Council is now in session. Would you please stand for a moment of silent prayer and the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. And
to the republic for which it stands. One nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Clerk, please call the roll. Mister. Omar, president. Anderson. Here. Here.
here. Here. Here. Need a motion to approve the minutes from the previous meeting. I'll move.
address? Do I have a second? I'm sorry. Second. Omar. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Yes. Barry. Yes.
yes. Yes. Yes. I'd like to welcome everyone tonight before we get started. The mayor has a
proclamation, I believe, to present two of them that and. Do we want to do it at the end
of the meeting then, or. Okay, we'll move that to the end of the meeting. Public works. Okay.
all right. Building safety. All right. Those will be under new business when we when we come
around to it. Okay. First readings tonight are lands under ordinance c 1626 under
service resolution cr 1226 under finance ordinance c 1726. Ordinance c 1826. Ordinance c
1926 and resolution 1326. That is, the chairs are okay with their agenda items. We're going
to move directly into lands with chairman hallenga. Thank you, mr. President. The first
item on the agenda is ordinance c 1626, your honor. C 1626 accept the annexation of 13 of
15.3 acres located south and west of hahn road and jackson township to the city of grove
city. This is the first reading and this is the only item I have under lance, mr. President.
all right. We'll move into service. Mr. Omar. Thank you, mr. President. The item under
service this evening is resolution cr 1226, a resolution declaring the
necessity of constructing certain sidewalks on home road, basalt ave, joseph street,
juniper street, lewis circle, lynn circle, magnolia street, robin street, sequoia ave,
stephens street and valerie street. And requiring that abutting property owners
construct same can I. And if I may. We do have. In addition to that is the home road property
that council added at the last meeting, which is going to be discussed, but I just want to
clarify that that would be in the piece of legislation that you all have. Thank you. I know
that's not there. Yes it is. We have mr. Hammonds from the service department. Yeah, I
apologize. Good evening. Members of council. The resolution several weeks ago,
which asked for or gave us the permission to go ahead and do the research for the properties
that we wanted to investigate for the sidewalk program. Included the streets that were
mentioned here and some in west grove, and then the one on home road. We did our research on
that and found that the home road property was actually all commercial, and it was the
highest priced of the parcels. That would be remedied at about $11,000. The others ranged from
about 400 to about 3000. There were several that were five 6000. One was 7000. But because
it was a commercial property, I felt as though it did not really adhere to the program as
it had been operated the last 13 where we did not do any commercial properties. And I
was a little bit hesitant to put that in. And then when I sent that to the administration
as my recommendation, I left off home road. I didn't want to start a precedent that we began
doing commercial property. So that's why it had been added. Then subsequently to the
program. So be happy to answer any questions you might have. Any questions from council. Is
that the way the program works is it's intended to be for residential. Not everything
that I was able to read and the legislation previously in previous years, it always
referred to homeowner. And I think there was a time, probably pre-covid, that some
businesses in the town center had asked to participate in the program, and they were told at
that time that it was actually for homeowners. So the good news is we have enough money to
cover all the projects. As a matter of fact, we are going to we've already asked mh and t to
come up with other areas in the west grove area to do some more residents there, so we can
start finishing out that area of the community. So it wasn't a matter of necessarily the
cost. It was more of actually the business nature of that commercial property. So but
anyway, that's why I had forwarded that recommendation to the administration. Thank
you. No one signed up. All right. Resolution is omar. Yeah. I'd like to comment since I
asked for that amendment, but I have to do a little history here first so that everybody
understands why I asked that for that amendment. So every year we do the sidewalk program
and it's I understand it's contained to a geographical area for expense purposes and
simplicity of survey and job workmanship. Also, every year, council brings forward, I'll
call them spot situations where the sidewalk is out of code and we get complaints. And every
year I've brought up several for that. What happens in those situations is the homeowner
gets cited for a property out of compliance on their sidewalk, and the homeowner typically
says, I'm not going to fix it and it never gets fixed. So the safety issue goes on for many
years. So the property that I brought forward this year is a heavy, heavily traveled, long
sidewalk on home road. And it's the only method that the entire neighborhood can get to. 62.
and I work in this area, so I every day I see bicycles, wheelchairs, all kinds of
things traversing this sidewalk. So it's a safety problem to me more than it is, you know, just
a sidewalk program as well. Now there's no provisions to add anything to the sidewalk
program currently, except the amendment that I made last time. This property has been blighted
for probably 13 years before somebody built a building there. When I was a kid, it was vacant
and same sidewalks were there. If anybody ever remembers the term cliff woods, I used to
push my mini bike there and ride my mini bike back in there, so that sidewalk was out of
compliance for 13 years. Nobody fixed it. The current resident or owner never fixed it.
nothing ever happened. Now, yes, we do have a business there and it's on the entry into grove
city right off of 62 and 270 does not look good. And it it's not safe. Yes. The legislation
on 4113 says that it will assist homeowners. It doesn't exclude commercial. And I know
there have been other sidewalks improved that represent a strip mall or other common property
out in front of businesses abutting the street. I contend this is more like public
property at this point. I guess it's not public property, but it's the only way these folks
can get from point a to point b safely on home road. And you all know home road is very
traveled, very congested currently. And so this is my spot sidewalk solution for a
very heavily traveled area that we can add to the sidewalk program. And it will be
acceptable to the current owner of the property to be in the home in, in the sidewalk
program. And it'll solve a current sidewalk issue that we have. Thank you, mr. Holt. Mr.
burrows. Yes, mr. Holt, I guess I have a question for you, because you're more familiar
with this property. Is the sidewalk existing, or are there parts of the sidewalk that do
not exist on that sidewalk? Is existing okay? It's just a very disrepair. Yes. Okay. To mr.
holt's point, there are some serious deficiencies in the sidewalk. There are 38 panels
that need to be improved, replaced, and and it abuts grove city property on the end
of home road, where it makes the corner. I believe grove city has an easement and a.
there's a creek and a bunch of forest there right on the corner. Just one other point.
people who are participating in the program can have this. Their 50% of the cost added to
the their tax duplicate so that they can pay that over 20 year period on their tax duplicate.
so it's not a instantaneous jolt to their finances. It can be done over a period of time.
so they have the option to do that. All right. Thank you, mr. Hammons. Mr. Elmore, just a
little bit more background on this particular property, this particular site, when it was
being developed, was notified they had a non-compliant sidewalk by the building
department and they refused to fix it. And I just want to make sure council understands, and
I'm sure they do, that we're setting a new precedent that we have, even though there have
been spot arrangements made to do other non residential, most of them have been tied to other
improvements that are going on there anywhere anyway. For instance, down mcdowell road
this year you're going to find us replacing sidewalks. But this particular site had been
notified and I don't think they've been cited. But we have documentation that says they
were very well aware that the sidewalk was not in compliance. Two years ago, june of 24. So
just for the record, we're setting a new precedent, including businesses. And it's
one of the most expensive pieces that we have on this legislation tonight. And may I
ask the the owner to be here tonight to make his case as well. He's unable to do that.
