WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2009

REGULAR MEETING

7:10 P.M.

1. ROLL CALL. Mr. Sabatino called the meeting to order at 7:10 P.M., with roll call as follows: Mr. Sauer, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Sabatino were present. No members were absent. Others present were Tim Hansley, Lynda Yartin, Chief Mike Taylor, Jeff Fix, Steve Carr, Don Phillips, Paul Lane, Lance Schultz, Danny Mahaffey, and others.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF July 20, 2009, Regular Meeting. Mr. Sauer moved to approve; Mrs. Sanders seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Sabatino, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Sauer voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 3-0.

3. COMMUNITY COMMENTS:

A. Mr. and Mrs. Mosca, 840 Hill Road North. Mrs. Mosca stated they live in Mingo Estates and are across from Doolin’s Bar. She stated she appreciated everything that Chief Taylor has done for them with regard to this problem. Mrs. Mosca stated they began hearing the music coming from Doolin’s in June 2008. She stated they did try to speak with the owners but were not successful, and they have come to City Hall, Violet Township, the Mingo Civic Association, the Planning and Zoning Commission, this Safety Committee, and City Council. Mrs. Mosca stated this problem seems to be getting worse with loud music and motorcycles and she wants them stopped. Mrs. Mosca stated Chief Taylor has spoken to the owner on their behalf and nothing has helped, but something has to be done because they can’t take any more. Mrs. Sanders clarified the problem gets much worse when there is a live band at Doolin’s. Chief Taylor stated the motorcycle situation seems to have improved, but when they have a live band on weekends they open the front door and the noise just goes across Hill Road right to these homes. He stated his past Saturday, another resident further back into Mingo Estates did call the department and complain about the noise. Mr. Hansley stated the new disturbing the peace ordinance applies to this case and Doolin’s Pub was cited to Mayor’s Court last week for a violation. He stated at this point we should wait to see how that plays out and see what the Magistrate does with that violation and penalty is assessed. Mr. Sabatino clarified that Doolin’s Pub has been warned several times and Mrs. Sanders clarified that every time there are complaints an officer is sent over there. Mr. Hansley stated the City has done everything they can, the ordinance is probably pretty good and now we need to wait and see how it works. Mr. Sabatino stated he would like to have this on the agenda for the next meeting and requested Mrs. Yartin notify the Safety Committee members of the results of Mayors Court.

4. COMMUNITY SAFETY CONCERNS: There were no safety concerns.

5. POLICE:

A. Chief’s Report. Chief Taylor stated he had provided a written report and he would answer any questions. Chief Taylor stated he learned yesterday that there is the opportunity to apply for a grant to help pay for a computer voice stress analysis. He stated this is a 25 percent matching grant and he is asking Safety Committee for their blessing to apply for this grant. He stated the amount they will be requesting on the grant is $3,000 and he does have the funds in his budget for the matching amount. Mr. Hansley stated should we receive the grant we may need legislation to accept the funds. Mr. Sabatino, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Sauer stated they had no objections to apply for these funds.

B. Review and request for motion to approve draft resolution authorizing application for the 2009-2010 school year DARE Grant. Chief Taylor stated the Committee had received draft legislation and a copy of the grant application. Chief Taylor stated we will be applying for the funds to pay for one officer. Mr. Sauer moved to approve and forward to Council; Mrs. Sanders seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Sabatino, Mr. Sauer, and Mrs. Sanders voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 3-0.

C. Review and request for motion to approve acceptance of monetary donation for the K-9 program. Chief Taylor stated he has been notified that we will be receiving a $5,000 donation to put toward the K-9 program from Milk-Bone. Mr. Sauer moved to approve the acceptance of the $5,000 donation toward the K-9 program; Mrs. Sanders seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Sauer, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Sabatino voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 3-0.

Mr. Sabatino stated Chief Taylor had also provided a report on the Violet Festival and had provided some recommendations for the festival next year. Chief Taylor stated he would recommend next year that the festival have more officers working in the Beer Garden as this year there was only one officer and it was very difficult to keep track of everything.

