Council Work Shop, I mean Retreat

Facilitating the meeting Mr. Bradshaw asked individuals to share any 2009 highlights.

Mr. Bradshaw stated his role as facilitator was to keep things moving along. He explained the process for staff presentations. Council would hear reports, ask questions for clarity and debate would occur in the afternoon after all staff presentations. Lists would be made for action items. He explained use of non-verbal signals and weighing in with thumbs up if you were solidly on board, thumbs down if you don’t like nor cannot support the issue, and sideways thumb signal if you are on the fence. Mr. Bradshaw distributed an ice-breaking or thought provoking quiz to council members to complete. Answers were revealed.

Judy Gilleland distributed a list of department goals for 2010 and accomplishments from 2009. Regarding a question about balancing the community, Ms. Gilleland explained that was the socioeconomic balance, trying to retain all levels of income and all age ranges. Middletown is loosing wealth and low income is moving up, Council needs to discuss these trends.

Marty Kohler, Planning Director explained when he came back to the city late 2002, an early thing he discovered was the Master Plan adopted in the early 70’s had not been updated. The Master Plan was grossly outdated. A Master Plan is considered to be a unified development policy allowing for efficient use and targeted use of resources and supports zoning and development issues. Having a MP helps with grants and funding that will help accomplish a community goal. The 2005-2010 Plan that was adopted had some unique assets. This plan sought to be realistic with our regional share of southwest Ohio growth. A broad based Market Study was completed and incorporated into the plan. The City hired a specialist that looked at our City budget, all types of land uses have fiscal impacts on the city’s budget and balance and diversity are needed, but it is also good to know where the money is. A lot of this plan has been accomplished in these past five year, but there are some gaps. Council appointed a steering committee to oversee the development of the plan. Each council person nominated two persons to be interviewed about community concerns. Those persons were interviewed and gave the names of additional residents that might be interviewed. Focus groups, key person interviews, open houses, surveys, were all utilized in the data gathering process.

Ms. Gilleland added this plan was a part of a bigger plan. Understanding work has gone on before and will go on after us needs to be taken into account. There are things we need to talk about. Some goals in the plan are dead on and many have been accomplished. The question to Council was do they want to establish a council committee or put this in the Housing Committee for discussion.

Mr. Laubach reminded Council of the recent appointment of council members to the Master Plan Implementation Committee.

Mr. Mulligan said council’s intent was to revisit the Master Plan. His question was do we see moving differently, do you take out the accomplishments and leave in those that we want to continue on to be positioned for the future.

Doug Adkins, Community Revitalization Director told council they will continue to hear the same theme all morning. Since taking his position in March, he has been from one emergency or big project to another. He needs to talk about the revitalization department and what that means going forward. He wants input from council on what that means. There is always trepidation about code enforcements, housing stock, etc. He asked where we are setting the bar. He has everything he needs to do his job as long as council will let him do it. Code enforcement efforts for 2009 were mild, please fix your property requests. Approximately 400 or so were brought back into compliance, about 1400 still need minor repair. He had categorized many from minor to condemnable. There are about 305 that need major rehab; 25 are dilapidated and occupied; 18 are condemnable and vacant. The categories ranged from 1-mild to 5-worst. The ones, twos and fives are being worked out of the system. Of the remaining 300+ noncompliant properties, about 100 are homeowner occupied; about 140 are rentals, some are foreclosed and bank owned. Now that staff is reorganized, they are computerizing code enforcement efforts and staff is ready to tackle the more difficult threes and fours.

There was much discussion on home-owner occupied, elderly, disabled, landlord-owners and vacant properties. Mr. Adkins explained it wasn’t his concern if landlords made money on their rental properties. Landlords had a responsibility to keep up their properties. Landlord-owned properties were pretty straight forward to deal with in code enforcement efforts. Vacant structures are a little harder because of the foreclosure process and bank ownership, etc. Those could have court cases pending.

There was more discussion on the percentage of home owner occupied dwellings, landlord owned dwellings and the difference between those that don’t have the resources to comply but would and those that could but won’t comply. Concerns were expressed about picking on those that can’t as opposed to those that won’t.

Mr. Adkins stated it is a city wide effort and explained the need for consistency in enforcement.  You can’t single out rentals or you are going to have landlords say you are picking on them and not enforcing the issue city wide. The current system for tracking noncompliant properties is literally a hand written system and he may not be able to supply the number of landlord owned properties.