but to summarize, his point is basically what I did is that it's been that way for 15 or 20
years. Why didn't you get the previous people to fix it? Why do I all of a sudden have to
pay all this money to fix this sidewalk? This is a mom and pop business. It's not walmart or
dollar general or anybody like that. It's just a local business that bought that
property. And for anybody around here that might not know, this is the golf cart store on
home road. So you may recognize the golf cart store. And so his point, if I can represent the
resident correctly, would be that, you know, this not fair. I bought this property. Now I
have to spend all this money just to bring the sidewalk up to code. You should have done
that before. And, and so I worked with him and said, well, maybe I can get you in the spot
sidewalk program and that'll save you 50% of the money. And that will improve this heavily
used public sidewalk. So that's how we got here. If I may. Thank you. I just want to add
some comments. And mr. Holt, I appreciate kind of all the context that you have provided
for this. And and, mayor, I do appreciate to the thought of a new precedent. And I think
that's what we're always cautious about as council members not wanting to set a new precedent. But I think even allowing a, you know, an opportunity for a sidewalk here,
even though it is commercial, doesn't necessarily set a precedence. The commercial
owner still has to fund 50% as well. And there are sidewalks that we do as you go through
this entire list, that homeowners don't want to necessarily be asked to do
sidewalks, but that's the program that we do, and we go through it. And homeowners have
50% of the cost to cover, and the city covers 50%. And I think as we look at all of our
areas around town, I think we do need to be cognizant that we are helping to make
improvements ofem areas. If we chose to do nothing or add home road in. At this point, we
could probably surmise that nothing would happen to it, and it would continue to be
blighted for how many more years? And I think, you know, there, there there is shopping
over there. There. I, I believe is a bus line. And I, I have traveled home road in the
mornings and I've seen kids out at the bus stop as well. I do wonder, you know, some of the
elementary schools do bike day, bike bus day, where, where kids are riding bikes. So and we're,
you know, looking at stuff right now about road safety starts with us and talking
about, you know, e-scooters and e-bikes. And I think as we continue to want to have a
community that can get outside and walk around, I just want to make sure that we are thinking
about all areas of our of our city and making sure that there is accessibility. So thank you,
mr. Mayor. I got one question, shannon. We've redone in my time. We've redone the
sidewalks in the town center at least twice. Is that correct, mayor? At least once they've
been twice. Well, at least once. Did the did the businesses along broadway pay for those
sidewalks? Well, the thing is, we established this program in 13 as a fairly well defined
program. As we did the town center. We described it on its own merits and described that
as here are the parameters and and so forth. So trying to compare it to the town center
probably isn't totally accurate, because this is under the residential sidewalk program
that we've had since 2013, this particular request. So I, I don't think you can compare the
two. The answer is no. May I have one more. Mr. I believe you have a comment on road
safety. Thank you, mr. President. Chair, just to add to the discussion on the safety
issue, when we looked at vulnerable road user areas that were high risk for the city,
obviously, southwest or broadway was a big, big risk in hoover road. And so home road
is inherently going to be risky for vulnerable road users. So anything that you can do to
improve the plight of our pedestrians and bicyclists would be well appreciated.
thank you. Mr. Omar. Mayor comment if I could. We have no problem in in adhering to the
safety issue. I mean, that's the reason we started the program to start with. This should have been a a standalone request. In my opinion. The, the the business owner was
notified two years ago. They were given a time of compliance, as we do. Everybody who has a
non-compliant sidewalk. And it seems like the proper procedure should have been. We do an
ordinance to say, okay, we're going to we're going to bend our rules and say, this particular property is going to come under a different program. That's the only thing I'm
trying to say, ignoring the safety that that's not that's no because we
have gone out of our way to make sure that we're taking every street that we can as we
get the money, to be able to adhere to the safety requirements, including the
bike path along harden road that had been sitting there for 15 years also. And just to be
clear, when I saw that home road was not on there, I did have it back included, since
that is what council voted on at the last meeting. So what you are considering tonight is
a resolution that does include this. Home road property council added it to it at the
last meeting. If you don't wish to do it then you can remove it. That is completely up to you.
but since council approved putting it in here, that's why it's here right now. Just
wanted to clarify. Mr. Burrows. One final question, mayor, and I 100% agree with many of your
comments. I think the one other issue in this whole discussion is consistency and compliance.
right. If they were given notice two years ago and we still haven't done anything
about that, I think there's room for improvement and making sure that we hold people
compliant, there's no question. And we got an email that gave reasons why we should do it.
and we said, no, that we're not going to do it two years ago. And since then it's been in
limbo. That's all I have. Thank you. This resolution has had its reading and public hearing,
and I move to be approved second. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Yes. Barry. Yes. Holt. Yes. Sturm.
no. Burrows. Yes. Omar. Yes. Mr. President, that is all I have under service this evening.
thank you sir. We move into finance, mr. Sturm. Yes. Thank you. So first we have ordinance
c 1726. This is authorizing the city administrator to enter into an agreement with a
licensed competitive retail, electric, electric service provider for the city's
electric governmental aggregation program and declare an emergency. If I may, mr.
chairman. Thank you. Yes. As many of you know, the city of grove city has operated a
electric aggregation program. Now going on. We've been in it three years. In essence, what
we do is the city sets up a program, we solicit bids, we lock folks into prices. But you
can get out of them any time and go somewhere else. And for the last three years, we've
been pretty successful in saving the residents money. And we've been doing that even
though our program has a green component where ours is from green energy or, you know,
credits, etcetera. So our program ends in july of this year. So we went forth or went
out and solicited bids on the market to see what proposals we got for both 12, 24, 36 months.
and unfortunately, the rates have been crazy, like everything else in the world
right now. We we have evaluated them, we've looked at them, and we have our expert here who's
going to tell you all the stuff that I don't understand. But what has happened is when it
comes to electric utilities, it's basically like the stock market. It changes every day.
so we got a rate today at 4:00 that ended. And what we are asking, council, if you wish to
move forward with this program for an additional period of time, is unfortunately, you
have to pass as an emergency because tomorrow the number is going to be different and we
don't know what it's going to be. But what we've asked council to do and what we've
done in the past is you give us a not to exceed amount. And as long as tomorrow's number is
under that, we will lock it in for the residents for two years. Once again, this is an opt out
program. We have to send every single one of you a letter saying, you don't have to stay
with us. You can go play the market yourself or just lock in with aep, whatever their rate
is at the time, and you have every right to do that. And all. Basically you have to do is
check a box and you can do that at any time. So like I said, we've been very successful in
this program in the past, and I know that we don't like giving you emergency legislation
because it's very, you know, time consuming and it doesn't give you a chance to digest it.
but this is one of those where, frankly, we don't have a choice just based on how the, how the
market is, if you didn't pass it by an emergency, this would go to a second reading in two
weeks. Then we'd have a 30 day waiting period. So that's 45 days later. We would have no
idea what the number would be that we'd be locking into. Greg is going to give you all the
specifics. I will tell you, there's been two other projects that have bid recently. Upper
arlington just did theirs. Our number is lower than what they got locked in at delaware, got
a number. And frankly, they decided, you know, we don't feel comfortable locking it in
at this point in time and past. We do have that option. However, if we do pass, we do have to
sit out a year before we can go back in and do this again. But I'll let. Greg beckert is our
expert from energy, and he will give you kind of how this market works and kind of how we
got here. Stephen, I'm almost out of a job. You did a good job. You got this figured out.
thank you all. Yes, we are at the at the end of the current electric aggregation program,
which again is a opt out. So in other words, if steven alluded to everybody is included in
this that is eligible. And if you don't want to participate, you can very easily just tell
the whoever the awarded supplier is that you want to get out. So and go out and shop
it on your own. I think when we talk about this program, the key component that we looked at
when we go back to when this was voted on, it was at grove city, wanted to focus on
renewable and have the community be utilizing renewable energy. And so
renewable then becomes the, the key component that we're looking at. And then savings
can become secondary. But and looking at renewables, that's what we have to do as far as
this program goes. And we have we had three suppliers that were willing to participate
from renewable standpoint. Those rates that came back in are unfortunately,
unfortunately, higher than what we have currently, roughly by about 17%. But again, they
still provide the ability for the community to say that this is green energy. And if it's
something that you don't want to participate in, again, you can you can exit very easily.