6. DEPARTMENT REPORTS:

A. Parks and Recreation:

(1) Director’s Report. Mr. Carr stated he had provided a written report and he would be happy to answer any questions. Mr. Carr stated the fall brochure is out and contains the parks programming all the way through the Christmas season. He stated he would have a financial report on the pool for the next meeting as the pool will close on Labor Day weekend.

Mr. Sabatino stated as the Code Enforcement and Building Regulations reports may take some time, if there were no objections he would take care of the parking on W. Church Street issue at this time.

Mr. Sabatino stated everyone had received a copy of the letter from Ms Keely Weaver regarding the parking problems they have been encountering on W. Church Street. He further stated Mr. Bachman had provided a memorandum that he had no issues with restricting parking on W. Church Street. Mr. Sabatino stated if this is approved he would recommend the Committee have the City Engineer designate and mark the appropriate number of spaces that would fit with our criteria. Ms Keely Weaver stated she the problem is that some of the rental properties have numerous teenagers and sometimes their cars are not moved for several days, and they also have friends coming over and parking. Ms Weaver stated she has told the residents they can use her parking lot in the back of her business on weekends, but they do need to have some parking spaces available on the street during the week. Mr. Hansley stated a motion to amend the Traffic Control Map would be necessary if this is approved. Mr. Sabatino moved to amend the Traffic Control Map for the City Engineer to designate the appropriate number of parking spaces on W. Church Street, with the anticipation it would be two to three, for a four hour parking limit, Monday through Friday, from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.; Mr. Sauer seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Sabatino, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Sauer voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 3-0.

B. Code Enforcement: There being no objections this item was moved to the end of the agenda.

C. Building Regulations Department:

(1) Building Department Report (Mr. Lane) Mr. Lane stated he had provided a written report and he would be happy to answer any questions.

(2) Chief Building Official’s Report (Mr. Phillips) Mr. Phillips stated he had provided a written report and he would be happy to answer any questions.

a. Review and request for motion to approve draft ordinance amending the Pickerington Codified Ordinances, Chapter 1444, entitled “Registration of Contractors.” Mr. Sabatino stated everyone had received a draft ordinance with the amendments requested at the last Safety meeting. Mr. Sauer clarified the intent of the ordinance was not to require residents to use a contractor that is registered with the City. Mr. Phillips stated that was correct, because homeowners could choose to do the work themselves. Mrs. Sanders moved to approve the draft ordinance and forward it to Council; Mr. Sauer seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Sabatino, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Sauer voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 3-0.

D. Service Department:

(1) Review and discussion regarding restricting parking on West Church Street. Mr. Sabatino stated this was dealt with earlier in the meeting.

Code Enforcement:

(1) Code Enforcement Officer’s Report. Mr. Hansley stated Mr. Mahaffey had tried to provide the Committee with what they requested at the last meeting.

