City Council - Regular Meeting

day outside and here we are in here so great guess what we're on air i'd like to announce everybody welcome to the may 28th senior city council meeting we are going to have an invocation led by the pledge of allegiance by myself as well okay so if you could all just please stand All right. And just bow our heads. Heavenly Father, thank you, first of all, for the safety, travel mercies to get here tonight. Thank you for the beautiful weather. We've had a lot of rain, just been kind of dismal. So we're so thankful for the sun that you shine upon us. We thank you for this great community that we live in, that we serve. We have great people working in our city, keeping us safe, our police, our first responders. We cannot lift them up more than we can with our own two arms. Lord, we just ask for your graciousness to our community. Help us get through the meeting tonight that we make the best decisions possible. And again, we thank you, dear Lord, for all you bless us with. In your son's name we pray. Amen. could face the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you very much at this time I want to call our meeting to order and we're gonna ask for a roll call please vice president Crawford here councilwoman Cerise and

Councilman Miscavige?

Here.

Councilwoman Huffman?

Here.

Councilman Rubio?

Here.

Mayor Reynolds?

Here.

President Smith?

Here. Councilwoman Faith is out today. I'll accept a motion to excuse her.

Mr. President, I move to excuse Councilman Faith Cerise. Thank you.

Moved by the Mayor, seconded by our Vice President. At this time, we'll get a roll call for approval of her absence.

Vice President Crawford?

Aye.

Councilman Miscavige? Aye. Councilwoman Huffman? Aye. Councilman Rubio?

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds?

Aye.

President Smith?

Aye.

Motion carries.

Thank you. Just a little housekeeping item. We have approval of minutes. This is from our May 14th regular meeting. We have the minutes before us. Is there any corrections or changes being made to the minutes? All right, seeing none, we'll get approval to accept the minutes as written. So moved. Moved by the Mayor. Second. Seconded by Councilwoman Huffman. Roll call, please.

Vice President Crawford.

Aye.

Councilman Miscavige.

Aye.

Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio.

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds.

Aye.

President Smith. Aye. Motion carries.

Thank you very much. Next is a great opportunity for us to have a special presentation tonight. We have a full audience here and cannot thank you guys enough for being here. We are going to do a special presentation on behalf of Kettering Health Network and the Xenia Fire Division. Are you taking this from here?

I think we'd like to invite Chief Mike Bogan to come forward and kind of initiate the process for us. Do we go down now or later?

Okay, great. Hi Chief. Welcome. Thank you everyone. Today we are here to recognize the citizens and first responders who through a significant chain of events were able to save the life of Mr. Scott Barnett. The American Heart Association refers to this order of events as the chain of survival. It's important to point out that nationwide, the chance of resuscitation and successful outcome of a pre-hospital cardiac arrest is right around 10%. So the key tenants to a successful resuscitation are recognition and activation, early CPR, rapid defibrillation, advanced resuscitation, and then post-cardiac arrest care, recovery, and survivorship. So fortunately for Mr. Barnett, the combined actions of those here today proved that this concept is attainable. On March 23rd, 2026 at 10.04 a.m., Green Central Communications received a report of a patient in cardiac arrest at Twist Incorporated located at 1430 Lavelle Drive. While units were in or out, Twist employees Christy Barnett and Diana Milano immediately initiated bystander CPR, providing the patient with the best possible chance of recovery. Simultaneously, safety manager Ted Gillespie coordinated with emergency dispatch and staged himself in the parking lot, ensuring responders could bypass delays and reach the patient without hesitation. Xenia police officers Cole Hamilton, Jared Cecil, and Ezekiel Smith arrived within four minutes of the dispatch. These officers transitioned to high-quality CPR and successfully deployed an automated external defibrillator, or AED, delivering a critical shot. Xenia fire units arrived at 1010 a.m., providing advanced life support, stabilizing the patient for transport. During transport, Mr. Barnett went back into cardiac arrest and was successfully defibrillated and a pulse regained. And at 10.29 a.m. upon arrival at Kettering Health Network Green Memorial, the patient was showing signs of life. For the extraordinary efforts of all parties involved, citizens, police officers, and paramedics, we demonstrate the power of early notification, immediate CPR, and rapid defibrillation. Through your selfless and decisive actions, a life was saved. Prior to presenting our awards, we would like to invite from Kettering Health Network, the EMS coordinator, to say a few words.

Good evening. My name is Christy Bradford and I am the EMS coordinator for Kettering Health Green Memorial. On behalf of Kettering Health, I would like to recognize the members of the Xenia City Police Department and the Xenia City Fire Division for their outstanding teamwork, heroic actions, and the life-saving care provided during this critical medical emergency. Because of those early life-saving efforts, quick actions, and continued advanced care, Mr. Barnett was able to walk out of the hospital and return home to his loved ones. Tonight, it is my honor to present the Lifesaver Award in recognition of your exceptional service and commitment to the community. Thank you.

Thank you. Is this where we go to? All right. All right.

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to present awards in order of the actions taken. First and foremost, we'd like to recognize from Twist Incorporated, bystander Christy Barnett, Diana Milano, and Ted Gillespie. Give a step forward, please, and receive your certificates. Thank you, sir.

