which there are. So those are the some of the

spikes you see here. You see um peaks in 18 20 and 22. So, in 2022, for those that you that were here, then um we came back towards the end of the the year and we said, "Let's we we have money. We can do another million dollars of concrete repair and other things." So, we came to council, basically did twice the uh the paving that year, you know, appropriated some more money, did some more um concrete work at that time right at the end of 21, bid it out and then build it in 22. Um in 2020 we had a large microsurfacing local paving LPA um and two major reconstructions that we did at that time West Highland and Sunset Lane. So that's the peak the spike there. Um and then 2018 was that was one of those large urban paving project ODOT did when they came through and did it. So we still are showing how much was paved even though we didn't pay much of that. So So just it is fluctuate based on projects. you know, we about every other year we do a a sort of a large project reconstruction. So that's why you'll see it fluctuate a little bit.

And most communities that publish the called ACER uh publish this data. So you can actually if you're a data geeker wondering how your neighbors doing like hey what are what's Ashton doing? This the service indicator you can normally get a decent gauge on comm on what you're spending versus the community next to you or any community basically. Right. So that average there, we've averaged, you know, resurfacing, paving, reconstruction about 10 miles a year and about $2.1 million that's been done. So, um, some other service indicators, this is our police division. And what you see here in green, total calls for service. You can see those have pretty significantly gone up over the years, over the last five years. Um, the blue though is your cost per unit or cost per service. you see that going down. Again, we haven't added people um or or very little. So, that's why you see that. And then the red is cost per citizen, which you see is pretty pretty level um over over the years over the last few years. So,

Joel, again, sorry to be the just asking remarkable efficiency here. How much stress is that putting on our officers in general? Yeah. I mean, so not like it used to be when we would have an average of anywhere from, you know, half a dozen to a dozen openings in a year. And we just haven't had that. Now we're we're down about three, I think, three or four right now just from retirements and things. But um so that's something we're we're watching all the time. And how much is overtime? You know, how is that how is that affecting um people? So I mean, we keep track of a whole bunch of statistics on that. And

are the results we're seeing here a result of strategic budgeting or are they tactical decisions that are being made at Chief Fischer's level to increase the efficiencies?

All of the above. So we're looking at that. Um, so you know, we do, you know, for lack of a better term, a large spreadsheet that shows all of the different types of services, all the data, you know, all of the tasks that are done by, you know, how much does it take to, you know, investigate a case in the detective department, how long average, what does that take, you know, the average call going downtown, if it's just a call, if it's a safety check or um, you know, average time for a traffic stop. We I mean so it's literally you know hundreds and hundreds of things long and we we add all that up say how much time did that take divide that by the number of hours you know in a year and and you can get how many people would you need to cover those and so we're looking at that every year and we're right where we need to be you know right now. So

actually it's remarkable story. Yeah. So and and yes Matt Fischer and his crew up there are doing a remarkable job. um getting a little bit ahead when we get to the operations. There's some there's some things that they've implemented over the last couple years that have really been um efficient and I think when you do things and you're proactive then you cut down on some of the types of calls that take more time and you'll see that our major crimes are down significantly. Um so you're being more efficient that way when you don't have to take all that time because those other indicator on the rise of the the falls increase.

So I have so I have a a little more data in the operations piece that I'll I'll share with you when we when we get there. Yeah. So So this this is just data right out of the annual comprehensive financial report. So just to make sure I'm reading it correctly, we get approximately just under 50,000 calls to the police a year. Yep. Every time one of those calls happens, it costs the police department, the city about a little over $200. Okay, that's correct.

Okay, very similar for the fire side of things. Um, total responses you see, which has been pretty consistent over the last several years. Um, you see the cost per response again haven't really increased, you know, personnel that much. Um um the one the one thing you do see over time and we'll talk about this a little bit later is the split. If you go back say 20 30 years um we were about 75% fire 25% EMS. Now we're we're actually pushing a little above 80% um on average for EMS and um just under 20 for fire. And there's lots of reasons for that which we'll which we'll which we'll get into. um aging population, demographics getting worse. Um we've done a lot more with community risk reduction, inspections and and you know, fire inspections and fire reviews, those kind of things. So that that's helped lower the number of fires um that we've seen. So

and and just a reminder that the CO happened, I think March 2020, so that you're going to see some goofy data like when you see these troughs. Now you get the parks and CO definitely had an impact in 2020 there. I don't know Phil if you wanted to talk about this one a little bit.

Yeah. Uh so obviously public properties uh spending has regained its precoid um not only spending but the uh cost per citizen has regained its precoid numbers and that's in addition to adding more acreage to our parks. that includes uh the Clear Creek Park uh down off of by Silver by Venture and then also some additional uh acreage out at Worcester Memorial. Um so War Parks average cost per citizen is down. Um okay

and the wreck is the same story. Um we've regained our precoid numbers. Uh and you will also see that participation has been going up steadily. This is attributed to many more offerings that a wreck department has been able to add to its roster in addition to the typical things you see like soccer um uh soccer, t-ball, baseball, all that stuff. They've offered some more things for the older population as well. Um Alzheimer's tax generation uh things like that. So the cost for cost per citizen is um actually declined a little bit. So keep it short so we can get to the other one if you want.

Okay. Sure. You good? Yeah. All right.

You can get We're going to switch presentations on you. So you have this presentation at your uh desk. We won't be spending a ton of time on each of these uh 47 pages. Um, but we wanted to so you know, so all this information in this report mostly comes out of the individual managers annual reports they do. There's a whole lot more data in the annual reports. Those are all online. Um, this this report is intended to sort of be a summary of that. So um, in each of those annual reports, you'll see sort of a an executive summary and highlights. And so we pulled some of those just to highlight and and there's you won't see it on the presentation but your version has all the notes which have some of that summary and that's really for publication for our our citizens also to see. Um so that that this is also we just put this out on the website as well so people have that this information and then you'll get to see a little bit of what's behind some of the numbers we just went across um there. So, u the first part of this and I think you each of your desks you have a little card here which are fairly new. Um I think Craig was at our uh our staff employee lunchon that we had um a month or so ago and we went over this. So I'm not going to go over this in detail, but this is just our city um core values. You just seem pretty, you know, pretty streamlined stewardship, integrity, hospitality. Um, and so the other thing that goes into that hospitality piece that you'll see as we go forward here is uh this is just both sides of that card so you can see what's on that. Um, and and what's as an organization internally what we're trying to achieve anyway. Obviously, you know, we continue to work on this and hopefully get better at all of this. But, um, part of the part of it is is looking a little bit more what we do is from a hospitality standpoint. sort of like you'd see if you went to a restaurant or you went to a hotel and uh and really looking at it from the from

the users's perspective. How can how can we get you what you need? How can we get you there? Um so we're working on this. You know, all of our managers went through sort of our process mapping and what are what are points in our processes where we're actually interacting with the you know with our citizens. We've done we have surveys out there like you would get when you go to go somewhere and you get a survey. Hey, how'd we do? So you see these up at various places. Um just real short survey. How'd we do? Who'd you interact with? You know, what could we do better? So, you know, we're just so if you see those and uh that's what we're trying to do. We're just trying to get feedback and and and be a little bit better, create more of an experience. How did you feel about that rather than just transactional all the time? But it's it's tough. It's a challenge. We are regulatory in a way, you know, when it comes to building codes and and things like that. But as much as we can, you know, we talk about this as the managers all the time. Do everything we can to get the citizen, the citizen, the business where they want to go. I'm not sure what that was. Uh um thing on the presentation,

