Caucus: December 4th 2017
MINUTES OF A COUNCIL CAUCUS
Mayfield Village Civic Hall - Mayfield Village Civic Center
Monday, December 4, 2017 - 8:00 p.m.
The Council of Mayfield Village met in Caucus Session on Monday, December 4, 2017, at Mayfield Village Civic Hall in the Mayfield Village Civic Center. Council President Saponaro called the meeting to order at 8:00 p.m.
ROLL CALL:
Present: Mr. Jerome, Mr. Marquardt, Mrs. Mills, Mr. Marrie, Mr. Saponaro, and Mr. Williams
Also Present: Mayor Bodnar, Mr. Diemert, Mr. Wynne, Chief Edelman, Chief Carcioppolo, Mr. Marrelli, Mr. Metzung, Mr. Cappello, Mr. McAvinew, Ms. Wolgamuth, and Mrs. Betsa
Absent: Dr. Parker
Council President Saponaro stated, it’s sad to announce the passing of two of our long-time residents and active members of our community, Betty Playford and John Wilson. John was an active part of the ARB for many years. Betty just recently received a commendation from the Mayor. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families.
- Presentation by the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission on Community Survey Results
Council President Saponaro stated, Jim Sanhaulter and Micah Stryker from the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission are going to give us a presentation on the results of the Community Survey that we all had an opportunity to fill out.
The following is a summary:
Mayfield Village was awarded a planning update grant. It is a competitive application process that County Planning does. It is for communities either who have never done a Master Plan or have not updated it in a while.
A community survey was sent out back in August to every household (1507 households) with a 30-day response period. Halfway through, we sent a reminder postcard. 544 returned the survey. The pdf is available on-line with the results.
We broke down the ages of those who responded. There is an overrepresentation of seniors and not as many young people who responded.
Mr. Jerome asked, but you only sent out one to each household?
The survey asked the residents to work together on it.
Mr. Jerome asked, how did that affect this for the age?
We asked the oldest member to complete the survey. It was one per household.
Almost 1/3 of the people who completed the survey have lived here 30 years and 2/3rds do not intend to move out.
We asked why the resident wants to live in Mayfield Village. The top response was they feel safe in the Village or their neighborhood. There were also good comments on the services and the school system, but the fact they felt safe here was number 1. Younger age groups enjoy the suburban nature and like being close to work. Middle aged people with children were interested in the school system. Seniors were very interested in services.
We asked what they don’t like and what they would consider moving for. Over 30% said they would not consider moving out. Lower taxes and moving to Florida were some options.
All of the park facilities were rated very highly, excellent or very good.
There is a desire for more rest stops at the Greenway. This could be a recommendation. Others wanted exercise stations.
Music is the most popular option for programming at the Grove and in Reserve Hall.
Everyone had a desire above all to maintain the community to the high standards as it is now.
With regard to transportation, the major takeaway was they wanted to continue improving the pedestrian safety and bicycle safety. Biking and walking are very popular. That is something the community has been working on for the last several years. Public transit was the lowest priority.
Mayfield Village’s services were ranked very high across the board.
With regard to whether or not they wanted the population to grow, 91.5% said no.
Almost 99.6% said the overall quality of life in Mayfield Village was either excellent or good. 4%, maybe two or three people, said it was average.
Above all, responders’ most important comment was to maintain the quality of the community.
Next Steps:
- Wrap the survey into the Master Plan process.
- Deliver the final report to the Village to be posted to Social Media and any other ways you feel it needs to go out to the public in its final form.
- Steering Committee meeting on December 19th.
- First public presentation in January. We will go over the survey and current conditions and where we are with the process.
Council President Saponaro stated, we appreciate your presentation. Do we have copies of this?
A pdf version will be sent out.
MAYOR:
Mayor Bodnar thanked the Garden Club for their wonderful Mistletoe Mart. All of the money raised goes to scholarships for high school students. I hope you raised a lot of money. It looked like a very successful event.
Mayor Bodnar stated, I want to congratulate Danielle and the Service Department on the great Tree Lighting Ceremony last night. Everything went off without a hitch. We had a great crowd there along with the choir from Center School. Kudos to everyone for that.
