President of Council Kathy McNear called Council to order on November 1, 2006, at 7:00 p.m.

    The governmental body and those in attendance recited the pledge of allegiance.

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

    The minutes of October 18, 2006 were approved with six affirmative votes.

    COMMUNICATIONS

    Mr. Knox read a communication from Time Warner Cable on rate adjustment. It reads: “This is to inform cable customers that they will receive notification of a rate adjustment on November 1st. New prices go into effect December 1st and will result in an increase for some services. All prices are arrived at by a process supervised by the federal government. Programming costs affecting Time Warner Cable Southwest Ohio Division during 2006 have increased up to 15 percent. The cost for basic service in your community will remain at $9.51. The standard tier of service will change from $35.58 to $37.87 per month. The cost for such equipment is based on the nationwide average for all Time Warner systems across the country. The cost for in-home converters will remain at $7.95 per month at this time.”

COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE -    none

    PRESENTATION – MILL CREEK COUNCIL

    Nancy Ellwood, executive director of the Mill Creek Watershed Council of Communities and recently appointed president of the Board of Directors of the Mill Creek Valley Conservancy District, said I want to go over a few programs that the Watershed Council is working on. We are making more effort to get more tied back into the communities that originally formed the Council in 1995. Tara Maddock and I are the entire staff of the Watershed Council. One of the things we are involved in is an environmental education campaign tentatively called the Upper Mill Creek Stream Stewardship Program. We got a $7,000 grant from a foundation in Boston for a campaign for citizens on proper disposal of yard waste, grass clippings, leaves, small twigs, etc. The purpose is to educate people that no, these do not belong in the creek in the back yard or down the storm drains. We are also working on a rain garden program. There is a rain garden in Reading and we are working on one in Colerain Township. Kansas City has challenged its citizens to put in 10,000 rain gardens. I don’t think there’s any reason we can’t do this in Cincinnati. There will be a kick off meeting for the Rain Garden Alliance this Friday. We are looking for partners to figure out how to get this campaign going.

    Mrs. McNear asked Ms Ellwood to explain what a rain garden is.

    Ms Ellwood responded it is an inexpensive system to catch run off water. Typically it is tied into the downspout from the gutters or tied to paved areas. You take the water from either of those sources and construct a rain garden to intercept that water before it reaches a storm strain. You design them so that they can intercept almost all of the water. The nice benefit is if you put in the right kinds of plants they are beautiful landscaping features.

    Mr. Danbury asked are they best utilized by homeowners or can they be effectively used for commercial projects?

    Ms Ellwood replied the size of the garden is in proportion to the size of the area it drains. Smaller commercial properties can use them.

    Mr. Danbury said we have a lot of development here. If someone in the Planning Commission would endorse this, is there a way that they can be converted over to more traditional rain retention.

    Ms Maddock stated there are mechanisms involved where you can place a drainage system underneath a garden so if there was a very large rain event and you need to detain some of the water for a longer period you could do that.

    Mr. Osborn said the City Engineer, Public Works Supervisor and I are looking at revisions to our design standards for development to try to incorporate best management practices that have come along in the last several years. The rain garden is a great example. It is very inexpensive, highly effective with great payback. We are also looking at soft armoring on erosion control instead of rip wrap or gabion walls. We are also looking at something to separate out the heavier waste materials before the water drains from large parking lots into the local streams. I know we were waiting on some federal guidelines to get resolved. Did that come about yet, Don?

    Mr. Shvegzda replied we were waiting on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Guidelines. A draft of that is out. It’s in for comments and we’ll be using that as a basis for guidelines.

    Mr. Osborn said once we have that in our hands and finalized we want to bring in new legislation regarding this type of issue.

    Mr. Vanover said you mention rain barrels in the brochure. There is a rediscovering of cisterns in capturing rain water to water lawns or other gray water uses.

    Ms Ellwood stated we have some partners lined up and there is talk of bringing rain barrels into this.