where they want to go, but if you ever get to the point, you know, where we can't give them exactly what they want, at least we should do it in a way that they're thankful that we tried everything we could do to get them there. So, um, and stewardship's, you know, we've always operated that way. We're we're operating with somebody else's money, with taxpayer money. So, um, you've you're you've you're familiar with the with our claim awards. And this is something both internally and externally. People um regularly ask people, hey, see how we're doing. Show if you tell us how we're doing. See people out when you interact with people. and then reward reward our staff when they do a good job. You know, we see them going above and beyond. So anyway, so these are just the main groupings of all the things we do as a city and see those there. Um this is this is what that survey looks like that I mentioned. So it's just really just a few questions uh and uh tell us how we did. So, you see this around or you you interact with our citizens, you know, this might be a door hanger, um it might be an email, it might be a flyer you get, um you know, every meter that we replace, we're asking for for feedback. Every time we're out working in front of somebody's house, um you know, if as they have opportunity, they're hanging a door hanger on you. They're Andrew, every time you have an email interaction, we're asking how how we do it. So, we're slowly continually implementing all of this. Um, it's not really new. I found this uh somebody gave this to me a few months ago, 1979 report. We were asking, hey, how did how are we doing? So, it's not really new, but we're just trying to bring that up into the modern age. Um, this is our structure that we have. This would be functional. There's not people in each one of these. Um but you can see

the you know at the top there are you know our citizens and businesses and then you know city council community hospital and the mayor there and then everything underneath of that green is your finance department purple is law um blue is our uh is our our workhog list a regional council of the government provide dispatch services um and then everything else in red is under the administration department you know public works um economic development, transportation, safety department, and just the major major functions underneath there. I could go back. I have a question about the um survey. Yeah.

Is that something that is just out of curiosity? Is that attached to like um all like city emails? So, if I email a constituent, do they then get a followup survey after that? It depends. So, if it's a service that we're interacting with them, then yes. If it's if somebody's just asking a question and we're we give them the piece of information, maybe not, you know. Um but uh oh, I'm trying to think one just came through today that Andy Andy P did is a good example. Um somebody called somebody went him the pothole. Yeah, it was a sinkhole by Oak.

So he you know there was a service you we we had to work through that. Andy reached back out and then he right at the bottom, hey, if you don't mind, you know, fill this out and tell us how we did. So good or bad, you know, we want to know. So that would be an example. So we're we're working on that, you know, getting getting that included in all the different processes and interactions. So yeah, and if you have any suggestions, let us know. We're welcome. Um public safety. Um here's our here's our chiefs. You know, we're are fortunate to have a couple long tenur seasoned professionals in each of these uh each of these departments. Um, and you can see in the notes section there, but uh, you know, that total uniform officer, three 38 officers and five sergeants been pretty much the same for quite a few years. We do have a we're up or a couple heavy when it comes to captains right now, but that's just because we have um, we had some overlap where we promoted one of those. Tony will be retiring here shortly. Um, so that's just to get some overlap in those two to the other two um, other two uh, retire. And on the fire side, again, 40 firefighters, three captains, one inspector. We did add a couple of um 40hour a week, you know, basically middle of the day um to cover the peak periods here just this last year. So, um we'll get to that a little bit. One of the big things that our police do is community outreach. And the one thing I just wanted to highlight is we have a really close relationship with our Worester City Schools. Um our chiefs are on business advisory council. They're on safety and security committees for the schools. We have obviously school resource officers. Uh two two of those right now. We also have uh we've been for 13 years hospital resource officers that are up there as well out in the community. And we have a a community relations officer Downey Hall that goes downtown, stops into the businesses. Uh those those kind of things. So here we're getting back to the calls

for service that you that we were talking about a little bit ago. And you can see overall the trend we had obviously had a low during co everybody stayed in the house and I guess um weren't involved in in being as unruling as they as they typically are but you see that steadily increased little bit of a drop off and I think this is where we get into some of that efficiency. Um, you know, there's some things that our patrol officers worked on, which is minimum performance standards where they they do self-initiated activities, you know, do at least one traffic stop, being more proactive, and I think that's a visible return as you see, you know, these are just seen out in the more often. You just see a little bit of a drop and it's still 43,000 over 43,000. So, it's still a lot. Um, but hopefully we'll see this trend continue as years come. The one thing I did want to point out are the part one offenses. Those are the those are the worst. You know, homicide, rape, robbery, assault, those are down 32% from last year. That's uh that's that's pretty significant. So, that's good news. Um that that's happening um right now. So, just want to point that out. Um, one other thing before we go off of this one that I want also wanted to point out something that we started several years ago and it developed into um Scott Routollo really took off with this and meeting with a group of individuals stakeholders that are in what we call our high utilizer group. So there's judges, prosecutors um our various agencies like 180 and and those in action that all get together uh for those smaller number of people that tend to have they are committing crimes, but it's more related to mental health issues and other things like that. You know, how can we reduce that recidivism? It's it's just not effective for us to keep arresting the same person for minor things and then they get out again maybe the same day. Um and so that this it really took this group working together and Scott's really been driving that and

we've seen a really significant drop, a 35% reduction in overall those kinds of calls that we're having. So that that really that helps. That's been significant. I just want to give him a shout out for that. On the fire side, couple big things. Obviously, we got a new 100 foot ladder truck. Um, we had a remounted ambulance and we hired those two 40hour week uh peak hour positions. So, I just want to point that out. A couple things for 26. We do have another ambulance to replace our one unit along with some other items, but that's a big one that you'll see coming up. Um, and and here we're getting under the fire side that we touched on a little bit with the service indicators. Um you can see things jumped up right after COVID but then we've sort of leveled off since then with both fire and EMS that and the big the big issue there is that between n from 2000 to now so 20 20 30 years you've seen an increase in the um the increase in EMS calls but but a reduction in the fire calls and I think a lot of that's due to our community risk reduction Um, and you may not know this, but we do bill for our EMS runs. It's over a million dollars a year that we receive from that. And we do have a collection agent that does that. We have about 93% collection rate after adjustments and write offs. So, we do pretty good job there covering covering those costs. Um, community risk reduction. Um, that's what I wanted to to point out. We've been more intentional catching up on those. And uh one of the one of the things we do every time there's a fire, we look at well what's the what was the value of that facility, that house, that building. Um every time there's a value a proper or a property that has a fire, that total for 2025 was a little over $32 million. The total losses were 167,000.

So, you know, and a good bit of those could be attributed to the response and our community risk reduction. Um making sure you know, sprinklers and fire systems were up to date getting there, putting fires out, keeping them from spreading to other areas. So, that's a $32 million uh, you know, value saved by having, you know, a fire department that does all of those things. So, just wanted to point that there is real there is real value associated with that. This is our uh public works department uh city engineer and Kirk's here with us public properties and Mike Fritz only five years with the city but he's been around for I think 30 years in the utility industry. So he really I put our public works guys up against public works and other cities. So these guys do a great job. um engineering. I just wanted to point out that um in 2025 they did 22 major jobs. There's a lot of small jobs, but 22 major ones um estimated almost $14 million worth of construction. You can see the breakdown there of the different types and and if you add up, you look in the notes there over about $1.25 million in uh in grants that they receive to help help cover some of this. So the other thing we do is they do performance measurement. They they take they look at if if some uh some communities all they have is they might have a city engineer and they manage consultants. They're doing their planning and engineering and construction. So we keep track of what if we were just hiring this stuff out. You know what's the value of the engineering services that we're providing? And um for this last year it was just under $2.2 million. So more than more than pay for pays for itself. So that's good. Plus, there's just that that value of ownership of, you know, for the you're here. So, just wanted to point that out. All the properties maintenance. Um, did want to point out

that uh this is the 50th year of us being Tree City USA and and April 22nd when that's this this week that's happening. So, uh it's Shishler and we're hosting that for the whole state which is good. We were I think the first of three or one of three Ohio cities designated a tree city USA and I think we're only one of 16 original ones that have been consistent all for that whole 50 years. So um plant a lot of trees overall. Um I will say you see there was down to 110 last year and I I heard Kurt give the goal of 250 for 2026. So um I'm interested to see if we can we can keep that up keep that going. So, um, just want to point that out. Um, here gets a little bit to, uh, Mr. Paul's question. He's talking about the costs and and why, you know, we're able to keep those down. So, here's something we keep track of. We keep track of our payment condition rating um, every year. That's on a scale of zero to 100. Um, if you're less than 65, that means you probably need to do a little bit of work. and we were there, you know, 12 years ago short which was right after um the recession and we passed that income tax in 13 and so we started so there were years we there were several years we didn't do much of paving that's how we save saved money um so but we've been working pretty pretty consistently that and you two things you see two results of the the work our guys have done number one PCR ratings at 84% which is really good um and yet pothole still going down pretty significantly. Um so that should you're having less potholes because the roads are in better shape. Um so those are both indicators and those p that's actually in five years that's like a 79% reduction in potholes which is great. Um and a 33% increase in uh in the last 10 years in our PCR rate. So, those are all very