There you go. Thank you. Thank you. We have a challenge from the city of Xenia.

And your challenge is to answer the podcast. I appreciate it. Thank you all.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

From the Xenia Police Division, it's our honor to recognize Police Cadet Cole Hamilton, Officer Jared Cecil, and Officer Ezekiel Smith.

Thank you.

And from the Zinnia Fire and EMS Division, I'd like to recognize Captain Cameron Stegall, Acting Lieutenant Connor Riker, Firefighter Justin Kaysen, Firefighter Derek Dennehy, Firefighter Ian Hanks, and Firefighter Kyler Poland. And at this time in our audience, he didn't want to come up, but we'd like to recognize Mr. Scott Barnett, who is present in our audience. If you could stand up for just a second. At this time, if we could have all of our award recipients, including Mr. Barnett, please come forward for some photographs with the council and mayor, please.

All right, yes. Thank you. You look better.

At least you're taller. Hi guys.

I think you guys do, I didn't know that.

And now everybody's leaving.

They don't want to stay for the party.

I mean, this is the interesting part right here.

Right.

All right, I'll give it just a second. All right, guys, we're going to move on. We're going to go ahead and start back with audience comments. So if you're in the audience, if yeah, thanks, Miss Rubio, for getting that. If you would care to come forward and address city council This is the opportunity in the meeting for you to do so. We do ask that you come to the podium, give us your name and address. For the record, limit your comments to three to five minutes. All right. We see no one coming forward. We're going to move on to old business, which is none takes us to new business item. Uh, our first item tonight is titled an emergency for ordinance 2026 dash 18. This is amending ordinance 2026 15 to provide appropriations for current expenses and other expenditures for the city of Xenia, Ohio for fiscal year ending December 31st of this year, declaring an emergency. We're going to turn the floor over to Mr. Duke for an explanation. Mr. Duke is out today, and his assistant is here. Yeah, I'm not very observant. All right, Jason, what do you have for us tonight?

We are requesting additional appropriations as cost of commodities and supplies continue to rise. In this case, QuickLine is a product that The city uses for sanitary sewer operations and the price continues to rise on that. So the staff submitted proposals for solicitation for the product this year, knowing that the price was going to exceed the limits allowed. They had one response to that solicitation. So with that price point, We are requesting additional funds to meet that quote. $50,000 for 6-12-1331 and 54299 for that budget line. I'm requesting that to be an emergency.

All right, thank you. Makes sense to me. Any questions for Mr. Lake on this expenditure? And then we're doing this simply as an emergency tonight to eliminate that second reading. So we can go ahead and get that purchase done. Is that correct, Madam Law Director?

Yes, sir. All right.

Very good. All right. And sometimes emergency is just a term for moving the paperwork through a little bit quicker. So at this time, I'll accept a motion to accept the amendment for appropriations of $50,000 to purchase more quick line. So moved. Thank you. Moved by Councilman Miscavige. Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by the mayor. Is there any questions or concerns regarding this? All right. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and get a roll call on that.

Vice President Crawford. Yes. Councilman Miscavige.

Aye.

Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio.

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds.

Aye.

President Smith. Aye. Motion carries.

Thank you. Our next item is seeking an introduction for Ordinance 2026-19, which determines to proceed with the improvement of city streets and public ways by the lighting thereof for year 20,026. Mr. Merriman.

Thank you, Mr. President. City Council's previously implemented policy for a citywide street lighting assessment The current assessment term was set for one year as new rates were still being negotiated as part of a new contract expected with Miami Valley Lighting. To maintain the assessment for an extended term moving forward with the new rates applied, three legislative actions are required as prescribed by the Ohio Revised Code. The first step requires passage of a resolution of necessity declaring why the street lighting is necessary and setting forth the estimated assessment for each parcel of land within the city. This was approved on February 23rd. The required notice process was completed thereafter and no objections to this were received. This evening, council's presented with legislation for the second required step, which is adoption of the ordinance to proceed. The ordinance declares council's intent to proceed with the project as the city has executed a new seven-year street lighting contract with Miami Valley Lighting through the Miami Valley Regional Planning. The new rates have been established. It's estimated that the city will expend $279,591 on street lighting in 2026. Pursuant to ORC Section 727.12, the city is responsible for 2% of the lighting cost, thereby resulting in citywide streetlight assessment of approximately $274,000. This amount will be proportionally divided amongst all lots and parcels within the city based on the percentage of tax value for each parcel. We are recommending introduction of Ordinance 2026-19 to advance this effort this year.

All right, thank you. How many parcels do we have approximately? So do we know what this average is out? In case there's a question, just curious.

It averages out, my conversations with the public service director, it's about $35 a year. Yeah.

Yeah, it's pretty minimal.

It's divided into parcels, but I... For most homes.

It's like $3 a month. Yeah. A year. About $3 a month for an average person. All right, very good. Any questions while we have... Mr. Mayor rents attention on this item. All right, not seeking any questions. So anyone care to introduce this? I'll introduce it. Thank you. Introduced by Councilwoman Huffman. Our next item tonight is also seeking an introduction for Ordinance 2026-20. This is authorizing the annexation of 327.016 acres of land owned by the state of Ohio to the city of Xenia to be made and directed by the city director of law to prosecute the proceedings necessary to effect this said annexation. At this time, I'm going to turn the floor over to Ms. Fisher.