    Ms. Ellwood continued we are attempting to put together a collection of potential restoration opportunities throughout the Mill Creek watershed. Some of these major projects such as I-275 and I-75, whenever they impinge on a wetland or stream and unavoidably do damage, they have to do mitigation elsewhere, hopefully within that same watershed. We look at that as an opportunity to get restoration, stream bank stabilization, even conservation in some areas at no cost to the communities. Whoever is running these programs has to pay for. A committee has been pulled together to put a database together and will be mailing out requests for sites to all stakeholders. We hope you see this as an opportunity to give us a catalog of potential sites. We hope to get this posted on the State’s website.

    Ms. Ellwood said we are also working on flood plain information. The system rewards communities for good flood plain management. There is an application process that gives a menu of activities with point values. You catalog those things you are doing and they are scored by an official scorekeeper. They let you know when you’ve reached the minimal threshold. You can go from 5 percent to 45 percent reduction in premiums. We are going to take the burden of putting these application packages together for a fee to submit to FEMA. We are having a workshop on October 29.

    Mr. Osborn said the reason Nancy is here this evening is that about two years ago we had a strategic planning process in the Mill Creek Watershed Council. One of the things that I think took root in that process is that the organization was created as a Council of governments. A very high percentage of our membership, though, were non-government organizations or individuals. Our intention was to go back to our base and talk to the jurisdictions that make up the Council and try to show them what the Council is doing to help local jurisdictions and also to solicit input on other things that the Council could try to assist with. Water quality, water quantity, recreation, habitat, etc. are fair game if we can identify a need.

    Mr. Danbury said there is a creek that goes through Springdale and a number of homes are losing a lot of land. Do you have any ideas we can pass onto the homeowners on how to regulate erosion?

    Ms Ellwood responded Cecil mentioned some soft armoring technologies that have been used on a large scale on Beaver Run. There’s no reason a soft armoring cannot be used on a smaller scale. There is a cost associated with those. We could have someone take a look at it and perhaps provide some recommendations. There are no federal or state programs that would pay for that type of erosion control.

    Mr. Danbury asked have you ever entertained talking with ODOT of making a borrow pit when they work on I-275?

    Ms Ellwood said we don’t have much sway with ODOT. We are working on that.

    Mr. Vanover said on the stream bank stabilization we have a couple of boy scout troops that could provide free labor.

    Mr. Danbury said Heritage Hill is in the flood zone.

    Mr. Osborn responded it was. With the new construction they are elevating the first floor elevation of the school above the flood plain in a way that will compensate for that displacement by creating additional flood plain. So, yes it is technically, but once it’s redesigned and rebuilt it will be raised out of the flood plain.

ORDINANCE NO. 71- 2006 “AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CLERK OF COUNCIL/FINANCE DIRECTOR TO ACCEPT THE RIGHT-OF-WAY EASEMENT FOR PHASE III OF THE EAST KEMPER ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROJECT AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY (SPRINGDALE JUBILEE”)

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

Ordinance 71-2006 passed with six affirmative votes.

ORDINANCE NO. 72-2006 “DECLARING TWO VEHICLES AS SURPLUS PROPERTY AND AUTHORIZING THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR TO ADVERTISE, AUCTION AND ENTER INTO A CONTRACT FOR SALE OF SAID VEHICLES AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY”

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

Mr. Wilson asked to we have a minimum bid for these vehicles?

Mr. Osborn replied I’m certain that we will. We won’t give the cars away and we have the right to withdraw the sale. We know what our experience is going to the Cincinnati Auto Auction. This is an experiment to see if we can do better going on e-bay.

Ordinance 72-2006 passed with six affirmative votes.

ORDINANCE NO. 73-2006 “APPLYING TRANSITION DISTRICT OVERLAY ZONING AND AMENDING THE ZONING MAP OF THE CITY OF SPRINGDALE TO CHANGE 0.59 ACRE OF PROPERTY AT 11093 SPRINGFIELD PIKE FROM GENERAL BUSINESS (GB) TO GENERAL BUSINESS – TRANSITION (GB-T), BOUNDED BY 160.22 FEET OF FRONTAGE ON SPRINGFIELD PIKE AND IS LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 370 FEET NORTH OF WEST SHARON ROAD (THE DAVID FAMILY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP)”

First reading.