I'm going to keep it pretty simple. I want to dive too deep in details. I'll open it up to
questions if anybody has anything. Yes, I do, just for the public. If you can make it
that simple. We've been in we've done this twice now, right? Correct. So go back to
the first time we locked in at what per kilowatt hour and what was the market? I think we were
roughly in the seven cent range. I think it was just over seven. Yeah. And what was the market
then. That's a good question. Mark would be right. I mean that was the market at that
point in time. I mean if you didn't opt in you were paying more than 7% $0.07. Yeah. There
was a there was a significant savings that we had when we you don't know that you don't I
don't know, it was roughly. Mr. Ho yeah. The, the first two years that we operated the
program, when we did the first cycle, we calculated that we believe that we saved each
resident who in the program, roughly $400, was the estimate that we came up with a couple
of years ago. Now, this last year has only been a one year cycle, and I think we still
saved the residents money. Yeah, we're still ahead, but it wasn't anywhere near the $400
range. So we so far we've beat the market for three years. And then if I were to summarize,
you could we could say that this is another agreement and we might be at market. We could
be lower. But we've got the green energy component in there. Correct. So this time we're not
necessarily saving that much money, but it's still at the green energy qualifier. Correct.
exactly. And so really, unless the market goes drastically down in electric, which I don't
think anybody in here thinks your electric bill is going to go down, we're going to lock it
in at today's rate for two years. And it has green energy in it. That is correct. Thank
you. That's that's what's up for discussion. And anybody can opt out whenever they like
anytime. Correct. And not back in. Yeah. Back in. Yeah. So I want to reiterate, when we
designed this program four years ago and, and everything, the one thing that we did
that's very, very important, I think, to people is there's other cities, the one to the
north of us that has that actually has a program like us, but they also tag on fees. Yeah.
if I may, you do not. So I'll use columbus as an example. They have a monster. It's not
hypothetical. It's true. They have a monster aggregation program. However, in addition
to the rates they are quoted by the utility, they have two charges that they've added to
everybody's bill. One is they pay the person who is there. Greg, in essence, a very small
percentage of each household pays that person money every month. And then second, they
have an environmental fund that's separate that they're using that money that goes on
everyone's utility bill. I don't know what they're using that money for. When we set up
the program, we do not pass any of those expenses on to our residents on your electric bill.
greg here is working on a flat rate. We pay him from city funds, a standard rate. It
doesn't it's not based on, you know, anything in terms of what he gets. He just we pay him to
do a job for us and he does it. So we do not pass any of those costs on to the residents
period. So we are more so even if you see a number where. It may have columbus rates, you
have to think they also have surcharges that are on there that aren't showing up there.
so it's one of those where it's kind of it's hard to compare apples to apples. When we first
did this program three years ago, I reached out to about, I don't know how many brokers we
met with. It was several, and not one of them was willing to to help us without them getting
a piece of every electric bill of the residents. And we're like, we're not doing that to
our residents. And frankly, greg was the only one who was willing to do it. Just we pay
him and he does it for us. So it's it's unique. It's it's weird. But yeah. Yes. One final
comment. And just to confirm, this is also available to local businesses within grove city
under a certain power use, certain threshold. Yes, 700,000 kilowatt hours or less. If
they're not with a supplier, they'll get it. They'll. Thank you. Swept in. Yeah. Yes. Good
question. If a new resident was to move into grove city after the program has already taken
off, would they automatically be opted in? Usually what happens, the supplier does a sweep either quarterly or every six months. And so at some point in time they would get
swept in. Correct. Yeah. And we do have to I don't know if I mentioned this, I apologize,
but we do have to send everyone in the city a letter explaining this with the form where they
can opt out. So everyone will be informed of this decision. And, and as we said, you all
can opt out anytime you desire. And if you realize, oh, wait, this is a good deal, you can
opt back in. That's your choice. Anyone else? Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. So I move
that the rules of council be suspended and the waiting period waived second. Mr.
hellinga. Yes. Barry. Yes. Holt. Yes. Yes. Yes. Omar. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Okay. And then I
move that the ordinance be approved as an emergency measure. Second. Barry. Yes,
yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Anderson. Yes, yes. And if I may, thank you. And just to clarify, for
the folks in the audience are not to exceed rate that was passed in this ordinance is
1102 $0.11 11.00 $0.02. That makes sense. And we will let council know tomorrow when the
market opens, what we were able to lock in it. Obviously, if we do not get under that number,
we will not do so, but we will keep everyone updated. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The
next item is ordinance c 1826. This is appropriating $47,856.78 from the general
fund for the current expense of assisting with the grove city town center, wine and arts
festival expenses. This is the first reading, and the second reading and public hearing will
be on 518 on the 18th. Next item, ordinance c 1926. Authorize the city
administrator to execute an agreement with axiom ventures, llc for the development of the
broadway live project. Again, this is a first reading, and the second reading and public
hearing will be again on the 18th of this month. And the last item is resolution cr1326.
accepting the donation of $2,000 for plantings in the beulah park conservation
easement, and thank the berry family for the generous gift. Is there any comments, anything
signed up? Anybody sign up for that? Okay. All right. Resolution has been read and
public hearing. I move that we approved. Second, I have a question. Am I allowed to. Okay.
hold. Yes. Yes. Rose. Yes. Omar. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Yes. Barry. Yes. Thank you. All right. That.
is that all? Thank you, thank you. That concludes our normal agenda items we've got. Did you
get the yes sir presentations in line here. So he's got a couple of presentations online.
and then we've got some other people that want to address the council public works week. Can
you want to come on. Anybody else from the service? Implied public. The annual proclamation.
we do and use the mic. Mike the main thing about it it it acknowledges the services that
are provided by our service department. And I'll just I'll just read a couple of the
paragraphs. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities and
services that are vital and important to the importance of sustainability and resilient
communities, and to public health, high quality of life and well-being of the people of
grove city. And I would say one of the one of the key reasons we've won the best hometown
over three years is due to the way that our city presents itself and the service
department operates. Now, there's a note tacked on here that says, I don't want to
forget about may 16th. It's touch a truck day at the town center park, and the service
department brings out a lot of their equipment, and it's for the kids and adults who they
want to touch a truck. But we sure appreciate all the work that you folks do, and I'll
award this to missus fitzpatrick. Yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you, ma'am.
the next one is public safety month. Kevin, is anybody here from you're it. Okay. This is
another one that's done pretty much annually. But it's also just a recognition of our
commitment to safety and the safety in all, all categories, not only the infrastructure,
the police and, and all the other attributes of public safety. Whereas the city of
grove city recognized that our community's growth and strength depends on the safety, safety,
performance, and resilience of our homes, the buildings, and the infrastructure, both in
everyday life and when disasters strike. And that's another component that kevin
has worked very hard on by having meetings with our partners around on the
periphery, as well as township, talking about if a disaster hits, here's what here's what
we're going to be doing. So in recognition of building safety month, please forward that to
your fine folks. Thank you. I believe we have some comments from our marketing department
regarding some website, some pages they're putting up on the website for for the public. A
quick transition here. Yes. Just real briefly, I don't know if we have those to show. Sorry.
yeah, just real quick, just recently we have put up these, these pages for information
purposes on obviously, we'll be talking about broadway live earlier tonight. And if you
want to back up there, tammy, to the, the other page of the draft, as we've obviously topic
of data centers, we will we have been working on an informational page. This is a
draft that is not live on the site. Just want to reiterate that this is in draft. As you
can tell with the large draft letters on the page, this is not live on the page, but we
are working it, working on it right now in the background, informational and its essence.
but we wanted to make sure that it's easy for folks to use. You want to find information on
water usage. You want to find information on electricity. This page, when it becomes live,
it will be the. The ease of use is the key. So you're not inundated with a big wall of
questions. That is. That is our intent. And from a feedback standpoint, can't see it that
well. But above that second draft, that is our feedback area. That stuff will come
straight to me. If you have any feedback. I can't find what I'm looking for. You just click one
of those links and shoot an email to me directly. So not a whole lot to show right now,
but we want to show everybody that we're working on it. We have several iterations as
things come through, but the previous slide showed you we've kind of run out a lot of
informational pages. We want to make sure that we're kind of getting a steady informational
flow to everyone, whether it be a project with a community center. Income tax was covered
in the last city council meeting, broadway live, obviously, as we had that first
reading today, you can go for information there and then we'll have a coming soon. Grove
city slash data center faq. So with that, I'll take any questions. I've got one on the
income tax. One. Did you post the comparison? 35000 house against all the different
communities that. Yeah, yeah. Lower top five and bottom top five. Excellent. Thank you. Did
you also include the video of our of our wonderful experts? Yes. They did a great job. Yeah.