COUNCIL PRESIDENT:
- 2018 Schedule of Council Meetings
Council President Saponaro stated, everyone should have received a draft. You will note that there is a proposal regarding the start times of the meetings. Caucus and Council meetings will start at 7:00 versus the current 8:00 p.m. Committee meetings will start earlier. For example, Finance would start at 6:30. Safety and Service would start at 6:15 and so forth. The draft lists the proposed dates. We only have one Tuesday date for the year. That’s in September. Other than that, I think we are pretty much covered. I would entertain anyone’s comments or thoughts on this at this time.
There were no comments.
Council President Saponaro stated, okay. With that being said, no one has any objections to this and we will move forward in this light.
Mr. Marquardt asked, did you talk to Steve Parker on this?
Council President Saponaro replied, when he said he could not be at this evening’s meeting, I e-mailed him and asked him if he had any questions. He responded that he does not have any agenda items to discuss. I asked him to make sure he looked at everything. He responded that he looked at it and everything is perfectly fine.
- 2018 Committees
- 2018 Council Committee Assignments
Council President Saponaro stated, assignments won’t be finalized at this point because they are the 2018 Committee Assignments. We will continue to have a discussion on that. But in terms of Committees themselves, we do want to have discussions and part of what I sent you in the memo, I sent you a number of sections that pertain to what Council and our roles and responsibilities are and also Section 121.06 talks about our Standing Committees, Committees we don’t currently call these various names, but replaced them with other names and have not made them separate ordinances or part of the Charter.
I gave you all of the different articles and chapters regarding the various committees that we need to look at. Part of what we are talking about tonight is the combination of Activities and Rec Board. There has been discussion on Ordinance Review. There has also been discussion on changes to Drainage and Infrastructure. We have a lot of things pending that we have not made any decisions on but we want to have an open discussion on this. This will keep occurring as we go forward. We are not going to make any decisions today, but I wanted to at least start the process and see what anyone’s thoughts were on any of these Committees.
From the information that has been provided, I have not heard from any Council folks. I have heard from some of the Administration regarding this but have not heard from anyone regarding the Committees. We did have a discussion in Finance this evening regarding one of the Committees. Does anyone have any points or items or things that they want to discuss regarding what was provided for you in this memo or things we have been talking about in terms of these committees and the structure of them and how we move forward with them?
Mr. Williams asked, when you say they have been under review and under discussion?
Council President Saponaro replied, like Ordinance Review. There is a proposed Ordinance that has gone out. Before it went out, it was discussed on the floor and in Committee. It’s an ongoing discussion. Drainage and Infrastructure, there has been changes that have been proposed to be made to it in terms of different mechanisms and how we look at the scoring system on that. We have proposed changes in terms of Ordinance Review in terms of the composition of it and the use of it.
Mayor Bodnar added, and the Activities Committee.
Council President Saponaro stated, and Activities. That’s something we discussed last year, but with Bill Thomas leaving, we did not want to change that structure or propose it and then have Mr. McAvinew come in and want to do something different.
We have been talking about these Committees, especially in light of the way our ordinances read. For example, our Ordinance reads that we have the following Standing Committees: Committee as a Whole, Budget and Appropriations, Public Safety, Public Service and Public Utilities, and the Legislative Committee. Those are Standing Committees under 121.06. We could say these Committees have evolved into, we call them something different, but if it’s not accurate in our ordinance, we should make them accurate. If there’s something duplicative, let’s clean that up and have another ordinance sitting out there when we have something already as part of a Standing Committee. These are things that we have had discussion on. I want to have discussion on this. I want conversation here.
Mr. Marquardt asked, is that in your memo?
Council President Saponaro asked, is what in my memo?
Mr. Marquardt asked, discussions that have been made, are those in your memo? The discussions made in the past?
Council President Saponaro replied, my memo just talks about what we want to talk about. We all have been here to know what has been discussed.
Mr. Marquardt stated, if it were discussed, it should be included in your memo.
Council President Saponaro stated, instead of talking about what my memo doesn’t have, why don’t you give your opinion?
Mr. Marquardt replied, I am just saying, stuff that was discussed before should be included in your memo for notation and for people to discuss. Not just throw it out there and say we discussed this before.
Council President Saponaro stated, we have been having a discussion on this for the past year on various aspects of it. You don’t have a memory of what we have discussed?
