Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00On to Kent City Council, this is our fourth concession of the region, and you'll be getting to see the local community.
00:10I'd like to welcome you to Kent City Council's fourth concession of the region.
00:30We gather tonight with a sense of duty and purpose, seeking your wisdom and guidance
00:49as we undertake the responsibilities entrusted to us.
00:52We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community and ask your presence among
00:57us as we deliberate on matters of hand.
01:01Fill us with your spirit of unity and cooperation so that we may work together despite our differences.
01:06Remind us always of our shared commitment to the well-being of our community and the
01:11importance of serving with integrity and humility.
01:14We entrust our proceedings to your care, confident your guidance will lead us to make decisions
01:21that best serve our community.
01:23In your holy name we pray. Amen.
01:27I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for
01:33which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
01:46Welcome, everyone.
01:49Are there any additions or corrections in the minutes?
02:00Hearing none, mark them as approved and submitted.
02:06If you don't have any more to move, then it's my pleasure to speak.
02:10There will be time in the meeting, and that is under comments from the public.
02:17You can address the council if you wish.
02:21Also, I see too many folks here, but we will make time prior to the ordinance under third
02:34For anyone that would like to make a comment to the council, there will be time to do that
02:39before we discuss and or vote.
02:47So communications, quite a few.
02:50First, all council members, Terry Bernstein provided a packet for all of you.
02:58There is a summary, and maybe when we get to that legislation, I'll ask Terry if he
03:06wants to address the council.
03:08If you don't, that's fine.
03:09You're great.
03:10I think that's some of the things that have happened so far that you want to do all of
03:14you have.
03:15We also received a couple of different notifications or actually resource materials regarding pipeline
03:23safety.
03:25Anyone can take a look at that if you'd like to see that.
03:30And finally, we're going to email to you all information from Prosecutor Bailey's office
03:40that, I have to admit, Cindy sent this a couple weeks ago to myself, and David, you might
03:47have got a copy too, regarding the Budget Commission, and I kind of just overlooked
03:52it.
03:53The Budget Commission meets every year.
03:54They go through a process.
03:56Well, they're saying that now there's some recent legislation that was passed that updated
04:05the Highway Advisory Code where the Budget Commission needs to conduct a public hearing
04:12every four years on how they split up funding that comes Harkin County's way to oversimplify
04:22it.
04:23And that we have the ability to contest that or question that.
04:27So, and they're going even so far as, I believe we need to pass a resolution whether we adopt
04:33or reject what the formula is for distribution of local government and local government revenue.
04:40So we're going to email this all to you.
04:43Going to leave it up to you to look through it and decide if you would like to contest
04:48that.
04:49I will say this, it breaks down how those funds are allocated now, and that is 50% to
05:01the county, 14% to Kenton.
05:06The remaining 36 goes to the townships and villages, which 20% to the townships and 16%
05:13to the villages.
05:15So, please read the same letter that we all receive or that the administration received.
05:21If you think there's merit to questioning that, then we can do so.
05:26I don't want to say that it's hopeless to question it.
05:33I also would say I believe those percentages have been in place quite a while now, and
05:39it even goes into some detail how they came up with those.
05:43Probably want to make a decision either way at the next meeting.
05:47Sorry to kind of spring that on you all.
05:50I thought it was a routine, something we never do, and it does sound like something we should
05:56do.
05:58Hopefully, I'll do that next time as well.
06:05Any other communications anyone has to share?
06:09Yes.
06:10Oh, I thought we were going to do this.
06:12Okay.
06:13Then we'll move on to petitions.
06:18I know of none that we have active other than legislation.
06:23So, administrative reports.
06:28Chief Blessor.
06:31Okay.
06:32Chief Donrey.
06:33Chief Donrey does have the fire report in your packet, if I recall correctly.
06:38Yep.
06:39For June.
06:41So, get that over.
06:43If you have any questions, I'll hesitate to ask.
06:47Tim's not here.
06:50Public works, so there must not be anything overly exciting going on there.
06:54So, we'll move on to economic development.
06:57Anything you want to say, Lynn?
06:59We had another Main Street board meeting today.
07:02I do believe Stephanie Temple, who's credited, will be coming up, I think, sometime in June,
07:13to address the council to get everybody a better feel of what the mix is,
07:17on the partnership, collaboration, goals, mission statement.
07:22So, that's it for economic development.
