Council hears from citizens about Internet Cafe legislation

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Galion City Coun­cil held a meet­ing on Sept. 25. Pro­posed leg­is­la­tion for spe­cial reg­u­la­tions of inter­net sweep­stakes cafes was dis­cussed that evening and many cit­i­zens were present to argue against the regulations.

Ord. 2012–75 enacted a new chap­ter in the cod­i­fied ordi­nances for the reg­u­la­tion of com­put­er­ized sweep­stakes and inter­net device cafes. City Man­ager Gene Toy explained that Laws and Ordi­nances requested to look at related ordi­nances from Mace­do­nia, Ohio and other cities with Inter­net Cafe legislation.

The ordi­nance appear­ing that evening was drafted based on the ordi­nance in Mace­do­nia. It called for an annual license fee of $5,000 for all inter­net sweep­stakes cafes oper­at­ing in the city and a $500 annual fee for each com­puter on the premises.

Coun­cil mem­ber Roberta Wade explained that Kur­tiss Hirt, the owner of Inter­net Cafe in Galion, was cur­rently in Europe. She moved to table the leg­is­la­tion and have the first read­ing at the next meet­ing, when the owner would be able to attend and offer his input or answer ques­tions from Council.

The motion to table passed.

The first piece of leg­is­la­tion dis­cussed was Ord. 2012–74 to amend sec­tion 557.04 of the Galion Cod­i­fied Ordi­nances. The sec­tion deals with the removal of trees and shrubs on pri­vate prop­erty that are not main­tained properly.

City Zon­ing Inspec­tor Matt Ross explained this amend­ment started with a com­plaint about an over­grown lot in the city. His office could not do any­thing about it because the ordi­nance only allows for the removal of sick or dead trees and shrubs, not over­grown ones.*

The pro­posed update added verbage that unmain­tained trees or shrubs would be eli­gi­ble for removal as well if they con­sti­tute a “haz­ard to life, sur­round­ing prop­erty and struc­tures, cre­ate habi­tat for rodents, ver­min or other pests, or con­sti­tute a threat to the last­ing health of other trees in the City…”

Coun­cil mem­ber Cathy George, who is chair of the Laws and Ordi­nances Com­mit­tee, said her main con­cern is with vacant homes being used for drug activ­ity or van­dal­ism. Over­grown shrubs make it dif­fi­cult for the police and neigh­bors to see inside.

Baldinger took issue with the ordi­nance because “pri­vate prop­erty” per­tains to more than aban­doned homes. Keib agreed, say­ing the word­ing was too broad.

After some dis­cus­sion, George moved to table the leg­is­la­tion so it could be reworked. She also asked Ross to look at related leg­is­la­tion in other com­mu­ni­ties so the com­mit­tee could refer to it.

The motion to table passed.

Ord. 2012–76 adopted a col­lec­tion pol­icy for util­ity cus­tomers, income tax­pay­ers and city depart­ments who owe money to the city. Under the pol­icy, the finance depart­ment would have the author­ity to for­ward the accounts of delin­quent cus­tomers to a third party col­lec­tion agency.

Finance Direc­tor Karen Wal­ters explained that one of the state auditor’s con­di­tions for allow­ing Galion to be removed from fis­cal emer­gency was the imple­men­ta­tion of such a col­lec­tion pro­ce­dure for unpaid util­ity funds. This will be a stan­dard­ized policy.

If enacted, here’s how the pol­icy works for res­i­den­tial util­ity cus­tomers (the incre­ment of the num­ber of days past due is approx­i­mate because it may fluc­tu­ate month-to-month):

30 days past due — a notice is sent to the cus­tomer that the account will be terminated

45 days past due — util­ity ser­vices are dis­con­nected if the account is not paid

60 days past due — the account is closed at the end of the month and a final bill is mailed in the next billing cycle

90 days past due — a First Notice of Delin­quent Account is sent,

105 days past due — a Final Notice is sent

120 days past due — the unpaid account is sent to the third party agency

The leg­is­la­tion passed as a first reading.

Res. 2012–9 trans­ferred $89 from the police pen­sion fund and $89 from the fire pen­sion fund to go toward audi­tor and trea­surer fees. This leg­is­la­tion was also passed.

In city man­ager com­ments, Toy said a pre-construction meet­ing was held in regards to the waste­water treat­ment plant project. Toy said it would start in about a month. The City also received approval from ODOT to begin a right-of-way acqui­si­tion that will be nec­es­sary for the State Route 598 widen­ing project (which will not begin for at least another year).

He also announced the Kiwa­nis Pan­cake Break­fast on Sat­ur­day, Sept. 29 from 7–11 a.m. at the Galion Inter­me­di­ate School, and Okto­ber­fest, which is Sept. 27–29.

In cit­i­zen com­ments, Don Faulds addressed Coun­cil first. He thanked those who attended the pub­lic meet­ing on Sept. 19 about Prairie State, a meet­ing that he helped orga­nize. “I’m glad to have seen that some coun­cil­men attended,” Faulds stated. “I was kinda shocked that our city man­ager never attended.”

