City Council - Regular Meeting

electronic device, SELFA. If you could turn that off or on mute during the meeting, we'd appreciate that. And once we hear from IT, we're all set and they are up and running. Hey everybody, thank you. Welcome to the Thursday, July 23rd regular meeting of the Xenia City Council. This time we're gonna have an invocation by Pastor Al Ruffet, Victory Life Church, right? Did I get it right? Yes, very good. All right. And then the pledge is going to be led by J.D. Mesquite.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for your love, mercy, and grace. And Father, we're just so grateful tonight as we stand here in these chambers for our city council, our mayor, our city admin folk, our Madam Law. Thank you, Lord, for these precious ones that have chosen to dedicate their lives to our city, to our community, to give us a peaceable city to live in. And Father, we just pray tonight that you give them the wisdom of Solomon, That they'll have discretion in the decisions they make. The courage of David, Lord, in times of adversity and difficult places, that they can just mow right through those adversities, Lord, with peace and with a knowing in their hearts that they're making the right decisions. And we pray for the supernatural strength, Lord. that they'll just stay focused with what they do in taking care of the city. And Father, as it is out there on that water tower, a city of hospitality, I pray that all of us citizens that make up Xenia City, that God, we would realize we're a piece of that puzzle and that we can make it a city of hospitality. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, and amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

Thank you, Pastor Ruffet. Thank you, Councilman Miscavige. This time we're going to call our meeting to order and ask our city clerk for a roll call.

Vice President Crawford.

Here.

Councilwoman Cerise. Here. Councilman Miscavige. Here. Councilwoman Huffman. Here. Councilman Rubio.

Here.

Mayor Reynolds.

Here.

President Smith. Here.

Based on the agenda's approval of minutes, these minutes are from our July 9th regular meeting. The minutes are before us. I'll entertain a motion. Actually, sorry, we've got two, special and regular. We're going to do them together though. I'll take a motion to accept. So moved. All right, moved by Councilwoman Cerise. Second. And seconded by Councilwoman Huffman. Any additions or corrections? Need made to the minutes. If not, we'll go ahead and get a roll call to accept those. Vice President Crawford.

Aye. Councilwoman Cerise. Aye. Councilman Miscavige. Aye. Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio. Aye. Mayor Reynolds.

Abstain.

President Smith.

Aye. Motion carries. Very good. Thank you so much. We have no special presentation, correct? Did you guys add one on? Okay, very good. We have no special presentation for tonight's meeting, which moves us right into audience comments. This is a portion of the council meeting where anyone in the audience is welcome to come and address city council. We do ask for your name, address for record. We do ask you could limit your comments two to three minutes. And now's your opportunity.

Hello, I am Cole Patterson at 645 Emerson Avenue here in Ohio. I came here a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago now to speak about the business behind our home. I know a lot of things have been approved and they are following guidelines. I'll give them that. I appreciate that. But as of right this moment, I got home from work today, they had all of their posts set for the metal fence with water at the top and then they planted some trees, which those trees are already browning and they are almost like, to the point of, like, they need water and they haven't been taken care of. So that's frustrating in itself. I know that fence will be very visible from my street. So that's going to decrease property value by seeing a industrial business behind our home to that extent and barbed wire. Like I said, it's. know we all know our history here in the city let alone the state um so i know that one good storm could bring that fence down and you know i don't want to live by the if but i also have a three-year-old and a one-year-old that play in that yard and will play in that yard for many years to come um so i gotta take their best interest and i don't mean to be super selfish here um but i just one last hell mary to see what i can do for my family um i don't see why i see wood fence could have been a better solution for the residential side um And with that being said, those trees have not been taken care of. And if I was to put a fence up, I'd have to ask permission to do a 10 foot fence just to cover the top of the barbed wire. And that's not realistic. As we all know, I mean, it can be done, but the hoops I'd have to jump through. And the time I have to spend to get that done, let alone. Permits and all those things would put us a couple years out. I mean, my kids will be in middle school before those trees if they even grow will grow high enough to have privacy for that fence. And for us, we have a fire pit right next to where that fence is going up. And it's just very frustrating that I just feel like I won't want to be out there because I want, you know, I'm a police officer and I don't want to feel like I live next to a prison. Um, so I understand and I appreciate everyone that's been involved in that, um, to the 1st meeting to that last 1 I was at and this 1 just trying to throw 1 more help Mary out there to see what I can do for my family. So, if anyone has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it. I just felt the need to come tonight to talk about that because when I got homeless, I was post up. And they're all uneven because they have to set and they trim them down. They are massive. and uh it's very unsettling because their slope of their grass rises at the end of my yard it's about a three foot difference from where my property sits to where theirs is so that eight foot fence for them is 11 to 12 for me so thank you for your time all right anyone else care to come forward at this time

