The Powell City Council held a regular meeting on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at 7:30 PM in Council Chambers. The meeting included a proclamation, a fire department update, approval of resolutions and ordinances, and an extensive discussion on downtown parking policy. Council directed staff to develop a shared-use parking resolution and explore short-term valet parking solutions.
I will call the April 21st, 2026 City Council meeting to order. Elaine, will you please call the roll? Thank you. Carlisle Crawford is absent. Here. David Lester. Kurt Ramsey. Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of allegiance to the flag. The United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The first item on our agenda this evening is a proclamation recognizing child abuse prevention and sexual assault awareness month. And it's being presented to Daisha Darby and Tracy Miller of Helpline. I will go ahead and read it up here and then I'll meet you up front. How about that? All right. Recognizing April to be child abuse prevention and sexual assault awareness month. Whereas the City of Powell is committed to the safety, health, and well-being of all children, families, and residents. And whereas child abuse prevention and sexual assault awareness months are intended to draw attention to the fact that both child abuse and sexual violence are widespread and have public health implications for every community member of POW. And whereas bullying is a significant problem for youth in our community, and adults must stand up for the children in our lives who may experience a range of abuse, bullying, and violence. And whereas service providers in PAL strongly support the efforts of national, state, and local partners, as well as every citizen, to actively engage in public and private efforts to work together to better address child abuse, bullying and sexual violence. And whereas we must work together to educate our community about what can be done to prevent child abuse bullying and sexual assault and how to support survivors' needs for healing and justice. And whereas with leadership, dedication, and encouragement, there is a compelling evidence that we can be successful in reducing child abuse bullying and sexual violence in PAL through prevention education, increased awareness, and holding those who commit these acts responsible for their actions. Now, therefore, I, Heather Carr, by the virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of Powell, Ohio, on behalf of City Council, do here black hereby proclaim April to be child abuse prevention and sexual assault awareness month, and urge all residents to recognize the importance of working together to create a safe and nurturing community for all these ones. Thank you. Appreciate you thank you. Good evening. Oh look at that. So if you couldn't tell, one of the things that we did in the last quarter was we went through some AI training. So my little uh picture here is a lot more a lot different than it used to be. Um just uh some some quick updates. Obviously, uh our runs are up nine hundred and twenty-three total calls for the first quarter, it's up eleven percent. Uh the the biggest thing out of that for me was the uh response time decrease. So last year our response time average was four minutes and fifty-three seconds in the first quarter of this year, we're down to four sixteen, so that's good. I think a lot of it has to do with the new station and not having to slide down the pole or go down the stairs and all that, so it's all finally starting to catch up. And then shortly, one of the things I have on here is uh at the bottom was the station 322 remodel. So starting, I don't know if they're starting tomorrow, but they're being delivered tomorrow. We're getting new bay doors. One of the things when we went through the accreditation process that the committee said was our response times out of our sawmill station were were a little slower, and a lot of that had to do with the glass bay doors we had because they're so slow they can only go up so fast. So the Board of Trustees approved us to replace those, and we're getting the four fold doors, like you see, like in inner cities and stuff, they open in 12 seconds versus a minute and 10 seconds. So that'll be that'll be a heck of an improvement. Um the only other thing that I had on there, this question that everybody asks us all the time is what's the busiest day? Thursday again. Still our busiest day. I have I don't know why. Um this says Friday, but I think that I think something's a little off there, but Thursdays, more auto accidents, be careful on Thursdays when you're driving around. I have no idea why. Nature of the beast.