Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
On October 13, 2026, the Columbus City Council met and approved the October 6 meeting minutes, a counseling services contract for police officers, temporary Dora permits, a roof replacement contract for Fire Station No. 3, four event applications, weekly right-of-way special use requests, and multiple claims. The council also received event announcements and an update on Parking Lot No. 10. All votes were unanimous.
Serve as chair. Um and Brenda Sullivan is up today. First up is approval of the October 6, 2026 meeting minutes. I'll move to approve the October 6th meeting minutes as presented. We have a motion and a second to approve the October meeting six meeting minutes as presented. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed same sign. Motion carries. And we have uh deputy chief Matt Martindale here to uh get a um signature authority for a contract for counseling services. Is that for us? Counseling service? Not as written, but I'm sure we could do some rewrites and include you all as well. Um but uh good morning, Mayor, good morning board. So um, yes, I'm here with our service agreement for counseling services for our officers. It's a program that we started last year um just as uh a step for help that an officer can initiate on their own when they feel stressed from the job and everything else. Um it's 100% confidential between them and the therapist um rather than if we were to let things progress to the point where we were having performance issues at work and everything like that, do an EAP referral. Um, you know, then there it's there's a little bit less confidentiality there. So we like this is kind of a diversion where officers can prevent themselves from getting that to that point in the first place. Um so over the past year, um, like I said, this is a renewal. Uh we have um had decent engagement um with the program. So CPD will cover up to six sessions per officer per year, and um over the course of 2026 so far. Uh we've had 23 sessions um scheduled through this program. So it's pretty normalized between like it's normalized. Yes, it's absolutely getting a lot better than uh you know, even when I started uh 12 years ago, and certainly um since uh Chief Norman or um Mike Richardson started their careers. Okay, that's awesome. So first of all, thank you. And I see Alan sitting there. This this is something we've worked hard for. Um to your point, it's more normalized. It's just part of the you know, offering um services for physical health, you know, mental health and emotional health. Um, something we offer um counseling services to all employees, um, but counseling um first responders is different. Um and so that's I think why you we have this contract. Yes, absolutely. The the provider we have is out of Bloomington, and she specializes in um public safety employees um because she's familiar with the unique stresses that come with this line of work. Is she a single practitioner? Or does she um Alison Key? Yes, yeah, she owns her own practice. Does she have other people? I mean, I just she has other clients, um, they're not first responsible.