I'll do it if that's all right.

Mr. Fisher.

We've tag-teamed on preparing all of this, so it wouldn't matter. As council is aware, at very long last, the pre-annexation agreement with Central State University was approved and has since been executed by the parties. To advance this process, an ordinance is necessary to direct the initiation of proceedings to annex the university's campus consisting of approximately 327.016 acres, more or less. Under the Ohio Revised Code, a municipality may annex land that is contiguous to that community when the subject land is owned by state, county, or municipality itself. Here, it would be the city's intent to file to annex the state-owned land that constitutes the campus pursuant to the statutory process set forth in ORC Section 709.13 through 709.16. With this, a letter of consent to the annexation on behalf of the State of Ohio signed by the Ohio Director of Administrative Services has been received and I've provided a copy of that to you this evening because that was just received this week after publishing the agenda. We have executed the necessary steps to move forward. Staff is recommending introduction of the ordinance this evening as presented. Adoption of the ordinance constitutes the first step in the statutory annexation process and approval authorizes the annexation and directs the law director to prepare and submit the necessary annexation petition to the Greene County commissioners who will have to make that ultimate decision at a later date.

Very good. Thank you. All right. Any questions for Mr. Merriman?

I would just remind council, it's on your cover memo, but the approval requirements for this is pursuant to state statute rather than our charter. It needs an affirmative vote of five of you to pass.

Five of us to agree. Okay. Very good. So on this pre-annexation, are we putting signs out that the Xenia city limits begin there?

Yeah, one of the steps that we would take is at least along the major routes identifying where the corporate limit begins and ends. So that's among the adjustments we would make in that transition process.

And so are we mowing and we're taking care of this? the snow removal and the mowing for those routes?

So any roadways that would be impacted where the city would have property essentially on both sides, the roadway maintenance becomes our responsibility. So we've initiated, in fact, I provided a memo to council this evening. One of the topics covered is the central state annexation. So there's more detail than what I'll offer here in this narrative. Essentially among the steps for transition in anticipation of council approval that we've started is a discussion with Department of Transportation District 7. So they're responsible for maintenance of 42. There's a small portion that after the annexation would be in the city. So what we would essentially do, Mr. Vice President, is negotiate with ODOT where they would continue to provide snow plowing and mowing for that section of road. And there would be a section of, say, 42, 380, some other state route or federal route that ODOT covers closer to the city that we would exchange sort of mile for mile. Fair enough. Thank you. And it's just much more efficient for both parties.

And I would anticipate if council introduces this ordinance tonight and then adopts it, the petition could be filed as early as July 13th. Okay.

So all we're doing tonight is just making an introduction. This will come back in the second reading that first meeting in June.

Correct.

All right. Any questions? All right. Who would care to introduce this? I'll introduce it. Thank you. Introduced by the vice president. Moving on to our next item is resolution 2026-34. This is authorizing the city manager to purchase forfeited properties located within the city of Xenia at the Greene County Auditor's forfeited land sale. Such purchases are made within the limits of the appropriation set by the city council for such purposes. At this time, I'll have Mr. Merriman explain this again.

Thank you, sir. All properties on which tax foreclosures have been filed are advertised and offered for sale by share of sale on two separate occasions. These properties proceed to forfeiture if they are unsold after two attempts. If the city does not take these properties by forfeiture, they are forfeited to the state of Ohio. Once forfeited to the state, the city continues to bear the burden of maintaining the properties, especially the upkeep of yards and mowing during warm months. But because the properties are now owned by the state, the city is unable to recoup any maintenance cost for that obligation. The Ohio Revied Code requires the county auditor, at least once yearly, to hold a forfeited land sale offering properties not previously sold during the attempts with a sheriff sale that are now owned by the state of Ohio and making these available for public purchase. Staff anticipates that a sale will occur again this year and as such, such an auditor sale would offer the city a chance to purchase properties within the city. if no one from the general public wants them. And we can do this at a lower cost than it would be to go through the forfeiture process. Thus, the resolution presented this evening would authorize staff to attend the auditor sale and make bids on such properties when there are no other bidders from the public so that the city would have the opportunity to acquire those properties and then look to divest of them more efficiently than what the state process would afford through the auditor sales. Any such purchases would be limited the amounts appropriated by council for such purposes So this initiates the process for us, but there would still be steps for some checks and balance with council moving forward So we're requesting resolution of 2026 Dash 34 to direct this authority as we've done in prior years All right.

Thank you.

Mr. Merriman any questions Yes, mr. Merriman Thank you for explaining this. I just want to make sure the city is just essentially a backup buyer to the process. And then if we become the backup buyer, are we reducing or somehow eliminating legal fees, back taxes, any other?