07:26We'll let the court house.
07:28Income tax, you do see there.
07:36Auditor, first I'd ask you if you want to talk about that.
07:41Okay.
07:42There's two reports, though, from the auditor, or both sides of one report.
07:48That's the report of the auditor and treasurer to the mayor,
07:51in terms of our current fiscal position.
07:54If you have any questions on that, please go ahead and ask Darryl and Laura.
08:08Okay.
08:10All right.
08:15Yes.
08:19So, on project downtown, they're going to be finishing up the water line this week,
08:25so it will be charged.
08:27Then they will move on to start with the streetscape,
08:31and they're going to start down here and work their way north.
08:34So, we'll be right along.
08:35They're a little bit behind, because they ran into some issues with foundations
08:41and the coal chutes.
08:43So, they're going to be moving to get that fixed.
08:48Yeah.
08:49I figured out a way to address those issues.
08:51Yeah.
08:54And then you saw Cindy had a couple of her typical monthly reports,
09:00wastewater treatment plant daily discharge and flow,
09:03and then the plant effluent flow chart on the table.
09:09If you have questions on those, don't hesitate to ask.
09:16Lynn.
09:17I just need to update everybody or let them know that it's done.
09:22There's no parking now permanently on Franklin Street, East Franklin,
09:28from Wayne Street to Cherry Street, both sides.
09:32It matches Columbus Street.
09:36And then from West Esken Street on the Westbound lane is no parking permanently
09:43from the intersection to Waterworks Drive.
09:49And that guy's painted last week and did some touch-up today
09:54and then completed it.
09:57And maybe just to follow up,
09:59it might be worth mentioning to Council the signs for this traffic study
10:04at Ohio and Detroit and Carroll and Detroit.
10:10Those signs are up.
10:13We'll discuss it in the streets.
10:20Okay.
10:22Reports. Finance.
10:25Finance did meet this evening.
10:27There will be some legislation that you will see in the next packet.
10:32One of them is some cleanup items as projected expenses
10:37that we may have under-budgeted.
10:42That one we expect to go through readings.
10:44There will be a couple of items that will be important for emergency legislation
10:50to get some things taken care of timely.
10:53So watch for those in your next packet.
10:57MOP?
10:58MOP has not been approved.
11:00Public Utilities.
11:02We need to schedule a MOP meeting now.
11:05Okay.
11:08You guys just want to chat afterwards?
11:11Yeah.
11:12Yeah, it's a good study.
11:14Public Utilities.
11:18And the streets, I see you have a meeting coming up.
11:21How late?
11:23Not recently.
11:25No, it's Wednesday.
11:27Yeah.
11:28It's been a month.
11:29Public Utilities has a meeting on Wednesday.
11:33It will be August 14th.
11:37It's Trevor's birthday.
11:38Finally, legislation.
11:40We have nothing to report, I'm guessing.
11:42A meeting coming up, please.
11:44Correct.
11:45I'm 34 years old, so...
11:47All right, any council members have any reports?
11:49David, any individual planning?
11:51No, sir.
11:52Parks and Rec board?
11:53They started the Little Dribblers today, Cindy and Lynn.
11:56Did you go with me, too, this morning?
11:58Cindy said they had 17 kids for Little Dribblers today at Cherry Street Park.
12:03Then it moves over to Wharton Park in two weeks.
12:08Then Wednesday after the pool is Christmas in July from 6.30 to 9 p.m.
12:13$2 cash only, 6th through 12th grade.
12:17There's a DJ pizza, games, and a surprise guest.
12:21They did a pool, but they were kind of shorter to get out there.
12:24There's a July surprise guest. I wonder who.
12:27I saw they had two groups of kayakers.
12:31They had 27 kayakers, Director.
12:37Thanks, John.
12:38Groves Cemetery?
12:40Yes, summer help dwindled down to one student.
12:44But with school starting up next month, about the middle of next month for some of them,
12:48they decided not to worry about trying to get any more in there.
12:51Plus, they're going to start as soon as possible with the remains in the mausoleum to remove them.
12:58But it's going to be a slow, tedious process.
13:03That's it.
13:06Yes, they met on the 11th, and they accepted the bid of J.T. Trimming Trees, whatever the company is.
13:14You probably have seen them around town removing stumps.
13:17They also talked about a maple tree blight that's going to be a problem.
