10/21/2003 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 10/21/2003 city for the transfer of the city's local fund to the new state fund. Mr. Gazeau didn't think that the city should owe the state fund any money, and he ultimately advised the Finance Director not to pay the bill. The fund responded by directing the County Treasurer to hold up release of the local government fund payment until such time as the city capitulated. Law Director Gazeau filed a lawsuit, and the case concluded in 1984 with the city prevailing and did not have to pay the money to the state. He called Mr. Gazeau to reminisce about the case, and he wanted to be sure the county released those funds to the city. Finance Director Copfer has been asked to look into the matter, understanding that it might be difficult as these funds, if they have not been released to the city, should have been released some 19 yeazs ago. 5) The Ohio Supreme Court has made a decision in the case of the City of Worthington vs. the City of Columbus. The case involved an attempt by the City of Worthington to exercise its powers of eminent domain to acquire property in the City of Worthington owned by the City of Columbus and used as part of the City of Columbus' pazk system. Worthington wanted to acquire the land to expand its city cemetery. The Supreme Court held that, despite Worthington's home rule powers, it could not acquire the land by eminent domain because of the prior public use doctrine. The court stated that the constitutional grant of eminent domain to municipal corporations had long been interpreted by the court as being limited by this prior public use doctrine, and that home rule sections of the Ohio constitution allowed equal dignity with the eminent domain provisions but did not trump eminent domain case law, particularly where the court saw no good public policy reason to disturb existing limitations on exercise of eminent domain power. This is an interesting municipal law decision that reaffirms once again a long-standing rule by the Ohio Supreme Court that exercises of municipal power under the home rule provisions of the constitution often must give way to other constitutional provisions of equal dignity. Finance Director Copfer: 1) The third quarter investment report has been distributed to Council today. The September revenue and expenditure and encumbrance reports and also the summary reports that are attached to that were also distributed to Council this evening. The projected unencumbered balance still remains at $300,000 based on those results. 2) The estimate of the 2004 wages previously distributed has a couple more line items of positions that were not budgeted for an entire yeaz this year. Therefore, it is under- projected for 2004. Revisions will be provided before the next Council meeting. 3) Per Council's request, she has looked into the issue of the ODOT grant award for Lorain Road. Gary Benesch, from ODOT, has told her that the decision to have ODOT directly pay the contractor or to reimburse the city for payments made to the contractor normally occurs when the bid tabulation and contract award information is submitted to ODOT. However, because Issue 2 funding was involved and ODOT is non-federal funds, they consider it anon-federal project and it would have been denied because they normally only do the direct pay when it is a federally funded project. The contract in its draft form was presented to Council and passed on February 28, 2002. No such attachment was presented at that time. So, possibly ODOT didn't give the city that option. Section 14 of the contract does refer to payment or reimbursement, so that could have been a clue that was missed. The Boazd of Control awarded the Lorain Road 3