Yeah, and the law director can speak a little bit better to this, but the properties, when they get to the auditor sale, are essentially made available free and clear of any liens. We don't have the court filing fees and so forth associated with the forfeiture process. Obviously, if a property is sold through the sheriff's sale, that's good because it's some type of responsible buyer. But when the properties then end up in the hands of the state, we have the maintenance obligation, as I said, and no ability to afford any movement on the property. So to your point, Mr. Crawford, this is a nice backup plan so that those properties don't get locked up with the state for another year. Absolutely. And this allows us to take an approach that minimizes any cost that we would have in that acquisition process. And then we being the backup buyers, we could sell that at a later date. Typically, what we would do is come back to our property management committee and have discussion on how best to go about divestment of the property. Then ultimately, as we would go through that process, council would have to take up additional legislation to authorize the final sale. Sounds good. Thank you.

I just have one comment, Mr. President. I think it's an excellent idea. I live on East 3rd and East 2nd. There are two houses or two properties that were just vacant for years, overgrown, and now the house is almost completed on it. That was one part of this program, and the other one just started breaking ground and putting their basement together. So this is great for us to do that infill development.

With the last auditor sale, I think there were seven or eight properties in the city of Xenia that went up for bid from the auditor. Everyone sold. Everyone had multiple bids. It's a really, from the city's perspective, a good market right now. Again, this may not be necessary, but it is a nice backstop in the event that we would need it. I can share with you too, the city planner and I went today was a sheriff sale. There were three, I think, properties in Xenia. Two owners and a couple of properties. Those were not bid on and did not sell today. I think that's our second of the sheriff sales for those properties. We know right now there will be some properties lining up for potential auditor sale at some point in the near future. Awesome.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for that comment. Any other questions or concerns? All right. At this time, we are seeking a motion to authorize the city manager to make a to purchase the forfeited properties.

Move to pass resolution 2026-034. Thank you.

Moved by the mayor. Do we have a second? I'll second. Seconded by Councilman Miscavige. Can we get a roll call, please?

Vice President Crawford.

Aye.

Councilman Miscavige.

Aye.

Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio.

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds.

Aye.

President Smith.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is resolution 2026-35. accepting the proposal of carm use lime for the provision and delivery of quick lime supply to the public service department. Did I pronounce that correctly?

Carm use lime, yeah.

Okay, very good. All right.

Yeah. So again, this is related to your prior appropriation item, but we remind our viewers and council that the city uses an agent called quick lime as part of our wastewater treatment process. Quick lime is an approved chemical compound that is routinely used in wastewater treatment. It's used to increase pH to neutralize acidic water to precipitate out impurities such as heavy metals, phosphorus, and other suspended solids in the material that is being treated. Use of this material is a cost-effective option to stabilize sludge. It helps to reduce odors. helps to destroy pathogens that may remain in the material as well. Anticipating that this year's purchase of quicklime would exceed our bidding threshold, requiring a formal bidding process, our public service staff did put out a competitive request for proposals on procurement of quicklime. On May 5th, the city received only one proposal from an experienced supplier, Carmuse Lime, for the provision and delivery of the necessary quantity of quicklime for 2026. Though the amount of quicklime that is needed for each year varies, our staff did opt to look at what we had used in 2025 of 229 tons and base the bid on that. Unfortunately, because the cost per ton of quicklime has increased significantly over the last year, it's around a 45% increase year over year, we didn't have sufficient funds in the budget a la the appropriation ordinance this evening. But tonight we're requesting a resolution to authorize this purchase. So this would be with Carmise Lune, Carmuse Lime, easy for me to say, in the amounts as indicated. And again, this is necessary for us to complete this work this year.

Very good. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Merriman? I have questions. Okay.

this quick line is there any way we can advance purchase since we know that the cost is pretty we don't control the cost but we can purchase knowing look at just future present we can basically look for the next couple years or something i is there something that we could do for advance

Yeah, so, you know, from time to time there are materials that we can buy in quantity and get the benefit of pricing today and the economy of scale. Unfortunately, in this particular case, due to the lack of storage capacity at our Ford Road Wake Water Treatment Plant, we just simply don't have the physical space to be able to, you know, the dry storage space to be able to keep the material. So I think they're ordering enough to get us through this year, plus a little bit of excess based on last year's amount. At the time that we have the ability to store additional material, I think it's a great idea and we should stock up. But again, we're kind of limited by space right now.

Okay. Thank you for answering. And then this, you don't have to, oh, I'm going to answer this. I'm going to ask this question.

So the quick line who who at the city can test the product to make sure it's exactly what we're buying Yeah, so we have lab technicians that are employees of our wastewater treatment division and they have the ability to they monitor both The material coming in and at various stages of the treatment and the material going out and what I would tell you is actually the believe it or not, the output product at the back end of the wastewater treatment process is far cleaner than the water that it's spilling into the natural river or the stream that it'll spill into. But we do monitor that and we have lab technicians that are able to monitor that and test at various phases of the process. Thank you for that. Thank you.

All right, very good. If there's no other questions, I'll seek a motion to Accept the proposal. So moved. Thank you. Moved by Councilwoman Huffman. And who would like to second that? I'll second. Seconded by Councilman Rubio. Can I get a roll call?

Vice President Crawford.

Aye.

Councilman Miscavige.

Aye.

Councilwoman Huffman.

Aye.

Councilman Rubio.

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds.

Aye.

