MINUTES OF MEETING OF
IRONTON CITY COUNCIL
August 27, 2020
6:00 p.m.

A regular meeting of Ironton City Council was held on Thursday, August 13, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. via video conference.  Present was Vice Mayor Craig Harvey, who presided and members:  Cleary, Haney, Hock, Kline, Pierce, Rist – seven.

There was a moment of silent prayer, and then the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The Minutes of the Finance Meeting of August 13, 2020, the Public Utilities Committee Meeting of August 13, 2020, the Regular Meeting of August 13, 2020, stood approved as submitted.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

Mike Pierce said at the last couple of Council meetings, they had talked about the pavilion at the Farmer’s Market, and the Mayor said he was going to be in discussions, and he asked the Mayor if he had done that yet.  Mayor Cramblit said he talked to Sam Heighton last Friday, and they’re working things out on the bathroom situation.  He said as far as the fans, he hasn’t yet.

COMMUNICATIONS

REPORTS –  None

ORDINANCES

ORDINANCE NO. 20-56 –         REQUIRING COMPETITIVE BIDDING AND ESTIMATES FOR PURCHASES AND CONTRACTS AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given first reading.

Mr. Haney moved, seconded by Mr. Kline, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance No. 20-56 second and third reading by title only.  Ayes:  Haney, Harvey, Hock, Kline, Pierce – five.

Nays:  Cleary, Rist – two

ORDINANCE NO. 20-57 –         AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO BID A PROJECT TO PURCHASE REMOTE DISCONNECT METERS TO UPGRADE FROM THE CURRENT MANUAL METERS AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given first reading.

Mr. Harvey said this ordinance was given a favorable recommendation in Finance Committee this evening.  Mr. Kline moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to suspend the rules and give Ordinance No. 20-57 second and third reading by title only.  Mr. Harvey asked Mack Anderson if they can move forward with authorizing the bid without proceeding with Ordinance No. 20-56 first, requiring the competitive bidding?  Mr. Anderson was trying to connect.  Mr. Haney said the current 20-57 is time sensitive, as he recalls Mr. Kline saying.  He said they talked about this quite a few times in a couple of meetings about the meters, and Ordinance 20-57 has to be ready to go once those funds are available.  Mr. Harvey said in his non-legal opinion would be that it wouldn’t be prudent, but that is why he asked Mack.  Mr. Cleary said he would think that they could go ahead and give it readings because the Mayor can go out to bid any time he wants to.  He said all that is doing is getting the bids in so he can see how much he is going to spend.  Mr. Kline said he didn’t think 20-56 and 20-57 are directly related.  He said 20-56 changes the required bid amount from $25,000 to what is stated in the ORC.  He said 20-57 is just authorizing the Mayor to bid to that limit of up to $800,000.  Mr. Harvey said he just wanted to be prudent that they don’t put the cart before the horse.  Motion to suspend the rules was passed unanimously, and Ordinance No 20-57 was given second and third reading.  Mr. Haney moved, seconded by Mr. Kline, to adopt Ordinance No. 20-57.  Mr. Cleary said one of the things about being around for a while is that he remembers when they spent $1 million to put the new meters in that are there now.  He said he is going to support this because he thinks it is going to be good to have it only because of the fact that somebody else is paying for it.  It is nothing they are going to have to finance.  Mr. Harvey said the intent of it was to have a “dump zone” so to speak of the COVID CARES money in case they were not able to maximize the amount that was spent to the full extent, that they had a contingency plan to dump that money into some project, and that was this.  Mr. Cleary said they talked previously that it was $300,000, and now it is up to $800,000—is there anything further to make it happen?  Mr. Harvey said the Ohio Municipal League released a statement saying that there were additional funds available.  He said their disbursement of that is yet to be determined, but he believes that is why.  He asked Mr. Kline if that was correct.  Mr. Kline said yes, they are releasing $175,000 right now in CARES Act money with the same time line for spending as the last round of CARES, which is a very tight window.  He said there is still approximately $600,000 in local government dollars to release with that, and if it follows the same time line as the current money has gone, it would be extremely hard to use all of that amount of money to pay for COVID over time and PPE.  He said we decided to use this CARES Act money for remote disconnect meters and keep our citizens and employees safe while improving our infrastructure.  Mr. Elam said he had sent an email and he doesn’t know if he sent it to all Councilmembers or just to Mr. Kline, but the girl who is over the CARES funding had responded and said yes, this would be an allowable cost.  Motion to adopt Ordinance No. 20-57 passed unanimously.  ADOPTED

 

ORDINANCE NO. 20-58 –         ESTABLISHING A HOTEL/MOTEL EXCISE TAX PURSUANT TO ORC 5739.08(A) was given first reading.

