AGENDA 12--15-2015
Printed From: MiddletownUSA.com
Category: Middletown City Government
Forum Name: City Council
Forum Description: Discuss individual members and council as a legislative body.
URL: http://www.middletownusa.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6234
Printed Date: Nov 27 2024 at 4:21pm
Topic: AGENDA 12--15-2015
Posted By: Vivian Moon
Subject: AGENDA 12--15-2015
Date Posted: Dec 10 2015 at 3:51pm
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MIDDLETOWN CITY COUNCIL AGENDA
TUESDAY, December 15,
BUSINESS MEETING – 5:30 pm – COUNCIL CHAMBERS – LOWER LEVEL
1. MOMENT OF MEDITATION/PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
2. ROLL CALL
3. PRESENTATION - Jeff Pohlman Tire and Auto Service - 25th
Anniversary
4. PRESENTATION - Middletown
Ford - 25th Anniversary
5. PRESENTATION – Anita Scott Jones
6. PRESENTATION – Joe Mulligan
7. CITIZEN COMMENTS, GUESTS, ORGANIZATIONS’ REPORTS
8. CITY MANAGER REPORTS TV Middletown
9. CONSENT AGENDA. . . Matters listed under the Consent
Agenda are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion and one
vote of consent. There will be no separate discussion of these items. If
discussion is desired, that item will be removed and considered separately.
(a) Approve City Council Minutes: November 17 and December
1, 2015
(b) Receive and File Board & Commission Minutes: Library
Board- August 18 & September 15, 2015 Historic Commission- October 22, 2015
Park Board- November 2, 2015 Board of Health- November 10, 2015
{c) Confirm Personnel Appointments: Nicole Hitte-
Dispatcher, Division of Public Safety David Terrell- Mechanic, Division of
Municipal Garage Brandon Ramirez & Jessica Payne- Patrol Officers, Division
of Police Karen Robinson- Senior Account Clerk, Division of City Tax.
(d) Confirm Promotional Appointments- Fire Lieutenants: Jess
Chaille, Todd Steinbrunner, Brian Wright, John Scranton
(e) Confirm Termination: Brian Alexander, Maintenance Worker.
(f) Receive and File Oaths of Office: Timothy Haney, Steve
Bohannon, Talbott Moon, Lawrence
Mulligan, Jr.
(g) To authorize the City Manager to enter into a professional
services agreement with John Hovell for Tax Process Server services.
(h) To establish a contract with Hawkins, Inc., of
Roseville, MN, for the purchase of Hydrofluosilicic Acid (HFS), in the amount
of $2.65/gallon to be used by the Water Treatment Plant during the 2016
calendar year.
(i) To recommend the purchase of liquid chlorine from Bonded
Chemical, Columbus, Ohio, in the amount of $.74/gallon for use at the
Wastewater Treatment Plant and $.85/gallon for use at the Water Treatment
Plant.
PINNING CEREMONY
MOTION AGENDA
(a) To
authorize a contract with Voya for the Stop Loss Coverage in 2016.
COUNCIL COMMENTS
1. Ordinance No. O2015-74, an ordinance establishing a
procedure for and authorizing a third amendment to a contract with Cardno ATC
for demolition and remediation of the STM/Wrenn Papermill site and declaring an
emergency.
2. Ordinance No. O2015-75, an ordinance establishing a
procedure for and authorizing a second amendment to the contract with
Metropolitan Environmental Services, Inc. for remediation of the STM/Wrenn
Papermill site and declaring an emergency.
3. Ordinance No. O2015-77, an ordinance authorizing a
development agreement between the City of Middletown,
Commerce Corner, LLC and Atrium
Medical Center,
and declaring an emergency.
4. Resolution No. R2015-46, a resolution to make adjustments
to appropriations for current expenses and other expenditures of the City of
Middletown, Counties of Butler and Warren, State of Ohio, for the period ending
December 31, 2015 and declaring an emergency. (Housing Assistance Fund)
5. Resolution No. R2015-47, a resolution to make adjustments
to appropriations for current expenses and other expenditures of the City of
Middletown, Counties of Butler and Warren, State of Ohio, for the period ending
December 31, 2015 and declaring an emergency. (Appropriation Transfer- General
Fund)
6. Ordinance No. O2015-79, an ordinance establishing a
procedure for and authorizing an amendment to the contract with Polydyne, Inc.
for the purchase of polymer for use at the Waste Water Treatment Plant for the
year 2015 and declaring an emergency.