Mr. Marquardt replied, not the way you are presenting it.
Council President Saponaro asked, have you looked at what we have on our agenda in terms of what is proposed?
Mr. Marquardt replied, yes, I have seen that.
Council President Saponaro stated, okay, so why would I have to tell you that we talked about the Ordinance Review Committee and that there is a proposal here when it is already there? It supplements what we already have.
Mr. Marquardt stated, you have a whole list of things there.
Council President Saponaro stated, you have Activities Committee that is on here.
Mr. Marquardt stated, I know, but from your memo, notate those. Which ones are you talking about?
Council President Saponaro replied, I am talking generally. That’s the whole point here. I want to have a discussion on it. If you don’t want to have a discussion on it, then no one will talk on the floor and that’s fine. I am trying to get a discussion. We have things on our books and in our Ordinances that we don’t use. Let’s clean them up. But if they are of importance, we need to know that.
I think we had a good discussion at Finance today. People talked about Safety and Service. It’s very clear people want to have that. They think it should continue on for various reasons. Terrific. We need to have those types of discussion so we understand that because Administration and other people I have talked to feel it is duplicative but that’s okay. They can repeat it. We talked about that today.
So let’s talk about these Committees. Ordinance Review is sitting on here. We should have a discussion on that. What does everyone think? We have an Ordinance Review Committee pursuant to codification but we also have a Legislative Committee that is part of our Standing Committees under 121.06, so why do we have both? Do we need to have a separate one? And if we are going to have a separate Ordinance Review Committee, we don’t follow the Ordinance we have right now. So if we are not going to follow that, we either have to clean it up and follow it, or we have to create the Legislative Committee and follow that. We have to do something but we can’t just sit here and not address these. That’s the discussion.
I am not trying to direct the conversation. That was the reason I didn’t put my particular thoughts in here. I wanted everyone to actually read this, look at it and tell me what your thoughts are because everyone has been on Council, some of you much longer than I have, some of you not, but we have to read this and we have to start somewhere. That’s what this is about. I want people’s opinions. What’s everyone’s opinion on it? That’s the point of the discussion. Has everyone looked at this memo and looked at the specific ordinances and sections here regarding the Committees and does anyone have an opinion about this one way or the other?
Mr. Jerome stated, my opinion would be yes, if we don’t feel we need certain things, it needs to be removed. If we shouldn’t be doing it, we should remove it, or change the name. Maybe you don’t need to do everything at once, like, for January, let’s discuss committee minutes. Everybody puts their consensus in and changes it. You don’t have to do everything at once. We have tried to look at this as a whole. Maybe we have not gotten anywhere with it because there’s just too much going on. So maybe breaking it down to different discussions and different points.
Council President Saponaro stated, that’s the point I am trying to get to. Where are our priorities here? If we talk about these committees and where are the priorities here, what the structure of this should look like. Then we, to your point, can start at one and go to the next one.
Mr. Jerome stated, right. But I think doing nothing is not a good idea. I am in agreement that something should move forward like how we are doing with Activities and Ordinance Review. They need to evolve. There are certain things we should not evolve into. There are things we pushed off that we should go back to our roots on maybe, both directions.
Mrs. Mills stated, I think each one of these points you have in this memo have to be discussed. It’s going to take some time to do that.
Council President Saponaro stated, sure. Absolutely. But I need to know what everyone’s focus is on this. If you look at the different sections, we have a lot of inconsistencies because of our evolution. How do we clean this up?
Mrs. Mills stated, times change.
Council President Saponaro stated, right. So how do we clean this up and do this in a way where we are doing first things first? We could have a committee and the committee can go through and change everything the committee thinks is important, but if that’s not what Council thinks is important because we are the legislative body, then I think it is a waste of time to have a Committee go through that effort. That’s what I am trying to avoid. So I want to know from Council’s perspective what is important. Where do you want this to begin? Especially in light of the fact that we have all of these other proposed ordinances sitting out there. This seemed to be the perfect time to talk about all of this and then prioritize it. That’s what we are trying to do.