a. Review and discussion regarding Code Enforcement Procedures. Mrs. Sanders asked if there were some type of technology out there that would make tracking easier. Mr. Hansley stated this has been discussed and there is some software that the building department uses to track their building permits that we think we can modify in-house to do most of what the citizens and council wants. He stated we are looking at the option to modify the software that we own. Mr. Sabatino clarified that when an individual forwards a complaint through the web site receives an automatic response thanking them for their input and provides information for checking on the complaint. Mr. Sauer clarified that if an individual phones in a complaint it would go to Mr. Mahaffey or his voice mail and he follows up on that. Mr. Sauer further clarified that since the last meeting there have been improvements to the code enforcement section of the website and it now shows some of the top violations that are seen weekly by Mr. Mahaffey. Mr. Sauer stated perhaps a link could be included in the response e-mail that would connect them right to that section. Mr. Hansley stated we are also using the Mayor’s monthly news bulletin with a Q and A on typical complaints such as dogs, grass, etc., and how that can be addressed. Mr. Sabatino inquired if the log that was provided to the Committee was something that we have been doing or was it something that was newly created, and Mr. Mahaffey stated the log has been around for some time, however, since the department no longer has a full-time secretary to help log things in it has not been kept up. Mr. Mahaffey stated he keeps all the information in each folder, and Mr. Sabatino stated this committee agreed that was not the most efficient method. Mr. Sabatino stated he would like to request, as part of the Code Enforcement Report that is provided to Safety Committee, that it include a moving three-month log. Mr. Sauer stated with regard to the log, he was not as concerned with seeing the individual cases, but it would be nice to receive a listing of how many outstanding cases there were, and how many were closed each month. Mr. Sabatino stated he would still like to see the log with the individual cases and questioned if we have the ability to drop off the earliest of the three months and add on the latest one. Mr. Schultz stated he would like to think we could, but he would have to check on it. Mr. Schultz stated his concern was he did not want to promise something and then find out we do not have the capability to do it. Mr. Sabatino stated if the map was very time consuming to produce, then perhaps that should only be done quarterly or something. Mr. Sauer stated in addition to what Mr. Sabatino was requesting he would still like to see the numbers of how many outstanding cases there were, how many were resolved, as he felt that information would be helpful. Mr. Sabatino stated there appeared to be some errors in the listings on the log and Mr. Mahaffey stated he had noticed some errors and he would review the log to try and get those corrected. Mr. Sabatino stated then hopefully the report would drop off April and add on August, but he did like the format the log was in. Mr. Hansley stated while this report was helpful to the Committee members, it was not helpful to Mr. Mahaffey. Mr. Sabatino stated it should be helpful if he could refer to the log when someone wanted to know the status of a complaint. Mr. Mahaffey stated he keeps his records by address so he would just pull the file for that address to answer any questions. Mr. Sabatino stated it would seem this log would be helpful to others when they looked into the status of a complaint. Mr. Sauer stated he did not want to create more work for the staff in putting together this report, and it seemed there must be a way to track this so that it did not take him away from doing his job, but also provide the information to Council that they needed. Mr. Sabatino stated we should be using technology to the extent we can if it is available. Mr. Schultz stated when Code Enforcement became full time, he spoke with the building department, who has the BDS program on the building department server. He stated at that time we did not have the connection speed to utilize it properly and he did not know if we had that speed now. He stated there was a cost to upgrade, and at that time it was determined that was not a priority. Mr. Sabatino stated we absolutely need to look into this connection because we shouldn’t have something like that prevent us from using the technology that is available. Mr. Sabatino stated perhaps we should have an IT audit such as we are doing for the storm sewers because if we can do things more efficiently we should, and if we can’t we need to find out what it would take to get us there. Mr. Fix stated he agreed with Mr. Sabatino if there were some technology we can purchase that will allow us to take advantage of that software that would make Mr. Mahaffey’s job easier and the department more efficient we should do that. He stated, however, since that is not going to happen tomorrow we should start being data driven and start using data to help Council make decisions on how to best fund each department and support staff in the functions they are trying to carry out. Mr. Sabatino stated at the next meeting he would anticipate that we would know if we can use what we have or not and Mr. Schultz stated that was correct. Mr. Sabatino stated if the map is something that can be done in a short time as an update as opposed to building it each time that would be different. Mr. Mahaffey stated it would be easier to do some of this during the winter when things slow down. Mr. Sabatino stated if we find out that what we have will not work, he would request that we get some information on what the cost would be to acquire what we need. Mr. Hansley clarified that for the next 30-days the Committee desired Mr. Mahaffey to focus more on enforcing the code and when we get a slow time and/or get some technology to do a better job of reporting what was done. Mr. Schultz then questioned if the Committee still wanted the three-month log for the Safety Committee meeting, and Mr. Sabatino stated now that the Committee has determined that the log is not as complete as they thought it was, they would not worry about that for now. He stated he would like to find if we have something we can work with, and then put all of our efforts in that direction. Mr. Hansley stated he would provide the best system we have the capability of as soon as we can, and in the meantime he would have Mr. Mahaffey out enforcing the code. Mr. Sabatino stated he would like this continued on the agenda for next month so the Committee will get an update on our system.

7. CHAIRMAN:

A. Mr. Sabatino stated he had nothing further for discussion.

8. OTHER BUSINESS. No other business was brought forward.

9. ADJOURNMENT. There being nothing further, Mrs. Sanders moved to adjourn; Mr. Sauer seconded the motion. Mr. Sabatino, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Sauer voted "Aye." Motion carried, 3-0. The Safety Committee adjourned at 8:55 P.M., August 19, 2009.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

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Lynda D. Yartin, Municipal Clerk