[3:36] Good evening. Welcome to our August 24th meeting. I will now call the meeting to order and ask

[3:45] Councilmember Kuhlwitz to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Oh, shoot. We probably should do that.

[3:51] If we're going to call it to order. Let's figure out who's present. The gang is here,

[3:55] but please. Clerk, can you take the roll? Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

[4:05] here. Here. Here. Thank you. Now, Councilmember Kuhl, it's going to lead us in the Pledge of

[4:14] Allegiance.

[4:17] I'd like to introduce to you my line, the United States of America, and to the Republic

[4:22] of which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[4:38] Our

[4:41] first line of business is to approve the consent agenda.

[4:45] May I have a motion to approve?

[4:47] So moved.

[4:48] Second.

[4:49] It's been moved and seconded.

[4:54] Thank you, Council Member Kuhlwitz.

[4:55] Council Member Kuhlwitz is abstaining.

[4:59] All those in favour of approving the consent agenda, please signify by saying aye.

[5:03] Aye.

[5:04] Any opposed?

[5:05] Say aye.

[5:07] Motion carries.

[5:08] Consent agenda items are approved.

[5:12] We'll start today's meeting with a presentation from our Economic Development Manager, James

[5:19] Russell, and he will give us the annual update on economic development.

[5:38] Good evening, Council.

[5:40] Thank you for having me tonight.

[5:44] Loaded agenda.

[5:45] I'd like to start by talking about the Economic Development Dashboard.

[5:49] You all have a copy of the full dashboard in front of you.

[5:51] I have selected a couple data slides I'd like to call out and speak about.

[5:56] Let's

[6:02] start on the chart on the top left of the page.

[6:05] This used to be a four-access chart.

[6:07] It is now a two-access chart.

[6:09] We have had all positive growth, both quarter over quarter and year over year, according

[6:14] to Placer AI, that is, visit traffic, so not necessarily visitors but independent visits

[6:20] to the district.

[6:22] Very happy with that, led especially by MALLWAY's 11.4 percent increase in visitor

[6:27] traffic year over year in Lane Avenue with a 10% increase.

[6:33] On the right, you can see an activity tracker for our progress, 15 BRE visits this year.

[6:39] In the second half of the year, we need to improve that.

[6:42] We'd like to be at around 50 visits by the end of the year.

[6:46] Additionally, as we work to implement the new BRE program, there will be some structure

[6:51] added later this year, including a full resource team, resource team agreements,

[6:55] and some pre-meeting and post-meeting procedures.

[7:01] In the middle of the chart, you will see our business tax receipts year-to-day.

[7:05] So year-to-date through quarter two, that is just over 25 million.

[7:11] And I'd like to spend some time talking about private investment.

[7:14] You can see quite an increase there.

[7:17] That is a 330% increase in private investment year-to-date.

[7:21] I'd like to call out specifically the Wellington Project, which is going to be in that data set that is a $13 million project.

[7:30] Even when that is removed from the data set, there's still a 130% increase year over year in investment activity in commercial spaces.

[7:39] That also does not contemplate the Frasier Financial Office or the National Church Residence Office with those permits, and they will be reflected in the next quarter's dashboard.

[7:48] As

[7:57] far as our built environment and how that is performing, the chart on the left takes

[8:01] a look at comparable communities throughout central Ohio dating back to 2016.

[8:07] Do want to make a quick call out, the Columbus region dataset was only available 2018 to

[8:12] present, so that is 2018, the rest at 2016.

[8:16] A couple points that really jumped out to me, one was that we continue to outperform

[8:21] the region in office and as vacancies shrunk in that time period, we added a

[8:25] a lot of office products.

[8:27] So you're lane two gateway building,

[8:29] you have over 200,000 square feet

[8:30] of additional office product added

[8:32] as our vacancy continued to drop.

[8:36] In retail, you'll see that we are falling behind

[8:39] and our vacancy is increasing.

[8:42] There's been a lot of lease activity

[8:43] since the close of quarter two to quarter three.

[8:46] I expect that to be reflected

[8:47] into rebound uniformly there.

[8:52] As far as real estate pricing,

[8:54] You can see a small increase quarter over quarter in both office and retail rent as well as rising vacancy rates and a negative absorption.

[9:04] That really tells us that the market needs to continue working on finding equilibrium price.

[9:16] A few project updates that we're really happy about National Church residents has submitted their Phase 1 office plans to the Community Development Department.

[9:25] Those are currently being reviewed for permit.

[9:28] That project was also one of a handful in Franklin County to be awarded transformational mixed use tax credits.

[9:36] So $4.6 million awarded in transformational mixed use tax credits to that project.

[9:43] As mentioned earlier, Frazier Financial Advisors also has submitted their building plans to community development.

[9:50] We're working with their team now to plan some marketing and engagement around their deal to stay.

[9:56] Lastly, 2471 Westmont City staff continues to work with that project team as they work

[10:03] towards their financing close.

[10:05] That project will be in front of council with the development agreement seeking a right

[10:09] of way lease once our hands are around project financing.

[10:17] Outside of projects, there's been a lot of activity out of the Economic Development

[10:21] Division pictured here was the July 15th Farmers Market Community Boot.

[10:26] At the booth, we had questionnaires that asked participants about DORA and generally any pain points with redevelopment.

[10:34] You'll see on the board two activities.

[10:36] One was for residents to identify where they'd like to see redevelopment specifically focused on commercial corridors.

[10:43] That was a sticker system.

[10:45] Used for that, the other activity asked residents what types of businesses they wanted us to pursue when we're contemplating attraction.

[10:52] The results of that was casual dining, entertainment uses, and home good retailers, and stuff for

[10:59] mailing mixed there.

[11:03] Been to many ribbon cuttings this year.

[11:05] The most recent was Aluvita Social Wellness on Riverside Drive.

[11:09] That was a project that started in March of 2025 as an attraction.

[11:13] I'm just very excited to get that one open.

[11:16] As well, we continue to engage in business walks, primarily when we have a municipal

[11:22] event that's going to be in the area.

[11:23] We try to bring that information to our businesses so they can participate and

[11:28] know, make sure they're open. We got some feedback during the master plan focus group

[11:33] that the business walk for really helpful, that it was their first contact with economic

[11:38] development and helped to build trust. So we're going to continue to do those.

[11:41] In fact, tomorrow we're scheduled for business walks at all districts to

[11:46] pass out the master plan survey.

[11:51] As I mentioned at that farmer's market,

[11:53] We did get some feedback on DORA designated outdoor refreshment areas.

[11:58] Only 5% of surveyed residents hated the idea.

[12:02] Everyone else liked it or loved it.

[12:03] That was on a scale of 1 to 5.

[12:07] There, so as far as proceeding with DORA this year, we're having two meetings

[12:11] that will be announced in September.

[12:13] One focused on residents.

[12:15] We'll be sending notification to everyone within 300 feet of Tremont Center.

[12:20] Additionally, one session focused on the business community.

[12:24] If sentiment remains strong, we'll bring Dora authorized in legislation before council later this year or early next year.

[12:36] Another large undertaking this year has been the strategic plan.

[12:40] Up to this point, we have used the Boyette 2021 draft of Blueprint.

[12:45] As our economic development strategic plan, we've drafted a new version complete with market analysis.

[12:52] Before that's finalized, we want to make sure, one, that the master plan concludes and those findings are reflected within the strategic plan.

[13:00] There's also a little bit more public outreach and some expert interviews to do to bring that up to speed.

[13:05] Right now, it looks like a mid-summer release of the master plan, so this report will be finalized shortly thereafter.

[13:12] And

[13:18] there is a lot of data that comes out in that master, excuse me, market analysis.

[13:23] I want to point you to a few blocks here that's really census data.

[13:28] You'll see the median age of 40.2, about five years older than county average.

[13:33] That really reflects that we're both over indexed in seniors and in children.

[13:39] It's interesting to inform our retail strategy.

[13:42] Additionally, residents are over 2x the household income as the county and highly educated, nearly

[13:50] 80% with bachelor's degree, nearly 40% with graduate or professional.

[13:55] At the bottom there, like to call out our unemployment rate, that's over half of the

[13:59] county average right now.

[14:01] And our work from home statistics, still in our modern data, we're seeing 27% of

[14:07] residents working from home.

[14:15] Looking at the year ahead, the strategic plan, as mentioned, will be finalized once the master

[14:22] plan is finalized.

[14:23] The remainder of this year, the focus is that Dora at Tremont Center, as well as completing

[14:30] the elements, the structured elements of the BRE program mentioned earlier.

[14:35] As we look to pivot to entrepreneurship as our primary growth mechanism, we'll

[14:41] be starting next year with an entrepreneurship ecosystem analysis.

[14:44] So that's really taking a look at our community from an entrepreneur's lens and what elements we have, what elements we may be deficient in.

[14:53] A new addition to this list, in light of the recent storm, is a business resiliency plan. So next year we will be drafting.

[15:02] And lastly, the strategic plan contemplates many strategic partnerships. We are pursuing

[15:08] those partnerships currently and plan to through the rest of next year. With that, I'm happy

[15:16] to answer any questions.

[15:20] Thank you, Mr. Ransoul. Councilmember Tracy, quick to the draw.

[15:27] Thank you for that presentation. It sounds like things are going very well, so that's

[15:32] It's wonderful to hear.

[15:35] You mentioned the Westmont development.

[15:38] I'm aware that residents have expressed some significant concerns over parking.

[15:42] Do you have any information or thoughts on the latest about what is being done to make

[15:50] sure that parking for that amenity doesn't become a neighborhood issue?

[15:55] Thank you for the question.

[15:57] A couple actions were taken in response.

[15:59] We continue to work with the applicant to broker an additional parking agreement. They have one now with Ohio Health looking to pick one up at Huntington Bank on the corridor to add more spaces.

[16:11] Additionally, this fall with community development support will be doing a Lane Avenue parking study that helps to identify where we may have those pain points.

[16:21] How much parking surplus we have and how to identify and let that be known.

[16:24] residents. Thanks, and second question just acronyms. BRE stands for what?

[16:33] BRE is business retention and expansion. So those are visits typically annual

[16:38] that economic development staff is hosting with large taxpayers. Thank you.

[16:48] Councilman Coolitz. Thank you Madam President. Thank you Mr. Russell.

[16:51] So, last two questions.

[16:53] Do you know how our office rents and retail rents compare with other similar suburbs?

[17:01] Yes.

[17:02] So, currently, and thank you for the question, currently our office rent is just a little

[17:07] bit cheaper.

[17:08] So, on average, I'd say we're about 50 cents below that regional average from retail

[17:13] were in the same concentration, so about equal to what the rest of them appears.

[17:18] Thank you.

[17:18] And the other question is when you referred to business tax receipts in here.

[17:23] What all is included in business taxes?

[17:26] Yes, so business tax receipts that is going to be all withholdings as well as net profit tax.

[17:32] So it's the combination of those two.

[17:35] It does not break like property tax.

[17:39] Thank you.

[17:41] Vice President Muntz.

[17:42] Thanks for the presentation, Mr. Russell.

[17:44] And I just want to start by saying I really appreciate the data-driven approach that you're taking to your role.

[17:48] I think it's very productive for us.

[17:51] Two questions, terms I don't understand.

[17:54] Lease reabsorption, you mentioned that and it's because of, you know, it might be this

[17:59] way until the market comes into balance.

[18:00] Can you just say a little bit more about that?

[18:02] Yeah, thank you for the question.

[18:04] Absorption is really how much and what's reported there is a 12-month net absorption.

[18:09] So looking 12 years or 12 months historically, what is the total inflow of office occupancy

[18:15] see an outflow and then the net position there in square feet.

[18:18] So same for retail.

[18:21] And on this last page that we're looking at right now, the business resiliency plan totally

[18:26] agree we should be doing that given the recent storm.

[18:28] What are the types of components or content that you would expect to come out of a plan

[18:31] like that?

[18:33] I think there's a few different lenses.

[18:35] One is looking really planning and looking towards the futures of what are actions

[18:39] that we can take, particularly in capital planning and large projects that would

[18:43] make businesses more resilient so things like underground utilities, for example, the other

[18:48] element is really the response.

[18:50] So how do you respond when that emergency arises?

[18:53] Who did the business contact and how and how do we respond as quickly as possible to meet

[18:58] needs?

[18:59] Thank you.

[19:02] Thank you for the presentation.

[19:04] I note that the one area where we're a little higher than our peers is on retail

[19:08] vacancy and the presentation and your words noted that there's some lease activity

[19:13] that should bring that down, but are there any discernible trends as it relates to our retail

[19:19] stock or immediately identifiable needs that could enhance the community from a retail perspective?

[19:30] Thank you for the question. From the retail perspective, I do believe those numbers are

[19:35] going to find themselves right back to close to three or four percent once this lease activity

[19:40] is reported. There was large vacancies at shops online in Arlington Square where

[19:45] we've seen lease activity. The largest trend we're seeing right now in retail

[19:49] lease up is this push for health and wellness. So lots of yoga, lots of Pilates

[19:54] studios and general wellness. As far as what we can bring to the market to

[19:58] make it more attractive for retailers, that's where we are

[20:01] contemplating. Doras and other district-wide marketing using our events

[20:06] and says, you know, an event driver

[20:09] and bring more foot traffic ultimately.

[20:11] I do want to use this as a, James,

[20:13] do you want to talk a little bit about

[20:14] the work you've been doing on the FASAD program as well?

[20:17] Yes, the strategic plan calls for a continued investment

[20:22] in the FASAD grant program.

[20:24] So that was an incentive program started last year

[20:27] to help incentivize some of that retail

[20:29] and outside of the economic based companies,

[20:31] some large tax payers.

[20:34] FASAD grant was awarded to what is soon to be Arlington Grill, who the hands was on

[20:40] Tremont.

[20:41] And we saw that facilitator transaction there continue to use the FASAD grant in a similar

[20:46] way.

[20:51] Councilmember Oldham.

[20:52] Thank you, Madam President.

[20:54] Thank you, Mr. Russell.

[20:55] Related to the parking study on Lane, is there any way we could include in that

[21:01] how a circulator busts the different economic hotspots around town might be able to

[21:05] benefit people who don't want to drive. I don't know if it's too late to add

[21:10] something like that but I'd love to see if it would be beneficial financially to

[21:15] the city. Certainly I can speak with Chad Gibson who's leading that effort just

[21:20] to understand where they are in planning. I think that's a great idea to

[21:24] consider.

[21:26] Follow-up question on that. If my memory is serving me right, did we

[21:31] do or circulator study assistance in the field? Didn't we do one two years ago this before

[21:39] this council? I don't think it's dated or not too dated that it couldn't be incorporated

[21:46] or? Yeah, we did a 2025 kind of circulator study.

[21:50] The biggest challenge we're running into is we don't have people in enough singular

[21:57] locations like everybody that we talked to or kind of surveyed about it want to be picked

[22:06] up at their house or dropped off at their house.

[22:08] And so the results of that were a recommendation that if council wants to consider something

[22:14] like that maybe a first pilot step would be some kind of ride sharing vouchers for

[22:22] people where they could use a private company to get door-to-door rides.

[22:33] I'd be happy to recirculate that and then look at how maybe we can share that data with

[22:41] the OSU students that Chad Gibson is working with and see if they can't correlate that

[22:46] and update it in there.

[22:52] Yeah.

[22:55] Okay.

[22:56] Yeah, that's helpful.

[22:58] I don't always want to abandon work that we've done, but always kind of think about as a time to update, refresh it. What did we see then? What new trends are? Do we have now that would change the circumstances?

[23:13] And then report back on that. Okay, great. Thank you.

[23:17] Council Member Ford can't thank you madam president

[23:20] So first James, thank you for your work in this area because with small of missed municipalities

[23:27] It's competitive out there, and I think your work within the city is helping keep us at a leading edge here

[23:36] My first question is looking at the quarter of a quarter and your over your change and visitor traffic

[23:44] I was hoping to see a little more growth for the King Steel area, especially with the recent developments over the past years of the apartments there, of the community center, and those being a draw to that area.

[24:00] Is there any underlying themes or anything beyond these numbers and the data that you're seeing?

[24:06] Yeah, thank you for the question. And one data point that's not in there that does reflect

[24:12] some of that positive traffic there is generally as we look at retail leases in Kingsdale.