President Smith. Aye. Motion carries.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is resolution 2026-36, declaring that a portion of city-owned Parnell Park's property comprising of 0.02 acres or 10 feet more or less is not needed for any municipal purpose and authorizing the city manager to use negotiations or informal competition for the sale of that said property. Mr. Merriman.

Thank you again, sir. The city has been approached by the owner of a property adjacent to Parnell Park who wished to acquire a small strip of property owned by the city that connects to the park space. Recall that council has authorized the transition of Parnell Park to a passive park, so we've removed the playground equipment and we're making that transition presently. The subject space is a city-owned parcel. As indicated, it's 10 foot wide, approximately .02 acre. It's located between 488 and 474 Ackerman Place. We believe the strip of land was originally intended to be an access point for the park. However, no one in the city with any memory has any recollection of there ever actually being a paved pathway or a sidewalk or anything like that. It was never actually used. There are two other 25 foot wide access points that would remain in existence, and those are the primary of ingress or ingress to the park presently and would be moving forward. The property management committee met on April 16th. This was among the topics discussed and they agreed that the property is not serving a meaningful public purpose and is not likely to do so in the future. And so they endorsed the idea of making this available to the adjoining property owner. So this evening we are requesting resolution 2026-036 to authorize us to look at divestment of this particular tiny strip of property.

All right, very good. Questions for Mr. Merriman? So any fees? Is that like it would just be a surveyor fee? Are we just having that?

There might be some type of minor fee. I think we talked with the property management committee. It's obviously does not have much value. There's going to be a recording fee to get it.

I think the value is just getting rid of it and not having to mow it.

A little less maintenance for us and improves probably the saleability of that house in the neighborhood.

Yeah, very good. Any other questions? Nope. All right. Seek a motion to approve the sale of the not needed property. So move. Second. Moved by the Vice President, seconded by the Mayor. Can we get a roll call, please?

Vice President Crawford?

Aye.

Councilman Miscavige?

Aye.

Councilwoman Huffman?

Aye.

Councilman Rubio?

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds?

Aye.

President Smith?

Aye. Motion carries. Thank you very much. I don't have it on my agenda, but I have resolution 20, 26, 37. Is that correct?

Yes. Um, so I'll allow the mayor to introduce this, uh, prepared it on, on his behalf, but thank you.

Yes. Uh, so as council is aware, uh, when we were at the flight in DC, we had met with Congressman Turner. During that discussion with Congressman Turner, obviously it came up that they're trying to rename the post office here and then in the honor of Gil Whitney. And obviously he's very famous for our area. He was a WHO meteorologist who warned folks that the tornado was coming you know when he was live on air uh warning the community especially the arrowhead neighborhood gave xenia residents critical advance notice of the approaching tornado mr whitney's warning doubtless obviously have saved many lives giving the residents time to seek shelter before the storm hit this is to send to him to say that we do support that name change and the house bill sorry the house resolution is 881 93 for that name change attached is the house bill that has been submitted for

the federal members of Congress to vote on. Mr. President, I think they're expecting a congressional vote on this in the near term, which is why we wanted to hand carry this and get that, if you're so inclined, that support back to Representative Turner prior to any consideration on the House board.

Very good. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments for Mayor Reynolds?

I would move we accept resolution 2026-037. Thank you.

Move for passage by the Mayor. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by the Vice President. I think it's a great, it's a great idea. It's a great honor to name a post office after Gil Whitney. He was on the air for quite a long time when I was a kid and I think well respected as a meteorologist. And so very good. And hopefully this will get some more attention to Xenia. All right. Any other comments? All right. So we have a motion and a second. We'll go ahead and get a roll call, please.

Vice President Crawford.

Aye.

Councilman Miscavige.

Aye.

Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio.

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds.

Aye.

President Smith. Aye. Motion carries.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is an opportunity for appointed officials reports. We'll start with Mr. Lake. Do you have anything for the finance department tonight?

You asked a couple questions about the street light. I did a quick check. There's about 12,400-ish parcels at that lease spreader cost. I average in about $22. It's about $13.50 per 100,000 of the price value.

Very good. Thanks for that computation. Any questions for Mr. Lake? All right. Thank you. Appreciate that. Madam Law Director, what do you have for us tonight?

Just one thing I wanted to share with council. We had our charter review commission meeting on Tuesday. The commission is pretty much done with their review. Final step is for them to approve a report to council. We anticipate that they will do that on the 9th. If council decides that it wants to present any of the amendments that the committee is recommending to you on the November ballot, our deadline for that is September 4th. To be able to do that without having to do emergency legislation would require action in July. So discussions with the Charter Review Commission and the city manager at the last meeting, what we would like to do is present that report to you on the 11th. You would just accept it. You're not taking any action other than acknowledging that report has been filed. Will you have your walking tour on the 25th? But if you would kind of make a note, we're going to ask you to come that evening at 5, because the Charter Review Commission would like to come and meet with Council. And then at that point, you'll have two weeks to be able to review that report. But then they would like to come and discuss it with you, answer any questions you have about why they're making any of the recommendations that they do. Um, so that would give us a chance to really dive into it before we get into July, uh, and then have more discussions about what you as a council want to do as far as presenting any of those to the voters. So if you could just make a note, uh, the 25th, we're gonna, we're probably gonna ask you to be here at five.

