Ashland City Council


Work Session Minutes
Tuesday, January 29, 2008


Tuesday, January 29, 2008, Council Chambers Conference Room 7:00 P.M.

Purpose:  
  Discussion to establish priorities for 2008 Calendar year.

Attendance:
Council members:   Bob Valentine W1, Bob Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz
Mayor:   Glen P. Stewart
City Engineer:   Jim Cooper
Water/Sanitation:  Curt Young
Council Clerk:   Valarie Bishoff
Street Department:  Jerry Mack
Fire Department:  Mark Burgess
Media:
    T-G:    Travis Minnear
    WMFD:  
    WMAN:  Dave Pennell
Public

Roll Call: Bob Valentine W1, Bob Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow W3, Paul Wertz W4/President

Pledge of Allegiance:

The meeting is being recorded and Valarie takes notes for complete Minutes.

Paul Wertz  - Tonight’s meeting is a Work session and the only things being discussed this evening are Priorities for 2008.  Bob we can start with you:

Robert L. Valentine W1:  We have the ten priorities from last year that we came up with.

Paul Wertz:  Anything that you think we should have for priorities for this year we will list to  them and prioritize them and then bring it back at another meeting for discussion.

Robert L. Valentine W1:  Many of these things that are on the list , we had from last year, there were 10 items, some of which are being worked on but they still need to be there.   There are a couple of things of interest.  Those were taken up by the Charter Committee.  One is Election of replacement Councilpersons.  My concern is we start to get into three or four years of a replacement as far as a Councilman is concerned, I think the people should have direct involvement.  On the federal level, we had a death and there was an election and then he has to run again in November.  It just makes sense to me that if it is going to be three years like now, or four years, I think the way that should work, is that should be put on the next general election. There is a problem with that and the problem is that it is going to have to be with four Council members.  

Paul Wertz: Unless we appoint someone temporarily for the year.  

Robert L. Valentine W1:  The election of replacing councilpersons.

Paul Wertz:  Just make it a public official. Any kind of office.  Have the Law Director look into it to see how it works out.  

Ruth Detrow:  We couldn’t have it at the next election unless the next election just happened to be a nonpartisan.   I can’t imagine that we could mix partisan and nonpartisan in the election.  That means that it would be someone who has more than two years to fill.  We would have to appoint anyhow.  Like the situation we have right now.  There isn’t going to be a nonpartisan election, another one for two years.  We certainly aren’t going to want to go along with no council in this seat for two years, so we have to appoint anyhow and then I am not arguing, I think the people should be the ones who are responsible for electing a councilman.  There are problems that I think that haven’t been anticipated.  

Robert L. Valentine W1:  Well that is why I said two years or more.  

Ruth Detrow:   So we would still have to do the appointing for the interim.  We cannot operate with four.  

Mark Burgess, Fire Chief:  One of the other things too; timing would be everything because of the filing deadlines through the Board of Elections to be able to get on the ballot on time and to allow people to run, you would shrink your window even farther.  

Mayor Stewart:  There is a lot of validity in your points.  I also believe that it is a very valid thing to put on the priority list.  I don’t think there is a night long enough to determine all of the,  if comes, maybes about what can happen; it will take some very deep study.  People need to prepare for a filing deadline, so you need to lay out a timeline.  I do not think we want to get City politics mixed up with partisan politic elections.   And Paul’s point; if it is good for a councilman, it probably should be for any City Elected Official.

Ruth Detrow:  Then there is the question; does it happen often enough and with any kind of repercussions?  

Robert L. Valentine W1:  Well I think it is something to consider.  And another one that I had is the one recommended by the Charter committee, because if that is something that was done with the eleven, that would have to go to the people to become a part of the Charter, correct?

Mayor Stewart:  Yes.

Robert L. Valentine W1:  And if that were done, if we made a decision on that, that would have to go on the November election, is that correct?

Paul Wertz:  The general election.

