Cuyahoga Falls City Council meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month and council committee meetings are held on the first and third Monday to publicly discuss pending legislation that will be voted on by council as a whole during its regular scheduled meetings. The public is free to comment on pending legislation during the allowed time on the night of committee meetings.
On Monday December 20th, Cuyahoga Falls City Council held committee meetings where ordinances were voted to bring out for a vote before council next week.
Finance Committee
B-118: A resolution asking the County Fiscal Officer to give the city an advance on the monies it collects on behalf of the city was voted out of committee and will be voted on by Council next Tuesday December 28th.
B-119: Allows for supplemental and amended appropriations of money for current operating expenses. Finance Director Bryan Hoffman explained that this is a clean-up measure for the city’s spending through the end of the year. Council was provided with a handout showing the amounts and where the adjustments will be made.
B-120: This ordinance would amend the codified ordinances of the city concerning refuse collection and disposal and re-establish new rates and regulations. These increases were discussed in the budget and will be as follows: $2.90 increase for all standard residential services, except the condo rate, which will only be increased by $1.40. Senior rates will remain unchanged. Finance Director Hoffman stated that these rates have not been increased since 2004. There was minor discussion amongst the finance committee and between council members and the committee voted to bring the measure out for a vote by city council during their December 28th meeting.
The following ordinances allow city departments to spend what each department has budgeted in 2022 for supplies and materials for the various departments and will be voted on individually at the December 28th meeting:
B-121: Materials and supplies for the sanitation department. Jerry Crawford spoke on behalf of the city for this ordinance, stating that one of the supplies that these funds will be used for is the purchase of replacement carts. Our current carts have been in service for several years and are nearing the end of their usable life. Currently the city is replacing 70 per month with better-made and more durable replacements.
B-122: Materials and supplies for the street department. The items include road salt for winter months and asphalt and for potholes and street repair.
B-123: Materials and supplies for the electric department, including transformers and other shelf items that are currently having longer than usual lead times that electric services are doing their best to keep up with.
B-124: Amends the 2021 ordinance (100-2020) for materials and supplies for the garage division. Due to rising fuel and tire costs, Garage Manager John Campbell is bringing this back for a revision to put his department back into the black for 2021.
B-125: Materials and supplies for 2022 for the garage division. Campbell said the 2022 budget has taken into account the increases in the 2021 budget.
B-126: The purchase or lease of various vehicles and related equipment. This legislation will make it possible to continue to rotate certain vehicles and purchase or lease new ones for various departments.
B-127: Materials and supplies for the water and sewer division. This includes products kept on hand in the repair stockroom. Water Commissioner Matt Geul said that over 1/3 of the cost in this ordinance was for chemicals used in the water treatment plant.
All six of these ordinances will be brought out for a vote December 28th.
Public and Industrial Improvements Committee
The Public and Industrial Improvements Committee discussed 3 ordinances and one resolution.
B-128: This ordinance will allow the city to levy special assessments to those who had sidewalks and/or drive approaches that were in the 2021 replace and repair district. City Engineer Tony Demasi said that his office is set to send out invoices. The price for sidewalks ended up being $18 per linear foot of sidewalk and $8 per square foot for driveway approaches. The committee voted to bring this out for a vote next Tuesday.
B-129: Allows the city to enter into a contract(s) for replacement and repair of sidewalks and drive approaches in various locations in the city for 2022. Demasi stated this will allow the city to go out for bids and pick a contractor to do the sidewalk work this year. Those bids are expected to be opened in March 2022. The committee voted to bring this out for a vote next Tuesday.
B-130: A resolution stating the intent to create the sidewalk and drive approach district within the city limits and to replace or repair and bill the property owner via special assessments. The committee voted to bring this out for a vote next Tuesday.
B-131: Allows the Director of Public Service to enter into a contract for the stabilization of the Cuyahoga riverbank behind Ledgewater Falls Condominiums. Presenting this measure to council, Demasi said that in 2013 the dams were removed and they have been monitoring the banks of the Cuyahoga River upstream for erosion and unstable slopes. One area in particular that has experienced erosion and movement is behind Ledgewater Falls Condos on Riverfront Parkway. After meeting with all the necessary agencies– EPA and the Army Corp of Engineers–the process will begin with removal of the loose soil on the banks and will be replaced with boulders, while the area adjacent will be planted with trees to provide vegetative cover for the rocks and banks. The area will encompass the location of the old pontoon boat dock to riverfront parkway, and is all city-owned property. The committee agreed to bring this out for a vote next Tuesday.
Public Affairs Committee
B-116 (substitute dated 12/6/21): Authorizes the city to enter onto an agreement to join a council of governments (COG) and establish a joint dispatch center.
Comments over this legislation began with Mayor Walters, who gave a brief overview including what a council of governments does and how it would apply to this move. He also touched on next generation 911 software that will open emergency calls to more than just voice, but also text and videos. Walters said this discussion started 16 years ago when Mayor Robart met with the mayors of Stow, Silver Lake, Tallmadge, and Mogadore and all agreed on the benefits of such a move but couldn’t reach an agreement and talks fell apart. The subject came up again in 2015 when Stow approached Cuyahoga Falls, thinking it would be a good thing for the two cities and the talks have continued to where we are right now in 2021. He noted that technology is ever-changing and dispatch is no different. The way we do things now will be different in the years to come, and they will require better training, better supervision and provide pinpoint accuracy. The example Walters cited is that if Chief Davis were to call 911 from his neighborhood, the call would be routed to Stow and they would have to transfer it to Cuyahoga Falls. Bugs like that will go away in the next gen 911.
Another factor in this move is that the state is forcing consolidation. Currently the state has a surcharge on your monthly cellphone bill that kicks a quarter back to the state to fund 911 centers. The state legislature now wants that money to go only to the top 4 dispatch centers in each county. Therefore, if you are a small community like Fairlawn or Copley, you will receive no funding and have to pay for your 911 PSAP (Public Service Answering Point) on your own. Walters also used our recent power outage as an example of where a regional dispatch center would benefit. During that time our dispatch received 2192 calls in which two 2 people could obviously not take that volume of calls; a consolidated center with more people in chairs could. Should something multi-jurisdictional happen with a community dispatch center, there will also be people in place to direct safety forces to get where they need to go. We can and do call more people in but are very limited when there is a small PSAP. Mayor Walters also emphasized this is not about saving money but is about enhancing public safety.
Next to speak was Chief Davis who started off by saying he has been chief for seven years, has been in law enforcement for 32 years, and has been a command level officer for over half of that time, but he has never seen anything researched and looked at from every angle like this. He has spoken to other police chiefs in the area and to chiefs that worked with COGs and they are all for this. He also discussed that the communities we are going into this with also demand the same high level of service that we do in Cuyahoga Falls, and by getting into this on the ground floor we have a voice. Should we wait and decide to join later, we are no longer a voice in this process, but rather just a customer. As just a customer, we may not be able to bring our skilled dispatchers to the new center. By being a part of it from the beginning, not only do we get to bring our own dispatchers, but with the experience and knowledge that many of our dispatchers have, Davis foresees them becoming supervisors at this new center, which gives him a lot of comfort. The Cuyahoga Falls dispatchers are currently a part of a working group that are helping to shape the operational side of the center. The Chief also emphasized that the current level of quality cannot be sustained and other technical features in the future will not be obtainable if we continue as we are. Cell phones have changed the way dispatch works and will continue to drive that change in the future. In closing, Davis said that he too is a resident of Cuyahoga Falls and uses these services, his family lives in Cuyahoga Falls, and he would never suggest to council or anyone else to propose a plan that is less safe.
Captain Shafer spoke on changes the state wants in the future. As far as compliance with changes made in 2019 by the governing body that controls PSAPs in the state with mandatory audits each department goes through, these include continued officer training, new hire training, documentation, policy compliance and a host of other items. These are all reported every year and what comes of this is that our police department can be sanctioned as a PSAP and we can lose funding for our local dispatch center. If one center in the county loses its funding by being out of compliance, the entire county is considered out of compliance. Summit County was almost faced with this due to New Franklin’s out-of-compliance radio system, but was able to obtain a waiver. Keeping up with technology and H.B. 445– concerning next gen 911 in Columbus– is what these changes are all about. With these alterations in requirements dispatch systems will change drastically, soon being required to accept text and video messages, photos, and pretty much any type of social media post. All of these are great, and they allow us to communicate on every level, but that also changes our staffing and will require a complete change in how the dispatch center staff operate and are trained. By continuing as an independent center in order to meet the new state mandates and stay in compliance, we will need to hire more dispatchers, a full-time dispatch manager, and a full-time training and compliance person.
The captain went on to discuss current vs future training for dispatch personnel and what the environment will be like when more systems are added to the current dispatch console. Training will play a major part for the future and cannot be accomplished while also fielding calls. Shafer explained that his biggest fear is that if we don’t move now, our current dispatch center will be out of compliance in three or four years and Cuyahoga Falls will have to join another dispatch center and possibly not be able to bring current staff along..