Hey, how you doing? I'm John Samuels, live at 261 Fairview Circle here in Xenia. I just wanted to come in tonight and express my gratitude for the council members that came out to the East End Community Cleanup Day on the 11th. I really appreciated seeing y'all out there. People was happy to see representatives of city government out there. The police officers that came out were engaging with everyone that was there and they appreciated it and um can't wait to do it again next year and hopefully we'll see a few more of y'all out there next time um i also want to take this moment to bring the light y'all may know about it i travel 68 back and forth to springfield daily for work and so 68's closed down out by the museum that's out there now so when the traffic gets detoured everybody's going the back way coming out on hilltop and fairgrounds for the people who live here and are familiar with that intersection It's all right, but a lot of people are ending up on that intersection that don't know that. And 3 days I've been there this week has been close calls with multiple vehicles out there and I'm not sure if people are really aware of how. again senior residents know how crazy that intersection is but the amount of traffic that's out there it's pretty bad so i don't know this will probably be a one thing to where once they're done doing it it won't be an issue but if they ever get done doing it exactly but yeah i just wanted to put that out there so yeah Yeah.

Yeah. It's, it's a bad.

Yeah. It's pretty crazy. So, and I had a close call coming home today, so just want to share that with y'all.

Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you, Mr. Samuels. All right. Very good. Thank you. Who else would like to come forward at this time? yes go ahead all right so we've got a couple letters that were emailed residents asked if we could read them into the record as a courtesy we're going to go ahead and do that okay and mayor reynolds has the first one all right so this is from rita caldwell and it is the degradation of xenia i was born and raised in xenia ohio and i've never seen xenia as bad as it is now

When your friends and family and community members are concerned about the numerous indigents, we know there's a problem with the interesting key points. And for now, although there are others, Bridges of Hope. It's often referred to by many as Bridges of Dope. The occupants are released early in the morning, return later in the evening for check-in. During the day, they are free to roam. You'll find them walking up and down the main street. They gather and hang out. a lot beside the McDonald's, sit on the lawn at the Lutheran Church, or lie against other buildings. A friend just told me more recently, a homeless person asked for food at Beaver Creek. This is not a good look for Xenia. And if you want people to relocate here, bike path. I'm used to walk and ride my bike along the path, but no longer can. There have been too many reports of the homeless and drug addicts sleeping and roaming the bike path. I no longer feel safe by myself. Shawnee Park has a rash of incidents from juveniles fighting, hanging out there early in the morning, underage kids drinking. It was once a night park. Now there have been a few incidents, but now it's every week. I won't let any of my kids go there without an adult supervision. If things continue to deteriorate, your biggest concerns may be retaining the residents you have. Outsiders will not want to relocate here. The population of our city is way too small to have these incidents, please. pass this to the rest of council sincerely rita colwell the situation has become remarkably worse and that is uh not my view that is the view of a citizen who wrote in and asked it to be at the record so all right thank you also i have one from

Lou Etta Talbot. This was dated actually yesterday, July 22nd. Dear Amy Brown, Mayor Reynolds, Council President, and members of Xenia City Council. My name is Lou Etta Talbot. I'm a lifelong resident of Xenia, currently resigning to 19 Heartacre. Please distribute this statement directly. to all members planning and zoning commission members as well. So we'll print that and give that to them at their next meeting and enter it into the official public record for the July 23rd meeting. Uh, my family roots run deep. My mother was born, raised and lived her entire life in Xenia working downtown. And, um, right before the 1974 tornado, she and my stepdad opened a bookstore downtown. and though the devastation presented them from reopening, their hearts remained in our city core. Furthermore, my father dedicated many years working at Robert's Olds Cadillac. I'm writing you today because I share my parents' lifelong Commitment to Xenia, I am deeply concerned about the disproportionate unhoused population and the heavy concentration of social services in our downtown core. As the county seat, Xenia absorbs an unfair share of regional challenges. Individuals arrested in outlying communities such as Beaver Creek, Fairborn, Yellow Springs are regularly transported here for jail and court processing. However, upon release, there seems to be no system or mandate to return them to the communities where they are arrested. Stranded without transportation, they are left on our senior streets. Our taxpayers, first responders, and neighborhoods are unfairly left to absorb the logistical and financial costs of a countywide issue. The heavy concentration of drug rehabilitation and social service facilities directly in the center of town compound this problem. While their resources are necessary, placing them primarily downtown damages our city's image, impacts local businesses, actively hinders our downtown revitalization efforts and efforts that family like mine have historically tried to build up. As the city moves forward with zoning update of 2026, we have a critical opportunity to correct this imbalance. I urge planning and zoning and council to implement stricter conditional use permits and geographical boundaries for future medical recovery and emergency housing facilities to prevent them from further over-concentrating our downtown core. Xenia is a compassionate community, but we cannot continue to act as the default recovery and housing hub for the entire county at the expense of our own residents' quality of life. Thank you for your time, service, and consideration. that was by a citizen there and I'm sure our law director might be able to address a couple things in here. It's the same battle we're hearing and we'll talk about that here shortly. So and I want to always encourage residents to please write us, come to us with your concerns and we will get those in the record and get city staff to work on that. There is also another one, it's dated Monday, July 13th. I think, Amy, you've got that in minutes, right? Yeah, so, and that's from... Yeah, it's from a Wilmington resident. So we'll, um, that'll go in our records. So thank you very much. All right. So, um, at the end of audience comments, we're going to move on to new business. We have no old business tonight. So our first item in new business is titled an emergency for ordinance 2026 dash 24. This is amending 2026 dash 18 to provide appropriations for current expenses and other expenditures for the city of Xenia for fiscal year. ending this year, December 31st, declaring an emergency. So we'll go ahead and turn this over to Mr. Duke.

