04.20.20 MEETING MINUTES - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council Monday, April 20, 2020 Page 3 Comments from Mayor Bodnar 2020 STATE OF THE VILLAGE Thank you, Council President. Good evening everyone and welcome to Mayfield Village's first electronic State of the Village report. I hope this finds everyone safe and well this evening. As you know, our Charter provides that every April, the Mayor must prepare an annual "State of the Village" report that advises Council and our citizens of the Village finances and administrative activities during the past year. It also looks ahead to those that might be occurring in the upcoming year. Since taking office in 2016, preparing the State of the Village report has consistently given me the opportunity to boast about all of the great things happening in Mayfield Village. I have gotten to talk about our solid financial condition, tell you about our successful grant writing efforts, describe the upcoming capital projects that are being undertaken to improve and beautify our community, and remark about all the fun and exciting entertainment and recreational programs that we planned for the summer. This year, as we deal with COVID-19, things are a little bit different. The state of the Village remains very strong, but the future is a little less certain, for us as well as for everyone else. As you know, aside from our first responders, most Village staffers are working from home to limit the number of employees in any building at any one time. We are doing our best to support the businesses in our community, but the impact that this crisis will have on the Village revenues is unknown at this time. Fortunately, the Ohio legislature passed legislation waiving the "20 -day rule" providing that municipal income tax for employees working from home for the duration of this health emergency, plus an additional 30 days, will continue to be paid to the municipality where they would otherwise be working. This should help us retain a significant portion of our income tax revenues. Some of our capital projects will go forward as planned, but some will also be placed on hold as we assess the economic harm caused by the virus. Most significantly, we remain uncertain about moving forward with all our summer special events and programming. I believe that our Ohio Governor, Mike DeWine, has done an outstanding job leading our State through this crisis. He and Dr. Amy Acton have consistently provided calm, proactive, sensible and positive leadership. We have listened to his guidance thus far and will continue to do so as we make decisions about reopening our buildings, parks and playgrounds, and rescheduling special events and programming. On March 6th, Chief Matias, Chief Carcioppolo and I participated in an informational webinar presented by the County Board of Health regarding COVID-19, and nothing has been the same since. Our daily focus, and that of our staff, has been to monitor and educate ourselves of a pandemic, to plan our response, to implement those orders and laws which pertain to us, and to assist our residents and our businesses who are affected. We have coordinated our efforts with other local governments, and have developed and implemented plans that will serve all of us in the event that any one of us is left without adequate personnel to meet the needs of our community. We are all learning how to work remotely, hold virtual meetings, maintain transparency and