Our committee meetings Thursday started with the approval of a patio to be in front of the Dairy Queen on Fishcreek Road. In the times of COVID-19 it seems a lot more people are looking to expand their outdoor seating areas, much like this plan. It was approved unanimously.
We also had a brief update on the maintenance concerns brought up earlier in the year at Adell Durbin Park. Currently while there is a freeze on capital spending and projects the City is still performing general clean up and maintenance at Adell Durbin. They are also gathering costs and quotes for what it will take to make some much needed improvements there, including the replacement of a bridge that was washed out and replacement of the bathroom facilities.
Council had an employee of the Ohio Auditors Office join our meeting last night to discuss the performance audits that can be performed by their office. This audit is not like a financial audit, it instead looks at the efficiency of the operations within the city and makes recommendations based on other cities of comparable size and statewide benchmarks. The audit scope and exactly what areas the auditor looks at is completely dependent upon what the City would choose to have audited. This item has been referred to the Budget Oversight Committee to work with the State Auditor’s Office and the Administration to look at defining a scope and getting a quote before this proceeds any further. The benefit of an audit like this would be to have an independent third party looking at operations and giving recommendations on how our operations compare to other similarly situated cities. Council and the Administration would then discuss such recommendations and see if those changes would make sense for our city or not.
Council also passed by a 5-1 vote, Ms. Shaw voted no, an increased penalty for the passing of a school bus while children are getting on and off. This has been on our agenda for a little while, but with school not being in session during COVID 19 it had remained tabled. Now with the talks of school resuming in the fall, in whatever way that may end up being, it was important to move this forward and let people know that there is no tolerance for someone putting the lives at our children at risk by passing a school bus. There is also plans to work with the Impact Group and the Administration on an educational piece to go along with this to increase awareness of our citizens about the importance of stopping for school buses.
Council also discussed a request by Ms. Shaw to amend our recently passed legislation on promoting racial equality to add “Black Lives Matter” into the legislation. This amendment request did not make it out of committee. Mr. Hailer spoke very passionately about the legislation passed by Council and challenged Council for us to move forward with action and not just conversation and words. I also want to clarify that there were a few comments that stated I removed this phrase from Ms. Shaw’s initial legislation. This is not true, Ms. Shaw did not have this in her original piece of legislation. While I believe everyone agrees that black lives do matter and while it started this discussion among our council and many other local councils, it isn’t the only work to be done. There are many protected classes/minorities that we as a Council and City have committed ourselves to promoting equality for and our legislation was an unequivocal statement for each and everyone of them, without the need to call out each specifically.
The last item of our agenda last night was the approval of a ballot issue to go before voters in the November election. This was an issue approved in November of 2019 that states that the voters will have the chance to have a say in whether Stow would transfer control of our Safety Services Dispatch Center over to a regional dispatch center. Stow and other surrounding communities have been involved in discussions with the county for around 4 years on this topic and whether it would make sense to do this. Council’s vote last night was no way for or against a dispatch center, instead it was approving the language that the voters will see on the ballot in the fall on the topic. There will be more discussion and information shared with Council and with the public on this topic as we get closer to the general election in November.
Roads & Safety Committee will have a special meeting on July 16th to talk about sidewalks and how we can increase the walk-ability of our community. The next regular Committee and Council meetings will be on July 23, 2020, time to be determined closer to the scheduled date.