Thank you, Council President. We are requesting appropriations for two purposes this evening. The first is related to insurance deposit that we keep on file in the finance department as structures catch fire and are in need of some sort of remediation, and as they're being brought back up to a specific code, a requirement's made that those proceeds or a portion of those insurance proceeds be kept on file with the city finance department until the fire chief determines that the property has been properly restored. We've had more, a greater quantity from a dollars and cents standpoint deposited with the city than what was anticipated in the original budget. so we're requesting this evening that council appropriate the basically the refund back to the property owner as the properties are restored so these are dollars that were put on deposit with the city they're just being refunded back to the property owner as it's restored in proper fashion so there aren't any um isn't a request here for appropriations related to this that would have anything to do with actual city resources these are simply deposits that are being refunded. So we're requesting that that amount be increased $50,000 in the refunds line in our insurance reserve fund. And then we're also requesting an appropriation this evening related to the repaving of Kecky Court. There's an agenda item later in the meeting where there's an agreement that We're requesting that the council approve via resolution, but this is a donation that's been made or will be made to the city for the purpose of repaving Keckie Court, being made by a city resident. And so we're asking that the dollars necessary for that project to proceed be appropriated by the council this evening. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have about those two items.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Duke. Any questions from our colleagues on this item?

I have a question. Is this repaving via the donation, would that be prioritizing the street repavement above the scheduled ones?

So it's in addition to what's already scheduled. So there's a separate agreement that says if the donation is made, the proceeds will be used for this specific purpose. So it's in addition to the current program.

Would it push any projects behind?

No, it won't affect the schedule that was already in place. It's simply in addition to what was already planned.

think they were already paving in that neighborhood yeah this will just add the street the street to that schedule okay it's advantageous because uh our contractor will already be mobilized in that neighborhood so we're able to utilize a change order to that existing contract so we will be using you know what the city has done from a procurement process but again it's donated funds so it's it's getting another street done without without I guess in your term without prioritizing that over anything else.

Okay.

All right. Does that answer your question? Yes. Very good. Any other questions for Mr. Duke at this time? All right. I have a question.

Yes. Is there any reason why these are lumped into one and not separate? Because I'm reading it or hearing it, they're two separate issues.

As far as the... As far as they're being... Appropriations for two different purposes? Yes. Yeah, I mean, typically rather than have multiple ordinances, when we know that there are appropriations needed, we try to combine those just to make it more simple, more streamlined. You could have a separate ordinance for each different appropriation, but there's not really any benefit to it. um if for some reason council would desire to appropriate dollars for one purpose and not the other then certainly we could amend the ordinance but that that would be the downside to combining them as if if council was in favor of one appropriation but not the other um it'd give you flexibility but typically we haven't run into that and haven't been instructed you know by council to break those appropriations up sometimes we may have appropriations you know a year end or something for quite a few different purposes, so it's just more expedient to combine them into one ordinance. And they are broken out in the ordinance itself, obviously, into the different funds showing where those dollars are deposited or where they're being appropriated.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for Mr. Duke? We'll go ahead and ask for a motion to amend the appropriations for ordinance 2026-24. Would anyone care to make that motion? So moved. Moved by the Vice President. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Seconded by Councilwoman Cerise. At this time, we'll go ahead and get a roll call, please.

Vice President Crawford?

Aye.

Councilwoman Cerise. Aye. Councilman Miscavige. Aye. Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio. Aye. Mayor Reynolds. Aye. President Smith. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you.

