Here.

Gaddis.

Here.

Hobbs.

Jones.

Come Ives.

Here.

Quorum present.

Items one through seven are from the Department of Public Utilities.

Oh, President Williams.

Thank you.

I just wanted to um introduce the mayor.

We're gonna move the mayor's um legislation up top.

Clerk, can you please um adjust that and tell us the what number is that, Clerk?

Is it number 20 on our agenda?

Yeah, it's number 20 on our agenda.

So we're gonna move that up so the mayor can present on this piece of legislation.

I just wanted to let you know also there's a new version that was put in.

It is in your folders.

Thank you.

Uh I'll turn this over to Mayor Kapsakavich.

Um, you can have the floor.

All right, thank you very much.

Uh President Williams and uh Chair Cramer.

The administration is here today to talk about uh an ordinance uh that is uh that at least begins the conversation on how we can uh make our large gatherings a place where individuals can enjoy themselves and have fun, uh, but also be safe.

Uh it is the first uh response uh to what happened at the old West End recently, but it does not have to be the only response.

I felt it was important to begin the conversation.

And at the table here, we have John Madigan from the law department, uh Chief Carl, the safety director, Austin Mack from my office, to sort of talk about the logistics of what this ordinance does.

But I just wanted to sort of give an overview, maybe a view from 10,000 feet about some of our thinking.

Um we felt, first of all, this is not necessarily a uh finished product.

Uh it to think about this uh maybe the way you would think about a term paper in college.

Uh let's uh not think about this as uh the final paper that we're turning into the professor, but maybe rather as the first draft.

Um it is our hope that city council can work with us to turn this first draft into a second draft, third draft, fourth draft, and to the point where we get the final paper that we can turn into the professor.

We felt we understand City Council's legislative schedule and we respect City Council's legislative schedule.

While all public gatherings in Toledo are important, we did feel and do feel that there is unique importance to thinking about the Fourth of July gathering in Promenade Park, where we are I'm certain we're gonna have the largest firework show we've ever had in the history of the city of Toledo as we celebrate the 250th birthday of America.

Uh Austin has helped uh raise the private funding necessary to make that the case.

I know how much money we typically raise for fireworks.

We have exceeded that uh by a great margin, so we're gonna have the best fireworks we've ever had, which means we're gonna have a lot of people down there.

We will have tens of thousands of people there, and we want to make sure that if we believe new policies and processes and procedures are necessary to safeguard um the citizens for that event.

We knew we had to get this legislation in the packet last Friday.

So I guess if we sort of rush to get something before you, it was with an eye toward getting something passed by 4th of July.

I can understand.

I'm not I'm happy to very briefly to the extent I can talk through what this does.

I can understand that city council is gonna have opinions and might want to influence it and add here and delete there, and we absolutely welcome that.

Let's do that in real time.

I don't know if maybe a working group offline uh could be useful toward that effort.

Uh we're willing to block out ours, even this week if we want to do that difficult work.

I know sometimes with the legislation like this, there's a temptation to maybe have a hearing, put it in committee.

I'm all for that.

I'm just a little I just want you to know at the beginning that the purpose of doing this now is to get it on the books by 4th of July, and I just worry a little bit about having this stuck in a committee as a result.

So council and this wisdom can do what it wants, but we'd love to move this to the extent we can.

So what is this?

First of all, um, I think we should be heartened uh by the fact that other cities are uh dealing with some of the issues we are, and we are this ordinance is not a reinvention of the wheel.

In fact, this ordinance pulls from policies that are already on the books in places like Detroit, Fort Wayne, Atlanta, is it Philadelphia or Washington, Washington, other cities are seeing some of the things that we are seeing, um, and the ideas that are in this ordinance have been called together from other cities.

While the events at the Old West End are certainly the most traumatic and highest profile events that this community has endured, I do think that the Old West End happened at a time when there were some other events at OLPH, some of these teen takeover events that all raise questions about young people, and whether our officers have the tools necessary to protect safety in an environment where all of a sudden you blink your eye and there are a hundred, 14-year-olds that have descended upon uh a situation, and it is with that backdrop that some of this has been inspired.

It is true that this is an attempt to hold uh parents accountable for the actions of the young people in their lives.

That is true.

That is one of the things that I heard as a result of what happened at Old West End, a desire for holding parents accountable, parental accountability, parental responsibility that probably more than anything else, that was a theme that came through to my phone and my email and my texts and the letters I've gotten as a result, and this certainly achieves that.

Uh this um this draft contemplates uh uh fines for parents whose young people uh violate rules, and uh all the way up to even criminal penalties.

Uh so this there is a real aspect of parental accountability contemplated in this ordinance.

However, even despite saying all that, I would like to emphasize that in our judgment, this is more about prevention than punishment.

This is more about prevention than the punishment might get the headlines, but this is really about prevention.

This is about preventing a bad thing from happening before it happens.

This is about setting expectations at a large scale event.

Expectations that our young people should have, expectations that grown-ups would have about how their young people are behaving, to establish some rules and some guidelines, hopefully to inspire some conversations before there is a gathering at a large-scale event.

We want to prevent the bad thing from happening before it happens.

Right now, given what is on our books, if you have an event where let's make let's say it's a teen takeover, where you snap your fingers and all of a sudden 150 14-year-olds have descended upon a location.

Our police don't have the ability to do anything other than to maybe babysit for a while until a fight breaks out or twiddle their thumbs until something bad happens.

What this does is give them a tool, at least it is a tool that could allow them to intervene before the bad thing happens.

It allows for the creation of what we are calling special event safety zones.

Other cities apply these safety safety zones citywide.

They uh provide them at all times.

We felt that what was most responsible is to be as targeted as possible because there are concerns about due process and fairness and wanting to make sure kids have positive opportunities, get all that.

So instead of approaching this with a blunt instrument, to try to be targeted and allow for the creation of zones in specific cases, let's say like the Fourth of July, but even at that 4th of July, even during certain hours, specific hours within the specific events that can be created in a very specified targeted environment to give our officers there the opportunity to enforce some rules that could prevent something bad from happening before it happens.

That's the intent here.

Is this legislation perfect?

Probably not.

Would it could it benefit from the input of city council?

Certainly.

We look to this as the beginning of a conversation and just hope that the conversation can take place in an environment to allow us to get something on the books before the Fourth of July.

Um this isn't gonna address every bad thing that could happen.

One of my takeaways from the old West End is that many of the things that we imagine could have helped us on that day really wouldn't have helped us.

I've had a lot of talk about curfews.

We need curve.

It might happen at 5 30 in the afternoon.

There's no curfew that, well, we need to have bag checks and uh entry points and you know that everyone should be wanted or there should be a bag check.

The events that took place at the old West End all began with a bag check.

You know, so uh to some extent we have to realize that we can create the best series of policies and procedures imaginable.

Sometimes bad things are still gonna happen, uh, but that doesn't mean that we should do nothing, and that doesn't mean that this tool couldn't be helpful in some cases.

So we think this is surgical, targeted, would apply only in certain cases and certain times, but would provide a tool that our police officers don't have to use, but they could use in a way that again emphasizes prevention as opposed to punishment, even though there are also parental punishments contemplated here as well.

So I know I spoke too long and probably more than I should have.

I just wanted to sort of outline the view from 10,000 feet.

Gentleman here in front of me can handle more of the logistics.

I just appreciate the opportunity for us to have put this on your agenda as quickly as we did and hope that instead of it going to some committee for months on end.

If there is a desire uh to tweak this, I'm wondering if there's a way we can do it with some speed so we can get it on the books before tens of thousands of Toledo's decoled ones descend upon Promenade Park for a gathering.

So that is all I have, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

President Williams, thank you so much.

Um, seeing as I'm the one to say whether it goes to committee or if we suspend it or not.

Um, uh I um and I definitely charge every member on council to read through this, take um questions back and make sure we look through it because there's a few items on here that I actually have some concerns with because the designated areas need to be more specific for me.

That's one of the issues that I had.

I'm okay with doing SEP if we can get some stuff in here because I have a few amendments that I want to do because I don't want to target a groups uh and and before uh what happened at the LSD happened, we had uh significant teen takeovers.

Um, but I also know that a lot of events were not um including a certain age group uh in the planning either.

Um, so I uh agree that we should have something in place so that we can mitigate the situations that happen.

Um but what concerns me is even when we had things in place, these people were 18 years old that did a shooting too.

So um I am willing to do SEP for this clerk and um do some amendments um moving forward and I hope my colleagues take it on as well because we do need to have something on the books to help with you know the Fourth of July, but is this just for the Fourth of July?

I don't want other events to be the target of um excluding certain groups.

Thank you.

Councilman Martinez, thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, thank you so much for presenting this.

This is definitely super helpful.

Um, so district two has seemed to have the uh the bulk of these team takeovers and the OLPH festival that happened, and then of course we had that uh uh that uh teen dance party at the hall that that young woman died at, right?

Out and so that's all happened in district two within like the last three months.

So I've already been making notes, um, and certainly you'll have my amendments here shortly.

Uh, but I am super supportive of this.

Um I I think we do need to do something, um, but also I'm wondering if this is an opportunity instead of licensing halls to include halls or banquet halls and this type, so it's more public private, and also what I'm seeing in some of our parks is um late night gatherings uh and drinking and alcohol and stuff like that.

So um you'll have my um suggestions here shortly, and I am supportive of this.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Thank you.

I do have some questions on this, so I would be happy to sit down and work.

I I curious if there's going to be signage, how we're going to notify the targeted audience, which are our kids.

Um I don't know if you have any of that worked out now or if.

Yeah, I think for the 4th of July specifically, signage in the park would be one thing, but beyond that, just I mean, the media attention we get from this today on our website, we're doing a press conference hopefully after this passes, just to push it as fast as we can in the short time period.

Do you think that will target teenagers?

Do you think teenagers are watching the news?

That's you know, that we're gonna need everyone's help to get the get the word out.

Yeah, I just think that that it might be behoove us to really think about how we're going to reach that audience.

Um maybe it's Mark Hums uh working with our youth leaders to do some kind of social media campaign.

Um, but I I think I appreciate I think getting it out to the older people, the parental, this is great, but like we really have to think about how we're getting that message out.

I think that's probably the biggest challenge as well.

Uh of course.

Um I also am curious on if there is where it says special events, it says city sponsored or city permitted.

So would that be whenever we close for a block party?

Because that's permitted.

Correct.

Okay, so are we going to know?

Is there a plan to work with the organizations that throw those?

Yes.

And you'll be reaching out to them.

We met with the old West End today, but that was the first group we've talked to.

Okay.

And then uh I know it's not on here, but uh after the terrible events of the old West End Festival, I talked to many event organizers, many community partners and stakeholders, and they definitely asked um for uh a possibility for safety grants for uh there was a lot of requests for funding um because they would like to make sure that they have safety in place as well.

So I think that that's this is great, but I think that this is something else we should be aiming for is some kind of a grant opportunity uh so that people feel free and safe to still celebrate and have some of that backing.

So thank you for this.

Thank you, Chair, George Wilson.

Uh council council member Gaddis, if I may add not every targeted, not targeted, um permitted event or festival is going to be subject to the special event safety zone it's going to be ones that we know are going to bring large crowds and if we have special intelligence that you know something may happen we would the mayor would discuss it with his team to see if he would designate it as a safety zone but not every event is necessarily going to be designated as this if that helps.

Thank you for the clarity.

Councilman Meldon.

Thank you so much chair um I would love to just maybe if we could maybe just walk through it because I think it's it's one thing to react to what happened and we can instantly fall into what's different right well that wouldn't like like the mayor said which I totally appreciate it wouldn't occur for you maybe wouldn't have mattered so instead of looking back let's let's say this is implemented help me understand the ideal implementation of something like this so the 4th of July would be meet all the criteria it would be named a special event safety zone by the mayor is what I see here which makes sense someone has to make the call that's how decisions happen.

And then what happens that evening so we would anticipate that event being a special safety zone July 4th from we haven't decided 7 pm to 10 pm 8 pm to 10 p.m we have a concert happening from 6 to 10 that day that's still what we're talking about but so anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent guardian or designated adult over 25 no coolers backpacks or large bags will be permitted all bags will be subject to search and then we would go on to talk about no fight you know reiterate no fireworks no sparkler you know all that good stuff that we already have on the books but with the kind of caveat of enhanced penalties can be imposed on parents where a minor is involved in disorderly conduct refusal to disperse possession of alcohol marijuana assault in that safety zone that's the the caveat with this okay so that's the context that it's officially now a safety zone.

And so let's say we're there because I think this is what if you're anything like me colleagues this is what's in my mind.

So we're there and a group of young people emerges with no parents help me understand kind of what what happens next.

I guess what I might say is right now before this ordinance passes police wouldn't be able to do anything.

Sure.

In the environment where this passes a police officer would see a 14 year old or a 14 year old with a backpack and be able to go up to him or her and say can I see your backpack or you're not allowed to have a backpack you're gonna have to leave you're gonna have to leave the safety zone that is not a power the officer has right now but the officer would have that power if it passes and um actually one of the last things we added to the ordinance if um the young person leaves the safety zone and comes back then there that would actually be an additional penalty that would be contemplated under this ordinance.

So right now that officer who saw the person you're talking about wouldn't be able to do anything.

He would have to wait for something bad to happen.

This case he would be able to proactively engage the young person and say you're not allowed to be here without a 25 year old you're not allowed to have a backpack you're gonna have to leave this zone.

Yeah it I think that the a comment that I would would offer um and I I hate being in this position because I I don't think it's very helpful I don't like saying unhelpful things but I it is I just want to make the comment uh into the microphone that it's just so unfortunate that we're trying to even put concrete uh practices around what is such an abstract thing.

I mean the idea of even conflating what happened at the OSN festival with these team takeovers is you cannot legislate against the team takeover because that is what the team takeover thing is is it pops up somewhere, no one sees it coming.

So like it would literally be cat and mouse if we were trying to chase those around.

So it's just very difficult.