7. Ordinance No. O2015-80, an ordinance establishing a
procedure for and authorizing a contract for the transfer of City owned
property to the Middletown
City School
District, and declaring an emergency.
8. Ordinance No. O2015-81, an ordinance providing for the
removal of parcels from a Tax Increment Financing Area created by this Council
pursuant to Ordinance No. O2005-142; to declare seventy-five per cent of the
improvements to those parcels to be a public purpose and exempt from real
property taxation; to provide for the distribution of the applicable portion of
those service payments directly to the Warren County Career Center; to create
and provide for the deposit of the remainder of those service payments into a
Municipal Public Improvement Tax Increment Equivalent Fund and to provide for
payment of a portion of those service payments received by the City to the
Middletown City School District as provided in a Compensation Agreement between
that School District and the City; to specify the public infrastructure
improvements and costs to be paid from that fund; to approve and authorize the
execution of a Tax Increment Financing Agreement to implement this ordinance;
and to declare an emergency.
9. Ordinance No. O2015-82, an ordinance establishing a
procedure for and authorizing an agreement with Buxton for assistance in retail
recruitment. (1st Reading)
EXECUTIVE SESSION Under the authority of O.R.C. 121.22 (G)
(1) To consider the appointment of a public employee or official; and O.R.C.
121.22 (G) (2) To consider the purchase of property for public purposes, or for
the sale of property at competitive bidding, if premature disclosure of
information would give an unfair competitive or bargaining advantage.
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Replies:
Posted By: Vivian Moon
Date Posted: Dec 10 2015 at 4:12pm
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S T A F F R E P O R T
For Business Meeting: December 15, 2015
DATE
December 1, 2015
TO: City Council FROM: Doug Adkins, City Manager
SUBJECT Retail Recruitment
PURPOSE
To permit the City Manager to contract with Buxton for recruitment of retail
business throughout the city and to appropriate funds from of the Civic
Development Fund to pay for the contract.
BACKGROUND AND FINDINGS
The recession took a huge toll on retail business within the City. People
losing homes to foreclosure seldom have disposable cash to spend on retail
purchases. As the City recovers from the recession, it’s important to bring
retail business back to the community so that our residents have places in town
to buy the items that they want. A growing retail market provides job
opportunities to our residents, raises property values in otherwise vacant
retail space, and provides a tool to bring quality families to Middletown to live. Retail site selectors
have a set package of demographics that they use to select a new retail
location. They know that if the site under consideration has every one of their
desired demographics, the location is always successful. If the site is missing
key indicators, the retailer moves on to locations that match their exact
specifications. Buxton is the nation’s largest firm that gathers these key
demographics and sells the information to retailers to assist in new site
selections. A few years ago, Buxton realized that those key desired
demographics could be reverse-engineered to help communities recruit retailers
that were perfectly suited to that city’s demographics. In other words, your
city may not have the desired demographics for a Tim Horton’s coffee shop, but
might have the perfect demographics for Starbucks. Buxton takes your existing
demographics and matches them to retailers looking for locations that you have
available. They not only provide the data and reports needed to recruit
national retail to the City, but they can also work with regional retailers to
fill existing vacant locations in our strip centers. They can set up meetings
between retailers and the City to facilitate introductions and to get the City
in contact with the site selection decision-maker at each retailer.
ALTERNATIVES
There are a number of firms that do this type of work. Buxton is the largest.
We have made calls to existing Buxton municipal customers and the reviews were
favorable. We talked to other smaller SUBJECT 2 firms who perform this type of
work, but they lacked the clout and exposure that Buxton brings to our
recruiting efforts.
FINANCIAL IMPACTS
$50,000 per year for three years out of the Civic Development Fund. The
agreement allows for cancellation in years two and three if we are unhappy with
their efforts. EMERGENCY/NON EMERGENCY This is a not an Emergency item.
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Posted By: acclaro
Date Posted: Dec 10 2015 at 10:04pm
Perfectly suited partners:
i) Dollar Tree
ii) Dollar General
iii) Pawn Stores R US
iv) Buying and Selling Gold
v) Salvation Army
vi) Goodwill
vii) Buy It Here Used Cars, Interest rates 37.5%
viii) Payday Loans
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'An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.' - Winston Churchill
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Posted By: middletownscouter
Date Posted: Dec 11 2015 at 8:09am
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A pinning ceremony? Are we pledging somewhere?
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Posted By: Vivian Moon
Date Posted: Dec 11 2015 at 2:11pm
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Hmmm...Buxton will be paid from the Civic Developement Fund? When did we establish the Civic Developement Fund?
