09/26/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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DRAFT Regular Council Meeting 9/26/05 Page 7 FINANCE -Phillip Brett Mr. Brett reported that Mr. Cappello and he were working on the Issue II projects for this year. We are going after basically two projects. The first is the culvert on Wilson Mills which we are not asking for much on that one. Low risk, low return. The other one is basically the sewer system throughout the Village. Given the way the Issue II scoring is done, our strategy this time around is to try and sewer every neighborhood that uses septic systems in the Village. All of the streets that have septic systems we will be applying for. That will be submitted Friday and we will be looking to basically use up all of the money in the sewer relief fund plus next year's commitment plus the following year's commitment to leverage the local funds and then we are working out different permeations as to 0% long term Issue II grants from Issue II and loans from the water pollution control loan fund, everything with a mind toward keeping the assessments at around 460 to 470 per year per household. Mayor Rinker added that way back when, we had a group of people highly motivated in opposition to this. Once everyone really recognized what the whole procedure involved and frankly our effort to make sure that every neighborhood is treated on a par with every other neighborhood as far~as the bottom line assessment, we tried a number of different strategies. For the first few years we had quite a bit of success. Since Labor Day of 2000, we have tried for successive years in a number of different ways to promote the conversion in a couple of neighborhoods. We have gone through probably four different permeations, each time thinking we would do better. Last year, we actually scored well with the DOPLIC, our local arm of the process and then when it went down to Columbus, a very different standard was used. Each district follows its own benchmarking and criteria. We were at the top of the list of the small government's fund and when we went down to Columbus, we were just summarily handed our project on a platter and we plummeted and we fmally got some feedback, some explanation. Being very candid he is quite disappointed to say the least. He does not think that the procedures of the folks in Columbus are as open and as inclusive as we have in Cuyahoga County, but they are the ones who are ultimately calling the shots. So, we are back to the drawing board. We think that there maybe some potential in leveraging dollars, one by expanding the scope of this. Instead of doing smaller projects, incremental projects, we are going to go for the whole ball of wax and that is what Phil has outlined. We are also exploring whether or not there maybe some benefit in our working in conjunction with the. County Sanitary Engineer, but those discussions are preliminary. In all likelihood, we are going to have to get our submittal in with or without a County commitment, but again we think that that may be something that will help us score better and ultimately be able to get this project done. This is something that we have been working on now for almost 10 years and it would be nice for everyone in the community if we could wrap things up. The dollars that we have been setting aside each year have been collecting and ' perhaps this will be a way where we can really bring it on home. Stay tuned. Mrs. Mills indicated that maybe we should remind Council and the people in the audience that we are having a meeting on the 19th of October at 7:30 here about the sewers. Mr. Buckholtz replied that we absolutely should, it will be the Sewer Liaison Committee and members of Cuyahoga County will be here to address all of those people that still have septic systems and