6-12-2007 Charter Review

Ashland City Council

Work Session Minutes
Council Conference Room
June 12, 2007

Tuesday June 12, 2007 in Council Conference Room at 7:00 PM

Purpose:
1.   Discussion with Dan Scott, Solid Waste Management-recycling
2.   Initial Review of the Charter amendments of changes to follow.

Attendance:
Council members, Bob Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Glen Stewart
       Bob Valentine W1 was absent from meeting.

William E. Strine, Mayor
Anna Tomasek, Finance Director
Curt Young, Water/ Sanitation.
Dan Scott, Solid Waste Management
Larry Paxton, Assistant to the City Engineer
John Chorpening, 1126 Overlook Drive
Jim Cooper, City Engineer
Dorothy Stratton, 213 Samaritan Avenue.
John Stratton, 213 Samaritan Avenue
Darcie Loreno, Times Gazette
Kim Edwards, Ashland County Commissioner
Keith Ballantyne, 844 Hillcrest Drive
Mike Welch, Ashland County Commissioner
Valarie Bishoff, Clerk of City Council

Council President Glen Stewart opened the work session at 7:00 p.m.

Roll Call: Robert Valentine 2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Glen Stewart.
     Robert Valentine 1 – Absent from the meeting.

Move to Excuse Bob Valentine W1, by Glen Stewart, seconded by Paul Wertz
Ayes: Bob Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Glen Stewart

Pledge of Allegiance:

Glen Stewart: This evening is a special work session for the agenda items/ discussion items that we have, one will be a presentation with some questions from Dan Scott on the Sanitation/Landfill recycling, that piece of the City business and then that will be followed by Council’s initial review of the Charter revisions as they have been proposed to us this evening. Those are the only two items on the agenda this evening. To keep in line with everything that is appropriate, there will not be anything else discussed this evening. Nothing else was posted in the Times Gazette therefore we will not go beyond that. With that, Mr. Scott would you like to take the floor?

Mayor Strine: Excuse me Dan before you get started, I would like to just summarize a little bit of why he is here. Dan has come to the Ashland County Solid Waste district committee and requested an increase in the generation fee that is paid at the landfill and if that is approved that would mean the Sanitation Dept. in the City of Ashland, it would cost them about $15,000.00 dollars for every $ 1.00 dollar that is increased. The proposed increase, correct me if I am wrong, is over 4 years. I thought that we needed to review this whole situation as far as our Sanitation Dept. goes and recycling before I go to that committee and vote one way or the other. So that is it, go ahead Dan.

Dan Scott: I will clarify those figures a little bit in my discussion here. First I would like to thank you for the opportunity to come and talk about Solid Waste district and recycling operations. I am sure you are all aware that we have a strong recycling program in the County and that is due in part to the role that the City plays in collecting material and also the strong participation of our city residents. We have made great strides in the last eight years and the part that the city plays; we offer a big thank you for that; because it is an important piece of our business. The last 17+ years since recycling started in Ashland, things have gone fairly well, I will show you some figures. Of course, we want to certainly want to keep recycling going not only in the city but throughout the county. I would like to present you with some information on five areas and I am doing this because I think we need a little bit of historical review what solid waste districts are and how they came about and then I will bring us up to date to the present. I am going to cover five areas and give a brief history of solid waste districts and recycling efforts in the state. Recycling growth in Ashland County in the last 7 years, historical review of the funding for the solid waste district and recycling center. The effect of the city of proposed increase on the generation fee and then I have a couple of suggestions on cost. As far as the history of the solid waste district, I don’t know whether your all are aware or remember back in 1998 the Ohio Legislature drastically changed the landscape of solid waste management by passing what is now known as House Bill 592. The main factors effecting the adoption of that bill for the mid 1980’s was a very, very heightened environmental concern, not just in Ohio but all over the country.   Federal legislation on landfill construction operation also changed. Ohio had concerns and I think we can all remember this about landfill capacity.   It was very limited at the time. Garbage barges, trains and interstate truck traffic were in the news almost constantly and existing garbage and disposal districts statutes were inadequate. What did House Bill 592 do in Ohio?   It required all counties to create a single county or join multiple counties solid waste management district. Counties had to develop, finance and implement solid waste management plans to reduce and re-use and recycle became household words and spurred citizen action. The bill reduced reliance on the landfills drastically and created the ability of flow control of all solid waste in the designated facilities. What surprises happened in actual practice once this bill was passed. 50+ solid waste management districts were created around the state of Ohio, actually it was 58. Unlimited tier fees were blamed for the closure of one landfill. The two for two tier fee limits were established and it is three different numbers, $2.00, $4.00, $2.00; that’s in district, out of district and out of state waste. The generation fee for districts without landfills was adopted and that avoided counties from being saddled with an unfunded mandate since they were charged with the responsibility to finance and implement the solid waste district plan. Some districts follow the mandatory flow control because of environmental liabilities and now that has changed somewhat over the years and if you have read any of the accounts in the paper recently the Supreme Court issued a ruling that actually went in favor of a solid waste district regarding flow control and that will change the climate for solid waste districts and what we can do about designating waste in years to come. The last point, constituents like the recycling results and I think they still do today.   The second section recycling growth in the county in the last seven years. When I joined the district in 1999, we recycled 4,218,364 pounds of material; in 2006 we recycled 6,703,462 pounds. That equates to 58.9% increase in volume in 7 years. In 2000 and 2001 we increased our commercial industrial base which gave us better increases. 2004 we implemented a new hauling system. That increased our drop off capability with unit placement from 8-17. 2004 we had a year round electronics and tire recycling and I am very proud of the fact that we were one of the first centers in the State of Ohio to do that. In 2005 we started accepting plastic grocery bags and stretch film. Item 3, review of funding. In the mid to the late 1990’s, the generation fee for the district was $5.00 per ton. In July of 2001, it increased to $6.00 per ton. January of 2006 it increased to $6.50 per ton. Up through 2002, the county commissioners provided additional funding as needed even though they were not required to since the solid waste district has its own funding mechanism AKA the generation fee. 1999 and 2000 were for equipment upgrades from the money we got from the commissioners. 2001 and 2002 were for operating expenses if needed. We did not use all of the money that was budgeted for us in either of those years. We are now in the 5th year of no outside funding assistance. From 1999 until 2004 I was under the impression that the only time the generation fee could increase is when the five-year solid waste district plan called for it. In 2003 we faced funding shortfalls with no county funding available and we were also facing declining commodity market prices. We were able to maintain our services and we increased our recycling totals and we made it through. 2004 the markets rebounded and that allowed for the expansion of services and implementation of our new hauling system that helped make us more efficient, cut our transportation costs drastically. In 2005 we lost our state grant totaling $56,600.00 dollars. And the last two years, we just basically have been holding our own. Since we had a fee increase coming in 2006, I thought we should let that go into effect and see how our funding was one year after that and that happened and it became obvious to me in the budget hearings in late 2006 that other increases would be needed basically for five reasons.
·   First is to cover a shortfall predicted for 2008, which now is estimated at $72,000.00 dollars.
·   Provide financial stability to the Solid Waste district for years and commodity prices turned downward. And that is very cyclical and it doesn’t follow any magic formula but we have been kind of a little bit of upswing of late for the last 6-8 months and we hope that will continue but they have flattened out and I would guess that we will probably see a downturn in another year.
·   Provide a mechanism for funding major capitol improvements and purchases in the next 2-3 years and know we are going to have to replace at least one of our trucks and in the next 3-4 years we are going to need to replace our baler and sort system. The baler alone will be somewhere in the area of ¼ of a million dollars ($250,000.00).
·   Provide funding for Hazardous Waste Collection at least every 2 years. If anyone has been watching, we haven’t had one since 2005. We skipped last year. We are skipping this year due to budget constraints. We have it back in the budget for next year and we really need to do that. That is something that is required of us by the State EPA and it is in our Solid Waste District Plan and they highly recommend that you follow what’s in your plan or what they dictate to you.
·   Provide for funding of other equipment used to processing recyclables such as tow motors and other small pieces of equipment that we wear out, but we just never have a firm handle on how often that is really going to be coming up.