and there's time codes there. So you can you can fast forward through it. Yeah. Any other
questions about things. I just have a quick comment. Thank you. Thank you for putting this
together and being diligent. Well, if there are updates that need to be presented for any of
these sites, how often are you kind of reviewing and looking to make changes if if
appropriate? Yeah, all these pages are fluid. That's the beauty of it. They can be
updated the day. We're definitely open to feedback from anyone. Obviously we'll
vet that through with with leadership, but at any time we can definitely make a change
when needed as long as it's accurate, obviously. Yeah. Thank you. One more question.
obviously the data center is a hot topic, and any information out there right now will be for
data centers in general, since we don't have a specific data center proposal in front of
anybody right at the moment. So as soon as that gets submitted or whatever to the city, then
you'll update this in relation to the facts and exactly what kind of data center it is, how
it's going to be cooled and all those things. Yeah, as much as we can. Yes. Yeah. And I didn't
intend it to be fuzzy like that. It's just it's a screen grab from the back end of our
website. So no intent to be haven't present that way. I'm just kind of making that point
for two purposes. One is, you know, there's a lot of interest in data center and we're asked
a lot of times to comment on that. And we really can't comment on anything that hasn't
been submitted officially yet. So we don't have any facts, nor can you put up a website about
the data center in grove city until we have all the facts. So I'm just counseling everybody
that that will get updated. If somebody submits a data center plan. Yeah. And this is more to
just show that we've been working on something. And again, like I said, it is not live. It
is in draft state and it's still kind of in the queue queue. So. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank
you so much for putting this together. I think for me, one of my concerns is when I'm,
when I think of a fact sheet, you can actually go back to the data center page. I understand
there is more to come, but just glancing at this, like what, as a resident, what exactly am I
learning? You know, because as, as somebody that wants to know more about data centers, you
know, I understand there's different types. What information am I gaining from
this page here compared to right now? It's in an infant state, okay. And a document is
being worked on to basically populate this page. So what you see now is nowhere near what a
finished product will be. Okay. So would, would you be able to come back to us before that's
released? Potentially? Yeah. Mr. Berry, so kind of on that just in general, not just the
data center page, all the pages, I assume there's some sort of editorial review process that
these things go through. It might be nice to maybe post that along with those, just so
everybody knows how information is reviewed and gets out there. Yeah. I mean, obviously the,
the documents on the back end get reviewed before they get posted. And then we have a
review process for the page itself. Yeah. Before it goes live. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Folks
are going to be interested in factual content. Yep. To say the least. Yes. Okay. Thank you.
and just to echo that, I agree with you 100%. I think there is a lot of perspectives. There's
a lot of conversations. I mean, just a few weeks ago, there were developers in our
community that were hosting town halls. So there there is a lot of conversation happening
in our community. And I don't agree with the, the suggestion that we need to wait until
there's a proposal in front of us to, you know. I don't agree with us waiting until there's a
proposal in front of us to talk about data centers. And I know that, you know, that that has
been expressed a couple different times. I think as a council, we should be able to
talk about what data centers are, what they look like, at least to get us to a point
where we feel caught up because I don't feel caught up at all. So that's why I'm really
passionate about having this. Include a lot of information for our residents, for us to,
you know, be educated and be able to make confident decisions on what's to come in the future. So that is all for me. If I could. Mr. Berry mayor. Well, when we when we started
talking about this, we have an obligation to, to the public for, for, for all the
information we gain the there are three audiences. One, of course, the primary audience is
our city council, making sure that we're getting data and information up there that will
be beneficial to you as these proposals come in. It may not be one proposal could be
multiple proposal proposals we don't know. The second audience is to the folks who are
adjacent to and part of the one that's being suggested on ranch road. The third one is our
general public in educating them and understanding about data centers. So this this tool
here is an educational piece. And as we gain the information, it's got to be factual. It's
got to be of the things that we know, which there's like 3 or 4 different data centers, for
instance. And then as we hone it down to the proposal that may be or will be presented to
us, then you start picking out the pieces that's germane to that. So this exercise tonight
is to make sure that you're aware, councilor number one audience, that we have this in
the works and to those who are adjacent property owners, we have it in the works and the
general public, whoever's watching it, that's that's the tool. That's all it's meant for at this particular point. And I support that 100%. I think the more education we can get out
there, the better. I still feel that we can do more as a council. Yes. Thank you. Well,
anytime you have those points, you bring them to us 100%. Thank you sir. Thank you. All
right, stephen, because you've put a lot of work into a document that to educate, to
educate the public and everything. Can you explain to can you explain where we are in
the process of of the data center a little bit? Yes. I have actually not educated the
public. I've educated council. Right. Some of it I think I read on websites. So I think
I've educated the public indirectly as of right now. And I know you are all here against
data centers, I get it. But as of right now, we do not have a current proposal and which has
been submitted to the city in any way, shape or form. The moment it does, it goes on our
website so everyone will know, you know, right now our zoning code is based on what's called
the sic code, standard industrial classification, which, you know, frankly, those
haven't been updated since the 90s. And in the 90s, data centers weren't a thing. So as
I read our code right now, I do not believe data centers are permitted use in any zoning
district in the city, period. So there's two ways that it could get done. First, it has
to be annexed. At least half of this parcel that everyone's talking about is not in the
city. There would have to be an annexation as part of the annexation. It'll come in under
the zoning that it is most akin to in the township, which is not data center. So they would
have to get a rezoning. And I will caution the general public when it comes to the annexation.
how it works is they file an application with the county. The county then says, hey,
grove city, tell us what services you can provide to this parcel that is statutorily
required. That is the only time I will tell council you have to vote yes on this. It hasn't
done anything to do with the annexation. Just what services then the county has to approve
that annexation. I know I've seen online people are like, we need to lobby the county to
turn it down. They have no discretion whatsoever as long as they fill the form out
correctly, the county has to approve it. Then it comes back to the city to make a
determination. Do we want to accept it or not accept it? That's where council has authority in the annexation process. When it comes to zoning, the land will have to
be rezoned. That can be done either we have what's called a use approval process where uses
that aren't in our code right now. Council can approve them as a one off saying, yes, we'll
allow a data center the other way, and probably the one I think is more likely is it will
come in what's called a planned unit development. Planned unit development is where, in
essence, we write a zoning code for a single project. And in that zoning code, we can say
this is allowed, this isn't allowed, whatever. But we get to specify it in the zoning
code. So that process will go through multiple meetings, both from planning commission and
council. There'll be at least three public hearings on that before anything gets approved.
so the public will be involved every step of the way. The one other thing that I've read
about online, and I can just give you my $0.02, is everyone wants a moratorium. I'm not a
big fan of moratoriums for two reasons I. Can I explain why before you boo me? Okay. When
it comes to rezonings, when it comes to rezonings, council has all the discretion in the world
to say yes or no. The law is really clear. Okay. We we have a lot of reasons we can say yes
or no. Moratoriums are meant to be a temporary pause on something while we gather
information. Generally, the cities that are imposing moratoriums do it because data
centers are a permitted use in their code, and they have to stop it. It isn't permitted in
our code. We don't need it. And my fear with the moratorium is it then we don't have the same
discretion in a moratorium that we do under a zoning decision. And I'll frankly tell you, I've
represented municipalities for 27 years now. I have been sued on many moratoriums because we
don't have the same discretion on them in the courts, don't love them. And once again, I
don't think it's necessary because it's not permitted. We don't need to say stop on
something that is a maybe or a yes. The answer is already no. Why do I have to put a pause on
no? Now that ain't my decision. I'm just the lawyer. I just can tell you what I think the law
says and where I think we could run into issues. That's council's decision. If they say,
stephen, we're doing a moratorium, the answer is yes, sir, and yes, ma'am. That's my
job. I'm just you asked me for kind of the summary of where we are, and that's where we are.