The one thing I would want to see, but then it makes me laugh at myself, and maybe I shouldn't be this honest, you know, in real time, is I would want to say, well, every uh special event uh special event safety zone should be a place where no guns are allowed either.

And then I would think, well, then every event should be called a special event safety zone.

And then I find myself directly in conflict with the overwhelming will of our state government and round and round and round we go.

So I know like I said, that's not very helpful, but it is uh what I think about.

I think there's a lot of issues here.

The problem is a bigger issue is doing nothing, and so that's the that's the tough spot we're in as a as a leadership group is we it's really hard to do nothing, and yet on the minds of anyone who's been following our community, giving more reason for police to interact with teenagers, doesn't necessarily feel like the best way to go either.

And so it's it's tricky.

I mean, Chief Crow, I would love your reaction to everything I'm saying.

There's no one in this room with more experience in public safety than you.

Oh I I appreciate your all of your comments and I and I understand them completely.

But what we're really trying to address here is the predictable risk factors at large gatherings, large events, high density crowds, large numbers of unsupervised juveniles, and we all know what happens when those two things come together.

There are flash points where there's fights, where there's weapons usage, where the rest of the the crowd starts getting scared, and there could be a crowd surge.

So what this ordinance is going to help us with is it's gonna reduce the unaccompanied minors in these large events during the prescribed times.

I want to make sure we're we're understanding this is this is a precision safety tool, not just a blanket restriction.

So we're what we hope that it's gonna reduce a number of unaccompanied kids, and it provides a clear authority for proactive crowd management.

And the hope of that those two things put together is that it will reduce escalation into a mass casualty type issue or a large disorder event.

So that's kind of like conceptually what we're hoping for.

Yeah, and I I appreciate it.

I appreciate the I appreciate the urgency.

Um I just want to make sure I'm clear about that too.

I really appreciate the urgency and the action.

I mean, everything mayor, you said about the legislative calendar, I appreciate that, that makes sense.

That's the context in which we're operating.

Um I probably have a bias toward trying something rather than overthinking it and doing nothing.

Um I would just say that if we go forward with this, you know, in in general, the burden of proof is always on those in power, I I believe.

So it's always on, it's always on law enforcement, for instance, to be right before engaging with someone.

If we do this, that would be tenfold true, even more so, which is which is tough, and but that's that's why we're in this work, because they're tough problems.

So I'll stop.

I appreciate the time.

Thanks for if I can just add one more thing that I probably should have said earlier.

If there was one thing that I heard from the folks who are at Old West End, and we just met with the old Western Association up in my office, and they they agreed with this point that about 10 or 15 minutes before the actual event, there was a noticeable change in the environment.

That uh everyone who was there said, Boy, you could feel something changed.

You looked around and it felt different.

All of a sudden, there was a different uh there were the crowd had changed.

Crowd had changed.

There were different younger people there all at once, all of a sudden, and then the bad thing happened.

Um this would simply give a tool to law enforcement to do something during that moment before the bad thing happens.

And again, this this might push our comfort zone, but I want us to understand that other cities do this exact same thing.

In fact, they do it more aggressively than we're proposing as well.

Atlanta, Washington, Detroit, Flint, other other cities.

We're not reinventing the wheel.

Councilwoman Morris.

Excuse me, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and the administration for bringing this forward.

It's unfortunate that we are in this kind of a situation.

Our residents to feel safe.

We want everyone to enjoy what we have here.

Festivals and parties and just being able to congregate.

So I'm I'm happy that this is a step.

It's a step on the staircase.

And you're exactly right, Mr.

Kral, talking about predictable events at crowds.

How can you predict?

That's a hard thing to do.

But one thing we can't do is not act.

And what I have been hearing is that some of these takeovers and groups, if there is a large presence, police presence.

If there is, if it looks like it's too controlled, they'll go on to a different event.

So I think this is a good opportunity.

This helps the people feel safe at whatever event it is, and this also detracts some of the other people who are deciding whether they're going to act or not.

One of the things that I would ask the administration to do is to reach out to our state and federal partners.

I think we need some overtime.

And I also think that we really need to look at how these guns are being trafficked, how they're getting on our streets, how they are getting into the hands of these young people.

And then lastly, you know, the one thing that I've been very strong about is having unsecured weapons in a home where there are children and children are having access to those weapons.

And to me, I think that is certainly something that a parent needs to secure their weapons.

A parent, adult, you know, anyone.

You need to secure those weapons because these kids they don't understand the difference between reality and fantasy.

And we really this is a hard time for Toledo.

This is a really hard time Toledo.

But you know what?

We'll get through it, and we'll move on to the other side because at the end of the day, we care about these young people, we care about our citizens, and we care about Toledo.

So thank you.

Councilmember Comives.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Um, my first question is uh directly out of the ordinance or proposed ordinance under 510.02 authority to establish safety zones.

Uh third point under B reasonable public safety rules and operational restrictions.

Can you give us an example of what those might be that we're allowing the mayor to make what those rules might be?

We were thinking more that's where the no backpacks would come in, those kind of restrictions, no coolers, okay.

Um and then I want to go back to Councilmember Meldon's question about in practice.

I'm just trying to I'm also trying to conceptualize what this looks like.

I'm thinking about Fourth of July and all of the folks being downtown, and we see a large gathering of young people, and then police start to disperse them, but where do they go?

Do they just go into downtown and to Visha?

Do they go to the east side?

Do they are they, you know, what's the plan if they're moving as a cohort?

I think that's the challenge we all face.

You know, you're moving the problem down the road, and the test piece on the board, where do they go?

How do you make an attractive place for them to go?

Other cities that we've looked at have a lot of coordination around where they go.

The philanthropic community is involved on, you know, a spot where they have cool enough activities where they want to be there.

So I mean, this starts that conversation.

I totally agree with you.

Okay.

Thanks.

I just appreciate that.

And and I agree, you know, I think uh I see my folks from the old west end who are here, and I know that after last year, there wasn't quite an attempt to find opportunities.

I know there were a few opportunities that were created, but I think it's not necessarily what the festival's main purpose and center has always been around.

It's you know the garage sales, it's the um the porch parties, the you know, those types of vibes.

So I see the attempt happening.

I appreciate that you brought up the philanthropic community.

I think that the reality is that we all all have to step up in this moment.

Um I appreciate that I believe the sort of community foundation has already stepped in to to help support.

I hope that they can continue to rally uh the private sector around creating these opportunities.

Uh, I don't know what it would look like at the fourth of July.

I think it's awfully short now in terms of us trying to figure out what a zone would look like for young people.

But um I sure hope that you know maybe this council starts to think about how we can support our uh parks and youth services department to engage more young people to find out what those needs are.

Um you know, it's not lost on me that in this conversation it's a bunch of adults talking about young people, so I think it's important that we include them is what I'm getting at.

So I appreciate this attempt.

I am generally supportive.

I'm gonna mull it over, kind of talk to some folks like the rest of us up here.

But I really um appreciate the the fortitude to make something happen.

Thanks.

Councilwoman Jones.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I know that this is you know just the first attempt, but you know, sharing the same sentiments, there are some concerns.

One in general would be the adult 25 years or older that has been expressly designated by the parent or a legal guardian.

How would you do that?

Are do they have to have a note from their parents?

Or is it a phone call?

Like, how is that possible?

Seeing that no one jumped to the mic, I'll go ahead and try to answer this one.

Um, that is one of the more challenging uh I can't see yes, little Johnny can be with George Crowell tonight.

I I we I think we're all honest that that's not gonna happen.

I think we pick the 25-year age because that's the general age of you know maturity, a little bit older, but not super super old, and a lot of 18-year-olds look like they're 16, and a lot of 16-year-olds look like they're 18, but not a lot of 25-year-olds look like they're juvenile.

So I think that's where that number came from, but again, that's why we're here so that we can, you know, massage this language to something that makes sense and is enforceable.

Well, I guess when you're talking about the age of 25, that is the age when the frontal lobe is supposed to be fully developed.

So that kind of makes sense, but I'm just talking about as they're approaching this area.

Are they pulling a note from that child's parent saying that I have designated this person to be to watch over my child while we're in this zone?

It's tough to think about promenade park, we're not having a single point of entry in the first place.

So it's more of crowd control, individual instances, and that's probably where the problem is gonna be.

Because especially if it's not perfect, yeah.

I it's if the police have the ability to approach someone based upon suspicion, that's gonna be a problem.

Then with trying to enforce this permission of watching over my child with an adult that's over the age of 25, that can be an issue, unless you're just gonna have a law enforcement station at every point of entry.

But then that goes back to Councilwoman Morris's point of overtime, and then also with the geographic boundaries.

I'm thinking of yes, Fourth of J of July, you'll have specific areas, but then going with Councilmember Comives, okay.

If they're out of the event area, what about the surrounding businesses, the other buildings, like how would that be enforced?

And I'm also thinking of GFES.

That takes up the entire downtown, so it's all of downtown especially events.

There's a lot of operational things that you're mentioning, but I think what the language does is sets the expectation.

That's the expectation from the city.

Okay, yeah, we're gonna have to revisit some of the.

I mean, I get the point.

Understandable, but it the enforcement piece, that's going to be a challenge, and then the also the possibility of specific targeting on top of we have to think of the household makeups as well.

We have a lot of single mothers, we have a lot of grandparents watching children.

What if they can't get in contact with them because the parent is at work, or you know, thing it we have to think about this like really hard because this can unravel into a very large issue that would be on repeat for the rest of the summer and whatever other events that can happen.

But I mean it's a start, um, but we have to start putting people ourselves in other people's shoes as we're going through these scenarios too.

But um I was I'll share the rest of my um recommendations as well and other comments um in an email.

But it is a start, but we just have to can't jump the gun too quick, lack of a better term, but um it's just something that you know we're we're we're gonna have to be very careful with this, but um yeah, then um thank you, Chair.

Council President Williams.

Thank you.

Just circling back.

Um as I was sitting here, I'm thinking about the enforcement piece of it.

Um, when they get to court, what we doing after after say a kid uh child is there, uh, because I know there we have a lot of laws on the books that it gets over into the courthouse and it gets thrown out, so and I see the civil penalties and the penalties or whatever.

Um, like I said, I have some some real issues with it because I'm more of an inclusive and being a uh a principal at a at risk high school.

I dealt with teens for 10 years, um, as a as a career, um, so I I I can do this, but I'm thinking of after.

Um have we consulted with the prosecutors, the judges, and how did we have we talked to anybody about this?

Because I'm off for holding parents accountable, but if I'm out of town and I leave my child with a 21-year-old, you know, it's just some stuff over there.

Have we talked to prosecutors and have they been involved in this discussion of draftness?

I know that um it came pretty quick and as a response, but I'm thinking of after.

Um, the enforcement piece is done.

Hopefully, the enforcement piece is done correctly.

But um, how do we go after after this situation?

I guess I'll try to answer that.

Councilwoman, it's like any other ordinance.

Is the burden is always on the city to prove the violation, and we'd have to prove that the parent recklessly in the cases of charges which would carry days in jail uh abandon their child pretty much to go to this uh event with in the special zone without a parent being present or a 25-year-old being present.

Uh it's gonna come down to investigation of each case if we do make arrests and uh elicit eliciting the facts to establish that, so uh, in that sense, it's I don't think I don't foresee a lot of criminal prosecutions resulting in this ordinance.

I see possibility of civil violations and the civil violation penalties that range from two hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars those don't require as much proof, and in those cases, uh, notice of liability would be sent to the parent, they'd come in and they'd have a right to appeal that notice of liability, and uh there'd be a hearing, and it would be an internal hearing, would not be before a judge.

So uh they would have the option to or opportunity to defend themselves, and we'd have to again prove that the child was left there without them being present.

So it's uh it's not as severe of a penalty but it also would get I think a lot of people's attention money is a important driving factor these days and I think that would uh help the situation that's gonna be a little hard too because we have a large runaway populations too and then what if a child is in foster care then are we gonna charge the SB so is that it's a lot it's a lot we we uh is a lot it's a lot well I like it thank you thank you for answering Mr.

Ran again I appreciate you um Chair.

Councilman Mel uh Dresscall sorry thank you chair I just have a few questions that my only comment would be uh it's a good first attempt and I you know and we gotta do something I so it's I think it's easy to you know we we're all just gonna we're here to criticize I think and and take a hard look at this but I do think it's it's a good attempt I do just want to uh ask a few clarifying questions.

So if you were the parent of two teenage sons if they're 18 and 16 uh they wouldn't be like if this ordinance was enacted and like a parent would not be allowed to say head on down to the well say 17 and 14 uh you guys can head on down to the fireworks uh th those kids would be breaking the law and so would the parents is that correct if this ordinance passed as is they the parents would be breaking the law the the children would be breaking the law if they went into the zone and refused to leave they were told not to enter the zone or they were told to leave the zone and then they don't so there's where the violation occurs that would be the same that would apply to the parents as well so uh I mean it's not it's not a status offense in the sense that my child I let my child out the door and then he went to this event without my permission uh we'd have to prove that he was there and he was told to leave and didn't okay so it's not and they'd probably only be told to leave if there was uh like a reason for it right okay um the other question I want to ask about is searching of bags and coolers um inside a special safety zone whatever we're yeah whatever we're calling these um do we have the right to search whatever bags we want at any time do we have the right to search whatever coolers we want at any time or we just tell people they're not allowed to have them that would be the expectation would be no bags and coolers but John if promenade park is our property.

Right that's correct and and again we've we've delineated the area where no bags and coolers are supposed to be and uh we feel that that if we say no you can't bring these in uh we don't have to search them we can just tell them leave with your bag and cooler okay and so we wouldn't necessarily search them we just tell them you can't have if they're going if they're leaving they're not in the zone anymore.

Okay.

Uh I guess the last question I have is how often do we anticipate that we would uh use these safety zones?

