WS9-18-2008

Ashland City Council

Work Session Minutes
Thursday, September 18, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008 Council Chambers Conference Room 7:00 P.M.

Purpose: Mayor’s Items.

Attendance:
Council members: Robert M. Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Stephen Stuart, Robert L. Valentine W1
Mayor: Glen Stewart
City Engineer: Jim Cooper
Assistant to City Engineer: Larry Paxton
Human Resources: Cherie Helterbridle Bailey
Finance Director: Anna Tomasek
Sanitation: Dave Blair
Street/Sanitation: Jerry Mack
Fire Department: Mark Burgess
Council Clerk: Valarie Bishoff
Media: T-G Travis Minnear
Audience: John Chorpening

Roll Call:
Robert M. Valentine W2,
Ruth Detrow W3,
Paul Wertz W4/President
Stephen Stuart, Councilman at Large
Robert L. Valentine W1.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE:

SANITATION
Mayor Stewart: We will start off with the Sanitation discussion and Jerry and Dave have some information to share with us. Most of you have seen the material that was put together early on by Curt Young. Jerry Mack has gone a little deeper and between he and Dave they have some information to share with us.

Jerry Mack: First off do you all know Dave Blair? Dave has been with the City for 29 years in the Sanitation department and if you want to know anything, ask Dave. If it wasn’t for him, in 7 weeks I would have been lost. He has been a great help and got me going. I put together a couple of spreadsheets if you will look at those first. This shows some of our competition from other cities and what they are doing. The first line shows pick up per week. We are about the only one left anymore doing two pick ups per week. Wadsworth 1, Allied 1, Browns which is an independent person 1, Medina 1 pick up per week.   Down a little bit it shows the cost. We do it for 15.75 per month, Wadsworth 15.00, Allied they do it by contract they pretty much do what you want to do. 16.00 Browns, 14.00 with Medina. What that shows is we are doing pick-ups for 8.00 per month basically. We are doing 2, they are doing 1. We are doing it a pretty much the same price, but we are picking up trash for 8.00 per month. Bag size, most of them have some limits. We don’t really have a bag size limit. 50lbs Allied, 30 lbs Browns. Type of material, we pretty much take anything. Anybody else calls it household garbage. They define that and that is what they basically take for roadside recycling. They will take other items, just like we do, but there is a charge for it. Anything that they do they pretty much charge for it. Computer billing discounts. Browns is the only one that really told me that. They do a discount for computer billing. Every three months if you do it on the computer, you get a discount for doing it. Or you get a discount for paying it off of the computer. Additional household garbage cost. We really don’t have anything for household. If there are 30 bags out there, we pick it up. There are some additional charges for large items, couches things like that. We do have some additional charges for that. A lot of times we will pull up to a pile and there is building material there. That pretty much is free. Wadsworth, they have an arm system that they use. They use a 96 and a 64-gallon cart. An arm picks it up and dumps it. You can have extra carts if you want to. It is $5.00 dollars additional if you have an extra cart. They furnish the first cart. You buy the other ones. So you can get some additional waste picked up but it is only household garbage and a recycling. In Wadsworth, all their recycling goes into their normal garbage and they have a transfer station, which it goes there; they put it into a semi, haul it to Medina and in Medina they sort all the recycling out. It goes down a pick line. There is a machine that will spread the bag open, it goes down through and they take all the recycle out of the garbage. Believe it not, it is probably not going to be too far in the future that is the way it is going to be. They can’t get the recycling numbers they want by just asking people to recycle. But in talking with Allied, who is pretty UP on this stuff. They don’t think it is too far into the future, where this is going to be the way it probably happens. Putting it all in one bag and sorting it. That way we will get the recycling numbers that we need.