13:25The DKP Ambulance Board met last Monday.
13:28The main topic on the agenda, the main discussion item, was staff pay, competition from other districts, and what to do about that.
13:47I don't know that any decisions were made necessarily, but that was the thread of the discussion.
13:56Old business. Any old business?
14:00New business?
14:02Well, we'll get right into the thick of ordinances and resolutions.
14:05You can see we have one item of each group, first, second, third reading.
14:10I will say that first reading, I handed out the writing piece of legislation to you earlier this evening, so you should have that in front of you.
14:21Thank you.
14:41I don't recall, I don't believe there was anything going on from a legal standpoint.
14:47They had to rush this, right?
14:52Any thoughts or comments on that?
14:56Okay, if there are no objections, we'll do that again in two weeks.
15:00All right.
15:10Ordinance number 24-014, an ordinance changing the name of a portion of Silver Street to Wild Cadillac in the City of Kingston, Ohio.
15:23Again, that's just Silver Street from basically at the edge of school property, is the way I would put it.
15:33And all the way past the River Heights Community.
15:41So that's second reading. Any thoughts or concerns, questions?
15:47Any objections in the reading?
15:49Okay, we'll do that for a third time at the next meeting.
15:54All right, we'll do that one for the third reading.
15:58Do we have one item?
15:59Sure.
16:02Ordinance number 24-013, an ordinance authorizing the City of Kingston, Ohio to enter into a highway improvement project with the Ohio Department of Transportation in a temporary emergency.
16:18Before we really go further on this, I'd ask is there anyone here tonight that had a comment or wanted to make a comment regarding this legislation?
16:29I would just comment, I did pass out, so you have them.
16:34Not only the legislation, so you can refer to it, but also the letter that came with that from OGON.
16:41And I would follow up just to say that if you have doubts on this and you as Council were to not go forward with it, now would be obviously the time to do that.
16:58If, while it isn't a done deal, if you affirm this tonight, there will still be fiscal matters to be voted upon.
17:08And I think at the first meeting, as I said, it's not a done deal, but it would not be very comfortable to go back to OGON later on and say, hey, we changed our mind.
17:17So I would just make certain all of you are aware of that, that no, you're not committing specific dollar amounts at this point, but you are committing to entering into this project.
17:28And while you could later on refuse to, for example, offer a bid or something like that, while you could still decide to change your minds, the time to do that is now.
17:43Now is the time to decide if you want to go forward or not go forward.
17:47I just want to clarify that.
17:49And that's if you read what was provided to us.
17:53Also, if you needed it, I just made certain you each had a copy of the total section of what we're talking about.
18:04And I have Terry's information in front of you also.
18:07So first, I'd open up, are there any questions, clarifications, anyone wants to ask the administration?
18:21All right, it was a third reading, so I ask, is there a motion to consider?
18:27Motion.
18:29Moved by Robyn.
18:31Second.
18:32Second by Chad.
18:33Is there any discussion?
18:38Robyn Jones?
18:39Yes.
18:41Stu Fox-Croker?
18:42Yes.
18:43David Beasley?
18:44Yes.
18:45Steve Walker?
18:46Yes.
18:47Tyler Miller?
18:48Yes.
18:49Kay Redd?
18:50Yes.
18:51Ongo Kitter?
18:52Yes.
18:54Any other questions?
18:56All in favor?
19:02Okay.
19:03Other matters need to come before us this evening.
19:11Comments from the public?
19:13If you want to hear, you can do that.
19:23Yes, you can come up now.
19:24I guess I asked earlier, I thought that you were going to come up.
19:46And another reason I come up is because I need to make two corrections on what I gave you.
19:51So...
19:57I'm mostly involved with this from a safety standpoint and from the standpoint that I have a lot of truck driver friends.
20:06Also family that travels through Kentonworth, large equipment and things like that.
20:11So the roundabout was a concern from that standpoint to me.
20:16So...
20:20I wanted to just make the point that residents have had concerns and they have asked questions at public meetings.
20:30The one on November the 16th, I was there.
20:34To establish that at least three residents wrote letters to the editor of the Kenton Times.
20:40To establish that there are proposed plans that will work and are safe and are feasible to do, cost effective and can be put in place rapidly.
20:51And to establish that there are residents willing to work together with the city to determine what a best possible solution could be.
21:02Nobody's saying they don't like roundabouts.
