City Watch
Item One: Asbestos Investigation Contract.
Status: Week 4. Finally executed
Building Commissioner Dale Grabfelder announced at the council meeting that Earth Consulting, Ltd. would perform an asbestos study of the Old Church Building next week. That means that although it took him a month to do his duty, Mayor Coleman finally signed that contract.
Item Two: Online posting of 2008 Structural Engineer’s report on the Old Church Building
Status: Still unposted
Mayor Coleman is the “gatekeeper” for the city’s website. During the June 15th Committee of the Whole meeting , the mayor agreed that the 2008 structural engineer’s report on the Old Church Building could be posted online, so that residents and other interested parties could read for themselves what the engineer said about the decrepit, substandard building.
I checked the city’s website today. The report still has not been posted online.
Item Three: Private social club’s proposal to use the Old Church Building as a nighttime clubhouse.
Status: Negotiations continue. Legality? Still up in the air.
Rumor has it that city administrators met this week with representatives from the private social club that proposed bartering materials and physical labor in exchange for a long term $ 0 lease that would allow them exclusive night-time use of the Old Church Building and would relieve them of liability and financial responsibility for heating and maintaining the building.
Law Director Tim Paluf acknowledged last week that there are many unsettled legal questions about the proposed barter/lease arrangement. And, of course, there is also the problem of no-bid deal-making—which we’ve seen before. Example: the Bass Energy contract. There, like here, Mayor Coleman preselected one company to cut a deal with. Might there be other groups interested in turning the Old Church Building into a private clubhouse? Will we ever know?
I have not had time to do an extensive amount of legal research, but one thing is abundantly clear: under Ohio law, public property cannot be leased or sold unless it is no longer needed for any public purpose. This means two things.
- In order to lease the Old Church Building to the private social club, council would first have to pass a resolution declaring that the city has no need or use for building. That would be a hard pill for Councilman Frank Legan to swallow, even though he has been unable to come up with a fiscally sound plan for publicly using the building.
- Despite Mayor Coleman’s wishful thinking that the building can be used simultaneously for both public and private purposes, because of the “no public use” precondition for leasing public property, it would appear that the city cannot lease the Old Church Building for use as a private social clubhouse if it intends to use the building for public purposes during the day---which, according to Mayor Coleman is the reason for pursuing the private club’s proposal in the first place.
Item Four: Investigation into business dealings between the city and two appointed public officials
Status: Three and a half months. Action still pending.
Council learned in early March about business dealings between the city and then-Park & Recreation Commissioner Tony Valentino. Later, it was revealed that current P&R Commissioner Rocco Dolciato also conducted business with the city. None of these arrangements were authorized or approved by council, as required by Highland Heights law.
http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2010/05/matter-of-very-serious-concern.html
On May 11th, Council President Scott Mills presented a motion to council to refer the matter to the State Auditor’s Office and the State Ethics Commission for investigation. That motion passed unanimously.
http://www.highlandhts.com/docs/city_council/minutes/2010/05-11-10_council_minutes.htm
The State Auditor’s Office recently accepted and approved the city’s regular biennial audit report, but that report did not address the Valentino/Dolciato business dealings. Meanwhile, Mills reported at the June 22nd council meeting that he intended to file papers with the State Ethics Commission by the end of this week.
Item Five: Written City Policy addressing the Marking and Use of City Vehicles
Status: 10 Weeks. Action still pending.
The issue of unmarked city cars has been on council’s mind for more than a year. Quite a few city administrators use city cars and most take them home at night (the exception is new Building Commissioner Dale Grabfelder, who agreed when he was hired to leave his city car parked next to city hall at night). Council has heard a lot of residents grumbling about apparent excessive personal use of city-owned vehicles.
When Council President Scott Mills brought the topic up again at the April 6th Committee of the Whole meeting, Mayor Coleman admitted that he had never issued a written policy governing the marking or personal use of city-owned vehicles—even though the IRS apparently requires such a written policy.
http://www.highlandhts.com/docs/city_council/committee%20minutes/2010/04-06-10_council_committee_minutes.htm
Mayor Coleman finally agreed that he needed to develop a written vehicle marking and use policy for the city. As of the June 15th council meeting, however, the mayor still hadn't put a written policy into place.
Tidbits from the June 22 Council Meeting
- Whoops. Apparently the contractor doing the Millridge Road repaving has already exceeded the scope of the project, by grinding down more road than was specified in the contract. Where was the inspector from the city engineer’s office? Did the contractor not read the contract? The finger-pointing is just beginning....
- Grab my scuba gear. Let’s go swimming. Scuba divers were scheduled to dive in and examine the city swimming pool on Thursday, to see if they could pinpoint why the pool is leaking so profusely. Meanwhile, P&R decided to try to recapture as much of the leaking water as it can and is recycling it through the filter system back into the pool.
- It’s almost official: the city is deficit spending this year. The labor contracts have not been inked yet, but it seems pretty clear that once they are signed the city could officially be deficit-spending this year. The expense figures in Mayor Coleman’s 2010 city budget were based on the assumption that city workers’ salary would be frozen this year. That assumption turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking on Mayor Colemnan’s part. The real question is whether the mayor will readjust his spending, now that reality has hit.
- Say a prayer and vote--- where? In the last year, council has discussed at least twice--and rejected---moving one of the city's polling places from a public building (Millridge School) to a Christian church (the church next to the Catalono's parking lot.). Councilwoman Cathy Murphy reported to council that she had heard a rumor that, despite council's position on the issue, the polling place had been changed from Millridge School to the church. This news apparently caught the rest of council by surprise.
The elections board doesn't make such changes on their own, without consulting the impacted community.
So, let's see----if council was kept in the dark (once again).... that can only mean that this must be another one of Mayor Coleman's secret deals.
Perhaps the mayor is praying that residents will forget that he is personally responsible for the Bass Energy drilling fiasco, by moving the voting place for half the city to a house of worship...