Mrs. Mills stated, in most organizations, they have, say the Clerk of Council, what are her duties? Everybody should know what everybody’s duties are. If they take on the responsibility of say, being on Ordinance Review, what are they really supposed to be doing? I think that’s where some of the negligence comes in with what you are talking about. The frivolous parts of it have to go. People have to understand what their duties are. If no one tells them, it’s just like Council, we have some new Council people coming on. They have a lot to learn. We are sitting here as the elders. We have it all in our mind. We have to be able to pass it on to them properly so they know how to vote and what their duties are going to be.
Council President Saponaro stated, sure. Absolutely. That is what we are trying to do. To get this cleaned up and look at this from that perspective. For example, if you look at the Parks and Recreation Board, 143.03 Standing Rules, “the Standing Rules of the Recreation Board, the 1980 Revision are hereby approved”. Do we even know what that means?
Ms. Wolgamuth stated, and if you look at the new proposed legislation, we have just completely removed that because we did find the Standing Rules from 1980, but they have nothing to do with what we are doing currently. Things like that we have tried to update. And I think the Activities and Rec Board, it’s pretty straightforward. We are combining the Committees. We are expanding the Committee to include 30 people because we have 30 people interested in participating. Mr. McAvinew plans to have subcommittees under the Parks and Rec Board and so that’s a pretty easy change I think.
Ordinance Review is a little more difficult. I did talk to Council about it at the Caucus in November. What we were proposing was rather than having members from ARB and P&Z, that the Mayor just appoint three citizens and that they did not have to come from a particular Committee. We have talked about it since then and if the Mayor and Council is going to be charged with making policy decisions we are not really sure it makes sense to have an Ordinance Review Committee at all. If we do, it shouldn’t really involve citizens. If you are talking about technical changes to the ordinances, the citizens really wouldn’t know what our Standing Committees are, they wouldn’t know what changes need to be made in the Ordinances without the Administration telling them. Maybe Ordinance Review should be a Committee of Administration and Council. Maybe Ordinance Review shouldn’t exist and just Council should discuss the policy decisions at their meetings.
Council President Saponaro stated, or through the Standing Committee which is the Legislative Committee which is not currently being utilized, but can be utilized, because it would just be a Council Committee at that point.
Ms. Wolgamuth replied, right. So we drafted the legislation following what we talked about last month saying that it would be the Mayor, the Council President or a designee, it would be three citizens and I believe the Building Commissioner would be on the Ordinance Review Committee. We can do that and try that for a year and see how it goes. We have also revised it so that Ordinance Review would only get issues referred to it by the Mayor and Council. We can see how many times things actually get referred. If it’s not happening, there wouldn’t be meetings scheduled unless there were Ordinances referred to the Committee.
Council President Saponaro stated, thank you Diane. That’s exactly the discussion we need to have. Does anyone have thoughts on what we are talking about?
Mr. Marrie stated, just a thought. We should divide and conquer rather than taking this whole thing out at one time which I think will take quite a bit of time. I am suggesting and I think I heard it before in a conversation, maybe you should assign two items you want to discuss at Caucus. It would be reported back at Council. You would have month to discuss this with others and have an open session on just those two items and then go for two more. If you try to do them all at one time, I think there’s going to be more confusion and more time.
Council President Saponaro stated, what I am trying to do is find out, I can set the agenda, but I am trying to engage Council to say what they think is important to start with. I want Council to help set the agenda and where to start.
Mr. Marrie stated, everyone will have their own opinion on it. It might not get rolling fast enough, but if you assign two items on the agenda and then have an open discussion and everyone gives their thoughts on it and you finalize it right then and there. Next month, you can have two more done. It will go faster and will be more thorough.
Council President Saponaro stated, okay. I don’t have a problem with that. Does anyone have an opinion on where we start on this or is everyone leaving it up to me at this point?
Mr. Marquardt stated, just grab one and go with it.
Mr. Jerome stated, between you as Council President, maybe Mary Beth, maybe the Law Department as needed. Start going through it. Pick sections at a time. If you have suggestions or someone else has a suggestion, let you know.
Mr. Marquardt stated, I would suggest you start in February.
Council President Saponaro stated, you want to look at something specific in the Chapter, not the whole Chapter?
Mr. Marquardt replied, whatever makes sense.
Council president Saponaro stated, okay. We will go forward. We will put together a listing of how this is going to work.
Mrs. Mills asked, do you have a priority list yourself or the Mayor?
