MINUTES OF MEETING OF
IRONTON CITY COUNCIL
November 12, 2020
6:00 p.m.
A regular meeting of Ironton City Council was held on Thursday, November 12, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. via video conference. Present was Vice Mayor Craig Harvey, who presided and members: Cleary, Haney, Hock, Kline, Pierce – six. Mr. Harvey said Ms. Rist has been in contact with Council and has an excused absence this evening.
All persons stood for a prayer given by Rev. Margaret Tyson of Quinn Chapel Church, and then the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The Minutes of the Finance Committee of October 22, 2020, the Regular Meeting of October 22, 2020, and the Special Meeting of October 29, 2020, stood approved as submitted.
Mr. Harvey said Mr. Haney referenced a letter from Bobby Neiman at the last meeting, and he discovered it on his desk this evening; so it didn’t get included in tonight’s agenda under Communications. He will get this letter to the Clerk for the next meeting’s agenda.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
Mr. Harvey said the Lawrence County Health Commissioner will join the meeting shortly.
COMMUNICATIONS – None
REPORTS – None
ORDINANCES
ORDINANCE NO. 20-71 – AMENDING THE PERMANENT BUDGET FOR THE CITY OF IRONTON, STATE OF OHIO, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 2020 AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given first reading.
Mr. Cleary mentioned that this ordinance was given a favorable recommendation in Finance tonight. Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Mr. Pierce, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance No. 20-71 second and third reading by title only. Motion passed unanimously and Ordinance No. 20-71 was given second and third reading. Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Mr. Pierce, to adopt Ordinance No. 20-71. Motion passed unanimously. ADOPTED
ORDINANCE NO. 20-70 – AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF IRONTON A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE, OHIO LABOR COUNCIL, INC. AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given first reading.
Mr. Cleary said Ordinance No. 20-70 was also given a favorable recommendation in Finance this evening. Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Mr. Pierce, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance No. 20-70 second and third reading by title only. Motion passed unanimously and Ordinance No. 20-70 was given second and third reading. Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to adopt Ordinance No. 20-70. Motion passed unanimously. ADOPTED
ORDINANCE NO. 20-67 – AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF IRONTON A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IRONTON AND THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given second reading.
Mr. Cleary said this ordinance was also given a favorable recommendation in Finance. Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Mr. Pierce, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance No. 20-67 third reading by title only. Motion passed unanimously and Ordinance No. 20-67 was given third reading. Mr. Haney moved, seconded by Mr. Pierce, to adopt Ordinance No. 20-67. Mr. Haney said from what he understands, the Fire and Police contracts are 3-year contracts; he wanted to say how appreciative he is. He said the representatives from the Fire Department union and the Police union, City Solicitors and the Mayor were able to come together and agreed on
3-year contracts. He found out that in the past a lot of them were 1-year contracts, and he thinks that frees up a lot of time for the Mayor and Solicitors to do their job, as well as the Police and Fire. Mr. Harvey said he agrees with Mr. Haney. Motion passed unanimously. ADOPTED
RESOLUTIONS – None
MISCELLANEOUS
Mr. Harvey said the Lawrence County Health Commissioner, Georgia Dillon, has now joined the meeting, along with Debbie Fisher. Ms. Dillon said they were asked to discuss some of the problems and some of the numbers they are seeing. She said Ohio has 7,100 cases and that is a high record for Ohio. She said King’s Daughters and St. Mary’s are reaching really high numbers daily. She said they have 1,000 people right now in contract tracing, and they were told by the Ohio Department of Health that for a county their size, they are doing a lot of work to stop the spread. But they cannot do it without the citizens. She said they want to encourage businesses, and she thinks it is going to be a mandate shortly, to require their employees to wear masks, and that will help a lot. She said they need people to keep the 6-foot distance, wear their masks and wash their hands to stop the spread. She said no groups over 10 should gather, and that is still an order and has been an order for a long time. She said is spreading rapidly through entire families, and that makes it difficult because everyone feels safe with their family and friends. Debbie Fisher said, as far as the Governor’s order, they don’t have anything in writing yet. She said it sounds like the Governor has a task force made up of agents from the Bureau of Workers Comp, who will look at businesses that are not complying with the mask mandate. She said the first offense will be a warning, and the second offense will likely end with the business closing for 24 hours. She said they are hoping this doesn’t happen and that the business owners will start mandating mask wearing in their businesses. Mr. Kline asked if there were any updates from the Ohio Legislature as far as extension of virtual meetings for local legislative bodies? He said he knows the expiration on that was December 1st. Mr. Harvey told him it is December 31st as of right now—he got some clarification from Brigham on that this week. Mr. Cleary asked if the Health Department had any of the mask signs that businesses can get for their front doors? Ms. Dillon said they could make them or they could pay for some if that’s what they need to do. She said they had some advertising money. She said they would look into it. Mr. Cleary said that is fine—he just thought they may have some. Mr. Haney thanked Ms. Dillon to take time to answer their questions. He said one of the things that he has been asked is about the purple level. He said he knows they are currently on red. He said they talked about this a few months back, but because of the hospital situation in Lawrence County, is that still