The longest discussion on our 2022 budget related to the Municipal Court budget and expected shortfall in 2021 and estimates for 2022. The reality is that COVID-19 has hit the Court harder than any other area of our City Budget. It was important to note that while tickets for more serious crimes did not decrease, during COVID-19 there was a significant drop in the number of traffic tickets written in all the communities in the Courthouse district. These losses continued well into 2021 and so instead of numbers working closer to the pre-pandemic numbers of 2019, the case count for 2021 is estimated to remain closer to the same seen in 2020. It is important to note that if there is a deficit in the Courthouse budget, this ultimately must come out of the City of Stow operating expenses. There is an option that would allow the City of Stow to bill back the other member communities of the Courthouse district and ask them to return the fine money that was paid out to them, however, this isn’t always the best option because it hurts smaller communities which could make them consider the creation of additional Mayor’s courts within our district.
Mr. Hailer also presented a report about the Mayor’s Courts that do exist within our Courthouse district and how these do have a negative impact on our Courthouse operations, but also have a negative impact on the City’s where the Courts exist. There are significant issues with Mayor’s courts that have existed for many years, one of which relates to Mayor appoints both the police officers that write tickets along with those that administer the punishment related to the tickets the officers write. These types of Courts also typically have a negative financial impact, however, it is also difficult to determine all the costs associated to compare to the fines collected. If these cities would close their Mayor’s courts, then those cases would go to the Municipal court and all the expenses related to the tickets would be born by the municipal court and the requested that all communities that exist within the Municipal Court District suspect their Mayor’s Court and merge into the Stow Municipal Court. This resolution was passed unanimously.
With these lengthy discussions, Council did not get to review other projects related to the capital improvement projects planned for 2022. Council will have an additional Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday December 7, 2021 at 5:30 PM for discussion of those items.
Council also approved new playground equipment that was budgeted in 2021 for 2 neighborhood parks, Northport Park and Sherwood Acres Park. These were both projects that were added to the budget after City Council pushed for more park improvements to be added to our budget for this year. In addition, I asked the Service Director to review the plan to make significant repairs and the costs associated with that to instead consider if it was time to replace equipment to stretch our dollar further instead of being back for more repairs in just a few years. After review it was determined that it would be a better investment to replace equipment instead of just making repairs to aged equipment. I am looking forward to seeing these improvements that should occur in late spring/early summer of 2022 as I think they will make a significant improvements to our parks that we have not seen in a long time. We have additional neighborhood park projects in discussions for 2022 as well.
The roads program for 2021 was still in progress as of last week, there was hope to get the final surface on several of the roads that were in progress already, but the reality is that there are additional roads that will have to be completed in spring of 2022. The remainder of the 2021 program will continue and be completed in the spring of 2022 prior to any of the 2022 program starting. It is expected that if the budget is approved at our next Council meeting in December of 2021 that the 2022 program will be ready and go out for bid in January of 2022 which will get our road program on a much earlier schedule so we are not continually starting so late and pushing projects into the next year. I believe this is an important change to our road program that will benefit our residents.
Council discussed the upcoming regional dispatch center that it has been proposed for Stow to be a founding member of and the related Council of Governments (COG) that would be created to manage the regional dispatch center. This has been an on going discussion that began prior to even myself being on Council, however, it is a significant project and took many years to get the details to a point to present to cities to consider signing on to the project. In June Mr. Feldman and myself visited with the County and had a tour of the proposed facility, talked with County who is helping drive and over see the project along with the architects and consultants that have been helping finalize the project details, agreements, and bylaws related. At that time, the County hoped to have final information to us by August/September 2021, however, even after asking, Council was provided with information that it just wasn’t ready yet. As this moved into election season, the administration members of the cities involved agreed to put the item on hold until after the election and not present to the cities. While this was not known to our Council until after the election, the final documents were provided to City Council in November for our review. The County had initially asked if Council could review and approve these documents by December 31, 2021, however, with the recent passing of Mr. Altieri, the budget process and items before Council, it was determined this would not be feasible for us in December. I spoke with the County for a timeline to review this item in January of 2022. I laid this plan and timeline out to Council on December 1st and our plan is to do the following:
-Committee of the Whole meeting on Thursday January 6, 2022 at 6 PM for a presentation on the regional dispatch center and related COG documents
-A first reading on Thursday January 13, 2022
-A second reading on Thursday January 20, 2022 (Council voted to add this meeting to our regular Council schedule for 2022)
-A third reading and vote on Thursday January 27, 2022
This will allow our residents and Council members to hear about the project, ask questions, and make an educated decisions on this important topic. We all know safety of our residents is of the utmost importance with that being the top priority of this project and review, but we also need to make sure we understand both the short and long term financial implications this type of arrangement will have on our City. I encourage anyone who is interested to attend the Committee of the Whole meeting on January 6th.
Finally, Council took a moment of silence to remember Ward 1 Councilman Dennis Altieri who passed on November 27th. Dennis was most well known for the years his family owned a restaurant and pizza shop in the city, but most recently he was connecting and representing the residents of Ward 1, and had just been re-elected to continue his representation. Council and the administration will continue the discussion of how to properly remember Dennis’s contribution to our City in the next several months to have a more permanent remembrance of Dennis.
This also creates the difficult discussion of the process and steps needed to make sure Ward 1 has a representative on City Council. Stow City Council is seeking applicants to fill the vacant Ward 1 council seat. The appointment by Council will be for the term from January 2, 2022 to December 31, 2023. On January 3, 2022 Council will have a Committee of the Whole meeting with an Executive Session to review and consider the applicants. Interested parties must have lived within Ward 1 for at least two (2) years prior to their appointment (refer to section 4.03 below).
Interested parties should follow the process below:
Send the following information by Noon on December 21, 2021 to clerkofcouncil@stow.oh.us for consideration.
(a) Full name
(b) Address
(c) Resume or letter as to their experience
SECTION 4.03 QUALIFICATIONS.
Each councilperson elected at large shall have been for at least 2 years prior to the date of his/her election, and during his/her term of office shall be, a continuous resident and qualified elector of the Municipality, or territory annexed thereto.
Each councilperson elected to represent a ward shall have been for at least 2 years prior to the date of his/her election, and during his/her term of office shall be, a continuous resident and qualified elector of the ward he/she represents, or territory annexed thereto.
A councilperson shall hold no other elective public office. He/she shall not be otherwise employed by, nor shall he/she hold any other office in, this Municipality.
Finally, Council will have our next full meeting on December 16, 2021 with Committees starting at 5:30 PM and Council to follow. Mr. McIntire will be handling the responsibilities of running this meeting as I am having a medical procedure on December 14th and will not be able to attend the meeting on the 16th.