Council President Saponaro replied, the priorities are kind of sitting out here. What happened is we have Ordinance Review coming up. We are looking at this. We are looking at it from that perspective but then I look at 121.06 that says we already have a Legislation Committee that is a Standing Committee that we could be utilizing. Do we need to have a separate Ordinance Review Committee that we don’t fulfill the obligations of it today according to the Ordinance? We don’t follow all the way through on it. Do we get rid of it and just have that Legislative Committee and handle things that way? That kind of started the process. Then we have the Parks and Recreation Board which we have discussed. Then we also have legislation repealing the Senior Center Community Room Committee because it has met its purpose and no longer is needed. We can talk about that once we get to it. That’s where this whole conversation started when I saw all of these sitting gout here.
Mrs. Mills asked, so you are saying it started with Ordinance Review?
Council President Saponaro replied, Ordinance Review is the one because I was looking at the Standing Committees and we are looking at possibly repealing Ordinance Review. If we repeal it, are we going to go to the Legislative Committee which is what I think we should do and have a Standing Committee that we can address any issues from a Council basis versus having to have a separate ordinance Review Committee that was not working in the way that in accordance to how it was put in the Codification. There’s where I would start it. We don’t have to vote on this right now, but there is a discussion on this. Maybe this is the first priority because we are already going to be discussing this.
Mrs. Mills stated, it sounds like it. You keep talking about it.
Council President Saponaro stated, okay, we can discuss what’s on the agenda right now. I will put together a listing starting in February of the next items we need to address and tackle and then we will talk about them at Caucus and continue on. If they have to go to Ordinance, we will deal with it.
Mrs. Mills stated, since we don’t really have that much in Safety and Service, couldn’t we have that kind of discussion between Safety and Service and Finance like a Caucus so we have time to discuss it? You want to start the meetings at a different time now. That’s what you have to establish. Some kind of meeting time so everyone knows that they should be there at that meeting for that discussion. We know we should show up for Finance and Safety and Service.
Council President Saponaro stated, that’s really Caucus. That’s Committee as a Whole.
Mrs. Mills stated, that’s what a Caucus is about.
Council President Saponaro stated, that’s where we should discuss it, at the Caucus. I would agree.
Mr. Jerome stated, maybe at the end of the Caucus meeting, the last item.
Mrs. Mills stated, if we put it in the middle, we won’t be making any idle chatter. We will be down to business and doing our job.
Council President Saponaro stated, wherever we want to do it, but yes, that’s what I would intend to use Caucus for those discussions. Make sense?
Mrs. Mills replied, yes.
CLERK OF COUNCIL:
- Annual Meeting – M.C.I.C. – December 18, 2017– 8:00 p.m.
Mrs. Betsa reported, the Annual Meeting of the Mayfield Community Improvement Corporation (“M.C.I.C.”) consisting of all of Council will be held before the Regular Meeting of Council on December 18th.
- Annual Meeting – Firefighter’s Dependents’ Fund
Mrs. Betsa reported, the Board held their Annual Meeting this evening and voted in the legislators and representatives of the Fire Department.
Upcoming Events
- Hillcrest Council of Councils – December 6, 2017
Mrs. Betsa reported, Hillcrest Council of Council’s December meeting is on the 6th. Please let me know if you wish to attend and I will RSVP for you.
Council President Saponaro asked, what time is that?
Mrs. Betsa replied, it is from 5:30-7:30.
ADMINISTRATION:
- The Grove Band Shell Phase II Bid Results
Ms. Wolgamuth reported, the bid results were received for the Grove Band Shell Phase II which includes the storage building that will also be used as a green room back stage area of the Grove and it includes two permanent signs, one on SOM Center Road and one coming off the parking lot from the pool at the entry to the Grove. We included three alternates, gutters and rain chains for the bandshell structure is Alternate 1. Alternate 2 is an additional landscaped wall and paver area and Alternate 3 is three flagpoles. One of the bids is a little bit over the maximum $275,000 which was our estimate, but all of the other bids came in below that. We will have a recommendation for Council. It will be in your packets on Friday. We will be recommending that we construct the additional landscaped wall so we will include that in the recommendation.
