BEREA CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 15, 2015
The Berea City Council met in a regular session, Tuesday, September 15, 2015; Mayor Steven Connelly presiding. A quorum being present, the meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m.
A work session was held at 5:15 to discuss yard sale permits and brush/limb/yard waste removal. At 5:45 Anthony Hanson presented a progress report of the Oak Street Substation System Upgrade and the 4kv Conversion progress. Once the conversion is complete all of Berea will be on the 12kv system. During the month of October and part of early November scheduled outages will take place during the final conversion process. Residents will be notified in advance of their scheduled dates and times.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Powell, Little, Farmer, Wagers, Caudill, Hembree, Terrill
ABSENT: Kerby
OFFICIALS: J. Gilbert, R. Stone, C. Chasteen, D. Gregory, S. Sandlin, S. Meeks, E. Fortner, D. Brumley, P. Bloom, K. Hensley, Kevin Howard, Adrian Isaacs, P. Hurt
VISITORS: Beth Meyers, Andy Workman, J.B. Marcum, Ray Decker, Jennifer Lainhart, John Steinmetz
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: SEPTEMBER 1, 2015
Farmer moved, Caudill seconded to approve the minutes of September 1, 2015; all ayes.
JENNIFER LAINHART – HOPES WINGS; DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AWARENESS MONTH PROCLAMATION
Ms. Lainhart, representing Hopes Wings. The Domestic Violence shelter is located in Richmond, is available to any resident of Madison and surrounding counties. Currently they have a sixteen bed shelter that is not only a safe place for victims of domestic violence, but they also offer counseling, education, and they help victims to be self-sustainable. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month; she invited the mayor and city council to the annual lunch on the lawn event on Friday, Oct. 2, noon at the Madison County Court House. Their organization offers on-site training in the workplace, in the schools, and they work closely with all the law enforcement agencies in our county to assist victims. Mayor Connelly read and signed the proclamation that will now go to Richmond for Mayor Barnes and Judge Executive Reagan Taylor, for their signatures.
RESOLUTION #09-2015; A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BEREA, KENTUCKY, ACCEPTING AN ADDITIONAL GRANT FROM THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN THE AMOUNT OF $75,000 FOR THE WATER SUPPLY COMPONENT OF THE RED LICK MPS#1 PROJECT, AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE ALL RELATED DOCUMENTS.
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Utility Director, Ed Fortner informed the council this grant applies to the additional water storage requirement with the Core of Army Engineers. Caudill moved, Farmer seconded to approve the resolution; all ayes.
ORDINANCE #10-2015; AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF BEREA, KENTUCKY, PROVIDING FOR THE LEVY OF AD VALOREM TAXES FOR CITY PURPOSES UPON ALL PROPERTY, NOT OTHERWISE EXEMPT, IN THE CITY OF BEREA, KENTUCKY – 2ND READING
Corporate Counsel read the ordinance by title and summary; Caudill moved to amend the rate to 10.2 cents instead of 10.4; Little seconded the motion to amend, all ayes. Caudill moved to approve and adopt the ordinance as amended; Little seconded. Roll call vote; Terrill-yes, Hembree-yes, Caudill-yes, Wagers-no, Farmer-yes, Little-yes, Powell-no; ordinance adopted.
ORDINANCE #11-2015; AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF BEREA, KENTUCKY, DECLARING CERTAIN PROPERTY TO BE SURPLUS AND AUTHORIZING IT TO BE SOLD – 2ND READING
Corporate Counsel read the ordinance in its entirety. Terrill moved, Caudill seconded to approve and adopt Ordinance #11-2015. Roll call vote, all ayes.
RECOMMENDATION OF BIDS RECEIVED FOR EIMCO MOTOR AND GEAR BOX REPAIR AT THE JC CHAMBERS WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT- UTILITY DEPARTMENT
Utility Director, Ed Fortner recommended accepting the bid from Kentucky Services, Inc. in the amount of $36,428.54. An RFQ will be sent out soon for annual maintenance and upkeep the equipment at the water treatment plant.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
- Audit & Finance – J. Little;no report.
- Personnel – V. Farmer; the committee met on September 8th to interview for Records Clerk in the Police Dept., and the Accounts Payable position in Finance Dept. Stacy Kidwell was recommended for the Police Dept., and LaDonna Smith was recommended for Finance. We would like to introduce them at the next council meeting.