Funding of other counties. I have done some checking, that are similar to Ashland that:
1.   Do not have a landfill, they can collect tier disposal fees, fairly rural, operate a MRF like we do and have no general fund contributions from the commissioners. Have generation fees in the area of 9-10.00 dollars per ton. In January, I informed the solid waste district policy committee that I felt given our circumstances, our fees will need to eventually end up in the $9:50 to $ 10.00 dollar range.   At that time there was concern, I still have about phasing increases in over a 3-4 year period due to the costs and the time flow.   The way it is set up now it takes at least 5-6 months to get a fee increase through. Once the House committee starts the wheels in motion. The committee has not met since February and that was partially due to that I was out for over 1 month with some surgery and then I suggested that we wait until after I submit my budget to the county commissioner for 2008 because when you are talking in January it is kind of hard to determine what you think you are going to need for the following year at least in our part of it. What I am planning to recommend is a $1.50 increase in the generation fee effective in 2008 and look at either $1.00 in 2009 and .50 more in 2010 or if possible just do $ 1.50 in 2010. Whether we have rate increases in 2009 or 2010 would depend on market stability and if we are able to start setting aside dollars for capital expenditures I alluded to earlier. Based on disposal totals at the landfill, each $1.00 increase in fee generates about $45,000.00 dollars in increased revenue to the Solid Waste District. $1.50 would net about $67,500.00. So we know, at least I know $1.50 is not quite going to cover the budget shortfall but we are hopeful we will have some reduced expenditures or some increased revenue between now and then to make up the difference. Item 4- Cost to the City. Based on landfill totals for 2006, the city disposed of 9,143.55 tons at $1.50 increase, that equals $13,715.33 or 1142.95 per month or .14 cents per household service per month in the City. It feel it is important that we break it down to the lowest denominator that we can and it is based on 8,314 units that you are presently billing for sanitation services. The total increase after if we did a second increase would then be .28 cents per household per month. City residents pay $15.75 per month now and that includes sanitation and recycling. As a comparison, county residents pay around $16.00 per month for private haulers and that is sanitation only and they have bag limits. There is no recycling involved in that. Item 5- Cost containment- Recycling is cost avoidance for everybody in the long run. The best way to reduce cost is to keep the amount of waste going to the landfills at a minimum by keeping recycling programs going and making sure we encourage folks to participate in that.   Recycling brings us more revenue per ton with material than the amount we collect as a landfill. So I would much rather have the material being recycled than going to the landfill. My last point on cost containment and I am speaking here as Solid Waste District coordinator from interaction that I have with districts from all over the state and have for the last 8 years as far as what they have for disposal programs; and I am also speaking as a resident of the city of Ashland. Another way to contain costs for the city would be to go once a week trash pick-up and implement reasonable bag limits. That would cut your fuel consumption in half, save wear and tear on your equipment and on the streets. It would also encourage people to recycle. People know that they have bag limits; they might start taking a little bit more time and pay attention and recycle. In most areas of the state that I have talked to that type of reign works pretty well and I have seen increases in the recycling so I would thank you for your attention and I am open for questions.

Glen Stewart: Dan, do you have that information you just shared with us in printed format so we have it in front of us for further consideration?

Dan Scott: Yes, my notes? I do.

Glen Stewart: I would like to have that for all the Council members. I won’t speak for the Mayor, but I would presume he would like that and I would like to have for Valarie for our records. One thing that comes to mind very quickly. We have a figure or $1.00 a ton, has $15,000.00 dollars to the City and $1.00 a ton, Am I comparing right, you said $9, 143.00 dollars.

Dan Scott: I am not sure where the $15,000.00 dollars came from but it is based on your landfill totals

Glen Stewart: This is something we can get into; there is a pretty large disparity there.

Dan Scott: Well based on your landfill totals from the landfill and the transfer station.

Glen Stewart: Dan, another thing is you were having a problem that is similar to all of us in forecasting what you need for 2008 and January of 2007. However your forecasting out 4 more years for costs and projecting costs for cost increases; do you feel comfortable with those numbers?

Dan Scott: Yes I do; mainly because what I am forecasting for the initial increase will take care of most of the budget shortfall for 2008 and obviously the budget is not going to go backwards in 2009. The other increases are going to be for the equipment needs that we are going to have down the road.

Glen Stewart: Now I am going to be very blunt. You suggested how we can save money, what are you going to do?

Dan Scott: Well I think we are operating very frugally. We don’t waste money down there. We implemented a hauling system in 2004 that cut our transportation costs drastically.   And that was good prior planning on our part. We run that recycling center, we are really part of the county but to be honest with you I don’t consider, it is not a government entity, it is a business and it has to run like a business. Most businesses are aware that when they know that they are going to have a major capital expenditure, you have got to start putting money away somewhere. Borrowing would not be an option because we don’t have the cash flow to support the debt. But we know that in all honesty, I wish I would have known in 2003, what I know now about it, it has been a learning experience for us, but we are a fairly small solid waste district and you have to kind of glean things as you go along and it is so difficult to make comparisons between districts around the State because they are all basically set up with different; funding mechanisms are different, some have tier fees, some have tipping fees, some have tier and generation fees; it is a mish-mash, but all of them that have tier fees and obviously have to have a landfill to collect those fees; we do not have that. We probably got ourselves down the road farther than we needed to in 1999 when the commissioners helped us fund the purchase of the baler that we have now and we used Grant money 1999 and 2000. We knew then that the baler was probably only going to last 10 years. They say 7-10 years. The way we use ours, we feel confident we can get 10 out of it. We now are in our 8th year and we probably should have started this process 2 years ago. But for some reasons beyond my control, we just didn’t start as early as it should have. I was hopeful that things might look better financially for the county and maybe we could get back to some assistance with funding there; that doesn’t look like it is in the cards and in further studying the situation, talking to some other solid waste districts, talking to some people in the state; they said we probably never should have relied on them to begin with because we have our own funding mechanism and House Bill 592 was set up so that we should stand alone and we probably could of if we would have started this a lot earlier.

Ruth Detrow: Dan, remind me again; a new baler is going to cost how much?

Dan Scott: Somewhere in the area of a quarter of a million dollars.

Ruth Detrow: That is based on what the old one cost?

