- Planning Commission and Council approved 2 site plans with small variances last night. The first was for the expansion of Tyres International on Allen Road. The second was a slight variance to a plan approved last year, GVI LLC on McCauley Road.
- There was also discussion regarding the re-zoning of two properties just east of Woodland School. Right now the property is zoned commercial but the remainder of the surrounding properties are all zoned R-3 Residential. The property owner is requesting to have these properties zoned to match the surrounding R-3 Residential properties. This will have 2 additional readings and a public hearing before the re-zoning is complete.
- City Council also approved a grant application to AMATS which is the Akron area planning organization that is federally funded and distributes federal funding for roads and safety projects along with bike and pedestrian infrastructure. This grant is for the study of the city to look at our alternate transportation and connectivity in the city such as pedestrian walkways, bike trails, and walking trails and then would make recommendations on areas for improvement. It would also allow for us to apply for future grants under AMATS to address some of the issues found.
- The finance committee agenda was rather large and for many standard annual expenses such as on going vehicle and maintenance repairs, software contracts, and re-sale supplies at Fox Den.
- One of the items on the agenda that had discussion was a renewal of a contract for a social media consulting firm, The Impact Group. This was a contract that the City entered into last year after some discussions with council about the work they wanted to see. Last year this was to be for consolidating our social media presence (we have 5 city run social media pages), to promote economic development through the creation of information and posts spotlighting local businesses, and to review the content of our webpage to make it more user friendly. Initially in the discussions the administration had proposed having the firm conduct a survey. I was strongly against a survey as we had just completed 3 in the past 3 years regarding the parks needs, the downtown area, and the comprehensive plan. I really feel the last thing we needed was another survey and voiced my concern that a survey was not needed for the items above to be accomplished. The administration however decided to have The Impact Group complete a survey and various “listening sessions” to gather additional information. The survey results that were reported to Council last year was very disappointing as it more was the raw data from the 3 different ways they gathered information with very little analysis. They didn’t even combine the two different survey method types into one comprehensive survey results so it made it very difficult to even interpret the data they gathered. As this request and goal was to focus on economic development it was requested to be paid for out of our lodging tax income. In reviewing the items The Impact Group accomplished in 2019 under their contract I did not feel the items had a focus on economic development and I did not feel the goals of what was laid out for them to accomplish had been the focus. The renewal of the contract failed by a 4-3 vote, I voted no for the reasons listed above, as did Mr. Mcintire, Mr. Fiocca, and Mr. Altieri.
- The other item that was approved by Council last night in finance as an area of discussion was the motion to encourage the Council President to donate the $1,000 of pay above and beyond the other council members make to local Stow Charities. Council did make this motion and as I stated in the meeting, I feel as council members as we are serving our community we should also find ways to give back to our community financially. I will be reviewing my options for local donations and will report back to council when I decide where I would like to make my donation.
- Council received a request for donations to support an upcoming local Boy Scout in his Eagle Scout Project. His project would be to re-build the back porch of the Starr House at Silver Springs Park using composite decking to make it longer lasting. While Council’s discretionary budget does not typically provide for many donations to be made, I challenged other council members to make a donation to this project out of our own council pay, if each council member supported with $50 then the donation would be above and beyond the $250 asked for. Our Council Clerk was kind enough to state she would gather the checks for us and I provided my check for $100 in support of the project last night. I hope other members also step up to make a donation to move this project forward both for a young member of our community but also to sustain the heritage of one of our local historical buildings.
- The last discussion item that occurred was a discussion regarding the live streaming of Council Meetings. Shaw requested that this item be placed on the agenda and stated she felt it was necessary to increase transparency in our city. There were several comments and questions by council members that were centered around the logistics of how it would happen and how it would be properly maintained as it would now be the creation of a public record. Personally I am not against some method of streaming or recording and posting our meetings, but I don’t know that we have all the pieces in place to do it at the moment. We are also in a moment of flux with the city IT department as our IT director retired at the end of January and there has not been a replacement found yet. Hopefully the IT issue will be resolved and the administration will have someone available who could discuss what we would need to do to properly stream or record council meetings. I would see this be an issue that will be discussed at several more meetings to flush out the capabilities, needs, and possible costs to determine the feasibility of this.
Our next meeting will be February 27, 2020 at 7 PM. Committee meeting schedule and start time will come out closer to the actual meeting date. Next meeting will have a rather lengthy Finance Committee Meeting for the first presentation of the 2020 Budget.