Mr. Haney moved to amend Ordinance No. 20-58.  In Section 3, it states “that the funds collected from said tax shall be placed in the City’s General Fund”.  He said he would like to amend that to state that the funds will be placed in Fund 30, the Community Development and Investment Fund.  Mr. Hock seconded the motion.  Motion to amend passed unanimously.

ORDINANCE NO. 20-55 –         AN ORDINANCE PERMITTING THE USE OF UTILITY TERRAIN VEHICLES AND ESTABLISHING CHAPTER 477.04, 477.05, 477.06 AND 477.07 OF THE CODIFIED ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF IRONTON, OHIO AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY was given second reading.

Mr. Kline said he has seen people riding these already in the streets, and they are already licensed and registered with the BMV.  He asked if this ordinance was even necessary or is that something they want to do extra with the City as far as licensing.  He said he was confused.  Mr. Haney said he would like to see some of the inspection fee going to the Police Department.  So he would say yes, they need to be inspected if someone is going to ride a UTV in town.  He said they may have to come up with a sticker or something of that nature to verify that they have been inspected by the City.  He said also, he doesn’t know if they ever said for sure the percentage that the Police Department would get, or if they would get all of it, or where the funds would actually go.  Mr. Harvey said they discussed that at the last meeting.  He said he would like to ask Mr. Anderson because he said he doesn’t know that utility terrain vehicles in their current state are street legal.  He doesn’t know how or where they are getting a license plate, but he doesn’t believe in their current state that they are legal in our City.  That being said, they would need special legislation like golf carts, which is why this legislation is before us.  He said the last time they discussed this, he wanted to amend this to incentivize the Police to do the inspections, but also to help with the enforcement; because Nate brought up the point that we’re passing legislation about golf carts, and we see people riding around town on them without license plates anyway.  And the same thing with the UTV’s, they are already riding them in our streets, and we don’t have any special legislation that has passed to allow that.  He said after they hear from Mack, he would like to amend that to divert those funds strictly to Fund 26, the Police Equipment Replacement Fund.  Mr. Haney said he would second that motion.  Mr. Pierce said just as a matter of clarity and language, on the second page of this in Section B, the language has been for utility terrain vehicles, and suddenly there is the insertion of golf cart, and then back to utility terrain vehicles.  He said he thinks that is just an error of language in the ordinance that probably needs corrected.  Mack Anderson came on and said that he thinks State law prohibits the use of those on public roads.  He said they could ask Pam, but he believes that currently the ORC prohibits driving these type vehicles on public roads.  Mr. Haney said even if they are up to code with turn signals, lights, etc.?  Mack Anderson said yes, they could be cited for driving them on city streets under State law.  Mr. Harvey asked Chief Wagner what she thought.  Chief Wagner said she could only hear part of Mack’s conversation.  She said she has no idea where people are getting these inspected and getting license plates.  She said she had a complaint about it the other day, and they tried to find the vehicle to get some answers on this, but they were unable to locate it.  As far as it being against State law, as far as she knows, yes, it is.  She said she isn’t sure if City ordinance can fix that.  She is not opposed to it, but it is not one of those “ride or die” situations either for her.  Mr. Harvey said it is just like the golf cart legislation.  They are prohibited on public roads by State law.  He said the legislation mimics that, which Mike pointed out, “golf cart” was left in there accidentally somewhere; but it mimics that to allow that with the purpose of us capturing their inspection fee.  He said he also heard Chief Wagner specifically talk about how difficult it is for them; and with that in mind, he thinks they should divert that inspection fee to the Police Equipment Replacement Fund.  Chief Wagner said we would definitely welcome any additional funds on anything, of course.  She said they inspect the golf carts Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. She said it is a manpower issue.  They try to enforce everything they can.  They would welcome any additional funding, and they will do their part to uphold any ordinance that Council should pass.  Mr. Harvey said they have got away from the motion to amend to divert this, and he doesn’t believe in the language of the ordinance itself it talks about any specific fund.  He said that would be Section B.  He said it talks about the fee, but it doesn’t specifically mention a fund.  Mr. Harvey moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to amend the language in Section B (of Ordinance No 20-55) to add to the language the fee that is paid in the amount of $20.00 to the City of Ironton through the City Police Department be diverted to Fund 26; and Mr. Pierce mentioned also in Section B, at the end of the ordinance, it says the rear of the golf cart instead of the rear of the utility terrain vehicle.  He wants to make those two amendments.