Okay. Very nice. Thank you. Any questions for our law director tonight? All right. Thank you very much. Look forward to that on the 25th at five o'clock. All right, we'll move on to Mr. Merriman. I'm sure you have a long list.

Just a couple of things. I will piggyback on the law director's comments. So I had spoken with the council president about doing our typical walking tour. Um, we'd like to project to do that on the 25th in lieu of having you come in for a special session, um, to try to lessen that workload for you. Um, so what we are working to do is to keep the agenda for the 25th as light as possible. So, uh, to the law director's point, we are hoping you would be available for a work session starting at five. to do the charter review with the commission members Uh, we would start your regular session at six. We anticipate probably just a couple up to three, um, three second actions. So ordinances that would need, you know, potentially that would need a second reading and so forth. Um, but we are trying to keep any additional new agenda items off your agenda so we can recess from your regular session and then continue with the work session to take you out and tour a couple of the topics that we'd like to discuss that evening. So, um, that allows us to get a walking tour in, but minimize the impact on all of you. So we're working on that. I did provide for council this evening at your places at the dais a couple page report on a couple of our really big projects that in large part have successfully or in the process of successfully coming to a conclusion in lieu of doing a work session tonight. So I spoke with the council president earlier, said, I can have kind of a report on some of these big topics and save you guys another hour this evening. He objected profusely. No, I'm kidding. He said, no, let's not do a work session tonight. So with that, I would just offer, no, there's a lot of construction going on in town right now. We apologize for the inconvenience. Between AES, Centerpoint, three different fiber optics companies, AT&T, Our Market District project, the jail demolition, and a host of other things, there is a lot of orange barrels and cones and that sort of thing. Most of these things, the jail project, for example, should be wrapping up here in the next couple of weeks. Market District by the end of June in terms of the public infrastructure. So hopefully things will get a little bit better, but we just ask folks to be patient. And I know it causes some delays, but please be patient and be careful with those crews that are out there so we can ensure their safety with the vehicle traffic. Finally, I just want to add that we've run into some issues and I know it's created some frustration this week at the intersection of Maine and Detroit. I sent counsel a message about this earlier in the week. We did have the system manufacturer as well as our contractor come out this week. We've identified the problem. The shortest way to put this is we can't figure out quite how to fix it, so we sent the wire to disable a certain function. And that seems to have addressed the issue. It should have no adverse consequences, but we've documented what we've done if there are problems in the future. So hopefully that light is back to a normal sequence. It was pretty rough there for a couple of days because It either wasn't activating properly or you would sit for a very long sequence of lights. So again, we apologize for that inconvenience. We think there was a short created from a lightning strike. But again, tracing the problem back and getting a fix has proven a little difficult. With that, I have nothing else this evening, but I'd be happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you very much. All right. Opportunity for questions. This is replacing our work session. Any questions for Mr. Merriman? Nope. All right. All right. I do want to to commend you, 9-1-1 cost sharing. We're getting closer to relieving our burden on that.

Yeah, so the County 9-1-1 Committee has adopted the new cost sharing model that we have been working on and negotiating with the County Commission. So we will begin to see some savings in 2027 and see the full effect with the full application of that new cost sharing agreement effective for 2028. As I indicated in the report that I provided, to give you some point of comparison and some context, in 2025, our expenditure for dispatch was a little over $1.2 million. under the new arrangement in 2027, based on our projections for the budget that year, will be less than 700, between 650 and 700,000. So almost literally cutting that in half. And this has been a big project. It's been a very politicized issue, but I appreciate council sticking with us and kind of directing us to go after this because it'll provide for a sustainable model for funding dispatch, and it won't be on the backs of our taxpayers anymore.

So this hasn't been presented to the townships yet?

It has, much to their chagrin.

Okay. Yeah, because I'm getting a lot of static from Xenia Township on this. So what's the chances that this is going to get rejected by... Do they have any recourse?

There really is no recourse. There's new statutory provisions that govern these county 911 committees. Essentially, they have the legal authority to do two things. They determine what public safety answering points will receive what 911 calls, and they determine the cost-sharing model for those particular public safety answering points. so what um the 911 committee has essentially done and i might add that was a unanimous vote they have adopted an amendment to our plan which will be filed with the state of ohio and it is compulsory in terms of any any agency that's benefiting from the services in the 911 center, that jurisdiction will have to pay that relative fair share. And it's based on a per capita formula, which, after a lot of evaluation and research, we determined was the most equitable way to approach a cost sharing. So, again, now we could see some increases in the future as our population grows. That's probably a decent tradeoff, however, especially given where we were previously, where we were just eating half the cost.

just want to say you know i when i was elected to council uh three years ago this was when we first started these discussions i mean it's great to see literally the bill potentially being 48 47 percent lower so congrats to you brent and our fire and police chief and all those involved in those discussions and for wes especially you because you were one of the biggest proponents for this and leading this charge from the beginning so thank you right right and not to get political on here i'm my advice to these townships that can't afford this

is to seek help from their county commissioners. That's where they need to go. And not to be political, but our county commissioners rolled back $3 million last year. They have the funds to take care of their citizens right here. So I would ask them to put their money where their mouth is on this.