and I'm happy to answer any questions on that. Did I leave anything out? I did annexation,
I did zoning, I did moratorium. If you need clarity on any of those, I'm happy to do so. All
right. Thank you. I just thought since that came up that it was good to have that thrown
out there. Before we get into before we get into those wishing to address council, we
do have a special presentation by the bcb, so we would like to invite you folks up to to do
such great. You guys all have a copy of my presentation. I don't think I do, do you? Well
you would. I'm supposed to give everybody cards for everybody, so I just. Thank you. I don't
think we have enough. Oh. Tammy's gone. Okay. All right. You have the floor. Okay. Well
thanks, everybody. Thanks for having me tonight. For those of you I have not met, I'm amanda davis, the director of visit grove city. And tonight with me, I have a few of my board
members. So I just wanted to have them stand up. If they're not already standing like bev
babbitt in the back of the room. Marie keys. Anybody else make it tonight? Vihaan patel, do
you have any other board members? Okay. And then our newest recruit is george.
george, welcome to the board. Can't wait to work with you. All right. So thanks again for
having us tonight. I will jump right in as I know you have a lot to do. So we wanted to come
tonight and give you an update on the next slide, if you don't mind. Tammy, we have our
mission and then our target, which is a great way of illustrating how we target
outside of grove city. So our marketing messaging oftentimes is not seen here in the
community except for on social media, on our website, maybe our visitor guide. You may see
some of our work there and some of the little more local things like city scene that we work
with. On to the next slide. We've got a quick financial update for you. It's early in
the year for us. Q one is not a big spending quarter for us. We do a lot of our contracts for
marketing that are billed in q2 and q3, but you can see that we are heavily dependent on bed
tax because as a convention and visitors bureau, that's what we're created for. To take a small piece of that bed tax and drive more growth with bed tax. So again, with our expense
breakdown, you can see that we have our marketing programs that are not a high expense yet.
but as you can see from my note on the bottom 72,000 plus in april and may, going out the
door for marketing contracts, and that's just some of what we're doing. And the next slide,
we talk about our collaborations and community support. So our team is committed to uplifting and celebrating signature community events. And this is how and
this is just just a small part of how. But this year we have direct festival investments of
$8,400 to the chamber of commerce to support arts in the alley and a few of their other
key events. 7500 committed to grove city town center for wine and arts festival, as well as
the bourbon and spirits festival. That's just a direct investment. We also invest in
them through marketing investments. So a total investment for the chamber 1300
total investment for town center $3,450. And that's through things like
e-newsletters and the weekend seen through city scene magazine. We'll be doing a full month of sponsor for wine and arts festival, a full month for the arts in the alley, arts in
the alley, as well as wine and arts in the ohio magazine through their e-blast printed
in the ohio magazine event listings as well as tourism. Ohio on a statewide level will
have going out in their e-newsletters as well. This year we're bringing in
influencers or content creators to come to the events as well, to create awesome content and
get out into the events, have a vip experience, and then they can talk about it on their
social media and all their platforms and reach an even bigger audience. Also new this
year we have what we call right booking tool. It's a direct booking tool on our website
that allows visitors to book an overnight stay. So through that tool, we can build landing
pages customized to different events. So we're doing two landing pages for the chamber and two for the town center that will focus on all the content to tell you why you
should come, and then make it easy for you to just book right then and there, your hotel. We
will also do added values like lift credits to help people get to and from wine and arts
festival safely with the lift credit when they book at a grove city hotel and different
added value options like that. We're also doing landing pages for other community partners, like the book festival posted by the city of grove city. Columbus air show is a partner
of ours. Aladdin shrine does a lot of different events, so we've got some landing pages
for them as well, and more brighter. Travel is a passport, a digital passport tool that
we've invested in and hosted our holiday cocktail trail and some other things on that. This
year, in partnership with our friends at grove city town center, we've offered to sponsor for passports for them. So we build the passport, we pay for the tool, the mother's
day walk that just happened last weekend as a an example of that. So we collaborated with
their team and they went out and helped recruit the businesses. We built the passport and we worked together to create that experience for mother's day last weekend. So
future metrics that we will have when we have more time under our belt with these programs to try to deliver information to you, to let you know how successful these are,
would be to measure the number of bookings on partner landing pages at hotels, number of
bookings of event packages that we create, such as the lyft credit and wine and arts
overnight stay. And then also we can measure the number of transactions that were made
during the passports. So for mother's day, we know now, I can't remember off the top of
my head how many how many different transactions were made. So purchases made in the
town center at those businesses. So we do meet regularly with the chamber of commerce, as
well as grove city town center and several other community partners, including all the different departments that we work with here within the city of grove city, to collaborate
and support them and learn about what they need and how we can help. So that's an ongoing,
always communication. We are all one big team. So on the next slide, just a little
overview of some of the promotions that we do. We have a very robust marketing plan to
determine how we spend our dollars through print, digital website, visitor guide and
other printed materials such as a coupon booklet to distribute to visitors at the hotels, to
get them to come to local businesses and keep their dollars in grove city. I will
just point out, because I won't read this all to you, you all have a copy. In q1, our website
saw over 31,000 visitors, so that's pretty exciting. Get them on the site and hopefully
they find our booking tool and book their stay on the next slide. Program sales is another
piece of what we do. We leverage available meeting spaces, different group
experiences, sports fields to try to sell groups. A couple of groups that we have on deck.
one of them actually just was in town. Thank you, mayor stage for greeting the army security
agency at the american legion this past weekend. But those folks came into town. They had
25 room nights. They went out to several different businesses, including three brothers diner
for a meal. They went to the american legion and paid to rent space there, and they
stayed at a local hotel. And while they were here, they they loved it. They had such a great
experience. And we got some really great feedback. So we're excited to welcome the american legion. The sons of the american legion are coming into town in a couple of weeks here,
so that's going to be another great impact for the community. As we're selling grove city,
we've identified some needs that we don't have. So I'm just going to tell you it's not all
sunshine and rainbows. It's really exciting to do what we do, but it's important to also
recognize that we don't have enough meeting space, conference space, sports fields
to sell to these groups. There's a high demand out there and we just don't have the
inventory to fill it. We also get asked a lot about restaurants that have a group
meeting room. We do have a few, but we don't have enough ada. Accessibility is another piece
of feedback we get, especially here in town center with some of our buildings, which we understand are historic. But that's just a unique challenge. Maybe we can work together to
try to determine some solutions for also motorcoach sales. We had three really hot leads. We
call them from heartland travel showcase, which is a group travel show we went to earlier
this year. We met with a lot of different people, but three of them we felt like was a good,
good goal to make to try to sell those three. So we're going to keep working on that.
but you can just see the economic impact of even just the hotel rooms at over $17,000
if we're able to book those. So that's something we're working on. And a really important part
of what we have on the next slide is our tools and technology. So putting funds to
work, investing in this technology and these tools to help actually track the visitor spending, it's really hard. And what we do is a lot of awareness. It's a lot of the
top of the funnel telling people we're here, we exist, we hope you come. But actually
tracking whether they saw our ad in a magazine or our website and then came into grove city
has always been very hard for us. And that's a that's a every cvb problem, not just a grove
city problem. So thankfully, in this modern day, we have tools like ripe where we can actually
put a booking tool on our website and we can see how many people booked so and early
results, which is about the last six months of last year, $10,000 in revenue in grove
city, lodging bookings from our right tool, tourism economics, which is an oxford economics
company, they have a tool called the website impact calculator that we recently invested in. And this one actually shows visitors to your website who then come into
market and spend dollars. So we're able to see that over $660,000 was spent by visitors
who came to our website in the last six months of 2025, which is really exciting because I've
been doing this for 13 years and we've never had this kind of measurement where we can say,
hey, we made this direct monetary impact. So this is all really exciting. Good news,
brighter travel. As I mentioned before, it's a digital passport tool for our holiday cocktail trail. Over 600 purchases were made. That's over $16,000 in purchases for nine local
businesses. People like the holiday cocktail trail. We noticed alcohol trails could do
a lot better than the other ones, but it's just a really exciting way to try to partner
up different things, bundle them together, and market it so we can get more people to come
to the community. So our next one is tempest, and tempest is a website platform, a content
management system like wordpress, except for it's made for destination marketing. So
we now have this fantastic website that's about to launch in a tool called idss, which is
a customer relationship manager management tool, so we can manage the entire destination.