good indicators of how we're keeping up um with our roads. Um water production, you me you heard Andre talk about how our revenues are up um when it comes to water and you'll see a little bit here why because overall you've seen a pretty significant increase in our annual water produce. A lot of that has to do with a couple of big industries. You know, Daisy being one, go industries and several others. um high users that continue to use uh more more water. So that's that's a that's a good thing. Um and one of the major projects, you've heard a little bit of it, we've done pieces of it. We hope to finish it up in 26. That's that high rate study out at the water plant. And if they're able to basically just look running basically testing the plant at a higher rate, maybe tweaking a couple pumps, adding a couple pumps here. If we're able to do that, um, we're basically going to save anywhere from 5 to$10 million. You'd basically have to double certain parts of the plant if you just did it that way. But if we can show we can run through and maintain, we're going to save millions of dollars. But, you know, go from a $6 million plant to an $8 million eight million gallon per day plant. So, that's that's really good. Tribute that to Mike. Brett's doing a lot of that uh a lot of that work. Um, so you can see some of the statistics behind that below that. Doing a lot of work on our wells and you'll see that continue. Um, should have a well go in here in 26 go into service and another one we're planning on using mostly PEOS money to pay for to pay for those. So that's good. Um, wastewater. Uh, you see a drop in what was coming in, but it's it's it's been going up a little bit here, mostly due to industrial usage. year. You see that that big gray structure that's a head works. You you know several piece of legislation came through count on that in the last year. So that's really redoing that piece at the head of the plant um with major screens. Every bit of flow in the city

goes through that that main headwork structure there. So and that big tank you see empty there's one of our digesttors that's being hopefully finished up here this year as well. That's what we're hoping to to finish this year. So meters and distribution. So you you see here uh we have to replace a certain number of meters every year to keep up with them. They they go they're good for about 15 years. So we have to replace about 800 or so every year meters and use in order to keep up with that. So that's what you see here looking at the meters new stall repair and replace. Um things like valves and and hydrants are required by EPA to exercise those. So you see those over the years there. Um and one thing that you'll probably see a pretty significant increase as we look into 26 you pass some legislation on additional sewer televising and root treating and lining. So um and that's because of the work we had been doing had a couple incidents that we you know we really need to up that and uh especially some of the main and some of our main sewers. So that's what this is showing here. I felt five minutes.

That's all right. I can do a lot in a couple minutes. Uh so recreation. Uh real quick, Michelle Horse, 17 years with the city, took over as the wreck manager last year. She operates with a staff of one supervisor, three coordinators, uh one part-time maintenance person. That says two in the notes, but it's only one. and our YMCA runs our pools. Uh, as you can see, I want to go over this stat a little this these graphs a little bit. Obviously, you can see that uh if you look at 2025, it looks like numbers are down, but actually that can be contributed to the Christmas Run pool being closed. Uh, our participation uh recreation participation and volunteer numbers are up. Had Christmas run pool been open, this would have been the highest year for any wreck involvement, which is a awesome thing. So, our services to those are increasing. Also want to note that construction started in spring of 2026 on the new pool. Completion date is expected to be before Memorial Day of 2026. And on a side note, we found out that you will now have to have a passport to get into the new pool because when you go in, they're European.

Anyone? No. No. Okay. All right. Swinging a miss. We'll try it again here in a little bit later.

Economic community development. Uh Joe Boddar has been with us for a year and a half. Vince Marian 5 years. Jonathan 12. Kevin with transportation for two. Building standards. You can see that our um saw a little bit of dip in single family housing units that were built still above our uh about six-year average of 20. Uh we had 671 property maintenance violation inspections uh in 2025. That is up from 2024. Um what are we getting to? Next page. Value construction permits. Uh you can see there is a rather large dip from 24 to 25. This could be attributed to $75 million worth of construction permits in 2024 were for two very large projects being the hospital expansion in the jail jail projects. And you can see that it's about an every year two-year wave that you see you have some major projects and then it goes back to normal. On the right there you can see the top 10 construction projects by value. um you all can read, so I'm not going to go over that. Uh planning and zoning, you can see our applications. Uh I compared it to 24 to 25 to see. We're typically right on average. On the right, you can see major development projects that went through. Um you all can read. I'll leave that to be. One note I did want to hit here. We've all heard about the zoning code amendments. Thank you, council, for considering that. That was a big initiative from the planning department through all of 2025 even though you passed it in 2026. It went through the steering committee and planning commission in 2025 and then was brought forth to for your consideration. But on the left you'll see a graph of our downtown grant program. Uh this is a grant program that is offered to our downtown businesses. Uh it's capped at

$5,000 or 33% of the construction uh cost. We have put in 75 just a hair over $75,000 since its inception and it has returned non- city funds of almost $850,000 worth of investment in our downtown. So this is a program that is paying large dividends for us. Uh economic development obviously the big initiatives this year were the Graham Farm annexation um again officially this year but most of last year was the planning. Uh this will um and I am skipping pages. Uh this will bring in 24 this has brought in 246 acres uh to potentially address some of our future housing needs. Uh and again we rank in the top 10 in the nation uh for top micropolitans. Uh, another thing I want to really hit on, uh, I think Jonathan doesn't get enough credit for this, but our CHIP funding, CHIP stands for the community housing impact and preservation. We run it for the county. Um, we run it in conjunction with them and with the Wayne Metropolitan Housing. 28 homes, two apartments were preserved countywide. 12 of those and both apartments were within city limits. equates to $438,000 almost $439. Um it's a huge deal. This is saving housing that we can uh before it becomes to a point where it needs to be potentially demolished or removed from the uh the sector. So this is a great project that he does. Um and yet again for 2026 we are awarded an additional one point well $1 million50,000. So that's fantastic. Can't say enough about it. in transportation. You all know WGO um launched uh August 4th of

2025. Whoa. Sorry. That was the first iteration that is called Way Gone. Uh one of the original ideas that was did not make it past the vetting phases. Sorry about that. Um but you can see some of our numbers there on Waygo. Uh we are servicing since August. uh 12,500 passengers on the fixed route. Uh 8,000 passengers on the microtransit. Top spots uh stops are Walmart, Library, Drug Mart, Marks, and Buer's Miltown. Peak services between 1 and four. And one note that I want to make uh special is that in 2026, we took it to the transit advisory committee. Actually, Kevin White took it to the TRA uh transit advisory committee to change the hours of the microtransit to we were averaging a half rider. I don't know which half top or bottom, but the half rider at that 7:00 to 8:00 hour uh wasn't really returning anything for us and we had such a demand for people getting to work at that 7:00 hour. We have adjusted the rate thanks to ODOT for allowing us to do that. So now that the microtransit's on a different schedule than the fixed route, fixed route still runs normal time, microtransit starts an hour earlier and we are seeing that 6:00 hour be utilized for people going to work. Um then obviously in the pie chart you can see what the demand response trips are. Uh work is a huge thing. Medical and work. It's two things people need most. Um so with that I'll kick it back to Joel if you want to talk about the uh workforce at all. Thank you all.

