11/01/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 11/1/2005 Joseph Bouman, 23950 Lessner Road, spoke about flooding. There are some very positive things happening with the flooding situation in Ward II. (Held up two posters of photographs.) There are four serious areas in the ward: central Lessner Road area, the end of Lessner Road near Lorain Road, Clague Park and Ambour Drive, and the Woodview/Beaumont area. Deerfield is also a serious area, but the city spent millions of dollars there, and that problem should be solved by proper maintenance. The citizens group has an engineer who has agreed to work pro bono. Above-ground retention is the major portion of the answer. The problem at the end of Lessner and Lorain is behind Waldo's Nursery. The pipes were clogged, but it still would not have taken the water. Waldo's has agreed to work with the citizens in expanding the size of the ditch to a pond, which will be called Waldo pond. Gessner pond will be between Lorain Road and Gessner. All the businesses on Lorain Road are pouring water down the ridge into Gessner. The six neighbors who have 500 foot lots have agreed to build an earthen dike between them and that water so that, when we do get a deluge, we can divert that water and hold it. Woodview/Beaumont is at the center of North Olmsted where 18 new houses were built, and 9 of them had 2 feet of water in their basements during the recent storm. Our Engineering Dept. and the builder didn't properly plan for the situation. There is plenty of land to widen and make the Woodview/Beaumont ditch hold ten times as much water as it does now. Little Clague Park already has a swale, and some drains will need to be plugged and a 3 foot earthen dike can be built to protect the houses to the south. No extra land will be needed for building the above-ground retention, and they have the equipment and pumps. The ponds will hold the water until it can be pumped into the city sewer system. Mr. Bouman began to speak about the upcoming elections and listing names of candidates supported by him and the "Old North Olmsted Neighbors' Association." At this point, President Kennedy informed Mr. Bouman that his time had elapsed. Mr. Bowman protested and continued talking. President Kennedy informed Mr. Bouman he was out of order. Mr. Bouman continued to protest. Law Director Dubelko advised that Mr. Bouman's actions were approaching disrupting a public meeting and, if he did not follow the direction of the President of Council, the police could be summoned. Mr. Bouman took his seat. Service Director Driscoll came forward and said that the city is continuing efforts in the areas that Mr. Bouman had mentioned, in particular in Deerfield. Also work has been done on Lessner just within the past two weeks. It needs to be pointed out to Mr. Bouman, if people are planning to do any type of work like building ponds, ditches and dikes, that work must be drawn up by an engineer and submitted to the Engineering Dept. for approval to make sure it is according to city code and will not have a negative impact on other residents' properties. Charles Dial, 27959 Gardenia, wondered whether there would be a problem with Floyd Browne doing the EPA study as they would be in the position of passing judgment on their own work. He asked Mr. Gareau if he was satisfied that this was in fact an arm's length consultancy. Councilman Gareau said at an earlier meeting he had expressed reservations and concerns about the limited number of contractors who had been solicited for potential proposals. He recognizes that this a situation where an individual who may have designed or been involved in the design of the plant and its operations is now being 8