On down, Freon items. We do Freon items for $15.00 dollars per item. Take Allied for instance, theirs is $25.00 and each individual has to have that Freon removed and certified before they will touch it. If they go up and find that there is a wide cut, they wont take it. It has to be certified by the customer. We take it to the recycling center; they take it out and certify it. So there is a considerable cost difference there for them to do that and there are no Freon charges. Computers, we are not taking any and most everyone else is not. You have to recycle computers now. TV’s are probably not far behind. It is the wiring lead content. We are still taking some TV’s. Carryouts, we still do some carryouts. Nobody else is doing that. It has to get to the curb somehow. We have some elderly people we do carryouts for and that is a good service. When I get on down the list that will come into play a little bit. Wadsworth has a $100.00 dollar per item prohibiting waste cost. I did not get a definition of that but I think that is refrigerators and Freon items when you are talking prohibiting waste. So they are getting hit pretty hard for that. Couches, we do 6.00 dollars a hopper; Allied charges 10.00-15.00 dollars a piece for a couch. Fuel surcharges, we don’t have it. Allied and most other big companies, your bill goes up considerably by the price of fuel. It shows that they are doing household waste by contract which I couldn’t get a price. They are close to us but you can figure 7.00-10.00 dollars per 3 months on a fuel surcharge so you are up 23.00-24.00 to pay for the fuel. Transfer station, of course I said Wadsworth had one. Nobody else has one and neither do we. Recycling, we do it. We try to promote it. Most everybody does it, but it goes right in the garbage in two cases. It doesn’t get taken out. Colors for recycled bags. Right now, nobody is doing that. The ones I checked with. Some communities are doing white or green bags for recycling. Yard waste, we do it except for brush. Of course we have a cost, the sticker cost. Everybody else, yes and no. I couldn’t really get information on what they are charging. There is a charge for yard wastes. We advertise April to October. If the weather is good we continue it for a while. If they are mowing grass, we might as well get the waste out of there. Yard waste container, we use a biodegradable bag. Wadsworth, they are using a 30-gallon bag. I am not exactly sure where they are putting it but it isn’t biodegradable. Browns also pick up bag waste. Spring Clean up, we are doing it. Wadsworth does it. Where you see by contract under Allied. When they go into a city, if you want it they will do it, but there is cost there. Spring clean up material, we have some rules on that. Wadsworth, they do 2 truckloads, 2 packer loads of waste per resident per year free in the spring clean up. The only catch is, it is only household garbage. You do not get to put your couch out or your junk material, they will only take household garbage but they will actually take 52 yards of material free. I thought that was amazing, but how much household garbage can you collect? That is kind of a limit. Spring clean up time; we do it in April, Wadsworth, they also do it in April. The Commercial Rates, we get down into those, it is hard to get prices out of some of these people. I don’t know whether they think we are going to go into their city and possibly try to do Commercial. If you look on the second page, Commercial, the first one I could compare with is 2 cu yd container, once a week pick up. We do it for $78.15 a month and Browns who I could compare, theirs is 64.50 a month. And there are a couple of other comparisons. The one that shows Allied, I picked that up off of a billing, we are at $9.75 a yard on that particular container, they do it for $ 4.21- $5.63 a yard for Commercial. Type of truck they are using or most places are using. We are using from roadside, all rear load. Wadsworth uses rear load, Allied uses front load machine for curbside waste. Browns is using rear load. Front loads are coming into play more and more. Safety, ease of operation, time, what have you. The personnel, that is being used for roadside pick up. We use 3 per truck, Wadsworth has 1 arm situation. Pick up the arm, right hand drive; real good economical situation, but expensive to start. Allied 1 per truck, they use front load. It is not like a container truck. This is a special truck for roadside waste which has a little different container conducive to roadside pick up, right hand drive, steps out throws the bag in and away he goes and then will pull it up over the top. Transportation wise, that unit stores up in the top to transport to the dump. I have not seen it, I have heard about it and they described it to me and it sounds pretty neat. Browns uses one for truck and they are still using rear load. I would hate to be that guy. Container trucks, we are using 2-3 armed containers to pick up containers, we still use a rear load machine; Wadsworth uses 2. They are still using rear load trucks. They’ve got the roadside really great, but they are using a rear truck for their Commercial. I don’t believe they have a lot of Commercial accounts that they do in the city. Allied, 1 person per truck on a Container; Browns, they use 1 per truck and a rear loader. Recycling, we run 1-2 per truck. When we are short, if we have people sick, vacation or whatever, recycling has to go to 1 person. So that is where we get into 1-2 per truck. It is a lot easier with 2 rather than walking around all the time with that. But a lot of times those recycling trucks are strictly 1 person. Just to cover our roadside collection. One interesting thing. I wrote this down. This probably wasn’t making a lot of sense. Start, stop, continue to cycle time for front load. If you have a container truck and you pull up to that container with a front load machine, average cycle time is 2 minutes. Pull up, forks in, dump, down and gone. It is 2 minutes. With a rear load machine, if you are really good, you are looking at 10 minutes per stop. That is a very considerable savings.

Robert M. Valentine W2: I was in Sandusky today and they had a guy driving the truck and they were using AFV on the containers, the big blue ones; The guy ran over, rolled to the back, put it on the hook, stood there, the guy dumped it in, the machine dumped it in. He took it back and put it over there. They went to the next one. That was pretty slick, that was more like a 2-minute thing.

Jerry Mack: I don’t know what they were using; there are some hydraulic kicker machines. We use a cable, so you have to get a cable down, get it hooked on a container, roll it into the arms, lock the arms, pull it up, and that is where your 10 minutes comes in. There are some rear load kicker machines but you have to be real careful with them. The arms come underneath it, it latches in and it throws the thing up without a cable. We have opted for the cable. I think years ago we may have had a kicker arm unit. And Dave can say how that worked for us.

Dave Blair: It was a dangerous set up. You are talking residential.

Jerry Mack: The arm unit that they are using in Wadsworth is really neat. I would like to see how they operate. In our city we have a lot of cars on the street. To drop that arm over and pick that can up with the streets full of cars, what do you do? Do you drop it on the hood then pick it up. I don’t know. And could you make people put it in the driveway? That looks real good but I am not sure that would work for us. The front load machine that I heard about sounds like a real neat way to do things. Safe. The arm, probably 75% of the city would be great but what would you do on Walnut. There are no drives; cars are bumper to bumper, how would you pick it up? That is something that I do want to visit some places and look around and see what they do have.

Robert L. Valentine W1: About the recycling. I feel that the city of Ashland does much more recycling than most of the people who we are dealing with, is that true?

Jerry Mack: I wish I could answer that.

Dave Blair: I talked to Dan Scott and he said we are doing about 2 million 500 thousand pounds per year. He said we were probably at around 53%, somewhere in that area. And you can see the sections of town that do recycle quite a bit and then there are some sections that don’t recycle very much. He was figuring around 53% in Ashland.

Robert L. Valentine W1: For here. But I mean comparing to the other communities.

Dave Blair: Oh, the other communities. I think we are a little bit ahead of the other communities.

Stephen Stuart: On the arms, beyond the parking issue, whether you have an arm in the back or the load from the back as Bob saw. Those are special containers. Do the communities buy those for the residents? Initially? Then the resident’s responsibility?

Jerry Mack: Then if you would want an extra container, you have to purchase that. But the city bought everything initially and distributed it. You could have a 64 up there or a 96-gallon whichever you chose. That is a pretty good amount. Just like our containers. There is some literature on the containers. The front load container truck, for me, is the way to go. It looks like a really good deal. Originally I thought we would have to buy all new containers. A normal container for front load has flat front so they can pick it up. Ours are all angled for a rear situation. They do now; they have some hydraulic additions on it that you no longer have to change containers. It will pick that container up like we have and put it in.   One thing with a rear loader that we are limited to right now is a 4 cu yd container. Most of your big establishments in the city are using 6-8. That would allow us to get into a 6-8 yard container which we cant do now. This front load machine also, that will do our containers will do a front load also. But it just has some extra hydraulics on it to accommodate. You have to lock it in differently and put some arms out to hold the bottom because you don’t have that flat front. The flat front has pockets on the side like fork pockets; they drive that in and don’t do anything else but pick it up and dump it. Where are containers don’t have that.