Our next item is an introduction for ordinance 2026-25. This is levying assessments for the improvements of city streets and public ways by lighting. Therefore, for the city for year 2026. Mr. Merriman.

Thank you, sir. This ordinance presented this evening represents the third and final step of the statutorily required process the council must take to implement a one-year citywide streetlight assessment for the 2026 tax year the cost of the street lighting improvement project for 2026 is 278 excuse me two hundred seventy nine thousand five hundred and ninety one dollars per state law the city must pay two percent of the total cost which is equivalent to five thousand five hundred and ninety one dollars leaving an assessment amount of two hundred and seventy four thousand which would be divided up among all parcels in the city, uh, upon adoption of the ordinance and the filing of same with the County auditor, uh, street lighting assessment will be included on each lot and parcel within the city for the 2026 tax year, which would of course be collected in 2027. Uh, in accordance with the net resolution necessity, uh, as previously approved, um, the assessments will be levied by a percentage of the tax value of the property assessed, and we'd be paid in two semiannual installments with their normal tax bills. Each property owner would have the option of paying the entire special assessment in cash to the finance department within 30 days of the adoption of the ordinance, if they so chose. Doing so would save the property owner the administrative fees that were added by the county auditor's office as part of the collection of the assessments. This evening, we're recommending introduction of ordinance 2026-25 to facilitate this final step.

Thank you, Mr. Merriman. Any questions for Mr. Merriman on the street lighting assessment?

Mr. Merriman, if a resident wanted to pay for this up front and not wait until their tax bill, how much savings is there?

It's a 5% auditor fee. 5%, okay. Which in this case is not a lot because the assessments themselves are pretty low.

But again, for your average residents in the neighborhood of $30, yeah.

I'm calculating in my head if it's worth it. It's probably not. Thank you, sir. Thanks, J.D.

Any other questions for either Mr. Merriman or actually Mr. Duke on this? All right. Seeing none, anyone care to make the motion or actually introduce this for tonight?

J.D., you want to do it?

I'll introduce. All right. Thank you. It's introduced by Councilman Miscavige. Our next item is Resolution 202645. This is accepting the amounts and tax rates certified by the Green County Budget Commission for 2027, authorizing the necessary tax levies and certifying the tax levies to the Green County auditor. Mr. Duke, could you explain that please?

Yes, thank you, Council President. The Ohio Revised Code requires that City Council formally accept the estimates provided by the County Budget Commission. There is no change to the millage being awarded to the City. The 3.2 mils of inside millage that's being allocated to the City I guess that's specific to the M40 parcels but that millage has remained the same for quite some time and so there's been no change by the Budget Commission on any of the millage rates. Now the revenue that's generated and the estimates related to them does change from year to year and as you can see There is an increase of $225,000 expected for the 2000, for what was certified for 2027 when compared to 2026. That's a combination of things. Some of that is due to additional development new housing being built in the city that creates obviously additional taxable value and then it also is a reflection of the increased valuation rates that many residents have been notified about in the mail by the county auditor obviously as we often say here The proportion of property taxes that the city gets relative to the total amount is quite small. That 3.2 mil is about 6% of what property owners pay the school district as the primary beneficiary of those property taxes, getting around 66%, 67% somewhere in there, and the county another close to 20%. While this is an increase, it's a fairly small increase to our overall budget, but we are required to go ahead and accept the rates that are certified by the county budget commission. So we're requesting that council will pass the resolution this evening to do that and then we'll file that with the county. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

All right, thank you, Mr. Duke. Any questions for Ryan? All right.

Yeah, I have a question. So, Ryan, I know we have to follow suit. What the county auditor has done They do based on the metrics, I understand that. There's a lot of unhappy people and by us, are we doing something endorsing that practice? Is there something that we could say or do to slow this process down or have added consideration particularly for our neighborhood?

The action that council is taking here has absolutely nothing to do with the valuation increases that are being attached to the various property throughout town. It obviously does impact us to some extent from a revenue standpoint. What council is accepting is essentially the millage that's being allocated to us. So there's 10 mills of inside millage that can be apportioned in different ways to different community or different entities within the city. We have been at that 3.2 mills as long as I've been here and I think it's been something close to 70 years since there's been a change to that inside millage. So what we're certifying or what the council is certifying is an accepting of the rates that the County Budget Commission is is allocating the portion of that inside millage that they're allocating to the city of xenia and they are they are providing us an estimate for what that would generate but we're really just accepting the the distribution of that millage so it doesn't really have anything to do with the valuation increases it's how the inside millage that 10 mills is distributed amongst the different entities in the county yeah thank you i i just want to make sure we weren't endorsing

No, this certainly is not a practice And just by the acceptance alone could be viewed as an endorsement.