[24:16] So there was only one that turned over, but that was at roughly a 25% premium on the market.

[24:22] So we are seeing market reflect the reality of a thousand daily visitors at the Bob Crane

[24:26] and another close to 500 residents living there. I think some of the reason that

[24:32] Kingsdale might only be at that 3% growth is previous to this. There was an 8% year-over-year

[24:38] growth there. So I think we're just starting to stabilize a little bit to where traffic

[24:42] is now that construction is concluded. Thank you. And just kind of a follow up on that

[24:47] when you guys mentioned the facade program. Is that open to those at Kingsdale or is

[24:54] that more for historical businesses and properties? It is open for any commercial

[25:00] property. Awesome. Thank you. On our website, Upper Arlington Civic Service. All right. Perfect.

[25:05] Shameless plug. My next question is, could you speak more about the Entrepreneurship Initiative?

[25:15] Do you say that was kind of going to be a focus for the next year?

[25:18] Really a focus through the entire strategic plan. So as we've evaluated,

[25:23] really, you have a little bit of defense and offense and economic development. Your business

[25:27] for Tension Expansion Program is defense. As we think about growth in typical communities

[25:33] that would be economic-based attractions of recruiting large companies, given our limits

[25:38] on space and commercial size, we've had to really rethink how are we going to grow.

[25:43] And so there is some density and redevelopment of properties contemplated, but it's really

[25:48] leaning into entrepreneurship, and that aligns with some of the skill sets in this community.

[25:53] So, it starts with plugging out the ecosystem, but continuing to roll out what are resources

[25:58] and support that we can deliver to continue making up Burlington, the most attractive

[26:03] place in central Ohio to start a business.

[26:05] And I appreciate that, especially with that understanding what our strengths are as

[26:10] a community, where our talent lies, and the kind of untapped area of entrepreneurship.

[26:17] I'm not aware of many other cities really trying to focus on that for their community,

[26:21] and kind of cultivating that.

[26:23] So I am excited to see what that comes with.

[26:27] Thank you.

[26:31] Mr. Russell, thanks for the presentation

[26:33] and to echo many of my colleagues.

[26:36] Thanks for the approach that you're taking

[26:38] with our economic development efforts in the city

[26:43] and the data focus.

[26:45] I have a couple of questions.

[26:47] Some just clarifying some of the things

[26:49] my colleagues have said or a follow-up

[26:51] and then some just kind of re-educating me.

[26:54] The first is our dashboard.

[26:58] Remind me, is that internal or what's the external portion of our dashboard

[27:03] such that businesses have access or kind of like a door front

[27:07] to economic development activity in our city?

[27:11] Thank you for the question.

[27:13] Our dashboard is hosted publicly,

[27:15] so the most updated version sits on our CivicServe website.

[27:19] There's a bottom ribbon there, so there is some visibility there.

[27:24] One of the things the strategic plan contemplates is reviewing our economic development website,

[27:30] that being the base at UA.gov website.

[27:34] And I think that that could live there.

[27:36] Okay.

[27:37] To follow up on Council Member Ford-Camp's entrepreneurial question ecosystem and the analysis that you're doing.

[27:44] Now, I know that you personally take some extra effort and time to kind of speak with

[27:51] our high school and connect to our high school.

[27:53] I know they have a lot of innovation, entrepreneurship, style-esque things going on there.

[28:01] And as I think about just future business and, you know, sometimes your best business

[28:08] people within communities are the students that end up coming back or building businesses

[28:13] or even starting to think about how they could build a business here.

[28:16] What are some efforts or some work that we could do in that regard as we're thinking about our ecosystem?

[28:23] Thank you for the question. I'm really excited to talk about this actually.

[28:27] Upper Arlington Schools this year is starting the Incubator EDU program.

[28:32] So that is a new full-length program that will represent a course of study through the IB curriculum

[28:38] that allows students to come in and really learn

[28:41] from also our local business community

[28:43] who we've connected in.

[28:44] There will be subject matter experts, mentors

[28:47] that will help them develop a business plan in year one.

[28:51] That program is slated to grow

[28:52] and have an accelerator program

[28:54] and it's year two that helps them launch the business

[28:57] and scale it from that minimum viable product

[29:00] and business plan.

[29:01] So we've been right at the table with that

[29:03] attending all of their programming,

[29:04] helping to plug in our businesses

[29:06] where we have connections to facilitate that.

[29:09] We're really excited about that point of where founders come from

[29:12] and bringing them back into the community.

[29:15] And that starts early.

[29:17] Yeah, that's awesome.

[29:19] Love to hear it.

[29:21] Quick question on trying to figure out a phrase

[29:26] that's, I think about, we're not like this island.

[29:31] We exist with, and Clintonville has a pretty active business ecosystem.

[29:35] We have Columbus, we have Grandview.

[29:38] Are we doing this kind of work in a very insular fashion?

[29:42] Or is there any collaborative efforts,

[29:45] any way that we're on their minds

[29:48] or collaborating with your economic development?

[29:51] What is happening in the collaboration space

[29:54] as we think about economic development?

[29:57] Yeah, thank you for the question.

[29:59] and I think,

[30:00] Collaboration in economic development is a very interesting topic. There is a little bit

[30:04] of competition, but also, you know, the region as a whole we compete together. And I think

[30:09] that we've had regional leaders really set up great infrastructure there. So we are all

[30:14] part of the Mid-Ohio Development Exchange once a month, everyone in my position from

[30:18] various cities. We get together to talk about the pipeline of businesses that are

[30:23] coming in, best practice. So there's collaboration in that front. Certainly we continue to

[30:28] work with the tri-village-chamber partnership, who is the local chamber of commerce that

[30:33] includes Grand View Heights and Marble Cleft, so some collaboration there as well.