Robert L. Valentine W1:  Another recommendation I think from the Charter committee about the combination of County/City Health Department and that came to Council and Council at that time did not go along with that.  I think Al Sanders has been here a couple of times and has made presentations.  I would like to see some positives and negatives here.  A couple things when we had discussion on this before, I don’t think there was anything about saving money on this, right?  One thing I thought was good about it was to eliminate duplication, you would have one Health Department and what we have now are two bodies.  The City Health Dept. and the County Health Dept.  Like a Board of Director, legal council and the question that came up there was well; How could you do that?  In that discussion I said something like the population numbers is about 53,000 or 54,000 in the county and about 22,000 and then you could have your Board, I don’t know how large but about 40% for the City and 60% for the County.  That was just something that I had thought about.  Do you as Council think that is worth looking into?

Robert M. Valentine W2:  If we could save some money anywhere would be good.  

Mayor Stewart:  They made the point that they didn’t see any reduction in personnel, it would run a little more efficient, but I am pretty confident that when Al presented it to us, he did not present it on a cost-saving basis.  But he did emphasize that they were doing some things twice.  And I ask the question, since it is City/County; does the County not have to vote on that change too?

Robert L. Valentine W1: See that is another problem.  Something that you brought up is the idea that you have a Levy at the county level.  And the money comes out of the general fund.  

Paul Wertz:  Al had mentioned the last time that they would put the levy up for everyone and the city would be included in that levy and that would be a part of the cost.

Mayor Stewart:  That would be a countywide levy.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  That would help save us some money though.  Well what money do we put into the City Health Dept. now?  We wouldn’t have to if they put a levy on.  

Ruth Detrow:  Well it would come out of a different pocket but it would still be my pockets.

Paul Wertz:  We will put it on the priority list.   City/County Health Dept.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  Well I have a couple.  Continuing current level of city services.  Not cutting anything.  Keeping what we have.

Paul Wertz: We will list it as City Operations.  

Robert M. Valentine W2:  We had water development last year.  Could we put / Reservoir?

Ruth Detrow:  Good idea.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  And the last one I had was Route 250 East traffic problems.  Congestion.  Whatever you want to call it.  I am not doing anything to the list before, I am adding to it.  Some of this stuff we had and have been working on but there is other stuff that still needs done.  

Robert L. Valentine W1:  Might I suggest that maybe with what we do here and if you want to do it differently, fine is if we have any additions, why don’t we make the additions first then go back over the ten and see whether we want to keep them in there or if we want to change any of them.  

Mayor Stewart:  Are you making a list and prioritizing them like in the past?  

Paul Wertz:  Yes like in the past, make a list 20-25 was on the list.  

Ruth Detrow:  I considered revising the priorities.  We had number three last year; communication of county and community and I think we have done well at that and I think that is something at an all time high and I think what we need to do is to move them down the priority list.  If we have done a good job and it is going well, I think it goes to the bottom of the list then.  If we should slip into our old habits of City/County as two separate entities and we don’t even like each other much, then we have to do something but I don’t think that is ever going to happen again because I know this council respects the county government and I feel as though they respect what we are doing too and that is great.  

Mayor Stewart:  Can I comment on that Ruth?  It is hard not to talk when you are used to talking all the time.  If there some of these that we all feel strong about if there are one or two or three that you want the Mayor to take the lead on, I will be pleased to do that if it is within my realm of capability and responsibility.  I think this is one that I could handle.

Ruth Detrow:  The Community Corridors Special Fund; did we ever do anything with this one?  We do not really have the dollars to start any kind of special fund this year do we?

Mayor Stewart:  Not as of yesterday, no.  There is nothing wrong with keeping it on the priorities list though.  It probably needs to be done but to do it, it will probably take some dollars.

Robert L. Valentine W1:  We were talking about the sale of the land out on Faultless Drive, putting that into a separate fund and using that to improve the Corridors; isn’t that what we were doing?

Mayor Stewart:  Well, we have to pay the $3,000,000.00 dollars (3 million).  Or 2.5 million don’t quote that number.  That was off of the top of my head.  We have an obligation to pay back the debt that is incurred on the industrial park.  The debt on the Reservoir is a separate debt structure to the Water development.

Paul Wertz:  But it is our agreement with the State, when we sold land out there in that one section, we had to pay that money back right away.

Mayor Stewart:  On the new section, we are compelled to pay back a percent, but I do not know what the ratio is.
But you are right; there was some discussion of setting some aside.  

