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COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER I d like to welcome all of you to Massillon City Council for Monday, December 4, 2006. We have in attendance with us this evening: Mayor Cicchinelli, Law Director Stergios and Auditor Hamit. On the wall to your left are agendas for anyone who wishes to follow the meeting. Also under item #5 on the agenda is where the public can speak on any item that appears on the agenda and then under item #17 is where the public can speak on any item that does not appear on the agenda. I d also like to remind anyone with a cell phone please turn it off or turn it very far down. 1. ROLL CALL Roll call for the evening found the following Council Members present: Tim Bryan, Kathy Catazaro-Perry, Jayne Ferrero, Chuck Maier, Ron Mang, Paul Manson, Dave McCune, Donnie Peters and Tony Townsend. Thus giving a roll call vote of 9 present. 2. INVOCATION COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY gave the invocation for the evening. 3. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Chairperson of the Finance Committee led those in attendance in the Pledge of Allegiance. 4. READING OF THE JOURNAL COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Madame Clerk are the minutes of the previous meeting transcribed and open for public viewing (THEY ARE) Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes. If not the minutes stand approved as written. 5. REMARKS OF DELEGATIONS AND CITIZENS TO MATTERS ON THE AGENDA TOM FERRERO – I’m a lawyer in Massillon. My business address is 46 Federal Avenue NW in Massillon. I’m here to speak to you on Ordinance No. 169 – 2006 dealing with towing companies. Also present with me today is Doug Waikem who’s one of the principles in Oscar Towing of Massillon one of the owners. I was here at the last meeting and I understand that this will be second reading tonight. I’m not sure if that’s correct Mr. Maier? (That’s correct we’ll give it second reading) I was unable to attend the last work session but Mr. Waikem and myself will be at the next work session in case there’s any questions anything that we can help you with. But a couple of things we would like to present to you based upon information and data that’s been given to us so far. It appears that some questions of Oscar’s response time even though we’re in the parameters of the 20 minutes. Perhaps not as good as the two other towing companies we’re not sure how these figures were calculated how they came up with them and that’s something we want to look into and hopefully for the next meeting. We just want to let you know that we were never told that we had any problems; my client had any problems up until we got notice that they were going to change the ordinance. It’s my understanding that officials from the city had been working on this that we know of at least in June. But nothing was brought to our attention until we did get a notice that the ordinance was going to change. Certainly looking at some of the figures that were presented to us we can do a little bit better and we’re going to strive to do a little bit better too. But frankly we never had the information available to us to indicate where our times, where our problems existed. We’re still not sure where they are because we have some average times, but we don’t have specific times now we don’t know if it’s a specific employee of ours. We don’t know that if it’s a certain part of town that perhaps is too far away. We just don’t know that because of the data that’s available to us. At the RED Center they have figures available for Jackson Township and we get those on a regular basis and we’re able to determine where we have problems and what we need to do to rectify that. But they are not available for the City of Massillon they’re just there. So we can not track that if we could track it I think you’d see a lot better job coming from us. We need to measure our performance some way and the only way to do it is to have those figures that would be an objective standard rather than some type of subjective standard of someone saying “they’re late all the time, they’re late here but why are they late, but what’s the reason”. We need to have that information and either its not available to us or its not available or its not available at all. It could easily be available by simply tracking the times. Again, we are basically against this ordinance because of the time change here and we don’t know its broken up, but really the main reason is probably from a safety point of view. The 20 minutes seems to be pretty good for us in different parts of the county the areas that we work for Stark County and other areas 20 minutes seems to be a pretty good standard. We are within those parameters if you look at some of the information that was provided to you. We don’t want to get to a point where we’re starting to race to the scene and trying to beat a deadline and things like that. You know if its 15 minutes this year is it going to be 10 minutes next year that type of thing. From a safety stand point I think we need to look at that we don’t want to get into a competition and see who can get there the fastest. I don’t think that’s what the city wants to do. I think the city wants to streamline everything and get the best product available and that’s what we’re trying to doing also to give you a good product. But again we need to know where we’re remiss so that we can do something about it. Mr. Waikem just would like to say a few words if you could bear with us and if there’s any questions you can direct them to either of us. DOUG WAIKEM – 2326 Lincoln Way East, Massillon, Ohio. I’d like to pretty much reiterate a little bit about what Tom talked about. What’s made us successful in the businesses we’re in is tracking and measuring and monitoring what we do. If somebody sells 30% of the customers that walk in we look at how many cars they demoed they demoed 80%. If we’ve got a guy that’s only closing 10% we find out that’s probably because he’s only demoed 50%. It’s the same with the towing industry we are the fastest growing towing company in Ohio in the last 3 years. The way we’ve done that is through modern technology we use our resources we go to the RED Center with Jackson, Perry we have access to state police we have access to Stark County we have access to the logs. Those logs tell us what kind of what kind of performance we’re doing. If I don’t know what kind of test grades my kids are getting, what they’re doing on the quizzes then shame on me and I should be surprised at the end of the