Council discusses much legislation after public hearing

By Matt Echel­berry
Inquirer Reporter

Galion City Coun­cil held a meet­ing on Oct. 9. After a pre­sen­ta­tion from rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Amer­i­can Munic­i­pal Power, Council’s reg­u­lar busi­ness began.

First there was a pub­lic hear­ing for an alley vaca­tion imme­di­ately behind 421 Sher­man Street. The vaca­tion was requested by David Weir, who was present that evening. He owns prop­erty on both sides of the alley.

No one from the audi­ence spoke about the vaca­tion and Fire Chief Phil Jack­son said the Fire Depart­ment did not have a prob­lem with the change.

The pub­lic hear­ing came to a close and Coun­cil moved into leg­is­la­tion. Ord. 2012–84 vacated 45 feet of the said alley; it passed as a first reading.

Ord. 2012–79 adopted new build­ing and zon­ing fees. It was orig­i­nally on the agenda as an emer­gency ordi­nance, but Coun­cil mem­ber Roberta Wade moved to change it to a first read­ing; the motion passed.

Coun­cil then dis­cussed the ordi­nance, which adds some lines items, such as “annual tem­po­rary change­able copy sign,” and “inde­pen­dent fire sup­pres­sion system.”

Wade sug­gested des­ig­nat­ing a spe­cific line item for hand­i­cap ramps. She made a motion for this, as well as the per­mit fee for hand­i­cap ramps to be set at $10 (plus the $25 zon­ing fee). The motion was passed.

The ordi­nance also changes the amounts for some fees, such as increas­ing Plumb­ing Per­mit for 2 or less traps/fixtures, and 3 or less traps/fixtures by $25, and increas­ing replace­ment hot water heater per­mits by $10.

This ordi­nance passed as a first reading.

Ord. 2012–77 trans­ferred appro­pri­a­tions in the Gen­eral Fund to the Issue 1 fund in the amount of $79,594. It passed as an emer­gency. Ord. 2012–78 put the money received recently from a FEMA grant ($70,300) into the fire department’s Fur­ni­ture and Small Equip­ment Fund. Jack­son said this money is being used to pur­chase smoke detec­tors, lithium bat­ter­ies and reflec­tive house signs.

These mate­ri­als will be given to res­i­dents who request them, free of charge. For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact the Fire Depart­ment at 419–468-5580. The ordi­nance passed as an emergency.

Ord. 2012–80 autho­rized the city man­ager to exe­cute a lease agree­ment with James Air Cargo, Inc. to rent a load­ing dock at the air­port. The com­pany will pay rent dur­ing the one year lease at $7,200. This ordi­nance also passed as an emergency.

Ord. 2012–81 autho­rized the city man­ager to adver­tise for bids for the Shu­maker Ditch Storm Sewer Sys­tem project. A rein­forced, con­crete storm sewer con­duit and related mate­ri­als will be installed east of Eas­ton Way to Sixth Avenue, and north across Hard­ing Way East. It will be funded through a SCIP loan from the Ohio Pub­lic Works Com­mis­sion ($813,770) and a local share of $350,000.

Coun­cil mem­ber Cathy George felt this project has been a “long time com­ing” because of the flood­ing and safety haz­ards in that area.

A cit­i­zen asked if the City would be look­ing into the tiling on Sixth Avenue as well. He said water does not drain prop­erly, which is why that area floods so easily.

Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Gail Baldinger instructed the city man­ager to have work­ers look at that tiling when plans for the project are final­ized. The ordi­nance passed as an emergency.

Ord. 2012–82 approved a street resur­fac­ing project using $130,000 in state grants and a local share of $200,311. Por­tions of the fol­low­ing will be resur­faced: Shady Lane, Hes­se­nauer Drive, Gold­en­rod Drive, Wild­flower Drive, Belle­flower Place, Meadow Lane and Church Street. It passed as an emergency.

Ord. 2012–83 autho­rized the city man­ager to apply for a SCIP loan in the amount of $729,140 under Round 27 of Issue 1 fund­ing from the OPWC. If the City is awarded the loan, the funds and a local match of $200,000 will be used for the South East Storm Sewer Phase 1 project. It passed as an emergency.

Ord. 2012–75 enacted a new chap­ter to the Cod­i­fied Ordi­nances for the reg­u­la­tion of com­put­er­ized sweep­stakes and inter­net cafe devices. The leg­is­la­tion came before Coun­cil at the Sept. 25 meet­ing but was tabled for the Oct. 9 meet­ing. Under the leg­is­la­tion, any busi­ness of this kind would need to pay sev­eral annual fees, which was objected by numer­ous cit­i­zens at the Sept. 25 Coun­cil meeting.

“I went there and appre­ci­ated the hos­pi­tal­ity,” City Man­ager Gene Toy said. “I just wanted to see for myself what it was, not lis­ten to rumors. It’s a nice operation.”

Coun­cil mem­ber Tom Fell­ner vis­ited the busi­ness as well and talked to the owner. After­ward, he did some fur­ther research. The leg­is­la­tion on the table was drafted based on an ordi­nance in Mace­do­nia, Ohio. “I called Mace­do­nia today and I found out they don’t have any inter­net cafes within their city lim­its,” Fell­ner stated.

He also called peo­ple in Fre­mont and North­wood Vil­lage, cities that do have inter­net cafes in oper­a­tion, and asked about their respec­tive reg­u­la­tions on the busi­nesses. In light of the new infor­ma­tion, Fell­ner moved to send the leg­is­la­tion back to the Laws and Ordi­nances Committee.

George, who serves as chair of the com­mit­tee, said she had no objec­tion to the motion, agree­ing that the fees were “enor­mous.” The motion to send back to com­mit­tee passed.

That evening was the sec­ond read­ing for Ord. 2012–76, to adopt a col­lec­tion pol­icy for delin­quent util­ity cus­tomers. The pol­icy explains the sched­ule of when notices will be sent out to those cus­tomers, when util­ity shut-offs will occur, and when billing infor­ma­tion will be sent to a third party col­lec­tion agency. (Full details of the pol­icy were explained in the Sept. 29 issue of the Inquirer.)

The ordi­nance passed as a sec­ond reading.

Coun­cil then moved into com­mit­tee busi­ness begin­ning with Finance. Wade, chair of the Finance Com­mit­tee, reviewed the last com­mit­tee meet­ing. She said they looked at util­ity billing for August, in which 1,037 shut off notices were sent and 128 were actu­ally shut-off.

Wade also went over the year-to-date finan­cial sum­mary with Finance Direc­tor Karen Walters.

Laws and Ordi­nances will have its next meet­ing on Nov. 13, after the City Coun­cil meet­ing. It will be revis­ing the leg­is­la­tion for inter­net cafe legislation.

Plan­ning, Zon­ing and Util­i­ties will have two pub­lic hear­ings on Nov. 27, dur­ing the Coun­cil meet­ing. One is in regards to tat­too par­lor loca­tions, the other is for the zon­ing set­back on res­i­den­tial hand­i­cap ramps.

The Parks and Recre­ation Com­mit­tee met imme­di­ately before the Coun­cil meet­ing. Chair Ken Bod­kins said he has not received any calls recently about the parks, but did get asked about the pos­si­bil­ity of an ice rink this win­ter. He was skep­ti­cal of the idea but will look into it.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Oct 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.