Stephen Stuart: Our present equipment that has rear end containers, how many of those trucks are container trucks?

Jerry Mack: Every one of our trucks could dump a container. Every one but one. One does not have any provision on top. It has a lock in, in the back, but there is nothing on top of it to pull the container over. So we have one older truck, and it is the oldest truck we have that does not have that.

Stephen Stuart: If you went to a front end container, would that be exclusively for Commercial?

Jerry Mack: Pretty much. You don’t have rear. Some of the front load trucks you get, you can get an optional side door so that you can open that side door and throw bags in the side of it. But for the most part most of those trucks would be primarily for commercial use and containers. But I think it might be a good idea to get a side door, so if you ever needed it, you could throw trash in the side of it. Open the door and throw it in and pack it just like a regular packer. Of course it works kind of backwards. They are a little different since you are loading from the front. You are packing from the front row then the rear. The blade situation is different on that. It is quite a unit. They are pretty nice. If we get a low mount cab, it sure saves on your legs of getting in and out. One of the sheets I have shows savings. This may not seem like a lot, but it is year after year so it can add up. There is going to be a personnel savings. We are going to be down, instead of 3 trucks daily, we will be running 2 trucks on roadside. If you have an eight year life on a truck, which that is pushing it, but we should be able to get eight out of a primary truck and move it to a back up. And you have it there. You have a service on it so you have to have something else to drive. To me that figures out to be about $25,000.00 dollars a year over the life. Truck fuel, this truck fuel is figured, one truck we looked at 405, in 2007 that is the amount of fuel it used. Now will we save $20,400.00 dollars, maybe not all of it, but we are going to save a good chunk of it because we are only going to be running 2 trucks. One thing, it is better to start with an empty truck in the morning. Some days are heavier than others, so you think well they are going to have the same amount of trips and Mayor you brought that up. Some of our trips we may not have, we should not have as many trips to the dump because we may not have to go as often. We may be able to get 2 days on, or maybe cut one trip out for every couple of days. We are going to have fuel savings. Now whether it is that told amount, it is kind of hard to tell until we do it. Truck maintenance, we spend $6,000.00 dollars a year plus to maintain these trucks. Tires, we go through 2 sets of tires on these trucks per year. You are looking at $7500.00 dollars on 2 sets of tires. You do not want to buy just recaps for them. We have one particular truck, we keep it on Michelins. If we put anything else on it, we will go through 3 sets a year on it. What are running on the one truck with the Michelins? Did we get a full year out of those tires?

Dave Blair: Close to it.

Jerry Mack: If we put anything else on it, we will replace them about every 4 months. The truck is just heavy and it doesn’t like anything but Michelins. They are a good tire. Some of the trucks we do run a cap on.   But you are still looking at a large expense on tires per year.

Ruth Detrow: Jerry where you have 2 sets of tires and $7500 dollars, that is what we would be doing with 1 pick up a week.

Jerry Mack: No we will probably cover expense, but that is taking one truck and not putting tires on it per year. We are going to eliminate a truck so we don’t have to put tires on that truck anymore. I think we should get longer life because we will run fewer miles, there is no doubt. Overtime, right now we run 2 days a week so we are running Saturdays. We still will have to run a container truck on Saturday. We have no choice. Our Commercial accounts have to have Saturday pick up. I feel probably we will cut 80% of our overtime. In 2007 we had 16,555.00 dollars in overtime. We are going to cut 13,000 dollars of that a year on overtime. But we still will have to run a container truck on Saturday. And sometimes when you have a Holiday, sometimes we are going to have to be overtime a little bit to get all of that stuff picked up. Then when you end up getting a double day and holidays, usually there is an enormous amount of trash. Clothing, we clothe our people. We are looking at about 1200.00 dollars a year savings on that. It doesn’t seem like a lot but $153,000.00 and I am not exactly sure that is all of it, but it will definitely help. A couple of the other sheets are more for you to look over and see how our trucks are set up, what we have, what we are doing right now. What we will do in once a week pick up. Those things are pretty self-explanatory. You can see the direction I would like to see us go if we would do it once a week. The yard waste is something that normally we do on Wednesdays, I don’t like to call it our short day. But it is a short day. We try to schedule a day that doesn’t have quite as much on it as other ones. That way we can get our yard waste in the summer. We can get some of our large pick-ups and do those things on that short day. And the drivers work around and use other trucks to haul our yard waste. Yesterday, I believe, yard waste was an enormous amount. But we got it all done today. All of the yard waste was picked up today. We didn’t get it all Wednesday but we did finish it today. So that is all over for this week. After the weekend, I am sure it is going to be full up again. The numbers that are shown on there, they are pretty much bare bones. We have a sick person on sick leave, we have vacations. We are going to have to do some jockeying around. And it is imperative that I have CDL drivers. I just can’t go with the amount that I need for the trucks. We have to have a couple extra which they would know that their function is to possibly be a carrier, back up driver, whatever. But we do have to have some other CDL drivers. The guys that got vacation and we schedule around it as much as we can. We just have to have additional CDL drivers. Dave has a CDL and he has never been afraid to jump in a truck when he needs to help and tomorrow is one of his days. We have a couple of people off and he is going to have to help on the route and I really appreciate that. If I have to I can drive it. I am sure I wouldn’t be real great at it but I can drive one. But that sheet is pretty self-explanatory. The next to the last sheet is a truck replacement scheduled. Using 8 years, it kind of shows where we are. The years of our trucks and so on. I need to put together an actual yearly schedule on the 8-year cycle. I didn’t quite get that done. But this will show you where years we would move to a back up truck. I figure 8 years as a primary truck, 8 years as a back up truck and by that time they are pretty well done.   We start getting into high maintenance costs when they get older like that. The body, in Ohio, the salt just kills them. One thing would be nice, stainless steel body. I am not sure we could ever afford it, but it has increased the life of our salt trucks tremendously. We used to put at least one bed on during the life of a salt truck. I have 2 trucks 10 years old that the beds, there is nothing wrong with them and 10 years with a regular steel bed, it would be gone. And I think you could attest, the State has done that and it has really improved the life. Well we lose our cabs and chassis now the bed is still there. I haven’t seen anything stainless but I don’t know if we could ever stand the pricing on a stainless bed for a packer truck.

