04/20/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting Minutes 4-20-09 Page 8 In conclusion, he would like to mention, talk about his experience with contamination. In the 1980's and early 90's, he owned the properiy at 6900 Wilson Mills. At that time, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District operated a pump station on the corner of Beech Hill and Wilson Mills. Every four or five months for about four years, the pumps would fail. They would simply open up the door down there and they would just let raw sewerage flow right down the creek which runs into the backyard of all of the houses on Wilson Mills and eventually right into the Chagrin River. As a matter of fact, a Plain Dealer article once mentioned at one time 500,000 gallons of raw sewerage ran across the property. Council President Buckholtz asked, who opened those doors? Mr. Koren replied that the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District had the pump station and when the pumps failed they would simply open up the door which it would run down the street instead of going into the sewer system. So, of course it was going over his property. He is not going to get into the smell and a11 of the other things we have to deal with, but he asked the Village what they would do to help on it, but there was nothing that they could do. But what they needed to do was upgrade the pumps to avoid this situation. To make a long story short, they simply said, hey we are going to have a gravity system in a couple three years. We are not going to spend the money. You now see of course the gravity system. In conclusion, Mr. Koren does not want to experience this kind of frustration again. If his property becomes containinated which it possibly could because of the location, he hopes that our united efforts would produce a better result. Thank you. Council President Buckholtz thanked Mr. Koren: Adam Kahn 825 Hanover Mr. Kahn is one of the latecomers to the party. It was only a couple of weeks ago that he started to get informed by his neighbors that there was going to be drilling and that it would affect our neighborhood. He stands here before you to say that he does not want to see a drill and he does not think that any city properties should be negotiated with any drilling company. He would like to see more information. He would like to see advocacy on the information. It's not too late to act. Perhaps some people have taken an attitude that is fatalistic, that there is nothing to do about this. The drilling will happen. He fears this fatalistic plague, that a community will stand by and let outside sources come in and disrupt the status quo. He fears that this fatalistic behavior is induced by a lack of information. He feels that information will be the antibiotic to cure this disease of fatalism and that we need to use that to inform citizens of their rights and the problems and risks associated with drilling. It has been presented that drillers already hold leases. He fears.that the people who have signed away their leaseholds for the minerals rights didn't have all of the information, weren't aware of all of the risks and further for a11 intents and purposes were taken advantage of. The asymmetrical information that is present in these negotiations is strictly unfair to residents who hold no prior knowledge of