As Fire Chief Martin explained, “no stone in this process has been left unturned.” commenting on the hours and hours of meetings and research across the county. Martin is the third Fire Chief to address this project and he is very excited to be able to carry this across the goal line. He also added that as dispatch and safety forces evolve, the COG will allow us the opportunity to change and be proactive. According to him, the COG will improve the safety of the members of the fire department and the community by equipping dispatchers with structured training and equipment to allow them to stay out front and on top of issues. Not only does Chief Martin support this measure along with Chief Davis, but they are asking for city council’s support as well so that they can take the next step
Speaking for Summit County was Brian Nelson, Chief of Staff for Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro. Nelson explained that he has been involved in this project for over five years and sees that all 31 of our communities currently use a radio system that the county and the city of Akron built out in the 90s. In 2016 the county invested $18 million to upgrade that system and add more tower locations. Now every one of our police and fire departments in the county use that system. Along with local public service and schools that are on the system, there are now close to 1,000 individual users. Since his office was invited into this discussion in 2016, it has been a very methodical process as Akron and the county upgraded their dispatch computers to New World systems to match what Cuyahoga Falls and Stow were using. During that process they also learned that the more players they brought into the purchase the better the price and service became. From there it was decided to bring in MCM Consulting to guide us and eventually saved all the communities collectively $7 million on the software purchase. The computer-aided Dispatch (CAD) system is now running in all of the communities involved. Running the same software platform makes this transition much cleaner than it would have been five years ago because everyone is now using the same tools, no matter how they are being used. The county currently has drawings and a bid ready to go out once all parties have given approval. As Nelson explained, between the cost of the GIS computers, dispatch software, enhanced 911, the power requirements, and back-up systems, no one community could afford all of this on their own, but by joining all our buying power it will benefit everyone.
Speaking on the construction of the center, Jason Roslin from MCM Consulting stated that the building can handle 20 communities and, even though we are not starting with that number, provisions (wiring under the floor) will be put in place for future expansion, as he feels the state will continue to apply pressure for consolidation. Roslin said he feels that the goal of all of this is to get the call to the proper agency with less transfers and help the people that can help get out the door as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Public Affairs Committee Chair and Council at Large Russ Balthis added to these comments that consolidation is not only a trend driven by the state, but it is also a national trend with Ohio quite far behind and this trend is being pushed by best practices on a national level. In response, Roslin stated that best practices and other standards are turning that profession into a career and this is not a job one can be hired for off the street. The time frame for this project will be approximately two years. Chief Davis also spoke on the learning curves already tackled by taking over the dispatch responsibility for Silver Lake, Munroe Falls, and Boston Heights, which has been that learning car numbers and codes has changed and they have actually turned to plain English rather that codes to eliminate confusion and keep the dispatchers from having to learn 15 different rules for 15 different communities. This is a positive thing with MCM onboard because they have already been through this with other cities and can share what they’ve learned.
Once opened to council for questions, council members’ comments ranged from who will own the property (the county) to will there be a backup center (Fairlawn), and several council members have already voiced their support. There was, however, a letter signed by a representative from the Gold Union and the Blue Union sent to council late in the day Monday just prior to the meeting which expressed concerns about the COG. Committee Chair Russ Balthis asked Chief Davis to comment on this, for which he said that no decisions in the police department are made in a vacuum, and that he was honestly a little surprised at the letter. He mentioned that when he spoke to one of the leaders of the union, he was told it was written on a solidarity level and that the unions did not plan to speak at the meeting. Davis also brought up that the dispatchers and officers are like family to him and there is nothing he would do to make anything less safe for them or the city.
Upon conclusion of the discussion, the committee voted to bring this out for a vote before council on Tuesday December 28th.
B-133: Establishes the authorized staffing of the fire department and creates a Deputy Fire Chief position. The committee agreed to bring this out to a vote before council next Tuesday.
B-134: Establishes the authorized staffing for the police department. Chief Davis stated this would increase the number of additional officers as called for in the 2022 budget. The committee agreed to bring this out to a vote before council next Tuesday.
B-135: Establishes compensation levels for non-bargaining employees of the city. This will cover the addition of the Deputy Chief and the addition of another Civil Engineer and reconfigures some of the staff currently on the city payroll. The committee agreed to bring this out to a vote before council on Tuesday.
Committee of the Whole
B-117: Redistricts the city’s wards based on the latest US census. Council President Brillhart began the discussion by thanking the law department for all their work on this. Law Director Ciotola said that the proposed charter complies with the city charter and divides the city using main roads and natural boundaries and balances it out to what the charter and law requires. Council at Large Jeff Iula also gave praise to the committee for their work, noting that he was on the committee 10 years ago and fully understands the job they had to do.
The Committee of the Whole voted to bring this out for a vote before council next Tuesday December 28th.