ORDINANCE NO. 74-2006 “APPLYING TRANSITION DISTRICT OVERLAY ZONING AND AMENDING THE ZONING MAP OF THE CITY OF SPRINGDALE TO CHANGE 1.55 ACRES OF PROPERTY AT 242 AND 252 WEST SHARON ROAD FROM RESIDENTIAL SINGLE HOUSEHOLD – LOW DENSITY (RSH-L) TO RESIDENTIAL SINGLE HOUSEHOLD – LOW DENSITY – TRANSITION (RSH-L-T), BOUNDED BY 277.25 FEET OF FRONTAGE ON WEST SHARON ROAD AND ARE LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 450 FEET WEST OF SPRINGFIELD PIKE (VICKERS 242, MELAMPY 252)”

First reading.

Mr. Galster said I assume at our next meeting we will have a presentation by the applicant but it would be nice to have a map of the properties before that.

ORDINANCE NO. 75-2006 “APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT PLAN (TRANSITION) OF APPROXIMATELY 2.14 ACRES LOCATED AT 11093 SPRINGFIELD PIKE, 242 WEST SHARON ROAD AND 252 WEST SHARON ROAD (THE DAVID FAMILY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, VICKERS, MELAMPY)

    First reading.

ORDINANCE NO. 76-2006 “AUTHORIZING THE EXPENDITURE OF $82,518.00 TO ORIN REMEDIATION TECHNOLOGIES RELATED TO PROPERTY REMEDIATION AT 365 W. KEMPER ROAD AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY”

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

Mr. Tulloch reported the amount of material required to be remediated by Orin in a prior ordinance is more than originally anticipated. Ordinance 48-2006 was for the 280 tons anticipated. We were guessing at that time it would be 800 tons but it actually went to 967.65 tons. They maintained their unit pricing. There are two contracts. One is with Orin who actually sprayed the material in the hole to remediate the contamination. Koch Construction did the excavation. They had to come back three times and did not charge us for remobilization. We have yet to receive final billing from Payne who was responsible for the management, inspection and analysis of the material as remediation was being done. Their bill also deals with construction, excavation and subsequent backfilling of the site as well as hauling the material that was treated to Rumpke Landfill. I expect this to be in the same ratio as the increase in the Orin cost. It will be a substantial number.

Mr. Tulloch continued the good news is that the remediation is complete. They backfilled, compacted. There is a foundation there and we closed the sale with Randy Cooper.

Ordinance 76-2006 passed with six affirmative votes.
   
    OLD BUSINESS                         -         none

    NEW BUSINESS

    Mr. Osborn said we have been donating unclaimed bicycles to a program at the Vineyard Church that refurbishes them and distributes them to needy children or uses them for parts for other bicycles. We now have thirty-two bikes that have gone unclaimed. We would request Council entertain legislation at your next meeting authorizing donation of those bicycles to the Vineyard Church.

    Mayor Webster said I would like Council to consider three ordinances for the magistrate, public defender and prosecutor. Their contracts expire December 1.

    Mr. Wilson stated two teams from Springdale came in first and second in their league. I will get the names for you so that we can have resolutions for them.
   
    MEETINGS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

    Planning Commission                         -     November 14
    Board of Zoning Appeals                     -     November 21
    Reception for bicentennial volunteers             -     November 15
    Christmas tree lighting                     -     November 26
   
COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE        -      none

UPDATE ON LEGISLATION STILL IN DEVELOPMENT

Ordinances 73, 74, 75                     -     November 15

RECAP OF LEGISLATIVE ITEMS REQUESTED

Bicycles to Vineyard                         -     November 15
Magistrate, public defender, prosecutor             -     November 15
Resolution for bicentennial volunteers             -     November 15
Resolutions for soccer teams                     -     November 15

Council adjourned at 7:58 p.m.

                        Respectfully submitted,




                        Edward F. Knox
                        Clerk of Council/Finance Director

Minutes Approved:

Kathy McNear, President of Council



__________________________, 2006



       

City of Springdale Council


    November 1     2006