Discussion ensued about enforcement. There may be entire city blocks that need to be demolished. Without enforcement, things are only getting worse. During the first four or five months of code enforcement, residents were yelling how dare you tell me what I can do on my property. The past four or five months, the complaints are why aren’t you cleaning things up. Ms. Gilleland explained that dollars are limited and they carefully look at resources. There is not enough dollars to buy boards to board up all the windows that need to be boarded.  Mr. Armbruster explained there are at least two other churches that may be untapped resources for assistance. Other churches asking to help in the efforts are New Covenant and

Towne Boulevard. Mr. Adkins asked Mr. Armbruster to please funnel all those requests to him. He has met with Berachah Church who spends close to $60,000 on one home makeover each year. Berachah would like to complete a city blitz in May and hopefully assist 50 home homeowners using the budget they have. If the City had another couple of churches do the same, we could possible repair all those with minor issues. The question still lies at the end of the day, how aggressively are we pursuing our enforcement. The Consolidated Plan Committee will be taking the approach of the Master Plan and will be recommending that we pick one neighborhood for lifting up including sidewalks, curbs, gutters, etc. Stabilizing at risk neighborhoods was discussed. Identifying five or six neighborhoods and over the next five years we could choose one neighborhood at a time and concentrate the assistance there and put all the tools in one place to make a huge impact in that one place instead of taking those limited resources and spreading them throughout.

Ms. Gilleland explained another tool the City can use is landlord, rental-registration programs stating that it is a fire storm. The City can create a rental inspection program. It is tough to get these programs through, but it is a tool available. Everything we have talked about with housing applies to business areas as well. She could argue that our commercial areas are even more important than housing. Staff is trying to get a program up and running on commercial inspection, it’s not a business friendly tool.

There was a comment about the storefront improvement program extending further east than just downtown. Also, data from some of the cities that have a rental, registration program was requested for comparison.

Mike Robinette, Economic Development Director said since he arrived in February, he has met with business and city leaders to create a strategies list. Jobs and businesses go where cities have the work force and skills within a radius they can draw from. A project coming up next Tuesday is the Greentree Health Sciences Project. Also identified was the support to help sustain and grow the existing business and industries. Incentives programs have challenges.

Most are for new development. They’d like to restructure a program to assist existing business. Our income tax structure gives the same incentives for those that bring us an $8 per hour job as well as a $20 per hour job. If we don’t grow income and education levels, we are at a disadvantage. Infrastructure that helps with growing the economy is an important component. Regarding the Renaissance areas, it’s important to think about infrastructure out there. We have to stay ahead of the curve. Businesses don’t want to wait on infrastructure. Grants are being sought for infrastructure. Marketing Middletown is also an ongoing project.

The perception of Middletown outside of Middletown is misaligned with the perception in town. There is currently a branding campaign that will be developed and implemented in the city to impact that image. Our image is out of tune with reality. The data will show that and we can impact that. We want to be thought of as the center of southwest Ohio. He expressed some value statements that have been addressed including: how we grow is more important than how much we grow. We can be selective and becoming more prosperous is more important than becoming bigger. In 2009, he tried to look at building the foundation for economic opportunity giving us some time to put in place a strategic plan for downtown, Towne Mall, and then aggressively pursuing Brownfield redevelopment programs, business retention and expansion programs. Some good tools were put into place while the economy was at a downturn and things were slow. The laws changed in January that allowed for land banking, residential and/or abandoned, underutilized properties are being reused and repurposed through that tool. For 2010 staff is working on Project 116, to relocate a research center out into the Renaissance area. This is a highly educated, skilled workforce and they are having a hard time attracting employees to the location they are in. As a part of discussions, the have talked about taking the old location to get remediated and demolished for Brownfield purposes.

If staff comes to Council asking for something at the last minute, you will be aware of these potential issues. This would be a great boost to the Renaissance area and the city. They have also been working with developers in Renaissance East and West areas.

The City does have debt and we maintain a Moody’s A1 rating that is the upper medium tier. Ms. Gilleland explained these are a sampling of some policy level discussions to prepare Council for discussing the 2010 priorities. Regarding restoring balance to the community, she stated Middletown is a city in crisis. We can turn things around or continue to decline. We can align to facilitate the rebirth of Middletown by restoring the socioeconomic balance to Middletown.

Middletown has sent a list to the school officials for review. The list consisted of:

Wilson Park – behind Highview School

Dowling Park – minus the detention basin – located next to Central Academy

A triangular portion of Lefferson Park – adjacent to Verity School

The old Amanda School Building – the problem there is an $88,000 Federal drug fine lien against the property

Barnitz Park – the back end of Barnitz that’s about 7.7 acres – it would be bigger than what we are getting – we’d have to partner that up and try and get the old Garfield School and Taft in exchange for Barnitz

Two options to them on buildings were the Swallens or Orman buildings - neither has power, heat, or running water. The district would have to restore those utilities. The other thing with both of those buildings is we are trying to get a development at Swallens and purchased the Orman building for demolition. There was general consensus to take the Orman building off the list for consideration.