Robert M. Valentine W2: I have a question; on this personnel the requirement, on one of your sheets. It says now 16 full time and 2 temps. If we go to once a week, it says 18 full time people.

Jerry Mack: That is a misprint. Down at the bottom it shows 13. That should be 13.

Robert M. Valentine W2: So you have 16 full time now, what are you going to do with 3 guys?

Jerry Mack: That is to be determined, I guess.

Robert M. Valentine W2: Well, number 1; first and foremost I don’t want anyone losing their job.

Jerry Mack: I don’t either. That is something we can look at.

Robert M. Valentine W2: There are other things we can do here. I want to make that point up front. As far as I am concerned, guys are going to retire in different departments, these guys are good workers. They should have a crack at another department.

Jerry Mack: That is exactly right.

Robert M. Valentine W2: I don’t want anyone to lose his or her job.

Mayor Stewart: I have to look at this from a managing the city’s finances and if there is a need to adjust, we will do everything possible for a qualified individual to move into a job that they are qualified for. I am not of the opinion that we are going to continue operating, as we have to keep someone from being laid off. If we take that philosophy, and there are only 2 or 3 individuals and I say only, that is very significant to anybody that loses their job and that is not my goal but if we make this change, we cannot, I want to say, put someone where they will not be totally and fully utilized. It just can’t happen guys. It is a very difficult situation. We are in a very difficult position, the sanitation division, as we are with many divisions. We are hiring, we are looking for firemen and we are looking for policemen. There are qualifications that have to be met. Believe me, if the decision is made to move to once a week and if in fact the manpower works out to what Jerry and Dave have forecasted, we will have to make some changes. But I seriously question whether we can make a change to enhance the capability and stay within the operating budget of one department and put individuals in another one at their expense. If they can qualify for a job and be fully utilized and productive for necessary work, that is one thing but I respectfully disagree that I would not subscribe to at this point in time saying no one would lose their job. I don’t want anyone to lose their job.

Jerry Mack: One thing too Bob. We were operating with; this shows 16 full time now. We had 17, I have had one person leave in the last 7 weeks and if you noticed down here after 9/26/08, we will be at 15. I have got another person leaving on the 26th. We will get by with part time people, as we need to for right now.

Robert M. Valentine W2: There are creative ways to do things. I understand the Mayor is trying to save money or we wouldn’t be looking at a one day a week pick up.

Jerry Mack: I guess that wasn’t the total intent of it for sure.

Robert M. Valentine W2: Well that saves a heck of a lot of money in fuel. What I have a problem with is losing full time people and keeping temps.

Jerry Mack: No. We wouldn’t do that.   Hopefully we wouldn’t have to have temps. But like I said, that is bare bones. We don’t keep temps 40 hours/week. We call them only when we need them. If you have three guys call in sick during the course of a day and we are running right on numbers, what are we supposed to do? I have to call a temp and say hopefully he can show up in 10 minutes.

Mayor Stewart: I think the recent history has shown that the department has operated very well and we are fortunate in having some temps that have been available to fill in. The same people have been available. Bob, I am not one that wants to circumvent the system by using temps in place of full time people. That is not my goal in operation of the city at all.

Robert M. Valentine W2: That is not what I am saying. There are other creative ways to use employees. If you canvas for the next 6 or 8 months and people say I am going to retire. Say a guy in the park is going to retire. Then you have a guy you can fill it with. You don’t need to go outside. I would rather see us keep our guys that we have, if they are qualified and move them to another department rather than hire somebody new in.

Mayor Stewart: Cherie and I have had this dialogue and we have discussed it and yes there are people in the retirement process and on occasion people leave unexpectedly and again, the purpose of this is not to lay off people. The purpose is to keep the operation working to serve the city as it is intended at the least possible cost to the community. And right now, our expenses are exceeding our revenues and we depleting our carryover and we have for two years now.

Jerry Mack: We are operating with 1940 equipment. We are still doing the same thing we did 40 years ago. There are new ways to do things which will possibly eliminate back strains; there are all kinds of things that play into this. We have to get with the century that we are in. Equipment wise, we have to move ahead. Just like with the commercial. Right now we have some outside carriers that do some of our city. I would like to get into that market to where we can recapture that type of thing. That would be nice. If we have the right equipment, we can do the job real efficient with a good time frame and it would be nice to recapture some of that.

Mayor Stewart: We have got a long Agenda, Jerry what else do we need?

Jerry Mack: Just take a look at my recommendations; I don’t think I need to read them to you. This is my thought; it doesn’t mean that anyone agrees or disagrees. Just a good program to get to. It is going to take some time to get everything into place.   I appreciate your time.

Ruth Detrow: What do you mean by white or blue bags for recycling. Are you thinking about ones that the city would sell?

Jerry Mack: I have seen this in some communities where they use that color bag. I did not have time to research it. Some times we get some recycling in and some customers were not real happy. If there were a blue or different colored bag setting there, they would definitely know that is recycling.

Questions or comments?

Mayor Stewart: Jerry, I think you and Dave have done a good job of explaining the process. A decision should be made within the next several weeks so that the department has a direction of where to go and a time frame to get there. By presenting this to Council, it is my way of sharing the facts and information with Council and if there is a strong feeling one way or another, I look forward to hearing that from Council before we move into the decision making process.