Um just two things I'll point out here. One, we have very little turnover. Um we haven't seen we've seen very little as far as increasing total employees. We had 212 as at the end 123125 by 212 employees in the city. I should say FTE. So that includes you factoring in part-time and seasonal people. Uh, one thing that was interesting, you went back, if you look in your notes there, 23, 24, 25, you've seen the number of applicants per job that we've had when we voted has steadily gone up, which is interesting considering that the uh unemployment rate has gone down. So, I don't really I can't tell you why that is, but it it's just interesting that that's gone up um each year. And then last, we just want to give kudos to Landry. She's the one that uh you know put all of Phil and I scribbles together and made this look nice and and came up with uh uh you know formatting and and and what would and also the content what what we thought would be good you know to share and she's been doing a ton behind the scenes when it comes to postings and all of our social media and getting more and we just want to get more information out from that trans transport transparency perspective and she's been doing that. You can see every, you know, about every metric you measure, things are up as far as uh engagement with the community. So,

most of the articles you see that go out in the paper are press releases written by Landry. Uh we ran into a real issue of getting coverage through the Worcester Weekly and the Daily Record. Uh the increase uptake is directly related to Landry and her uh press release writing. So, so sorry I went over a couple of minutes. Um, all of that will be on the website along with all the real real details going dive into it on the on our website. So, thank you very much. Any additional questions or comments?

Yeah, I had just kind of like a top level u question slash comment. Um, so Joel, you kind of mentioned on it uh before about the income tax when we passed that in 2013 2014. That's when we decided to do the uh $4 million transfer to capital improvement every year. Now, we're you just showed us a bunch of evidence. You know, the city's growing, we're adding roads. At what point or what needs to happen to start maybe ticking that contribution up even to just match inflation? Um,

so that's one of one of the metrics and Andre can speak to this better than I can. You we look at we look at inflation obviously that drives what it costs to do a mile of road or whatever. Um, but we also look at our depreciation our depreciation, you know, on all those assets. And we want to make sure in order to keep up, you want to be beyond that depreciation amount. So, you're replacing it as it wears out. And I think that one that one initial uh graph I showed you that it shows that we continue on the upward trend of replacing. It's not wearing out. We're doing well. So, that's the kind of data we're looking at. If that So I guess the answer to your question is if that line started going down as we're tracking you know the values of our assets um and their age and depreciation if that line started going down we we need to do something to catch up. But so we're we're staying ahead of that right now. So I don't know that we can do more roads without making anybody really mad right now. We have so many shut down. So there's also that too we want to keep in

Sure. Yeah. I just, you know, seeing that amount for the last 12 years or so, it would make sense in my head that it would Well, we've gone way beyond get ahead of some of that stuff. I think I said we did 13.8 million this in last year. Yeah, keep we average that with grants, which is really really nice. So, you know, sometimes we take that 4 million and, you know, get 50% more, we get two more million. I think there's going to be some good things to come with respect to that future as well. So with some of these projects like major 50% leverage maybe more.

Okay. Anyone else? All right. Then I see 707 and this will conclude the finance committee meeting. Thank you. Question. Yeah. We'll take we'll take a few minutes here and we'll convene the council meeting here at 10. $200 is that the overhead is that number actually that's every it's even higher than that because I think we use what's the gap numbers so that includes appreciation the building and stuff like that so it's like all in I guess

so I guess thanks other words if our our number of calls fell by 50% our cost per trip Yes.

Yeah. Library day like there's plenty of outdoor outlets down at the church. Oh yeah, there you go. We've got all the time. So you're all right. Good evening. It's after 700 p.m. and this is the regularly scheduled meeting of Worcester City Council held this Monday, April 20th, 2026. Uh, tonight's meeting is clearly here in council chambers and we're also live streamed on YouTube. And our next regularly scheduled meeting will be Monday, May 4th of 2026. Uh, Miss Hamilton, you please call the role of the pending council members. Mr. Abernappy here.

Mr. Gaffy here. Mr. Jose here. Mr. Malta here. Mr. Owens here. Mr. Paul here. Miss Warden here. Okay. We have a quorum and our agenda will remain as presented. At this time, I'll ask you to stand and join the members of city council in reciting the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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.

Motion or if I can have a um a motion to approve our minutes from our last meeting on April 6th. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Uh, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Minutes are approved. Uh, communications from the mayor. Good evening, Mr. Mayor.

Good evening, Mr. President, council members. Um, first of all, I want to thank Joel and Andre for putting together that presentation with Phil's assistance. um that uh was very informative but also not don't want to just talk about that but want to recognize council's involvement in making all that happen. Um you know that's a it's a partnership the administration proposes uh council disposes. So you know that doesn't happen without council support. Um the other thing that particularly on the financial side and we've talked about this a number of times is that when the occasion warrants and we can get things approved uh rapidly to get them out to bid, we can we save money there. You know, we are consistently under budget on our bidding projects. So again, council's been very cooperative in that and we appreciate that and it saved the taxpayers money. So um just a quick rundown of what has happened in the last two weeks. Uh on April 7th, we had a meeting uh Phil Joel and I with a group from OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. They're trying to drum up support for additional uh vet students like everything else. Uh we're seeing a professional ranks. They're seeing a shortage of that and are concerned about it. So Phil really took the lead on that and getting them connected with some local organizations. We kind of explained that as far as Wayne County was concerned, probably the city of Worcester would maybe not the first place to start as far as uh having uh residents that were, you know, in need of vet, particularly the large animal veterary services. Um but uh I think we were able to help them out and make some introductions for them. On the 8th, um the friends of Wor Memorial Park held their annual meeting out the chalet. Um I was able to stop in for at least the first part of that meeting. I think I mentioned this in an email I sent out, but uh if you're not familiar with this group, they are vitally important to that facility. If if they didn't exist,

we pro we'd be really challenged as a city to take care of all the maintenance that go that goes on out there. So, it's only that volunteer effort that really makes that uh the place it is. And so, a lot of thanks for that group for doing it. And thanks for um you know Joe Vila and Kurt Denning are very involved with what goes on out there and so thanks to them for their time and coordinating those efforts. On the 9th um had our monthly lunch meeting with Gabe Tudtor superintendent of W City Schools. If you're following developments there the current plan is now to move out of cornerstone at the end of the next school year. not this 2025 2026 school year but the 2026 2027 school year which um again we've been through this a little bit I think for those who've been on council for a while we talked about the ramifications of that um the plan then is to again this is not written in stone but the current plan that the board has uh adopted is to u replace those classroom spaces with modulars with the location of those to be determined I've heard different proposals. Um, one is to put all the modulars up at the high school. Another is to spread them out among the existing elementary schools. Um, but apparently the number of modulars it's going to take is going to be somewhere between 30 and 35. So, I guess we'll have to keep tabs on that, but the the board has pretty well made it clear that their intent is to be out of cornerstone May of next year. So, we've got about 13 months before that will come into play. Um and then the 10th we had a I sit on the BAC finance committee for the schools. We had a meeting that morning to review their audit and also talk a little bit about their strategic plans. Um that afternoon on the 10th Joel and I were able to attend a Habitat groundbreaking on West Liberty Street. There was a community garden at the spot before that's now if you drive by there

the foundation is in um again going to be a nice home for uh somebody that has worked hard to get their sweat equity in to do that. And again, whenever we're seeing new construction in old neighborhoods, it's always something I like to I'm happy about. On the 14th, um had the first of three focus group meetings run by Main Street. Main Street's in the process of updating their strategic plan. And one of the things they're doing, I don't know what they're calling them, but I'm basically calling them focus groups. They're having different groups of members in for uh a discussion about their priorities, their concerns. And on the 14th we did one with the local retailers. We had about a dozen people in the room for that. Joel and I were in attendance there. This morning they had the second one which was the service in or hospitality I suppose they call it which was more the restaurants um hotels and Phil and I and Jonathan were at that one. Um it's I think they're getting some good feedback. It's interesting to see where the concerns are. It's interesting also to have the different perspectives there because as you might imagine the retailers, and I'll just give you the basic thing on parking. The retailers, they like to see turnover. They want to see, you know, they wouldn't be upset if we had half hour parking downtown everywhere. The restaurants, they would they would like us probably at least an hour and a half, if not two hours. So, it's trying to, you know, something we've been, you know, the city's done for a long time is trying to balance those needs. And not that what we have now is perfect. And I think we certainly indicate a willingness to take a look at it. Again, if it needs altered a little bit, happy to do that. But again, it's it is a matter of balancing interest between different stakeholders downtown. Um we also on the 15th and we had a development meeting for the former Larwell trailer park. We do think plans for that are moving forward and hopefully um you know that's been a long

10-year project or long time ago that that started with uh was a real mess in terms of both a challenge for the city because we had uh water system that wasn't functioning and wasn't containing water. So we took a big hit financially for the amount of water we lost at the site. We had people that were living there that really in terrible conditions and we got through that, cleaned up the site and now we're kind of getting on the back end of it um to be able to develop that for some affordable housing. So hopefully that's going to be something that that happens in 2026. Uh the 16th was a WDC annual meeting. Um they did a nice job with that. Later that afternoon, Mary Kate Hastings from Senator Houston's office was in. We had a nice discussion with her and updated her on some projects. On the 17th, we had a meeting last that was last Friday with Scott Boy and Ray McDonald from Wish Community Hospital. Uh we've got we always have a lot of things always going on with the hospital, but two in particular is we had a discussion Kevin White was there for that. Talked about WGO and ways that we can kind of take some of our excess capacity and um share that with them a little bit to defay their costs and to some extent they can help support us financially. and every time we get a a different user to add on there because of the matching funds arrangement, we double our money. So, we're looking for some opportunities there that really helps both sides of that. And the other thing we talked about is the um Bell Avenue corridor redevelopment. You know, we're moving forward with that and Joel's got on your table the preliminary drawing I think is best, but that gives you a general idea of what that would look like. Um, and I'll Joel can say more on that later if he wants to. Um, and then this morning, uh, I got to participate at Idisu school with Right to Read Week. Uh, spent an hour reading there and that's always a really rewarding opportunity. It's, I

think, the third year in a row I've had a chance to participate in that. Um, just a few things looking ahead. As Joel mentioned, on the 22nd, which is Wednesday, we have the Tree City USA celebration, which was really an all day event out at Schistler. And I know Joe and Kurt and others have put a lot of work into organizing that. You know, if you have a chance to get out for any part of that, we would encourage you to do so. On the 23rd, Joel and I are meeting with Samira from the chamber. We have a couple joint issues that we want to discuss. We think we opportunities we can partner on some things. Um, more about that later. On the 23rd, then there's the children services annual lunchon. They always honor an officer of the law enforcement officer of the year. And this year we have three Worcester Police Department officers that have been nominated for that award. Sergeant D Guy Bremanau, Detective Stacy Chewy, and SRO April Teachmer. So, look forward to that. And hopefully one of our uh officers will come away with that distinction. Uh a week from today, Joel and I are meeting with a board chair from the College of Worcester to find out what they've got going. you know, they've got some capital projects that kind of impact the city and and they've been great about keeping us in the loop. So, interested to see that. That evening, there's the grand opening at the historical society of the um display. It's really a full room for the Wayne County Sports Hall of Fame. I've been through that twice now, kind of off hours, and it is very interesting. if you've got particularly I guess if you've grown up in Wayne County and and have some h sense of the the history of of Wayne County sports very interesting display and very well worth your time. Um then we have our last on next Tuesday, the last Main Street focus group. That one's professional services. Um so we plan on being on that. And on uh the 30th, I think it's Thursday, I'll be giving my final state of the city address. Just, you know, it seems like it's forever because it was like what,

two months ago that I think I did the first, but we'll be doing that for the Lions Club. Um then on the 1st um Tony Lemon is uh having his retirement open house and then finally that same day is the exchange club fireworks dinner and you know I would encourage anybody to support that if you can. It's a nice event. It helps underwrite our fireworks costs. Gilding does a ton of work for that event and for the fireworks in general and and any support we can give them is appreciated. Joel,

sure. Real quick. Thanks. Thanks Bob. Um Bob had mentioned some of these focus groups at Main Street in addition to that and I think sort of alongside of that Main Street um is wrapping up a strategic planning effort that they've been doing as a board and I've been involved in that um with the board and just a couple of things that came out. A lot of that was feedback, survey feedback from the community from downtown. Um, but I I thought you'd be interested in a couple like the four main things that they came back with as their strategic framework, things that were important. Um, obviously the city is is very tied to them. You know, they're a partner with us. They do a lot of things with the city. Um, number one was events and downtown experiences, you know, which I think we would all agree they bring people downtown. Um, number two is business vitality and economic development. And we, you know, we work with them a lot. Jonathan works with them a lot when it comes to the economic development piece and what services and resources we can help provide to businesses and new businesses. Um but one that was interesting was the uh downtown character and experience and in this one um a lot of that is is things that the city actually does. So they recognize through all of this that they need that partnership with the city and we work together to to help these things happen. But when you're looking at what the downtown looks like, um, you know, with the flowers, with the streetscape, that was something. And there were there were people, you know, in the meeting that had been there for 40 years. They were there before the first streetscape happened back in the 90s. Um, and are still there today. And shared how beneficial they thought that was as far as, you know, making the downtown look nice, making it a place people wanted to stay for businesses and people wanted to come and locate there. So, um, that was nice to hear that. Obviously, you'll be seeing something you have on council in regards to streetscape, but that is something that the businesses mentioned um that is important to them. It's something they they value down there. So, I just wanted to to share that with

you. Um, couple of other things um from the um the update we sent back on Friday. Um I reiterated I sent some stuff from OML on the property tax and then a couple like one additional thing came out since then. So, I added that to this update. Um, you know, where there is a group out there that's that's looking to advocate um against the the potential uh ballot initiative that's that's out there. What we have heard, I verified this with the uh county auditor today, that on Thursday, this the group that's looking to put the ballot initiative on is supposed to be making an announcement of where they're at. You know, how many have they got their 417,000 signatures to get on November ballot or not. So, we should know this week whether it's going to be this year or potentially next year, but I think it's coming one way or the other. It will be on on the ballot. So, just wanted to share that with you. Obviously, that affects counties and townships a lot more than us, but it's still an impact um to the whole community. Um the other thing I gave you an update on, we've been talking about this for quite a while now, is the Burbank Winkler Oldman uh roundabout. Um and you know final offers went out and in that update I shared that at at that time there were six out of uh I forget how many there's like 14 or 15 property owners all you know touches each length of the road there. Um that's that will be down to four um out of all of those. So I mentioned 92% of rightway or we've already signed it'll be a little bit higher than that here probably by the end of the week or so. Um, so I just want to let you know where that was at. And you know, we we sent those final offers, so we're just waiting to hear back. Um, so we'll try one more time. It'll probably be coming to council at some point. Um, at least to whether it's whether it's, you know, with legislation or whether it's just to give you a final time frame before the before the summer

break. So, we'll be coming back to you here within the next month and a half a little more on that. So I just wanted to share that um bring that to your attention. Bob already mentioned Tony's retirement. So um um the other thing is the conforming the boundaries you know for the grand farm annexation something we've been doing with every annexation this always follows. So that that's that's kind of something that the county auditor has asked us to do so they're not dealing with two different taxing districts and things like that. So um and then uh Kevin White has just done a great job and you've seen a significant increase in our transportation fixed route and in the uh 8% increase in the demand response 12 and a half um in the fixed route that continues to go up and we've got some we're talking with several entities about contracts uh to continue to make that dollar go further that Bob Bob had mentioned. So that it's everything's going in the right direction there. It's looking good. Um it's been a real benefit to our city. Thanks.

