North Canton Residents and Anyone Having Interest in the Business of North Canton City Government:
Pasted below is a link to a video of the North Canton Committee of the Whole Meeting followed by a Special Council Meeting, held on Monday, June 6, 2016.
Description
of Video:
June
6, 2016, – North Canton Committee of the Whole Meeting followed by a Special
Council Meeting:
The video covers a North Canton Committee
of the Whole meeting that lasted about eight minutes followed by a Special Council
meeting City Council meeting lasting approximately forty-five minutes. Between
the two meetings, Council held an Executive Session lasting about six minutes.
Combined, both meetings, including
the time Council was in Executive Session out of the room lasted one hour. The
video was allowed to run for approximately twenty-two minutes at the conclusion
of the meetings.
The meeting is called to order very
soon after the video begins.
The Agenda for the evening can be found on the City’s
Website at http://northcantonohio.gov/
under the tab, Mayor & City Council.
7:30 minutes into the video, the Committee of the Whole
meeting is concluded and Council immediately adjourns into Executive Session
for approximately seven minutes. The video continues to run and the audience is
scanned at this time.
15:50 minutes into the video, Council returns from
Executive Session.
16:40 minutes into the video, the Special Council meeting
is called to order. Council President Peters immediately asks to amend the
agenda and table Ordinance No. 32-2016.
The
proposed legislation has been intensely debated and highly controversial since
its introduction in March. The legislation proposes to expand the City’s Community
Improvement Area (CRA) and allow property tax abatements on new construction.
Background Information -
In
March when the discussion on the expansion of the CRA program began in Council,
it was revealed that Developer/Builder Bill Lemmon and Bob DeHoff had received property
tax abatements on the construction of a forty-unit apartment complex on North
Main Street called North Ridge Place. The taxes abated amounted to $59,129
(2015 dollars) per year for fifteen years, amounting to nearly $900,000 over
the full term of the abatement period.
Fueling
the public’s opposition to the legislation was knowledge that an
assisted-living development, called Sanctuary Grande, would result in the
abatement of $1.5 million in taxes over twelve years for these same developers.
The highlight of the evening was in
the “Recognition of Visitors” portion of the Special Council meeting, often
referred to as “Public Speaks. 17:34 minutes into the video, Council President
Peters opens the floor to residents to speak and outlines the rules that must
be followed.
Ten City
residents addressed City Council:
18:00
minutes into the video, former Mayor and former City Council President, Daryl
Revoldt, is the first to speak. Mr. Revoldt directs his comments to the City’s CRA
tax abatement program past and present. Most particularly, Mr. Revoldt
questions the abatement given to a forty-unit apartment complex called North
Ridge Place on North Main Street in 2012.
Regarding
the North Ridge abatement, Mr. Revoldt states, “he was particularly struck by
the fact that the North Ridge abatement never came before City Council in a
public session…an abatement of over $700,000 in value was granted by the stroke
of Mr. Bowles’ pen in 2012…this closeted process deeply concerns me… it lacks
transparency and is ripe for abuse at taxpayer expense.”
(The Stark
County Auditor’s office has provided figures that put the total abatement at
near $900,000).
Mr. Revoldt,
reminds City Council that as Council President when the current CRA legislation
(Ordinance No. 107-09) was discussed and passed in 2009 that it was Council’s
intent to purposely exclude new construction. Mr. Revoldt cited the section of
the current ordinance that limits the abatements to rehabilitation of existing
housing.
In light of Ordinance 107-09, Mr.
Revoldt tells City Council,”… that the exemption granted to North Ridge is
invalid.” For clarity, Mr. Revoldt repeats again saying, “North Ridge is
receiving a $700,000 tax exemption to which it is not entitled by our ordinance…as
new construction, it does not conform to the City’s ordinance…and that
ordinance is quite specific, this is not a matter of interpretation…as one who
voted for 107-09 and signed as Mayor 22-99, I know new residential construction
was intentionally excluded…it was the City’s intent, 22-99 and 107-09 to assist
only existing residential property, Period.”
Unfortunately, the heavy-handiness of
Council President Peters prevailed and former Mayor Revoldt was told that his
five minutes had ended.
23:30 minutes into the video, City resident
Randy Santangelo (2nd speaker) speaks to Council and reports his
observations of the Ward 2 and 3 Joint Informational meeting held five days
earlier at the Dogwood Shelter.
26:50 minutes into the video, City
resident Jennifer Clark (3rd speaker) speaks to Council regarding the
difficulty she has exiting the driveway of her home on East Maple Street due to
traffic congestion.
28:25 minutes into the video, City
Resident Sharon Sirpilla (4th speaker) speaks to Council in support
of the CRA property tax abatement legislation.
31:05 minutes into the video, City
Resident Ron Jesky (5th speaker) speaks in opposition to the CRA property
tax abatement legislation. Mr. Jesky makes the following remarks in his
remarks:
Mr. Jesky is quite emphatic in his
remarks. At 34:23 minutes, Mr. Jesky calls the CRA tax abatement proposal “CRAP”
as he wraps up his remarks.
35:30 minutes into the video, City
resident Jamie McCleaster (6th speaker) urges Council to limit the
CRA property tax abatement to rehabilitation of existing housing structures in
the City.
40:05 minutes into the video, City
resident Kathy ? (7th speaker) states she is completely opposed to
the CRA. Kathy also inquires as to whether DeHoff has contributed to any of
your campaigns in any way, shape or form, and if the answer is yes, you have no
business voting on this CRA.
40:50 minutes into the video, City
resident Larry Tripp (8th speaker) addressed the following in his
remarks to Council:
-
The Ward 2 and 3 Joint Informational meeting failed to
provide information to the residents regarding the stated purpose of the
meeting – namely the failed opening of the Dogwood Pool and second, explain the
proposed CRA property tax abatement legislation currently before City Council.
-
Within the first five minutes of the Ward meeting,
Councilman Peters had no knowledge on how to conduct the meeting.
-
Within 5-10 minutes, this session (Ward meeting) was going
to be a ‘dog and pony show’ to the mayor and that the Mayor upstaged the Ward 2
Councilman (Peters).
-
Shortly after the
Mayor took over the (Ward) meeting, it was clear that neither the Mayor nor
Peters were going to focus on the Dogwood Pool or the CRA.
-
No estimate could be provided as to when the pool would
open.
-
Similar lack of information regarding the CRA.
-
When Mayor Held and Mr. Peters were pressed for information on
the Dogwood Pool and the CRA, it was obvious that neither were comfortable
talking about those two topics.
-
Remarked about campaign contributions that City officials
have received from Bill Lemmon and or Bob DeHoff. Mr. Peters and Mrs. Kiesling had
acknowledged that they have accepted donations in the past. Although both Mrs.
Werren and her husband have received campaign donations from Bill Lemmon and
Bob DeHoff or both, Mrs. Werren failed to admit that she and her husband had
accepted donations.
Mr. Tripp finished up his remarks
relating an incident that occurred after last
Wednesday’s
Ward meeting wherein the City’s Law Director, Tim Fox confronted Mr. Tripp, in a
manner in which Mr. Tripp felt, was harassment and/or intimidation. I will
leave it to the viewer to interpret Mr. Tripp’s public account of the incident.
46:15 minutes into the video, City
resident Linda Hoagland (9th speaker) addressed Council with the
following remarks:
-
None of the 7 residents in their building were notified of the Ward
2 and 3 Joint Informational meeting held at the Dogwood Shelter last week.
-
That the residents in her building combined pay $36,145 in
property taxes.
-
She is glad to pay her taxes and that if businesses cannot
pay their taxes, they should not be in business.
-
She wants homeowners who will pay their taxes.
50:55 minutes into the video, City resident Melanie Roll (10th speaker) addressed Council with the following remarks:
-
She has spoken to many residents and that the consensus was
that the CRA should be limited to existing homes and not for new construction.
-
Citizens expect to pay taxes to the community and to the
schools.
-
The abatement of property taxes on new construction is not a
‘good’ thing!
-
The legislation, as currently proposed, is not good for the
community, and certainly not good for the schools.
-
If the schools fail, we will be in dire straits.
Lastly, Mrs.
Roll asks that Councilwoman Stephanie Werren recuse herself in voting on the
CRA legislation, noting that Mrs. Werren is a resident in the Plain Local
School District and thus might not be as overly concerned that the North Canton
City Schools will lose tax revenue with passage of the CRA tax abatement
legislation.
53:30
minutes into the video, the legislative portion of the Special Council meeting
begins.
1:00:00
minutes into the video, the legislative portion of the meeting is concluded.
Just as Council President Peters ask for adjournment of the meeting,
Councilwoman Werren asks for a moment to rebut the earlier remarks of Melanie
Roll.
1:01:02 minutes
into the video, the Council meeting is concluded.
The video
continues to run until 1:22:40 minutes capturing post-council activity.
Thank you,
Chuck Osborne
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