Ashland City Council
MINUTES FOR THE REGULAR SESSION OF COUNCIL
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Council President Paul Wertz called the meeting to order at 7:00
p.m.
ROLL CALL
Ward 1:
Robert L. Valentine Present
Ward 2:
Robert M. Valentine Present
Ward 3:
Ruth Detrow Present
Ward 4/President Paul Wertz
Present
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
PRESENTATION OF MINUTES
December 28, 2007 Special Session
January 2, 2008 Special Session
Moved by Detrow and seconded by Valentine W2 to approve the minutes as
received.
Ayes: Valentine W1, Valentine W2, Detrow, Wertz,
COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS FROM
THE AUDIENCE: (Items not appearing on the Agenda)
Fred Pryor:
(a) I would like to bring up a few things
tonight. I am still wondering about the Rt 250 problem; peo-
ple
walking up and down the roads, no sidewalks and with the weather
getting bad it gets even
worse; people are actually getting stopped by the Police for walking
out to Wal Mart. Anyone
that
doesn’t drive, pretty much has to walk down the side of the
highway along traffic. That is
one
reason I am still pushing on that subject.
(b) Another thing is about the leaf pick up. A
lot of the streets, especially residential sections that
had tall piles of leaves in the
streets. Some cutting off the streets pretty much. We
don’t like it
when you have to drive for a
living on the weekends because kids can be playing in them and
second, if it rains it washes the
leaves into the drains and plugs them. As far as I know, it is
against the law to rake the leaves
out into the street and leave them there. I haven’t heard
any
one getting into trouble for
it. I am talking about massive piles.
Mayor Stewart: Are there still leaves in the street tonight?
Fred Pryor: I haven’t seen any lately.
Mayor Stewart: I think not because I just was advised late last
week that they had completed the clean up and Fred you have to look at
the circumstances with which those leaves were left in the
street. We had snow, we had rain. We had a lot of problems
this year. The leaves came down late.
Fred Pryor: I have not mentioned the part about taking the time
to clean them up; I am mentioning the part about the property owners
raking them out into the streets leaving big monster piles. It
does cut off a lot of streets.
Robert L. Valentine W1: The other side of that too; how often has
the street department ever gone into January to pick up leaves? I
think they have extended it beyond to get them.
Fred Pryor: A lot of the piles froze and the piles were
solid. But if they would have been on the curb like they were
supposed to be and not in the street, they wouldn’t have made any
difference if they were frozen solid.
Robert L. Valentine W1: So your concern was that they
put them out in the Street?
Fred Pryor: Yes.
Comments or questions?
LEGISLATION: none
Ward Reports:
Ward 1: Robert L. Valentine:
(a) I had a call from a fellow regarding
a Pontoon boat on Park Street and Jim is looking into that.
Ward 2: Robert M. Valentine
(a) I had the same call.
Jim Cooper: Mr. Wolfe is going to take a look at that in the
field.
Robert L. Valentine: It is not licensed either. It is
supposed to be licensed?
Richard P. Wolfe II- Director of Law: The trailer has to have a
license if you are hauling it on the road.
Robert L. Valentine W1: It is right on Park Street.
Robert M. Valentine W2: The thing about it is, a junk car is a
junk car if it doesn’t have the current plates. This boat
has not been licensed in four years. It is setting there
rotting. The neighbors are getting tired of it.
Richard P. Wolfe II: Is it on side, or the rear, or the front of
the house?
Robert L. Valentine W1: It is right on Park Street.
Robert M. Valentine W2: You will see it, you can’t miss it.
Richard P. Wolfe II: No, I mean at the property, is it at
the side of it?
Robert L. Valentine W1: The reason we both know about it is
because they called Robert M. Valentine W2 first and found out it is my
Ward and they got to me.
Robert M. Valentine W2: I found out about it first hand.
Richard P. Wolfe II: It is permissible to store a boat in a side
or rear yard of a person’s property. So that is why I
asked, what part of the yard is it in? I will go up and look at
it.
Robert L. Valentine W1: It is one way coming down.
Robert M. Valentine W2: The guy states it
hasn’t moved in over four years. If a guy uses it
every year, then wraps it in plastic or puts a tarp over it for the
winter, that is one thing, but if you just have it wide open and
sitting there rotting away, that is another thing.
Ward
3:
Ruth Detrow
(a) I was going to say that I am very pleased with
the leaf pick up but I guess that is redundant at this
point. They picked up everything. I do not see any
leaves out. They picked the ones up around Jacobs Street where I
thought they would wait till last because the leaves have no storm
sewer to get into there.