- Public Works – C. Powell; reminded the citizens of the option to take their brush to the transfer station on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of each month. The Tire Disposal Event is this week; the 17th, 18th and 19th.
- Economic Development – C. Hembree; Mr. Stone and Mr. Caudill are working with local school officials to schedule a meeting soon to talk about the trade school.
- CSEPP – S. Caudill; the committee has not meet but will continue working on the emergency siren system.
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VISITORS:
Ray Decker, lives in the city limits of Berea; he keeps hearing $33,000 - $33,000 from the council to ok the taxes for an increase, that’s ridicules! If the council didn’t budget for that; as far as collecting taxes; as far as for the city; shame on you! If you look, my insurance has went up this year, I’m paying more, and the city is getting an increase off of me. There are other things that are the same way, us citizens are getting taxed and taxed, personally, he is fed up with it. Buying of property; using the tax dollars we pay, the city is going out and buying property, don’t buy property use the money to go back to the citizens. Do we need the Tolle building, in his opinion, no, do we need all this change, the city halls, the old dresser building probably does need an upgrade, it’s been there a long, long time. Mr. Terrill brought up property last meeting, and he was kinda shut down, like property doesn’t come into play, property comes in big time. The citizens of Berea are looking at this very derogatory! He sits with groups during the day, and he’s not heard a plus yet from these groups about what you guys and ladies have done about buying all this property. Another issue is safety in Berea city limits, he keeps hearing about speed limits, speed limits aren’t being observed through Berea, used to, they were. This week, he has not seen a city policeman on the North end of town, where are they at? How many we got? Do we have x-number on first shift, x-number on second, x-number on 3rd? Where are they at; are they parked trying to catch someone? I see them on breaks, more than out on the road; they do need breaks, but where are they staying at? The other citizens are not seeing them either. Another thing is caution lights that we have now at different intersections, the ones that you can turn left if it’s safe, all these red lights that have the caution lights, what are you going to on the left turn? People are trying to cross the road at the cross walks and they are getting just about hit, every day! You have a sign out here at Berea College at a red light that says no turns, you better be looking at these caution lights, somebody is going to get hurt, and hurt bad! Make them a no right turn. Mr. Little sees this, he lives on the North end of town where I live; example; you pull up to a green light or you have a caution light, and people are turning on the right hand side and they take off, the other person is coming. There should not be any turns at all, at these big-major intersections. A lot of people don’t know what a caution light is? The last thing, the alcohol sales; the election is coming on September 29th at Berea Community School. I am going to tell the citizens of Berea that I firmly against alcohol sales on Berea. When I was young I did partake of it, and I went north. We do not need it in the city; what restaurants are going to be coming to Berea if we have alcohol, none, they are already set up all around. Look at some of the other communities close to Madison Co, that has put in alcohol sales, they get their foot in and they put in bars and liquor stores. Somerset and Lancaster, and maybe Stanford. I have seen Lancaster grow, but the only thing grew was the sale of alcohol, it didn’t benefit that town. We are not ready for this, if people don’t come out and voice their opinion, we are going to get what we get, it’s sad to say and I fear for the worst. I am against it 100%.
Mayor Connelly offered Mr. Decker the opportunity to ride around with a police officer for a day, with his interest in their daily duties. He declined; he felt the mayor should ride
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around with them, his taxes says they should be doing their job? He wonders if we have enough police officers in the city. If alcohol goes through, we better get some more.
DEPARTMENT HEADS:
D. Brumley – Public Works – This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday is the free tire disposal. We are partnering with the Madison County Fiscal Court, Madison County Solid Waste, The Kentucky Energy & Environmental Cabinet, and the Kentucky Department of Transportation. The Berea drop off location is the old city garage at 208 South Broadway. We can take up to 25 tires from residential only, no commercials agencies or groups can bring large amounts here; large quantities must go to the Richmond location.
D. Gregory – Police Chief – Update on this week’s expected events:
* Wednesday is the scheduled power outage, 3rd shift officers will stay over to assist 1st shift officers with traffic control at the stop light-intersections.
*Thursday evening will be Madison Southern’s Homecoming Parade, 10-15 officers will work traffic detail.
* The department will be participating in a Community Forum with Berea College this Thursday concerning Community Policing and body cameras.