[30:37] Okay.

[30:38] And maybe to take that question also a step further, because I do recognize that, you

[30:42] know, it's competition and market scan on maybe cannot sustain with everyone competing

[30:50] for the same thing.

[30:51] I'm more concerned about how plugged in, how will we become a resource for our businesses

[30:58] on that information, set another way as I think about the elements of your BRE.

[31:05] When business think about, am I staying or am I going, part of the retention is, listen,

[31:11] I have a very solid resource here with the UA's economic development department and

[31:18] information and the access to information that I can get and knowing what's coming up in the region

[31:22] such that that's worth staying versus taking, you know, 50 cents on the dollar somewhere else or

[31:30] whatever. How are we building that relationships kind of back and forth so that it feeds into our

[31:38] BRE? Yeah, and I'm glad you caught out the relationship-based nature of it. Actually,

[31:43] that is the title and the strategic plan of our BRE program is to add that additional

[31:48] relationship component, making sure that before the conversation on retention and expansion starts,

[31:54] that we've had some face-to-face that they know, you know, who I am, what we do as a city,

[32:00] and also that we've had some resources there or just, you know, they've had positive touch points

[32:05] with the rest of City Hall and City Stat. Okay. And last question for me, and this is on

[32:13] Dora, could you just expand a little bit on that survey?

[32:19] Who was surveyed?

[32:20] What was the radius?

[32:23] So the initial survey as reported, this was conducted just as written questionnaires at

[32:29] the community booth.

[32:30] So there is going to be some bias there towards people who enjoy the market, enjoy

[32:35] Tremont Center.

[32:36] Okay.

[32:37] But we don't have any idea of whether they are within that neighborhood.

[32:42] We do not.

[32:43] Just that they attended the market.

[32:45] Okay.

[32:46] In the contemplated public meetings, we will be doing some exit survey at that.

[32:51] So when you come to the presentation and open house, we'll then have a quick survey at the door a couple of questions.

[32:58] Have another chance to gauge.

[33:00] Okay.

[33:02] Is there a way to structure a survey or is there going to be conversations around that particular neighborhood around the market?

[33:13] As I think about Dora and I'm an advocate for it, but of course the people that, the people's lives that may change from this are the people closest and most impacted to that.

[33:25] And those are the voices that I'm trying to make sure that we touch and hear from and

[33:30] design for and around.

[33:33] And so our survey, if there's a way to do a little bit more targeted approach in how

[33:41] we get that feedback, that would be helpful.

[33:43] I think surely all of our audience wants a space that has door, but I want to hear

[33:49] or at least want to target the neighborhood and the houses that the community they'll be impacted.

[33:56] I think two approaches to working that feedback and one will be in the data analysis. So we can

[34:02] certainly put a location type of question on there and use that to do some cross-section.

[34:07] Another one is the nature of everyone within 300 feet will get an official, you know,

[34:13] service that the meeting is happening. Yeah, I don't want to dictate the approach that you

[34:17] I just want in a future feedback that some kind of targeted approach has been taken and

[34:25] some aggregated feedback that is in that target community, if that makes sense, and it would

[34:31] be helpful to see that juxtaposed against the attitudes and the feelings of the rest

[34:36] of Upper Allington.

[34:38] Okay.

[34:40] Council Member Kulwitz?

[34:41] Yeah.

[34:42] Yeah.

[34:42] I'm done, so, yes.

[34:45] Just one other question. Do we keep tabs on the amount of city investment in business

[34:50] development as a sort of corollary figure to what the business investment amounts have

[34:56] been in business taxes? Do we know how much the city has invested in economic development

[35:02] through incentives and otherwise?

[35:04] We do track that. And it's an omission from this report, but it should be on there.

[35:08] So I will add that as a field as far as our incentive activity. I also know we've

[35:13] discussed doing a look back at some of the projects and incentive deals over the last decade,

[35:18] just to see now how they're, you know, penciling and that the modeling is congruent with actuals.

[35:24] Thank you.

[35:24] That would be very illuminating just so we can have a sort of correlator figure and

[35:27] see what that return on the investment has been.

[35:30] Thank you.

[35:32] Thank you.

[35:33] Are there any other Council questions, comments, discussions?

[35:36] All right.

[35:37] Well, Mr. Russell, thanks very much.

[35:40] Keep up the good work.

[35:41] Thank you.

[35:41] That

[35:47] concludes our presentations for tonight.

[35:52] We will now move into legislative items.

[35:58] Before I begin, I would like to share that we,

[36:01] that's Council, appreciate comments from the public.

[36:05] If you would like to give a comment,

[36:07] the comment has to be on a legislative item on the agenda tonight.

[36:11] Please fill out a yellow slip, speaker slip,

[36:14] that's outside the doors.

[36:15] You will be given three minutes when your legislative item is up for discussion.

[36:22] And we have a traffic light system to help you out with those comments.

[36:27] All right.

[36:28] Moving on to our legislative items.

[36:31] First up is a legislative item for fourth reading, public hearing tonight, no council action.

[36:36] I do want to know that the last council meeting we discussed some council action tonight, but in discussion with staff decided on some additional time to review portions of the ordinance based on last week's discussion.