Um just quick agenda review. Just two items of business tonight. Both on first reading. Both require either three readings or suspension of the rules. Um in just concluding notes, uh again that property tax issue that Joel sent out is a big deal. That's one of the things we'll be talking to Samir in the chamber about. Um, and we can't say whether it's the administration or council that because it doesn't impact us that much that it's not going to have consequences because there'll be a ripple effect if that should take place um between the other forms of government where we'll be asked to pick up some of the services that they've not. So the immediate direct consequences are relatively minor and I say relatively comparison to the townships, the schools, the county, the libraries, but the indirect effects will be very uh very impactful in a negative way. So that's one of the things we're going to talk about. The only thing I want uh I know that when the cornerstone situation first came up I think about two years ago, we did an executive session then and kind of briefed all the council on that and brought things up to speed and then they kind of redirected and kind of pushed that back a little bit and I know we got two new council members since that discussion. So, first of all, if any of you ever want to talk about any issue, feel free. But either next meeting or the meeting after we'll probably do for a executive session to talk about some property matters and we'll get bring everybody up to date. From our standpoint for the council members that have been here really nothing's changed. It's just we're two years down the road. But um it does seem now we have a more definitive timeline. So we'll at least refresh your memories as to what we talked about two years ago. for uh Tyler and Drew. We'll bring you

up to speed on on what the fallout is of that decision on the behalf of the W city school district. So with that, Mr. President, thank you for the the time. All right. Thank you. Uh we had no petitions or communications from the public. Yes. Uh we do have we have no public hearings, but we do have a committee report. Uh you want to indulge us there, Mr. Abernathy.

We'll keep her brief. Um, Mr. Dordia, thank you for giving us the first quarter financial update on the city. It was incredibly, I would put it, uh, nothing too exciting, which is good for city financials. Pretty well dead on budget. So, well done there. And we did get a rundown of everything operationally, and everything seems to be pretty well in line historically. So again, nothing too extraordinary and popping out. So everything seems to be in proper working order and uh that's really all I have to report. So thank goodness city of Worcester is still running very well fiscally and operationally. All right, very good. Thank you very much. We have no unfinished business, so we will move right into new business. Our first item is resolution 2026-26. Uh Miss Warden will be uh prov presenting that for us. But before that, Miss Hamilton, if you could please read it for us.

Resolution number 2026-26, a resolution petitioning the board of county commissioners of Wayne County, Ohio for a change of township lines to conform with the corporation limits of the city of Worcester and allowing for immediate enactment. This warden, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Uh so this resolution formally requests that the Wayne County Commissioners conform the boundaries of the recently annexed Graham Farm site along Silver Road. Currently the area exists on um in both the city and surrounding townships, creating confusion for the residents who pay taxes in multiple entities and also vote in multiple jurisdictions without receiving township services. Conforming the boundaries will simplify that structure and adjust millage rates to 4.2 2 mills resulting in an overall property tax reduction of about 7.9% for Worcester Township properties and 3.7% for Wayne Township properties. Um the action also supports long-term financial stability for the city while maintaining a transition plan to compensate the affected townships in order for the city to meet notification deadlines. I'm going to motion that we place this on a third and final reading this evening.

Second. All right. So, we have a first. We have a second to suspend the rules. Miss Hamilton, please call the role on the suspension of the rules. Miss Bordon, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Jose, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. Mr. Malta, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Miss Warden, thank you. Unless there's anything else that Mr. Mr. Malay wants to add. I think uh well, if sorry, I maybe should have said that in advance, but he's here. He he loves the weather. I think I covered the bases.

Yes. Yes, you did. Um and and while you did a wonderful job putting this together, um I'm realizing when we talk about notification deadline, uh I hit a math error on my part. So, um, if we would like, I don't know if it's too late to table, um, we could do that or we could bring this back to you, but there is an issue with the notification deadline and that is my fault and I apologize for that. Meaning, even if we pass this this evening, it will not meet the deadline. I will have to uh reissue a notice. Okay.

So, um, but but that being said, if we table, we can keep things as it is. Um if if if not we can just bring it back the next time we we get together and I sincerely apologize for that. John I I say we dis table it at this point. Is that acceptable after already voting to put it up there in final reading from do we have do we have to back up the the uh motion to uh all I think all it does is just moves it to third and final reading. I think we can still vote to table it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Procedurally, you're you're fine to go ahead and table and that just leaves it, as Jonathan said, exactly as it is right now. And then when you come back to the next meeting, you can unt proceed. Perfect. Thank you for No worries. So, we have a motion to table. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor of signifying or uh the tableabling signify by saying I. I. I'm sorry. It's we got to do a voice vote. So, Miss Hamilton, please read call the role on that. Miss Bordon, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Mr. Jose, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. Mr. Malta, yes.

Mr. Gaffy, yes. All right. So, it's tabled and we'll see where that goes in the next future meeting. Our next item is resolution 2026-27. And if I'm not mistaken, this is also another one that the pants are on fire that we got to approve it tonight because of whatever reasons. Okay, with that, Miss Hamilton, please read it for us. Resolution number 2026-27, a resolution to adopt and allocate funds for an outdoor fitness court as part of the 2026 National Fitness Campaign and allowing for immediate enactment.

Miss Warden, the floor is yours.

Thank you. I'm going to um introduce uh the legislation, then I'm going to turn this over to Philurski. Um he's got a lot more detail that he can share as well as I think a video um to accompany that. So, um, yes, this resolution authorizes the city to accept a $35,000 grant through the National Fitness Campaign's 2026 Healthy Cities campaign to support the installation of a public fitness court and studio. The project represents a total investment of $235,000 with the city then providing an additional $200,000 match that was already included in council's prior approval of the arts district's streetscape improvements. The fitness court will be located at the site of the former uh Wayne County Health Department building which will be demolished using county landake funding and then leased to the city for recreational use similar to our arrangement at the Kenny fields for the soccer fields that we have there. This project is designed to provide free highquality fitness access for all residents while complete comp complementing the ongoing streetscape work and the Wayne Center for the Arts development of the arts park. This will help strengthen that area as a community destination. It's also worth noting that the National Fitness Campaign is the sole provider of the integrated system and uh that's why we have a bit of a rush on passion so we can meet their grant deadline and secure funding. So I'll turn it over to Phil if you don't mind.

Yeah, we'll start with the video just to kind of they encourage us to play this at the council meeting.

We're changing the way America thinks about fitness. From municipal parks and trails to college campuses to high schools nationwide, we're bringing free fitness everywhere and we're just getting started. Hi, I'm Mitch Manag, founder of the National Fitness Campaign. National Fitness Campaign was founded in 1979 when we opened the first fitness court. Redesigned for the 21st century, the fitness court is the world's best outdoor gym. Our seven movement, 7 minutes system allows you to use your own body weight to get the perfect workout. Easy or hard, it will work for you. Our goal is to build healthy communities by making outdoor fitness an essential part of people's lives so that each day is better than the last. Now more than ever before, it is vital that we move fitness outdoors to remain safe, healthy, and strong. Michigan Enders, uh we as soon as we can, we go outside, which is one of the reasons why the fitness court was such an attraction to us. What impressed us most was their basic philosophy that they want to provide world-class fitness for free. Truly, anyone can use it. No matter what your age is, no matter what your physical fitness level is, no matter what your skills are, it is very adaptable.

This fitness court is one of the best things that Satis has ever done. Thousands of certified ambassadors will be trained to deliver classes, challenges, and clinics as part of our national fitness campaign. New programs are bringing students outdoors across America. The Fitness Court mobile app is your gateway to enroll in these programs. Simply scan the new digital wall with your phone to access a library of free workouts designed to optimize your experience on the fitness court. Learn the moves and take challenges as we dig deep to create impact for our partners across America. This year, we are thrilled to introduce the Fitness Court Studio, the ultimate community wellness hub, uniting the power of yoga, Zumba, Bodyweight Fitness, and the Arts. Fitness Court Public Art continues to grow and inspire across the country as local artists collaborate to bring beautiful one-of-a-kind murals to life on fitness courts and fitness court studios. We're proud to have helped cities of all sizes raise millions of dollars from respected sponsors to support free fitness. Wherever fitness is a priority, you can find a fitness court. We're partnering with large cities using urban movement data to map the best locations for healthy infrastructure. We're bringing fitness courts to within 10 minutes of population centers everywhere. They provide these wraparound services that from a city's perspective, that's what you want in a partner like this. You want it to come presented to you on a silver platter with a bow tied around. They're one of the best partners I think that I personally have ever worked with.