Dan Scott: The old one was $200,000.00 dollars and that is not allowing too much now.

Ruth Detrow: You are going to bid that out?

Dan Scott: Oh yes, we have too. We do not have any choice. It will be by competitive bid.

Ruth Detrow: I am a little bit confused, how much of your operation depends on the city? I mean what % of material that goes through your center comes from Ashland City?

Dan Scott: I am glad you asked that. We have; last year we recycled 6,700,000.00 lbs, round figures. I had to do an analysis on that to try to determine because we don’t weigh city trucks, we don’t weigh any trucks that come into the facility because we don’t have a scale. I backed off everything from our commodity sheet for last year that the city doesn’t handle or parts of commodities that the city handles but everything doesn’t come from the city and that includes like skids, tires, electronic scrap, batteries, 4 different grades of printers mix, some plastics that are not number 1 or number 2 that were involved with recycling now. Ferrous metals, nonferrous metals and then a portion of aluminum cans that we process. When I backed everything out, I came up with 4,970,700 lbs and my best guestimate is; the city’s share of that is about 50% based on the number of loads the city brings us per week and the number of loads that we have coming in the door from out in the county at our drop offs and that would include to about 1242 tons per year.

Ruth Detrow: So there are trucks of course that pick things up in the city, some up from my house today but how do you get the stuff from the county? Didn’t you say that you don’t run routes in the county?

Dan Scott: Not curbside routes. We have drop off points and that is where are beige tubs, we have four of them at Hawkins, there are two at Buehler’s, we have 17 of those around the county. We physically go out with a vehicle and pick the tub up and switch it out. But it is not picked up at a person’s residence; they have to physically take it to the drop off. That is how the county recycles, or bring it into us. Some people choose to do that.

Glen Stewart: What kind of value do you place on that 6,700,000 lbs of recycled material Dan?

Dan Scott: I did not bring that figure with me.

Glen Stewart: I guess what I am looking for is; are we contributing to the income stream or are we contributing to the cost stream when you look at that number?

Dan Scott: Well, it is both. Obviously most of the material comes from the city. It costs us money to process it. It is not the highest value material that we have. Plastics are not worth a whole lot. Glass is worth even less but we have newspapers in there and newspapers are presently selling for $85.00 dollars/ton. The city brings us a fair amount of corrugated board, cardboard. That is selling right now for $95.00 dollars a ton so the more we can get of those two grades from any source, the better off we are.    But yes, it is both. I mean all of the material that we get, we get something for it. It comes from either curbside or drop off with the exception that some people don’t pay attention to the guidelines and they give us garbage. That costs us money. But as far as what they are intending to bring into us; it all has some value but some of it is fairly low, some of it is fairly high.

Ruth Detrow: Who pays the drivers and who buys the trucks to haul the City stuff?

Dan Scott: Well you pay the drivers. When you started curbside recycling, the solid waste district got the city a Grant to get their first 3 trucks. I think it was 2002, early 2002, the city got 2 new trucks and at that time the solid waste district made an overture and agreed to pay for one of those trucks; so in the last 17 ½ years, the city has purchased one truck for recycling. The Solid Waste District purchased one, somebody else; the State of Ohio purchased the other 3.

Ruth Detrow: But those our ours.

Dan Scott: Yes they are your trucks.

Ruth Detrow: Who pays the drivers? They’re a crew too, isn’t it?

Dan Scott: The City Sanitation.

Ruth Detrow: So you are getting our stuff actually it is cheaper for you to get city stuff in there because it is taking two of you in trucks that the city owns picked up by staff that the city pays.

Dan Scott: Yes in that regard. The items that we bring in from the county I use drivers that are retired, they make $8.20 dollars an hour so all I have is the cost of the drivers’ time and fuel and maintenance on the vehicle. We have to have our recycling trucks anyway because they are not just used for bringing in totes. We make commercial runs with those also.

Glen Stewart: Dan the tipping fee, whatever that may be, whether it is $6.50 or $9.50 or whatever; regardless of the company that picks material up for the landfill and regardless of where they dump it; generally speaking, by law I’ll say; that fee is charged and comes back to the solid waste district. They dump it in Van Wert county and declare that it came from Ashland County, if they declare it and if the tipping fee increases; are we going to be competitive with tipping fees in the adjacent counties to the extent that we are going to entice some situations that might not be declared properly of the source of the trash.

Dan Scott: Probably not, because it is not necessarily where the waste haulers in a neighboring county, most the waste in Ashland County is picked up by the City Sanitation Service and Allied Waste out of Mansfield and of course if they are coming over here, they are taking it to their landfill. And also Brown’s out of Perrysville. So we feel we have a fairly good control on where the waste in Ashland County is going and for the most part, it is getting properly declared. Actually where we are running into more problems like that, is not neighboring counties, but if we were close to the state border, going across state lines sometimes it is cheaper for a hauler to take it out of state and pay the out of state fee and declare it somewhere else but we are far enough inland from our borders that is not really an issue. Especially now with the cost of fuel, most of the waste haulers are going to go to the closest landfill. However we do have some, we get some generation fees from the landfills and I say what in the world are we doing with waste over there that is specialized waste. There are a couple of industries in the county that have waste that cannot go to Noble Road, they have to go to a town like New Philadelphia or over on the other side of Canton. I have verified that a couple of times. I actually called the landfill and asked, why are you getting the wastes for Ashland county and they tell me and actually send a sheet showing me what was on the load. Specialized wastes.

Ruth Detrow: Explain tipping fee to me? I thought that was what the landfill got when a truck brought in a load.

Dan Scott: Yes. Glen used the word tipping fee. It is generation fee is what it is. The tipping fee is what the landfill charges. You know they have a gate fee, base fee and there is a state fee, a disposal fee for Noble Road anyway. The State fee Butler Township where the landfill is located has a host fee. There is another host fee that pays the residents contiguous of the landfill a certain monetary sum every year because of the fact they live right next to the landfill. The generation fee from Ashland County, then Richland County has out of district fee on waste coming form outside their district. They tack that on also.

Robert Valentine W2: You broke that down in cost. You said something about .14 cents per household per month.

Dan Scott: Yes. If we change the generation fee by $1.50 that is what it would cost the average household. So it would cost the city for an average household.

Robert Valentine W2: And then 2 years later you are talking about .28 cents.

Dan Scott: No.   2 years later it goes up another .14 cents; $1.50. It will be a total of .28 cents over a couple of years. The $1.50 now we need. The other $1.50 we are going to have to look at it at the end of 2009 maybe the end of 2010 to see whether we have got enough. If the Commodity markets improve, we have a couple of good years and we are starting to put money back for the capital improvements we know we are going to need to make; we don’t have to implement, we are not asking anybody to pass $1.50 now and go out 2 or 3 years and say yeah you can do that too.

Robert Valentine W2: What I am looking at is, I would be glad to give you .15cents and in another year or 2 later give you another .15 cents; I mean household wise.

Dan Scott: That is basically what it is going to come down to.

Robert Valentine W2: That is not much of an increase in my bill.