* Saturday morning at 8am; will be helping with the 5K run, and then at 1pm we will assist with the Spoonbread Parade, 10-15 officers will also work both of these events. * The Honor Guard will travel to Elizabethtown on Thursday, to participate in the funeral of the KY State Trooper who was killed over the week-end.
* In August, the Task-Force opened up 18 cases and arrested 10 people; we seized 49 and ½ grams of Heroin, with the majority of it coming from Berea. There has been a lot of drug dealers from Detroit who have moved into our community; our primary duty is to get these dangerous drugs off of the street and get the dealers prosecuted. There has been a high rate of overdoses lately.
Little asked how the department is structured. Gregory stated; there are seven police officers on 1st shift, seven on 2nd, and six on 3rd. We hold a lot of training for our officers. There are twoschool resource officers who work at Berea Community School and Madison Southern on day shift. We have an investigator that works day shift, and an officer at our Middle Schools, and an officer on 2nd shift that is assigned to our task force. A Lieutenant, a Sargent and five patrolmen on 1st and 2nd shift and a Lieutenant, Sargent and four officers on 3rd Shift. We work 24/7 and we cover four districts in the city. We have added one additional officer during the past year. It cost $100,000 plus to hire and equip an officer. Often too, when officers have to attend court in Richmond, this will take them as long as four hours, sometimes longer out of town.
Terrill commented on the good experience he received calling 911 last Saturday when someone ran through his fence.
K. Hensley – Tourism – announced the new “Berea Proud” bumper stickers have been re-printed and will be available at the Welcome Center for anyone who wants to stop in and pick up one.
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CITY ADMINISTRATOR’S REPORT – R. STONE
- I have been in contact with Brown Thornton and the RFP for the Power Supply has gone out; they will be due back on the 26th. Brown Thornton will be on the Oct 6th meeting agenda to go over the process.
- Tomorrow will be the annual CSEPP graded exercise here in this building and City Hall.
- This is SpoonBread Festival week-end; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The city will be helping throughout the entire event.
- The Tourism Commission meeting is tomorrow evening.
- General Fund cash this week is; $1,300,795,000 and Tourism has $309,000.
- We will have a Worker’s Compensation Audit this Thursday morning.
- In working with KLC and our Workers Comp we now have a new benefit for all of our employees; it is a 24 hour on call nurse. If someone has gets hurt, the supervisor can call in and if the individual needs to go to the emergency room immediately or follow-up with their regular doctor, they start the paperwork and everything is documented. It seems to be working well in other cities; we will still do everything in house as usual.
- MC Roofing is preparing the materials for the roof repair on the Utility/Street Dept. building.
Councilman Little moved to go into Executive Session to discuss an litigation; Terrill seconded. All ayes. Meeting adjourned to Executive session at 7:23 p.m.
Meeting reconvened at 7:40. No action taken.
Administrator Stone informed the public and city council that cameras will be going up around the intersection poles at Main Street next week for a traffic study of the area.
Little asked if the city was keeping an account for all our services the city offers to the Chamber of Commerce during the Spoon Bread Festival. Have we added more, or cut out anything? Stone stated yes, we are keeping a log of our expenditures, but we are doing as much as usual, if not more.
COUNCIL COMMENTS:
Hembree- hopes to see everybody out at the Spoon Bread Festival this week-end; he and Phillip Hurt have worked really hard on getting the entertainment lined up. There is wonderful talent coming in, starting Friday evening and right up to the ending, with Elvis on Sunday.
Caudill – he hopes everyone enjoys the Spoon Bread festival this week-end, encourages everyone to come out and take part in the festivities, it is a good family time. Enjoy Home Coming, and all the parades and 5K, we appreciate the Police Department for their work in making these events happen, these are great events for the city and the citizens appreciates them.
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Farmer – echo what has been said about the Spoon Bread Festival, and I encourage everyone to come out, stay safe, and have a good time.
Little – wishes more citizens would come to the council meeting and say what they feel; appreciates Ray coming and saying what he thinks. Let’s try not to abuse the tree limb pick-up, we have a good service, if everyone respects the service and do what their supposed to do, we will pick them up. I like to see if it would help for people to call in when they have brush out. Hope everyone has a good week-end and good Spoon Bread.
Meeting adjourned: 7:45 p.m.
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Mayor Steve Connelly
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City Clerk