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Dur­ing cit­i­zen com­ments, Galion res­i­dent Don Faulds calls out the city man­ager for not attend­ing the Sept. 19 pub­lic meet­ing about Prairie State.

Also, he pro­posed that Coun­cil do a mora­to­rium on the financ­ing of any other AMP projects pend­ing the out­come of a fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tion into Prairie State. He encour­aged Coun­cil to sup­port the inves­ti­ga­tion of the plant by send­ing a let­ter to the Secu­rity and Exchange Commission.

Toy responded to Faulds’ com­ments. “When the meet­ing was announced at the last Coun­cil meet­ing, it was announced that it was going to be an open debate, not a bash­ing ses­sion,” Toy said. “Then about two sen­tences later, you said ‘this project is the Titanic and all you peo­ple are arrang­ing the deck chairs.’ Sound to you like it’s going to be an open and hon­est debate? I don’t think so.”

“The meet­ing was on Wednes­day the 19th, not Sep­tem­ber the 11th. That com­ment I made was on the 11th, not the 19th,” Faulds said.

Refer­ring again to Faulds’ Titanic com­ment, Toy said, “Sure doesn’t sound to me like a room peo­ple are gonna walk into where there’s going to be an open flow of information.”

Faulds: I was just dis­ap­pointed you didn’t show. I’m sure if it was a Crest­line util­ity rate dis­cus­sion you would have been there, but since it’s Galion, I understand.

Toy, who lives in Crest­line, was vis­i­bly frus­trated by the com­ment. The audi­ence was silent for a few moments.

Then Faulds said: I have noth­ing against you, Mr. Toy.

Toy: Well it sure seems like it.

Faulds: I just find it amaz­ing that you’re so defen­sive of this since you [became city man­ager] so many years after [the financ­ing of the project] took place.

Toy: I’m not defen­sive at all. When you announce a meet­ing and you give a premise to that meet­ing, then you con­tra­dict your­self two sen­tences later, why should some­one want to walk into that room? You knew before that meet­ing that the infor­ma­tion pre­sented was going to be one-sided and was going to be critical.

Bud Mof­fett was the next cit­i­zen to speak. He com­plained about all of the polit­i­cal signs that cover yards through­out town. “Now we get these take back our gov­ern­ment signs…at least 90 per­cent of them are posted ille­gally.” He said they need to be on the res­i­dence side of side­walks, not in the right-of-way as some of them are. He felt the vio­la­tors should be fined or arrested.

Mof­fett also said that peo­ple who post com­ments on Galion Live are mak­ing the city look like a joke town because they do not know what they are talk­ing about. “The whole world can see…Who would want to bring a busi­ness to ‘Galion Joke Town, U.S.A.’? I wouldn’t.”

Roy Lowen­stein was there rep­re­sent­ing the Buck­eye Com­mu­nity Hope Foun­da­tion, based in Colum­bus. He spoke to Coun­cil about inter­est in ren­o­vat­ing the Buck­eye Arms apart­ment com­plex. (His orga­ni­za­tion did ren­o­va­tions there two years ago.)

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Roy Lowen­stein from Buck­eye Com­mu­nity Hope Foun­da­tion addresses Coun­cil about the prospect of ren­o­vat­ing Buck­eye Arms Apartments.

An appli­ca­tion for fund­ing needs to be sent to the Ohio House and Finance Agency before BCHF could receive fund­ing for the ren­o­va­tions. How­ever, Lowen­stein explained that it is now nec­es­sary that he receive approval from City Coun­cil before the appli­ca­tion would be approved. The appli­ca­tion is due Oct. 4.

George asked what kinds of ren­o­va­tions would be made.

Lowen­stein said that, if awarded fund­ing, about $37,000 would be spent on each apart­ment to mod­ern­ize and improve the liv­ing con­di­tions. BCHF would also work on the com­mu­nity build­ing and fix the park­ing lot. There would be some changes to the exte­rior appear­ance of the build­ing as well, but no change in the floor plans.

“I’m not inter­ested in sup­port­ing you if you bring labor from out­side this city…That’s the trade off: I scratch your back, you scratch mine.” Keib said.

Lowen­stein wanted to first research the con­trac­tors avail­able in the area before com­mit­ting. How­ever, he added that he is in a much bet­ter posi­tion to hire local con­trac­tors now than he was two years ago and would inter­view suit­able candidates.

He had pre­vi­ously con­tacted Toy about the issue. Toy explained to Coun­cil that in the let­ter of response he wrote to Lowen­stein, a con­di­tion of the City’s sup­port of the con­tract is that “local labor­ers and com­pa­nies be given mean­ing­ful oppor­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in construction.”

Lowen­stein said he was fine with that condition.

Because of the time-sensitive nature of the issue, Coun­cil took an infor­mal vote to offer its sup­port to the BCHF project to ren­o­vate Buck­eye Arms. (There is not enough time to draft a for­mal res­o­lu­tion and approve it before the appli­ca­tion dead­line on Oct. 4.)