Ruth Detrow:  Special Zoning for the Industrial Park area.  Not just special zoning, but for example; I don’t think people should buy Industrial Park area at a good price and then turn around and resell it for small stores, etc. which is something right now can be done.  I don’t think that should be done.  I understand that from the discussion we had some months ago that there is a legal way to fix that so that the Industrial Park land can be used for Industry which sounds like a no brainer but it isn’t quite.  I know that Wooster had some problems with it and we have had some problems already.  That needs to be looked into.  Also, we need to be able to sell Industrial Park land for whatever seems wise at the time.  Not the going rate for Industrial land necessarily but if we can get a Business to come into our community and provide jobs for 300-400 people; my feeling is they should have land at a good price; that is why we bought that land.  

Robert L. Valentine W1:  What is Industrial Park land usage?

Mayor Stewart:  All of us have a proposal that was sent out late last fall and I will be bringing that to this Council in the mid term.  Almost exactly in the format that you guys received it.  And it does address this philosophy.  If you want 15 acres and your business plan that you present to buy that says that you need 6 acres and the 6 acres will comply with a green space, the parking, the storm retention; we are willing to sell you 6 acres, but the 15 acres, that just does not make sense to tie that land up.  That Industrial Park is for job development.   We want that density of jobs out there as best as we can get it.  I think you will find when I bring this to council and I will not send it out to you on Friday night and expect you to address it the next Tuesday.  It is a rather lengthy document and there is a lot of lawyer talk in it and we may need a Work Session if we choose to.  But it will be coming to you.  I don’t know exactly how to address my personal business philosophy but I kind of said it like it is.  We are not in there for land speculation.  We are in there for job development.  I applaud you for wanting to move forward with that.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  Didn’t that have a lot to do with last summer?  We talked about that.  That land was all sold without a business plan.  You remember back so it does not happen again.

Mayor Stewart:  I would propose that the vast majority of it if not all of it is addressed in the draft form that you have.  Look it over and we can change anything now.  

Paul Wertz:  One I think should be on there is Zoning in old areas of town; we discussed it last year but nothing was ever done.  I thought City Planning was going to look at that.  We need to look at the zoning in the old areas of town that if somebody wants to build a garage they have to become before Council because the zoning says they are right next to an Industrial area and there isn’t an Industrial area there anymore.  We need to re-look at the zoning qualifications in different parts of town.  That is something that City Planning was going to look at but I don’t think they did last year.

Mayor Stewart:  I don’t know if they ever received that request.  I still think we need to keep that on the annexation priority.  We need to keep that on the list.

Ruth Detrow:  But we have made progress there and we have made some hard decisions.  I am working diligently on the Housing Code.  I hope my fellow councilmen put it high on our priority list because we need a Home Maintenance code, Housing code- Maintenance.   The problems right now is, there is a committee of 12 or 13 people working on that.  The thing we can’t do now because we have serious financial difficulties in the whole country/in Ohio.  We cannot put in a code that is so hard for people with not a whole lot of money that they end up losing their houses.  That is not why we are here.  We are not trying to take away someone’s home or something of that sort.  After a meeting a week or two ago, I know one thing we are having difficulty with is we don’t know in many cases, I don’t know and if I don’t know as close as I am to it, I think the average citizen really doesn’t know who to go to if there is a really outrageous mistake.  If somebody really has a junky place and I want to do something about it; I found out from those two meetings that there is a Health code which is not in our code at all; there is a Fire code and the Fire Department knows all about that and I don’t.  One thing we need to do is know where we are.  We need to know what we are doing right now and what we can do right now and then we need to fix some things that aren’t quite right.  For example; you can have a house that has no paint on it at all and it nevertheless doesn’t violate any code that we have.  You can have a porch with some of the shingles on the roof coming off and you can see right up to the sky and I am told that doesn’t violate anything.  And so we need to do something. I spent a lot of time today talking to some of the different agencies in the community and it amazes me at how many people out there are willing to help get something done.  I talked to one agency and one of the gentleman said, “We have volunteers and we are having trouble finding things for them to do”.  Now I can give them several things to do and it is not going to be that terrible if we upgrade our housing code and use very good sense and keep in mind the financial situation right now.  And then we make use of these agencies in the community and a lot that I haven’t even tapped yet because I have just gotten started on this.  Make use of a lot of the agencies in the community.   Some clubs have money and they don’t have people who especially want to go out and put on shingles.  Some other groups have guys who are willing to go out and shingle or guys and gals who are willing to paint but they don’t have the bucks to buy the paint, but they will give of their time.  I was just absolutely amazed at how much possible help I have discovered in just a very short time.  I was about ready to give up on our housing code, and let’s not fix anything because we can’t ask people to pay a lot right now.  But actually there are ways to help the people who cant afford to. Fellow Councilmen, I want that really close to the top.  