Dan Scott: I don’t think so either. And actually it is going to cost people out in the county more than it is going to cost people in the city. Because they’re waste haulers there is no guarantee. You know the city, there is no guarantee where he is going to take it and there is no guarantee that if we say it depends on the amount of waste a particular company hauls. The city folks have been very good about watching the budget and making sure you are keeping the taxpayers cost to a minimum and as a taxpayer I appreciate that but there is no guarantee their waste hauler well you know that’s been quick $20,000.00 dollars a year for me, I will just spread that out over my customers cause maybe if it comes out to a $1.00 a month, we can increase that to $1.50. That is the problem we have with private enterprise, you are being involved on one side of it and municipality on the other. The private enterprise system doesn’t have to answer to anyone.

Glen Stewart: That .15 cents per household times 7300 accounts and I am told it is between 7,000 and 7500 accounts. I took 7300 accounts and .15 cents a month times 12 months and it comes out to $13,140.00 dollars; so we are between where Dan presented it and where the Mayor presented it. That is how the numbers come out, if we charge .15 cents per household at 7300 accounts times 12 months. It is $13,140.00 a year.

Dan Scott: About 400 of those accounts are actually commercial accounts. The Residential Commercials are generally either dumpsters. They are flat rate.

Mayor Strine: At some meeting we had, some of the notes I took, this was April 25, 2006. Generation fee revenue of 189,208.00, I would assume that is for 2005.

Dan Scott: We have generation fees for 2005 were $250, 967.00.

Mayor Strine: Well that has been the City’s share of the generation fee?

Dan Scott: No. It could not have been that high. The 250,967.00 is based on the whole county and that is about 44,000 - 45,000 tons per year and the city is only disposing 9,000. And back to the cost per month of the figure that I was given, we were using your billing units 8,314 which was 8054 residential, 203 commercial, 1 industrial and 56 nonprofits. So that is probably why we have more difference between Glen’s calculations and mine.

Glen Stewart: This is a significant study that we are doing. 15 cents is nothing, $13,000.00 dollars is a lot.   The total cost today, if I used all of the figures right on this sheet that I have; It costs us $55.82 a ton to dump a ton at the landfill, does that sound right? I am taking the Noble Road landfill agreement through September 2007 is 37.75 a ton, generation fee is 6.50. I am off here because I figured everything in tons, now I see where some are loads. I am off.   It would be closer to $52.00 using all of these fees at the bottom of this sheet and adding them to the agreed upon fee structure at a normal load. For whatever that is worth. It is not cheap to take a load of whatever to a landfill.

Questions or Comments?

Mayor Strine: I was just going to mention that what you are really looking at here did not sound like 15 cents per month is very much, but eventually you are going to be looking at as costs increase raising the rates at the Sanitation Dept or changing the service that we provide which Dan has alluded to earlier as far as going to once a week and saving gas etc… I think that is the bottom line. Those are the kinds of things you are looking at and I know, I think Dan said personally that he wouldn’t mind once a week pick up. Personally I like twice a week pick up. That’s just me.

Robert Valentine W2: In the summertime, things get a little rank.

Dan Scott: You get spoiled. In April of 2006 is when you, Glen, Curt and I had a meeting just to kick around some figures but once a week trash pick up didn’t work, then why is Ashland one of the only municipalities in the state that does twice a week?   I go to solid waste district meetings around the state and people just shake their head and say what? How do you get away with that? Hey I say the city provides it. I like it. And I am not saying that I would give it up. But if it meant it would contain costs, yes I would.

Keith Ballantyne, 844 Hillcrest Drive: When we were in Texas, in a town half this size for several years. We had trucks come around and pick up garbage cans that are bigger than what most of us have right now, twice as big. All they had was a truck and a driver and I know a lot of other cities are doing this. I checked their costs out and they were paying about what I was paying here for trash pick up. I wondered for years why Ashland didn’t get involved in that kind of a program. I realize the different trucks. They have two sizes of containers. Any consideration of that?

Glen Stewart: I can share with you Mr. Ballantyne; there has been discussion on it as long ago as a year ago last February. I had the opportunity to go to another community where they are doing that. They also have a different container method for encouraging recyclables, all curbside. It is like anything else you do. It is that transition cost, it is horrendous and how many trucks do we run Curt? We run 4 trucks to make a loop around the city and if we went to once a week, maybe it wouldn’t take that many. But once you implement that, you have a horrendous capital outlay, not only for trucks but then 8,000 residential containers. Not that it shouldn’t be or couldn’t be or won’t be; you can’t take a baby step when you start that I think.

Keith Ballantyne: The residents paid for the containers themselves usually, then it is pro-rated. If you have once a week pick up here instead of having one garbage container full, you will have two for that same once a week pick up.

Glen Stewart: I would presume that part of it would be. The tonnage will be similar as been shared with us at the recyclable part of it might increase. I appreciate your point there. It is something that we have to look at and Curt and I went to Norwalk. That is where they are doing it and having a good success with it. In almost all of your major cities, Florida, this type of one-man vehicle with a side lifter that picks up these standardized containers. They look like the blue milk cartons, plastic milk cartons that used to be around; they had a lot of those for recycling. I don’t know if it was for newspaper or what it was.

John Chorpening: I was wondering what the volume of material brought in for cash has increased, what percentage.

Dan Scott: Our buyback has continued to increase over the years. As an example, in 2005 our buyback $134,600.00; in 2006 it was up to 214,000.00 dollars. We are projecting probably in the area of $295,000.00 for 2007 so our buyback business has been due to the prices being paid in the markets. Copper has been hot for the last year. Aluminum has been up and that normally spurs people to hopefully bring it from the reliable source and make sure that they did not steal it from somebody.   They have done a lot better. We are a lot busier than we were. Of course that supports our operation too.

Glen Stewart: Let’s say the buyback for aluminum is .60 cents; by the time you get through processing it, what do you have to get for it to make it.

Dan Scott: Right now we are paying .60 cents, we are selling for around .80 cents, .72 cents, it dropped a little bit. When I started there in 1999, I thought we had to have a quarter to actually make some money on it, but we have streamlined the operation to the point now that we like to keep at least .12 to .13 or .14 cents to the margin because we basically have got one person processing this and we have only got one laborer tied up; but we are using electricity, we have transportation costs. The more we get out of it, the better it is but we have to have at least .12 cents before you can even think about breaking even.

John Chorpening: I just wanted to ask, if it is increasing in the buyback if that trend continues, won’t that increase the generation fee?

Dan Scott: Actually no, if we are getting more money in on the buyback side that is material that is being recycled rather than going to the landfill and being subject to the generation fees. A generation fee is only waste that is not recyclable, it is waste that is taken to the landfill.

John Chorpening: What I am saying is that if you get more materials in for buyback, would that effect the generation fee because you are going to get.

Dan Scott: Well we will get less for the generation fee. As I have stated though, we make more money on material and processing and selling than we do with the generation fee so we want more. If I can do cans and a lot of the cans we have to pay for, so the cans that come into the city, our drop offs, those are freebies and that is about half of the cans that we get over the course of a year. So all the free cans that we can get are better for us and any other material we get.

John Stratton, 213 Samaritan Ave.: What is the percentage of the people do you think is participating in the City for recycling? What is the potential?