hundreds of businesses, hundreds of partners and events, all in that tool that then
automatically will populate our website. And this website is great because it allows people
to plan a trip, build an itinerary, then directly book so we can do everything all in
one place instead of they got some inspiration maybe on our website. And then they went off
to booking.com and we kind of lost them in the shuffle. Then they found a hotel somewhere
outside of grove city, and we didn't win that business. So we're hopeful that this new
site and all of these great tools are going to help us keep the business in grove city and
measure the business. And so without further ado, I want to introduce you to viren patel.
viren is in the lodging seat on our board, and he is heavily vested in the lodging community
here in grove city. So he's going to give you an update on lodging. Thank you. Hey. Good
evening. So going over, we have about 1600 rooms in the area. They're fall from economy brand
midscale, upper mid-scale and upscale. The trailing 12 months occupancy rate, which is from
april to last may, is was 71.2%. The adr, which is the average daily rate, was $110 and the
rev par was $78 rev par factors in empty rooms too, so each hotel was bringing in $7,878
per room per day, per average. One third of our hotels hotel rooms fall in the economy
midscale category, and the 25% are considered upscale. Everything else is in the
middle during the week. We have a lot of corporate travelers. We have a lot of logistics
truckers, and our team is there to support all, you know, all the gaps that all the customers
we get during the weekends. Usually we get a lot of ball teams, a lot of wedding groups,
a lot of church groups. The things we're working on right now are coupon books that are
coming out later this month for all the hotels, billboards being worked on for this fall,
there's a link for the columbus arts festival that's being put together, too, which is the
second weekend in june. Tammy, next slide please. What's next? So we the grant, I think the
alumni tournament is getting one of the grants coming up. The new website is launching in
may, so keep an eye out for that. We've partnered with the ota to host a regional workshop
at the hilton garden inn on june 30th. And then, like amanda mentioned, we're hosting
a american travel archives in may, which have they have about 380,000 followers through
tiktok. So we're excited for them to check out your city. And then sons of american
legion, which you had mentioned as well. So we have a lot of exciting things coming up later this year. And I think that's going to be it. So any questions or anything for
amanda or I questions. I do. Well, first, thank you very much for such an informative
presentation, so much information. And I appreciate hearing, you know, some of the
upcoming things as well. Question about what the 250th anniversary has that given an
opportunity? Not even sure about events or partners potentially traveling,
traveling in for that or other things that are going on around columbus that could bring people potentially to the hotels and the properties at that time frame. I think I
think in mid-july we will get some because of the all the races and tournaments, like the
alumni association tournament has one, I think. I don't think we we're not getting any world
cup stuff around that time, but I think some of the other cities are going to have a lot
more tighter on the world cup as well. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? Hey, thank you
very much, amanda. Thank you. Thank you and your team. Very, very nice job. I really
appreciate that. Thank you. All right. We excuse me. We have for well 1234. We have five
speakers tonight. First one on the list list is patricia spillman. And patricia when you
get to the speaker, if you could there give us your address, your phone number,
your address, only 4965 beatty road. Okay. You have three minutes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you.
good evening, council members and mayor stage. I would like first to say how grateful we
are for the development and new building of the tractor supply at the corner of 62 and beatty
road. I only wish my father in law, roger, were here to see this. In 1974, he sold those
ten acres to the carter jones lumber company. He would be pleased to see another
productive contribution to our neighborhood. So you see, we in the townships are not totally
opposed to progress. That is beneficial and appropriate for the agricultural district that
we live in. The proposed development site on richmond road is, for the most part
within pleasant township. On february 24th of this year, the pleasant township board of
trustees passed a resolution placing a moratorium on building data centers in
pleasant township. I find it utterly disgusting that grove city council may even be
considering the idea of acquiring existing, protected township land solely for the
construction of a data center. I'm asking you to follow pleasant township's lead and
place a moratorium on the building of a data center until we can further gather
information as to the permanent destruction it will cause on the agricultural district you
are forcing it into. I, along with many of my neighbors, are requesting the chance to have
town hall meetings with city council instead of the three minute no questions asked limit
placed here. I recently emailed taylor ogilvie, the site and project development manager
with headquarters, requesting that he guarantee in writing that the facilities not be
closed loop and indeed air cooled with no tapping into private wells used, thus
causing intrusion into the aquifer. His reply, and I quote as the project is still in the
early planning phase, we can't commit to much on what our end users will look to employ,
because even within this same type of cooling, there is much variation from user to user. I
personally feel that once we let them in, they will have too much freedom with zoning
variances, and the end result will be devastating. Again, I implore the city council to
place a moratorium on the construction of any data center in our community. Once they get
the foot in the door, we're doomed. Thank you. Our next speaker. Our next our next
speaker is jen belt. Is that correct? Okay. Hello, I'm jen belt. My address is 5266
kinglet court. I live in orient. I am actually in pleasant township as well. Hello, patti.
I am going to because she already spoke on some of the things I want to address the
council members directly regarding what mr. Smith said about the unnecessary need for
a moratorium. Regardless of what he says, the people that voted, all of you in here are
counting on a moratorium simply because they need to hear from you that you are actually
listening to them, that you care about their future, their property value, their health,
their community, and that you actually are going to promise to do your due diligence and
carefully evaluate the long term impact that any data center will actually have on
this community. That's what a moratorium will send to the the message that it will send to
the people who voted you in here. So please keep that in mind. On april 24th, I attended
a town hall and heard from a panel of experts who explained how data centers like this
affect small communities like ours, such as hilliard. And here the. Here are the
questions that city council should be asking. According to headwaters, this data center
will feature an air cooling system using numerous industrial hvac units on the
rooftop. How loud will it be? How much electricity will it need? Will it affect higher
spikes in utility prices? Will rolling blackouts be required to prevent a grid collapse?
what type of contaminants will be offloaded into the air? Soil, water around the center? Will
neighboring wells, streams and rivers be affected? If so, who will be responsible for fixing
it so that we can continue to have affordable, safe drinking water? Once the data center is
built, will a fuel cell be required to power it? If so, where will that go and what
type of plant will it be? Nuclear natural gas. Solar wind. Is city council aware of house
bill 15, which authorizes data centers to build on site power plants or fuel cells to support
their projects without local, municipal or township approval? Are you aware of that? Data
center companies based on house bill 15 that already passed can build whatever they need to
generate power, and the city can do nothing about it. Once the data center has been
approved, what regulations will city council impose on the developer of the data center,
and how will they be enforced? Over the past two weeks, we have gathered signatures, we
have shared collected information, and we have created calls to action. And in
the process, we have learned that many residents here in grove city are not even aware
that a project of this size is being pursued. This includes the residents in the autumn
grove subdivision, located directly across the street from where the data center is
proposed to be built. Some property owners have already received paperwork from the
county, as mister smith has has indicated from the county commissioners for inspections
of their wells and septic systems. This indicates that headwaters has submitted
annexation paperwork. We are asking for the city to deny annexation. We have over 300
signatures, and I also have copies of the pleasant township's moratorium. Thank
you, thank you. We have brant bailey, brant bailey. Hi, I'm brant bailey. I live at 3590
park street. I'm a lifelong resident here in grove city. I'm also a stream quality
monitor for odnr. My station is at darby creek at darby park, and my concern is the watershed
to the big darby. If this data center gets in hell, branch run is at least about 2000ft away
from this project, and that is a major contributory to darby creek. Darby creek is the most
pristine ecosystem in all of the midwest. It is a national and state scenic river. And if
this gets in, I'm afraid it's going to destroy the ecosystem of darby creek. Here's what
here's my job. So I literally go out into the water and I look for macro invertebrates.
