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COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER I d like to call this special council meeting for Friday, May 25, 2007. 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. Thus giving a roll call vote of 9 present. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Mr. Bryan, we need a motion please? COUNCILMAN BRYAN – What’s the motion that we need, sir? COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER To excuse Councilman Townsend. COUNCILMAN BRYAN – Oh, okay, well, I move that we excuse Councilman Townsend excused, seconded by Councilman Manson. Councilman Townsend was excused by a roll call vote of 8 yes. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER For the record we have Mayor Cicchinelli, Kenn Kaminski our Park and Rec. Department and Auditor Bill Hamit. Before we get going I want to make a couple comments regarding this meeting. According to our Rule 9 and 10 whenever we have a special meeting council is to be notified in writing of the meeting and what will be on the agenda. The purpose of that of course is to preclude any quickie meetings or unknown agendas. We generally have complied with that by having our police department issue letters and I think they’re here right now. Now generally most of these special meetings are called by the Mayor’s office and his office has sent out the notifications. In this case his secretary was off last week and when she came back this week our Clerk contacted her offered to do the agenda and there was a lets call it a snafu as far as sending out the actually notifications and that did not get done. I found out about that late this morning talked with Mary Beth and our law director, the law director’s opinion and I’m paraphrasing but I repeated back to him what I would say and he said “yes, that’s correct”. Is that the intent of both of those rules is again, not to have a quickie meeting and not to have agenda items that council members don’t know anything about. In his opinion a notification was met by the oral discussion on Monday and two follow up emails during the week in which every member received the agenda. He did indicate just to be safe as a safe guard to send out the letters anyways. So somewhere about 12:30pm – 1:00pm I told our Council Clerk please get those letters sent out and obviously it’s not an instantaneous thing. So here are your letters there’s no doubt about it the notification should have gone out and they didn’t and I again I think the unusual circumstance is just a fact that you know there’s a communication glitch here. Perry did indicate that this meeting is totally legal and any action we take is totally legal. But he did ask me to go around in a circle individually and ask each council member to verify that basically you all knew about the meeting anyway that you all received the emails, you know the agenda and that you orally wave the requirement that you received notice of the special meeting 12 hours prior to meeting. So I will just start at the right and go around the ring all I need is a yes or no and again this is on the advice of the law director. COUNCILMAN MANG – Yes. COUNCILMAN MAIER – My answer is no, I haven’t been home, I haven’t received my email and I was absent Monday and its no. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I say no, I think that this is done inappropriately and I don’t think emails suffice for contact or communication with council members. COUNCILMAN PETERS Yes, I knew about it. COUNCILMAN MCCUNE Yes, absolutely. COUNCILMAN MANSON Yes. COUNCILMAN BRYAN Yes. COUNCILWOMAN FERRERO – Absolutely. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Okay, now this was not a vote on whether to have the meeting or not this was simply to put on record anyone’s objection to having it. As I say the law director did indicate that this meeting was legal and any business we transact is legal. COUNCILMAN MAIER – Yes, and I don’t have any problem with the meeting whatsoever I would like to know if the press was also notified in writing as required by state law because I don’t see any here. If they have not been this could be an illegal meeting under the sunshine law. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER They were notified by email and the law requires this notification to go to council members. This is a courtesy for the council members, but the media was notified by email which is our standard… COUNCILMAN MAIER – Standard, that’s what we standardly do if we have a special meeting does the Mayor’s office also notify the media. (That I don’t know) May I ask the Mayor to come to the podium? (Sure) Mr. Mayor, when you notify us for a special meeting do you also notify the press? (Yes) Okay, thank you. So Mr. President, under that condition I’m saying that this is possibly a problem because there is no press here. They weren’t notified in the manner they’re usually are notified for the last 3.5 years I’ve been here. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Okay, your comment is noted. Mr. Peters? COUNCILMAN PETERS Is there a proper way of notifying the press or do you just have to tell them. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER First of all, they were here Monday (I understand that) they know about it and they received the follow up email. I don’t have a problem at all that the press is notified I do have a problem that you all did not receive your note as required by law. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY In our council rules there’s nothing at all about email and I think at a work session in the future we should address that. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Alright, any other comments or questions? Alright, Madame Clerk will you please read the ordinance? COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I’m going to ask the Mayor to step up to the podium if he would please while he’s doing that I’ll just review section 1 and 2. Section 1, we’re going to appropriate from 1401 capital improvement fund $100,000.00 to an account entitled lease purchase payment. Section 2, is $40,000.00 we’re going to appropriate from the economic development fund to the account entitled lease payment purchase and this is money owed for the Cottrill Property. Mayor, would you comment on how we’re going to repay the capital improvement fund in the future? MAYOR CICCHINELLI – As all of you know we have been negotiating with the State of Ohio and with the Enroc board to bring in $450,000.00 worth of grant dollars to pay for this property or a portion of it at least. We’ve also discussed and have had cooperation from Aultman Foundation with $200,000.00. That will be sufficient to pay for the entire amount of the acquisition cost. As those grant dollars come in it is our intentions of putting the dollars back into the appropriate funds that the monies were taken from or borrowed from. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Are you finished with your question? COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY No, I wasn’t quite, but I just wanted to know do you have a time frame on that? MAYOR CICCHINELLI – We have been corresponding Kenn and I have been corresponding with the appropriate entities and I think its safe to say that those dollars should be in our possession by late summer no later than early fall. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY And then do we have a plan if they don’t come in? Do we have a for… MAYOR CICCHINELLI – If the grant monies don’t come in it’s the opinion of the Administration that its still a good buy for us and a good project for us and we need to work together to come up with the dollars. Then the dollars will not be sufficiently replaced if you don’t get the grant money, but I do think it’s a good project for the city regardless just like we have other projects too that come about that we find the money and I think we need to find the money for this project. But we’re confident that the grant monies will be here, but we don’t make those final decisions. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Thank you. COUNCILMAN MANG – Yes, Mr. Mayor, I was gone pretty much the day until I got back when I got back I’ve gotten a half a dozen phone calls on this and I don’t know. The question they asked me was why aren’t we taking money out of the capital improvement park department. They want to know why we don’t have any money in the park department if they are collecting money tax wise constantly. Now where all of a sudden I get the phone calls I’ve got returned numbers only because I have phone. But all of these calls within about a ½ of one another it was basically the same thing why is the city taking out of the general fund capital improvement money and its not coming out of the park department because their understanding is that eventually this property will revert to the park department. Is there something that’s not clear here, is this going to revert to the park department? MAYOR CICCHINELLI – The property when it does finally become ownership of the city or become part of the city, yeah, the park and rec. department will be under their jurisdiction just like they do the rest of the park land. The only reason… COUNCILMAN MANG – Have we done this just for clarification here I’m trying to…have we purchased other lands through our capital improvement fund out of the general fund for lands that ultimately ended up going to the park department to maintain? MAYOR CICCHINELLI – Well, I don’t know of any off hand, you have to remember something too. This is something relatively new because our new parks and rec. department is relatively in its infancy it’s only its not even 10 years old. In the past, the city has used general or capital improvement dollars to buy anything that they wanted buy whether it be for park land or anything else. I think maybe what you should tell the citizens that are calling you is the parks and rec. department is just one part of the total city government and even though they have their own revenue stream sometimes that revenue stream is a little short. When we first to answer your question specifically when we first decided to proceed with this and get that next payment made we looked at their capital improvement dollars and their maxed out. We looked at the parks and rec. and Kenn had meetings with Mr. Hamit and they felt that right now because it being this particular time of the year the dollars weren’t’ there once that there are going to be other revenue streams that are going feed those funds for example once the deal is made with the state hospital or the Heartland Behavior those dollars will go into the appropriate funds I think there will be dollars there would have been dollars to pay that. But that didn’t take place yet, so there’s so things out there just because you need to tell the citizens that they are just but one department. How we’re doing it as long as the money’s replaced and it’s our intentions to replace those dollars once those other grant monies become available we’re allowed legally to take those dollars from those funds. COUNCILMAN MANG – I didn’t get that part that they weren’t saying we couldn’t buy it… MAYOR CICCHINELLI – Well, there’s no monies there right now. COUNCILMAN MANG – Out of the capital improvement fund. Their question was why we weren’t buying it out of the capital improvement fund of the park department? MAYOR CICCHINELLI – With all their other responsibilities the dollars aren’t there right now. COUNCILMAN MAIER – Yes, Mr. Mayor, has the grant been awarded to us the monies hasn’t come through or are we still in the process? MAYOR CICCHINELLI – No, we like I explained earlier they have attentively approved both grants. We think that the Enroc monies will come in faster than the Clean Ohio. I personally tried to contact the person that’s responsible for all the Clean Ohio dollars and he didn’t return my call. Kenn has called him 2 or 3 or 4 times to try to get an update. It appears that those powers to be are going through the process of getting us the money, but I feel foolish sometimes because I’ve told you folks in all good intentions that we’ll have it by such and such a date, but that’s because that’s what we were told. But I think I feel confident that those dollars will be here its just a question of fulfilling our obligation with the Cottrill family which I think is important because we all agreed in that ordinance to achieve our goal in that way. So that’s why I think we just need to proceed and