05/15/2001 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/15/2001 go out and says exactly that as soon as those records are transcribed. He is continuing, as he has done in the past, to stay on the legislative side and oppose those who would traipse over and try to do the job of the administration. He has continued to do what he was elected to do, and that is represent the best interests of the citizens of this city. If enough questions are being raised to him and to other members of this Council with regard to a particular program, and then after investigating the program a four hundred percent increase in the number of tickets written by our police officers is found, then it ought to raise some questions. Anything we can do as elected representatives to get the voice of the people heard and provide information to the administration, then that's the right thing and he stands one hundred percent behind the comments he has made and he stands one hundred percent behind what he has done for the residents of this city. Mr. Miller commented that he had looked at some of the numbers of the tickets written. He looked back several years at the number of tickets that North Olmsted has written and compared it to those written by much smaller communities that do not have a STOP program or similar such program as Fairview and Rocky River. What needs to be understood is that, for several years, North Olmsted was writing far fewer tickets than much smaller communities. Our police officers were busy with quite a few other issues. Certainly our commercial district has a lot to do with that. So he would think that the STOP program, with the additional tickets being written, is more of a reflection of where we should be in tickets written, plus a reflection of the additional overtime of officers. It's easy to say there's a four hundred percent increase. But, if you say that two or three hundred percent of that represents an underwriting of tickets compared to other communities, then it is certainly more understandable that we have the situation that we do. As for the reference to "convenience," he was at that committee meeting. Mrs. Kasler said, "...and even if this is a convenience." She did not say that it wasr-she was not conceding. She was simply reflecting a comment that he had made that there is some convenience to this issue. She qualified it that way, and she then said, ".... and let the record reflect that that's the first time I've said `convenience. "' She in no way stated that this ordinance is in her opinion based on convenience. The fact that we have atwenty- five percent increase of officers on the street in regards to the STOP program makes the community a better and a safer place to live and play. Councilman Limpert, chairperson of the Streets & Drainage Committee: 1) The Streets & Drainage Committee and the Finance Committee met jointly on May 7. Present were Council President Saringer and Councilpersons Miller, Nashar, O'Grady, Dailey, McKay and Limpert; Directors Copfer and Bohlmann. Also in attendance were representatives from Zwick and Associates. Agenda items were as follows: • Ordinance 2001-64, an ordinance to provide engineering services for the Columbia Road storm sewer project. This is a needed project to abate flooding in the northeast quadrant of town. There is some immediacy because the state of Ohio is planning to do a major paving project on that section of road in 2002. This project was previously discussed and approved during the capital improvements discussions. Because we want this project to be engineered this year, the committee is requesting 8 ~_ L,