I mean we know there's not a whole bunch of new events cropping up every year in your head like how when are we implementing this what about writing that into the ordinance but we don't even know how many people are exactly coming to promade park with so I've done the fireworks show for four years now when Glass City Metro Park opened it really spread people out this year I think because we're having a concert and good bands are playing in Primary Park on Saturday I think twenty to thirty thousand that's how many port of highs I'm ordering you know but I we just we can't anticipate exactly whether how many people are gonna be there but we do know Primary Park is the high highest density spot for viewing the fireworks.

So what other in the calendar year do you anticipate that we would utilize this?

Not many I mean I d I don't know well that's something we can talk about I don't have that answer.

Well I think I mean I just think before we vote yes on this I think it'd be good for us to have an expert I mean none of these are a surprise Jeep Fest happens every year.

Where do we we?

You have no idea right now today at 2 46 p.m.

on this Tuesday afternoon, you have no idea when you would use these except for the fourth of July.

Councilman, I really think it depends on the circumstances.

Um obviously the size of the anticipated crowd, uh, the venue.

Um, like I said earlier, if there's some chatter that there may be a a group that is planning to do something that would disrupt the the event, we would think about it, but I don't foresee it happening often.

Okay, so you so almost some of the work that TP does at TPD does ahead of time with regards to monitoring social media would inform this decision, but you don't think that there would be a standing you wouldn't say every fourth of July we would be enacting this.

Is that what you're saying?

No, we wanted to keep it flexible.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Councilman Seratu.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh, I think this is a good first start.

Uh we certainly need legislation uh from what happened uh just a couple weeks ago, and I think it's very important that we as a council uh think about uh the innocent victims that were severely harmed.

Uh and we think about innocent people at public gatherings that that uh should feel safe uh with themselves and their families.

I like the idea of holding parents and guardians accountable.

That's something that we uh have not done, and I think it's critical.

Uh one question I had is um I I don't see uh a clause here about proof of identification, proof of age.

I assume that uh that will be uh addressed because how some people that are 17 uh look like they're 25, some that are 13 may look like they're 18.

How how are we gonna do that?

How you gonna address that?

Well, I think that'll be up to the officers that confront these individuals and ask them their question.

How old are you?

Can you prove it?

You know, they're telling me that they're telling the officer they're 21 and they're not.

Uh we'd like to see a driver's license, we'd like to see some other proof that you are the age you say you are.

Okay, all right, good.

All right.

So I I I clearly think this is necessary.

Uh, again, I think we all ought to carefully go through it and make sure that uh we have some amendments and we present that.

But I like this idea, and uh we need to do something.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Councilman Meldon.

Thank you, Chair.

Just a couple of things come to mind.

First of all, I want to put a little finer point on this, like first attempt.

I mean, it was 10 days ago, and so in 10 days to try to solve such a complex problem is just incredibly difficult.

So the I think the benefit of the doubt and the credit that I give the administration for leading with something is is certainly informed by that.

Don't hold, you know, I don't want we don't want perfect to be the enemy of the good, or we'd be talking about this for months and months and years and years.

Um I am curious, and maybe mayor, this might you can defer obviously, but I'm maybe strategically, I'm I this is a question.

I'm sure informing this, you considered simply or or did you consider simply making uh piece of legislation around tougher penalties for parents if their children do cause a problem or break a law of some kind, and and that being it, and not and making the zone of parent accountability, the whole city just any time that happens.

I'm curious if you consider that how you thought about that and why you decided not to do that because I'm it strikes me as I kind of digest this conversation that if you took all the nitty-gritty conversation around the zones and the timing and what is, what isn't a lot of the questions would go away.

I'm curious if you could just talk about your thoughts about just holding parents accountable as it as an initial measure.

And I'll tell you kind of why I'm thinking that too.

Actually, we did think about it, and I think we arrived at the opposite conclusion.

We felt that the more broadly we made this, the more opposition city council would have, that city council would be more for the very issues that were raised today, that there would be more opportunity for opposition if council felt that we were applying this to every single aspect of a young person's life, as opposed to how we framed it, which was very targeted, not just specific events, but hours within the event to be so surgically targeted that it would only apply to those moments where the there was a possibility for danger occurring.

And I look, I understand the point about, hey, aren't we just pushing the problem somewhere else?

Maybe, but the elsewhere that would be we would be pushing it would be a place by definition where there would be fewer people.

And so we did think about it.

I if I don't know if that heartens you at all.

But uh, we um we chose the course we did to um to make sure that this only applied in the most targeted situations where there was the greatest opportunity for uh public danger.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

I I just have a couple of other things I would say then, you know.

Uh Austin, when you talk about um, you see a couple answers, you've said we well, we you want to set an expectation.

I I see a lot of this as you're trying to do something formal to kind of give an in for get an informal outcome, which is hey everyone, not here, not this day, we're not like so.

I I I appreciate that.

And you're talking about communication and collaboration.

I mean, when Council Member Gaddis was asking questions, it was like, how do you get this word out?

I am curious if we don't try to really try to solve that.

Um and let it I'm feeling drawn to less about one event and one geographic space for all the reasons we've discussed.

You've also mentioned other cities.

I guess I would just maybe encourage you mentioned like there are other this notion of moving people out of a zone.

Well, they work collaboratively with other organizations to have like cooldown spots.

I've I think that if we had some of that partnership infrastructure in play, it'd be an easier thing, which is impossible to do in 10 days.

I understand.

But that would just be maybe an encouragement I have as we think about fleshing this out in the future.

And the last thing I would just say is I'm I'm going to a Troby Park block watch meeting tonight, and there was a big you know issue that happened there, and uh one of the things that I'm going to say end up saying later is whatever we decide to do, we don't want children to be the enemy, right?

And we say this all the time, but like children are an asset to us and to be protected and cared for.

Um people who decide to commit crime, we need to protect civilians from them, regardless of age, obviously.

But how do we and Council President Williams has mentioned this, and I know everyone agrees with this, but how do we make sure that it's in the legislation we're passing?

Um I think that's that's one of the biggest challenges.

But it strikes me as like a park, you can't make a park.

Like, well, can't have children there alone.

We might as well get rid of all of parks, right?

Like that's not the point, and that's the same thing with fireworks and these big events.

So, however, we can make sure that children don't feel like they are not only unwelcomed but the problem.

Um, I think would be really important.

Thanks.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Thanks.

Just a quick follow-up as I read through and hear combat uh comments.

Um the adult 25 years or older.

Are you going to limit the number of kids that could be?

I mean, because I just, you know, if I'm with my friends and I'm like, yeah, I'll I'm I'm gardening all I'm a gardening to all 16 of these people.

Like are is there going to be a limit?

We didn't want to write it in the legislation to have those parameters, but your point is well taken.

We thought about something we thought about.

But yeah, it's not easy.

What you're doing is not easy.

I just I think the whole point is to set the expectation to plan ahead.

If you know you can't be there with your kid, your 13 year old, you want to send them with another family, another group of people, that's what we want.

You to think about it and plan ahead as opposed to just have them go along, right?

No, I appreciate that.

And like I said, none of this is easy, and then um the second thing is what I think is missing to council mentor school's point is if we cannot define what events will have this, can we at least set a notification time frame?

So maybe you have decided that this event and this event are, but so within a certain time frame, we we will have it in legislation to get it out to the lot.

And I would offer we have the next two days open to talk about this with the law department.

We can have the legislation on the screen.

However, you guys want to be involved or choose the way to gather your thoughts on this, the next two days is what we're doing.

So let me know.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much for your work on this.

I think it's really, really important.

When I thought about a safety zone initially, I thought of fencing because to me that makes sense.

I know I went to Tech Ledo this weekend and we had to walk through, you know, a metal detector, our bags had to be checked.

I felt great about being there.

I felt safe.

I felt like I knew everybody walked through that.

Has there been conversations about fencing?

Yes.

And I think with Watershed Weekend just happening fencing Crown May Park anymore is just not what we want to do.

It just it ruins the whole flow of the river walk in.

It's just a hard place to fence.

It's too big, it's too many entry points.

But we did discuss it.

I got quotes.

You know, it's we thought about it, but your point's well taken.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Uh Councilman Council Council President Williams.

What is your recommendation?

Okay, thank you.

Uh we will go to number 27 and then 28.

Um 27 is from the Department of Law.

Council President Williams.

Um, I just wanted to make a comment here for everyone in the audience.

The only reason we have moved up items is only because it stays on the same vein as the topic that we were talking about, and law was already here, and police is here.

So we're gonna just move it up.

The one and only time that I move agenda items up is today.

We appreciate the mute mood music.

Um, Dale Emp City Law Director.

Um, here to uh present item 27.

I'm here with senior attorney Zach Lemon, who is going to give you the details.

Good afternoon, members of council.

My name is Clemman, uh senior attorney with the law department.

Uh item 27 is an ordinance to authorize an expenditure of 14,277 to settle a property damage claim against the city.

Uh city vehicle hit a stone retaining wall and fence.

This expenditure would fully resolve the claim.

I'm also requesting a CP.

Chair Hobbs, what is your recommendation?

Uh Councilwoman Soronto.

Thank you, madam chair.

Where did this happen?

Was it a residence, a business?

It was a residence.

Was it residence?

Okay, in a city vehicle.

What kind of city vehicle?

What department?

Uh believe.

The department was urban beautification.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Chair.

Uh council member Gaddis.

Thank you.

Um, by way of referral, can we get how many urban beautification uh settlements we've had this year?

Yes.

Okay, and the amount, please.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Chair Hobbes, your recommendation?

Thank you.

Number 28 comes from the Department of Police Operations.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Uh Sergeant Pat Bergman.

I have with me assistant Chief Kevin Braun and Lieutenant Jeff Theeman.

Item number 28 authorizes the mayor to enter into an amended agreement with Flock Group Incorporated for a one year period for the continuation of services for portable automated license plate readers.

It authorizes the expenditure not to exceed 14,000 from the general fund.

And also waives competitive bidding requirements of TMC chapter 187 for the reason that Flock Group Incorporated is our current vendor for the portable ALPRs and continuing with Flock Group maintains system compatibility.

Council President Williams.

Thank you so much.

I'm glad that we brought this back.

It was voted down for the two years.

I asked the administration as well as several members of council to amend this to to decrease the amount of years, and hopefully we can come back and review it after we had we've had this program for 20 years.

It solves numerous of crimes.

It's unfortunate that it went down, but I'm glad we're bringing this back.

Thank you.

Councilman Martinez.

I'll defer to my colleague.

She can go first.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Um due to the many emails from our constituents, I just requesting that we have a committee hearing on this.

Council President Williams.

Thank you.

I'm okay with having a committee hearing, but voting on this first, and then we can bring Flock back after.

I don't want to put this in committee, but I definitely would leave it to the chair.

Um I think that we need to not take tools away from police, and I did receive every email as well and all the ones I think we should have Flock come in and discuss what they do, along with partnering with police to see how we used it, bring how many crimes that we've solved of this.

I understand the community at whole has questions and concerns, and I'm willing to talk about that, but I don't want to hold this legislation up because uh we don't want the uh agreement to um go to pause out before we um have it.

So I would like to vote on this before I don't know if we can have a committee meeting in between this meeting and next, which I don't think so uh because we'll have to have it this meeting this week, and we already have one.

I think we need to go so this agreement can stay can move forward uh and we not have a uh pause in service.

Thank you.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, my question was already answered because I was gonna ask what the original time frame was.

Um, and I too am supportive of using the flock system.

In fact, uh next Jul next month uh I will be introducing a DIP a creative uh program for school safety using dip and flock partnering along with uh total public schools, Catholic Diocese, and other public spaces.

So I'm happy to have the uh conversation with Flock in a committee hearing.

Um, but I think that they're an invaluable tool to our safety forces.

Uh they are a force multiplier given the fact of our austere budget.

Um, and I am supportive and would be willing to vote on this as soon as possible.

Um but I think there are some concerns about not necessarily with the use about who has access to data and the data, and I think that is something very relative and should be aired out.

Uh, I too did receive all those emails uh regarding the the flock system, and I think given the unique circumstances of the current federal use of or abuse of the data.

Um I think that does raise some genuine concerns.

However, uh I am still very much in support of using these systems uh and whatever other tools that we can use and to give our safety forces uh all the resources that they need.

In fact, I want a additional drone, and actually, I want a harassing drone to all the speeders on the bikes to kind of like scare them and stop speeding up and down the trail.

And anyway, that's neither here nor there.

But uh I am super supportive of this.

Thank you.

Councilman Serranto.

Thank you.

Well, when does this uh current contract expire?

I believe it's the first week of August.

First week in August.

So, um, okay.

Uh I think that you know, based on my personal knowledge, I think that the flight cameras have been very useful, especially in finding people.

Uh people that have Alzheimer's, people that have dementia that take car keys and get in the car, and the family doesn't know where they're at.

The family is scared to death.

And uh these cameras, uh license plate readers have been instrumental in finding those people.

I I know of cases that they've really assisted law enforcement in finding children, finding potentially kidnapped victims, uh domestic violence where the children are taken by one of the uh parents.

Uh so I think that the positives outweigh the negatives.

And quite frankly, I'm just not interested in defunding the police.

And to me, this is defunding the police if we don't fund this.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Councilmember Comives.

Thank you so much.

It was mentioned earlier that this is an amendment to a failed piece of legislation.

Would that then require a reconsideration of the vote as opposed to a new piece of legislation?

Uh, and I would like a referral to the legal department to explain that, please.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you, Chair.

So I'm so you said the first week of August is when this expires.

It strikes me that we have time to wait to vote on this and also have a committee hearing uh in between now.

I mean, I know we have summer legislative session, but I don't doesn't seem like we have to vote next week before this would expire.

I think we have time for a committee hearing.

I was supportive of it.

I remained supportive of it.

And uh if I had to vote next week, I would vote yes on it.

But um, I don't I think we ought to, I still think we ought to have a committee hearing, but obviously the chair has the right to weigh in on that.

Thank you.

Councilman Hobbes, um the I believe it was a young lady that was killed in the parking lot in council Martina's district.