the appropriate dollars will fall into place at the appropriate time. Again, I’m confident the money is going to be there, but I still think it’s a good project and I hope council does too in case those dollars don’t come in. But it certainly as we speak now that’s certainly not the indication. But I’m not in control of everything either. COUNCILMAN MANG – I just want to make a point clear, I’m not objecting personally to what we’re doing here tonight. I’m in favor of what we’re doing here tonight, but I wanted to get answers to what and there’s nobody here from the press so it doesn’t make any difference, but I had to get that answer I’m not against what we have before us. MAYOR CICCHINELLI – And did I sufficiently answer your questions, sir? (Yes.) Okay, I wanted to do that. COUNCILMAN MAIER – Yes, and I agree with Mr. Mang I’m not against this project I just wanted to see where we were at with the grant process. COUNCILMAN BRYAN I don’t have a question for the Mayor, I just want to get the Auditor up and get him on record about one little detail. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Does anyone else have a question for the Mayor while he’s up here. COUNCILMAN BRYAN Mr. Auditor, I trust that the Mayor’s right and that we’re going to get these dollars back from these two grants. My question to you sir is have you made all the inquiries and you’re confident that when we get the grants we can put those dollars back into these two funds where we’re taking this money from. AUDITOR HAMIT – My inquiries are with the Mayor and with Kenn only. I’ve not talked to anybody at the Enroc… COUNCILMAN BRYAN I’m not I’m sorry Bill, let me be clearer, I know you’re not saying we’re getting the grants but assuming we do get the grants we get a check can you legally put the money back into the capital improvement fund and the economic development fund? AUDITOR HAMIT – Yes, we’ll redeposit it; it’s a lot clearer and a lot simpler if it happens within the calendar year. So I would try to make all motions moving that these gentlemen have to make it happen in this calendar year or otherwise we have to jump through hoops or somebody else has to jump through hoops with the auditors next year. COUNCILMAN BRYAN But you’re confident that if we get those checks this year you can put the money back into these funds. AUDITOR HAMIT – Absolutely. COUNCILMAN BRYAN That’s my only questions. Okay, thank you. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Mr. Hamit, you and I went over our capital improvement dollars that are available for this year had everything fallen into place as project for revenue and with $100,000.00 plus the cruisers that we just decided to lease that puts us very, very, close if not over what you and I talked about $118,000.00 or something in that… AUDITOR HAMIT – There’s more money that has come in presently in 1401 the way it stands now unexpended money there’s $425,000.00 but we had some outstanding encumbrances of $238,000.00. So at least $220,000.00 as cash in that account. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Okay, so that puts us very close to maxing out our dollars for capital improvements for this year if our revenue streams match up with what we projected. AUDITOR HAMIT – It will take a $100,000.00 out of your what you were going to spend elsewhere, yes. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I just wanted to make sure that those numbers were still about the same it looks a little bit better from when we talked. AUDITOR HAMIT – its better now, the only if I may expand on this a little more the ordinance that we passed when we bought it gave us 20 days of free time after the due date. If we don’t pay this by June 20th at the latest the $240,000.00 that we already have invested is lost as well as the land. So it has to be you know we’ve got 20 days of grace so if we don’t we lose what we invest at presented plus the land. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Anyone else have a question for the auditor? Thank you. Any other questions or discussion? COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I do have one other question. If we approve this tonight when will this check be written? COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Who are you asking? COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Whoever has that answer, I’m not sure if it’s the Mayor or Bill. AUDITOR HAMIT – It’s due anytime, you know, I can, June 1st is the due date otherwise we have to jump through other hoops. So June 1st. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY I would just like to ask Bill if we could write it June 1st so we’re compliant with what council approved at our very first council meeting in January that we would not approve any capital improvement expenditures until June. That keeps us all in line as to what we said we would do. AUDITOR HAMIT – Last time we paid that gentleman it was on the due date and I called him up and he came down and picked it up. So I can do the same thing. COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY Okay, so June 1st would be great. I know the attorney is not here to ask him if we need to add that in the ordinance, but I think if we all agreed to that I don’t know if we need to amend the ordinance. COUNCILMAN MCCUNE I just want to reiterate statements that I’ve made in the past about how important I believe this purchase is to our current citizenship and the citizenship of the future. The way the 6th ward is growing this green space is quite possibly will be all that is left for future generations to enjoy. I envision it being something like Central Park in New York City. Something that all of our kids will have places to go and things to do. So I think it’s very important that we move forward with this tonight. Thank you. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER Mrs. Catazaro-Perry, you have a motion? COUNCILWOMAN CATAZARO-PERRY moved to suspend the rules and move for passage, seconded by Councilman Peters. The rules were suspended by a roll call vote of 8 yes. ORDINANCE NO. 63 – 2007 WAS PASSED BY A ROLL CALL VOTE OF 8 YES. COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAMBER This meeting is adjourned.
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