02/15/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 2/15/2005 Law Director Dubelko: 1) RTA/NOMBL is the most important issue in the city right now and also the most important in the Law Department. He has spent a substantial amount of time working on issues related to NOMBL and RTA. Tonight City Council will have before it on first reading Ordinance No. 2005-16, which is an ordinance authorizing the Mayor to enter into agreement for the acquisition of the bus line. Hopefully everyone understands that the task of the city negotiating team (Law Director, Finance Director, Service Director, NOMBL General Mgr. and NOMBL Operations Mgr.) was to attempt to strike a deal which would ideally preserve the bus line, preserve the jobs for 65 NOMBL employees, preserve the quality and level of service for transit services in Cuyahoga County and address the grievances that North Olmsted has with RTA arising out of the operating agreement which expired on December 31 and has been extended for three months. At this point, there is no offer the team can bring back to Council regarding any type of renewal. He learned today that there will not be a further extension. Today the RTA representatives advised that they would be willing to extend the operating agreement another 90 days, but it would come at a very, very high price. RTA believes that every one of these extensions costs them $500,000. So, essentially if North Olmsted is willing to pay $500,000, they would be willing to extend for 90 days. He is certain there is not a person in this city government who would approve an extension under those terms. All that leaves for discussion is acquisition, which is what RTA wants to talk about and 90-95% of the negotiations have been about that topic. He has given his word at the table that he would have this legslation introduced by the February 15 Council meeting. RTA does have a timeline that they have held very firm to and have told the City of North Olmsted in no uncertain terms that, if we don't meet their timeline deadlines and don't have an acquisition agreement by a date certain, that they will consider us to no longer be interested in acquisition. They will then hire fresh drivers, take back possession of our buses when the extension ends and run the routes themselves with new drivers without our NOMBL drivers. He takes that very seriously as does the rest of the negotiating team. He has done everything he can to stay at the table, to keep his word with respect to everything that he has proposed at the table. The team was able to convince RTA to extend their deadline from February 15 to March 1. Unless something else occurs, this is the legislation and the only legislation that will be before City Council for decision. Mayor Musial commented on the RTA/NOMBL situation and noted there has been strong support for our side. The Cuyahoga County Mayors and Managers suggested another three-month extension. Congressman Kucinich has supported the city and joined in that request, and County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora wrote a letter indicating that he would want to have an additional three months to the negotiating timetable so that the Mayors and Managers Association can review the issues. Law Director Dubelko said he fully subscribed to the Mayor's comments. Law Director Dubelko continued his report: 2) Litigation status: • State ex rel. Musial vs. City of North Olmsted. The relator's attorney has taken an appeal. It was filed on February 4. Since that date, we have entered into some settlement discussions. He understands that City Council wants to discuss settlement issues in executive session, and he will report more fully at that time. 2