The way her murderer was filed was through the flock cameras, I am asking permission from council president to have a meeting next Monday, June 22nd, at 4 p.m.

And then vote us on this on Tuesday the 23rd, if it is okay with Council President Williams, Council President Williams.

I'm good with that.

Um, I'll won't be here, but yeah, I'm good with that.

If we need another date that you're available, we can have it.

You don't even need a councilman Meldon.

Thank you so much.

Um is Chief Kroll still here?

Do you leave?

I don't blame him.

Um I would say this at that meeting on Monday, it would be great.

What people have stuff to do, it's okay.

I a lot of the concerns, I don't know, my colleagues feel a lot of the concerns that I hear about Flock is this notion of what do they do with data, privacy concerns, transparency, though those I think are present any, and we've talked about this recently in any sort of technology that we're using, and you know, private private sector incentive is different than public sector values and transparency, and that's all I would just encourage that information to be brought as much as possible to that that meeting.

I mean, I can we just we know what the concerns are with this particular entity.

Um it would be great to bring some of those uh answers to that to that conversation.

That might seem very obvious, but I just want to put that word in.

Thanks, Councilman Hobbes.

So I'm asking if we can have uh councilman um colmives question and answer, and then I'm asking for the hearing on Monday, and I'm asking not only flock, but I'm also asking if someone can come from the prosecutor's office and talk to us about how effective flock cameras are in that as well.

So if we could please have the administration have someone from the prosecutor's office, that would really help us as well.

Thank you.

Councilman Hobbes, your recommendation on this.

Thank you.

We will move to items one through seven, which are from the Department of Public Utilities.

Good afternoon, members of Council Calvin Harris, Commissioner Sew and Drainage Services.

I'm here today to present items number one, which is proposed legislation authorizing the expenditure from the sewer operating fund of an amount not to exceed 1.18 million dollars for sewer repairs in one of the city's three sewer zones.

This ordinance authorizes a contract for sewer repairs within the public right-of-ways and or public sewer easements beyond the scope of what our internal workforces can perform.

I'm respectfully requesting SCP and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, members of council.

I'm Cindy Geronimo.

I'm the Commissioner of Utilities Administration here to present legislation today.

Um to enter into a one-year contract with Promise Network Inc.

for counts receivable collection services and customer affordability management services.

Promise uh Network Inc.

is a financial technology company that we've utilized to provide us with a 24-hour seven-day a week customer affordability portal.

In this portal, Promise provides uh accessible interest-free uh payment plans, and we also work with them to um provide debt resolution and um to provide financial assistant programs.

So um their flexible plans and then their um proactive residential outreach has been very effective for us.

So in the five years that we've worked with them, we have um spent one point zero four million dollars, and but we've collected through that portal thirteen point one million dollars to date.

So for every dollar spent, it's been a $13 return.

So therefore, as we uh continue to work to reduce our debt and um, you know, increase or decrease the amount of council receivables, we're asking um council to appropriate an amount to authorize an amount um not more than five hundred thousand dollars, waive competitive bid, and I'm requesting SCP.

And at this point, I'll take any questions that you have, Chair Martinez.

Your recommendation?

Oh, sorry, Councilman Meldon.

Yeah, thank you.

So um you think about like just, I mean, collections, and this conversation has been interesting and kind of ongoing recently.

A contract extension, may I should probably know this.

How long have we been working with that?

Five years.

Um, did this go back out to bid to kind of see what else was on the market, or was it just like, hey, we had a five-year con or a three with three one-year renewals, we're just doing a renewal?

We we did do some renewals, it did come before council.

It's been be this is the third time.

It's been before council.

Um obviously you would feel like they're a good they are effective.

It is um, you know, we do benchmark a lot of cities.

Uh they work with Cincinnati, that's one city we always look to to see.

They're very proactive in what they do and what they offer their citizens.

Um so we try to look across the board, we stay very connected with other utilities to see what they're doing, and um what's the number out there you think that we need to collect still?

The number, we have a number right now.

Um so it's about um sixty million dollars outstanding, uh, as far as our water collection.

Yep, it's about sixty million dollars.

Uh so we're making headway on it.

One of the reasons why we wanted to come before council and ask for the renewal of this contract as well, is because we have started our disconnection process.

Um, as we all know, that started again in June after that memorandum was in place for um uh for the non-disconnection since that time we have seen a significant increase in uh payment plan installations and enrollments with both Promise Pay and then of course with um our customer service representatives as well.

Right now with Promise Pay, we are tracking to be potentially the um the highest customer action as in the highest number of customers enrolling in payment plan programs for the month of June, as well as the most um money collected from those payments, so to try to switch services now when we've already had customers enrolled, especially as we're rolling out a disconnection program, we just felt it wasn't the most appropriate time to to do that.

Um, and we felt this uh was the right way to move forward.

I think the numbers, the data that we've collected just from the last 15 days since we've started doing this disconnection processes is showing it as working.

Do you think um given the shutoff dynamic?

I mean, that's a pretty pretty significant change, and you just mentioned what seems intuitive, actually, that would increase uh repayment collection.

Um, is there any coordination with Promise Pay to say can we do like a bit of a push here and then talk me through like the difference in how they would kind of um increase their outreach communication?

So they use a very proactive approach.

Uh they do a lot of messaging, SMS messaging to customers, which makes it very easy.

They include links, they know they use their logic behind their system to like outreach to you to say you owe this much, um, this is what I can offer you.

If we have any kind of financial assistance, we're gonna put it push it through that portal.

If we offer any kind of um program, special program, we're gonna push it through that portal.

We're gonna make sure that our customers um have access to anything that we have available, they could also be vetted for any of the discounts, so it helps us be a little bit more proactive with that.

Like, you know, our um low-income senior, our senior discount, our low-income senior discount, and our low income discount.

So just trying to get the message out to as many people as we can.

So, sorry.

And to piggyback on to what um Commissioner Geronimo said, I think one of the benefits too of Promise Pay is they can do that targeted reach.

So we're currently having um meetings with Promise Pay with our team on the utility side, but as well as our communications team to coordinate that messaging.

Um, and so as we know with the disconnection and the plan that we brought before council, we started with a group of 102 customers.

Um that it you know is who we were moving through.

We can do targeted messaging to those customers when we have their information and promise pay can push that for us.

As Commissioner Geronimo said it'll have links in there that residents can directly link, get to the information they need to just sign up for payment plans or pay their um pay their bill in full, which we have also seen um happen since the first of the month.

102 customers priority uh that you're reaching out to of the 60 million, they account for how much?

Um I might have to take that by way of referral.

I'm not sure if I have it on me.

60 million, what's a legit number that we could recover?

We've run some, we've run some estimates.

We could get those to you.

I just don't think 60 million is a real number.

Sure.

I say it and what's gonna what the problem is is that then a headline hits 60 million, and if it's not a real number, I don't want us to talk about it.

And so I'm just curious, like, is there a certain I'm thinking I'm just thinking about like the overall strategy.

Is there a certain amount of this that we just forgive and move on and say this is achievable?

And there is, based on our debt policies, and uh, you know, that's what we have outstanding, right?

But we have debt policies in place and we in a certain amount gets written off after you know three years, etc.

So we can I'm happy to provide all of that in terms of it.

This time next year, we have a goal of what that outstanding number is.

So it's 60 now.

If I asked you next June 16th, what would you say?

Our goal is really to like use every tool that we have available.

One is to look at the debt policy because this is years.

You're absolutely right when you say that, you know, what does that represent?

That we represents years of maybe not being able to address the proper amount of debt with that debt policy.

Um, you know, years of we we had an antiquated system that like we did a lot of estimates.

Uh you know, people got behind in bills.

Um we were a little bit more flexible and a little bit more lax in the past.

You know, I think this is just um signals that going forward we have to like continue with disconnections.

You know, we have to allow this process to run.

But we also we've spent a lot of time.

I worked with the water quality and um uh task force to make sure that we listen to residents, we listen to different organizations, uh, both Council Woman Gaddis and Councilman uh Nick Colmives were on that task force, and we we did a lot to make sure that we built a customer affordability program that would allow us to balance that so that as we're doing disconnections, we're offering all that we can to our citizens because that's the last thing we want to do is to turn them off.

We want them to really engage, and then we constantly look to see what else we could offer to make sure that you know it's equitable across the system.

I trust that our process has been humane.

There's no doubt in my mind, and I appreciate that.

What I don't trust is that we have like a goal of what we're trying to do with the number.

Like by the end of this year, you want 60 to be what?

I would like it at least to be 10%.

I think 10% reduction would be a fair so that's I'm just thinking, like, because that then we have to have some sense of like efficacy of a partner.

Sure.

Is that working?

Is it not working?

So that's that's where my that's where I'm coming from.

It's not.

I want us to have a realistic conversation about what that number is.

It's probably not 60 million.

Let's get it to a real number.

And then let's say are we improving on this or not?

And so by way of referral, I'll put this in officially.

I would love to just see the process of what that could, I mean, just you know, total plan dumb here.

What's that process?

Soup to nuts, start to finish.

Someone stops paying on January 1, 2026.

When do they get their first notice?

How do they get a text?

What does that look like?

When do they get shut off?

I need that whole thing.

We can absolutely provide it to you.

Yeah, sure.

That's what I'll put.

Thanks.

All right, you're welcome.

Councilman Seranto.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Having been involved in this a lot, uh, I I want to clarify something here.

We started with $66 million that was owed to DPU.

I thought we were down to $50 million.

Did you say $50 or $60 million?

When Councilman Meldon asked his question, I we answered as in $60 million was the total amount that was outstanding.

We that has greatly reduced as you know, as we've been reporting on at the finance meetings.

Um, I believe we are around $50 million right now.

So I have seen it.

And we will have a report for you at the next finance committee.

Yeah, clarifying.

I want to remind you, yes, at next Wednesday's finance meeting at four o'clock.

Uh we will um have a report from DPU in terms of collection efforts.

And I I think your logic on promise pay uh is absolutely on target.

Uh they've been doing it, I think to collect 13 million and have a cost of a little over a million is worthy of renewal.

Um my question is are we seeing on the people that owe us money, the residential customers in particular, are they having a notice on their water bill that says what the options are, including Promise pay?

Yes, we have all we're working with our communications department even to enhance that so we're getting more messaging out.

We're also working with um the Chief Dr.

Whitman and her team to do outreach and communication so that ever all residents would be aware of any um opportunities they have for discount programs for their water bill, any um any customer assistance, support, as well as all of the options that we have for signing up for um installment plans either with the City of Toledo or through Promise Pay.

And that's in addition to the door hangers you're gonna have if they're not responding and other notices.

Okay.

That's correct.

I think that's all very important.

Again, everybody gets a water bill every month from DBU.

So that's important.

The door hangers, the personal contact.

Is Promise Pay actually calling customers that are a delinquent or we are gonna activate a robocall plan with them.

With them, okay, good.

I think that also will be very helpful.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Council Member Gaddis.

Thanks, Chair.

Um is the promise pay, if you could um help my memory.

Is that residential only or businesses can apply as well?

It's residential only.

So it's residential only, okay.

And then do you guys get data on who is using it via zip code?

Because I would be interested in if my district, like how many people are enrolled in promise.

We can provide that information to you.

That would be really helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember Colmives.

I'll be brief.

I just want to say that I've appreciated uh the work that you've done on this.

Um, as was mentioned, the consumer protection task force was thrown together, did a lot of work leading into COVID, which we didn't anticipate would have the impact that it would ultimately.

Um I remember when we first introduced Promise Pay at the time.

I think we even had them come in and do a presentation here.

We also offered a webinar for council members.

I think it's been like five years.

It might be a good time to refresh everybody's memory on it.

Um I'm assuming none of us are delinquent on our water bills, so we probably haven't had to uh interact with Promise Pay.

But what I will say is that um it's consistent, our residents know it, the folks who have engaged with it know it.

Um and quite frankly, the biggest added value in my opinion is just their ability to identify other means or opportunities to assist our residents with other things.

So for instance, um I know that they were instrumental in helping people access um LIHEAP money that might have been available, the YWAP money when that was available.

So there are they they've been really good at helping us to uh not just ensure that our residents can find a means and mechanism to pay their water bills, but also perhaps impact their other bills as well.

So um it's been a really great service in my opinion, but I do think that the opportunity for people to review it and see it for themselves again would be a good chance.

Chair Martinez, what is your recommendation?

SCP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I am Jocelyn Jones.

I am the administrator of maintenance at the Commons Park Water Treatment Plant.

Uh I am here to request uh for the authorization and expenditure not to exceed 125,000 for the purchase and installation of a chemical fee uh boiler.

Uh currently our boiler is um outlive this useful service life and so um it is an important to the process in order to make sure that we are reliably and consistently heating um the hot water in order to make sure soda ash and line stay at the current consistency and pressure that we needed to.

Um replacement of the boiler will help preserve the treatment, stability, and lessen the risk of uh interrupting operations, requesting SCP.

I'll take any questions.

Chair Martinez, your recommendation?

This sounds pretty important, SCP.

Thank you.

Alright.

Good afternoon at this point.

Christine Minor Division of Water Reclamation, first ordinance.

Uh, should be for the Reynolds area pump station improvements.

Um you may or may not know Reynolds area pump station is actually located at 4150 Airport Highway.

It was built in 1970, last renovated in 2008 as part of the existing facilities plan for improvements.

Um it's gonna undergo reconstruction or um revamping.

Um this ordinance seeks 1.7 million dollars and some change to enter into a low-interest loan with the Ohio Environmental Protection Association or agency water pollution control loan fund and to be able to enter into contracts in order to complete this project.

Requesting SEP and I'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So just correct me if I'm wrong.

This is the second part.

The first part was the acquisition of the land adjacent to writing in that strip center across from Swan Creek Metro Park.

Yes.

Is where we uh got permission to purchase the land.

Gotcha.

So then this would be to are you gonna do brand new or rehab, or what are we doing there?

Still out, still out to be decided yet.

Um, but probably rehabilitation of the existing facility.