MILTON TOWNSHIP CONTRACT 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013:
Mayor Stewart: It is on the Table. Two of the trustees have been in to see me.

Paul Wertz: This is both Fire and Emergency, or just Fire?

Mark Burgess: Both

Mayor Stewart: Now I sent some information out to you, as a mini spreadsheet, not fancy, doesn’t even have lines on it. But that spreadsheet, the top line is under 2008 is the very left side is the current at $115,000.00 for 2008. That is the current contract price. There proposed 5 year out contract was a continuing 5% increase. That would have taken them at the end of 2013 from $115,000.00 to $146,000.00 dollars. The Trustees have come in and they want to negotiate a lesser-compounded increase over the next 5 years. Mark has some comparable numbers of calls. I have some information.

Mark Burgess: We contract with Milton, Montgomery and Orange Townships for services. Milton and Montgomery, we have Fire, EMS, Orange is just EMS they have the Nankin Fire Department for Fire. Several years ago when we started with the contracts and really increasing the dollar amount we were looking at per capita expense per person and what we found out up to about 6-7 years ago, a township resident was paying about 1/10 of what, if not more of what a city resident was per fire protection and EMS protection. And it was working out that a city person was paying anywhere from 120 to 140.00 dollars a year per person for fire protection. Somebody in the township they were getting by with 70.00 dollars a year. Under Mayor Strine, we started changing that. It was met with a little resistance from the townships and rightfully so, they want to keep their cost down but when we started explaining to them the difference, it did make sense. Now, should they pay the same as the city resident? I don’t think so. They don’t have hydrants, which are a big part of fire protection and our response time is significantly different. So those are two areas that, how much is that worth? So we have been working along the lines of we would like them between 40%, 50% of what a city resident is paying. We feel, or I feel that that is acceptable for that and so under Mayor Strine we had some significant raises in their contracts and we worked with them to come up with a payment schedule. Some of them were incremental over the period of the contract, equally. Others they had a balloon that they went a small percentage at the beginning and then a big jump at the end. And with the start of these contracts, Milton is finishing up what we started. We went back to 5% each year because that gives us a little bit of an increase. It shouldn’t be too hard them. We also started early enough so that if they need to put something on the ballot, they have time, that is why we started early so that we don’t cut them short.   We were trying to work with them. The number of runs that we have per township varies according to the year. In 2007, Milton had 39 fire runs and 111 EMS; Montgomery had 177 fire and 142 EMS and Orange had 107 EMS calls. That varies. It depends on what is going on, the accidents, a lot of things. If you break it down per run, which is another option for charging for fees for that. It turns out that runs are about 700.00 dollars apiece if you count standby time. So you can bill by the run. Some years they are going to make out, others they are not. But they are always going to be a year behind. It is tough to budget for that. Both of those options were given to the townships. Most of them agreed that it is better to budge and have a flat fee because there were some years that they forget. We are in a position where Milton Township has tried to, they have gone through the motions, or have gone through the investigation of starting their own Fire Department. They had some retired firefighters attempt that and gathered figures on what it would cost to start their own fire department and it is cost prohibited, they can’t do it and provide the service that they are getting now. The township departments around us, Savannah, Mifflin Twp., Richland County and Mifflin do not want to contract with them and take on additional coverage area. They are having a hard time of staffing their own townships let alone taking on another township. So we sort of have a monopoly on them. We talked with them; they don’t want to pay for it. I understand that, but our costs keep going up and we need to have an increase in our contract with them. It is a service that we provide, they get the same service as a city resident except for the response time and the hydrants, but we take our water; that is why we have a tanker and a new tanker coming. So that we can facilitate that response.

Mayor Stewart: I want to share with you something that Mark didn’t allude to directly is that some of the cost of operating a Fire and EMS operation is that cost is 24 hours a day whether any equipment leaves the firehouse or not. So if we are to consider starting to charge on a per run basis, that is pretty difficult because the cost goes on, the clock does not stop on the cost of an emergency operation similar to that. I would not suggest that we go that way. The rate structure, I have a letter that Mayor Strine sent out last fall to Milton Township and I would like to read just briefly: “For 2008, our agreement is $115,000.00 which is the last year of our current contract. Based on our latest contract with other townships, the city is likely to require an annual increase of 5% for each year of a new contract. Please keep in mind however; this will be subject to City Council approval. Further I will be retiring at the end of 2007; it would be best for you to confirm this proposed increased with the next Mayor. This will give you ample time to consider a levy change if necessary.”   That was signed by Bill Strine. The Trustees did come in shortly after I took office. I did not feel comfortable in making any decisions. We met again, Mark met with me at one of those meetings and I am not sure which one, and it is a hardship for them; this 5% per year increase. It takes it from the current $115,000.00 dollars to $146,000.00 dollars a year in 2013 as is shown on the spreadsheet.   The cost of the Fire Division and EMS continue to rise rapidly. Equipment is incredibly expensive.

Mark Burgess: The money that the contract generates goes into a separate account started way back under Chief Johnson; that is a Capital Improvement Account. In 1994, Council approved, not by Ordinance but a Gentleman’s agreement that that Capital Account would be used for Vehicle replacement. That is how we bought the ladder truck. If you remember right we had the 67 American France that we could not use. That was under Mayor Cellar that we started that process. That replacement program is on track; it is about a year behind. In 2004 we didn’t do much with it. But that is what that money is used for. It is ear marked. That is part of the replacement program and that is what keeps us on track of for replacing our vehicles. We work with the Finance Department and they help us turn over the money. Some years we are borrowing, some years we are paying. It is a complicated arrangement but it keeps our equipment up to standard if we have it. We are getting about 8 years out of a squad, a little bit less.   We need to replace those. Our Fire trucks, we get 20 years out of. The ladder truck is already 12 years old. Its replacement will be well over a million dollars. You are talking sizable purchases. A squad right now which we need to replace next year will be about 125,000.00 dollars without any equipment in it.