Yeah, and I just want to make sure we're clear of that Yeah, it's certainly not an endorsement of any practice related to the valuation of the property Council is simply saying we we will accept the the distribution of the inside millage that the County Budget Commission approved if you don't accept what the County Budget Commission approves of i think you'd essentially be forfeiting our right to that 3.2 mills and some other community or some other entity within the county could request that millage so you're if you were to reject that you're not reducing the tax burden on the community you would simply being a lot you would allow for those mills to potentially be distributed to some other entity within the county so i think it's official that the council go ahead and accept the the rates as have been certified because it a Rejection of it doesn't necessarily mean that the taxpayers would save any dollars I appreciate that and I just want to make sure the waters are clear.

Yes, but thank you Any other questions All right this time we're looking for a motion. This is for resolution 2026 45 so moved Thank You move by councilman Muscovich. Do we have a second second? Seconded by Councilwoman Huffman. If there's no further questions, we'll get a roll call, please.

Vice President Crawford?

Yes.

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

Aye.

Mayor Reynolds?

Aye.

President Smith?

Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Our next item is Resolution 2026-46, This is authorizing the execution of a school resources MOU with Zena Community Schools and the Greene County Career Center and a multi-party school resource officer MOU with Legacy Christian, including St. Brigid and Summit Academy. Mr. Merriman.

Thank you, sir. While we have had our SRO function for many years, it is just since 2003 that our police division has provided school resource officers for Xenia Community Schools, the Greene County Career Center, and the shared SRO between Legacy Academy, Summit Academy, and St. Brigid School. The agreements for providing those services were for three years and have all expired as of this month. All four schools have expressed an interest in renewing the SRO services for another three-year term. And so this resolution as presented this evening for council's consideration would accomplish extending the contract under some new terms. Excuse me. Each of the original agreements was based on a 60% school and 40% city split based on personnel cost with input from our prior council and through negotiations this year with Chief Stutes. We are proposing and the schools have agreed to accept a new approach whereby the MOUs would document a 65% school share and a 35% city split. This is based on the amount of time that the SROs spend in school service within an average school year. It's 1,408 hours plus the requisite 40 hours required by the state for SRO training. Um, so, uh, taking into consideration, uh, vacation day, sick days and training, uh, other training, uh, and SRO spends approximately 1,352 hours, um, uh, per work year dedicated to the schools. And that breaks down to 65%. Uh, we've also incorporated additional costs for equipment and so forth, looking at holistically, uh, what the SRO position costs to make sure that we're arriving at as fair of a split as possible. So, again, this cost distribution includes that split based on how much time they're directly servicing each entity and incorporates these other considerations. So the new MOUs do continue to set forth the goals, roles, expectations for the positions, and we've established, I think, a good working relationship with the schools based on that. and we are required to have some of that pursuant to ORC Section 3313.951. So with all of that, we're requesting approval of the resolution as presented this evening. It would allow us to continue the relationship with the various schools for the SRO positions, and this includes four SROs for Zena Community Schools, an SRO for the Greene County Career Center, and one SRO position that's split between Legacy Summit and St. Bridget, And so I'll be happy to answer any questions and Chief Stutes is here as well.

All right. Thank you. All right. I'll open the floor for questions. I know Mayor Reynolds has one.

Not a question, more of a comment. I just want to thank Chief Stutes and Lon and our city staff for negotiating this. I know that it was tough. I know that there were a lot of hearsay going around, but I just want to thank you for all the hard work you guys did to get us to this level. So I appreciate it greatly. I know that it was a lot of time and effort on your guys' part. So thanks.

All right, thank you very much, Mayor Reynolds. Other questions or concerns?

Just a quick question. Are we negotiating this every three years? Is that how it works? I think so, yeah.

That seems to be an arrangement that works for everybody.

We negotiate them every three years because your police union contracts renew every three years. So to establish the rate for the SRO, we have to have those union contract rates. So that's why it's on a three-year cycle. It just kind of matches the three-year union contracts.

Thank you.

All right, very good. And I'd also like to echo that gratitude and actually to thank our educational partners for their investment and safety and helping us share the burden of that. And like the mayor said, a lot of rumors were out there, but I don't believe there was ever any intent to disrupt the process. Very thankful for this.

Absolutely. I'll put out there too, we have some exceptional individuals that serve as our SROs. I mean, they are very compassionate and passionate about what they do, particularly those trying to intercede with the younger kids and establish a relationship with kids at a very young age to understand the role of police officers and that they are there to protect and serve. So just a shout out to our SROs who do a fabulous job. Okay.

All right, anyone else? All right, this time we'll go ahead and seek a motion to authorize the memorandum of understanding with both Senior Community Schools, Greene County Career Center, and Legacy Christian, St. Brigid, and Summit.

