Okay, I would like to call the regular City Council meeting of Monday, March 9th, 2026 to order.
Jenny, would you please call a roll?
Mr. Ludo, Mayor Ambrostroms, here.
Vice Mayor DeRosa, here.
Ms. Johnson, here.
Mr. Keeler, here.
Ms. Cram, here.
Dr. Lam.
Here.
I'll make a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purposes of considering the purchase of property for public purposes.
Conferences with an attorney for the public body concerning disputes involving the public body that are subject to pending or imminent court action.
Preparing for conducting or reviewing negotiations or bargaining sessions with public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment.
And to consider confidential information related to the request for an economic development assistance that involves public infrastructure improvements that are directly related to an economic development project.
And in which executive session is necessary to protect the possible investment or expenditure of public funds to be made in connection with the public development.
I'm sorry, with the economic development project and personnel matters considering the appointment of a public official is there a second?
Second.
Jenny, would you please call the roll?
Mr. Keeler.
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes. Dr. Lam.
Yes.
Mayor Ambrostroms.
Yes.
Ms. Cram.
Yes.
Very good. I will remind the listening public that we will reconvene this meeting in this location at 7 p.m. Thank you.
Okay.
We will reconvene the Monday, March 9th, 2026 regular Dublin City Council meeting.
Christina, would you like to leave in the pledge?
Okay.
We will begin this evening with special presentations and recognitions and we have with us representative Scott Brown from the auditor or state presenting a finance.
Welcome.
Glad to have you.
Yes, if you will just, there you go.
Like that.
Thank you.
Hello.
I appreciate a few minutes on your agenda this evening to celebrate another job well done by the city of Dublin.
My name is Scott Brown and I am auditor of state key favors central Ohio liaison to you that mostly means that I serve as your customers, your personal customer service representative.
But what I, on the other side of that coin is I really take pride in the fact that when you need something I can manage that through our 800 member staff a little faster than you can call or email.
So I can get you your answers quickly as possible.
Auditor Faber asked that I attend on his behalf this evening to present the auditor of state award with distinction to the city of Dublin.
Our office oversees nearly 6,000 clients statewide and conducts 4,200 audits annually.
This award places your organization in the top 4% of those 4,200 engagements.
The auditor of state award is presented to local governments and school districts upon the completion of a financial audit that meet the following criteria defined as a clean audit report.
The entity must file financial reports with the auditor's office by a statutory due date without extension.
On a gap accounting basis and prepare a comprehensive annual financial report.
The audit report does not contain any findings for recovery, material citations, significant material weaknesses, significant deficiencies, uniform guidance findings or other question costs.
Along with a whole host of other things that we look at.
As I like to say we'll get through that audit speak and not list off that whole checklist to get you to the top 4% of all audits in the state of Ohio last year.
But really auditor Faber would like to recognize the council, the administration and the finance department that have done an outstanding job watching over every dollar.
This award represents all of your staff and employees hard work as they work constantly to attain accounting excellence.
What this truly means is across your entire organization you have the people and the processes in place to understand fiscal accountability.
So on behalf of auditor of state Keith Faber I'd like to present the city of Dublin with the 2025 auditor of state award with distinction and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Congratulations.
Good well thank you so much for being here this evening.
We have some of our staff that will receive that accommodation from you and I believe that Matt Rabino, Megan Murray and Ryan Reichley would come forward.
They put all the blood sweat in the tears and making the rest of us look good so that it's only appropriate that they receive your accommodation.
Don't be afraid.
Right here in the middle.
I do this a lot.
No one's to hold it.
It's not going right.
It has to stay here.
Hey Matt bring your team here to the center for a picture.
Suitable for framing.
Oh and come on in.
Thank you Scott for being here tonight and thank you to our finance team for that superb accomplishment.
Okay this brings us to the citizen comments portion of our agenda.
This is an opportunity for citizens to comment on any topic that is not on this evening's agenda.
As a reminder you had the opportunity to sign in the kiosk out front on your way in but if you were unable to do so we're happy to hear your comments at the end of those that have signed in and I will begin with Lindsey.
Jennifer Hamill has signed in.
Welcome.
Please come forward and state your name and address on the record and we look forward to your thoughts.
It's helping Matt.
Microphone's already on so you're ready to go.
Sorry I'm short.
Jennifer Hamill five seven two five Trafalgar Lane.
Good evening members of council.
In honor of St. Patrick's Day I'm asking city council to keep Dublin green and safe for families by eliminating industrial uses near homes.
Last spring a disdain for data centers manufacturing research development and warehouses next to our neighborhoods brought the residents of balance and who should road together.