semester. But we felt that we were caught a little bit of guard here that we heard after the fact there was an issue. We’re not too hard to find I mean you can turn on the TV or listen to the radio our phone number is there. We’re in the paper we’re pretty easy to find and we’re kind of upset the fact that we weren’t: a) on four separate documented occasions able to get the numbers from the RED Center that we are to get from Jackson and tried to get them since these hearings have taken place still don’t have access to them. Now if you expect us to be able to run this company in a manner that you want us to run it in we need access if we’re failing or if we’re doing a good job we bonus our drivers for their percentage of hits. When they come in under 20 minutes in Jackson for the Jackson Police or the Perry police or the state or Stark County our guys get a bonus. But what we don’t want them to do is the Domino pizza theory which is try to race to the scene. You know usually when you need a tow truck the weather is bad. If you drive from the east end of Massillon to the west end of Massillon its 14 minutes we did it with a GPS. That depends on how you get the lights there’s 12 traffic lights from the top of this hill to the top of that hill. If you get the lights wrong if its icy weather if one of our drivers happens to be going to the restroom when the call comes in we may not be able to make that 15 minute number. We may make it more times than not but I feel it’s a huge safety issue. Another issue I think that we have with the change is the fact that every other community almost in the state is 20 minutes. Now how they determined 20 minutes was long before we got into the towing business, but there must be a reason for it. I can tell you if we were every short or our competitors were ever short or a little bit long in the times they would want to know about it. We want to know about it and we weren’t afforded that opportunity. If you want us out of Massillon tell us to leave Massillon I mean we’ve been offered $1.5 million dollars by American Hyundai to build a brand new Hyundai store in Perry. We’ve turned it down on numerous occasions because of the fact we want to maintain a presence in Massillon, we’re from Massillon. I mean you guys go the Massillon/McKinley games you know what colors we wear. We’re Massillon people, my dad started his business in Massillon, you know when the high school needs a donation the high school gets the donation. When the football team needs a golf cart we get them a golf cart. When the Lincoln Theater needs a car for a drawing they get the car. You know we are part of the community, we’re not Wal-mart and we feel that we are being treated almost as outsiders in this case. The first night we were told to be here at 7:30 verbally by a councilperson and by letter. We came at 7:30 we were an 1 hour and 45 minutes late because it started at 5:45. Our competitors had an opportunity to present their case at that time. We’ve also heard comments “well, if you can do the whole county in 20 minutes why can’t you do Massillon in 15 minutes”. I don’t know if you understand the towing business we get zones in the county; we don’t cover Alliance, we don’t cover Louisville, we don’t cover East Canton, we get a small zone that the county had determined we can make it in that 20 minute time frame. Massillon is much larger than that zone so I’m just telling you from a safety stand point you better cross your T’s and dot your I’s on this because if we drop it to 15 minutes we’ll make it. Now I’m also hearing rumors that possibly your willing to waive the 15 minutes on holidays and make it 20 minutes. Well if its an overtime issue if I’m not mistaken holidays are double time where the regular week is time and half. So maybe it really isn’t an overtime issue, you know, and that’s what we don’t know and we have a bad feeling in our gut about what’s going on. We just want council to know, we want the people in Massillon to know, we want our customers to know that we want to be as efficient as we can. Our hours of our lot so people want to get in their car and get items out of it or come pay for their car and pick it up we’re open 12 to 14 hours longer than our competitors. We’re trying to serve a community we can track that, but the city has not given us an opportunity to this day to track the performance of our organization nor Rohr’s nor Reed’s. I think before we do that we delay this for 90 days or 6 months and come up with some method to properly track the performance of these three towing companies. The way we did it now is we were able to survey some of the logs. Why not all the logs? Which ones were left out? I’m sure if I polled 100 republicans they’d tell me George Bush is doing a good job. So I just think that we need to slow down or we need to discuss this further so that we have a chance because we didn’t have a chance the first work session to present our side of this tow issue. I think we can bring a lot to the table and if its 15 minutes we’ll do it in 15 minutes. If you want us out of Massillon, we’ll get out of Massillon. Somebody just please be honest and tell us where we’re coming from or give us the measurements and the tools that we think is required to do a good job for the City of Massillon. JOHN OLEKSA – Representing the H.J. Heinz, 1301 Oberlin Avenue in Massillon. I’m the vice president of manufacturing at the H.J. Heinz Company and currently acting factory manager at this facility. As I understand it the City of Massillon under the guidance of this council and specifically under the direction of the environmental committee is proposing an ordinance amending Chapter 925 Sewers Generally and Chapter 937 The Wastewater Treatment Revenue Fund and particular this ordinance is targeted towards the larger industrial manufactures. I’d like to make a few comments regarding this proposed amend ordinance. By targeting the larger industrial users you are implying that you have substantiated that our dischargers are the root cause of all the issues. Based on our understanding of the proposal this would increase our cost by 285% or approximately $250,000.00 to $300,000.00 a year. This size increase is hard to understand and one that will put a huge burden on the profitability of our organization. I hope that when you are assessing these types of decisions you are considering both the short term and the long term implications. We are very concerned how this may affect the Massillon facility going forward. When we assess future expansion these types of costs are in those evaluations. The Heinz Company takes its