Okay, SCP.

Thank you.

Christine again from Division of Water Reclamation.

Second ordinance that we're presenting today is for an aeration tank cleaning project.

Um, division of water reclamation has nine very large aeration tanks.

It's what we use to grow bugs to clean the wastewater.

Very essential to our facility.

We routinely have to clean them one at a time.

We've already cleaned two of them in the last few years.

We're requesting to clean the third.

Uh the ordinance seeks 450,000 uh for that purpose.

I'm requesting SCP and I'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation?

SCP?

Thank you.

Water reclamation again.

Um, this is just an amendment of an ordinance 08-24 for solids handling boilers or initial ordinance back in 2024, specifically named two boilers.

Indeed, we need four boilers.

Um, and so this ordinance is just amending that to change that uh language to not specify the number of boilers.

No increase needed.

We have the funding necessary to pay for it.

Um, we just need to change the ordinance to reflect that.

Also requesting SCP, and we'll take any questions.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation?

SCP?

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Noah Ganger with the water treatment.

Uh this proposal authorizes the expenditure of amount not to exceed $750,000 from the water operating fund and to authorize the mayor to enter into uh contract to facilitate the emergency services to haul and dispose of spent lime from Colin Parks Water Treatment Plant Solids Dewatering Facility.

I'll just call solid watering facility SDF, our water treatment plant.

We produce about approximately 50,000 dry tons of spent lime or solids annually.

It's a byproduct from our water treatment process.

This spent lime has to go somewhere.

For us, it goes either to six lagoons located at the plant or it goes through our saw as dewatering facility where we dewater that solids and then it gets hauled away for beneficial reuse.

Between these two options, running our spent lime solids through SDF is far more cheaper and efficient than lagoons.

Um that's just because between lagoons and SDF, SDF, it's just taking that solids, put into a truck, gets hauled away and lawfully disposed of lagoons.

When we fill that up, top that off, it has to be excavated.

Takes a lot more equipment and man power to do so.

So annually we spend about five, we budget for 5.5 million to remove spent line from lagoons, 1.5 million from SDF, just based off our previous contract uh bids or contracts uh right now with SDF not running uh this about a six six thousand nine hundred dollar difference of our sludge going to lagoons and not running it through SDF.

Um request SCP.

And thank you.

Councilman Seranto.

Thank you.

Uh I couldn't hear that last part.

Uh is the administration assuring us this contract will not be awarded to uh Charles Stansley or any of the related companies uh he owns.

Hi, Megan Ropeson, Chief of Operations for the City of Toledo.

So this uh legislation is for an emergency uh authorizing an emergency um expenditure in order for us to enter into contract with a different vendor.

Um this, if council recalls, was a contract we had with a one-year uh contract with the option for a one-year renewal.

We are opting to not renew.

Um so therefore, because we still need spent line removed, obviously, we are seeking proposals to do that, and we would like to enter into contract on an emergency basis for that.

Very good.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, madam chair.

Councilman Martinez, your recommendation.

Thank you, madam chair, and thank you, Councilman Serranto.

That was my question.

So uh SEP, thank you.

Thank you.

Item eight is from the Department of Human Resources.

Yes, hi.

Uh good afternoon, Mike Najelski, the director of human resources.

Item eight is requesting authorization to enter into an agreement with a company called um doing business as Part D advisors Inc.

uh for the purposes of doing a dependent audit for our health care plan.

Um, earlier this year that we went out to bid for this service, and uh we had four responsive bids, two of them I would characterize as just not competitive, um they were significantly more expensive.

Uh the other two, um, clear track and PDA uh were competitive, but uh part D advisors is the better option.

Uh we had our health care um uh consultants uh with us and we um scored the two and uh part D advisors was the was the better choice for a couple reasons.

One they have a regional presence, they're based out of Lavonia, Michigan, whereas the other company was based out of Alabama, and then the other probably the more important thing is that uh the company um had our provided for some performance guarantees.

Uh typically something this kind of an audit can uh produce savings from anywhere from 500,000 to 1.4 million dollars, and we certainly could use that in our health care fund uh for savings.

Um we were asking for this uh because we haven't had a dependent audit in some time and um this this amount this uh for this service was in our approved 2026 budget uh requesting SCP and happy to take any questions.

Vice Chair Gaddis, your recommendation Councilman Serranto.

Thank you, madam chair, thank you.

Uh Chairman Gaddis, Vice Chair Gaddis.

Uh I just want to say that this is good because again, our health care costs have increased significantly, particularly in the prescription area.

So anything we can do to discover savings, I think is is very good for our budget.

I agree.

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing this forward and uh please advise us the results of the audit if there were discrepancies and people covered that shouldn't have been covered.

Happy to do that.

We'd like to council needs to know that and a dollar figure of what we're saving.

Thank you, Director, and thank you, madam chair.

Councilwoman Gaddis, your recommendation?

Thank you for your work, SCP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Items 9 and 10 come from the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.

Madam President, City Council, thank you all for having me.

I'm uh Malcolm Cunningham, director of Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.

I have two pieces of legislation in front of you all today.

The first is authorizing the appropriation and expenditure of funds and amount not to exceed $69,556 for case management, wraparound support, and high-risk conflict mediation to reduce gun violence.

So we are authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract and execute necessary instruments to waive competitive bidding and to declare an emergency.

So this is with the Hoodstock Foundation.

It is a grassroots organization that primarily works in the junction Englewood and North Toledo slash Lagrange Corridor areas, but does have citywide touch points since engaging in a contract with us the previous year.

They've been engaged in 17 coordinated incident responses, 14 high risk conflicts.

So we're talking about social media violence intervention.

We're talking about ceasefires when those things do occur, non-aggression agreements, uh restorative justice, things of that nature.

Hoodstock Foundation also has a very small caseload of very high-risk individuals.

So typically returning home from DYS or from juvenile detention uh with gun charges and with some gang affiliation or group involvement in that way.

So Hoodstock Foundation would continue to provide these services and also would be able to provide more training and support uh to individuals that are beginning to step into the space of violence interruption.

So we are uh requesting SCP for this and are open to any questions on that front.

I should have gone to the second one, just directly.

Vice Chair Gaddis, your recommendation?

SCP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the second piece of legislation uh is authorizing the appropriation and the expenditure of an amount not to exceed $34,560 for youth workforce development.

Uh so this project uh is a partnership.

Uh it includes goodwill, uh it includes funding from the Toledo Community Foundation, uh local community-based contractors, and of course a number of departments within the city of Toledo.

Uh it's called mobility aid.

Uh we provide lawn mowing services for elders and people with disabilities uh within the save our community focus area.

So uh that's the north side in the LaGrange Corridor, that's Junction and Englewood, that's a bit of the east side as well.

Uh so we provide youth employment for 16 youth that are enrolled in the save our community program.

Again, we're working with those youth that are at high risk of to be frank shooting or being shot.

Uh and uh they receive 144 hours of direct training and support.

Uh they're providing again this intergenerational support and meaningful work within their community.

Uh it is a match to year two of funding from the Toledo Community Foundation.

We anticipate additional supports coming down the road, but uh until they are in our hands, I guess we cannot speak to them beyond that, right?

So uh we are also requesting SCP for this as well and are open to questions.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Gaddis.

Thanks.

I've got some questions.

Um, could first of all, could we get a list of the 27 locations?

Um and how many cuts will this provide?

It's bi-weekly lawn mowing services beginning, it'll it'll likely begin in the first week of August this year.

And then the organization that's gonna cut, I mean, the some I've been out driving.

Grass is high.

Will they have the equipment needed for that first cut, or are we expecting our young people to weed whack all that?

Absolutely.

Uh so the Toledo Community Foundation actually provided funding in year one, uh, and that funding went to the Goodwill.

So the goodwill actually has all of the equipment, and then they are working with a community-based contractor that will then provide the day-to-day management of it.

So the the equipment that they have will certainly suffice to take care of some of those uh higher higher uh loans.

Great to hear.

Thanks.

I think this sounds like a an incredible program and an incredible opportunity for our youth and then also for our elders.

Uh Councilman Meldon.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Quickly, I just want to compliment the name.

We didn't really pause on that enough, I think.

Uh mobility is lovely.

Thank you for that.

Every time we talk about cutting grass too much and she ropes man I am striking out she's not here either.

Every time we talk about cutting grass I'm just like are we ever going to experiment with like overseeding with clover or like something different to maybe if you could save two three cuts a year it's a it you know makes those resources go further.

I'm curious since we have some philanthropic investment if we might ask them maybe we look at that next year.

I know you're like I'm trying to do really hard things and Councilmember Meldon's asking about planting clover seed.

I understand it I planted in my backyard because I don't want to move my backyard.

And it's been great.

So just an idea I would love to pilot it if it saves little money it could be worth kind of going more broadly.

We are certainly open to innovative ideas, certainly Councilwoman Dr.

Jones.

Thank you Chair.

Well definitely love this program and really hoping for its longevity especially as we're dealing with cuts and then also just the civility of our neighborhoods I'm curious as far as um what are the metrics um that you use to choose these households.

So our initial list was actually from the Snow Angels program.

So Valerie Fatika does the outreach initially to uh those that are within our focus areas.

So we have uh you know eligibility requirements for income uh as well as for age range and as well as for disability so she is doing all of the verification.

But then we also do outreach through flyers through I mean honestly very large flyers inside of the different libraries.

And then we also I mean we have an excellent team that is just always doing groundwork so they're distributing it to I mean elders that are within our neighborhoods that are working through that way.

I believe we had 52 total um applicants last year.

And you know certainly just depending on the time that we receive the funding we're able to start we're only able to provide it for 27 households.

So we're beginning with that group of 52.

Valerie has actually I believe she sent out a letter I believe it was late last week or maybe it was I mean well what is today Tuesday.

So very relatively recently she sent out the initial letter so that's where we start our goal is to get up to 60 households this year to provide those services.

It's two cohorts of uh of eight each they're paid a living wage I believe that one of our participants actually came to city council last year he um had some involvement with juvenile justice for uh gun charge uh and engaged in the program has worked very closely with one of our uh our staff uh Eduardo Adams and just had uh just really excellent outcomes I think to be honest with you it's one of our more successful programs when it comes to some of the longer term uh impacts including reduced recidivism including some of the changes in you know knowledge attitudes beliefs behaviors uh so uh I'm going far beyond answering your question and I'm very sorry so you are always a wealth of information so it's okay which brings me to my other question well I would say comment because um I'm thinking of just out where I live it's a lot of like high grass but it's mostly like storefronts so the right aids and stuff like that.

So with that were there any um consideration I know this is focused on um the elderly population and those with disabilities but could you see this potentially expanding as a way to help our city services to take care of some of like the retail or um other type of business corridors as well.

It's it's certainly possible.

I think it's always a resource or an input question on our end.

We certainly have enough participants that would be interested and willing uh they're almost always competing for spots.

I'll say that.

And I'll also say one of the other key pieces that perhaps is not um I guess that's teased out, is there's this real intergenerational interaction between young people that typically are not perceived um in the best light, but are having these really meaningful interactions with with elders within their community.

So there's this real creating community connectivity, creating this like meaningful support as well.

We wouldn't want to lose that, but I also do think it makes perfect sense to expand when the inputs are available to expand those.

Yeah, because I was even thinking, just to also just expand this program, of course, if funds are available.

Looking at, I know you're working with Area Office on Aging or the County Department of Developmental Disabilities.

I'm pretty sure they have some information about who may need these services.

Also looking at apartment complexes and passing out flyers there, especially along airport, that's what I'm thinking, around their airport door area, even some rentals area, just to kind of expand that reach, because I'm always advocating for just the outer neighborhoods because they are starting to see decline, and we can do two things at once.

So why can't we looking forward just looking at that expansion for this program and still keeping that essence of that intergenerational connection too?

But those were just some of the thoughts, but I love I love this program.

Oh, another thought, since they are doing, you know, dealing with grass, probably the connection for career development with horiculture and things of that nature, so they can start on that track if they're interested.

So that can definitely um get some other skills and and future horicultures, however, you say that in our fields as well, too.

So those are just comes.

Well, thank you so much, and this is a great, great job, great program.

Thank you, Chair.

Vice Chair Gaddis, your recommendation?

SCP, please.

Thank you.

Item 11 comes from the Office of Community Services.

Thank you, and good afternoon, Council Members, Chief Impact Officer Tiffany Whitman from the Department of Community Services.

I'm joined here today by Commissioner Dr.

Stephanie Covington.

We will be presenting item number 11.

This ordinance authorizes the reappropriation of 25,000 in the general fund, the Office of Community Services budget for the junior achievement of Northwestern Ohio's Incorporated's fifth year programming, offers authorizing the mayor to enter into necessary agreements with junior achievement or northwestern Ohio for the purpose in declaring emergency.

With the overall goal of advancing the city strategic plan, as well as our broader goals for youth development and workforce growth, we know that participating in JA's fifth year programming is a great first step.

And with that, I'm gonna turn over to Commissioner Dr.

Cubington to talk more about what our participation will look like in this program.

Good afternoon, Council.

So many of you have had the opportunity of speaking to junior achievement when we've had them here for site visits.

And so with this uh collaboration, um expanding our work with them beyond site visits and even some workshop things I've done with them, it would be um hosting uh four junior achievement uh interns this fall.

Um and so for those that aren't familiar with the junior achievement fifth year program, it's a gap year opportunity for um high school graduates uh within the program.

They are um participating in life skills workshops.

Um I believe this year they will be residing at the University of Toledo campus before they were at Lord's um university.

Uh they also engage in site visits with uh different organizations within the Toledo area, and then there's three days of internship um time.

So with this, we would uh be able to offer uh internship placement for those youth to further understand uh the workings of the city of Toledo and what we know to be true is that when we engage young people in internships, they're getting experiences and opportunities to learn more about what we do, and then we can hire them, like uh Chief of Staff Frank Spare and then a few other people.