21:05Nobody's saying I don't want to drive on a roundabout.
21:09I know there's a lot of that going on.
21:11Well, if you don't want to go on it, just don't drive on it.
21:14No, I've driven on lots of roundabouts.
21:16Most of us have by now.
21:18So that's not the issue.
21:20The next sentence is one I want you to please disregard.
21:26Because I should have rewritten that and I did not and I'm just going to take it out.
21:30Because I'm not going to use the word legal.
21:33That works a little bit different in my work.
21:35This is different from my work.
21:39I realize that you can read what I gave you.
21:45If I need to read that out loud to make it part of the record, I can.
21:51Please advise.
21:57Well, I would like all of it to be a part of the record since I understand that it's not, even though the letters were written to the editor, so on and so forth.
22:08I have a copy of that. It's up to you if you want to read some of that.
22:14I don't want to be later.
22:15Mr. President, can we stipulate that her submission be included in the record and that would satisfy what you're looking for?
22:23That would be very gracious of you.
22:25That's why I got the e-copy from you.
22:26Yes, because I really don't want to stand here and read to everybody.
22:30I appreciate that.
22:31And I appreciate that as well.
22:34So, like I said, the main concern for the truck drivers is the fact that they have the electronic devices and they're trying to get through town fast.
22:44Roundabout's not really going to change that.
22:47That's a concern.
22:49Traffic lights are a concern.
22:52And if you would please disregard, if I may, on the sentence about Mr. Gardner, about that.
23:00Okay, what I would like to say is Mr. Gardner made his concerns clear regarding incomplete ODOT railroad studies.
23:09And that is essentially what I was trying to put into my own words there that didn't work out.
23:16If you would, before you leave, the one that we're going to make part of the record, you can come out here tomorrow and get what you want.
23:21Absolutely. I sure will.
23:22Or I can even just give you this one.
23:25I'll take care of it.
23:27So, I guess the reason that I'm here is just to ask you to consider that residents are very concerned and we're willing to work.
23:38And so, thank you very much.
23:42Thank you.
23:50Any others?
23:53Comments from the news media?
23:57All right, then we'll get staff, council members, administration.
24:03Start with Chief Donovan.
24:09Yes, sir.
24:10All right, let's see.
24:11Nothing.
24:14I regret that I was not here at the last meeting to hear all of the conversation.
24:20I did read the notes completely.
24:23I have an observation that I was not able to input.
24:26I'd like to make that now, even though we have already voted.
24:32I've lived in this town for what approaches 40 years.
24:37The prevailing thought has been that nothing ever changes, that nothing ever improves.
24:43We're making the attempt to improve truck traffic, which has been a bone of contention for at least all of those years.
25:00And with the help of people who know more than we do about traffic engineering, we have a plan in place to move forward.
25:10Is it the most elegant of solutions?
25:13Yet to be seen.
25:15But I do think it is progress and something that moves us off of where we have been.
25:20Similar to what we have finally been able to do with our downtown infrastructure programs.
25:27We have been belittled as a community in social media for things we have done, things we have not done.
25:37Some correctly, many very incorrectly.
25:44But we have a chance to move forward.
25:49And I'm pleased to be a part of that movement.
25:51Thank you, Mr. President.
25:52Thank you, Mr. President.
26:06Just real quick, I forgot.
26:07Eats on the Street was a great success.
26:09I just can't thank the community enough.
26:11Everybody who came out participated.
26:14Everybody took, it was just, there was not like hardly any trash.
26:22So everybody was very helpful.
26:27Compared to what we've had, it seemed like the new location really worked.
26:33So thanks to everybody who came out.
26:35It's a fundraiser.
26:40And that was huge.
26:41Again, then I address Terry and everybody else that if anybody has a question or wants to be a part of it, we're here.
26:53I'm available 24-7.
26:55I put that out there to everybody.
26:58So however anybody wants to, all you have to do is stop up.
27:02Because I don't know who these two people want to be included.
27:07That'd be the best, I don't know how to reach that part.
27:14So maybe if you want to talk after the best way, that's what we want to hear from people.
27:22Because I can tell you I had three people do the whole thing, reach out to me.
27:38That's reached out to me.
27:44All right.
27:49I think then that's it for this evening.
27:51Our next meeting is August 12th, 7 p.m.
27:56And the other meetings will be right before that.
27:59So until then, we're adjourned.