Robert M. Valentine W2: That seems pretty reasonable 5% though because of the way fuel has gone up.

Mark Burgess: Oh we discussed this before the fuel went up.

Stephen Stuart: If you look at our cost, they are going to go up more than 5%. If you had, as an example, recreate % salary increase then what’s your fringes? The fringe cost.

Mark Burgess: It is a great deal for the townships.

Mayor Stewart: The purpose for this evening is to bring the information that we have in front of Council because you gentleman and lady will ultimately have to vote on an Ordinance and it is, in my opinion, so much more efficient to be able to bring this forward in a Work Session to get the information in front of you. We cannot take any action. But I think it gives you a lot of information and we would know what we are working with. We know that the township is; everybody is in a money crunch. It makes no difference where you go.

Stephen Stuart: Is there request 2 ½ %?

Mayor Stewart: They ask us to look at it Steve, they weren’t specific.

Robert L. Valentine W1: You can see what they are saying, they are saying next year; they are pretty much proposing what we proposed for next year.

Mayor Stewart: I put these together not them. I just put together a 5, a 5,3,3,3 and a 5, 2,2.

Robert L. Valentine W1: So you put the 105 yourself.

Mayor Stewart: Yes. The 105 is what has been suggested to them in the letter last august and that across the top is what has been suggested by former Mayor Strine. Then if we were take something less than that just for comparison numbers. I did a 5% increase in 2009 on all occasions then the other two options were a 3,3,3,3 or a quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter.

Robert L. Valentine W1: But what I was trying to get at is giving them time to put something on their ballot.    They do not have the budget that we have.

Mark Burgess: Both of them have Fire levies to generate the money specific for that.

Robert L. Valentine W1: And in most cases they always pass.

Mark Burgess: Most of the time they do. From my experience, not in our area but in some of the other counties, levies are being voted down and that is concern.

Ruth Detrow: Mark, are we closing the gap at all or are we falling behind in our account to bring more fairness. This is terribly unfair to the people who live in the city of Ashland.

Mark Burgess: We are not gaining.   It is staying.

Paul Wertz: I think it was about a month ago we had a meeting with you and the Mayor and you showed us some figures on how much it cost in the city a taxpayer paid and you showed how much a taxpayer from Montgomery township has paid and you showed how much was paid in other townships.

Mayor Stewart: The goal is, Mark and I and Paul have talked with them and my commitment was that I would bring this to Council so you would have the same information that I have and we need to move forward before the end of the year because the contract is actually up at the end of this year.

Robert L. Valentine W1: Will this affect future townships? Will this be the precedence?

Mark Burgess, Fire Chief: They always look at each other’s contracts.

Robert L. Valentine W1:   I am talking about the percentage.

Mark Burgess: We talked with all of the other ones and I think 5% is what we raised. Montgomery, it was 5%. The change in Montgomery went from a 3-year contract to a 5-year contract. Orange, we still increase it. That is a little more of a discussion. That comes up at the end of this year too and I think the Trustees have been in once to discuss that. They are looking at their options. The Nankin Fire Department is trying to start an EMS section of it. It was on the Levy last year and it didn’t pass. They liked our Medics so did the township. That is basically what they are saying; they like our skilled.

Mayor Stewart: Right now Orange Township from 2008 is paying $55,000.00 for services.

Mark Burgess: And their population is less than the other 2 townships. Montgomery used to be the big township, now Milton has grown at the 2000 Census by about 300-400 people and Orange is in third place as far as our size.

Mayor Stewart: Just for reference, Montgomery Township at 2008 is paying $127,050.00.

Questions or comments?

Ruth Detrow: It is difficult for everybody but it is difficult for us too and we are providing this service. You know when you first started increasing. I had people, one business man I am very close to say, I thought anyone who lived in the Ashland School district got Fire Service like the city of Ashland! It is a wonderful service that we provide for them.

Mark Burgess:   We have had several township meetings over the years where I met with the Township Trustees and their constituents. We have had open meetings and we have tried to work with them and explain the difference. Milton was one of the bigger concerns that we were using the contract money to buy vehicles. They thought that it should go into operations. I tried to explain to them, okay you can put in operations but I am going to take operations money from the city and put it into the 222 account because we have to balance that. So where the money goes; it goes into the operation, overall operations of the department. You are not buying Fire Trucks for the city because you are giving us contract money. You are giving us money for service.

Mayor Stewart: That is a very key element. They are buying a service. One thing I want to share with you. The township trustees that I have met with; none of them have had anything but admiration for the service that they have received. There are no complaints about the service. They are not complaining about the cost. They are concerned about where the money is going to come to cover the cost. We are not in a fighting mood. We are all struggling of how to make ends meet. Anything else from Mark this evening? Mark I appreciate you coming up this evening and last minute getting some information for us.   Thank you Larry for getting copies for us.

Sewer, Sale of a $600,000 NOTE, calendar year 2008
Mayor Stewart: Early this spring when we were going through budgeting, etc. we had anticipated that we would move forward with the sale of a $600,000 dollar NOTE for the Sewer division next year, 2009. As things continue to develop we did not get the sewer rate increase implemented in time to generate some revenues that we needed to pay some of our utility bills in the budget this year. The budget that was submitted and appropriated actually does not cover the electric and the gas. We knew that going in and we knew at the time that we were going to, we anticipated at that time that we would be able to pass a sewer rate increase. And as a matter of fact we have. It took longer than any of us anticipated to get it through the process and get it actually implemented. The first month of increase, the month of August was the new rate. That means September is the new collection and mid September like today or yesterday is the first influx of any of that rate increase that has come across. We are not going to generate enough revenue to keep things going as we anticipated. It was my suggestion, and incidentally, this rate increase has in it the plan to pay the $600,000 dollars back in five years. That is part of the structure. It is not debt without a retirement process. To me that is very important. I am absolutely opposed to debt without a plan. So there are some other notes that will be rolled this Fall and whether this will go in and roll as a conglomerate group, I don’t know that but I want you to know that the $600,000 dollars obviously is not all for operation. The vast majority of it is for project work and we are going to have to use a piece of it for operations this year.