I know Dave Yon Beach on our team was once an intern and is now employed, so being able to um provide these opportunities and exposure for these youth would be really great, and some of them um may enter into public service from this type of engagement.

Yes, and we are requesting SCP.

Council President Williams.

All right, thank you for this.

Now, this is a question that I I I meant to ask when we were talking about it initially.

Have you guys been involved in this uh safety zone discussion?

If not, join us.

I believe that these programs add a lot to the topic that we're speaking on, and what I've said numerous.

I wish they were here.

I've said numerous times throughout this is we have to be more engaging as well and be inclusive and not exclusive.

So I would love to have these discussions with all of us at the table because we got to next week.

Thank you.

Appreciate that, Council President Williams.

Your recommendation?

What did you ask for?

SCP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Items 12 through 15 come from the Department of Communications.

Good afternoon, members of council.

Rachel Hart, Chief of Communications here with Jenny Jayquay, our Commissioner of Customer Service.

Today we're presenting four items from the Department of Communications.

If it's all right with you, the first three are all sort of part of the same project.

I'd like to present them together.

Okay.

So these three pieces of legislation, items 12, 13, and 14, work together to help us use our brand as a city to engage externally with the public, internally to support our workforce, and also create some operational efficiencies that reduce reduce waste and improve oversight.

So item number 12 authorizes a contract to create the City of Toledo swag store.

This has been something that's been highly requested for a long time.

This is able to be done at no cost to the city.

The city doesn't have to bear any of the financial risk.

The storefront would be open to the public and operating through a vendor that will handle the production and fulfillment of any purchased items on demand.

And I think it's really just a win-win for us.

This is sort of the complementary piece to the public-facing swag store.

This contract would sort of would streamline city purchases of branded merchandise, whether that be for employees, for distribution at different public events.

So this contract would uh would allow us to sort of streamline the purchase of those things.

So departments that have already had money, whether it be for uniforms, volunteer t shirts, those types of things, that is what is included in that $50,000.

The number is sort of based on what we were able to identify from last year's expenditures, but it is it is sort of just a best guess and a ceiling not to exceed.

And the final piece of legislation item number 14 creates the employee engagement trust fund.

So I mentioned that the swag store will produce a small amount of revenue from the sale of those branded items.

And this new trust fund uh is being created to help capture that revenue and sort of set it aside so that it can be dedicated to employee engagement uses moving forward.

This trust fund would be housed under HR and sort of able to be used at their discretion.

But I think that you know, in a competitive labor market, these types of employee engagement activities can really go a long way.

And so taking that newly created revenue and sort of dedicating it to this purpose is what this fund is set up to do.

So that is sort of the whole picture of what we're we're trying to accomplish with branded merchandise, both for the public and internally.

Councilman Martinez.

I think Councilman Soronto is first.

I'll yield.

Councilman Seranto.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

I just had a question.

Who who's uh doing the production of the of these goods?

Yeah, so there are there are two contracts here.

Um we did go through a formal RFP process at the end of last year, um, and decided to this originally we wanted to do this as one contract, but we decided to split it into two and plan to award Wilkinsons with the public facing swag store and jute mode with the internal bulk merchandise contract so that we can support both of those uh local vendors.

Okay, great, thank you, thank you, madam chair.

Councilman Martinez.

Uh thank you, madam chair.

Um, excuse me.

Super creative.

Um I like the direction this is going.

Um, uh very supportive that we should have done this like a dull moment.

Um, and I I think that's a great way to continue engaging our employees and not necessarily burning the taxpayer dollars.

It was great that we were able to do it in the past.

Now that we're a little bit more austere, this is a very creative solution to continue showing how much we appreciate our employees, and I and I applaud you and the administration for for doing this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Comives.

Thank you so much.

Love the trust fund.

I think this is a brilliant idea.

Uh I definitely have always supported and try to be at all of the events that we do.

Um, I agree they're important.

So thank you for uh the creativity there.

Um, while Wilkinson's is a local vendor, they're in Sylvania.

They pay Sylvania income tax.

They don't send that income tax here.

Um I'm just curious why like what made the difference between choosing a non-Tolito company versus a Toledo company on this.

Sure.

So those two vendors were the only from the only vendors that responded to the RFP from I think the state of Ohio.

And Wilkinsons was able to set up this public facing store without any upfront expenditure, whereas the um JUT Mode proposal did require an upfront expenditure to sort of establish that store.

So that was primarily the reason that we decided to split that up and kind of use those two different contracts to play to both of the vendors' strengths.

Do you know how much that cost was?

I think it was about $10,000.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Thank you.

Um we talk swag, is that TOL?

Is it the flag?

Is it the City SEAL?

What falls under that?

I think we envision it as any and all.

Um the TOL certainly is fair game.

Um I'd love to be able to sell city flags.

Um, but I think this is also an opportunity for us to highlight some of the strategic initiatives that we have around retree, uh, retreat tooled, our led safety campaign, vision zero.

Um, so I think it can really be a host of different items that could rotate seasonally.

We could, you know, sell things for for different times of year, different events.

Um, I think it gives us a lot of flexibility.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Gaddis, that's a great question.

I as you started talking about it, I was like, oh, we could get some lock saved live shirts for next uh gun violence awareness months.

Absolutely.

Yeah, okay.

Well, thank you very much.

Councilmember Gaddis, what is your recommendation?

Well, what did you ask?

SCP, please.

For all three.

For all three.

Do I have to do each one?

Okay, no.

SEP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And um item number 15 will be presented by Commissioner Jakeway.

So I'll turn it over to her.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, President Williams, Chair Kramer, members of council, as Director Hart said, my name is Jenny Jakeway.

I'm Commissioner of Customer Service, and I'm pleased to be here today to present proposed legislation authorizing the annual expenditure of an amount not to exceed 23,346 for agent interaction call recording services.

Waiving the competitive bidding requirements of TMC chapter 187.

This ordinance authorizes the city to enter into a one-year contract with two one-year renewal options.

I'm respectfully requesting SEP and happy to answer any questions.

Councilman Seranto.

Thank you.

Commissioner, what do we gain from having this contract?

What are they really gonna provide for us that we don't have now?

Uh thank you.

Well, we actually have a contract currently.

We have recorded our calls in the call center, inbound and outbound calls as a matter of best practice.

Historically, I started there in 2011, so prior to that, and what we gain is quality assurance and training for our agents, but it's also, as I mentioned, a best practice for our customers.

Uh customers often on the utility side may want to dispute a utility bill, they'll go through that formal bill dispute process.

The internal border review committee, and potentially if it goes to a utility appeals board review, that recorded call with the interaction between the customer and the agent can be vital in some times.

Sometimes I'm requested by law department to turn over call recordings, but as I mentioned, on a daily basis, our supervisors to ensure that quality customer service that we expect to deliver for our customers, the way that we do that is to randomly monitor calls, and this company, this contract is that to have call recording services as an option.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, madam chair.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Thank you.

Um this package, is it by minutes?

Like how is it just a monthly sum regardless of 15 calls or a million?

Correct.

It's software as a service, so it's subscription based, and what we're paying for is the licenses for each agent to have the availability.

Has nothing to do, it's the same rate no matter how many calls we receive.

Thank you.

And is it for engage only?

Does this apply to the water or to taxes?

Great question.

So it's for the contact center, so it's any inbound and outbound call that we take, whether it be through the 245 1800 number for our utility customer service or for the engaged Toledo.

It's for both services.

So if they call into engage, it gets recorded.

If they get forwarded to another office, is it recorded?

If it's forwarded to another office, it will not be recorded because the office that it'll be forward to say to city council, you don't have call recording as a service.

So it will only be recorded.

The call will capture what happens at the agent in the call center.

And then how long do they keep recordings?

So our record retention policy states today that the recorded phone calls are for however long as administratively necessary.

So that gives us a little bit leeway.

Um so I can take that by way of referral, what that average time would be.

I think it's determined based off availability of space, but I will follow up and answer that by way of referral.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember Gaddis, what is your recommendation?

SCP, please.

Thank you.

Item 16 is from the Department of Development.

Good afternoon, members of the council.

Brandon Sulhorst, Chief Growth Officer.

Um, as you all know, we have partnered with Metro Parks Toledo, uh, the transformational Glass City Riverwalk project.

As we continue to um launch construction on the Vestula portion of the Riverwalk.

Um we have been partnering with Metro Parks Toledo and the Arts Commission to re-envision the maritime plaza space, which is underneath the MLK Bridge between the downtown portion and uh Vestula.

So think about Water Street.

If you were to take that by Toledo Pickle and take that to downtown, there's a plaza under there that is activated from time to time with public events, but it's a public space and it's largely underutilized.

And so, as a part of our ongoing efforts to think about the riverwalk and activating public spaces, we have partnered with Metro Parks Salito and the Arts Commission to re-envision the space.

And it is largely, at least this ordinance is for a dynamic lighting display underneath the bridge that would kind of mirror the dynamic lighting display that was done on the sides of the bridge, which we lit for the first time this Friday.

It looked absolutely great.

But this is a transform transformative project to kind of link that connection between where the river walk currently stops today, which is uh right there at the edge of downtown.

Um, and going into the next phase of the riverwalk project into the Vistula neighborhood.

Um, so this ordinance authorizes a hundred thousand dollar grant from the City Center TIFF.

For those of you that aren't familiar, uh, there's a TIFF that is established over downtown.

The increase in uh property revenues uh get deposited into the TIFF funds, which we use for public infrastructure improvements and placemaking projects such as this.

The grant is being matched by the Metro Parks Toledo and Arts Commission.

Uh the total project is 375,000.

Metro Parks Toledo will be responsible for installation and operation of the lighting display and the Maritime Plaza activation.

Um so this grant also, or I'm sorry, this ordinance also authorizes an amendment to our development agreement with Metro Parks.

Many of you remember we entered into a development agreement to kind of govern all of the different property transactions and things that we have with Metro Parks.

So this amendment will allow us to add language in there that makes them responsible for this project and activation of that space over the long term.

If approved by you next week, the installation is expected to be complete by this fall.

We are respectfully requesting SCP.

Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Councilman Driscoll.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, this is this is a cool project.

Very supportive of this.

This is like a criminally underutilized public space, so I I think it'd be this would be an awesome addition to the river walk.

My only question about this is like what's what what was the genesis of this project?

Whose idea was this first and foremost?

Um it really started with metro parks.

I mean, so we're we're constantly looking about how to activate public spaces that are underutilized along the riverwalk, but also how to start to bridge the gap or the perceived gap between portions of the riverwalk and in different neighborhoods, right?

So this particular part of the bridge is kind of a could be seen as a a point in time in the riverwalk where the project stops and we're wanting it to continue down water street.

We're wanting to invite people to come from downtown and invite them into Vistula, and this is kind of an exciting different way to do that.

Um, but also there it's a pretty unique space.

Like if you haven't been down there, I encourage you to do it.

Um I think that there are you know some events that happen there.

I think Cherry Street Mission has an annual fundraising event there.

Um it's underutilized and it has some cool factor, and this is just an opportunity to increase it and hopefully be able to utilize it better.

So it really started with with the Metro Parks and then, of course, the arts commission has been involved in the overall dynamic lighting display on the MLK bridge, and then of course, because it's our bridge and our public space, we're involved because we're the owner.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

It's it's necessary, it's gonna be cool when it's finished.

Um, I guess what I'm driving at though, and I and I had the same issue with um the recent expenditure from the city center TIFF for the warehouse district, um, some of the placemaking we're doing with like the seating and stuff that we're doing on here in Ont Street.

I'm not opposed to the project.

I guess uh um I think maybe later this summer, I think it might be necessary to do some sort of committee meeting around all of the TIFFs that we have because it doesn't yet appear to me that we've got a strategic vision for how we're utilizing our TIFF funds.

And the reason I ask who were the genesis of this project is: well, Metro Parks is a very politically astute organization.

They know who to talk to.

They know that the TIFF exists, and they've got a project that you know they think we might support, but there are limited funds in that TIFF.

And uh there it could be the case, maybe that there's an even better project out there that's been conceived of by a group that does not have the same political cachet as the Metro Parks, and they don't know how to ask for TIFF funding or to set up an agreement, and so and it's is not yet been made clear to me that we know everything we want to do with these TIFF funds, and what I and I'm I'm I'm um I'm loath to use this term, but I what I don't want to happen is for these to turn into a slush fund, and and we just okay that's great project, let's do that.

Uh I think there should be some strategy, and perhaps the strategy is to have some nimbleness to be able to react to new projects that pop up.

And I can live with that, but we've never enumerated that either.

Does that make sense?

I I just what I don't want is uh for us to be hamstrung if a if uh with without some sort of plan, that's what I've always lamented, not having a plan for the city tooled away and and this is yet another example of it.

Um that being said, very supportive of this.

We vote on it next week.

I'm gonna vote yes, but I think um I just think it would behoove all of us uh uh to enumerate the projects and the things we want to accomplish with each one of our TIFFs, the city center just being one example of it.

Great.

Welcome that conversation.

Councilwoman Morris.

Thank you.

Um I'm familiar with this.

I used to walk this all the time when it was not improved.

Um and I know that there's a lot of uh information about our maritime industry.

Um is that going to be moved or is you know, is any of that stuff is it just installing the lighting?

It's just installing the lighting and and and putting uh metro parks um in the seat of being able to activate it in a way that they can't today because um in order to come through there, the city would have to give permission to activate that space, and so we want to be able to partner with them if they have events and things like that that they can think about that.

Uh, but nothing this is still maritime plaza, nothing regarding the existing signage and historical information is is going to change as a part of this.

And so and who owns this?

Is it Maritime Pla?

I mean, it because it's underneath the bridge.

City owns it.

So it's a city owned bridge.

Correct.

Okay, and so we're authorizing the expenditure um for the lights for the for the lighting specifically.

Correct.

Okay.

And then this ordinance also does amend our development agreement with them with Metro Parks specifically that allows them to activate the space.

Okay.

Okay.

I I'm not critical of it, but I'm just trying to understand who has what and how it's going to be put together.