Why wouldn't this be paid for from the Community Developement Fund?
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: Dec 11 2015 at 5:50pm
Does the insanity and lack of preparation ever cease with the city? This is a $150,000 expense for Middletown to pay leads to the development team, for retail businesses that pay low wages, are available all over southern Ohio, and have already pulled out of Middletown. This includes Target and others.
If the city wants to pay $150,000 in cash for lead generation, at least Mr. Adkins and others, get large manufacturing in, biotech, semiconductor, or ANYTHING, but cheap retail businesses. Let the Towne Mall folks take care of their recruitment, and you focus upon jobs paying more than minimum wage.
And for what its worth for clarification, Mr. Adkins did not drive down vouchers by 700. He lost the revenue associated with the administration, 10% bounty, and cost the city tens if not hundreds of thousands, in legal fees and insurance premium increase, associated with their payment of the fees to defend HUD action. Add to that the $1.8 Mm the city lost by selling Weatherwax, one wonders how many times the spin in a major defeat, continues to be spun as a win.
HUD was a LOSS, Weatherwax was a LOSS, Downtown is a LOSS, retail is a LOSS.
Good news just isn't appearing anywhere.
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Posted By: middletownscouter
Date Posted: Dec 14 2015 at 9:57am
The city will not be able to pull in high wage manufacturing jobs from growth sectors such as aviation, biotech, etc. UNTIL we have a labor pool to draw from of educated people who WANT to work. We've got everything else going for us in regards of available land, location, access to utilities, the interstate, an airport, etc. But we don't have an available labor pool. Those types of employers that we have now, such as AK, Aeronca or Middletown Tube, has been embedded for years. Were they startups looking to locate somewhere right now, I don't think they would choose Middletown.
To beef up our labor pool requires excellent local schools that graduate students prepared for college or skilled trade schools. And there's a host of things that can and should be done by MCSD to right the ship, but the biggest factor they cannot control.
The generation of kids in school now, in this area, are largely coming from un- or under-educated households where there is little to no value placed on education. Learning starts at home. Discipline starts at home. Character, work ethic, citizenship...it all starts at home. These values and concepts can be taught all day long at school, but without being encouraged and reinforced at home it makes it very difficult to see success.
I've worked in manufacturing in and around Middletown my whole life, and I can tell you that not all, but the vast majority of the younger set who are just hitting the labor force over the last decade and a half who aren't leaving this area for college or better career opportunities are either unprepared or unwilling to step into those skilled labor roles. The ones who are willing and able to succeed are mostly leaving because there's not much left for them here.
It's a cycle. The educated and skilled labor won't stay because there aren't any good jobs. The employers won't come because there isn't a big enough labor pool.
Local government can only work on two of the three corners of the triangle. They can try to make the city more high wage employer friendly (which they have been working on, with very limited success). They can work to improve the local schools and the education it provides to the area youth (which again they have been working on, also with very limited success). But in the end it's that third corner, the families, that is failing us the most. How do you fix that?
A three legged stool with only two working legs cannot stand on it's own.
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Posted By: VietVet
Date Posted: Dec 14 2015 at 10:41am
Middletownscouter: "The city will not be able to pull in high wage manufacturing jobs from growth sectors such as aviation, biotech, etc. UNTIL we have a labor pool to draw from of educated people who WANT to work"
In the past, companies located in Middletown drew from the local labor pool here. Now, I would imagine companies don't rely on local talent as much. The majority of companies expect that their employees will be from out of town and will be commuters. I have worked for eight different companies in 48 years and very few relied solely on pulling from residents of the town in which the company was located. Companies assumed the trend is to drive as much as an hour to work as opposed to the old trend of living a few miles from work. I would guess Middletown is already a town of commuters as most people must leave town to work at a job that paid wages they can live on. Currently, Middletown doesn't offer enough jobs, and hasn't for decades, that would fulfill the livable wage criteria. Dayton or Cincy is the destination of work for most I would imagine.
If Middletown has the land, can give a company a "deal of a lifetime" for the land and guarantee a low company tax rate, I would hazard to guess, that, given time, they would acquire enough skilled labor people from out of town, and, as people who work in Middletown but live out of town see how cheap housing is here, and, to reduce their commute time, they will start buying here. Of course, there are the old problems of lousy schools, poor reputation concerning how the city is operated, the overabundance of low income, limited shopping choices and high property taxes that may drive most away from that idea. Probably wishful thinking here.
