10/19/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 10/19/2004 Patricia Deis, 26893 Sweetbrier. Regarding the Sweetbrier issue, all of Council received ;;~, the letter which originated from Mr. Driscoll's office. She would like to thank Mr. Driscoll for his prompt attention to Council's direction to try to find a solution to Sweetbrier. Also, thanks to Mr. Durbin for his prompt attention to the sign problem. She does take issue with the final conclusion of the Safety meeting. School Superintendent Dr. Stanic said that he would see that there is an adult supervising the children as they left school in the vicinity of the crosswalk on Sweetbrier. This has not happened. Chief Ruple and Mr. Jesse said they would consider how the police presence can positively affect that. There has been no police presence at all since she first brought this to Council's attention, nor for many, many months prior to that. Mr. Driscoll said he felt the concerns were directly related to behavioral problems, but she takes issue with that. Council had passed many ordinances trying to solve this problem, one of which was an ordinance for the north side of Sweetbrier prohibiting stopping or standing during school hours. That sign has since been removed and people are taking that as an invitation to once again drop their children off on the hydrant side of the street. She believes the wording of the signs are a problem and has been told that an ordinance is going to be drafted that will pay some attention to that-the simpler the better. Another thing that affects the behavior problem is that there is zero enforcement of the existing ordinances. According to what has happened in past, she has very little hope that there will be any police presence on Sweetbrier unless there is some directive from Council or some process or promise from the administration that this will happen. People are behaving in this way and not following the ordinances passed by Council because there is zero enforcement. That encourages bad behavior on the part of the people who are doing this. President O'Grady thanked Mrs. Deis for her concerns and commented that Council members cannot and should not direct the Police Dept. They are the lawmakers and are responsible for the funding questions. Safety Director Jesse came forward and noted that Mrs. Deis had made him aware of this enforcement question. He talked with the Chief over the last couple weeks about increasing enforcement there. If that has not occurred, he will speak to the Chief again and see what can be done to improve that and to possibly shift an officer over there. At the last Safety Committee meeting, there was a tentative agreement as to how signs would be posted on that street and what the size of the zone would be. Those issues will be part of the legislation that will be introduced. Also, it should be noted that there are five prior ordinances for this particular parking zone. This will be the sixth and, hopefully, last one and simplest one and one that we can actually effectively enforce. Matt O'Donnell, 20299 Westover Avenue, Rocky River, representing fire fighters Local 1267. (Mr. O'Donnell spoke on behalf of several fire fighters who came to the podium with him.) Recently the union sent a letter to each member of Council requesting to meet with them as a group to present their side of numerous issues. They are sorry Council was unable to meet with fire fighters and do not understand why the administration would not want Council to meet with them to hear both sides of the story. (The administration has filed an unfair labor practice.) He must inform Council about issues that the fire fighters can no longer tolerate. Since the bargaining process began, the relationship with management has deteriorated so badly that he does not know how to fix it. They understand having labor disputes and sometimes you have to have a third unbiased party ~, 8