We serve uh almost 1.2 million members across Michigan. And this partnership really is an opportunity for us to bring scalable free health and wellness opportunities to our community. So, I would actually invite cities and organizations big and small to explore the opportunity to invest in fitness courts. To be very honest with you, the feedback from different municipalities and different communities has been very positive. We are committed to raise over $1 billion to bring the campaign to 5,000 cities and schools, building the largest outdoor fitness movement in the world. Join us. Let's make worldclass fitness free. So the reason they asked us to share that is it kind of encompasses the uh founders and vision of what this is meant to be and this is meant to be fitness for all. One of the key aspects of this is it has to be open to everyone. Uh this is something that Ashley Hersburgger and I actually were looking at about two years ago to uh bring more people to Shelon Park. Uh that was the original idea of where we needed to be. Uh in working with the campaign, they do a mapping exercises where they do a fit score and it's based on your public trans. It's based on how much foot traffic, bike traffic, and uh non-motorized traffic are in that area. uh Shelvin Park was not a good option. We kind of tabled it. Uh commissioners have had the um health department building vacant for two years now. Uh we were at a meeting and said, "Hey, what do what are you guys doing with that? You guys going to you know what's the plan?" Uh and you know, one of them said, "Oh, give us an idea and we'll we'll consider it." and I slipped this across, shot in a wing and

a prayer and uh yeah, it kind of took off from there. We applied uh got the funding uh pretty quickly and and the program is very um the short turnaround. We just found out about this I think it was right before I think it was the Friday before the last council meeting and uh that's they wanted it approved by April 22nd to show that we are going to accept accept the money uh in order to continue with the grant process and it it aligns perfectly with the status of the project because the and I think I can switch over to the oh is this going to rotate and mess it up It gives us time to get through the planning process and the um because there is a there is an art aspect to this. And when you talk about the fit of the fitness court and studio uh active lifestyles, a big plus that they saw in the application is this is right next to local roots. This is right next to rideon. It's that healthy mindset. It's that active uh people. It's the walkability and putting it beside the new arts, you know, putting it in the arts district. It's the going to be one of the main entrance points that feeds into what Wayne Center for the Arts is doing. It's got that art aspect on the back end that we have the option to um engage with a local artist to design a mural that'll go on the front and the back that'll really show Worcester what Worcester is. Um it checked all the boxes for them. That's why they gave us 35. Typically they give 25. Uh they said we'll give you 35. Okay, cool. Um you just got to meet these guidelines and one of them is to get it passed have council accept the uh grant by the 22nd. So that's the need for urgency. Um but also on this design obviously this the studio and the

fitness court aren't going to occupy the full site. So we John Rice put together a preliminary design to show that it it's 36 by 72 uh feet uh which will occupy pretty much the the site of the building itself but it does leave uh flexibility on what bless you flexibility on what could be there. So we you know parking is always a consideration for the county. So we kind of left that as this flex zone in the preliminary food truck court. We're not set on any of that. That's going to be discussion that we're going to have with the county and what could go there, should go there. Uh, but we wanted to show it's going to be some flexible, you know, it's, you know, what I call them, it's got to be the mullet of flexible space. You got to have business during the day, but then you can have something on at night. You know, it's

I coined that phrase, the mullet of flexibility. So, any questions? I'd be happy to take them. I'd just say that that that would was a little bit better than the pool joke earlier. Hey, you swinging your miss. Not everyone hits. Mr. Tursky, uh, this is a cool project. I do like this idea and the concept. Um, so the the parcel then is the county retaining that or like what's the I guess what's the ownership look like on on this? They will continue to own it. We will uh construct the we'll be responsible for the construction of the fitness court and then we will lease the property for them like we do with the Kenny soccer fields. Okay. Why counties

that that property is located dead center of Worcester City? Why aren't we buying this property? Why do we allow them to continue to hold us hostage like they do on the soccer fields? I would say as a practical matter, uh, we're not positioned where we can impose our will upon them. Um, they the county is hesitant to give up property as maybe I would be in their shoes. Um, we

Mr. City taxpayers are funding county programs with this where they could be funding their own. Philosophically, I love this project, don't get me wrong, Phil, and it's the right thing to do. But philosophically, this continuing to pour Worcester City taxpayer money down the drain to the county is just not acceptable going forward. Not for me. So, would that extend to Kenny Fields as well?

You know, I'll take a look at that when it when it comes to us. I just um I'm not I I look at the difficulties we've had. If we owned the soccer fields, we wouldn't have had the difficulty in legislating the peanut. And when we allow other municipalities to come in and have jurisdiction over land that's located in the middle of Worcester, I have an issue with that. Well, it's also in the middle middle of the county and they do, you know, they control the county. So, we don't have exclusive governmental rights to I'm aware of the geography. You will not get any opposition from me on this, Jen. I'm just philosophically against that process.

No, it's a it's a it's something that a lot of people feel strongly about. Um and in certain in certain aspects I do, especially when it comes to the residential pockets that still exist in in the city limits. I think that's just Have we have we pre-negotiated the lease? We haven't had those conversations yet. we what our conversation to the commissioners have been like what we do with the Kenny Fields.

So we could again I'm not I'm not going to go quite as far as my colleague but again we could potentially be putting the cart in front of the horse. We're we're essentially hoping that the commissioners are going to be good partners in this and and not take advantage of the situation. I mean, they're going to be using land bank funding to demolish the building. This grant is nonob, like us accepting the grant is not obligating us to the program. Um, so I mean, we're not had it not been for this program, that building would still be standing there next year. I'll leave it at that. Okay.

And and I I'll just say the commissioners have been, at least in my time here, been great partners for us. Um, great partners on this. again they I know from other projects that they are very um hesitant to to divest themselves of any property um which I think is their prerogative but um and they had on the Kenny Fields situation with the the peanut they were very accommodating there was no delay involved in that discussion um they were uh it's not about delay it's about control as a point of clarity How much do we pay to lease the Kenny fields just to kind of get in? Nothing.

Nothing. We just pay the full operational cost of maintenance, everything else. The we've built the the uh stand that's there, concession stand. I mean, we've done all that work. I mean, all the paving and parking lot, we've done all that and donated that to the county. So, virtually, I mean, it's it's our project. The main parks and wreck runs the full

full maintenance on all the fields and whatnot out there. Mowing, fertilizing, replacement, patching. Oh, it's it's basically like it's our ground. It's just it's not cause I mean and we don't and it's pretty much we just we do what you know as we see fit up there. So the the concession stands, bathrooms, and parking lot were to support our programs that we would not be able to do without that. There's no property that big, you know, we would be able to that. So in that case, you know, they they've been a great partner there. They they did donate all of the right away for the peanut as well to put back into the project. They saw the benefit of that. Ju just curious. Uh I I would be curious. I I get that we do all the maintenance and stuff like that, but on on like something like this or even Kenny Field, you know, I'm curious what kind of um maybe protection for the city is in place like if the commissioners ever decide like, hey, we want to do something with that property. Um you know, what kind of process would that be if they decided they wanted to utilize that property that sits in the middle of Worcester? um when we've been pouring all the maintenance costs and things like that into it. Um yeah, just curious on that. I I'd be happy to go look. I don't know off the top of my head what the terms of the of the uh agreement for Kenny Fields is. You know, they're the ones that proposed that. Why don't we do something like that? Um so I'd have to go look at that and see. There's a lease agreement that um you I recently had just looked at with the concession stand and had to pull up um from the the county. And I guess I'll say that I wrote the lease agreement as the civil civil prosecutor for the Wayne County Board of Commissioners in 2018 and I reviewed and wrote the lease over here

with the concessions Dan. you know, now was, you know, with the city and I think city and the county have always had a a a good partnership. And so, um, I from a legal standpoint, the protections are there. It is their land, you know, as owners, but there's a lease that would protect the city and notice and time frames to exit. This one could be a little bit different because we're actually constructing something though. Sure. Whereas this, you know, the soccer fields you can move, you know, goalie goals, you know, we're mowing there. Oh, yeah. But not the not the I mean, there's a concession standing lot and I mean the parking lot is massive expense. We

we're looking at a lot of money that we have to pay to move spaces when we put if we put the peanut up there. And that's and that's not something that's necessarily recoupable and it's certainly not usable to every citizen in the city. I don't go there, but I'm I'm I'm thinking more along the lines of this though. I guess I should ask Phil. The the structures that are going to go in the fitness court, are they permanent structures into the ground?

