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Weekly Update to City Council
from the City Manager
September 6, 2010
 

May 7 Incident Review by State Officials
We met recently with officials from PERRP/BWC – who serve as the OSHA-type agency for
public employers regarding the May 7 incident in which Jabin Lakes died and firefighters were
injured. We have been working with the BWC since the incident, the PERRP portion of the
agency has now taken the lead to complete the review of the incident by November 7. Their
review of and request for documents is extensive. We produced most of the information quite
some time ago, however, over the next two weeks, we will be working through additional
requests for training records, logs, inspection records, agreements, procedures, policies,
evaluations, photos and manuals of several departments over a multi-year period. We are
readily complying with the requests.
The city’s goal is to ensure the safety of our employees and we believe that this is evident from
our past practices and documents. At the same time, like every other public entity, we are
doing more with less, given budget constraints and ever growing compliance mandates.
 

Carling Coffing – Big Break Winner
We are contacting Carling so that we can recognize her victory on the Big Break and the fact
that she has represented Middletown extremely well. In addition, Weatherwax is her home
course and she has mentioned this in the press; great advertisement for Middletown and
Weatherwax!
 

Tax Budget Legislation
Butler County Budget Commission will be meeting on September 9th to approve the property
tax request legislation for city of Middletown. We will need to present to City Council as an
emergency at the September 21st meeting to meet the October 1 deadline.
WDTN Channel 2 Report on Downtown
Attached is a link to the well-done, positive news story on Middletown that appeared on
 

Channel 2 last Tuesday on the evening newscast.
http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/community/new-arts-center-revitalizes-middletown
 

Bed Bug Information
So that city staff can become more educated on the subject of bed bugs, a nation-wide issue,
the Health Department will be holding informational sessions on September 9, 2010. The
speaker has been a sanitarian in Cincinnati for over 20 years and presently sits on the
Cincinnati- area bed bug task force.
 

University Paving Project
The end is in sight…….the contractor completed the intermediate course of asphalt and applied
temporary striping on Friday. All lanes were opened for the holiday weekend. They will begin
the surface (final) course of asphalt on Tuesday (9/7). Surface course work will take
approximately one week (weather permitting) followed by permanent striping. There will be
temporary lane closures and temporary access limitations at intersections and drives as the
paving crew moves through the project limits.
 

Historic Preservation Ordinance
Staff and I met to discuss the proposed historic preservation ordinance. As a result of our
meeting, we decided the best thing to do at this point is to postpone the second reading of the
ordinance until we receive clarification from Council. We have included the item under City
Manager comments for discussion on Tuesday and not under the legislative agenda.
 

As you may be aware, this ordinance resulted from a group of interested citizens approaching
Councilmember Smith about strengthening and clarifying our ordinance on historic
preservation. While staff supports the changes and believes that we should protect our unique
historic housing assets, we recognize that we’ve been operating with our current ordinance for
nearly 30 years.
 

Yet, given the age of the ordinance, it needs some clarification and updating. We believe the
draft on which we held the first reading at the last council meeting provides the needed
changes. Staff has shared the ordinance with the two historic districts and they are in
agreement with the proposed changes.
 

Staff members met last week with Vice Mayor Jones and Councilmember Laubach and
discussed revisions of the ordinance. While we are prepared to make changes to the
ordinance, I felt it was best to have further discussion with council as a group to ensure
consensus before more staff time was committed to the project.
 

Council Meeting Tuesday
We have a full agenda for Tuesday evening. Several items under City Manager reports to
discuss, starting with the Duke Energy representatives, who will be present to discuss the
findings from the gas main incident and to provide an update on the main replacement
program. The executive session will likely be lengthy as well since we also have several topics
for discussion.
 

Highlights of City Projects
Included in your Council packets is a document which contains the working goals of each
department. During the Council meeting, I will review highlights from each department yearto-
date. It has indeed been a busy year and we are making progress!
 

Splash Pads
The splash pads at Smith and Douglass Parks are scheduled to operate until September 13th.
We may adjust this date if the hot weather continues.
 

Sunset Pool
Estimates to demo the Sunset park pool are about $70,000. This keeps the main building in
tact, which we can use for other purposes. Unless I hear from Council, we are going to take this
info to park board and request that they make a recommendation to council either for demo or
to keep the pool another couple of years. The Pool fund has a balance of about $18,000. If
demo is chosen, there are some dollars from the park fund that could be used to fund the
balance of the work.
 

Upcoming Events
 

September 3-6 “Work Stinks” Skydiving Boogie Start Skydiving.com @
Airport 8:00 a.m. daily
 

September 6 Labor Day Free Concert, Woodside Cemetery and Arboretum, Middletown
Symphony Orchestra 7:00p.m.
 

September 6 Labor Day Holiday – City Building closed
 

September 7 City Council meeting Council Chambers (LL) 5:30 p.m.
 

September 8 Planning Commission Council Chambers (LL) 6:30 p.m.
 

September 9 Chamber Steak Fry Miller/Coors Brewing Company 2525 Wayne Madison Rd
Trenton OH 45067 5:00 p.m.
 

September 13 Park Board meeting Conference Room 2C 5:30 p.m.
 

September 15 Tree Commission meeting Rathman Building, Smith Park 5:30p.m.
 

September 21 MPHA meeting Council Chambers (LL) 5:30 p.m.
 

September 21 City Council meeting Council Chambers (LL) 6:30 p.m.
 

September 30 Civil Service Commission City Building 2B 8:00 a.m.
 

Links for additional information:
 

City Manager’s Weekly Update: www.cityofmiddletown.org
 

Middletown Community Calendar: http://www.calendarwiz.com/middletowncalendar (copy
and paste in your web browser)
 

Pothole Patrol: www.cityofmiddletown.org or call 727-3691 (Option 2)
 

Have a great week! Judy