and you can see group one is sensitive to pollution. These are under attack, such as the
hellgrammite, such as the cattle fly larvae, the gilded snail, the water penny, the
rife beetle. Now we have two other ones. Group two, somewhat sensitive to pollution. And if
this data center gets in, there is no question it's going to eliminate these species. And
that's going to go down the line and hurt the ecosystem. I'm also a volunteer for
appalachian ohio alliance, and they have 12 properties in pickaway county. 12 nature or
nature preserves. And so you have all this beautiful nature, the most scenic river in all of
ohio, the most biodiverse. And it is, it's a fact, most biodiverse area, body of water
in all of the midwest. I'm talking all of the midwest. That's a lot. We're talking
darby creek. Please save my darby creek. Don't hurt my darby creek by allowing this
data center to go in. That's all I have. Thank you. Bob, we don't have any entry music, but
you're up. I'm bob ruth 7474, four count, fleet drive, grove city. My guess is that the data
centers texas developer wants this mega project approved as quickly as possible. While that
may be good for the out of state developer, it could be very detrimental to grove city
and our residents. This is a large and controversial project involving not only an
annexation and major rezoning, but also tax incentive and serious environmental and
health issues. I respect mr. Smith's comments and informal understanding would suffice.
what's important is that we have a 12 month pause in any approval. I don't care what you
call it, unfortunately, the grove city records ceased publication years ago. Staffs
at the dispatch and tv stations have been cut to the bone. I don't they don't cover local
news like they used to. That's probably one of the reasons most residents haven't heard
many details. If they've heard anything at all about this project. A 12 month pause,
moratorium, whatever you want to call it, would allow word of mouth to circulate throughout
the city. It would give people, including you folks, time, to become familiar with the pros
and cons of this hyper scale project. The city could hold a few town hall meetings like was
suggested. Town halls allow the audience to ask follow up questions and allow more back
and forth feedback from the audience. The city's development department, along
with an outside council hired for their expertise in environmental law, could study
how other ohio municipalities have enacted rules to regulate. At the local level health and
environment concerns, maybe even hire our own independent environmental engineer to help.
this way, neither supporters nor opponents could accuse city hall officials of not studying
the issues thoroughly and not fully informing the public. Let's make sure we get this
right. Let's have a 12 month moratorium or pause or whatever you want to call it. Thank you.
ron, is ron still ron mcclure is still in the room. Oh, there you are. You were hiding behind
bob. Welcome, ron. My name is ron mcclure. I live at five, four, four, six horn road,
grove city, ohio. Good evening to all of you. I think mr. Holt had it right in regards to the
data centers. It's a very, very, very hot topic. I would like to respectfully ask you each to
consider the will of the people which you represent. So I would like to ask this. So who is in
attendance tonight that does not want data centers in grove city? Please stand. If you
don't want them, please stand. Thank you. You may be seated. Who is in attendance tonight
that does want data centers. Would you please stand? Okay. Fair enough. There's someone up
here. I would ask this. I would also ask that you seek legal counsel in regards to creating
an ordinance which states a data center cannot locate in the city of grove city without
a two thirds majority vote of the citizens. Yes. That way you would be getting the will of
the people, whatever that would be. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your attention to
this matter and I hope you have a great evening. Thank you. Thanks, ron. All right, mayor,
your report, sir. Thank y berryi actually have two mayor's court reports this evening. I did
bring those with me, one for march 50th 1000 $407.35 in fines and other assessments for
april 50th 4700 6215. In fines and waivers. And I'd ask that you approve both of those
submissions as as submitted move to accept second. Sturm. Yes. Yes. Yes. Henderson. Yes.
yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Mayor, a couple other points. We did have a very, very busy weekend
this last weekend in grove city. As amanda pointed out, the ohio army security agency. I mean,
I've been in service and I never know this this group existed, but they are an
intelligence group that goes back to 1945, very active during the vietnam war. They
had a conference in the american legion building. And it was interesting. I sat
through about half of it and hearing some of their experiences and what, what they
were sharing from their work environment. We had the opening day, little league, over a
thousand people, right, jack? That's unbelievable. Just absolutely unbelievable. And
we've got some footage from our drone that covered that. And what was really, really
rewarding was seeing the parents there supporting their children. And then the next day
we had a, an unveiling of three additional one organization and two individuals to our wall of
fame there at windsor park. Also, the annual mayor's cup was today it was sold out,
which we've been able to do now for probably about 6 or 8 years. Except for the expenses
incurred. All the proceeds go to life care alliance, meals on wheels, and we probably in the
$15,000 range. And I appreciate anybody who attended that today, thanks to the berry family for
their contribution. Very much appreciate it. And then tomorrow is the election day
primary election day. And certainly encourage, encourage all of our folks to participate
in that particular freedom. Any questions of council? Any questions for the mayor? Thank
you mayor. Thank you. I have nothing this evening. Thank you. Any of the department heads
like to address the council? Thank you, mr. Berry. In conjunction with the national
honoring of our law enforcement officers who were killed in the line of duty police week. We
are participating in light ohio blue campaign, which starts may the 6th through the 16th. We
ask you and members of our city to display a blue light on the outside of their home in. In
support of those officers who died, who paid the ultimate sacrifice with your. With your
permission, mr. Mayor, I would like to pause for officers in ohio to offer their names. A
special deputy sheriff, larry henderson, with the hamilton county sheriff's office, deputy
sheriff daniel weston shire with the monroe county sheriff's office. Police officer phillip wagner from the lorain police department, and trooper nicholas clayton of the
ohio state highway patrol. Just remember the. Their families this time. Also, I left on your
desk on your. The new or the continuing. Keep it cool right by the rules campaign. We're
continuing to educate our citizens, especially our kids, about the safety of writing
responsibly on e-scooters and e-bikes. In addition to the flier campaign, the. On the
backside of that document actually classifies class one, two, and three bicycles, gives
you an idea what the scooters look like, who needs a license, who needs to wear a helmet, age
restrictions and then the usage area. Who can write on bike paths and roadway sidewalks and
multi-use paths. And there's a scan bar at the bottom for a link to our website to get more
information on it. We're going to be putting up signs and parks that promote this
campaign. And also we filmed public service announcements where we're editing those, and
those will be out on social media very soon. I'd be happy to answer any questions. For
any questions, please. May 6th through 16th. Yes, sir. And also on the e-bike I've
actually fielded, this is pretty timely. Fielded several resident questions and comments
on e-bikes buzzing down the sidewalk and stuff. So I was just curious what what we were
doing. So I guess this gives me some insight into that. But based on that, there are up to
20 miles an hour on a sidewalk, or their motor must be disengaged on a sidewalk. Yes,
that's correct. You cannot ride any of the bikes with the motor engaged. You have to be
pedaling on a sidewalk. So it's pretty easy to see that there's a bunch of kids not pedaling on
e-bikes, right? That is correct. Yes, sir. What is your enforcement methodology here?
yep. Our police officers are monitoring the neighborhoods. And if they do see violations,
they're stopping and reminding our kids to ride safely. And in fact, we had three crashes just
in the last month involving e-bikes riding on sidewalks, entering intersections without
yielding the right of way. Yeah, I think this is going to be an issue or it's becoming an issue.
