MINUTES OF MEETING OF
IRONTON CITY COUNCIL
April 23, 2020
6:00 p.m.

A regular meeting of Ironton City Council was held on Thursday, April 23, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. via the internet. Present was Vice Mayor Craig Harvey, who presided and members: Cleary, Haney, Hock, Kline, Pierce, Rist – seven.

A prayer was given by Rev. Rob Hale of First Nazarene Church. Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The Minutes of the Regular Meeting of April 9, 2020, and the Finance Committee Meeting of April 9, 2020, stood approved as submitted.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

Mr. Harvey said Dr. Dingus of LEDC was here tonight to give his quarterly update.

Dr. Dingus said he would first like to give an update on the new town place. He said it is moving well. They had originally planned to have it open in the fall of 2020, but at this point that has been pushed forward to late spring of 2021. He said it was a combination of the weather and slow downs. He said the whole hospitality market is suffering; even the Holiday Inn, which has been a very good facility, is losing money right now. He said hopefully that will change when people start traveling again. He said he had talked before about the idea of developing a Welcome Center within the Gateway Center. He said a big piece of that was dependent on the State’s Capital Bill, and it appears today that the Capital Bill will definitely be on hold and will probably be turned into a stimulus bill. He said if that be the case, they will go back and get funding for that, however, it is still up in the air as to what will happen. He said the legislature is not meeting in their regular sessions. He said they were all working on trying to put projects together so they can guarantee that if there is some good Federal or State stimulus money, they will have projects ready to go. He said they are trying to find ones that are within a 90-day start so if the opportunity comes, they can submit those. He said if anyone has any ideas of projects that are in the category, they would be pleased to work with the whole group—Ralph Kline, the Mayor, etc. He said regarding Vertiv, they shared last time that they were in the midst of constructing a spec building. He said Vertiv has signed a lease on that, and they have started occupying that as a ware house center for their current facility. He said it is not a long-term lease, but it will give them a chance to expand. He said the projection was 44 new employees; but with this expansion, that probably will be downgraded with this whole virus issue. He said next to the Vertiv building will be a roadway that they are going to put in through the Port Authority to service that building and go all the way through on the old Ironton Steel property lot, and they had the grant money identified to raise the former manufacturing facility. He said Mi-De-Con came through and looked at it, and yesterday they purchased it and closed on it to put in a pipe shop. They will be bringing 14 new high-paid employees. He said there are two other entities that are not in our City, but we hope to have a lot of our residents employed there—Harvest Grow at Hanging Rock and a brewing facility. He said they have recently got their problems worked out on their permits; and hopefully within a matter of a few weeks or few months, there should be about 30 people hired there. He said Pure Cycle is probably within a few weeks of moving forward with their project. He said they have their equity in place and they are working now on the bond. He said that will be a total of 75 employees—15 are already on, so 60 new employees there. He said it has been uplifting to see how businesses in town have worked with some of our banks to get some of the PPP program, and in turn, they think there is another funding coming out within a few days; and there already is quite a number who have put their applications in. He said he wondered if Council could give a letter of support. He said they are asking Congressman Johnson to help us through the SBA to get an allocation made for us to try to help our smallest businesses. He said the whole PPP program is extremely good for these businesses, where they are actually just needing $5,000 or $15,000 for 1, 2 and 3 employees; and it is really tough on them. So they are asking tonight if Council might consider this. He is not sure it has to be a resolution, and it could just be a mutually agreed upon thing to authorize the Mayor to pledge the City’s support for it. He said they have been pushing with Congressman Johnson to try to get SBA support for that as well. He said they are wanting to move forward, but they have to be extremely careful prior to this starting. He said they have actually looked as a way of trying to get the Ironton Profile in Japanese to entice foreign investment into the Ironton community. He said this virus has set that back a little bit, but they do need to stay vigilant on that. He said they have done all they could to help our small businesses and restaurants with social media. He said in the last few years they have offered training on social media and the advantage of it. He said he thinks we’re going to see our small businesses embrace social media and really take it as an important tool for their future; and we will be working as a training agent to help with that and trying to get many of them more involved in Yelp and some of the social tools that are really important to hospitality and restaurants. Mr. Cleary thanked Dr. Dingus for being here and said he has noticed on Third Street where the pipe line company has come in, and said it was amazing how much equipment is there. He said it looks like it’s going to be a big operation. He asked if anybody had heard how many Ironton employees they’re going to have there. Dr. Dingus said there was a huge number of people, but he doesn’t know the total. He said they have worked closely with their people in doing the asset side, and they have told them that it is their responsibility that every employee working there during their time there needs to be paying City income tax. He said he would recommend that someone within the City Finance Department be on top of this. He said this is quite an operation, and there are going to be huge numbers of people there. He said they had originally thought it was going to be there for a year and a half, but it may be there for a much longer time. Mr. Kline said he also wanted to thank Dr. Dingus for participating today and said he thinks their quarterly meetings have been of tremendous benefit. He said there was a resolution on the agenda tonight in support of requesting SBA disaster assistance for those small businesses and wanted to let Dr. Dingus know that. Dr. Dingus thanked him and said the small businesses are getting the worst. Mr. Harvey said this resolution they have in conjunction with the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce authorized to help with the processing of the PPP loans, if there are small businesses that need assistance, would he recommend that they call the LEDC or the Chamber of Commerce to get assistance with that, or is there another entity that he thinks would be best served helping them? Dr. Dingus said the fund would be coming from LEDC, and they would make a profit off of all the funds that would be opted to the people and they would use a local bank to do all the processing. He said the PPP program has been extremely good. Mr. Harvey said his other question is, how the pandemic might have affected the progress of Jewel City Seafood coming to town? Dr. Dingus said it has set the progress way back. He said the owner declares that it is ongoing. He said the owner has made a financial commitment, and Dr. Dingus thinks it will come and is still on board.