Paul Wertz:  I got a couple of phone calls from this in the past and I think Glen you might be working on it.  Building permits; and why they take so long to get.  Some people get them quickly and others don’t.  There should be something uniform.  I don’t know if you had talked to anyone about it.  We could have a Work Session.  

Glen Stewart:  You would help me a great deal if the person would come forward, first person and share their very specific situation.  I know Mr. Cooper is vitally interested in that.  He and I are working on trying to identify the total problem and where we are headed on that.  So first person information and if you want to call those people back, I will personally keep their name anonymous if they choose to.  

Paul Wertz:  The only other one I had on the list was the Industrial Park-Infrastructure.   I think the ten that we have on there now, what we have added to this, keep those on there also and add these to them and sort them.  

Ruth Detrow:  City Operating Services discussion.  I am sorry, but I don’t remember what that meant.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  That was also on the list from last year.  Paul wanted to put what I said underneath that.  

Ruth Detrow:  Not letting anything get worse?

Robert M. Valentine W2:  Right.

Robert L. Valentine W1:  So the Community Corridors, Special fund; we discussed that and one of the things that came up was the idea that financially we have debt.

Glen Stewart, Mayor:  I don’t know the exact requirement for repayment.  There is a payment schedule and as you reduce the amount of land to sell, obviously your selling part of the land that was held as security for the loan, so you have to reduce your debt commensurate with the amount of equity that you are liquidating.  I do not know the exact formula for that.

Robert L. Valentine W1:  So what you are really saying is that that still isn’t a bad priority, is that what you are saying?

Mayor Stewart:  No I don’t think it is a bad priority;  I am just not sure exactly how heavily it would be funded.

Paul Wertz:  Any one else?

Robert L. Valentine W1:  We had a committee with 5-6 people, and we had about 3-4 meetings on sidewalks.  We haven’t had one for a while and I think that has to be picked back up again.  This spring sometime is coming up with the policy as far as the sidewalks are concerned.  I think the need is there and that is not going to go away.  

Robert M. Valentine W2:  Plus you have a lot of people who have already fixed theirs.  We don’t want people to stop fixing them.  

Robert L. Valentine W1:  Do we have a lot of people who have already fixed their sidewalks?

Jim Cooper:  Yes.  The first year we probably had 35-40% of them have fixed their sidewalks in that designated area.

Paul Wertz: There are also a lot of sidewalks in other areas being fixed too. On my street there has been at least 5 or 6 people.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  People are figuring they just better get a jump on it.

Ruth Detrow:  And we would be letting those people down if we didn’t.  

Robert L. Valentine W1:  I think we have some ideas and we have been throwing those around.  We will pick it back up.

Jim Cooper:  Bob asked that we double check on possible ways to finance this through Grants.  We talked to the Issue 2 people down in Columbus about the possibility of a large 300,000 to $400,000 dollar project through Issue 2 to do existing sidewalks and fix them.  We found out that is not acceptable to be used that way through Issue 2 money, unfortunately.  

Robert L. Valentine W1: Anna had looked into Grants too.  She could not find anything that was available either.  

Ruth Detrow:  Having to deal with that.   We have I think a special situation on the lack of sidewalks going out 250 East.  There are people who insist on walking out there and it is dangerous.  It seems as though maybe there is some special way we could fund that.  

Jim Cooper:  What would be the possibility of setting up an arrangement, perhaps a small fund that would actually have a taxi service to take those people out there.  Because if you have a sidewalk out through that area.  This is just my own personal concern , I think you are going to have more of a dangerous situation then we have now.   To take a highway that is 55 mph and have people walking along out there and promoting the sidewalks could be very dangerous.  