Dan Scott: 70-75%. I do not know if that is an exact science because obviously he has to ask his drivers to give him a rough figure of how many households you are picking up year round but I would think between 70-75% of the citizens in the city recycle at some time or another during 1 month whether it is on a consistent basis, I doubt it. I talked to one of the recycling directors yesterday when we were waiting to drop a load at the center and he said I can tell you by the section of town that I go in whether it is a heavy drop day or it is a light day. Geographically there are some sections that don’t recycle hardly at all. Yet on the other hand there are sections of town that especially where more of our Senior citizens are located, they are the best recyclers we’ve got.

John Stratton: I didn’t realize you recycle grocery bags; what kind of advertising is done on that?

Dan Scott: We do not do a lot of advertising but we do run ads in the newspaper every other week and a lot of that has been cut back. When we lost our State Grant we basically had to pare our advertising back about in half. But we run an ad, it is in a rotation with three other ones that lists everything and we also have recycling guides available.

Glen Stewart: One of the questions that continues to come up is just what Mr. Stratton just asked is what percentage? One of the things that we probably don’t have a good handle on but your dumpsters at the various locations in town. There is a lot of activity around those. Personally I will take a load of newspapers to one of those rather than box them and set them out at the curb. I let them get a little too high. There is an awful lot of activity and I presume they are in town folks. I don’t know that.

Dan Scott: Especially at Hawkins. When we were at K-Mart and then at Wal Mart and back to K-Mart that was originally put out in there because we don’t have a drop off point in the township. Have not really been able to find a place where someone will let us do it with some proper space. So we know that Hawkins gets a lot of activity from Milton Twp. and also city activity. And the same way with Buehlers. That service is Montgomery Twp. but there is a lot of city activity.

Glen Stewart: It is hard to measure that.

Dan Scott: Short of being out there and actually doing, hiring somebody to stand there and survey people, are you from the city or twp or wherever? It is difficult.

Glen Stewart: I am going to ask a question that you probably answered but I haven’t figured out exactly how you answered it. In February there was a discussion of going from $6.50 and ultimately to $10.00 and has there been a significant change in your budget that you can do this at say $1.50 and then                                  you will review it again in 2009, I mean something solid change.

Dan Scott: Not really. What I was proposing to the committee and maybe everyone has forgotten some of my comments but I alluded in that meeting to the fact that we knew you were going to have to have some capital outlays for equipment in the years ahead and it is time to start now to make sure we start preparing for that eventuality and thinking about it then, I came to the committee in January and had no specific agendas as far as how much we would do at any one time and I told them I thought ultimately it would go to $10.00 or in that area. Since we had a chance to get the budget ready for next year, I am trying to make it as soft as an impact as possible on everybody and do $1.50 now. But with the thought in mind, it is probably going to have to have another $1.50 before we are done. How soon that happens, we have enough trouble with doing the budget a year in advance, which I am sure everybody is going to appreciate that. Let alone go out 3-4 years.

Glen Stewart: I fully appreciate that; I thought possibly something real concrete.

Dan Scott: No. We are just trying to meet the need now and make sure everyone is aware though, if the markets don’t perform the way we hoped they will and we don’t have some decent years this year and 2008, then we are probably going to need to get the other $1.50 implemented so we got the fill coming in for the capital expenditures that we know we are going to have.

Glen Stewart: Dan, this is a difficult statement to make but if the city was to choose to drop off the expense of curbside recycling; what impact would that have?

Dan Scott: It depends on which way we handle it as a solid waste district. If we do nothing, obviously we will stand to lose a good portion of what the curbside volume is at 1240 tons a year. It is not all going to go away because I think the people of the city of Ashland believe enough in recycling and then I have to think they expect it to continue as a service but some of that volume will find its way to the center. Now with that said, it would create a problem for us with the Ohio EPA because our solid waste district plan is structured on not having a target percentage or the recycling percentage because the county just can’t meet that state mandated goal of 25% for residential recycling.   We are set up in our plan to provide access to 90% of the people access goals. You have to provide 90% of the people in the county from your district with recycling capability then either the surface of curbside or the curbside program that the city offers, we get a population for it. In rural areas, they draw circles and depending on whether you have a full time or part time drop off, then give you population privilege. For us as a district to meet that population credit, we would have to put a few more containers around the city and it wouldn’t take that many. We have 3 places now. We would have to add two more to make sure that the circles overlap and we are getting full credit for the city. That would satisfy the EPA but it probably wouldn’t satisfy us because we would be getting the tonnage that we were getting before. I think it is a forgone conclusion if you don’t have curbside pick up some people are going to drop off recycling. Another option for us would be to ask the city if you are going to get out of the recycling pick up business, we would like a truck to be bought back and we would by the other one off of you and probably go in the collection business ourselves.

Glen Stewart: Thank you Dan.

John Stratton: 25%, Is that a State goal?

Dan Scott: Yes. 25% of the volume of your waste is generated.

John Stratton: Is that household?

Dan Scott:   It does not include C&D.

John Stratton: But that is why I think this estimate of 7% is really high.   There is a lot more potential. I think about what I take out to the curb and I do not recycle every week. I recycle papers. I do not recycle every week. In terms of half, in terms of my household stuff, it is probably well over half that is being recycled. That is why I think 25% suggests that there is really a lot of upside potential.

Dan Scott: Yes there is and the figure I threw out 70-75% that is not really my figure, that is the figure the city and I over the years have discussed. We are not picking a number out of the air.

John Stratton: I am just trying to understand how you would go about essentially increasing participation in activity and I think that is interesting.

Dan Scott: It will always be a problem unless the state decides to do a mandatory recycling or the local municipalities, it is not a very popular thing to do. People don’t like stuff rammed down their throats. There are some states that have mandatory recycling and has worked very well. But you have to have everyone on board and in the State of Ohio that has been floated around in Columbus a few times and it dies for lack of interest.

Glen Stewart: Relative to other communities in Ashland County, do any of them have curbside recycling?

Dan Scott: Not that I am aware of.

Glen Stewart: Would that be an advantage to the Solid Waste district?

Dan Scott: It could, but most of the communities that have some population were already in, already have drop offs in the area, but I do not know who would run the curbside. Most of the waste haulers, used to be the waste haulers offered curbside recycling and they have gotten away from that. There is not enough money in it for them.

Glen Stewart: The reason I asked that question is. The basis is that, if the city dropped curbside, we feel, I think we mutually feel that the recyclables would drop off significantly and I am wondering why the recyclables wouldn’t come up significantly in these other communities if they had curbside recycling which from I believe would bring the cost more equitable per household throughout the county.

Dan Scott: Well I am not sure what communities you are alluding to because Ashland has the advantage of the density of population.

Glen Stewart: Loudonville will be the next one. I am concerned that the cost for the solid waste district is not equitable for the residents of Ashland based on the population as a whole.

Dan Scott: I think it costs people in the county more, it obviously costs them more to dispose of their waste. You hire Allied Waste to come get your waste if you live in the County and the figure I got is $ 16.00 dollars a month. It does not include recycling and if that person chooses to recycle, they have got to package the material up and either bring it to us or take it to a drop off point, so they have got time, wear and tear on their vehicle, gas. I do not know how it could not cost any more than it does the residents of Ashland.