Motion passed unanimously.

Mr. Haney asked Chief Wagner how she recognizes a registered golf cart in the first place, because he was thinking they would need some kind of special sticker or something that they could display so we would know if it was legit or not.  Chief Wagner said as far as she knows and to the best of her knowledge, they are the only entity in the County that inspects them.  However, there have been several villages that have either attempted to pass or are currently trying to pass that same kind of legislation.  She said it is just like a vehicle as the ordinance reads, if it is licensed and insured, if they inspect it, for example, in Coal Grove, and they have all their proper paperwork and a valid license and insurance, then they are street legal still in the City of Ironton.  Mr. Haney asked, so they wouldn’t need to up the inspection fee to cover the cost of a special plate or sticker or anything?  Chief Wagner said she didn’t think so because if they were inspected someplace else.  To her knowledge, she doesn’t know where that is, however, she does know that several villages have attempted or are trying to attempt the golf cart legislation like we have.  She said she doesn’t know if the police departments in the villages are doing inspections or not, but at one point they were the only one in the County who done them.  Mr. Haney said the Police Department does the inspection, gives them a sheet and they take it to BMV?  Is that how it works?  Chief Wagner said yes, they have a checklist of everything that shows that the vehicle is in compliance with what the City ordinance is.  She said that list is checked off, they receive a copy and we keep a copy for our files, and then they get a certificate that says it passed inspection.  They take it to the Courthouse, the Courthouse issues them whatever documents they need to be issued, then they go to the BMV and are issued a license plate.  Mr. Haney thanked her for clarification on that.  Mr. Kline said he would like to have some clarification and request an opinion from Mack.  He said he has seen them already licensed and street legal, if the BMV does that.  He said Mack said they are not street legal now or not capable of being driven on roads, but he would like an opinion on whether that process is already happening.  He said he would like to know that before the 3rd reading at the next meeting.  Mr. Pierce said he suspects that some people are simply putting a left-over car license plate on the UTV’s, trying to pull the wool over the Police’s eyes.

MISCELLANEOUS

Mayor Cramblit said he would like to request an Executive Session with Council, Solicitor and Mark Dickess to discuss personnel, with no action to follow.

Mr. Kline said they talked to Joe from ABM last night, and he forwarded references from like cities.  He said he wondered if the Mayor or someone from his staff could reach out to those contacts just to verify their performance.  The Mayor said he would.  Mr. Kline also asked Mr. Harvey if they could examine and see if there would be a possibility that they could resume some sort of in-person Council meetings?  Mr. Harvey said they have looked at this room and logistically they could have Council and the Solicitor and the Clerk meet and still recognize social distancing, but the problem is all of the Department Heads, if they so chose or were asked to attend, plus a Sargent at Arms, they would have a really difficult time facilitating that; and then in addition to that, audience participation would have to be none.  And if they had audience participation at zero, they would have the media; and right now the easiest way to facilitate the media is through the current platform that they are doing.  He said he doesn’t know how the current set-up they have in Council Chambers without someone here to operate a camera and/or us having a laptop sitting in front of us and broadcasting that all through one monitor.  He said he is not saying that it is an impossibility and he is not opposed to doing it, because they just had that closing meeting with the Auditors, and he, John and Mike met with the Auditors, and they were talking about how it was nice to meet in person.  He said he doesn’t disagree, it’s just figuring out the logistics to it and still being transparent to their community.  Mr. Kline said he would appreciate it if they could take a look at that.

Mr. Pierce said he wanted to ask how the Orchard Street pump station is coming along.  Mr. Gumbert said he has the purchase orders and has put in a request to purchase the pump and the repairs to the pump that failed.  He said the electrical component that he talked about is already ready to be installed with the pump.  He said whichever one they get back first they will install that one in place of the failed unit.  He said they also have a 6” back-up pump sitting down there in case of a dire emergency.

Mr. Harvey said Mr. Elam sent him a message that he distributed the July 2020 financials to everyone’s email, and also there is a hard copy laying on everyone’s desks in Council Chambers if you don’t want to print those.  Mr. Haney moved, seconded by Mr. Kline, to receive, file and make a part of the minutes the July 2020 financials.  Motion passed unanimously.

Mr. Kline moved, seconded by Mr. Haney, to go into Executive Session to discuss personnel with the Mayor, Solicitor and Mark Dickess.  Motion passed unanimously.

Minutes were taken by Marta Leach, Clerk.

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