Robert M. Valentine W2:  Route 250 East traffic problems.  I think that is covered.

Ruth Detrow:  Bob you know about ODOT better than anyone else.  Is there a way of boosting that bridge up in your priorities?

Robert M. Valentine W2:  No.  You think money is tight at this level.  It is even tighter down there.  We have something that goes bad earlier than what we had scheduled, that will get fixed then something else will get bumped.  That bridge probably has 15-25 years life expectancy left.  It has some problems but they are not serious.

Ruth Detrow:  Except for the traffic that goes like this.

Mayor Stewart: the Bridge proper, the overpass, isn’t as much of a problem as the exit off of it.  It needs to be wider underneath it.  

Robert M. Valentine W2:  Back in the day when that was built who would have ever thought that 250 would have just blown up like that?  It was built in the 1950’s. Like 1958 or 1959. Like I said, I can take and show you 100 bridges ten times worse.  You have to prioritize your money where it needs to be.  

Mayor Stewart:  That is what I have been doing for the last six days.  

Questions or comments?

Mayor Stewart:  There are some really good choices on here.  It is going to be difficult.   I think you have covered a wide range of direction.  

Mark Burgess, Fire Chief:  Could you review the other 8 or 9 that are on the list, since I don’t have the list?

Ruth Detrow:  Yes.

1.    Corporate Boundaries/Annexation
2.    Water Development/Reservoir
3.    Communication of County/Community.
4.    Housing code- Maintenance.
5.    Industrial Park Infrastructure.
6.    Sidewalks
7.    Infrastructure- Sewer and Water lines.
8.    Zoning review- Planning Commission
9.    City Operating Services discussion/ Maintain what we have.
10.    Community Corridors Special Fund

Mark Burgess:  On number 9, we are experiencing some growth out 250 East.  We have housing going up.  We have expansions in some Industrial Buildings.  Liqui-Box and some other ones that are adding on.  I propose or suggest that instead of just maintaining services that we should be and I know money is tight but looking at improving our services and trying to keep up with the demand.  Just maintaining things, we keep falling farther and farther behind.  We need to look at what methods of improving our services and expanding our services because the demand is going up at least in our part of it.  

Ruth Detrow:   I serve on the Transit Advisory Board and they have lost some funding this year.  That is a service that we cannot afford to lose.  So maybe we need to add that to a possible priority list.  The Transit services share with the County.  The County is having a real struggle with funding too.  The city is stepping up and trying to help right now but we cannot do the whole thing ourselves.  I don’t know what to do. Older people use it a lot and AU students are using it more and more, especially the foreign students, etc.  There are just a lot of people who have come to count on our Transit system.  Maybe it is not something that would go on the priority list, but it certainly is a serious concern.  

Robert L. Valentine W1:   Like you are saying transportation services, City-County, is that what you’re saying?

Ruth Detrow:  Yes.

Mayor Stewart:  Ruth, in the meeting that you attended; was it clarified to your group where the funds that had been coming from the State, were those funds for coordination of the Transit system or directly for Transit.  

Ruth Detrow:  Those were coordination funds.

Mayor Stewart:  That is where we actually added the person a couple of years ago based on State funding.  This position has the challenge of trying to promote as much efficiency as possible between all of the various transportation systems such as Council on Aging, such as maybe Good Shepherd.  I don’t want to name those that I am not positive about but there are a lot of buses/vans moving around and it is my understanding that the state wanted us to; offered us some funding to facilitate coordinating those transit activities.  For instance, if one of the agencies has someone that needs to go to Loudonville and there may be another agency that has to go down there and possibly the Ashland Transit system has a “paid rider” going down there; instead of having three units running an hour apart or beside each other, this coordinator is to put as best they can, one unit to take all three.  It is to up the ridership and to bring some efficiencies to the various people who operate transit units.  That is my understanding, the State late last year, in December, notified us that we are not going to fund that and it came as a heck of a surprise and we are struggling on how do we keep this thing going.  And I think Ellie may have presented to the various agencies the need to find some funding somewhere to keep this going.  I am not saying that it won’t keep going; I am saying that it is something that we had not anticipated at all at the magnitude that it has to be.   There is a lot of need and I believe the service provides some efficiencies spread all over the City and County.  