Glen Stewart: I am talking about the cost of operating the Solid Waste District. Not my individual cost, the cost could come down per resident of the county if everybody had the opportunity to recycle at curbside and not just Ashland City.

Dan Scott: But not everybody in the county is where it could be curbside. Are you professing that we have curbside pickup on a township road?

Glen Stewart: I am professing that if everybody in the county had the opportunity, I am not suggesting you do it or anyone do it, I am suggesting that Ashland City may be paying a premium to support the Ashland Solid Waste District because of our density of population of the 20,000 vs 40,000.

Dan Scott: But you are proposing something that is probably not even a possibility because you say if everybody had that opportunity, the only place that you are going to get curbside recycling outside the municipality or even in a municipality that doesn’t have one and contracted out to a private hauler and private haulers are not interested in doing curbside recycling.

Glen Stewart: So if Ashland goes to private haulers for sanitation it would be your thought.

Dan Scott: You would have a hard time including recycling in that.

Glen Stewart: Would the community of Loudonville make a significant difference? How many residents are down there? 6,000? Not that many?

Dan Scott: It is my understanding they used to have a recycling program in Loudonville. And they are bid out to Allied Waste and I don’t think they are happy with their waste disposal business.

Glen Stewart: Dan, the basis for my questions, number 1 is I believe in recycling, I am not the most proficient person at recycling myself but I actually believe in it. I believe that the system we have in town is functional and also very cognizant of the fact where there is 15 cents per household or $13,000.00 dollars for the city, it is an additional cost and I am trying to look for a way to spread that cost and keep a level of solid waste operation at a level of operation that it should be to continue a long term service. I am very concerned about Ashland’s dollars that is why I am asking these questions.

Dan Scott: And I appreciate that fact. You are looking at keeping the costs in Ashland as low as you can but I think we are missing the point that anybody in the county who disposes anything is going to be subject to this increase also, it isn’t just the city of Ashland. If you have a private waste hauler and you live in the county, and we raise the generation fee, their rates are going to go up and that’s why I alluded in my comments, I think they will go up more than what the .14 or .15 cents that a resident in the city will see.

Glen Stewart: I am trying to get more recyclables in the cost level.

Ruth Detrow: People who live out in the County pay nothing for recycling. They do have to haul it someplace. They don’t have curbside but they do have a place to take it.

Dan Scott: Yes but they don’t have the service that is offered in the city. Basically they don’t have the service that the residents of Ashland have. They have the opportunity in their area but depending on where our drop off is, in some twp that could be 6, 7 or 8 miles to the drop off depending on where you live.

Glen Stewart: Do you have a question commissioner?

Kim Edwards: The only comment I had was the 25% was for the entire County, so I live outside the city, I live in the County and it doesn’t matter how much I recycle, my bill is still going to be the same. It is about $16. 53 a month.

Mayor Strine: If the service that you use had recycling, your bill would be higher. County residents have the choice of whether they recycle or not. Ashland residents don’t. They pay for it whether they do or not.

Comments or questions: None.

Thank you Dan and if you could make 8 copies for us.

Discussion on Charter Revision

Glen Stewart: The next item on our Agenda this evening is the opening discussions on our proposed Charter amendments and I know we have a representative here from our Charter Review Committee. Dr. Stratton would you like to make any comments prior to our opening and discussion this evening?

Dr. Stratton: I am not here as a representative, I wanted to be here for the Work session on recycling. I would like to know what happens next. I will just listen.

Glen Stewart: Lets start with Council. Do all of you have the 6 recommendations? Also an additional four for further study that might go to the next Charter Review Commission but the first suggestion is:

·   Number 1. Making the Charter Gender Neutral- He, Him, His, right now it is not gender neutral and if I am not mistaken our Law Director went through the Charter and identified all of the changes to be required to make that gender neutral and we can’t take an action this evening but are there any questions that we need to ask back to Mr. Wolfe?

Ruth Detrow: I am concerned about the mechanics of it. I am very much in favor of a gender neutral Charter; however it has never bothered me that I am a woman and woman is never mentioned in it either. I just figure I am a Councilman and that is it. But the mechanics of putting this on the ballot, that is what concerns me.

Glen Stewart: Did the Law Director address that at all with the Charter committee on how that would happen?

Dr. Stratton: My understanding is I am not sure if Mr. Wolfe made statements specifically but I think that the Charter probably the entire Charter because I think there are 99 instances sprinkled throughout all over some sections that don’t have any gender references to it.

Ruth Detrow: So the whole Charter would have to be on the ballot.

Paul Wertz: I think what Rick has got here, the five pages is what he has crossed off, just the five pages will end up on the ballot.

Robert Valentine W2: What’s the cost of printing the Charter?

Glen Stewart: I did not look up to see what was spent in 2000.

Mayor Strine: We have never had to have the whole thing reprinted. It is just a matter of changes being made, so in this case it would almost be.

Glen Stewart: Were there 38 pages in the Charter? And that is printed on both sides.
That aside, the mechanics of presenting it to the ballot is of interest to us. The answer to that obviously is going to have to come from the Law Director. He may have to talk to the Board of Elections.
I am hoping there is a way to paragraph that the election process would approve that would say maybe by page number where these changes should be.

Ruth Detrow: May be it is possible to have a statement on the ballot that says all masculine references will be changed to be gender neutral and if people approve of that then we will still have to reprint the charter. May be the Board of Elections we should talk to.

Site some examples.

Glen Stewart: Where it says He, what would it be replaced with. Site several examples.

Sometimes Organizations put a notice at the beginning.

Glen Stewart: Well we have to follow the election board process and I am sure Ashland Ohio is not the first community in the State of Ohio to come up with this. There must be a way to handle it in an efficient manner.

·   Number 2. Recommend changing the Charter to allow outsiders to apply for the Fire Chief and Police Chief positions. Add language in the Civil Service Commission to allow same.
                  (See attachment #2 by Cherie Helterbridle HR)

Glen Stewart: The amendment adds some flexibility to the process of hiring or promoting, we can in fact go outside of the community to hire a Police Chief or Fire Chief however they have to follow the same testing procedures as I understand it. It provides an additional flexibility. Whether the intent is to give the City a larger pool to draw from when it is time to appoint a new Chief of either of the two for the Fire or Police Division. That is the intent.

Ruth Detrow: I have never seen a Civil Service exam. Does experience with this specific city, are there any questions that you would have an advantage by coming up through the ranks and knowing what goes on here.   Are there questions that would lend to that?

-   Well with the Captains and AC tests, this time they brought in a testing agency that asked questions that pertain to situations in Ashland on what we thought how it should be handled. Now they were actually looking for a general answer so if you brought in outsiders they would have that general answers to those questions. One of the questions they were asked about were fire districts. How do you make a fire district work in Ashland? Some of the answers were: How could you do a fire district in Ashland to the Ashland people but if you had an outsider in here he could give the information on how it should work. That would be scored as high or higher. If you could provide the answers they are looking for. I can see where you might give the insiders points for knowing the area and the outsiders seems like it is a group of people that serve so many years in one place and then they go to the next town for so many years. Like a rotation.

Ruth Detrow: I just think there should be a little advantage coming up through the ranks knowing our community well but I love the idea of being able to go outside if you want to.