Mr. Harvey said they have an MS-4 update from Amanda Cleary. He said Amanda and Michael Williams are on that board. Ms. Cleary said she is pleased to be here this evening to provide Council with an update from our City’s municipal separate storm sewer system team, or MS-4 for short. She said this program is mandated by the EPA, and one of the requirements is that the team does seek Council involvement She said the first objective as a team is to identify the major areas of opportunity in the current MS-4 plan, and the team has chosen to focus their attention on marketability and community education, enforcement, and accountability and sustainability in green standards. The team feels that educating the community about the plan will impact the role we play in the MS-4 program and is vital to its success. She said the plan is to use the slogan, “Our city, my responsibility, their future”. She said their goal is to create visibility of the MS-4 program through a marketing campaign that utilizes community events and art to create awareness from our community. She said the next section is enforcement and accountability, and the team is optimistic that the new role of the environmental coordinator will ensure that this goal is met. She said she thinks Mayor Cramblit will be elaborating on that position a little bit more. She said finally, for now creating a sustainable city so that our future generations do not find themselves in a situation like the one we are currently facing. She said this objective focuses on ordinances that outline sustainable and eco-friendly building practices, and Michael Williams from E. L. Robinson plans to outline those either at a later meeting or maybe this evening. She said she is proud to be a small part of this team and thankful for the work being done to help ensure our City’s legacy is that of a sustainable future. Mr. Harvey asked Mr. Williams if he had anything to add about sustainability or will that come in the future. Mr. Williams said he did not—he thinks they were planning to do that in a separate meeting to give a more in-depth update on the actual construction practices and post-construction control of the board. Mayor Cramblit said to add on to what Michael was saying, they’re also waiting for their permit to be approved. He said ours expired in September and we have resubmitted and are waiting for approval. Mayor Cramblit said Mr. Haney was also on that MS-4 board, along with Brent Pyles, Susan Dooley, and Dennis Gumbert. He said he wanted to thank everyone for all the work put into it. He said they had made a lot of progress over the past couple months, and he thinks they have everything headed in the right direction. He said as of yesterday they have added to their team and hired an Environmental Compliance Coordinator.

Mr. Harvey said he wanted to pass on a question that he has been asked numerous times since the last meeting, and this is probably a question for the Mayor. They want to know the status of our Ironton Memorial Day Parade. Mayor Cramblit said he has been working with the Parade Committee over the past week. He said the parade will go on, but how it will work is still up in the air. He said he knows they will have something to keep it going so they will have their record to keep in place. He said they are monitoring things day to day and looking at what the gatherings are like, because he doesn’t know if it will be something you can go to or something you can watch on TV. He said they are brainstorming and monitoring it at the same time, so they should know more in the next couple weeks.

COMMUNICATIONS

None

REPORTS

None

ORDINANCES

ORDINANCE NO. 20-19 –       AAN ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING AND IMPLEMENTING A PROGRAM TO CHARGE MITIGATION RATES FOR THE DEPLOYMENT OF EMERGENCY AND NON-EMERGENCY SERVICES BY THE FIRE DEPARTMENT FOR SERVICES PROVIDED/RENDERED FOR THE CITY OF IRONTON was given third reading.

Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Ms. Rist, to adopt Ordinance No. 20-19. Motion passed unanimously. ADOPTED

RESOLUTIONS

RESOLUTION NO. 20-27 –    REQUIRING THE CITY FINANCE DIRECTOR TO PROVIDE THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL A 5-YEAR FINANCIAL FORECAST ON MAY 15TH AND OCTOBER 15TH EACH YEAR AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was read.

Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Ms. Rist, to pass Resolution No. 20-27. Motion passed unanimously. ADOPTED

RESOLUTION NO. 20-28 –  RESOLUTION REQUESTING AN SBA DISASTER ASSISTANCE SET ASIDE FOR SMALL AND MICRO BUSINESSES IN LAWRENCE COUNTY was read.

Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Ms. Rist, to pass Resolution No. 20-28. Motion passed unanimously. ADOPTED

MISCELLANEOUS

Mr. Haney said they had discussions about buying an alley grader, and they set aside some money when they were doing the budgeting for 2020 for that alley grader. He said he has had a few conversations with Upper Township Trustee, Randy Wise, and he is going to bring up at their Trustee meeting on Monday for the Trustees to contribute 10% of the total cost of the alley grader. He is going to make a motion Monday at the meeting, so they should know something soon about the extra funding for that grader.

Mr. Pierce said he provided to the Mayor and Mr. Elam some cost quotes on road graders from Equipment Trader and prices and contact information that they at their leisure could call these entities and see about purchasing, if they so desire. Mr. Pierce asked how the website was coming along, and to Michael and the Mayor, any news on the sewer plant report? Mr. Williams said they do not have the feasibility study completed yet. He had hoped to have it finished this week and have all their cost estimates in. He said he will find out where they are and give an update to the Mayor, which he can relay to Council. Mayor Cramblit said regarding the website, right now they are working through each individual department. They are working on getting documents for all of these departments, and Brad Bear is working on this to make the online presence as if it would save someone a trip from coming into the building, whereas they could find any type of permit or application of pay their bills, etc. on line. But he said to make this all searchable and make it work a lot better than their last one, because their last one was pdf uploaded; for example, whenever you upload a pdf to a website, if you Google search, you can’t find anything that is in that document. He said if it is all typed out into the website, whenever you do a Google search, you find the specific information because it will take you right to that link. He said right now Brad is working on overhauling all the departments, putting forms on there, and working through each department one by one to get an idea of what their page will look like. He said they hope to have that all done by the first week of June. Mr. Harvey said he was tagged on the email to the department heads about the website and wondered if there was anything he needed to do on behalf of Council for that website. Mayor Cramblit said that was for him to ask Council what else they want to see on their portion of their department. Mr. Harvey asked if there was a preview that Council could look at—he said that is for Council and not just for him—so if they want to look at it and see if there’s anything they like or dislike, want on there or don’t want on there. He said he would prefer them to take a look at the preview (of the Council page) if that is possible. Mayor Cramblit said the survey form that was sent to Mr. Harvey is to say what you would like to have on your page, and he said those need to be turned in as soon as possible because Brad is developing things right now. Mr. Harvey asked that Council members take a look at that between now and Monday and give him any feedback, and he will update that form. He said they have a Budget Workshop on Monday at 5 p.m. through our video conferencing.

Mr. Harvey said they had received the March 2020 financials and asked if anyone had looked at them. He said he would entertain a motion to receive those. Mr. Cleary moved, seconded by Mr. Kline, to receive, file and make a part of the minutes, the March 2020 financials. Mr. Kline said he had a question on the last ordinance that was passed with the advance from storm water and wondered where that was on the March statement. Mr. Elam said that advance in April would not show up on the March financial statement, it will show up on the April statement. Mr. Kline said the advance line is not on the March statement in the storm water revenues column. Mr. Elam said that may have been a hidden line and he will look into that further and let him know. Mr. Kline said also, the bike trails payout in unallocated general was more than what they had budgeted, but they haven’t received a reimbursement in the General Fund revenues. So he asked if they were due to get the full amount that was reimbursed or expended or just the budgeted amount. Mr. Elam said they should be getting the full amount. He said he thinks that was just finalized the first of this week, in talking to Mark Dickess. He said that has finally been completed, and they should be receiving the full amount that they have expended. Motion passed unanimously.

Mr. Kline moved, seconded by Mr. Cleary, to go into Executive Session to discuss contracts, with the Mayor, Solicitor and Finance Director; and also to discuss personnel, with the Mayor and Finance Director, with no action to follow. Motion passed unanimously.

Minutes were taken by Marta Leach, Clerk.

In attendance: JJohn Elam, Finance Director, and Mayor Cramblit.