impossible for Lawrence County to get to purple? Ms. Dillon said they load all their data when their patients are admitted to hospitals. She said they may not reach 7 of the criteria, but they could certainly reach 6 of them if they have more people hospitalized. Mr. Kline said a lot of the statistics he has seen have just been from the Lawrence County Health Department, but he asked if she had any statistics that are specific to Ironton? Is she seeing more numbers in the Ironton area versus other parts of the County as far as the number of cases or deaths. Ms. Dillon said the ODH are getting ready to release all of their cases by zip codes. She said there are a lot in Ironton—and it is now getting prevalent in the whole community. Mr. Harvey said he knows from years of working in emergency services that zip codes could be misleading as far as pertaining specifically to the City. He said he thinks Mr. Kline is asking is there any way for them to delineate specifically their city population and the amount of community spread within the city. Ms. Dillon said if you have a 45638 zip code, that is how it is going to be put in. Mr. Hock said he wanted to thank Ms. Dillon and Ms. Fisher for joining Council tonight. He said he invited them so Council could hear from health professionals, and he wanted to echo some of the things that Mike DeWine said to Ohioans last night. He said there is a task force with the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation who will be enforcing a state-wide mandate, but he wanted to remind everyone that Ironton City Council passed Ordinance No. 20-48 on July 16, so they have a city-wide mandate, too. He said state-wide and city-wide there is really no excuse for someone to not be wearing a mask. He said there are ways of preventing the spread and that is through social distancing, washing your hands and wearing a mask. He said it sounds like there may be a vaccine on the way, and that is something to look forward, but he thinks everyone needs to double down and take this seriously because it is getting bad right now. He said one of the most troubling things to him is they may look at this situation on a state-wide level and decide to shut down businesses again, and he knows that for many Ironton businesses that is not great news. He said it was tough enough the first time, and he thinks it is going to be devastating if they have to go through that again. He said he encourages anyone tuning into this to just abide by these rules and try to fight this pandemic. He said that is all we can do right now until they have a vaccine.
Mr. Harvey said he wanted to thank the Health Department for joining them. He said one other aspect that he sees in his personal and professional life is something that people often do not consider, and that is health care professionals that are trying to take care of people who are sick also get sick and quarantined by being around people who have tested positive or live with people who have tested positive. So if there is continued spread, and they are not vigilant about it, then the people who take care of you when you are sick are not going to be available to take care of you; because if we are in quarantine, whether we are healthy or sick, we can’t go to work. He said from his own standpoint, seeing it at the facility he works in and knowing it has impacted some of the people here within our City and our City government and the places where he works, it is both personal and professional that we do our due diligence and that people be vigilant, because they are all starting to see somebody that we know and love impacted by that. He thanked Mr. Hock for inviting the Health Department tonight.
Mr. Haney said he thinks another Councilmember had somebody contact him about some of the zoning issues that they had with possible businesses moving into residential districts. He said he just wanted to follow up so he could get back with some of the people he has contacted and maybe get some answer for other Councilmembers. Mr. Harvey asked the Mayor if Susan Dooley had reached out to any of those people that Chris asked about. Mayor Cramblit said he hasn’t received the letter that was mentioned earlier with all the specific details on it. But he said they would be following up, and Susan has been looking into that area; and he will get with her and see where they are with that. Mr. Kline said he wanted to take a minute to thank the residents who voted to pass their flood levy and to renew that this last time on the November ballot. He said that is a very important piece to funding our floodwall and the maintenance of that. He said in hindsight he should have possibly addressed some of the concerns that were asked about that. He said the primary concern was, why are we paying property tax for flood and then we are paying a $5 flood fee? He said he wanted to set that straight as far as where that money goes just for clarification. He said he should have done it publicly before the election. He said the floodwall levy that was passed is used for maintaining the floodwall, including cutting grass and putting up the floodwalls when necessary; and that is a big part of us as residents not having to pay flood insurance. He said the return on that is huge. He said approximately two years the Council at that time decided to pass a $5 flood fee with the intentions of having flood improvements and a flood improvement plan, including improvements to flood pumps, which is in the process right now. So that money is put just in flood improvements and is always spent on capital expenditures with flood. He said the purpose of that is to stay in good standing with the Army Corps of Engineers so we can still take advantage of not having to have that flood insurance. He said overall he just wanted to thank the residents who voted for that. He said if we had 5,000 homes and businesses that would have to purchase flood insurance, it would be quite substantial. Mr. Haney said he totally agrees with Mr. Kline.
Mr. Harvey said to remember that the next scheduled Thursday meeting would have been on Thanksgiving, and by ordinance they move their meeting to the Monday prior to Thanksgiving, so their next regularly scheduled Ironton City Council meeting is on November 23rd.
Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to adjourn. Motion passed unanimously.
Minutes were taken by Marta Leach, Clerk.
In attendance: John Elam, Finance Director, Mayor Cramblit