responsibility to meeting all (inaudible) laws and permits seriously. But I don’t agree that our industry should be the sole target and bear the astronomical increases being proposed. Just because we’re a large company does not mean we can afford these types of increases nor should the burden be placed solely on this industry. The factory Massillon employees approximately 650 people with an annual payroll of over 19 million dollars and currently pays approximately $750,000.00 in state and local taxes. Our employment base as everyone here knows drives additional revenues for the city and all other businesses. This includes stores, restaurants, schools, housing, etc. As you state in Section 937.02 under the Annual Sewer Service Charge Required it states that the annual charge shall be applied to each and every premises discharging the system. I’m assuming this means equally, but from our industry standpoint at 285% I don’t know if you’re going to raise every household 285%. The Heinz Company can not just pass these types of costs onto our consumers or our customers. I don’t believe we have collectively exhausted all of our options. We have recently added additional operations to the Massillon facility which has added jobs and other revenues to the Massillon community. I believe that working with each and every industrial user we can find opportunities to reduce the amount of water usage our BOD’s, our total suspended solids and better manager our PH; not just hike surcharge fees. As I understand it we have an odor problem coming from the Massillon City Wastewater Treatment Center. My question to this group is by hiking our service charges is it going solve the problem? Because based on what I’ve read I don’t know how its going to solve the problem. In summary this cost impact is substantial I hope that council understands the potential longer term ramifications of this type of decisions being targeted to the industrial manufacturer. There’s not many in this town, but we’re a big piece of it and an important piece to not only to this community, but also the H.J. Heinz Company. Have we put every effort possible into reducing the influence coming to the city? We would like the opportunity to better understand the recommendations and findings from the CTI Environmental study and proposed actions. We would also like to meet with the superintendent of the Wastewater Treatment Facility to further understand the new requirement and limits being proposed for the dissolved sulfide concentration in the acidfirmick hydrogen sulfide concentration. These are new limits and new requirements that were put on us and have never been part of our permit before which just arbitrarily showed up this year. I want you to consider what I’m saying and we’ve been told by the council to meet with them next Monday to better understand that. I just want you guys to realize that: 1). We believe we’re a big piece of Massillon, we want to continue to be a big part of Massillon. But these types of I guess arbitrary charges that we’re anticipating based on the permit that we’ve read so far and the proposed action by this committee is substantial. I just don’t know if everybody in the community is willing to say “why should it just be our industry”. So I appreciate your time; we look forward to meeting with the committee next week. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Would you like to answer questions? (Sure.) COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Mr. Oleksa, did you say? (Yes.) I just wanted you to understand that this was not brought to council by the guidance of council. It was brought to us from the Wastewater Treatment Plant’s superintendent through the environmental committee. So the entire council did not bring this forward, the environmental committee is bringing is forward. JOHN OLEKSA – If I read that wrong or misinterpreted it I knew that I knew those for that and that’s what it was. COUNCILMAN MANG Yes, you had no conversation with Mr. Ulrich? (No.) Mr. Ulrich has not spoken to you? JOHN OLEKSA – Not me personally, if he’s talked to somebody represented the factory may not have been the right person if that was the case. COUNCILMAN MANG You’re not sure whether he did or whether he didn’t? Does anybody know whether he did? BOB MANN – 1301 Oberlin Road representing Heinz. We spoke at a preliminary meeting that dealt with some of the anticipated proposals I believe it was September 22nd. We met with the Mayor and several others on the staff and discussed those proposals that were up and coming for the new permit. But other than that we have not spoke, we’ve spoken with the representative that comes out to do the sampling and take care of the bottles and the water part of the system. But as far as that we haven’t had any official notification on anything. COUNCILMAN MANG The changes that are being proposed are EPA changes, you’re saying am I understanding. BOB MANN – No, these are not EPA… COUNCILMAN MANG These are not EPA that we’re doing? BOB MANN – These are changes in the Massillon pretreatment… COUNCILMAN MANG Okay. JOHN OLEKSA – Now when you say that that’s why our understanding is and that’s maybe why we need further understanding is what predicated this? Because my thing about any business and you know this is a business. You know we’re part of that business too is better understanding what’s the real issue? What do we need to do differently because if spending capital dollars to manage the Wastewater Treatment Center because you’ve got more fluids than can handle it that’s great, but based on my knowledge and what I see and my experience (inaudible) surcharges is not going to take that smell away from that city at all. You know, so… COUNCILMAN MANG Excuse me sir. I don’t think that we’re talking about the odor right now at the Massillon Water Treatment Plant. My understanding is that these are regulations that EPA is bringing upon against our Wastewater Treatment Plant. My understanding is given by the superintendent of the plant these are some of the things that we have to eliminate… JOHN OLEKSA – If that was the case… COUNCILMAN MANG This was the case that we were looking at industry who if you’ve been so designated it is being a contributor that is the concentration coming into our plant is much higher than we can handle. This is one of the things that I thought we were being told that the EPA is telling us we have to do something about. JOHN OLEKSA – Well, if you’re talking about BOD’s and TSS and PH. The is yes, but that’s not what the surcharge is being made upon. That means if I send perfectly clean water to that city and have zero violations my cost still went up 285%. So even if I sent perfectly clean water it has to do with the volume that we’re sending you. COUNCILMAN MANG I’m only trying to clarify the points that was explained to this body in the last week. Now you know, we sat and listened to our Wastewater Treatment Plant manager explain to us some of the needs that we must comply with, with the EPA. My understanding was and I think some of council was that the people from the Wastewater Treatment Plant had been out into the community talking to the people who would be ones that maybe sending arbitrarily to us in a state that we can’t handle and causing us EPA problems. So I’m just trying to get your side, I’m trying to understand what we were told and I understand that you said something about we’re going to have another committee meeting or something like that. Is that what I’m understanding? (Yes) I have no further questions. JOHN OLEKSA – There’s an open work session next week. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Thank you. If I could step in here there will be more meetings this is an opportunity Mr. Oleksa for you to make comments. It’s really not meant to be a committee work session. I appreciate you coming forward obviously there needs to be some communication. Mr. Manson is chairman of the committee I’m certain he’ll keep you abreast of what our schedule is. In the meantime you’re perfectly to meet with an administration official. I’m quite certain… JOHN OLEKSA – I appreciate that. Mr. Manson was reached out to us and we’re going to be at that work session next week. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Alright, I will give Mr. Mayor, do you have anything you’d like to add briefly? MAYOR CICCHINELLI – Mr. Oleksa, I guess I don’t know how long you’ve been here at the Massillon plant. But I guess it’s funny you try to avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding and I think Mr. Mang made that comment. Because when this was first proposed by EPA and EPA is issuing mandates to us that we have to get if there are three facilities, three manufacturing facilities in non-compliance in the city. We have to get them in compliance. So before it hit the presses what we wanted to do was we wanted to call the individual companies in. That was the purpose for the September 23rd that Mr. Mann said. Because it does affect three of our larger employers and we wanted to do it very diplomatically and very professionally. That’s why we try to get all three companies at the table. Two of the three showed up. At that time we explained what EPA is ordering us to do. What I don’t want this to turn into is a City of Massillon vs. Heinz vs. Fresh mark vs. Grief Brothers. Because that’s not what this is all about; but when comments are made that we are under EPA regulations we are. That’s what’s causing it. Now at the same time is going we do have some odor problems at the Wastewater Treatment Plant. We do, we’re finishing up a multi million dollar expansion of our Wastewater Treatment Plant. So you have regulations as a corporation to comply with EPA where you have pretreatment. We have regulations because that plant services not only the City of Massillon, but most of western Stark County. What we don’t want is to become adversarial towards one another because that’s certainly not the intent of the city administration and this council I’m sure. What I would suggest and I tried to do this back in September I thought everybody was on the same page, but evidently they skipped a few chapters. What I want to do is make sure you understand since you’re new here that this is not the intent of the City of Massillon. We realize that you’re one of our larger employers. We do have quite a bit of industry in Massillon, by the way. So that one comment was inadequate that you made. We don’t care if you’re 600 employees or 6 employees you still all count. That’s our philosophy and I think that’s why we’ve been successful in attracting industry. The problem that we have here is we’re now meeting we have to meet deadlines of EPA. They put certain mandates and a lot of it had to do with advertising in the newspaper to publicly disclose what three companies were in non-compliance. That’s what Mr. Mang is talking about; we wanted this to all be avoided so we could handle it diplomatically. Normally we’d have to come to council anyhow and that’s when the public acknowledgement would take place. I don’t know what you’re hearing, but what I suggest and I know you’re meeting with this body Monday, next Monday. I would suggest between now and Friday all three companies schedule a meeting with the administration. I will make sure that everybody that needs to be there will be in my office. So before you leave and I know Chip, but before you leave I would like to have cards and I will call you or you can call me and we’ll get together and we will meet in preparation of your meeting with council on Monday. We want to work this out; believe me and that was the whole purpose of the meeting way back in September is to try to work all this out. JOHN OLEKSA – I always believe that the first thing starts with better understanding of what’s really going on. So we can help figure it out. You know… MAYOR CICCHINELLI – My door is always open and I appreciate you coming down here. But we need to communicate more and if it takes more meetings we’ll work till midnight to work this out. Because we understand the importance of having these jobs here. JOHN OLEKSA – Okay. MAYOR CICCHINELLI – I need a card or something or… CHIP SHEW – I represent Grief down at 9420 Warmington Road SW. I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to talk tonight. I also am standing here on behalf of the number two company I guess. There’s three of us and two of us are here and three couldn’t make it here tonight. But so I’m number two tonight. I represent this wastewater Ordinance No. 173 – 2006 that you’re trying to amend and repeal or whatever you do with it. The bottom line of it from a corporation obviously our prices, our costs are going to go up over 285%. Which is a big deal for us, okay, years ago when we talked about annexing into the city or staying private we decided to come into the city much like Mr. Waikem here. You know we’re from Massillon, we employee Massillon people, we’ve been here forever, we’ve been here since 1966 down there on Warmington. So we’ve been around a long time and have a lot of Massillon people working for us. We like this area you know we wear black and orange also. So we decided to come into the city and the city knowing full