Stephen Stuart: When was the rate increase, because of the delay in getting implemented, when did you estimate that it would first be

Mayor Stewart: Initially, we thought we would be able to have it rolling in June.

Stephen Stuart: So basically we lost 3 months. And when had you projected to go out for the $600,000 dollar NOTE.

Mayor Stewart: Late winter, early spring. We wanted to get the money available to start project work next summer, next fall.   Jim can share with us some of the projects that are included in that.   It is project work that needs to be done to keep the sewer plant remaining in a state of good maintenance.   There is work that needs to be done; it goes on all the time in every operating plant like that. At some point in time; Anna, when do you think that NOTE, when will we have legislation on that?

Anna Tomasek: Actually our Bond Counsel, Barry Keefe is working on the legislation and I should have it hopefully on my desk next week. Council will be passing the NOTE, the Riley Farm; roll $600,000 dollars NOTE in with the Riley NOTE; it is to be combined NOTE that we are going to roll October 21, 2008.

Paul Wertz: Then when we pay this back, part of that we roll it to different, including the Riley Farm, part of will go to one section and part to another section, correct?

Anna Tomasek: Right.

Mayor Stewart: It will be separated from an accounting standpoint so that the $600,000 dollars is repaid in five years.

Anna Tomasek: Right. The Riley portion comes from the Water fund and the Sewer portion obviously comes from the Sewer fund. And it is going to be designated for certain Capital projects. Mostly for the Issue 2 projects.

Mayor Stewart: But we do understand that there is an operational cost that has to come out yet this year?

Stephen Stuart: If the original intent was to issue the $600,000 dollar NOTE late winter or early spring and we lost 3 months; why are we going to do it when we planned, rather than doing it in January.

Mayor Stewart: We didn’t generate the Revenue this year that we anticipated we would generate with the rate increase. We knew back in March that we were running short Steve and we had to roll the dice. We had to have it balanced. You can’t go across the street with a negative budget, so we knowingly skimped on the gas and electric utilities.   We knowingly knew we would be in serious trouble if we couldn’t get a rate increase passed. The operational cost of the sewer and water treatment plants are very high. They are very high utility users and in the case of the water plant especially, there is a lot of chemical use.   This is just a point of information. These can take an enormous amount of time in each regular council meeting if we didn’t cover them like this and we need to cover them in an open meeting.

George Road Improvement; work with Township/County 2014/2015
Mayor Stewart: I could have taken this off of here because we have already discussed that in a Council meeting and I am quite pleased that is moving forward and I think it is in everyone’s mutual best interest.

Paul Wertz: Do we need a Resolution on this?

Mayor Stewart: No, I talked with our Law Director and he shared with me yesterday that the Minutes of our meeting stand that Council has supported this and those minutes are as binding as a Resolution would be.

John Chorpening: Does that include the Rt 71 exit?

Mayor Stewart: No it does not. This is George Road from Rt 60 to the city limits.

2009 Budget
Mayor Stewart:   I am not into it very deep at all but all of our Department Heads are working with the anticipation that our revenue that is being generated in 2008 which come off of the 2007 revenue for the most part is what we are working with to build the 2009 budget. It is going to be tougher than nails. But that is the first step is to work with that. It is going to be another tough budget year because there are some things that are not controllable from our end, that are going up. We have contractual obligations. We have fuel, we have utilities. The budget process is ongoing specifically within the departments.

- I want to share with you sidewalk repairs is part of the general fund. I don’t disagree that we need sidewalk repairs. I would propose that if we do this that we take roughly 75,000 dollars out of capital and not bang up the general fund.   I am not opposing the sidewalk process at all but I think it would be better to take it from capital which it is a capital improvement.

Stephen Stuart: This is going to be a rotary $75,000?

Mayor Stewart: But it will take a significant amount of time. If we chose to put $75,000 a year in, it will probably be 4-5 years before it would start to bring back a significant amount to reduce that $75,000. But most of those will be on a 10 year and we have to pay any work that we have done, we have to pay for out of the $75,000 and then if it goes on your tax duplicate as an assessment, it comes back over a 10 year period, and it will take a while.

Stephen Stuart: That is clearly capital.

Robert L. Valentine W1:   I think too though; I don’t think you would expect everyone is going to go that route. At least, Jim those who have done their own in the one section, so I understand the concern but I think those who are going to be responsible for repairing are going to take care of that themselves.

Mayor Stewart: I don’t know if we can do this, I would certainly hope that there would have to be shown a need, but why would I do that if I didn’t have too? That is a difficult thing to handle.

- Golf Course funding.
Mayor Stewart: We are all aware of the situation that we have there as we speak today, the audit; what is that down to Anna, in your opinion 152 now? The 2007 if the auditor will agree with us, it may be in the neighborhood of $155,000 to 60,000 for 2007 because some of the money that was transferred wasn’t back for capital use. It was not all operational in 2007.

Anna Tomasek: There were three transfers that occurred in 2007 that were for operations. $85,000 went from 405 to the Golf Course for the Youth Program; $57,500 went towards operations that were a deficit on the Golf Course. At the end of the year we took 405 money to make the Golf Course whole and then 9,500 for the swimming pool.

Mayor Stewart: So that may not be as significant as initially thought, however, 2008 is in a very similar vein.   The Law Director is looking at some situation there; I don’t know if there is a way out of that situation or not by an Ordinance amendment. I don’t have a clue whether there is any validity to whether we can change that or not.

Questions or comments?

