05/21/2002 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/21/2002 4 Law Director Dubelko: 1) To amplify the Mayor's comments regarding the termination of the U. S. EPA consent decree, it is a very big event for the City of North Olmsted. As the Mayor alluded to, over the last 11 years it truly was anon-partisan effort by members of Council, the administration, and by retired Law Director Gareau to get the city out of a very difficult legal situation. Under the consent decree, the city was required to report monthly to the EPA on excesses of discharge in violation of our permit and stipulated penalties provided for such excesses. As of two years ago, the stipulated penalties the U. S. EPA was proposing against the city exceed $330,000. In addition to everybody else in the city governmem, two people in particular, Law Director Mike Gareau Sr. and environmental engineer Dennis Long, did an outstanding job at resolving this issue. As part of the settlement, the fines were reduced to $75,000, and they have been paid. The city is out from under the decree, which means that we do not have to make those monthly reports and we are not subject to automatic penalties if there are discharges. It was a long battle, but it reflected the best of city government in its success. In the audience this evening is Harry Crider, former Superintendent of the Wastewater Treatment Plant, who was certainly a part of the effort over the years and also former Council President Janet Saringer who served so many years on Council while the city was attempting to accomplish this task. 2) He recently issued Legal Opinion 2002-12 regarding the appropriate procedures to follow under the Ohio Constitution and the City Charter for amending the City Charter. Because there have been three legislative requests for amendments to the Charter and two requests for legal opinions involving issues amending the Charter, he thought it was appropriate to give Council an overview of the procedures the city should follow when the City Council proposes to submit a Charter amendment to the voters. 3) Steven Knippen, a first-year student at Cleveland State University College of Law, has been hired as the city's law clerk and will begin working on May 28. 4) He is in the process of preparing a memorandum to Council detailing the recommendations that he already made to the administration on the best and appropriate method to advertise and award contracts for city service contracts. This dovetails in with the legal opinion issued earlier in the year on the subject of the respective jurisdictions between City Council and Board of Corrtrol under the Charter with respect to the contract advertising and awarding process. 5) On May 16, he attended a construction law seminar which was very helpful to him regarding the work he has been doing in attempting to do update the city's various contract documents forms. Finance Director Copfer: 1) Regarding revenues, the good news is the income tax shortfall previously presented as of the end of April was recouped so gross receipts remain flat. The bad news is she has had a preliminary contact regarding the retainer refund which is expected to be smaller than previously received. More details will be forthcoming. 2) She is concerned with the state budgeting balancing act on potentially the backs of municipalities. There are many things that the legislators are looking at doing to fix the budget deficit. The one that concerns her the most is a possible 6% cut in aid to our local government, which is our local government fund and the local government assistance fixnd, and also to libraries and the local government and libraries fund. That equates to 3 .~ F, a~.-~.,,,.