I believe. So, sir. Just let me know how I can help and how we can help here. Thank you. Pass
the word. Keep it cool. Right by the rules. So are you. Is this going to be out on is this
on the net? Any place it is, it's on the internet. And and I have be happy to give provide
any any of you a number of copies of this document. It's it is on the internet. It's on
our website. You can monitor there. And also I gave you a few small stickers. Can we keep
it? We're just about done. Then you can talk. Go ahead. Stickers for helmets. As well,
if I may. As a parent of school aged children, I believe I have seen posters in our school
building. So thank you for doing that as well. And being right there where kids are so
they can see that and spreading that message there too. Thank you ma'am. And one quick
question. Am I correct in saying even on bike paths, a motorized motorized scooter has
to give way to the biker. That motorized scooter has to give way to pedestrians and also
provide an audible signal if they are passing a pedestrian. Okay. All right. Well, thank
you very much. This is this is good. Yeah. Please, just real quick. This is up to 20 miles
an hour. I know I have seen these things going a lot faster than the motors are designed to
stop at 20 mile an hour. You can if you can pedal faster, you can go faster than 20 mile
an hour. That's the design of the bike. Is there any general, you know, with manufacturers
even conversations going on, you know, even nationally about. Yeah, this is a this is not
just a grove city issue. It's happening obviously across central ohio and across the
state. So there are there continue to monitor and come up with ways of making these safe.
the best thing you can do is wear bright colors, make sure you're wearing a helmet when
you're driving these. Keep your eyes up. I saw a a child writing to the parking lot last
week with a phone, watching a movie, and then be bright and be seen. Make sure that you're.
and stay to the right and a starbucks on the other hand. Okay. Hey. Thank you. Good
information. Thank you. Any other department heads? All right with that, steven, do you
have any more comments for this evening? No, sir. Thank you. Amy, any business with the
council? Yes. Closing comments, miss burrows. Thank you, mr. Mayor. So I'm going to follow
up from mr. Tedford since I'm the chair of safety. And thank you so much for handing these
out and getting on the website. I know we just wrapped up the bike bike bus as well last
tuesday. I know that wasn't in the month of may, but I hear that was very successful.
complement the safety department. And also jed plank I believe also was helped
escort a couple students home that wanted to finish out the ride. So thank you for going
above and beyond and making sure all those children were safe. I think that's the main
point of this, and that's what I've been saying in my closing comments for the last couple
council meetings is that we have a lot of pedestrians walking, biking, scootering on
our streets. They don't always stop at crosswalks. And so we have to have grace and give
space, especially with the warmer weather. So thank you 100% for this. This is awesome.
I also wanted to say congrats to the upcoming grove city citizen police academy next
tuesday. The 10th is the 10th. I don't know whatever tuesday is next week we will be
graduating another class of residents that took the ten week class, so I'm looking
forward to attending that graduation. And just as far as our town center, I know brant,
you're in the audience tonight, our executive director of grove city town center. We have the
first food truck friday coming up this friday, along with the chamber market, farmers market,
and the book festival that the parks and rec department is putting on. So I hear there's going to be over 30 authors throughout downtown and in different businesses. So please
make sure you come out and check those out. It's going to be a busy mother's day weekend
with mother's day being on sunday. And my final comment is vote for issue to support our
library. Thank you. Mr. Sturm. All right. I won't repeat half the stuff you said there, but
happy star wars day. May the 4th be with you. If you if you celebrate that. The the the
visit grove city presentation. I wanted to say I love that we're actually seeing data and
metrics to be able to measure the, the impact and that that is awesome. And it looks like
there's a lot of impact. So I just wanted to say thank you. I didn't say that when you were
up there on the america 250 in may, back in 1775, on the 10th, delegates from the 13 colonies
gathered in philadelphia for the second continental congress, where they established the
continental army, appointed george washington as the commander in chief, and eventually adopted the declaration of independence. Also, the. The america 250.org
site. Of course, you can go to. And there's all kinds of stuff nationally, but there's also the. America. 250-ohio.org site. So make sure you go in and and see that as well. The the theme
for this month is, is ohio creates arts, culture and literature celebrating ohio's
amazing, amazing symphonies, museums, artists and more. Includes ohio goes to the
movies and ohio arts council programing. So all that can be can be seen on the website. So
make sure you're checking that out. A lot of lot of really great stuff and interesting
history that you might not, might not know. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, mr.
omar. I just wanted to thank everybody for being here tonight, for coming to this
council meeting to express your concerns or support for, you know, us on council and and
really coming to talk about issues that matter most to you. I know I repeat this often, but
the more new faces that we have here, it means a lot to me personally. I know it means a
lot to all the council members to see that our community is actively engaged in the
conversations that are, that are happening in our community. When I ran for the seat, I made
a commitment to residents of ward five that I would continue to amplify the voices of
residents in my community, and I'm going to continue to do that, even if it means asking
the same questions over and over again. So thank you to those who have been emailing us
and and reaching out consistently. I think I had like over 50 emails. Your emails matter. I've been making it through as many of them as I can, but continue to reach out
to us to continue to, to share your concerns because it really does make an impact. So thank
you all for being here tonight, miss anderson. I want to echo that. I do appreciate everybody
being here and coming forward and, and sharing your opinions with us. And also, please
remember to get out and vote tomorrow. Thank you, mr. Linga. Yes. Also echoing what everyone
said, I appreciate the public input. I, I was elected to this office to represent everyone in
the city, and I can assure you that any decisions that I'm involved with are very
analytical. That's how I tend to be on the data centers. I travel outside the city,
outside the county, and to other metropolitan areas to get information that is pertinent
to the decisions that will be made. But when it comes down to the final decision making
process, I'm sure I'm the same as everyone else on the board. We really take into
consideration what our constituents feel about various issues, and I think that's very
important to represent you. And as far as representing everyone or selecting the people that
represent you, once again, I'd like to echo the thoughts. Tomorrow's primary day, please
show up and vote and select the candidate that would best serve you and give you the the
representation that you're looking for. Thank you, mr. Holt. Well, it's pretty hard to
beat all that stuff. That's pretty much everything I can think of. Smokey bones closed.
so what's going to go in smokey bones? That's always the question. And I, you know, just
for fun, I'll just remind you, we don't decide what goes in for smokey bones. That's that's
capitalism. So whatever restaurant thinks they can make it go for that. We'll make it
go for that. And it may not even come in front of council if they don't remodel or
rebuild or anything like that. So, but I'm with you on most of everybody else's restaurant
requests and ideas, but it's what the market will bear. And with that, on to you, ted. Well,
I gotta, I gotta mention one thing though. You know, kevin, when you mentioned the our
wonderful bike paths and everything, I often remember my father when he was alive 15
years ago. They lived in florida for the longest time. And he went. I remember going,
we were going to, of course, bob evans. And we were going down the road. And my dad
looked over at those, the bike lanes and he goes, well, that's really nice that they put put
passing lanes up there like that. In florida. Those are passing lanes for for senior
citizens. So anyhow, at least at least at least we don't have cars on them yet. But I want to
thank everybody for coming tonight. I can promise you this. There's nobody on this council.
I believe I'm not. Hopefully I'm we're nobody's in a rush on anything that's introduced. So
as soon as something is introduced, we plan on having many, many, many meetings to
inform you, to have your questions asked to, to talk and everything like that. So our
commitment to you and the community is this is not going to be a fast process. Whatever
is introduced, I don't know exactly what it is going to going to be yet, but there will
be many, many, many meetings. And I'm hoping that you all stay with us during the process
and come out and have your voices heard and ask questions. Some great questions in the
testimony tonight. I'm hoping wherever she is, she can give us that list. Please give us
that list. I would appreciate that. But I again, this is not a fast process. And and, and it
won't be. So we are committed to that. Also, I wanted to mention on the bike, there's
several people that always ask me if there's a bike lane. Why are people why are bikers on
the streets? So those of us that do bike for transportation tend not to use bike paths. So,
you know, we're on the we're on the road quite a bit. So that's why you see a lot of bikers
maybe biking by a bike path because they're exceeding speed and things like that to get to
and from. So please keep the distance vote tomorrow. The I wanted to oh, community center.
I wanted to ask chuck, when, when will we see that study back? We're targeting by the
end of the month, by the end of the month. So as soon as we know when that study is back,
will and will immediately schedule a meeting, an early meeting to, to get everybody in
to listen to what that study report has to say. So stay tuned for that. Other than that,
have a safe weekend and