They're I mean they're pieces that are assembled. I mean so the court will be positioned to have the box jumps, stuff like that to be installed in that. They can be removed. And I mean the base is a concrete pad. Um I mean that's the first thing that goes down is the concrete pad. Then the on top then the boxes and looking seeing the pictures and whatnot. There's probably some level of flexibility should we would need to move it at some future time loss. Yeah. Is there like a customizable aspect too or like I could kind of tell that some of the different courts looked similar but maybe different like

they have different aspects to it. Yeah, it's and that's the planning stage in that time that I said once this goes we have time it goes with the the planning of what goes in. It's pretty much preset. I think they have different options but along with the art there is that what goes where um aspect to it. And one other thing I did want to mention just because I know that the one of the first questions I got from somebody outside of either of us was, you know, is that actually going to be used? Part of the reason why Michelle's still sitting here is because Wreck is going to work on programming that to make sure it is utilized. Um, so yes, it will be used.

Maybe not by me, but no, I I will be

another joke that missed. Sorry. I I can just share too that a few years ago we untangled some very complicated uh parking uh land ownership arrangements. Um and I believe that we did part of that through the Wester Growth Corporation city has a unique ability to to move property into its CIC for economic development work. Um, so having worked with the county over the last several years, the philosophy that I've seen, especially from downtown, is for them the approach is well, if we lease it, but maintain that ownership, we can ensure that there's that public use component. And so I I think that's I think that that's where that's coming from with every conversation that I've had is, hey, we just want to preserve the the fact that it's going to be kept in public use. So, um, we've seen increased cooperation. Again, uh, even this parking lot here to the left of the site was one of the ones that got rolled up into this great untangling. But, um, but that said, um, I I think it's coming from a place of good intent. Are there any more questions?

Okay. Okay. I would like to um move to place us on third and final reading this evening. Second call on the vote, please. Miss Warden, yes. Mr. Gaffy, yes. Mr. Paul, yes. Mr. Malta, yes. Mr. Abernathy, yes. Mr. Jose, yes. Mr. Owens, yes. Motion to adopt. Motion to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Miss Warden? Yes. Mr. Gaffy?

Yes. Mr. Paul? Yes. Mr. Malta? Yes. Mr. Abernathy? Yes. Mr. Jose? Yes. Mr. Owens? Yes. Okay. Go get your jungle gym equipment there. Phil, wait till we get the check, please. Before we Thank you for putting that together. By the way,

we spoke briefly last week and I said that this is along the lines of something downtown, which is an affordable or costfree way to bring families downtown and to utilize um and and liven up our existing. So, I look forward to I do have one more question, Phil. Um, do we know what like the timeline kind of looks like from about how long it takes to go in once we get the design done? If the building was down today, it would be in by September. So, it all depends on when the building actually comes down. Fair enough.

And most importantly, Mr. Tursky, what exercise are we going to make the mayor do when this thing is installed for the for the social media? Oh, so that that's the fun thing. I haven't told Scott yet, uh, Assistant Chief Rojo, is that that when they when the National Fitness P campaign comes in, it's all their big wigs that come in. It's a big pomp and circumstance type of thing. And typically, they have the firemen versus the cops. Um, so that that's what I've been told. I know Joel said he could throw his hat in the ring for that, too. But, um, anyone that would like to join,

I don't know what the mayor Well, I think I think we can come up with something. So, you know, if you saw the uh if you saw the pool design for Christmas Run, there's two slides on that.

Go anyway.

All right. Well, we'll move on to miscellaneous. Uh we've got a couple people that have signed up to speak. Uh Mr. Barnett is the first one that's signed up to speak.

Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, council. Ladies and gentlemen, uh, you know, in the past I brought up a half a dozen negative things about building a peanut. I'm gonna throw another one out at you. It's not that funny, Mr. B. uh are fireworks. It's total chaos up there at them intersections. Wait till they put that peanut up there. See, you'll have to bring some more police officers back on duty that you took off. Okay, enough of that. Now I'm going to go someplace else. Lucas, Jennifer, Chris, Tyler, Michael, Drew, Paul, Steve, Drew, Paul, Steve. Uh, I'm going to ask the people from a person to person, please, please do not vote on this peanut when it comes time. Please. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Not sure. Candy and Jerry Smith. Okay. They were here and I think they left. Yeah, it's what Kurt. Okay. All right. All right. Well, that's that's it for that. Um, and Mr. Sanders, I I'll just interject. So, that was the couple that was here last meeting, right? And, uh, I think the administration's done a good job of reaching out to keep you informed about the followup and I think they were here with some questions. I think Kurt

got those answered in the hallway. And so that again again we're moving forward with that. There's a lot of work to be done. Taking down those trees was just the first part of that because the actual work on cleaning up that covert and structures structures which what the engineers call structures but I think of manholes and pipes and things like that. Um that's that's ongoing. So that'll that'll be playing out over the next couple months. But so that's that's where we are on that. Okay. Thank you. All right, Mr. Jose, what do you have for us in miscellaneous?

Um, nothing else except go Cavs and um congratulations to Tony Lemon on his retirement. Welld deserved. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Paul. Nothing other than congratulations to Tony Lemon and go Cats. Mr. Heathy, I won't repeat that stuff. I have nothing more to add. Very good, Mr. day after you capt. Yeah, I just uh really encouraged by, you know, the growth of WGO and how that's serving our our citizens. I think that's it's nice to hear that and see some of those things and and also,

you know, even though uh Mr. Dia reports are boring and, you know, un unexciting. Uh, you know, I think it's it it is uh it's nice, not being a financial person myself, it's nice to see um some of the details of how the city is proactive at procuring grants and things and how, you know, they do try and um you know, be uh responsible with with taxpayer dollars. Um so, you know, definitely appreciate that. And also just wanted to say I I do appreciate um Landry uh's efforts in communication. I think communication is very important uh for the city. Um you know to be uh transparent with citizens and let them know what's going on and so I've definitely noticed that on social media and stuff and and I'm sure uh citizens appreciate that as well. So that's all for me.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Warden.

Well said. Um, I would like to congratulate all of the businesses who were recognized by the uh Wayne County Economic Development Council. Um, the business I work for is included in that. So, a little um we're kind of proud about that acknowledgement, but um it was especially it was especially cool to see the lyric um the f the focus of one of the awards. Um, of course, I forget the name of the actual recognition they received, but very very welld deserved. It is uh truly a gem. downtown as are all of the other businesses that um are located in Worcester and around Wayne County that were recognized in that. So um I was very pleased to see that and uh to reiterate I definitely want to wish Tony Lemon a congratulations on his retirement. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Malta. Thank you and thank you all for attending as always and those watching tonight. Want to really thank you guys for showing up. I'm guessing you're with the truth. Give it away. guessing. I'm not sure. I don't want to call something you're not. I hope we were somewhat entertaining, somewhat educational, at least gave you some kind of clue on the process here. They're working on communication. Mayor BGE, so hopefully we've given a pretty good education in terms of how you professionally communicate. Always start with the joke. Even the bad. Don't listen to him. Thanks a lot,

Mr. Owens. Um, again, thank you everyone for coming out. Um, I would like to highlight that on May 2nd, uh, Saturday the 2nd from 12 to 2, there will be a give and take food drive down on the Worcester Square. Um, the last time we did one of these was, oh, back in February, I think it was earlier in the year, we gave away about 1,400 pounds of food. So, if you have some extra you want to donate, please feel free to come by. uh always need, you know, food like you think, but also pet foods, cat litter, personal hygiene supplies. Um and if you need anything, please come down. We will be bringing it in, sending it right back out, ideally. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, do we have a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Second. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. We are adjourned. Thank you all.