[36:52] So we will be reviewing that as a reading tonight, taking an additional reading and taking a vote at next meeting.

[36:59] That's ordinance number 27-2026, ordinance to amend chapters 301, definitions, 383, bicycles,

[37:10] motorized bicycles, motorcycles and other forms of transportation other than walking.

[37:16] And section 543, parks, playgrounds and open space areas of the Upper Orleans and

[37:22] to establish an e-mobility, device registration, safety education, and parking restriction program.

[37:32] I don't know if that takes the cake on the longest title, but...

[37:37] It does not. The bond authorizations typically far from that.

[37:42] I do appreciate Council's patience with us after the very robust discussion last week.

[37:48] I think we all sat back and said, okay, let us think about the feedback we got, and rather

[37:54] than try and craft some, I think, glorious term Frankenstein piece of legislation that

[38:02] does everything that tries to kind of take what we originally started with and amend

[38:06] our way to where I think we have a pretty good understanding of where you want to

[38:09] be.

[38:10] We want to take the extra time to kind of say, okay, starting with this premise

[38:15] of doing a program really focused on folks without a driver's license. Let's

[38:23] let's use what we learned but not start with where we were. You know what I mean?

[38:28] And so we're gonna take a little bit extra time so I appreciate Council's

[38:32] patience on that. There were some things in the packet that I think Darren

[38:35] is gonna explain to you briefly and then I'm happy if we move on from this

[38:39] for tonight. Sounds good. Yes so I just wanted to kind of Steve did a

[38:44] great job of laying the groundwork. I want to explain what's in your packet. In your

[38:47] packet, we have a document called proposed amendments. We are not anticipating now that

[38:53] you're going to need to vote on those amendments, but we wanted to show them to you. These

[38:56] are crystal in my attempt to take everything that Council sort of brought up last week

[39:01] and boil it down into word format. What's not in here is the changing the registration

[39:07] to only be non-licensed. People without a driver's license, I have language for

[39:12] But Steve wanted to really look at that globally, as he said.

[39:17] Unless you have strong objections to anything on this list,

[39:20] our intention is to come back rather than with a piece of legislation

[39:24] and then do a bunch of amendments, come back with a clean copy incorporating this

[39:27] and what we come up with to properly state the driver's license amendment.

[39:33] And so you'll sort of – it'll still be the same legislation,

[39:35] but it'll be updated between readings, so you won't have to make any amendments.

[39:39] So I guess the only favor I would ask of you is if you read this

[39:42] You say, no, that's absolutely wrong.

[39:43] We don't want to do that.

[39:44] It'd be helpful to reach out to Steve in between

[39:46] because then we will not incorporate that

[39:48] into this clean draft that you're going to get.

[39:50] Happy to answer any questions.

[39:54] Have any Council questions, comments, discussions?

[39:59] I guess one point of clarification

[40:01] because maybe you listened to me long enough.

[40:05] I'm always curious about how it looks back

[40:09] when we look back at the record on what was done.

[40:14] I do want to show the work on this item, so I still kind of want to see the amendments as,

[40:28] you know, this plus if people do kind of make comments.

[40:32] I don't want it deleted but added. Does that make sense?

[40:38] Yes, so a couple of things. The draft that you're going to get will still have all of

[40:43] the changes and things we're putting in there.

[40:45] Yeah.

[40:46] As for what's changed from the current draft to the next draft, what Chris and I typically

[40:50] do is in our staff reports, we say this current draft has been reflected or has been amended

[40:56] to reflect the following changes. So we tell you in the staff report, these are the

[41:00] amendments we've made in between readings. So I can go back to if Council would

[41:05] prefer me to do the color-coded system that I tried to do, Steve's head was kind of getting

[41:08] ready to explode.

[41:09] But we will definitely be very transparent as to what has changed between this current

[41:15] draft and then the new, I'll call it the new draft that's coming.

[41:18] Okay.

[41:18] In a way that I don't want to compare edits, I guess.

[41:21] Yeah.

[41:22] I think let us come up, let us figure out what the end product's going to be and

[41:27] then we'll work with you guys on what you think the best way to memorialize,

[41:31] show the work, show the processes.

[41:33] So I heard, I think I understand the intent.

[41:36] Yeah.

[41:36] So let us figure out ultimately what we want to do and then work toward that intent.

[41:40] And that was also one of the reasons why we wanted to distribute these amendments that may not become voted on amendments.

[41:46] So when we look through the legislative history of how this goes, we can see every draft and everything we provide to council.

[41:52] So this will be part of the packet that's saved up on our agendas for legislative history.

[41:57] But I think we'll want to make it very clear on drafts and staff report next time as well.

[42:00] Great.

[42:01] Thank you.

[42:02] much appreciated. Any other council comments, questions, discussions?

[42:06] There is much. Cool. Moving on. We are now moving on to a legislative item for first reading,

[42:14] public hearing, no council action tonight. That's ordinance number 32-2026. Ordinance

[42:21] to authorize the city manager to enter into contract with performance pipelining Inc. for

[42:27] construction-related services for the 2026 Sustainable Sewer Solutions Project.

[42:35] Is there

[42:36] any council discussion on this? Council Member Kuhlitz.

[42:40] Thank you Madam President. Just out of curiosity, how does this solution, how will it reduce

[42:46] excessive inflow and infiltration of rainwater into the sanitary sewer system? Where is

[42:51] the excessive inflow coming from and what will this do to abate that?

[42:56] The primary way that the infiltration happens is through cracks in the pipes.

[43:03] So stormwater gets into the ground and then it gets into the pipe that way.