In the past hasn’t it always been the person who scores the highest?

Glen Stewart: I cannot answer that. As I understand it, it is strictly an examination from within the department. The highest scoring person on the test that is administered would be brought forward and recommended to the Mayor for appointment. Is that accurate?

Mayor Strine: I have never appointed any of the Chiefs so I cannot answer that. I have never been through that process. I believe it is the highest score.

Robert Valentine W2: I believe so which gives you no flexibility.

Glen Stewart: But the goal and again I am going to speak for the Charter Committee and it is not really proper for me but I am going to make an assumption. Is to give the Mayor of the City of Ashland the opportunity to bring the best person available to manage the department. The best person whether they are from inside or from outside.

Robert Valentine W2: It gives you more people to choose from than just one.

Glen Stewart: I don’t know that this is a good comparison but in the private community when there is a change in their business, the go for the best person available. Whether it is inside or outside. I do not know if that is the right way to measure in the safety forces, but it is a way to measure, and it does give the Mayor some flexibility that he does not have today. Do we have any specific questions that we want to pursue answers on regarding this? Would we like to have HR come in and share with us the Civil Service process?

Ruth Detrow: The only question I have is maybe because it doesn’t say that means there could be an unlimited number of people to choose from. Right now we are saying there is one, I was thinking there were a couple.   It would be paired down gradually. It is an unlimited number?

Glen Stewart: I would presume that if you can go outside of the community or outside of the ranks from Police or Fire division, which would include people in the community or outside of the community; the application process would/should bring more of a wider range to select from.

Ruth Detrow: But there will be a test?

Glen Stewart: The actual Charter language, the proposed amendment.

Mayor Strine: It might help to have both of the Chiefs here to answer questions.

Glen Stewart: We will solicit input

-   I know Chief Burgess had mentioned before when I had talked to him that the applicants have a college degree and none of the assistant Chiefs have one. So that would probably eliminate them in the process.

Glen Stewart: I don’t think that there is any indication in here about college degree in the proposed revision amendment, not at all. Okay, so we will get HR and the two Chiefs.

·   Number 3. Add minimum qualifications for the Finance Director’s office. Keep as an elected position. (See attached # 3 committee suggested wording)

Ruth Detrow: When I read this over, I was struck by the fact that experience does not seem to account for anything, and it should. It shouldn’t be just a degree in certain things. This is the first one.

Glen Stewart: By Education and experience, but qualifications must include no less than a Bachelors degree.

Ruth Detrow: It says they are supposed to be qualified by education and experience but that is a very general statement and when it comes to education, and then you have to have a degree in this or this or tough luck.   I don’t think that is right.

Robert Valentine W2: They bring the recommendations to us and then we decide whether they pass or not.

Glen Stewart: We will sort and determine whether none or all of them or some of them go.

Ruth Detrow: I am not happy with the requirements.

Glen Stewart: Mrs. Detrow, would you want to say qualifications must include no less than a Bachelor’s degree for X number of years in the position or is that something you are looking at?

Ruth Detrow: Yes, I think experience should count, I have two college degrees. I am thinking a college education is everything or education is nothing. I just think experience can be as good as college degrees.

Paul Wertz: Right now, the way the Charter is now, you don’t have to have any kind of experience or only an eighth grade education and that is it. You can be Finance Director of the City. Sometimes with an Elected official, it is a popularity contest, you know that.

Glen Stewart: Well that needs to be noted. It is on the books when you take office. We need a clarification from the election board on that.   We need the facts.

Comments of Questions?

·   Number 4. Remove the information in the Charter from the Mayor to be the Safety Service Direction and Council establish a new Safety Director to be recommended by the Mayor and approved by City Council.

Ruth Detrow: They do not say the same things as the qualifications. I think, and maybe I will need some input from Dr. Stratton, I think your committee was talking about Safety/Service Director in all cases were they not?

Well the way this is written in here it says City Council shall establish a new Safety Director and then back here it says, In each City there shall be a department of public service which shall be administered by the Director of Public Service. The way it is right now, the Mayor is Ex oficio Safety/Service Director; so I am thinking that what was intended by your group was that term. Maybe I am all wrong.

Dr. Stratton: No I don’t think so. It was all the conversation.

Glen Stewart: Safety/Service Director is the position that you assume, as Mayor today and it is the Safety/Service Director that is being proposed to be removed from the same person and establishing a separate position reporting to the Mayor, is how I am to understand it.

Ruth Detrow: So that is just a matter of wording it to say what you intended it to say?

Dr. Stratton: Yes. The Mayor spoke to the committee at the beginning of our consideration. If the wording is not quite right, the intention of it was to address what the Mayor was seeking.

Glen Stewart: If we move forward with this, we will enhance or make the word like we shared right now, Safety/Service Director position. Now when or if we were to present this to the voters, what we are doing is establishing an additional layer of or parallel of management that has to be funded. I am not in the Mayor’s shoes. Obviously Mayor Strine made a presentation.

Mayor Strine: I think maybe it does need to be clarified as to whether we are talking about the term Safety Service Director or City Administrator.   Was the commission thinking it was one in the same?

Dr. Stratton: We were not recommending that it be changed to a City Manager. My understanding is that there are certain specific duties or goals that you have in terms of safety services that would be taking from the Mayor’s duties and passing them over to the position. It would not take administration out of the Mayor’s role. I thought that they were specific duties that fell under the umbrella of Safety Director. So it was not to propose a broad Administrator.

Mayor Strine: I think we have to look in the Charter to see exactly what the definition of Safety Service Director is.

Ruth Detrow: I mean in a lot of our Ordinances, we give you the power as Safety Service Director to advertise for bids and all sorts of things.

Mayor Strine: Basically a Safety Service Director in a larger community is the Director of the Police and Fire and maybe Water Dept.    That is why I think we need to check to be sure we understand that term according to what the Charter says.

Glen Stewart: The point I have down here. Safety/Service Director position, we need to identify the identity of this position as it is spelled out in the Charter today.

Ruth Detrow: When the people are voting on that they are going to have to understand that it costs money; their money, not the City’s money as if that were a separate thing.

-   Are you considering putting all of these on as separate issues?

Glen Stewart: Oh absolutely. This will not be as an all or none. Each issue that we elect to move forward with will be presented on its own.

Robert L. Valentine W2: To the voters. There will not be anything in fine print at the bottom. Every one is separate.

Glen Stewart: It will be individual, Yes/No issues.   So that is our assignment to look at the Charter, see what that says, identify the scope as it is currently spelled out and if that is what we choose to go forward with, we will need our Law Director to draft that proposal up that would take it to the voters. Do you guys agree with that?

·   Number 5.    Recommendation that Council pursue combining City/County Health Departments (Al Sanders attachment) Pros of doing this.

Glen Stewart: This takes a lot of studying from my perspective to make sure that the pros outweigh the cons.   I really don’t recall what Mr. Sanders’ exact presentation was be we have it here and I think I need to study this further page by page before I can make any comment on this.

Ruth Detrow: Didn’t Mr. Sanders start out with a very simple change to the Charter?

Glen Stewart:   If we change the Charter, it drives the rest of it. It is administrative, but it also becomes law. Mayor do you have any thoughts on this? As I recall, there is a fair amount of redundancy that costs money between both the County and the City?