Council President Saponaro stated, Ron, you mentioned in Finance that in terms of budgeting, you are going to budget as if all three of these items were chosen in terms of the alternates?
Mr. Wynne stated, because it’s the end of the year and we only have one more meeting, the final budget you get will assume that all three alternates will be passed by Council just so that we are covered and there is no budget violation in the event you do want it. If you don’t it will be covered in the event of.
Council President Saponaro asked, does anyone have any questions on this?
There were none.
FINANCE DEPARTMENT:
- Resolution to advance property taxes
Mr. Wynne reported, this is an annual requirement where we notify the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Officer that as they collect proceeds from real estate tax bills that they send those proceeds out to us instead of holding them and just distributing them at the end of the billing cycle. It helps improve our cash flow throughout the year.
- Resolution requesting Cuyahoga County Fiscal Officer to Adjust Amended Official Certificate of Resources for 2017
Mr. Wynne reported, this is a notification to the County of what our revenue budget is. I will be making some adjustments to our revenue budget which I will provide to Council and I will highlight the adjustments and explain why they are being adjusted. We have to notify the County of those changes.
- Advances and Transfers
Mr. Wynne reported these are all transfers between funds which will need to be approved at the next Council meeting. I provided Council with a listing of what those advances and transfers will be. They either equal the budget or there are some minor revisions for items that Council approved throughout the year for the actual TIF proceeds that were received during the year. We decided to delay the Thornapple Robley Sewer project while we applied for a grant through the Sewer District. That transfer will not be required in 2017 but will be required in 2018.
Council President Saponaro stated, we did get the grant and we will be going out to bid on that project in 2018?
Mr. Wynne replied, correct. From an advance standpoint, our income tax collections this year were approximately $18,500 which is $4.5 million over budget and $1 million over what we received last year so with the excess funds in our reserves, which will sit at about $17-17.5 million at the end of the year, we will be requesting two additional transfers that were not budgeted for. One for $1 million to the Street Construction Maintenance and Repair Fund to cover a good portion of the cost of the Worton Park paving project for next year and then $500,000 to the Capital Improvement Fund to cover projects next year such as the replacement of the roof on the Fire Station, the alerting system within the Fire Station and we are looking at discussing with Council taking the sidewalk on SOM Center Road further north towards the Intergenerational Park.
- Final appropriations for January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017
Mr. Wynne stated, this needs to be approved by Council. I will provide Council with a detailed copy of the budget and highlight the items that have been adjusted and give you an explanation of why those adjustments took place. Most of the adjustments will be items that Council approved during the year.
- Temporary appropriations for January 1, 2018 through March 31, 2018
Mr. Wynne stated, we pass our final budget for the year in March. The temporary appropriations are just a temporary budget for the first quarter allowing us to do business while we go through the budget for next year for final approval in March.
- 2018 Estimated Annual Premium – Worker’s Compensation
Mr. Wynne reported, this is going to be $122,630. We are requesting approval now because if we pay it by January 2nd, we get a 2% discount off that amount. It is approximately $11,000 higher than we paid this year because it’s based on wages number one and wages did go up a l little bit. Also, we have two claims in our experience for 2014 that have gotten substantial in size and have impacted our discount rate within the pool and will be that way for the next several years until we cycle out of our experience.
Council President Saponaro asked, does anyone have any questions regarding these items that Mr. Wynne has discussed?
There were none.
LAW DIRECTOR:
Legislation:
- Amending Sections 125.02, 125.04 and 125.05 – Ordinance Review Committee
- Repealing Section 131.03 – Activities Committee
- Amending Chapter 143 – Parks and Recreation Board
- Agreement with Motorola Solutions, Inc. for equipment upgrade and maintenance services
- Repealing Section 131.02 – Senior Center and Community Room Committees
- Authorizing the Village Engineer to prepare plans, bids and specifications for the proposed sewer conversion project on Thornapple Road and Robley Lane
Mr. Diemert reported, the Administration is proposing some amendments to the Code relative to the things you have been talking about, for instance, the Ordinance Review Committee, we have decided to streamline it and have an Ordinance proposing to do that.
Repealing the Activities Committee is also a proposed Ordinance that Administration is bringing in. Amending the Parks and Recreation Board to again streamline that and make it more current with our activities.