Mr. Mayor, I mean, Mr. President, I move to introduce Resolution 26046.

I'll second. Thank you. Moved by the Mayor and seconded by Councilman Rubio. All right, we'll go ahead and get a roll call. Vice President Crawford.

Aye. Councilwoman Cerise. Aye. Councilman Miscavige. Aye. Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio. Aye. Mayor Reynolds. Aye. President Smith. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you.

Our next item in the agenda tonight is resolution 2026-47. This is authorizing execution of a street improvement funding agreement with William J. and Kimberly R. Urschel for the paving of Ketke Court as part of the city's 2026 annual street paving program. Mr. Merriman.

Thank you, sir. Uh, this, uh, does relate to our earlier appropriations, uh, uh, discussion, but as part of the city's 2026 annual street paving program, uh, several neighborhood collector streets within Sterling green subdivision, um, are scheduled for rehabilitation. Excuse me. One of the streets within the subdivision Kiki court was not included in this year's paving program, uh, because it's a cul-de-sac that primarily only serves just the residents within that particular neighbor, uh, or that on that particular street. However, our engineering staff was contacted by Mr. and Mrs. Urschel, who live on Ketke Court, about adding their street to the paving program as a donated project with no city funds directly being used for that. Our engineering staff discussed the Ketke Court addition with our contractor, John R. Jurgensen. They confirmed that they would be willing to honor their submitted unit prices for our paving program with the addition of Ketke Court. The engineer's estimated cost for the paving of that road is $37,857.05. Under the arrangement, Mr. and Mrs. Urschel would be responsible for the actual cost as determined at the completion of the work since the stated cost can only be an estimate until they have the work finished. So we're recommending a resolution be approved this evening to authorize this agreement, accept that donation, and then we would include Ketke Court as part of the street program I provided counsel this evening a memo at each of your spots. I did address in there the timeline for both the traffic calming as well as our street paving. But for the public record and for the general motor rink's public sake, we're looking at around the second or third week of August that milling would start in neighborhoods. And then we'd have a second crew that would come out after the milling is done to actually do the resurfacing. So probably by mid-September, we should have most of that done.

All right. Thank you, sir. All right. Questions for Mr. Merriman? All right. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and ask for a motion for the execution of the street program by Mr. and Mrs. Urschel. All right. Moved by the Vice President. Do we have a second? I'll second. Seconded by Councilwoman Cerise.

All right.

There's no other comments. We'll go ahead and get a roll call.

Vice President Crawford. Aye. Councilwoman Ceres. Aye. Councilman Miscavige. Aye. Councilwoman Huffman. Aye. Councilman Rubio. Aye. Mayor Reynolds. Aye. President Smith. Aye. Motion carries. Alright, thank you very much.

Moving on, next on the agenda is appointed officials reports. We'll go ahead and go to Mr. Duke.

I have nothing for you this evening, but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Alright, thank you.

Any questions for our finance director? All right, thank you, Mr. Duke. You're off the hook. All right, Madam Law Director.

I am keeping you for a work session this evening, so I have nothing beyond that.

And executive session too, correct? Yeah, so just so those that are in the audience know, after council comments, we do need to go into executive session for the discussion of property sale, and it is a little lengthy, right, five items, so I'm not sure how long that's going to take. When we come back, we are having a work session on the proposed charter review amendments, which you're welcome to sit in on. We'll probably just do those right back here. Don't expect that to go too long. We will be in executive session for probably, I'm estimating, at least 30 minutes. That's OK. It's been a little longer. All right. Madam Law Director, you didn't have anything else. Did you want to address the comment by the citizen on the letter regarding It was basically the same issue we had before, planning and zoning, trying to zone out.

We did address the issue. Part of the problem, and it's on the city, we had zoning that allowed treatment facilities, drug rehab facilities in our downtown. That has been addressed. We addressed that two years ago now. Those type of uses are no longer allowed in our downtown area. They haven't been for quite some time. Unfortunately, when you change zoning like that, you can't just kick somebody out. They're grandfathered. So as long as the business is open and running, they're allowed to remain. No new businesses are allowed to come in. If those type of businesses were to close down for a, I believe it's six months, then they can't come back in. So we did address that concern as far as zoning and the types of uses we're allowing in the downtown areas. We did really tighten that up about two years ago.

I would just add that, um, the council can regulate location in terms of concentration, but we cannot tell these entities that cannot be in the city. They have a constitutional right to be here to perform those services. Obviously Xenia does more than its fair share in terms of hosting a lot of the social service enterprises. And unfortunately a lot of those are downtown and it creates a cascading series of issues of which we are having a lot of policy discussion about how to address. But it's a legitimate frustration and concern because there's an adverse effect economically and just in terms of the optics. But I think the council has taken appropriate measures where it can to help address this by policy, but we simply cannot tell these entities they cannot be in the city.