Ruth Detrow:  It really is kind of fun to ride also.  On Saturdays we have a Shoppers Shuttle and it stops at a lot of the major stores downtown and stops at Wal Mart.  There are signs; if you are watching, you can see the signs that are stops for the Shoppers Shuttle.   There is one out by Drug Mart and Hawkins.  One at Home Hardware and one at Wal Mart; lots of other places.  

Mayor Stewart:   I think there is a stop at Essex House and Martin House.

Ruth Detrow:   You know how many people who live at the Martin House, Essex House and some of the other Senior citizens housing places.  You know how many of those do not drive anymore.  Maybe we can figure out a way of using our County transit system to take people out to that newer shopping area because it is dangerous to walk.  There are lots of needs.  We have to find a way to fund this and satisfy those needs or not.

Paul Wertz:  One other thing, the Cable Franchise is up this year.  Is there anything that we can do?

Mayor Stewart:  You can write your State Representatives.  We have lost our ability to negotiate with local cable operators.  That was taken and the State revised the process.  We no longer have the right to negotiate the process or the contract.  We can still charge a Franchise fee if we choose to which our Franchise fee is $100.00 dollars.  The general consensus is; well lets charge them $ 1000.00 dollars.    Well it is going to get passed on.  There is a rate revision coming through as we speak.  I will raise this issue; when we were talking one year ago about the Cable service in Ashland Ohio and the cost that was a paramount concern to a lot of fixed income folks.  It was found out by Valarie that in fact some of the Cable companies serving the perimeter of our area had a bare-bones package and it was less than $15.00 dollars.     

Robert M. Valentine W2:  He said he would look into it and that is all we heard.

Mayor Stewart:  Well it isn’t on the new rate structure, that I see.  I don’t think but you are welcome to talk to Rick or whomever but my take on it is that we have very little to say about it.  But you should probably explore that yourself.

Ruth Detrow:  The big problem is that we are not a big enough community that a competing cable system can come in and if that would happen, it would drive rates down I believe. They aren’t that terrible for what they offer, but they don’t have that basic package.  Many people on fixed incomes feel this is the only way they can have cable.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  Well if you have cable and you have the Internet and you have telephone, all three; that is $100.00 some dollars a month.

Mayor Stewart:  Add HD in that.  

Valarie Bishoff:   A main cable company stated they wouldn’t even think about coming in  while Armstrong is still here because they cannot use the same lines; they have to put their own up and then if Armstrong would decide to stay, they would not be able to recoup their money.   

Mayor Stewart:  It is a very difficult situation to deal with and especially when you can look the rates up in some of the surrounding areas and find that there is a basic rate.     

Paul Wertz:  It was on our priority list last year.

Robert M. Valentine W2:  We went as far as we could last year.  

Questions or comments?   None.

1.    Election of Replacement Council persons.
2.    Combine City/County Health Department.
3.    Continue current level of City services
4.    Monitor Route 250 East congestion (traffic problems).
5.    Continue communication between county/city.            Priority list for 2008
6.    Community Corridors Special Fund.
7.    Industrial Park infrastructure (industry only land)
8.    Zoning Qualification (all parts of town).
9.    Corporate boundaries/annexation.
10.    Housing Code – Maintenance.
11.    Industrial Park Infrastructure (sewer & water lines).
12.    Re-evaluate sidewalk program.
13.    Transit system (coordinate funds).
14.    Water development/Reservoir.


Mark Burgess:   With what has happened in the last week or so with the budget and appropriations, I would encourage you to look at the city operation as a top priority to maintain and keep those services because things are tight and I would like to see that moved up.

Mayor Stewart:  They will be prioritizing those.

Motion to move to adjournment by Paul Wertz, moved by Robert M. Valentine W2, seconded by
  Robert L. Valentine W1.
Ayes:  Robert L. Valentine W1, Robert M. Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz.


Meeting adjourned at 7:58 p.m.


Submitted by
                                    Valarie F. Bishoff
                                Clerk of Council