Mayor Strine: You have the City Health Board and the County Health Board, and part of the Health Dept. is funded by the County and part of it is by the City. The system that is in place right now has worked very well over the years but there is a lot of the efficiencies that could be accomplished by combining into one department. The only thing that I can see that would change the fact that now every year Council gets budget and it is in our appropriations to appropriate that money as opposed to if it were combined then they would just in essence send us a bill for the year and we would send them $350,000.00 dollars. So there are a lot of the efficiencies that would be accomplished. You wouldn’t have to have two sets of books. The County has a set of books now and the City has a set of books. You would not have to have two boards. We make payments, the county makes payments on different things and we pay for half of the nurse, they pay for half of the nurse. That type of thing. If it were changed, then the City residents would have to pay a millage as compared to now; it is funded basically through the City income tax for City residents.

Ruth Detrow: That will have to be clarified. I thought the City could continue to fund it through our City Income Tax.

Mayor Strine: Well that it is a possibility. That is correct. We could continue to do that.

Robert M. Valentine W2: And I thought that Al Sanders stated that it might even be cheaper on the City to combine.

Mayor Strine: Well, Yes. He is saying that he would save money through the operation of only having one of everything. One set of books, one budget.

Robert M. Valentine W2: Anytime we can save money I think we need to look at it.

Glen Stewart: There should be an advantage to the Health Dept. Administration. I don’t know of anyone besides Al Sanders who has been successful working for two bosses for many years. It is normally a built-in failure after a period of time if you are working for more than one boss from my perspective and I am not presuming that Al Sanders would be leaving but the next person in; it could make it a whole lot easier, I think, if they work for one organization rather than two. But to what, the funding process. Will the $350,000.00 that it costs us today diminish, will it increase, does the millage automatically extend to the city, and do we have to do this, or do we have to vote on it. And if we have to vote on it then that becomes the challenge if, there is some risk in the funding process.

Mayor Strine: Now, I would assume that the city would continue to pay through the City income tax because if you ask the voters to pass millage for it then logically they are going to say; shouldn’t our City income tax be reduced?   It is coming from City income tax so I think you would continue to pay it through the city income tax.

Glen Stewart: What questions do we want to pursue on this? To answer this, Rick could help us out on this Charter change and Al maybe able to identify cost efficiencies that are gained.

Ruth Detrow: And that $350,000.00 is what we are paying now?

Mayor Strine: Roughly.

Glen Stewart: I have a paragraph, as a county millage extends to the City if combined with or without.

Mayor Strine: Do you think it is closer to $400,000.00 now; it would make sense since it has been a while.

·   Number 6. Clarifying the wording that is used in Emergency Ordinances and in section 21. Emergency and Expedited Ordinances in bold in here is an Expedited measure is an Ordinance or Resolution providing for the usual daily operation of the municipal department or for other business which would take effect without delay. In such cases the situation warranting the Emergency or Expedited designation is to be set forth.

Glen Stewart: Emergency that is in the vast majority of our Ordinances is misleading to many people including this person. When I came on Council, I could not understand Emergency, it is a word that is used that Rick has explained numerous times. It does not mean Emergency as described in Webster’s dictionary and in that sense expedited could take the place of the word emergency as I read the change. I am relatively confident that Rick not address the Charter Review Committee on this Emergency Ordinance vs Expedited.

Dr. Stratton: Yes and giving the same explanation as were at the Council meetings is in the state that’s the term is used. I don’t think there is any rule that it can’t be clarified in the Charter and I just think it would save a lot of confusion and hard feelings if it were simply stated clearly in the Charter.

Glen Stewart: And that is how I read the wording that, I believe Rick probably put this together.

Dr. Stratton: No I did.

Glen Stewart: Oh my, Sorry.

Dr. Stratton: I thought I knew what would be clear. So I just tried to state it clearly. It then follows into that section 73.

Glen Stewart: It does identify it and takes Emergency or Expedited so we would have the wording available to us to eliminate Emergency if we chose to.

Mayor Strine: Dorothy, was there any discussion at all, and this just occurred to me, if that word were changed from Emergency to Expedited people won’t get excited about anything. Now when you have an Ordinance passed and they come up and say Emergency Ordinance, everybody is, it is almost a method of sliding things through.

Dr. Stratton: You know there are real Emergency’s and they should still be called Emergency’s but this other 90% of stuff is expedited and there should be expedited business.

Mayor Strine: That is a good point. Expedited and if it is an Emergency, then say it is an Emergency.

Glen Stewart: The Emergency word is still there.

Robert M. Valentine W2: But it gives you the other word in case it is a real Emergency.

Dr. Stratton: The Charter that we looked at said that there is to be a preamble saying why something is an emergency and I know when I’ve been here I haven’t heard the statement of why something is an Emergency especially when it is just expedited and so, that is not new suggestion, it is in there at least for the last 7 years and there is supposed to be a reason given anytime.

Glen Stewart: I am not reading it when I read it off of the; if there is a paragraph in every Ordinance.

Ruth Detrow: I think the only problem, the only thing is it says nothing and I don’t want it to day anything about the fact that we can still pass an Ordinance on one night and you know so many people think that is what Emergency means and it is not. Emergency, if this passes, Expedited just means that the Mayor can sign it right away and it can go into law right away. People think that when we pass that motion every time that we will do it in one night instead of 3 nights. They get that very confused. And they blame one thing for the other. Maybe this will help. I like the idea, lets get this done because it is routine.

Glen Stewart: Do we need any additional information on item number 6? Do you want to give any time this evening to those considered for further study?

Comments of Questions regarding the Charter Review process? We have until about August 23 to have this filed with the Board of Elections and that means we have a fair amount of work to do and there are some people we will have to get together with. With your permission and the Mayor’s permission where I have identified questions, is it all right if I talk with Cherie and get her lined up to come in? The two Chiefs, we would like to have all three of them at the same time.

Dr. Stratton: I am just speaking as a community member and not a Charter member. On the gender inclusive recommendation, I hope that you find some way to work that out. It is the 21st century and I just think that our official documents should be up to date with our understandings of the times. I realize it will just spar a problem but I hope that somehow that you can accomplish it because I just think it is the right thing to do.

Glen Stewart: I think although we can’t take action this evening, I think we are all in the same load here. I think we need to find that effective way to present this to the voters in the ballot format that they understand. I am going to pursue talking to some of these people and try and get them scheduled in even if we have topics for other Work Sessions, I would like to see some of these fall in with Work Sessions we have already got scheduled so t hat we can keep moving on everything that we have planned and then maybe some 9:30 pm evenings but we will need to get it done. If that is okay with everyone. I am going to move forward in that. I think I will walk over to the Board of Elections and ask the question maybe they would research this gender thing with the State and see what can be done. Are there any other Questions or Comments on the Charter Review this evening? Hearing none.

I would entertain a motion to Adjourn, by Glen Stewart, moved by Robert M. Valentine W2, seconded by Paul Wertz.
Ayes:   Bob Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Glen Stewart.


Meeting Adjourned at 9:00 pm

Submitted by
                                   Valarie F. Bishoff
                                   Clerk of Council