Very good. Other questions for Mr. Merriman? And I will note, I get a lot of heat sometimes from citizens why we allow to coach downtown, why their rent keeps getting renewed. They own that building. Am I correct?

Correct.

We have no control of that. It's a property right by them.

So city council, a number of years ago, uh, took action to acquire, um, comprehensive site control. Most of what was then Xenia town square and, um, excluded from that was that crossings building. Shortly after the council at the time had acquired the site control for the balance of the property, that building was listed for sale. It was only listed for a few weeks, and a qualifying offer was accepted, which happened to be to coach. And so the only other option that the city could have had was to, and I think the council at the time, if they'd have known what was likely to come in there, probably would have tried to intercede. But the city doesn't own the property. The city doesn't own the building. We can't regulate that use. It was allowed at the time. And so it unfortunately is a problem, but it's not something that the council has the ability to change. All right, very good.

All right. Thank you, Madam Law Director. Any questions for her? All right. So, Mr. Merriman, I'm sure you've got a few things real quick.

Yeah, just a couple things. First, I did provide, as I mentioned, an update on various projects. So if you have any questions on those, please let me know. I wanted to thank, I'm trying to thank James, Wes, and Faith for coming out to join us at our meeting with the Ministerial Association last week. Good conversation with that group, and just appreciated you being there and chatting with our faith partners, and just a good meeting there. Also, a lot of thanks for our July event. Had a very good turnout. We have some things that I think we need to work on when we have this size of an event. you're bound to have some issues, and we do have a few issues on the back end. And we also have some conversation that needs to, even back to the council, in terms of getting your direction on things, as we would see additional areas build out and open up downtown, what we want the future of these events to be. But again, just want to thank all of the partners again for their help with that event, and let council know that we're already in the planning phases for next year. Again, we do need the executive session following the regular here. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you would have.

All right. Thank you. Any other questions for our city manager?

Just one. It's regarding Westside Park. Is there any plans? I've gotten a lot of folks reaching out to me about the restroom situation there, and I just was reading the memo you gave us, and I didn't really have any conclusive of what will actually happen to said restrooms. Yeah.

Well, what I can tell you is those restrooms have not been publicly available the entire time that I've worked for the city. Um, and, um, um, they, the one restroom is completely out of commission. Actually it's the men's restroom. And what happened, we discovered some damage, uh, after the winter season, we went into, you know, just do it sort of a seasonal inspection. Um, as I indicated in the memo, the flush valves were removed, stolen from all of the toilets and some other damage. We secured the door, replaced the lock. We went out a while back to try to put eyes on it again, and folks had tried to kick the door in, and the locking mechanism is actually now frozen. We can't even get into it. So we do have a locksmith coming out to try to get access. We had a really good meeting and conversation this week with leadership from Webux, as I mentioned in the memo. Our hope is that with some donation from them, we can see some of these issues with that facility get corrected here in the near term and then provide access to webox to be able to use those things so i'm really satisfied with the direction of that conversation but um and i mentioned in there as well we're looking at installation of some security cameras at that facility it's very frustrating that we have these assets and and folks just continue to damage them um it just you know i there's not much we can do to prevent it unfortunately But again, our intention is that the restrooms would be repaired and then open for the Weebucks events. We have historically not opened them beyond them because it's just impossible to maintain and monitor. But for the thousand or so folks that come out for the Weebucks practices during the weeknight, the public service director and I agreed that's a good service to have available for that crowd.

Thank you. That's all I had. All right. Thank you. Any other questions from Mr. Merriman? All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. We're going to move on to council comments and reports. Councilman Leskiewicz, what do you have for us tonight?

The only thing tonight is it's good to see sidewalks on Hollywood Drive completed. It'll be a great help for the students who walk through the high school. It's a sidewalk gap that's been there for many, many years, and you can see that the

sidewalk now is was very trampled by students so appreciate the efforts to make that happen absolutely yeah thank you how did that happen i mean that has been sitting there forever and then the city manager that was tired of students having to walk in the dark in the morning to the high school quite honestly i think the service director would even agree it's just one of those issues that was easily corrected by the city it's just a matter of making it a priority so yeah i appreciate our public service department and development department getting that finished and we're trying to fill in these sidewalk gaps where they exist particularly in routes to schools and so that's an easy fix to keep kids safe all right thank you all right uh councilwoman therese yeah real quick all i want to say is uh thanks again to john and faith samuels for helping host