One of the challenges with the system now is that there were older portions of statute which afforded authority to county commissions, unique authorities, to fund 911 services. They can implement an assessment. They can do a 911-specific property tax. I mean, they have a couple of unique mechanisms at their disposal. When the state implemented the new legislation that created these authorities with the 911 committee and essentially required these local jurisdictions to pay a fair share of the 911 services. They didn't grant those local jurisdictions the same types of authorities that the Commission has. The Commission has a unique ability to implement an alternative revenue source that these local jurisdictions don't because the local jurisdictions would just have to do a fire levy or a general levy. I would say there's been a lot of pushback from this. You mentioned Xenia Township. They're not happy. But as I reminded the township administrator and a couple of the trustees that were at the last meeting that we had, no one's saying thank you to the county or the city for footing this bill for the last 30 years. It's just complaints about the amount that they have to pay moving forward. So we're not asking to be reimbursed for carrying the balance for all these years. We're just asking for a fair distribution of the cost moving forward.

where you mentioned our portion was 1.2 million in 2025. Okay, we're getting that down to 700,000. So there's half a million dollars over eight years that if we would have got that half a million over eight years, that would be four million additional dollars on our city streets. So the people that are asking why are our streets looking like this, again, we're choosing public safety over convenience. Would you agree?

Yeah, and I think you know the council has directed us and we have pursued every option available everywhere where we were upside down or there was an inequity or Funding something externally where we could put some pressure to try to make that change We've been doing that and this is a good example It's taken us years as you said three years to accomplish this but this is freeing up Xenia taxpayer resources for for public safety, for other critical priorities moving forward. And again, we won't see the full value until the new system fully kicks in in 2028, but we'll start to see a reduction. I think our amount next year is capped at 800,000 and that'll come down even further than in 2020.

All right, so the next project to work on is the court, right? Municipal court?

Yeah, that's a much bigger egg to crack.

That'll be a monster in itself there, but very good. All right. Thank you. So, um, and thank you for taking the time to give us this updated menu. Uh, really appreciate that. And, um, I know you've got some things to talk about here shortly. Um, so we're going to go ahead and, uh, anything else, Mr. Mayor? I'm done. Unless you have anything else for me. All right. And congratulations. Your son graduated. Yes, sir. Uh, career center and senior high school, both. Correct. Yep.

Planning to go to Sinclair and actually we'll start, um, much to his mother and my, uh, pride and chagrin, um, marine boot camp here in a few weeks.

Very good. Yeah. Congratulations. Appreciate it. Also like to mention, um, we last week Xenia high school had its graduation about not 300 graduates there. So congratulations to those students. Uh, and legacy also had their graduation the next day, a little smaller number, about 36 students there. Um, but, uh, it was a great, um, opportunity to see those kids get celebrated with their families so thank you for that we're going to go ahead and move on to council comments and reports and we're going to start with councilman muskiewicz what do you have for us tonight all right just real quick um i was out riding my bike on memorial day and it was neat to interact with the different people riding around i know that

two brothers from Washington, D.C., who came through. Of course, I directed them to our local businesses and enjoy some good food while they rested and continue on their trip to Cleveland. So we have a really great asset with our five trails, and it does bring in some tourism dollars. And that's it.

All right. Very good. Thank you so much. All right. We're gonna move to Councilman Huffman. I don't have any updates. All right, thank you very much. All right, Councilman Rubio, what do you have for us tonight? Nothing. All right. Thank you very much. We'll move on to vice president. Before we do that, I do have a question. So the little taco place opening up on down second. Yeah. What's going on with them? Are they open?

Yeah, I thought they were supposed to be opening up before the end of this month. Somebody asked me.

Come on, Brian.

Yeah, they have all the necessary permits. I think it's just a business decision.

But I would expect them to decide. OK, very good. All right. Thank you. All right, we're going to move to a vice president.

What do you have for us? I did attend the Finance and Budget Committee meeting this month. And without getting into the weeds on this, I just want to say we as citizens of Xenia, we're in an unprecedented time to pay attention and to recognize the growth Look, the work that is being done here from the mayors to our vice president, I mean, I'm sorry, to our president, not me, but our president, to all the council members, to our city manager, to the law director and our finance director, just the support from our fire and police and safety. I think combined, it has made this community a different place to experience growth and to and be encouraging for those that are visiting, to your point. I just, I'm just, I've never seen anything like it. I've been here for a long time. Not really necessarily paid attention, but now that I know what I know, there's a lot to be said for this community, and I just want to say thank you to everyone on council, to our mayor who is, he's got some, he's got more news to share with us a little later, but I just, can't have a better mayor in place. You know, he's the youngest mayor in the state of state of Ohio, the youngest mayor. I brag on him behind his back, but this is my first time to talk about it in front of his face. So anyway, yeah, yeah. Uh, with that, I don't have anything else to share at this point.

All right. Thank you. I feel like the oldest. Yeah, that's great. I should have mentioned that, the oldest president. I've had a great opportunity to serve. All right, thank you, Vice President Crawford, for your wisdom, for being up. the time that you devote to the city. I really appreciate that. So we're going to go to our mayor. He's got some great news for us tonight as well.