[43:07] So this project lines the sewer lines to cover and seal all those cracks or defects that we have.

[43:14] We also do point repairs for if we occasionally find like a partial collapse, that also gets repaired.

[43:23] Occasionally, we'll find like a roof drain that's improperly tied into the sanitary system,

[43:29] but it should be going to the street, so we relocate those.

[43:33] Yeah, those are the main ways.

[43:35] Is the camera pretty good at picking those up and picking up the vulnerabilities in the water,

[43:40] the gaps or holes in the pipeline?

[43:44] Yes, sir. Yeah, the camera will go down really slowly and pause if it sees something

[43:49] and kind of look around, take a snapshot, and then keep going.

[43:54] Thank you.

[43:55] Good luck.

[43:56] Thank you.

[43:58] Council Member Ford, Cam.

[44:00] Thank you. Just kind of one quick follow-up question.

[44:03] And when we're doing those scoping of the pipes,

[44:06] is that part of the ongoing already set-in-place scheduled maintenance

[44:12] and kind of repair schedule that we have,

[44:16] or is this going to be something additional?

[44:19] I'll answer that one. It's a little bit of both. The bulk of this project was identified

[44:24] several years ago from the EPA. They mandated us to do this project, stop inflow and infiltration.

[44:30] So that's the bulk of this project, but it also includes just other repairs that we have found

[44:35] from our just regular inspection of the sanitary lines. So this is a combination of both projects.

[44:41] Thanks.

[44:42] Thank you.

[44:44] Council Member Cougars.

[44:46] Just one other question, how do we pick the two areas, the Brixton Canterbury, the Tremont

[44:53] area and the Clifton Road area?

[44:57] So this goes back to the study we did about a decade ago.

[45:00] So, for the EPA where we looked at kind of our worst problem areas when it came to infiltration,

[45:06] and then from there, we made a prioritized list. And for the past nine, eight, nine years, we've

[45:12] been going out kind of top of the list down, going after these more problematic areas that

[45:18] we studied.

[45:19] Where are we on the timeline at this point?

[45:22] So, 2028 will be our last year to meet the EPA mandate to get some of the worst areas in the city. And then we do plan to do another study at that time to take a look at next steps just for life cycle management of our sewer system.

[45:41] Thank you.

[45:44] Council Member Tracy.

[45:47] So just to bottom line it for the one or two residents who may be watching tonight, do these

[45:54] sorts of maintenance activities and preventing infiltration of stormwater into sanitary sewer

[46:00] lines, do these help people not end up with sewage in their basement when it rains a lot?

[46:05] Yes it does.

[46:07] Great.

[46:10] It's a good thing.

[46:11] Any other council comments, questions, discussions? All right. Hearing none, we will vote on this legislative item at our next meeting on September 14th.

[46:23] Moving on to legislative item 473, public hearing, and finally, council action here tonight.

[46:33] I'm assuming no one is more excited than Attorney Shulman.

[46:37] Great work on this, by the way. I know this was a council priority for the code cleanup, so thanks for all the effort and patience as we work through it methodically.

[46:48] This is Ordinance Number 21-2026, an ordinance to amend various sections of Part 1, Administrative Code, Part 4, Schedule of Fees, Part 13, Building Code, the uparolings and Code of Ordinance.

[47:07] May I have a motion to adopt Ordinance Number 21-2026?

[47:11] Madam President, I'm delighted to move to adopt ordinance number 21-2026.

[47:19] It's been moved, does it say second?

[47:21] Second.

[47:21] It's been moved and seconded.

[47:24] Is there a final blessing from City Attorney Shulman?

[47:30] I will do so mostly for my own private victory lap, but also because I just wanted to update you.

[47:36] We voted on the changes last week those have been incorporated in the one that I

[47:42] want to draw your attention to because it just looks a little funny as with the

[47:45] 2029 deadline it kind of like made me feel a bit going going backwards

[47:49] because we have the current language in there so we know what the current

[47:52] donation limit is until 2029 and then it says after 2029 it becomes this so

[47:58] if anyone is on council January 1st of 2029 or whatever we may want to go

[48:03] back and strip out the old number just so it's not clogging it up there but there

[48:07] was no other way to do it where we can make sure that people knew current versus

[48:11] the second one. Other than that, happy to answer any questions and I'm more than

[48:14] happy to have you vote on it.

[48:18] Are there any council comments, discussions,

[48:23] final ego stroke kudos to

[48:27] Attorney Shulman? Not an ego just I'm really I'm really proud of this

[48:31] project and I also just want to say that I really enjoyed sitting here

[48:35] watching council dig into these issues and debate these things because there's a lot

[48:39] of typos and things like that we cleaned up but there was a lot of issues where you really dug

[48:43] into the process and like that's kind of why I went into government so like thank you for

[48:47] really leaning into this because it could have been a very boring seven rating so I appreciate it.

[48:54] Well well done city manager. I will now call for a vote. All those in favor of this ordinance

[49:02] Please signify by saying aye.

[49:04] Aye.

[49:05] And you're opposed?

[49:07] Stab shulman now?

[49:09] No.

[49:11] No opposed.

[49:12] Motion carries.

[49:15] And that concludes our legislative items for tonight.

[49:18] Can you believe it?

[49:20] We do have a liquor permit application notice.

[49:26] And this is Ohio CVS LLC.

[49:31] doing business as CVS pharmacy number 6149 at 1-855 West Henson Road in Upper

[49:38] Arlington. I just want to remind counsel on that unless there is any

[49:43] objection, there is no need for action. And if no comments, if I hear no

[49:49] objections, we'll just move on. Are there any counsel comments, objections?