Robert L. Valentine W1: Well I like the idea of Capital expenses anyway because if you went through the general fund, you would have to reduce the Parks and you would have to reduce the Streets and I know Jerry would appreciate it.

Mayor Stewart:
-   Item 6, I think one of the letters that Rick included this evening on Golf Carts and Electric Bicycles on our streets. That is a tough situation, however, in reading Rick’s letter; a golf cart today that meets the motor vehicle requirements of turn signals, all of the requirements of an automobile; if it has a license and a licensed driver, it could be on the street today. I don’t encourage them to be out there with the big trucks and the cars but according to Rick’s letter, they could be on the street today. You have to buy a license plate and not that it means anything but if you go to Kelley’s Island or Put-N-Bay, they have hundreds of them with Ohio License plates on them.

Robert M. Valentine W2: It is just like New London, it is such a small town, it is a little different. This town here, you could be driving down the road and you get run over by a semi.

John Chorpening: Isn’t that what that car company is selling on Union Street at 25 mph?

Robert M. Valentine W2: Those are Electric Cars.

Mayor Stewart: I don’t want to offend anybody by calling their car a Golf Cart.

John Chorpening: Another thing I see in town are people driving those motor scooters.

Mayor Stewart: It is incredibly dangerous. Electric bicycles. I just received a letter from Rick this afternoon. Does his letter address Electric bicycles?

Mark Burgess: Chief Miracle addressed that in one of our other meetings during a Council meeting.

Robert M. Valentine W2: He stated if you cannot get a plate for them, they are considered a toy and they do not belong on the streets.   The problem he had with it was, if you do not need a license than you could have a guy that had 3-4 DUI’s drive one down the road hammered. That is what I am saying. That’s a fact.

Mayor Stewart: Is there anything else you want, I cannot share a lot about the Golf Carts and bicycles other that it is a hot item right now.

Riley property, barn removal, house rental
Mayor Stewart: The Riley farm barn, I sent some information out on that. My recommendation that I sent out on September 5 was after analyzing the various methods of removing the barn. It is approximately 17,000 dollars, less expensive to the city to burn the barn. Now burning the barn, it will not be burned as way of disposing of it. It will be burned as a trainer operation of which there will be a great deal of skill gained by our local firefighters and area firefighters in attacking this training exercise. And as a consequence of that training, the barn will come down. The numbers, there are some numbers that are constant. We have to remove the asbestos no matter how the barn should come down and that is pretty expensive. The Silo demolition is concrete. That is a fixed number. They have to come down; they aren’t going to burn down. Mark won’t attempt that. There are 4 Silo’s there and these are concrete. So that is a fixed number. So we have $20, 250.00 dollars of fixed numbers in either method, then in burning, we are looking at an estimated $12,000.00 including the removal of the debris after the fire is out and getting it hauled away. If we were to tear it down, we are looking at a cost of $29,000.00 to tear it down. So there is the $17,000 differential. So that you are all up to speed. I sent out; you all have heard of the individual that we have been working with from the New England area that has shown an interest for many months in this Riley Property.   I finally decided to write to him and we have had a lot of dialogue; if he wants to make viable offer, step forward and we can do that but we are not going to continue the dialogue without a viable offer on the table and the barn even though going down route 250 or 60 at the speed limit of 45mph, it looks good. Don’t go back and go inside the barn, there are some areas that are unsafe. Particularly the second floor. If some youngsters would get up there, we could have some problems. There is some siding coming off. I believe there is a bit of roofing off of it. And when we start talking about the repair of that barn to bring it back into a safe state; it is my opinion that we are putting good money after bad. Now if I were a Farmer and going to farm that and had a use for it, it could be a great investment. It is now an Industrial Park. We are not going to be putting any hay in there. I propose that we go ahead and get the barn removed and my goal still is to get that barn removed before bad weather so that we can get the two houses or at least the main house rented and not have the burden of keeping it winterized and heated all winter. So that is my goal.

Paul Wertz: Do you have to have a special permit from the state?

Mayor Stewart: Mark is working on the permitting process for the training exercise.

Robert L. Valentine W1: What is the concern about how close this barn is to the house?

Mark Burgess: It has been a big concern. We are going to use and work with some of the County departments, class A foam is used in wild line firefighting and there is some residential applications for it. Structural fire applications for it. We are going to work with them to use. It will put a protective coating on the houses that we can reduce the heat. We have a couple of methods that we are going to use that have been successful with our houses that we burn on limiting radiant heat coming from the burning structure. To try to keep it a point source vs a line source. There are several avenues that we are looking at. And it is going to take a lot of water. We are going to use water from the Novatex cul-de-sac. We will run a 5-inch line from that hydrant across the field out there to give us our water supply. We will have tankers for back up to minimize that. But it is one of our concerns.

Robert L. Valentine W1: You are going to have to watch for weather too.

Mark Burgess: Weather. The permit, I have given the EPA a time frame that we can have it down to meet the Mayor’s goals but I haven’t locked in a date yet because it should be weather dependent. If we have a good westerly breeze, we probably aren’t going to burn it. What we need is a Nor’easter would be great. We have worked with the EPA before. They gave us permission for the Pump houses. That was a good exercise. We hope this will be equally as good.

Mayor Stewart: I want to offer my appreciation for keeping our meeting moving tonight. I think we really shared a lot of information. I don’t know that everyone agrees on any one of these seven items, but we all have more information tonight then we had before we came here. I honestly didn’t think we would cover all seven. I appreciate it and we will have an equally good meeting next Thursday night.

Motion to adjourn meeting by Paul Wertz, moved by Robert M. Valentine W2, seconded by Stephen Stuart.
    Ayes: Robert L. Valentine W1, Robert M. Valentine W2, Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Stephen Stuart

Adjournment at 8:35 p.m.

                               Submitted by
                               Valarie F. Bishoff
                               Clerk of Council