well that we were a paper manufacturer. That we employ over 100 some people; our waste water is the issue of why we wanted to become annexed obviously. So come into the city was an okay decision we thought then and everyone was aware that our water had BOD, TSS and had PH. PH don’t a problem, TSS not a big problem, BOD there was an issue back then. Okay, and still is today I gather. But the point is that our little flow on a daily basis is a drop in the bucket to their 6 or 7 million gallons of water that they handle daily. Now we understand and not dragging this out to long, we understand where the problem lies on the flow at night when their flow from the city consumers grows down. There’s nothing we can do about that, but as a business when we have problems we look internally. Okay, we look to cut costs, we look to make our production better we look to do a better for our customers. You know, and I urge the city to also look internally at that plant after they just come through a big multi million dollar expansion over the last few years while we have been waiting to become annexed and make sure that everything is intact and running efficiently and as well as it can down at the facility at the treatment plant. You know, there’s a lot going down there, treatment is a big deal definitely. It’s a big deal for an industry to try to treat water as well. You know we want to be a good partner and we want to stay in the City of Massillon. But there again, as our constituents have pointed out you tend to feel that you’re getting picked on so to speak for lack of a better terminology right now. Sometimes when it comes time for expansion in your growth, in your business and you maybe look for a different avenue. So we have strived for communication between your wastewater treatment plant and ourselves. We have not gotten that okay? Lately we have over the last few weeks alright, we’ve been on the sewer for about a year which it took the City of Massillon almost two and half years to finally build the thing which we contributed over ¼ million dollars to build our own line. So with that we feel we need a little respect here when we ask for information from the city as we have over the last 7 -, 8 months. We’ve asked for our BOD readings, we’ve asked for our TSS readings, we’ve asked for our PH and we have given them everything they have wanted. PH readings daily, BOD readings daily, flow rates daily, we have given them everything they have wanted. In turn over the last 12 months now, we have not received that information back on a timely basis. Now this has affected me as a business manager, because at the end of the month I have to now accrue costs on supposed flows, supposed BOD’s. What’s the city going to charge or what are their actually numbers because they bill you on their particular test results not mine. They’ll look at my results to cross check them, but they bill on their own test results. So you know its important for me to get that information back and I’ve gone weeks and not gotten a BOD report back. Now these BOD’s roll over every 5 days, so after the 5th day of operation down there in November of 2005 we should have started gotten BOD’s back every single day except for the weekends obviously. So the communication has not been really good between the city and ourselves. We have tried okay, has not worked very well. All we ask is that put yourselves in our shoes as we try to put ourselves in your shoes. If your cost of your groceries and your shoes, and your kids education, everything went up over 200% how would you feel about it? How would you manage your balance sheet at home if all of a sudden everything you got in your raise that year was disappeared. This is the position that you’re putting businesses in here is that hey all of sudden we’re going to have to pay for the whole cost of the city, we’re going to be responsible for helping fund the rest of this project down there to make it right. We want to be a good partner, we want to stay in the City of Massillon, we’ve only been in the City of Massillon a year. We’ve been annexed what 2.5 years, we’ve been paying taxes for 2.5 – 3 years. We’ve only had our sewer line on a year. So we feel we’ve done our part, to just put all the costs and the burden back on these companies in the City of Massillon we don’t feel is right. We strongly oppose this ordinance that you’re going to review; we look forward to the workshop next Monday night at 5:45 so we can answer more questions. We can give information, exchange data I think this is what needs to be done here. We need to be pro-active in this whole thing, the two of us do so we can come to amiable agreement. Because we have a lot of costs as a business in this day in age as you the city does. We have health insurance, we have unemployment, we have blah, blah, blah, we have everything you do plus more I think probably. So we ask that you put yourself in our shoes when you talk about a 200% increase in our cost. I have nothing further I thank you for your time this evening. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER I’ll make the same suggestion that you check with Mr. Manson before you leave and also the Mayor wants to get together to work a time for all the principles to get together before the work session next Monday. So if you would that I would appreciate it. MAYOR CICCHINELLI – Mr. Manson, what I would suggest if you want to meet we might as well just combine our meetings together. But I think I just want to reiterate anything that’s happening and being proposed here is through the insistence of EPA. Believe me. Okay, again before you leave we’ll schedule a I know how to get a hold of you Chip, Mr. Oleksa give me your number we’ll get together this week. And I’ll also call Fresh mark. 6. INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS ORDINANCE NO. 172 2006 BY: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE COUNCILMAN MANG Earlier this evening the Mayor had dropped off a map showing the Cottrill property. I think we’ve had somewhat of a map before, but you do know you can see the area that we’re talking about and I really don’t see any great need in holding this piece of legislation up. We do know that there are grants in place the Park Department wants to get in place. Everybody wants to start to get this preserve we’ll call it in place and ready to be used in the coming years. COUNCILMAN MANG moved for suspension of the rules and passage, seconded by Councilman McCune. COUNCILMAN MCCUNE I’d just want to say that I think this is probably going to go down as one of the best things that council here in the City of Massillon has done. I commend the Mayor for taking the bull by the horns and pushing this through and getting the funding in place. I think future generations are going to very much thank this council for having that green space out there as the city continues to move westward. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 9 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 172 – 2006 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 7 YES. ORDINANCE NO. 173 2006 BY: ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITTEE COUNCILMAN MANSON Yes, we had quite a bit of discussion on this at last Monday’s work session. It was one sided it was the city’s proposal on this. At the time I said I was going to move for doing away with rules and bring this forward if there were no further questions. Well we see now we have lots of questions. So I invite all the people that involved at next Monday’s meeting and any meetings that the Mayor has I’d like to know what’s going on. I can assure you as chairman of this committee that what ever meetings we need this thing could go more than three readings. I mean we can table this thing and talk all we need to until everybody has all the information and understands what is going on here. So having said that I’m just going to say first reading. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER First reading. Mr. Bryan and Mr. Manson, can you guys work out when this will appear. Will this be the first session; I know there’s some other things we may be talking about at length. But work that out and let these gentlemen know what part of the meeting this will come up. COUNCILMAN MANSON Well, I would assume it will be second on the agenda as it were second on the agenda most of the time. I don’t know if we have anything for community development or not. But no matter how we do it it’s going to take some time once we do start into it and if it can’t be handled at next Monday’s meeting like I said we can delay a vote on this until everything is clear and everybody has the information. I know that CTI and the Wastewater Treatment Plant supervision has put a lot time into this. Maybe we need to do some exchanges on the information and stuff we’ve been compiling. But we’ll get into it. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER One last question Mr. Manson, the Mayor had mentioned deadlines coming up. Are you aware of any deadlines…? COUNCILMAN MANSON I am not aware right now the only I asked Mr. Ulrich if we needed to take some time moving this then he was he didn’t act like it was a really big problem. We’ll find out if there is a problem I’ll let you know, talking to Mr. Ulrich I don’t think we have a problem taking a little time with this. ORDINANCE NO. 173 – 2006 WAS GIVEN FIRST READING. ORDINANCE NO. 174 2006 BY: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE COUNCILMAN BRYAN We discussed this at our committee session. This is the ordinance that annually gives the Mayor the authority to enter into contracts to hire the various musically attractions for the summer downtown concerts. After discussion with the auditor I’m going to give this first reading. We feel it would be better to pass it in 2007 and after the money can be appropriated for it. If anyone of you have any questions on it the Mayor is here tonight he told me before the meeting he’d be glad to answer any questions. ORDINANCE NO. 174 – 2006 WAS GIVEN FIRST READING. ORDINANCE NO. 175 2006 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Ordinance No. 175 has four sections with the fourth section being an emergency. Section 1 is to appropriate the balance from the Waste Grant Fund $20,000.00 to an account entitled salary and recycling. This is for labor expenses of the leaf removal and disposal. Section 2 is to appropriate from Home Health Fund $14,000.00 into the home health salary. This is for salaries for the nursing staff through the end of the year. Section 3 is to appropriate from the 1206 Muni Motor Vehicle License Fund $3,000.00 to an account entitled services and contracts. This is for 2006 bridge inspection services. Again the fourth is just declaring this as an emergency. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY moved for suspension of the rules and passage, seconded by Councilman Peters. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 9 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 175 – 2006 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 9 YES. ORDINANCE NO. 176 2006 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Ordinance No. 176 also has three sections. The first is to authorize the Mayor to accept the partnership grant for federal bulletproof vests. Then also the grant in section 2 is in the amount $1,050.00. Section 3 is just declaring it an emergency. So this is a matching grant and we will have to match it through our funds from the City of Massillon. If I could bring the auditor up just for a moment to ask a question about where we will be getting those funds from. AUDITOR HAMIT – Those fund could come from a multitude of places. There’s a section in their contract for safety equipment, it could come from there. It hasn’t been suggested or asked where it comes from. I know they must be bought and if the funds have to be developed they would be. COUNCILMAN MAIER Yes, I’m aware of this bulletproof issue. What this is for is the new employees in order for them to have vests all the officers are provided that. So yes, we do need to move this forward. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY moved for suspension of the rules and passage, seconded by Councilman Bryan. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 9 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 176 – 2006 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 9 YES. ORDINANCE NO. 177 2006 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Ordinance No. 177 is to transfer 2006 funds from the General Fund from street salary into several accounts. Police central dispatch will receive $20,018.00, engineer salary will receive $4,000.00 and director’s salary will receive $1,000.00. That total is $25,018.00 from the street salary account. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY moved for suspension of the rules and passage, seconded by Councilman Bryan. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 9 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 177 – 2006 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 9 YES. ORDINANCE NO. 178 2006 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Section 1 in Ordinance No. 178 – 2006 would like us to give permission for the auditor to deposit a portion of 0.3% of the city income tax for the park and rec. system into the Park and Rec. Fund and into the Recreation Capital Improvement and the Park and Recreation Bond Retirement Fund. Section 2, is to deposit the following percentage into the following funds from the amounts collected from the income tax to 72.5% to the Park and Rec. Operations Fund, 20% shall be into the Park and Rec. Debt Retirement Fund and 7.5% shall be into the Park and Rec. Capital Improvement Fund. Section 3, is to authorize the auditor to deposit the following percentage. So we will changing these percentages effective October 1st. Then also January 1st they will go from these percentages that we just stated to 56.5% Park and Rec. Operations Fund, 40% into Park Rec. Debt Retirement Fund and 3.5% into the Park and Rec. Capital Improvement Fund. COUNCILMAN BRYAN I don’t have a questions I have a comment. At the work session I think I told you I wasn’t real I was concerned about the way this was going to be handled next year with only 3.5% of the Park and Rec. Income Tax going into their capital improvement fund. I did call Kenn Kaminski the Park and Rec. Director; we had a long talk about this and with rising costs for gas, natural gas, electricity and employee costs, etc. This is what they feel they have to do; they have to put 56.5% of the revenue into their operations next year. He’s going to hold a work session with his board in the next week or two to try to do some things about holding the line on cost and also increasing revenue through their operations. You know, by having more opportunities for people to come and take part in recreational leagues and events so they get more activity and more fees coming in. In the long term that’s their idea of what the solution is because if it remains at just 3.5% going into capital improvement they won’t be able to add new playgrounds or improve parks or do a lot of things that we want to do. So it is a concern because the income tax has been flat and their cost has gone up. That’s why this is the way it is and I agree that’s what it has to be for right now. But they are aware of the problem and he’s working with his board to increase the revenue so that they can put this back to 7 or 7.5% sometime in the future. Also we hope that next year we’ll close the lease with Michael Francis and the property down there that we acquired from the state your Heartland Behavioral if we do that means that will mean about $400,000.00 going into the Park and Rec. Capital Improvement Fund next year that they will have to use. So hopefully that will happen early next year. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY moved for suspension of the rules and passage, seconded by Councilman Bryan. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 9 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 178 – 2006 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 9 YES. ORDINANCE NO. 179 2006 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Ordinance No. 179 is just what she said. We’re going to amend Ordinance No. 155 which we passed January 3rd of 2006. We’re required to do this when we have the actual amounts that are going to see us through till the end of the year. For the fire pension fund we started out with $425,000.00 and we’re changing that and amending it to $471,923.01, for the police pension fund we started out with $375,000.00 and we are changing that and amending it to $352,997.26. The Lincoln Center Phase II we started out $382,000.00 and it is now $315,042.50. We also have the two items that were not listed one is OPWC Debt Fund that is $11,956.00 and also Senior Housing Debt Fund which is $4,185.00. So we will be amending those amounts this evening. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY moved for suspension of the rules and passage, seconded by Councilman Bryan. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 9 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 179 – 2006 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 9 YES. ORDINANCE NO. 180 2006 BY: FINANCE COMMITTEE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY This is something that we do every year municipal ordinances that we need to comply with state law we need to approve. Those are listed here there are many, many of them so I’m not going to go through them one by one they will be listed in our minutes as well as the codified ordinances. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY moved for suspension of the rules and passage, seconded by Councilman Bryan. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 9 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 180 – 2006 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 9 YES. 7. UNFINISHED BUSINESS - NOTHING 8. PETITIONS AND GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS - NOTHING 9. BILLS, ACCOUNTS AND CLAIMS 1. INDEPENDENT – $246.00. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I move that we pay the bill, seconded by Councilman Bryan. Roll call vote of 9 yes to pay the bill. 10. REPORTS FROM CITY OFFICIALS A). MAYOR SUBMITS MONTHLY PERMIT REPORT FOR NOVEMBER 2006. COPY FILE COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I move that we accept the auditor’s report, seconded by Councilman Peters. Roll call vote of 9 yes to pay the bill. 11. REPORTS OF COMMITTEES COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER We will have committee sessions next Monday the 11th sounds like we have at least two items coming up that will require some long discussion possibly others. RESOLUTIONS AND REQUESTS OF COUNCIL MEMBERS COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I did want to add that I do have a gentleman coming from the AFL-CIO to speak as well next week. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Is that in connection with Mr. McCune’s or is this something different? COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY No, its in connection with finance. COUNCILMAN MCCUNE We will be discussing some language that I believe that will be very important next week coming out Community Development Committee. It will be lengthy conversation involved with that. COUNCILMAN MANSON I just wanted to say since we’re on TV that if there’s anybody out there that’s interested in listening to any of these committee sessions we have we had some rather interesting conversation here tonight they’re welcome to come at 5:45 and listen to see what’s going on. Those meetings really are much more interesting probably than what this meeting is. COUNCILMAN BRYAN Yeah, unfortunately, I’m going to have some minor surgery on the 11th on my knew so I won’t be here because they tell me they’re going to give me drugs. I might be better, but I’m not going to take that chance. So I have a transcript which the Clerk has provided me and I’m going to ask her to provide that to email that to all of you. This is basically what the conversation we had at our last committee meeting concerning the sewer ordinance that was discussed tonight. I think you all should read this because as I read it over today there were a lot of things that Joe said that I didn’t catch and that he didn’t say that I thought he did say. So this I think will be helpful to you as you discuss that with the people next week. In my absence, I guess I’m going to ask Mrs. Catazaro-Perry to sort of take her turn to run the meeting. You’re a republican Donnie, okay, next time. COUNCILMAN MAIER Yes, I would like to introduce the fire chief and he’s in the back of the room for those who don’t know him John Burgasser. He’s the new fire chief for Massillon if you stand up for a minutes John. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Well, we were going to include him on our list at the beginning of the meeting and he will be sworn in on Friday. So we thought we’d wait till then to welcome John. 13. CALL OF THE CALENDAR 14. THIRD READING ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS .SECOND READING ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS ORDINANCE NO. 168 2006 BY: POLICE AND FIRE COMMITTEE COUNCILMAN MAIER Yes, there’s still some discussion needs to be done on this ordinance. So we’re just going to give it second reading. ORDINANCE NO. 168 – 2006 WAS GIVEN SECOND READING. ORDINANCE NO. 169 2006 BY: POLICE AND FIRE COMMITTEE COUNCILMAN MAIER Yes, this ordinance also is evident by tonight we still have some more discussion to do on this. So this will also be a second reading. ORDINANCE NO. 169 – 2006 WAS GIVEN SECOND READING. 16. NEW AND MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS COUNCILMAN BRYAN I just noticed tonight when we got here that the Mayor has provided us this new proposed budget. So everyone has a copy I assume. COUNCIL CLERK MARY BETH – I have emailed it already to everyone. It’s waiting for them at home. COUNCILMAN BRYAN So with everything going on the 11th God bless as far as getting into this too. But we’re going to be here all night and plus made half the next day. But we’ll take a look at this and perhaps get some work done on it before Monday as far as at least comparing it to last years budget and comparing it to this year’s expenses and just seeing where that all falls in. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY – I was just wondering if maybe possible that we schedule an extra meeting right away just to focus on the budget for 2007. Because we do have so many items that we’re going to be discussing next Monday might just be an item that we can talk about just as a stand alone on a separate day. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Do you want that discussion now or next Monday? COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY – Well, if we could talk about it tonight it would be great if we could get ideas of who can make what day and I know a lot of people do work and its difficult. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Do you have suggested time and date? COUNCILWOMAN FERRERO – Well, I would like to have the opportunity to bring my calendar to look at that. You know, I schedule every Monday for council and so if we’re going to have a special meeting I’d like to have my calendar in front of me so I can review it. Because there’s so much going on at the end of the year where I work and I’m sure there is where other people work as well. So if you could at least wait until Monday to make any kind of a decision I’ll make sure I bring my calendar and I would invite everyone else to do the same thing. COUNCILMAN MANG I was going to make a suggestion that next Monday night that prior to getting into the Wastewater Treatment thing that we try to conduct all the other business that needs to be brought forward prior to going into that discussion. I feel that we need to make sure that we give all the other pending legislation the time that it requires and I think that the wastewater treatment thing is going to consider or take a lot of time which is fine. But I want to make sure in case that somebody does have to leave that we have at least have concluded the items and if in fact we are not able to get something rescheduled for the finance committee or the finances for the next year which is ultimately important. I guess the big decision really is, is we’ll have to tell us where we stand with EPA whether this thing has to be brought forward right away and handled. So I guess maybe we can’t really do anything until next Monday night as to just thoughts of trying to make sure that we all can put our thoughts and ideas together on areas as we go rather than sometimes we get bogged down with a lot of heavy stuff really and we don’t put as much effect into the some of the other things. COUNCILMAN MANSON If we have any problem with dates or anything like that or timelines on this we’ll get an email out to everybody and let them know. But I don’t think we have to rush quite that fast. But there might be something I don’t know. COUNCILMAN BRYAN Well, as far as scheduling extra time. We’re going to be here the 18th for a council meeting correct? (Correct.) Maybe we could consider and maybe that’s not the only extra time, but maybe we could consider an hour or so before you know meet at 6:30 for a committee meeting on the 18th as well. COUNCILMAN BRYAN For the budget, for a finance committee meeting on the budget. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER In additional to whatever comments tonight anyone who would like to call or email Kathy and let her know when you think we ought to do it. COUNCILMAN BRYAN And also Mr. President, I was going to point out that just when we start talking about these dates I’m looking at the calendar and our next committee meeting after the 11th would normally be on the 25th and of course that’s Christmas. So what’s our plan are we going to meet on the 26th then? COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Yes, we will meet on the 26th. .REMARKS OF DELEGATIONS AND CITIZENS TO MATTERS NOT ON THE AGENDA 18. ADJOURNMENT COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I move that we adjourn, seconded by all.
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