[49:54] You can get your liquor and your medication from CVS it sounds like.

[49:59] All right.

[50:01] No objections.

[50:04] All right.

[50:06] Well, that concludes legislative items.

[50:09] City Manager Shoney, do you have an update?

[50:12] I have two items.

[50:14] First of all, you all noticed last week that we entered into a second contract for help with cleaning up tree debris from the storm.

[50:26] So we have entered into that. We're seeing, if you check our storm cleanup map, we're making great progress getting through the city. It's been a real, real effort. I think once we got into it, once we saw how much stuff was going to be out on the street, we just, we realized it was going to take us months and months and months to get through it.

[50:46] So, we're progressing through that given the break between this meeting and when we're going to

[50:51] have our next meeting. I do anticipate that I will be making one more contract modification

[50:57] under the emergency authority that will be to modify our sidewalk maintenance contract with

[51:01] newcomer concrete services to add an additional $120,000 into that contract.

[51:08] They are preparing to start our sidewalk repair program for this year.

[51:11] They will be going around and dealing with all of those sidewalk panels that were uplifted by the street trees and getting those repaired this year

[51:19] Rather than having to wait till next year. So once we get that contract modification done, I will officially close out the emergency

[51:27] The emergency authority and take care of that. So you should be seeing that this week

[51:35] It's my hope that we'll be able to get that contract modification done. So those things are progressing well

[51:41] Well, any questions about storm cleanup or anything on that before we move on.

[51:47] Council Member Tracy.

[51:48] You said a moment ago that it was going to take months and months.

[51:52] I assume that because we now have the contract, it was going to take months.

[51:58] Now it's going to take a couple weeks.

[52:01] Looking at the map today, you know, Debbie, and the next week.

[52:08] Yes, our goal is for the first round, for the round of curbside collection to end, hopefully

[52:14] next week.

[52:14] We are also going into our parks where we have large trees that have come down as well and

[52:19] trying to get those playable.

[52:21] But hopefully by the end of next week we're complete with that.

[52:25] Thank you for the clarification on that.

[52:28] Any other council questions?

[52:30] I do have one on the sidewalk.

[52:33] walk. Is the assumption that any damage would have been just from the pulled up trees? Are there any

[52:41] damages that could have occurred in the storm that then to our sidewalks that may not have been

[52:48] from a pulled up tree like something else happened? So it's very narrow in that we're

[52:54] specifically looking for sidewalk damage as the result of an ejected or tree.

[53:02] That's correct. I can confirm that, but that's my understanding.

[53:06] Okay.

[53:06] But it's only trees.

[53:08] Okay.

[53:10] Clarify confirm that. Thank you.

[53:13] And then there is one other item that's a bit more fun.

[53:17] We have, you brought up our tendency to survey fairly frequently.

[53:24] We were doing a master plan.

[53:27] Excuse me master plan focus group.

[53:29] last week. And I authentically said to the focus groups that we do a lot of surveys,

[53:35] I feel like sometimes we're Survey City USA. And during the – during the focus group,

[53:42] one of the focus group members, quickly checked to see if SurveyCityUSA.com was available.

[53:49] It is. We have secured that. And we will be hopefully fairly soon using that as the

[53:56] repository for the results of all the surveying that we do as a city.

[54:02] So if you ever wonder whether we're listening to our residents in these focus groups, we

[54:08] are.

[54:09] And if somebody comes up with a particularly good and fairly easy and inexpensive idea,

[54:15] we may act on it fairly quickly.

[54:17] So a fun little story, but I do think we do listen a lot to the community.

[54:24] We do a lot of surveying.

[54:25] we still got, I think, three more surveys queued up by the end of this year.

[54:33] Yeah, so

[54:34] we do a lot. And it's a fun way to help our residents find all that data and understand

[54:41] that data. So that's it. That's the end of my report for tonight.

[54:45] I love that. I cringe at the fact that it may end up on the podcast then.

[54:54] Exactly. Or we may find a reason to just put the podcast up there, because it'll probably

[55:00] get more traffic than the podcast on SurveyCity.

[55:05] Well, that's very clever. I like that. Congrats. Any other updates from you?

[55:11] Any, it's our last meeting of the month, and so we always like to do our council liaison reports.

[55:18] Are there any Council Liaison reports for this month?

[55:22] Council Member Ford, Ken?

[55:23] As we are coming out of our summer season,

[55:27] the Communications Committee has only had one meeting,

[55:30] but we were able to welcome in our new members,

[55:33] and they've gone through some of their training.

[55:36] And our focus so far, we have a meeting on this Thursday,

[55:38] so anybody who wants to come attend,

[55:41] learn a little bit more about the CRC, please do.

[55:45] But we're really trying to refocus, reorganize, kind of reposition the CRC for the future and kind of continue to build those foundational steps of what their place is within our community and how they move forward.

[55:59] So we're taking a holistic approach and I think we're in a good spot to kind of evaluate where things are going.

[56:06] Good.

[56:07] Love it.

[56:08] Great to hear.

[56:09] Any other council liaison reports?

[56:11] Well, fantastic.

[56:13] I'll now call for a motion to adjourn.

[56:15] All those in favor of adjourning, please signify by saying aye.

[56:18] Aye.

[56:19] Aye.

[56:20] Any opposed?

[56:21] Say so.

[56:22] All meetings adjourned.

[56:24] We'll see you all next month.

[56:25] Thank you.

City Council Meeting

Transcript