Ward 4/President Paul Wertz
(a) Nothing to state.
OLD BUSINESS:
Robert L. Valentine W1: When I was kind of indisposed, the
Sidewalk Committee was dormant so what I would like to do is to start
moving ahead with that committee and start meeting again Paul. I
will probably make a phone call to get together with those people on
the committee and starting moving ahead with that. We should
probably do that within the next month or two.
Comments or questions?
NEW BUSINESS:
Robert L. Valentine W1: Remember back we had some things as far
as the Charter was concerned, we proposed two. One other I would
like to have looked into this next year is the combination of the
Health department City and County. Another one is I have a
concern when we have people who can be elected for four years without
running for an election. I think that is something we ought to
look into. We have no restriction in our Charter. That is
something that when we talk about priorities, may be we can put that on
the priority list and discuss something like that. I am not
begrudging the people who are applying for this Councilman at Large
position but I think if you have about four years without having to run
for election, to me that does not make any sense. I compare that
a little bit to what happened when Gilmore died here, I don’t
know how many months ago, there was another election, this is on the
Federal level and Lotta won the election and he has to run again in
November. To me that makes sense. There should be some kind
of restriction we should have and that is something I would like to
look into this upcoming year. I would like Council to take a look
at that.
Comments or questions?
MAYOR’S COMMENTS:
Glen Stewart, Mayor:
(a)For your consideration, scheduling a Work Session for
priorities of Council for this year. I you will set
the time and I will do my best to be
there. Normally a Tuesday night or a Thursday night. Let me
know when you want to do it.
(b) Have all of you received this on leaning the
rules of Roberts’s rules of Order? It is being sponsored by
the Ashland High School FFA. But Co Sponsors are Mental Health
Recovery, Ashland Community Foundation Area Chamber and United
Way. It is a late afternoon 4-6 pm on Thursday the 7th of
February. It is $10.00 per Organization. I would be pleased
to support the $10.00 for anyone including Council or anyone in the
City that wanted to participate in it but you need to let me know so I
can put it on here and attach a $10.00 dollar bill to it.
Robert L. Valentine W1: Would you put me down for that Glen?
Paul Wertz: I will go also.
Ruth Detrow: I will also go.
Glen Stewart, Mayor: It will be held at the Dauch Building.
Robert L. Valentine W1: The FFA, they use the Parliamentary
Procedure, they had a contest on the district and the State level.
Ruth Detrow: They are very, very good.
Robert M. ValentineW2: I have a prior meeting Glen.
Glen Stewart, Mayor: I will share with you that between
myself, Finance and the various departments we are working diligently
on the 2008 budget. It is a challenge but we are working on it
and I think we are working as a pretty good team at this point.
Motion to move into Executive Session to consider appointment of a
Public official by Paul Wertz, President, moved by Robert L. Valentine
W1, seconded by Robert M. Valentine W2.
Paul Wertz: Also another meeting on January 24, 2008 at 6:30, an
Executive Session to continue on with this process.
Richard P. Wolfe II, Director of Law: A Special Meeting and then
you can move to Executive Session.
Paul Wertz: A Special Session and move to Executive Session to
consider the appointment of a public official.
Phil Rafeld: Is it an Executive Session like you will not be
coming in here at all, just going into the Chambers?
Paul Wertz: Right.
Richard P. Wolfe II: Call your meeting to order then move to an
Executive Session.
Paul Wertz: What about the meeting Glen, to set priorities,
do you want to set a date for that before we leave?
Robert M. Valentine W2: Tuesday January 29, 2008 at 7:00 pm for a
Work Session?
Paul Wertz: Work Session for the purpose of: Priorities
2008.
Ayes: Robert L. Valentine W1, Robert M. Valentine W2, Ruth
Detrow, Paul Wertz
Moved into Executive Session at 7:15
Paul Wertz, President of Council: There will be no action taken
in Executive Session and we will reconvene back into Regular Session
and Adjournment will follow after that.
Motion to move back into Regular Session by Robert L. Valentine W1 and
seconded by Ruth Detrow.
Ayes: Robert L. Valentine W1, Robert M. Valentine W2, Ruth
Detrow, Paul Wertz
Move for adjournment of Regular Session by Robert M. Valentine W2,
seconded by Ruth Detrow.
Ayes: Robert L. Valentine W1, Robert M. Valentine W2, Ruth
Detrow, Paul Wertz.
Adjournment at 8:05 pm.
Submitted by
Valarie
Bishoff
Clerk of Council