The Easton cleanup, I'm so glad I got to do that. That was a lot of fun, not that a cleanup would be a lot of fun, but I met a lot of interesting new people that I didn't know prior to, and got poison ivy, so it was a win-win. And then I also wanted to say thanks to Station 32, Captain Greg Beagle, Adam Koblentz, Ben Bodecker, Danny O'Malley, Levi Dalton, and Brandon Strunk. I had a family member that had a health emergency last week, and if it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't even be here tonight because I would be probably attending a funeral of a family member. They responded immediately to an issue. I actually drove over there myself with my family member and I asked them to put him on a monitor and they did and I found out what was going on which I suspected because I took his vitals beforehand and they acted very quickly and rapidly and did a fabulous job and transported him and it's it just was unbelievably orchestrated blessing. Doesn't sound like it was, but if it hadn't happened the way that it did, we would be having a different conversation right now. So very thankful for them. They did a fantastic job, handled it great. So I very much appreciate them. So thank you.

Very nice. Thank you, Councilwoman Ruiz. All right, Councilman Huffman.

I have nothing.

All right, Councilman Rubio. No comment tonight. All right, Vice President.

Yeah, I just want to say to Cerise that, well, Faith, I wanted to say that just her awareness and sensitivity to where to go when she needs help is very key. Just know that our public service departments, our fire, our police officers, they are approachable. And I just want to let everyone know that's your shot, They are approachable. I know they have a job to do. But anyway, just feel free to do so in times like that. But thank you for sharing that story. I want to say I did participate in the cleanup under John's leadership and his wife's faith. For me, it was just an interesting experience seeing people that was volunteering their time. They came from all walks of life, various nationalities, various professions. and the police officers were there in support.

Did you get poisoned by anything?

No, I went home and washed. You know, if you take Dawn liquid detergent, you can... I think you just... Just threw shade at me. You remember, I live on the east side of town.

Well, there's poison ivy on my side of the town.

That's good. That was good.

We'll talk later.

Anyway, just wanted to say a lot was done. I just love the idea of serving seniors, which I'm also a senior, but I'm an active senior. I feel like a kid sometimes, but had a blast. And there were some people's homes that we took care of that were deceased. And I will tell you, it was a good cleanup effort, well needed, and well appreciated. I want to say thank you.

It was fun. Not that a cleanup could be fun, but it was. So, yeah.

And with that, I want to pass. All right. Thank you.

All right. Mayor Reynolds.

All right. I want to first off thank fellow council members for excusing me at the last meeting. Unfortunately, I was out of state for work. So I was open to meeting and I missed the cleanup. My flight was delayed and I was like, I knew it. Do you ever go to D.C. for work or pleasure? Do not fly to D.C.A. It is the worst. That's the third time it's happened. So I was able to get back. And then unfortunately, I have not had any invites this week to do for council. So it was a little Slow week.

Weird.

So that's all I have.

All right. Very good. Thank you very much. Also like to echo John and Faith Samuels. You're awesome. Thank you for your efforts. It was great to see the community rally together and everybody did it. and really enjoyed it. It was great. The weather held off. God was good to us and got a lot accomplished. So thank you so much. I was glad to be part of that. Also, I want to extend deep sympathies from the city of Xenia to our former Xenia school board member and the Bartley family. Tamatha Bartley was a school teacher in Fairborn. Um, I, and for many years, her husband is an assistant principal at senior high school and also is very active in our football program and lacrosse program. And her sudden passing is a loss to the community, not just for the city and Zena Community Schools, but also for our neighbors in Fairborn. So I, again, extend our sympathies to Mr. Bartley and their sons, Peyton and Paxton. I know she also had a sister, Robin. That works with Greene County Parks and Trails, I believe. So just an awesome person. She continued the legacy of her father, which was William Spahr. When he passed away, she took his seat and continued to serve our community on school board, which is really a very underpaid profession. position, but you do it for serving. You don't do it for the check. So again, I'd like to lift that family up in prayers and offer our condolences for that. So I do know we are going to have some issues that we're going to talk in executive. Also just Mr. Patterson, thank you for coming back today. I know our planning and zoning guy is out this week on for vacation, but I'm wondering if we can help you with some of those resources, maybe, or code violations or issues. So we'll see what we can do for you on that. Um, so at this time I'll go ahead and take a motion, uh, to move into executive session, uh, moved by the vice president. This is second discussion and sale, uh, purchase and property for our ORC 121.22. And that was seconded by our mayor. Can we get a roll call please?

Vice President Crawford? Aye. Councilman Cerise? Aye. Councilman Miscavige? Aye. Councilman Huffman? Aye. Councilman Rubio? Aye. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. President Smith? Aye. Motion carries.