So okay, all right.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, so along those lines, supportive of the project, my question is two twofold.

Number one, who would be responsible for maintenance and cleaning after events, like if I wanted to host a fundraiser there, I gotta go to the Metro Parks.

Yes, that's the point of amending the development agreement that a lot puts that onus of the of operations and maintenance of not only the space but also the lighting on them.

And the cost of the lighting?

Correct.

Okay, correct.

This is our contribu uh we're contributing to help cover the cost of the installation, but the maintenance of it will be on the metro parks to do.

And the development agreement is what will memorialize that.

Got it.

And then uh so good to know, and then I guess the other question is just more around safety.

Are there cameras or anything gonna be installed there or I could take that by way of referral?

I don't I don't know the answer to that.

I mean, I know that there are cameras as a part of the larger riverwalk project.

Um it's not uh in the scope of this project of what we're funding currently.

Um, but I could I could verify that and get back to you.

Great.

That's it.

Thanks.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Okay.

Thanks.

I see that the expected installation is fall of 2026.

Will that space be activated then, or will it be like waiting until the next watershed weekend?

No, that's a great question.

No, it could be activated now.

Um the installation of the lighting is what will be complete by 2026.

Okay, I just know that when they did the watershed, that's where they put the toilets, correct?

Yes, that was where they did that, but there's a higher and better use than I love that.

I love that.

I just wasn't sure if we were holding it for another event or if it would be activated right away.

So yeah, it'll be activated right away.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

I certainly appreciate the partnership here with the Metro Parks.

Um, I was down at Watershed Weekend several times this weekend, and everything looked fantastic.

Um, do we anticipate there'll be like light shows down there?

Like, what are they gonna be using the lights really for?

I mean, it will be um in sync with the lights on the opposite sides of the bridge that we lit this weekend, and you know, those are all in sync with the high level and the Veterans Class City Skyway.

So theoretically, there's a light show every night down there.

Um, and this just kind of creates a cool feature where you can get up and close with the lights and the space and kind of have unique events at nighttime that you can't do with the bridge currently.

So, okay.

Uh since Chair Meldon and Vice Chair McPherson are not here.

Uh, that falls to Councilman Meldon to make a recommendation.

Oh, sorry, Driscoll.

I was looking right at you.

SEP.

Thank you.

I don't know.

Uh items uh sorry, 18 and 19 come from the Department of Finance.

I'm sorry.

I threw myself now.

I'm really sorry.

Item 17 comes from the Toledo City Plan Commission.

I'll get it together up here.

Good afternoon, Council Lisa Catrell and Bill Harbert from the Toledo City Plan Commission.

We're here to present the local landmark designation ordinance authorizing the expenditure of 125,000 from the city's general fund to pay for the local landmark consultant, and I will have Mr.

Harbert take over from here.

Thank you.

Uh Bill Harbor, associate planner, uh City of Toledo Plan Commission.

Um, so the expenditure is going to secure a uh pre professional consulting service to uh prepare documentation for presenting to the plan commission and then ultimately to city council for uh 20 sites to be locally landmark designation.

Um we did do a an RIP where we uh had four um applicants present their information.

We did a competitive scoring on that.

Uh we had do have someone selected, however, we're not uh presenting that until an ordinance has been passed.

Um as you may know, back in 2025, we did a uh study on privately owned uh historic sites that are architecturally historically and culturally significant throughout the city.

City council asked us to do that again in 2026 for publicly owned sites.

So we've done these two studies.

Um what we found as part of that is that uh these sites were vulnerable, um, and what they were vulnerable to was um no public input in terms of their use or and or demolition if that's said be.

So what this new uh what local landmark designation will do, it will provide that additional layer of review as well as public input prior to uh action being taken against those.

So um the consultant's going to prepare that documentation.

We're gonna present that the the plan commission once the uh project is complete with those 20 projects.

The plan commission staff will then take uh take onus of that uh local future local landmark designations, and there won't be any additional funding required as part of that project.

So with that being said, I'm happy to answer any questions you guys may have.

Councilmember Gaddis.

I don't have questions.

I just I'm super excited about this.

A 20.

That's that's great.

I these historical structures, this is our fingerprint, right?

In in the Midwest, and so many other big cities when you go visit, you do historical tours.

It's that's that's this saving these buildings that the ones that are savable, that's really important to who we are.

Remembering who we are so we can move forward, and uh I just want to thank you for all of your hard work, and I'm looking forward to this.

Thank you, Chair.

We do request SAP.

Chair Morris, your recommendation?

SCP?

Thank you.

And now we'll go to items 18 and 19 from the Department of Finance.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairwoman Kramer, members of council.

Uh Melanie Campbell from the Department of Finance for items 18 and 19.

I'm joined at the table by our debt and CIP manager Jamie Tackis.

Starting with number 18, um, this is an ordinance related to the district improvement program.

Um it's kind of a companion piece to an item on the agenda that you'll hear under new items from city council.

Um, but this one specifically authorizes the reappropriation of funds within the district improvement program.

It does not overall increase or decrease the total amount of funds.

Um it just sets up project accounts so that we can track more easily uh by district what's going on in each of those district project budgets.

Um be happy to take any questions if you have them, and we are requesting SEP on this one, Chair Soranto.

What's your recommendation?

I recommend FCP.

Thank you.

Um and then agenda item 19 authorizes the expenditure of just over 19,000 from the general fund budget for annual membership dues for the Ohio Municipal League.

Um we're requesting SEP on this one, and I'd be happy to take any questions.

Councilman Seronto, your recommendation?

Madam Chair, I recommend SEP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Items 21 through 26 are from the Department of Transportation.

Good afternoon, Christy Soncrant, Commissioner Engineering and Construction, and with me I have Todd Psalms, Commissioner of Water Distribution.

Item number 21.

This ordinance will fund the replacement of lead and galvanized water service lines on our 2027 roadway and water line construction projects in the city of Toledo.

This will include both the city side and the homeowner side service line.

It is a 0% entrance loan, interest loan.

The US EPA has begun enforcing a strict 10-year guideline requiring public water systems to identify and fully replace all lead services service lines across the country.

Systems must identify all lead pipes and replace them completely.

Incomplete or partial replacements are no longer considered acceptable for compliance.

Water utilities are also required to publicly map and make available our full service line inventories to allow property owners to determine if their connection is made of lead, galvanized, or copper.

I did go in and even check it before I came here, and it works well.

Um you go in there, you type in your address, and we have a nice map that you can just click on the line then and it comes out what it is made of.

So I'm requesting SCP, and we'll take any questions at this time.

Councilman Martinez.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Um so this is really great.

Um super supportive question though, what if is it just from the main line to the house?

It's yes, so it's from the main line to the house.

So it's it's the city side and the homeowner side.

Right.

So we have to do them all.

So it will be complete all the way from the water line to the customers' meter.

Right.

Okay, so I just want yeah.

Setting my base here.

So what if there is a detached garage that has water and it's either a lead or a galvanized line?

Would that be covered or no?

That would be an absolute anomaly.

I'm k I'm kidding.

Um, usually those will the plumbing would run through the house to the garage in the rear.

Right.

But if it's separated, it's in the ground.

Or iron, so anything downstream of that meter, we don't we don't touch.

Right.

Just in the meter.

That's correct.

Just that meter setting.

After that, it's out of our.

So the reason I'm asking, I'm thinking of River Road with our detached garages in.

There's a lot of individuals that have water to their garages or pools.

And the reason I'm asking this is because they're long stretches, and I didn't know where it's starting stopped.

Um, and then there's also homes in like the Beverly area, also that may not have an attached garage that have a detached garage that may have that same situation.

So I just want to anticipate questions when I start blasting this out to the D2 uh Facebook page.

So I'm sure that's gonna come up.

So I wanted to ask the question first.

Yep, just to the meteor setting, if if you find lead inside the home, one and a blue moon have lead internal plumbing.

We can have that conversation, help them, you know, get them some some additional aid.

Gotcha.

Great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Thanks.

Will this require you to dig up roads?

So that's part of the reason we are doing this now.

We are doing it with all of our projects.

So engineering has taken over the program to do it with our projects so that we will not be going back and recutting up a road when this is what to do it later.

So what about the roads that are already been replaced?

Because I know when uh it wasn't us, it was the gas, but boy, they left, they they did us dirty.

And on the east side, it's so bad.

Parker, like, they didn't uh fix the roads correctly, and we just laid paint, we just did them a couple years ago.

So I know we're not gonna my lifetime I'm not gonna see another road down parker redone.

And so when they cut the sides and then they patched them, uh they didn't patch very well, they didn't seal it, they're coming up.

It's it's already really bad.

So what are we gonna do to prevent the same thing happening?

No, go ahead.

Yeah, no, please.

Well, I was gonna say so in the future, because of course we have um thousands of line, tens of thousands of lines that need replacing.

I'm sure that we're gonna come to some that we have resurfaced five years ago or 10 years ago.

So if that main is in the road, um we will have to cut into it, but the city will make sure that we do it correctly.

And if we end up going down the whole street and doing it, we'd probably do an overlay.

We wouldn't just patch 50 patches across the street.

We would like the yeah, like the gas company.

Um, are you working with any of our partners like the gas company to make sure we do everything all at once so there's no other touching of the road?

So that's kind of part of what we normally do in during the construction.

So when we are determining what we're gonna do, we let all the utilities know, and then um the utilities actually do are supposed to send us the plans before they do any of the work so we can check them out and see what they are planning on doing also.

So we do try to um coordinate with them, and we do uh utility coordination meetings um throughout the year with the companies also.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

Council Member Comires.

Thank you.

Do we know how many we're talking?

For total that we have.

So right now it's about 52,000.

Okay.

And are we gonna do this?

Are your crews doing all this to my response.

We're gonna contract this out.

Yep, that'll all be done by the contractor when we replace the wire main.

Okay.

We do kind of the one-offs, if you will, still internally, but the this money will be contracted.

Okay, and we think this money will cover all of those.

No, roughly seven hundred and fifty.

Seven hundred and fifty and about eight thousand a piece.

Okay, I'm gonna math for a second.

Thank you.

I've done it.

Do you want me to tell you?

Well, if we only do 6 million a year, it'll take us 65 years.

To meet the deadline to meet the deadline.

Of everything.

It's about a 30 million dollar liability if we were to meet that 10 year.

It's about 500 million if we were to go out and replace all 50,000 today.

Today's money.

It's quite a heavy lift.

I see.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation.

SEP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jeremy Michael Isaac, Deputy Director for the Department of Public Works.

I'm here to bring you uh legislation number 22.

Um, this authorizes this ordinance authorizes the expenditure of two hundred and fifty thousand from the twenty twenty-six capital improvement budget for traffic signals and signs upgrades.

The city of Toledo required is required by federal mandate to meet minimum traffic signal and sign requirements.

These funds will allow the division of traffic management to purchase materials to replace existing non-compliant signals and signs and related equipment that have reached their useful life throughout the city.

We're asking for SCP, and I'll take any questions.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you.

Item 23 is authorizing the mayor to enter into a cooperative grant agreement with and accept assistance from the State of Ohio Department of Transportation for design and construction of the roadway departure safety project.

The division of traffic management and road road and bridge maintenance have successfully applied for and received funding from the State of Ohio Department of Transportation to add or replace safety features at approximately 20 different locations.

These safety features include permanent rumble strips and guardrail improvements, including end treatments and attenuators.

Matching funds will be provided through the division of road and bridge maintenance matches and planning fund.

Design is scheduled to begin in 2026 with construction in 2029.

Um I understand what rumbles are and attenuators.

What is type E anchor assemblies?

Okay, so on the walk on the sidewalk, not on the roadway guardrail.

No, the roadway guardrail, yes.

Okay, okay.

Okay, I appreciate that.

I'm excited.

I think the neighbors are gonna be excited, so thank you for this.

And a lot of these uh attenuators that we're replacing, they're outdated, and uh a new standard has come out for them.

So that's why these are being replaced, and or they've already been destroyed, and we have to update them.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Especially in my district, there's a a lot that have seen better days.

So I thank you for this.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember Comves.

Thank you.

The slip lane going to uh Glendale off the trail has not permanent rumble strips, correct?

There are rumble strips that are there.

There are rumble strips there, yes.

Are they not permanent ones?

No, um, the ones that we have installed in the last uh couple years, they're not really considered a permanent because of the way that they're installed.

Uh we also have them on enterprise where we've had a lot of uh street racing going on there.

Uh we've noticed with those with the couple of winners that we've gone through, they do kind of break up and have to be reapplied.

I see.

Do we have an example of permanent ones in the city right now?

The permanent ones would be like the ones that are like ground into the pavement.

Gotcha.

So, like an example of those that aren't just like on along the side of the road.

Do we have any in Solito already?

Um, I don't believe so.

Okay, thanks.

Councilman Martinez.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, this is great news.

So I'm a big advocate for these rumble strips, and I appreciate the willingness of the administration and uh the roads to actually install them as a trial.

Uh they have worked uh amazingly, especially around uh the roundabout.

Um, so we knock on wood, we haven't had any uh vehicles go up, and we the TOL is still there, and uh I want more, so I was just gonna tease you and say, Well, we're kind of missing some here because I'd like to see some on Broadway near the Harvard Circle because we're still getting a lot of speeders, and then if I could put them in every major long stretch, I would.

So thank you for doing this.

And I'm glad it worked out that we're now making them permanent.

I know it was kind of like a pilot project, and it seemed to work, and I know there was some uh concern that these aren't what they're supposed to be done for.

Um, but it seemed like it's worked out, so thank you for your willingness to install them.

Thank you.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

SEP.

Thank you.

Okay, item number 24 is authorizing the mayor to enter into a cooperative grant agreement and accept financial assistance from the state of Ohio Department of Transportation for design and construction of the Alaski over Shiny Creek Bridge project.

This authorizes the acceptance deposit appropriation and expenditure of grant proceeds in the capital improvement fund in an amount not to exceed 168,000 for design and eight hundred and ninety-four thousand three hundred and forty one dollars for construction of the project.