If city leaders, over time, hadn't driven this city into the ground and had made some progressive decisions along the way and the new breed of school administration, over time, hadn't trashed the schools, we might never have had these problems. However, it is what it is and the city and schools are going to have to do a total about face to make any difference........ realistically, I don't see that happening in the near future. Both too stubborn to change.....or are unable, skill-wise, to correct the problems.
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I'm so proud of my hometown and what it has become. Recall 'em all. Let's start over.
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Posted By: acclaro
Date Posted: Dec 14 2015 at 12:27pm
Scouter not long ago you indicating the city's plan to lure the FAA into establishing Hook Field to operate as a regional maintenance site was terrific. If that is so, and you are stating the workforce is unskilled and devoid in Middletown, how would that plan successfully work?
Certainly mean no disrespect but your premise is wrong. It is not lack of skilled workers that impede Middletown's economic development. On the contrary, there are many CNC shops all over the area, including Middletown, Carlise, and up and down the 75 corridor to Dayton and south. There are programs at C State that focus upon IT analytics, healthcare, and general business and operations. Indeed, southwestern Ohio, like Milwaukee and other areas that have many skilled German immigrants, are known worldwide, to have the best skilled technical manufacturing craftsman in the nation. And, some of the best welders, including underwater, are residing in Middletown and the general area.
No longer do you have journeyman programs for high school grads. You have two year programs where you earn a diploma, or two year degree, in CNC, water jet programming, robotic repair, et al. These schools are highly competitive and do attract students. Many companies pay students to attend them, including an excellent program Toyota has with UK in robotics engineering, which is coop, and you can obtain a guaranteed job at about $85,000 annually, while going to school and making an income.
Simply put, IT IS NOT shortage of trained workers prohibiting companies moving in. That's untrue. GE Aviations is 20 minutes down the highway, C State has the aviation maintenance program, as does several Dayton based institutions offering the two year CNC trade programs.
THE PROBLEM IS companies don't want to come to Middletown, for several reasons, which include crime, taxes, difficulty in working with city management, and countless other reasons. BUT, it is NOT associated in the least WITH A LACK OF TRAINED WORKFORCE. You have one of most trained advanced manufacturing workforces in the nation in southwestern Ohio, and Middletown.
Read the reasoning behind Mr. Adkins stating the city needs to focus upon retail. He starts with talking about foreclosure and the lack of disposable income, and yet states residents want places to spend disposable income. Middletown WILL NEVER be a success built upon a foundation of retail business. The effort needs to focus upon WHY businesses don't want in, as opposed to suggesting the workforce is inadequate. That is untrue.
Breihel businesses are leaving so fast you can't keep up with the FOR LEASE signs.
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'An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.' - Winston Churchill
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Posted By: spiderjohn
Date Posted: Dec 14 2015 at 2:25pm
City needs to focus on retail also, to provide more lower/mid level jobs, AND to keep residents with disposable income shopping in town. Sales tax/payroll tax/income tax as a complimentary supplement. When residents go out of town to shop, they often dine out of town and/or seek entertainment out of town. Lack of quality retail amenities are an important factor in choosing a residence. This is a necessary amenity and can be primary before the bigger things.
It has to happen at all levels in order to re-build our community base.
Too many important families at all income levels are quietly leaving, and the same with businesses.
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Posted By: Analytical
Date Posted: Dec 14 2015 at 2:57pm
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Excellent observations Spiderjohn. I know a just a little bit about commercial real estate and concur with you. From "Anal-ytical" as you previously referred to me. I'm certain that you are a kind, Christian man.
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Posted By: acclaro
Date Posted: Dec 14 2015 at 3:29pm
Good roads. good schools, low crime, and positive reputation FAR MORE IMPORTANT to higher earner or business,
than....
dining and local shopping. I go up and down Oakwood to Montgomery to Hyde Park, Fresh Thyme in Centerville to Montgomery, 3 Costco stores, Rickwood Commons, and that would not discourage nor encourage, a house purchase over schools, and infrastructure. Trained workforce is not impeding Middletown. MUM, Greentree, all have nursing, healthcare programs, as does C State.
Minimum wage $15.-- Hour?
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'An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.' - Winston Churchill
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Posted By: spiderjohn
Date Posted: Dec 14 2015 at 5:43pm
Correct acclaro
All necessary parts of the package
I try to be the best that I can be analytical
A work in progress
i take offense to anyone who demeans the MUSA family
They are not the root of middietown's problems
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