Chris Stone and Joe Kleinknecht were there that evening rep­re­sent­ing the Galion Cham­ber of Com­merce. Stone spoke on behalf of the Cham­ber in light of that evening’s leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late the Inter­net Cafe.

Stone urged Coun­cil to vote no on the pro­posed ordi­nance. “Pros­per­ous, thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ties sup­port pros­per­ous and thriv­ing busi­nesses through col­lab­o­ra­tion, coop­er­a­tion and assis­tance. Not bur­den­some and unre­al­is­tic reg­u­la­tions,” he said.

Stone con­tin­ued that it is not the pur­pose of Coun­cil to reject poten­tial rev­enue gen­er­a­tion that could ben­e­fit the entire com­mu­nity. “Suc­cess­ful busi­nesses pro­vide prod­ucts and ser­vices that con­sumers want or need. If they don’t, they will fail and close as a result of the con­sumers’ choices, not gov­ern­ment over­sight or intervention.”

Bob Godby spoke next, also about the Inter­net Cafe leg­is­la­tion. “Ms. George, I’m par­tic­u­larly offended by your desire to ram this through with­out proper rep­re­sen­ta­tion of this busi­ness,” he commented.

Godby asked if any­one on Coun­cil vis­ited the Cafe yet. Coun­cil was silent.

“You need to under­stand what this busi­ness is about personally…You can­not make a ratio­nal and log­i­cal deci­sion with­out under­stand­ing,” he concluded.

Godby also agreed with Moffett’s state­ment about Galion being per­ceived as a joke. He felt any restric­tions on busi­nesses were sim­ply not right and would send the wrong mes­sage to poten­tial busi­ness ven­tures in the future, includ­ing his own busi­ness cur­rently in devel­op­ment for a microbrewery/restaurant (he added that he has cho­sen not to open his busi­ness in Galion).

George responded that the Laws and Ordi­nances Com­mit­tee, which had the leg­is­la­tion brought before Coun­cil, had been meet­ing about the Cafe for five months. She did not feel it was rushed and said that any rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the busi­ness could have gone to those meet­ings. She also admit­ted that she did not know the Cafe was open.

Andrew Godby, a col­lege stu­dent and employee at Inter­net Cafe, was the next cit­i­zen to speak. He explained that the Cafe is a legit­i­mate busi­ness that offers food, drink and tele­phone time. Cus­tomers never lose the phone time they purchase.

He com­pared the busi­ness with sweep­stakes offered at fast food restau­rants, such as the peel-off stick­ers on drink cups, say­ing that the sweep­stakes at the Cafe are no different.

Godby cited prob­lems with the Mace­do­nia ordi­nance that Laws and Ordi­nances reviewed to cre­ate that evening’s leg­is­la­tion. He said it was put into place prior to the state rec­og­niz­ing and reg­u­lat­ing inter­net cafes.

He said the Cafe does not deserve unfair tax­a­tion because it pays sales tax and a city tax. It is also reg­is­tered with the Ohio Attor­ney General’s office.

“Why is there a need to reg­u­late this busi­ness after Ohio has already reg­u­lated it? Would you do that to an auto­mo­tive mechanic or den­tist?” he asked.

Godby also reported that 68 per­cent of their cus­tomers are from out of town, which can cre­ate more rev­enue for city.

Galion City Council’s next meet­ing is Oct. 16 at 7 p.m. in Coun­cil Chambers.

* This is the cur­rent ordinance:

557.03 TRIMMING OF TREES AND SHRUBS ON PRIVATE PROPERTY.

The owner of every lot or par­cel of land within the City upon which a tree, plant or shrub stands and which is dam­ag­ing, inter­fer­ing with or obstruct­ing any san­i­tary sewer, storm sewer, man­hole, catch­basin, drain, elec­tric power lines, gas lines, water lines, or other pub­lic improve­ments shall cause such tree, plant or shrub to be trimmed, or cut down and removed so as to elim­i­nate such dam­age, inter­fer­ence or obstruc­tion and abate such nui­sance con­di­tion. The City Man­ager or his designee is autho­rized to enter upon the prop­erty and exam­ine any tree, plant or shrub within one hun­dred feet of any san­i­tary or storm sewer, man­hole, catch­basin, drain, elec­tric power line, gas line, water line, or other pub­lic improve­ment for pur­poses of this section.

557.04 REMOVAL OF TREES ON PRIVATE PROPERTY.

The owner of every lot or par­cel of land within the City upon which a dead or dis­eased tree stands, when such tree con­sti­tutes a haz­ard to life or prop­erty or con­sti­tutes a threat to the last­ing health of other trees in the City, shall cause such tree to be removed so as to abate such nui­sance con­di­tion. The City Man­ager or his designee is autho­rized to enter upon such prop­erty and exam­ine any tree sus­pected to be dead or diseased.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Sep 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.