President of Council Marjorie Harlow called Council to order on February 18, 2008 , at 7:00 p.m.

    The governmental body and those in attendance recited the pledge of allegiance. Mrs. McNear gave the invocation.

    Mrs. McNear took roll call. Present were Council members Diehl, Squires, Vanover, Wilson and Harlow. Mr. Galster and Mr. Danbury were absent.

    The minutes of February 4, 2009 were approved with five affirmative votes.

    COMMITTEE AND OFFICIAL REPORTS
    Civil Service Commission – Mr. Potts reported they met January 8 and February 5, 2009. Mr. Potts will continue as chairman; Thomas Goins, vice-chairman; and Robert Coleman, secretary. The Commission approved City Administration’s request for a waiver of testing for a Fleet Mechanic II position. The Commission also approved the waiver of testing for maintenance worker. The Commission provided an updated eligibility list to the Administration for police sergeant. We did a survey of some of our neighboring communities regarding Civil Service testing practices just to make sure that we’re all in sync and doing things consistently. We should have those results within the next month.

Rules and Laws        -    no report
Finance Committee        -    no report
   
Planning Commission – Mr. Vanover stated Hooter’s request for exterior alterations was tabled until March 10. Growth Spurt child care conditional use permit was approved 7-0. Thompson Thrift requested outdoor seating for Qdoba’s and that was approved 7-0. Princeton Plaza was approved for applying graphics to camouflage vacant storefronts.
   
Board of Zoning Appeals – Mr. Diehl said the owner of 483 West Kemper Road requested to remove the garage door and replace it with wood panels. That was denied. Thompson Thrift wanted a variance to allow a surface ratio on the new property to be .855 instead of .75 and they also wanted parallel parking at the rear of the property and take that from 24 feet to 22 feet. We approved that with an amendment that deliveries could be no more than 15-20 minutes at a time.
   
Board of Health – Mr. Squires said the Health Department will be doing a health assessment later in the year so that they can gather information from residents and provide information on the services the Health Department offers. The board reviewed hotel/motel license fees. The Children’s Health Fair will be held March 19th. Ohio Department of Health will not have as much flu vaccine available next year but the Health Department will still be offering its flu clinic. The nurse reported that there has been an outbreak of salmonella and 86 cases have been reported in Ohio.
   
Veteran’s Memorial Committee – Mr. Wilson reported Mayor Webster, Mr. Osborn, Mr. Danbury, Mr. Galster and I went to the foundry. The soldier is being assembled. We saw the clay model of the sailor. We were informed how the process works. They are anticipating that the statues will be installed the second week in May.

Mr. Osborn said Mr. Danbury had a great idea of having a videographer document how these statues were being made. ICRC has agreed to do that for us. In addition, Gary Carson will send us full scale photos of the sailor and soldier that we can incorporate into the video. We anticipate having the videographer there when we have the statues installed and at the dedication so we can have a documentary on the creation and installation of the statues.

O-K-I        -    no report    
Mayor’s Report        -    no report   
Clerk of Council/Finance Director        -     no report
   
Administrator’s Report – Mr. Osborn said I’m sure you’ve all been reading about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the funding process that’s being put in place. The deadlines and rules have been changed. The filing deadline with OKI for    
highway projects is February 23. The Ohio portion of the OKI region has $30 million for highway projects. The projects must be able to achieve Federal Highway Administration authorization by September 2010. OKI is still telling us in order to do that we have to submit projects that do not need right-of-way, environmental, are buttoned up and ready to go. We have compiled a list of six highway projects, only one of which meets the full criteria. That’s Northland Boulevard and it’s a $1 million project. We have others we are going to continue to review, especially if there is a second round coming. We have projects in other categories, such as the Beaver Run restoration project where we’re seeing the gabion walls deteriorate. We have applied for funding under the OEPA because this money is being dispersed to the states. In Ohio they are using their normal procedures, policies and process within a given area. Transportation is going through ODOT and OKI; environmental projects are going through EPA. This project would fall under the Clean Water portion of the act. Another segment of funding is for public safety and we are going to apply for funding for replacing the Fire Department training tower and also the construction of the evidence storage and processing building for the Police Department. All these projects are projects that had been on our five-year capital budget but had to be removed because we could not continue to fund the local match at the level necessary to get other sources of funding. Some of these did not even have other sources of funding like the training tower which tops over $700,000. Another project under General Infrastructure is an expansion of the Public Works storage building. I’m not sure of the likelihood of funding for any of these projects but under highway transportation, it looks like one project will be a candidate. Up until two days ago, the deadline for the 23rd was for projects ready to go to construction in July. Now they are saying they want to take a longer look at this. They felt they were going to get the less complex projects. By taking a longer view they may be able to pick up some projects that come with bigger price tags that might have a greater impact regionally. That’s not such good news for us because even though our project is a commercial corridor and will have an economical impact, our project is replacing Northland Boulevard curb to curb and sidewalks. It’s not a new road that is going to open up green space for a new development but we think we can sell it.

    Mr. Osborn continued FEMA provided a disaster recovery process for us to recover expenses we encountered during the September windstorm. We had requested $193,848 in debris removal and we received 75% of that ($145,386). There are two more elements covering Police, Fire and Public Works time unrelated to debris removal. There will be a little more money but the $145,386 will be the bulk of it.

    Mr. Osborn stated Springdale has joined a consortium of eight local communities that is partnering with the IMCA Performance Measurement Program in an effort to bring a scientific means of measuring productivity in the public sector. Springdale started doing performance management about ten years ago. When we started this I went to ICMA to try to find out if we could find some technical support for us. At that time this whole concept was just beginning and ICMA’s programs were targeted at central cities of multi-hundreds of thousands of people and we would have been lost in that. We hired Management Partners to help us set up a performance measurement process. Much of what we were measuring was output and not outcome. If you want to know how much it costs you on average to patch a pothole, that’s output. If you want to know how much it should cost you, that’s outcome. There are other consortia that we can compare ourselves to. The first two categories we chose to become involved in are fleet management and facilities management. These two categories don’t fall under any department. They are a city-wide expense. Although we tackle the idea of trying to conserve electricity, we don’t look at this in an analytical way so I felt we would probably see a more immediate payback by looking at these two categories. We are the customers here. It will be very simple to survey how we are doing because we will survey the departments. This year will be a base line for us. Assuming we can handle this and it proves to be cost beneficial in terms of staff time, I really foresee this expanding out to other areas.

    Mr. Osborn said Charlie Radeke died in his sleep last night. He had worked for the City for thirty-one years and had just retired eighteen days ago. I want to extend our condolences to Charlie’s family.

Law Director’s Report         -     no report
   
Engineer’s Report – Mr. Shvegzda said the signal installation has begun at Crescentville and SR 4. There will be a bid opening on the SR 4 continuous northbound lane on February 25. Construction will begin March 2 on the Crescentville/SR 747 project. The contractor for the Veteran’s Memorial has submitted their schedule for taking care of some of the fountain flow issues including the replacement of the weir structure in April; the story stone engraving will commence as soon as we get the final mock up of lettering and when weather permits; and delivery of the statues is scheduled for mid May. SR 4 paving will be bid February 25 and the SR 747 ODOT paving     will be bid July 15.

Mr. Wilson stated the committee decided to use Sunday, May 24 as the dedication day.

Mr. Osborn responded we are targeting Sunday but we’re in the process of trying to lock in a dignitary from the military to speak, honor guard and band, etc.
    COMMUNICATIONS

    COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE         -    none

    ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS

ORDINANCE NO. 4-2009 “AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CLERK OF COUNCIL/FINANCE DIRECTOR TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WITH STATEWIDE FORD FOR THE PURCHASE OF TWO 2009 FORD POLICE INTERCEPTOR VEHICLES UNDER THE OHIO COOPERATIVE PURCHASING PROGRAM AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY”

    Mr. Vanover made a motion to adopt and Mr. Squires seconded.

    Ordinance No. 4-2009 passed with five affirmative votes.

OLD BUSINESS                         -     none

    NEW BUSINESS
   
    Mr. Squires said the Springdale Cincinnati Reds Day will be April 25. The Springdale Lions Club has a golf outing scheduled for April 17 with April 25 as a rainout date.

    Mr. Squires stated Riley’s Restaurant offers a “Big Ash Fish Sandwich” during lent. Fifty cents of each sandwich sold will go to Springdale Offering Support. On Wednesday, February 25 there will be a fish toss from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

    Mrs. McNear said I’ve noticed a couple of clothing and shoe collection bins. One was at CVS and has moved to O’Reilly’s. One is at PNC. Maybe we can find a better location for them.

    Mr. Osborn replied I agree. Orders had gone out to CVS causing them to leave. It looks like they just relocated it. We will eventually propose more stringent regulation regarding these types of bins.

    MEETINGS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

    Planning Commission                         -     March 10
    Board of Health                         -     March 12
   
COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE        -      none

Mr. Wilson made a motion that Council go into executive session as a committee of the whole to discuss economic development. Mr. Vanover seconded.

Council went into executive session at 7:45 p.m. and reconvened at 9:06 p.m.

UPDATE ON LEGISLATION STILL IN DEVELOPMENT    -    none

RECAP OF LEGISLATIVE ITEMS REQUESTED        -     none

Council adjourned at 9:07 p.m.

                        Respectfully submitted,




                        Kathy McNear
                        Clerk of Council/Finance Director

Minutes Approved:
Marjorie Harlow, President of Council



__________________________, 2009