The division of road and bridge maintenance has successfully applied for and received funding from the state of Ohio Department of Transportation to rehabilitate the Lasky over Shiny Creek Bridge.

The City of Toledo will administer the design and construction of the project.

Matching funds will be provided through the division of road and bridge maintenance's matches and planning fund.

Design is scheduled to begin in 2026 with construction in 2029.

We're asking for SCP, and I'll take any questions.

Councilwoman Morris.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I'm trying to figure out where this is on LASCI.

Do you have uh any point of contact for me?

I don't, but I will send it to you.

Okay, off the top of my head.

I can't think of it.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out if this is in district five or if this was in district six.

I think it's in five, but I'm not sure.

I did have a picture of it, but they did remove it, and that's been uh what's this world coming to?

All right.

If you can if you could just follow up with me at some point, email's fine.

I don't need to have a referral, so thank you.

Okay, Chair Discrow Driscoll.

Your recommendation, SEP.

Thank you.

Item number 24 is authorizing the expenditure of an amount not to exceed 4,600,000 from the capital improvement program for the bridges matches and planning program.

The division of road and bridge maintenance is requesting the authorization to expend an amount not to exceed 4,600,000 from the capital improvement project fund for the bridges matches and planning program.

This funding will be used to provide match dollars for state and federal grants and loans.

The appropriation for this funding was authorized through ordinance 126-26 as part of the 2026 CIP plan.

The matches and planning program provides funding that is needed to supply match dollars for outside grants and loans.

The division has an anticipated and secured as well as to plan for future larger scale projects with required design testing right-of-way and environmental work.

This year's program includes but are not limited to the Coleman Bridge over Norfolk Southern Railroad and the Anderson property, Burdan Bridge over Ottawa River, Summit and Miami Street Embankments, Lasky Bridge over Shane Creek, the Roadway Departure Safety Project, and Burn Road over Grand Trunk Railroad Projects.

We're asking for SEP, and I'll take any questions.

Chair Councilmember Gaddis.

I snuck in there, I'm sorry.

I get excited when there's there's so many bridges in my district.

So you said not limited to, so perhaps there will be more in the designing phase, depending on how the bid goes.

Yes.

Yeah, all of these are currently in design, so we're not uh quite exactly sure what like the construction costs is going to be just yet.

Okay, okay.

Thank you for the clarity.

Thank you, Chair.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation.

SEP.

Thank you.

Item number 26 is authorizing the expenditure of an amount not to exceed 200,000 from the special assessment service fund for the division of road and bridge maintenance for the purposes of a snow and ice control study.

The division of road and bridge maintenance is tasked with snow and ice control operations during the winter storm events.

The division seeks to enter into a professional services contract for a snow operations study to evaluate the current procedures, equipment, and operations.

This study will be used to optimize the division's snow and ice operations.

We're asking for SCP and I will take any questions.

Chair Driscoll, your recommendation?

Just have one quick question.

Uh what do we expect?

Like what do we think the results of this study and what how will it augment?

What we do do we expect to save money operationally at the end of this, and what's the all of the above?

Um, when we were the division of streets, bridges, and harbor, it was all housed under, or the responsibilities were all housed under one division.

Now that we're split and we also use urban beautification and now road and bridge maintenance that is kind of complicated some things with us.

So what we would like to see out of this is a new set of work rules, some best practices of what maybe other cities may do differently from us.

Uh we also would like them to look at our equipment and tell us, you know, maybe uh maintenance plans on our equipment, uh replacement plan on our equipment.

Uh another thing we would like them to look at is our routes.

Are the 33 routes with the three phases still optimal for us to do, or is there something different that we need to do?

Um, one of the big things that I would like to kind of see, maybe change or be looked at is how do we incorporate residential routes every time it snows?

Is it even possible to do?

Uh why couldn't we do it or why aren't we doing it?

Uh one question, and he had to leave early.

But Vice Chair Hobbs uh was going to ask about alleyway clearing alleyways of snow in certain neighborhoods where everybody parking is strictly in the back.

Um we don't do that now.

Correct.

Um that is that something that could be studied as a part of this?

That is part of the list of things that we would like them to look at.

It also kind of jives with the equipment.

We want them to tell us if the type of equipment we have is appropriate.

Um, not only for our main routes but downtown.

We also have to, when it snows a lot, we have to know it.

We have to pile that up and then haul it out.

Is there a more efficient way of doing that?

Uh yeah, thing things of that nature.

So, yes.

Anything that you may uh have that you might think that we're not thinking of, uh please let me know, and we will make sure that it's included in that.

Okay, I'll go SCP, but it does look like there's another question.

Councilmember Gaddis.

Thanks, just real brief.

I know uh you said hops.

Councilman Hobbes brought up the alleys.

I'm the same, I would love to have that in there.

I am at the base of the bridge, so I have an emergency alley, and it was cleared for years and they've stopped in the last 15 years or so.

And it would it's supposed to be cleared, so if there's an accident at the base of the bridge, they can divert traffic down my alley, but I pay the plow guy to pay do our alley, and I I think that uh we should make sure we're checking emergency alleys into this as well.

Thank you.

SEP.

Thank you.

And item 29 comes from the Department of Public Service.

Hello, uh Joe Fosna, Director of Public Service.

I've asked Aaron Westric, our manager of special projects, uh, to join me today.

Uh she has stepped up to really lead the effort in planning uh these Levit uh concerts.

So it uh only makes sense that that she's here to tell you about it.

Hi, as Director Fosna said, I'm Aaron Westric, special projects manager for the Department of Public Service.

I'm here asking for uh this ordinance to authorize expending up to 30 grand over three years to provide match fundings uh for the 120,000 dollar grant received from the Levitt Foundation to support free outdoor music concerts and parks throughout the city of Toledo.

Overall, this funding will support eight to ten concerts per year currently scheduled in Promenade Park, Glass City Metro Park Junction Park, and Danny Thomas Park.

Uh Toledo was chosen for this through competitive grant um is a grant competition and is a public voting period.

Uh programming reflects Toledo's cultural diversity, uh featuring local, regional, and national artists, and we're spanning through gospel, soul, tejano, hip-hop, and more.

And I will accept questions.

Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

No questions, but I just want to point out that I have a beautiful park in District 2 called Wallbridge Park that has like a place for bands and music.

Just saying, throwing it out there for next time.

Thanks.

Chair Come is your recommendation.

SCP, please.

Thank you.

That ends the reading from the administration.

We will read, we will have one resolution in attendance.

This is from Councilwoman Gaddis and Councilwoman Morris, recognizing Dean Davis for silver medal in national mural competition.

Two second read items.

One is recognizing Dr.

Tracks on his retirement.

That was from last week.

We're trying to find a date upon which he can appear again.

And then we have a the real estate purchase, which is 235-26 real estate purchase agreement with Toledo Lucas County Public Library for property at 1865 Finch Street and 423 Shasta Drive for the library for a dollar.

That was requested to be first reading.

We have one new item from City Council.

Um actually we have two, I'm sorry.

We have amending ordinance 362-18 to update the process and supervision of the DIP program, and this is being presented then by uh Council President Williams and presented by Chief of Staff Frank.

Good afternoon, everybody.

My name's Lucy O'Frank, and I'm the chief of staff for Toledo City Council.

With me, I have um our wonderful chief growth officer, Brandon Sellhorse, who oversees the Department of Uh Economic Development.

And also in the crowd with us is the Director of finance, Melanie Campbell, and manager of debt and CIP, Jamie Tackis, who we've all been working on this project together.

Today we're presenting legislation to amend the original district improvement program or DIP legislation, ordinance 362-18 and requesting SEP.

A little bit of background on the program.

It was established in 2018 to enrich the quality of life for individuals, families, and business owners throughout the city and empower community members to take steps toward long-term improvements.

The purpose of the district improvement program was to give community members an opportunity to have direct input and influence into the improvement of their neighborhoods.

The emphasis of the program is to help fund capital projects not currently planned by the city that have community-wide benefits.

With the legislation in front of you and the companion legislation from the Department of Finance that was presented earlier, we are hoping to transition the management and supervision of the DIP programic development to city council, clean up the CIP funds on the back end, and continue to have a robust program for many more years to come.

A few notes about it.

We do have this sponsored by council president and District 4 Councilwoman Vanese Williams.

This legislation transfers the supervision of the program from the director and chief uh Brandon Selhorse to myself at City Council.

We've been discussing this since 2024.

And some of the main priorities for this is to allow the time required to manage and supervise the program to be transferred from economic development to council to increase clarity on the application process, eligible projects, and eligible applicants through changes to the ordinance and application language.

And this ordinance is at no cost to the city for us to do this legislation.

And just as Director Campbell said earlier, the companion piece of legislation is not adding or removing any dollars from the DIP program.

It's just simply rearranging where we have our funds.

And in the future, when council members are bringing forward legislation with account codes, we won't have to worry too much about those account codes moving forward.

Each district will have one.

Outside of the ordinance, and part of the management of the program, we are developing a web page that will be under city council.

And it's not only to inform the public about the program and the application process, but also to highlight the DIP projects completed since 2018, which is over 70 of them in each district and allow for the application to be downloaded and filled out directly from the website.

Additionally, we will have a new suggest an idea area on the web page where residents and community members can simply suggest an idea for a DIP project to council members without going through the entire application process and owning the project.

These ideas would then be submitted to council members for further review and discussion.

And whether you not or not you want to take the program on or the project on, that idea is in front of you.

Chief Sellhorse, do you have anything you would like to add?

Yeah, I would just like to add thank you, you know, for the opportunity to help launch this program back in 2018.

I think it's a very very useful program any time we can set aside dollars to kind of meet projects where they're at.

I mean, we can't always, you know, budget for these things.

And I think there's been some really transformational type of placemaking and park improvement projects, and we've been able to leverage these grants or these programs to get grant dollars into this.

I mean, it's just very proactive.

There's no question this program needs to continue.

Um, I think one thing that we've learned managing this program since 2018 is it was kind of it was written in 2018 and we haven't really revised it since.

And we put the onus on community groups and private citizens to understand our procurement process and to bid things appropriately and to know all of the inner workings of how the city works and how to get projects through, and as you know, it's very complicated.

And so I love the idea of just having people pitch their idea, let us know the idea if the council members are supportive.

Let us kind of work with in the administration to make that idea come to reality and see if the funding is there through the procurement process.

So I think these uh slight tweaks will make the program even more usable to our residents.

Um I know there's been concerns about you know just getting the dollars out, and I think a part of that is just having good ideas to put them towards, and so this is a good way to um have those ideas come in a lot easier.

I also think, I mean, while we've tried to do the best job that we could in economic development to manage this, this really is a council program.

I mean, you all are out there, you're meeting with constituents, you're talking about the program.

There's so much, I think that um uh chief of staff Frank will be able to do to help us support you all in advertising the program, advertising what we've done.

I mean, there's over 70 projects that have been done.

I know there was a recent uh Blade article around some of the projects that were done.

I mean, just continuing to talk about these exciting things and let people know that this program is available if they have an idea and want us to consider it further.

So I um I'm not going anywhere.

I'm gonna help Lucy through this transition and be a part of the process because I've learned a lot myself and want to want to ensure that it succeeds.

So thank you again for the opportunity and happy to answer any questions.

I do want to add um just a little update on the DIP program in general.

Um so far in 2026, we've legislated three different DIP projects um in District 1, 4, and 6, and we have a number of projects in the pipeline that are expected to be legislated, if not in the next legislative cycle, sometime before the end of this year.

Um, and 2025, we had 16 pieces of legislation, 2024 we had 19 pieces of legislation, and as of June 2026, we've had 74 pieces of legislation that are related to DIP, which is over 3.5 million dollars of capital investment in each of our six districts throughout these different programs.

Um, and before uh I end, I just want to say again, like a huge thank you to Chief Sellhorse for the management and supervision of this program over the last seven plus years.

Uh, I've learned a lot working with him the last two and a half years to get ready for this moment.

Um, and so I really appreciate the support and the vision that you have even with this transition.

I also want to give a huge shout out to Jamie Tacis, the manager of Debt and CIP, who um is really the backbone of the program when it comes to uh legislation and then everything else, making sure that the departments are um getting the correct account codes that they need that we're submitting things appropriately and tracking that spending so that when the project's done, if there's leftover money, it's going back to you and into our program so that we can use it for other things.

So huge shout out to Jamie and Director Campbell for all the work that they do in the background, and with that, any questions.

Council President Williams asked for SCP.

Thank you.

And next we have from Dr.

Jones recognizing July as postpartum month.

Councilwoman Dr.

Jones.

Yeah, so this um recognition is just to highlight the the phases of um bringing new children into the family as well as adjustment in life and just the impact that it can have as far as just really changing your life of being a parent, and that would include postpartum, which is a major change within the woman's body due to just hormones and just getting adjusted, and I felt that it was appropriate to recognize this, especially since it's really tied to mental health, as well as there are different variations of postpartum, and it doesn't just stop within the first six months or first year of life.

And so with this, I hope to not only just bring recognition to this phase.

Well, I wouldn't call it a phase, but just that new journey and the difficulties that it can have, but then also really begin the prioritization of different services that will focus more on postpartum and just to help women or other guardians navigate that and to be that support system because sometimes you know things can be overwhelming, and this is a way to also show that we care just as a city that if we're talking about building population, this is will be part of it, and we have to be sure that the residents are taken care of when they're in this era of their life, and so um I want to continue this conversation.

I've been mentioning this not just this um resolution, but just mentioning this to other organizations about really bringing this um to the front, mainly tied to that mental health aspect.

So I just asked my colleagues to really support this and to really start to think about what does that entail.

If we're talking about attracting new families and building a new population, this will be part of that.

So let's be proactive with those services and support groups.

So that um and if you have any other questions, just let me know.

But thank you for tolerating this and and also just hopefully hoping for your support um for this month as well.

Thank you.

Seeing no further business, this meeting is adjourned.