So I'm going to start with the beginning of my report and then end with the great news. So just for what I've done, we did the CSU commencement. It was great to be a part of that. Unfortunately, the rain had hit hard. And so instead of like an hour and a half ceremony, it was 46 minutes and some change. And they just ran through the names rather quickly. It was great to do that. Andy Lewis, who's like If you're a runner, you would know who he is. He's a real popular runner. Just to piggyback off of JD, he's doing a run across all 50 states for raising mental health awareness. He actually ran from Cincinnati, Columbus and ran through Xenia on Sunday. So I got to run with him and his crew, about 50 folks that came through. They stayed in Yellow Springs and Xenia that night before. Loved the town. I don't know how they did it. They ran 60 miles one day, or 38 miles one day, and stopped in Xenia, had dinner. Some went on down to Yellow Springs, and then some of them just kind of ran our downtown area and loved it. And then they ran from here to London, and then London to Columbus. I just did the two-mile stretch from Xenia Station to the edge of town, and I turned back around and ran back to my car. So it was great, so I just wanted to bring that up. Also, I did attend SOS Ministries Polar Plunge, so that was exciting. It was the first real hot day, and I got dunked on a bunch of ice cold water, so that was awesome. And then just a heads up for June 2nd is XREC here in this building at 5. And then for the good news, so give me a second, I'll scroll down through my notes here. I took a lot of notes. So earlier this month, I was very blessed to go to DC for the Dayton Development Coalition fly-in in Washington. And I was able to directly advocate for the future of our city. And during our meetings, we have had several meetings. One was with Congressman Mike Turner. And I'm pleased to announce that we were able to secure federal support for redevelopment for the Market District. I'm very proud to share that Xenia was able to be included in the fiscal year 2027 transportation, housing, and urban development and related agencies budget for subcommittee bill for $500,000. While this is not yet officially secured until the budget passes later on this year, we are in the budget. It's the first time that the city of Xenia has been included in a federal budget that isn't disaster storm related that I can go as far as back as 1970 that the congressional records will let me look without going to actually Library of Congress. uh so you know uh i think it's excellent for us uh it's great it's great news to hear that congressman turner is supporting this cause and leading it for us and taking a fight for us when they had their uh potential what we would get maybe what we wouldn't get it was a lot of discussion uh he really stepped up and fought for us uh to even get any money is just a testament to the project that uh we as a council have done so i just think that's really awesome uh you know i'm just happy that we get to build relationships and i'm so proud to work with each of you on council and for letting me be able to do these sorts of things to go out and advocate you know without you i would not be able to do it and especially you wes i really appreciate working with you it's been a great three years and i without you guys you know jd you're relatively new but still with you it's i love working with each of you and it's been the pleasure of my life to do it so thank you very good thank you so much all right anyone have anything for mayor ethan

All right. Other than thank you, as busy as you are representing the city. And thank you for working with Congressman Turner fighting for federal dollars for our own community. We appreciate that.

that goes on top of the 150 that we were able to secure two years ago in the capital budget so i mean that's uh 650 000 secure but potentially we'll once this federal budget passes that we'll have received in federal and state dollars that's excellent the budgets which has never happened before so we we are getting some citizen questions on market district um

So will we have an announcement in June on some additional things? Yeah.

I think as we get a little closer to the completion of the public infrastructure, we'll make some announcements. You have a robust section of the report I provided tonight that will give you probably some good answers when you get questions from people as to the status of various elements of the project.

All right. Very good. Thank you. All right. All right. I would just like to thank everybody for attendance tonight. We're seeing a lot of activity in Xenia. We've got some new businesses opening up. I'm pleased to say that there's a new privately owned business opened up across from Dairy Station. Is that Buckeye? Is that the name? Buckeye Equipment. He fixes stuff and he's great. the owner he's a Xenia resident he lives very close to the shop worked over at Xenia Tool and Rental and I already had a couple things over there to get fixed so phenomenal so I'm so glad to have that business there and make use of that empty lot there so that's great and good news on the restaurants that are possibly coming to town as well. So got a lot happening. Um, Xenia is gonna be very popular in July, especially with their, uh, fourth of July program. And, uh, that is still slated for, uh, July 3rd, right? Fireworks at 10 on July 3rd. Okay. And we'll have information about that soon. Lots of marketing coming. Very good. Very good. All right. So if anyone, uh, doesn't have any other questions, I am going to ask for us to, we're skipping the work session. We do need to go into executive session. This is brief. It's going to be five minutes or less. There will be no legislative action afterwards. So there's no need for anyone in audience to stay. Otherwise, after we come out of executive, we are going to adjourn. So I'll take a motion to move to executive. This is to discuss personnel matters. on our city's appointed officials and to consider their appointment, appointment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, devotion or compensation per ORC 121.22. I'll make that first motion and who would like to second? Second. Seconded by the mayor and roll call please.

Vice President Crawford. Aye. Councilman Miscavige. Aye. Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio. Aye. Mayor Reynolds.

Aye.

President Smith. Aye. Motion carries.

All right, thank you very much everybody.