The Agreement with Motorola Solutions the Chief talked about in Finance Committee where we are agreeing to an upgrade in maintenance services, a compromise we have made with them.
Repealing the Senior Center and Community Room Committees is another one being proposed.
With regard to the legislation on the proposed sewer conversion project, if we are so inclined to move forward, we should get that going.
Not on the agenda is the Mayor has negotiated with her counterpart at Gates Mills an amendment to the EMS contract in order to be a little more fair to Mayfield Village and to gain some reimbursement for costs when we get beyond 140 runs which our current contract does not provide for.
Council President Saponaro asked, does anyone have any questions or comments to the Law Director regarding any of the legislation proposed?
Mr. Jerome stated, with regard to Ordinance Review Committee, more and more I am seeing it just not being necessary to have, I like the idea of having some other people kind of put their eyes on some of the ordinances, but it seems like more and more from what John has said, some of the things that should or should not come to Ordinance Review Committee at the end of the day, is it just government waste? Maybe Citizen’s Advisory could as needed review ordinances. It’s not going to be members of other currently sitting committees. It’s going to be three residents who may not be knowledgeable on the aspects of it. Council is the one making the decisions on the proposed ordinances and Administration too which they are kind of already doing anyways, so what is Ordinance Review really doing other than just kind of sitting there. At first I thought it might be good to keep it, but now seeing what is left of it, I don’t know if it’s necessary anymore.
Mr. Diemert stated as these go through the readings, I think those alternatives could be discussed between those who wanted it and didn’t want it. I am sure the Administration would be amenable to get Council’s decision on it. I think we were leaning towards eliminating the position anyways.
Council President Saponaro asked, does anyone else want to chime in or discuss this further at this point?
There were no further comments.
Council President Saponaro asked, anyone else on any of the other legislative items on the agenda?
There were no further comments.
PARKS & RECREATION:
- Wildcat Sport & Fitness rent – September 2016-August 2017 (Mayfield City School District - $6,585 – pass through)
Mr. McAvinew reported, this is for the Wildcat Sports and Fitness Rental from September 2016 to August 2017. Payment to Mayfield City Schools in the amount of $6,585 for the cost of operating the youth basketball program, the adult basketball program, the adaptive programs, our dodgeball tournament.
Council President Saponaro asked, any questions?
There were none.
SERVICE DEPARTMENT:
- Renewal of PIPE program under MS4 Storm Water Permit (provided by Cuyahoga Soil and Water - $5,500 – pass through)
Mr. Metzung reported, this the renewal of our PIPE program which is Public Involvement/Public Education for our stormwater permit. We are required to have this. It used to be Euclid Creek.
The Cuyahoga County Soil and Water have now taken this over. The $5,500 we pay gets reimbursed to us through the Regional Sewer District. It is a pass through.
In addition, for next year, I have two items I am going to want to do in January under next year’s budget, so I am going to want to move on them right away. One is tree trimming because it’s sensitive to the weather. We have to do it in the winter when the trees are dormant before the leaves leap out.
The other item is relamping the Police and Fire Department. That’s something we want to do during the off season. They will be in next year’s budget, but I will want to move on those right away.
Council President Saponaro asked, what does relamping consist of?
Mr. Metzung replied, the florescent lights at Police are horrendous. We are over there constantly changing them. We are going to go to LED’s.
Mr. Jerome asked, didn’t you do that for some other buildings?
Mr. Metzung replied, the bays in Service Department and Fire Department. It was part of a rebate program. This is also part of a rebate program but it is not going to be nearly as lucrative because we are changing out fairly deficient florescent lights to LED lights so there is not a great savings. We will get some help from CEI regarding that with those programs where we get a rebate but it won’t be dramatic like it was with police and fire.
Council President Saponaro stated, thank you. Does anyone have any other questions?
There were none.
ANY OTHER MATTERS:
Council President Saponaro asked, any other matters before Council?
Mr. Wynne stated, I just wanted to mention one additional item regarding the legislative matter on the Motorola contract. For the record, it is a four-year maintenance contract at a total cost of $117,004.84. The first year, 2018, it is $27,967.32 and then each year increases approximately $850 after that.
Council President Saponaro stated, thank you. Anything else?
There was no further comment.
There being no further matters, the meeting concluded at 9:02 p.m.