A draft policy statement was written for council’s consideration.

There was consensus from council on agreement with the policy statement.

Mayor Mulligan led the discussion on reestablishing a Youth Commission. He stated this effort will tie into the 40 Developmental Assets Program for our youth. The purpose of youth commission was discussed as well as age ranges of the youth participants. He and A.J. Smith will work on a proposal that will be brought back for council to review. Getting feedback from youth laborers and young adults, not under the age of eighteen was also discussed. Other organizations that have current youth organizations was discussed as well as having limited staff commitments for staff support for minutes, notices of meetings, etc. A proposal will be worked on.

Ms. Gilleland explained there has been some discussion by a lot of people in the community and a couple of council members to establish a Bark Park. An under utilized park could be used to attract people to area parks by having a dog park. The area needs to be fenced with possibly some toys for dogs to jump through or over. They are very popular in other communities and most hip, young people have dogs. Ms. Gilleland explained most urbanized populations have a tendency to have the muscle dog species. She will talk with the City’s Animal Control Officer and get some information from other communities.

Mr. Armbruster reported that the Park Board has talked about this for years. He felt Sunset Park would be an excellent location because the pool will have to shut down. The area around the pool is lit, it is fenced in, we could keep the baby pool open for those breeds that enjoy the water and there is a building that can be used for Keep Middletown Beautiful storage. There are bathroom facilities there as well. He felt the idea should originate with Council and be sent to the Park Board for a recommendation.

The idea of a Bark Park was generally accepted with some concerns about liability. Ms. Gilleland will have staff work on a feasibility study and will bring the findings back to council. Council can then refer the findings to the Park Board for a recommendation. Staff will also look at uses for the building.

Ms. Gilleland spoke about the grants and stimulus funds. She said of the 100M dollar City budget, it is at least 30M dollars short of being self-sufficient. Being self-sufficient and not dependent on any grants or stimulus funds is a good goal and she hopes we get there in some time, but it won’t happen any time soon. If not for the stimulus funds, the City would not have a street resurfacing program this year. There is a lot of staff time and energy taken when applying for these grants. Most of these programs are quick turn around with a lot of staff time or consultant time. We should be looking down the road and have projects lined up, but currently are in a reactive mode. If we are not interested in pursuing stimulus funds, we can save a lot of staff time by not filling out these applications. She wanted council’s direction. Council may not love the idea of stimulus money, but we will accept it very graciously. She asked if Council were going to support staff when applying for stimulus funds for street improvement projects?

There was discussion about being self-supported. Several Council members stated their opposition to the whole Federal stimulus fund policy, but for the good of the City of Middletown, would support accepting funds for streets and infrastructure projects.

There was additional discussion about City Council’s control of only 18M dollars of a 100M dollar budget. The current general fund can’t support police and fire budgets.  It was the general consensus to seek street funding through grants and stimulus funds.

There was some discussion about the protocol for addressing council members at council meetings and public functions.

Consensus was reached that all will sign the document during an upcoming council meeting.

A proposal to do a street light assessment will be reviewed and come back for discussions as Council addresses the budget and police and fire issues. Requiring residents to have Rumpke toters was also discussed. Additional information for council’s consideration will be gathered. The City Manager will re-investigate the possibility of implementing the requirement.

Office space for council members or the mayor was discussed. Council talked about the pros and cons of an on site or off site location for council persons. Ms. Gilleland said she has seen it done differently in different municipalities. The legality of all council members showing up at the same time to use the office space was questioned, is that a meeting of council?

Several council members felt it was a bad idea. There are other options available such as the library. This topic has come up before, and it would put staff in uneasy positions for council to have offices in the city building. Off-site locations were discussed that could be shared by all. Some stated they did not have the need for office space. Others questioned the expense of paying rent, utilities and providing supplies for an off-site office location. The council position is a part-time position. The city building could be opened for Council if they need the space for a meeting. Council was not inclined to expend money at this time for that purpose.

The majority of council members did not support providing office space on-site or off-site for council members.

Council’s travel and training budget was discussed. For 2010, there is $2000 budgeted for the year for all seven council members. These funds cover expenses for any and all business lunches, dinner meetings, and training opportunities.

The consensus of council was to divide the $2000 by seven. Expenditures will be tracked accordingly. Once a council member expends the allotted $286 each, they will pay for anything over that amount that they want to attend.

Mr. Bradshaw asked council members to work in groups and list what they saw as City  priorities. The following list was developed:

Council then individually worked to identify the Top Five Priorities: