Council Meeting Hodge-Podge

Some Quick Updates from the July 14 council meeting:

The city-ordered recycling bins are in. Interested residents will be able to buy the bins, at cost, through the service department. The city's trash collector will empty the bins as part of its contracted-for garbage collection service. Residents simply need to place filled bins at the curb on their regular trash day. Residents will also be able to continue to set out recylable items using blue bags (I just use plastic shopping bags, and that works fine).

Sidewalk audit. The city inspects sidewalks throughout the city on a rotating basis. The good news from the 2009 audit is that there are many fewer sidewalk issues than in the past. Residents are responsible for keeping the sidewalks in front of their homes in good repair. To be cost effective, given the relatively small amount of work needed at this point, the Acting Building Commissioner, Jim Austin, recommended holding off seeking a contractor to do sidewalk repairs until after next year's sidewalk audit is conducted.

Aberdeen Assisted Living Facility. The new facility on Bishop Road has received an occupancy permit and is awaiting final licensing by the state. It should be accepting its first residents soon.

Drug Mart liquor license. Although it does not yet possess a signed lease, Drug Mart has applied for a liquor license to sell wine and beer at a proposed location (the old Syms store) in the Shoppes at Alpha complex (the corner of Alpha Drive and Wilson Mills Road). The licensing is entirely a state issue. The city was merely notified that a license has been applied for.

The Catalano's property. Apparently title to the property has changed hands, but Council President, Scott Mills, reported that Giant Eagle, who previously owned the property, is actively working to prevent any business that would compete with its grocery stores from locating there. That puts in question whether Marc's will be able to rent the store, as one investment group had planned. For now, the property continues to remain empty.

Meanwhile, Bass Energy (who has sued the city and who owns the gas well involved in the recent Mayfield Heights emergency evacuation) is apparently claiming that the Catalano's property will be part of a drilling lease, which will purportedly also include the church next door and Millridge School. We can only hope that the parishioners and Mayfield School Board say no to Bass Energy.

Royalty Tax. At the repeated urging of Councilwoman Cathy Murphy, the Legislative & Finance Committee is exploring the issue of taxing energy companies, based on their sale of gas produced by Highland Heights gas wells, and taxing residents who receive royalties from those gas wells. Both Mayfield Village and Gates Mills have enacted similar legislation.
Right now, the drilling companies pay nothing when the local police and fire departments have to respond to emergencies at gas wells----such as the recent evacuation in Mayfield Heights due to the Bass Energy gas well leak.

The Old Pool House Renovation. Whoops. The City Service Director, Tom Evans, reported that the Park & Recreation Committee (P&R)--which is the group that decided that expanding the old pool house buidling was the park's most pressing need and that it would only cost $ 75,000---has apparently decided that rebanding the project will make the actual projected cost (of approximately $ 265,000) more palatable to council and the public.

Therefore, Mr. Evans declared on Tuesday that the project would now be referred to as the "park building alteration." Wonder why P&R is afraid to call the project what it really is?

Read my previous posts for more detailed information on the project, what it really entails, why it is going to be so expensive, and what P&R has said to justify the project.

More lawsuits against the city? Like the Highland Road "pedestrian path" project, the Bishop/Highland Road intersection project (which was overseen by then-City Engineer Andy Blackley), also experienced significant cost overruns.
Now the contractor is demanding an additional $ 38,000 to reimburse it for an increase in material costs. The contractor apparently claims that the city delayed the project and that the price of asphalt significantly increased by the time it was authorized to begin work. Law Director Tim Paluf acknowledged that the contractor has now threatened to sue the city over the issue.

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