08/21/2007 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 8/21/2007 be a significant deficit in the Sewer Fund in the immediate future. He asked Service Director Limpert if that shortfall could be covered out of the General Fund. Mayor O'Grady answered there are two different studies. The recommendations Mr. Ryan spoke about are from a draft of the study. He suggested it would be more fruitful to wait until after the city has our experts come in and make their presentation to Council of their final presentation and not a draft document, and then have these same discussions at that time. Councilman Ryan asked for a yes or no answer to his question: Can we cover the shortfall out of the General Fund? Mayor O'Grady said we are not going to run short in two months if that is the question. Councilman Ryan again stated his question, and Finance Director Copfer said the General Fund is the fund of last resort. We cannot be in a deficit. Councilman Ryan felt, if this had been addressed during the budget process and there were enough funds in the General Fund, the citizens would not have to suffer a rate increase. President Kennedy suggested this important issue should be discussed in committee. Law Director Dubelko: 1) His department has been looking at the local ethics code. It's a long-standing project and research has been done by a city law clerk. He hopes to be making some recommendations to Council and the administration. 2) He will be making recommendations to City Council very shortly on the Suburban Auto issue. The retest results from Suburban's expert have been received and sent to the city's expert. We are awaiting feedback on that. 3) He recently received a memorandum from our outside telecommunications counsel on SB 117, the legislation that creates the statewide franchise for video service providers. There are some recommendations including potential recommendations for legislation. He will be advising the administration and City Council on that before the next Council meeting. 4) Prosecutor Mike Gordillo has provided some support to the Police Chief in preparing the towing regulations that he was authorized to promulgate when Council passed Ordinance 2007-63. 5) He continues to look at the Tic Tac Fruit issue. It's still is a very complex legal issue. He is not exactly sure where the County Prosecutor or the State Attorney General stand on that issue. There have been additional local prosecutions going on. Parma prosecutions were off again and now on again. There are some prosecutions going on in the city of Cleveland. But he wants to get a handle on that and give good counsel to the administration and the Police Dept. and to the business community regarding these machines that are popping up around town. 6) He is also looking at HB 9, the public records act which is going into effect next month. The city has to have a policy in place and would like to model ours after the state's policy, but he doesn't believe the Attorney General yet has promulgated that. That's something that the administration will be doing in the next month. 7) He has done some research on Councilman Gareau's and Councilman Ryan's question about the best way to use the civil statutes to collect criminal restitution orders. It came up in the context of the legislation involving fraud on the schools for non-residents. The city law clerk has researched this, and he will be providing advice to Council on that. 8) He is working with the Planning Director on the temporary sign code. 5