10/05/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 10/5/2004 ,.~, 3) He plans to deliver a State of the City address before the North Olmsted Chamber of Commerce at the Radisson on October 21, 2004 at 11:30 a.m. If anyone wishes to attend, the cost is $15 for lunch. Tickets can be obtained by calling the North Olmsted Chamber of Commerce office before October 19. 4) On a serious note, he wishes to thank all of the individuals who have offered their condolences to him with regards to his widowed sister who lives alone in Toledo, Ohio and her battle with cancer. She is gravely ill, and lately much of his time has been and will continue to be involved with her personal affairs and providing her with emotional support. The city directors are fully aware of this situation and will continue their high degree of professionalism in discharging their duties and responsibilities. Councilman Gareau noted that the Mayor had posed questions to Lt. Gallagher and Chief Ruple concerning any conversations they may have had at any time concerning matters that were the subject of the investigation concerning himself and his law firm. He asked the Mayor what it involved since the Mayor just indicated the questions had nothing to do with the mandamus action. Mayor Musial would not give specifics but said it involved an internal administrative matter. On another matter, Councilman Gareau noted that a month ago he had requested the Mayor provide him with documents concerning Springvale. Among other things, he was looking for written communications between the Mayor and the Safety Director and between the Mayor and Marty Young. Also, he asked the Safety Director for communications between himself and Marty Young concerning things like pricing events, wages, fees, promotion, publicity, marketing strategies, capital improvemerrts, organizational structure and multiple profit centers. He also asked the Mayor for communications written to members of his task force. A response dated October 1 was received from the Mayor in which he asked the purposes intended for the requested items and noted that the request "...appears to infringe or impact upon investigatory purposes of the task force and is inextricably intertwined with an executive investigation. For the reason of a current administrative executive investigation on Springvale, among other reasons, your request for this information will not be honored at this time." Councilman Gareau inquired of the Mayor what was meant by executive administrative investigation. Mayor Musial said he was referring to analyzing the various aspects involving Springvale as to what can be done to improve the profitability of Springvale. He is not supplying the information from the task force as they are involved in a situation whereby they do not want to have any other items involved in stifling the attempts of the task force in order to accomplish their goal. Councilman Gareau asked the Law Director whether he was aware of an executive administrative investigation exception to public records law in the State of Ohio. Law Director Dubelko said "no. Some time ago, he wrote a legal opinion dealing with a request from the Safety Director as to his authority to have access to records of other departments to do his job. The same advice would apply to members of City Council seeking to acquire information or public records in order to do their job. He strongly feels that, in order for the government to work, members of Council and members of the administration have to have relatively free access to records in other departments and other branches of the government if in fact they need those records to do their job. To the extent that any member of City Council is interested in Springvale's 2 ~._.~ i