This council not to redistrict several W. W. I. D. parcels south of Shire rings east of railroad tracks for any industrial purposes.
My impression when council table the vote at that time was that these was that the city would look into what else they could do in that space.
The only progress we've seen so far is that there might not be data centers but it appears manufacturing advanced manufacturing research and development.
All of those types of options are going full steam ahead and further city staff has directed the planning and zoning commission not to consider residential uses at all against the current wishes of the property owners and against the results of very recent resident surveys.
Why are city council and city staff unwilling to take current property owners concerns and suggestion into account when mayor grooms herself specifically stated in these council chambers last April that you would do so.
Instead of meeting residents in the middle where maybe we give up residential if the city gives up data centers manufacturing and R&D for something like retail space or restaurants or expansion and other items related to the expansion of sports Ohio.
Why are council and city staff have not looked into adding why of council and city staff only looked into adding more landscaping to hide potentially dangerous advanced manufacturing or R&D sites from view.
Potential risks from toxic materials processes by products have no place in Dublin on either side of the tracks.
R&D sites that create these risks should be 100% prohibited near residential areas in the Dublin families that call them home.
Mounding and 200 foot setbacks are not a solution to the problem of permitting changes trying to hide potentially harmful and uses behind smoke and mirrors or in this case,
which amounts of grass and trees demonstrates a lack of understanding on the part of council about what it means to residents to truly keep Dublin green and safe for families.
Therefore, the residents of Ballot Ray and Hootra Road are asking all area residents to join us and a letter writing campaign to city council demanding change.
We hope this time that you'll listen to mayor groom's previous direction and take meaningful action toward addressing our concerns.
You can do this by revising and vision Dublin to reflect no industrial uses near homes and demonstrating your support for the health and happiness of the residents you served.
Thank you. Lindsay next.
Daniel Hamill. Welcome. Please come forward and state your name and answer in the record and we welcome your thoughts.
I'll balance raise back. Dan Hamill 5725, Trafalgar Lane. Good evening, members of council.
I referenced back on January 5th. Mayor grooms is quote that my lovely wife just was referencing about those to those in attendance back then in the April 2025 city council meeting that they were all against that rezoning at that time and you guys tabled it.
Mayor Amor's group said to those in attendance in council chambers so I'm going to reference that quote that my wife was speaking about.
There are property owners that are anticipating the use of their land and we have to be mindful of everyone.
I just spoke with those people not too long ago within the last week and they don't believe that they've been they don't believe that their thoughts and considerations have been taken into account.
That parcel number is 274001419. With that in mind the land overs officially withdrew their support to the city changing the zoning to tech flex in an email dated January 22nd to Jeremiah Garcia and I believe Jenny Rausch and Zach was also on that email.
Last week at the state of the city city manager Megan O'Kellan mentioned the city of Dublin's growth has been thoughtful and resident different. I would agree so far.
But when referencing the WID she said that the current plan is strengthening the daily life of residents. I can tell you right now that there's not one person near the WID and balancer that feels that way.
With all that in mind why the city staff continue to bring proposals to P and Z and city council that are not actually thoughtful to nearby residents that don't take into account the current land owners thoughts and considerations and is definitely not strengthening the daily life of the residents nearby those are your words those were your directives not mine those were yours.
Why aren't they being followed why aren't those words being followed I just I have a particularly hard time understanding why they're not.
It's been over 11 months since that April 7th 2025 council meeting and the lack of progress and collaboration on what will actually go into these parcels it really has been disappointing.
The collaboration we wish for back in April was what was what can we get in there what can we all agree with.
It seems to me that the only ones negotiating the ones that are giving are us the residents and balancer and that's really disappointed I don't think that's your intent to not follow your directives but that's how the city and balancer is feels right now right or wrong that's that's what the residents feel.
Mr. Keeler I noticed a couple weeks ago in the last council you mentioned your data center webinar I understand that webinar and you even mentioned it was based date pro data center it was from them.
I do know that there is another data center webinar that's kind of does a point counterpoint to that so I don't know if you've seen it but if you could maybe look at that and maybe report just to have an even keel and present what you saw on that one too so that's all I have thanks again for your time.
Very good thank you so much Lindsey. I have several comments that have come in online that I'll read into the record.
First from Victoria McDonald 5642 time castle loop with the subject of wood. Good evening council members concerns about the West Innovation District and its impact the lives of families in Dublin there is still much to be regarded when it comes to city council hearing our requests.
Yes you have listened to our repeated concerns about the movement to not allow data centers but have you heard our concerns about the greater impact that any type of industrial development could have on the well being of our families.
We ask that you keep Dublin green and family safe do not permit industrial land uses near homes it is unsafe.
Mounding and setbacks merely hide the potential development it does not mitigate or protect from the risks of toxic material processes by industrial manufacturing and technology further we ask that you also keep put your road residents safe.
Dublin's economic growth cannot come at the expense of families as stated recently at the state of the city Dublin is thriving and the fiscal projections continue to demonstrate that we do not need to plan without considering the long term implications.
I respectfully ask that you revise the envision Dublin plan and Dublin zoning code accordingly thank you Victoria McDonald.
Next is from Amy Swank 5945 Van dollar place with the subject of keep Dublin green and safe for families.
City council please keep Dublin green and family safe do not permit industrial land uses near homes it is unsafe a 200 foot setback and mounding does not protect Dublin's children from the risks of toxic materials processes and byproducts of industrial manufacturing and technology.
Additionally permitting industrial uses west of the railroad track still in dangers residents particularly when no zoning code changes have been proposed.
Dublin's growth cannot come at the expense of resident health and safety I respectfully request that you revise the envision Dublin plan and Dublin zoning code accordingly and vote no on ordinance 0 6-25 thank you Amy Swank from come all all bridge.
Next is from Amy Swank 5945 Van dollar place with the subject of keep Dublin green and family safe do not permit industrial land uses near homes it is unsafe a 200 foot setback and mounding does not protect Dublin's children from the risks of toxic materials processes and byproducts of industrial manufacturing and technology.
Next is from Amy Swank 5945 Van dollar place with the subject of keep Dublin green and family safe do not permit industrial use west of the railroad track still in dangers residents particularly when zoning code changes have been proposed have no code have changes have been proposed.
Dublin's growth cannot come at the expense of resident health and safety I respectfully request that you revise the envision Dublin plan and Dublin zoning code accordingly and vote no on ordinance 0 6-25 thank you come all.
Next is from Kelly Weber 65 96 balance rate place subject protect balance rate.
Dear City Council please keep Dublin green and families safe I was the ninth house to be built and balance rate and grew up in Dublin I've been here almost 25 years and what my neighborhood to stay safe and clean as I believe Dublin once as well please do not permit industrial land uses near homes.
It is unsafe a 200 foot setback and mounding does not protect Dublin's children from the risks of toxic materials processes and byproducts of industrial manufacturing and technology.
Additionally permitting industrial uses west of the railroad track still in dangers residents particularly when no zoning code changes have been proposed.
This growth cannot come at the expense of resident health and safety I respectfully request that you revise the envision Dublin plan and zoning code accordingly and vote no on ordinance 0 6-25 thank you Kelly.
And that concludes the comments that have been submitted this evening.
I'm sorry there was one other one from Matthew Connolly thank you Jenny Matthew Connolly 6000 Hootured Road subject keep Dublin green and safe.
City Council my name is Matt Connolly I live at 6000 Hootured Road please keep Dublin green and family safe by not permitting industrial land uses near residential neighborhoods.
These uses introduced risks associated with toxic materials manufacturing processes and industrial byproducts that a 200 foot setback and mounding cannot fully mitigate especially for Dublin's children and nearby residents.
This is a long industrial development west of the railroad track still places surrounding neighborhoods at risk particularly when no corresponding zoning code protections have been proposed.
Dublin's growth should not come at the expense of resident health and safety I respectfully ask that you revise the envision Dublin plan and Dublin zoning code to better protect existing neighborhoods and vote no on ordinance 0 6-25 thank you for your consideration respectfully Matt Connolly.
Any anything else? Any others online?
Okay is there anyone present this evening that did not have an opportunity to sign in at the kiosk that would like to speak on something that is not on this evening's agenda.
Hearing none we will move on to the consent agenda is there a request to remove the meetings of the February 23rd regular city council meeting from the consent agenda.
Hearing none I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda is there a second Jenny which please call the roll.
Ms. Cram yes mayor Amro's group yes Mr. Keeler yes Dr. Lamb yes miss Aludo yes miss Johnson yes vice mayor de rosa yes.
Okay this brings us to second reading public hearing ordinances I'd like to make a motion to waive the council rules of order and read ordinances 0 7-26 through 13-26 together is there a second.
Thank you Jenny which please call the roll mayor Amro's group yes miss Cram yes miss Johnson yes vice mayor de rosa yes.
Mr. Keeler yes Dr. Lamb yes miss Aludo yes ordinance 7-26 authorizing the city manager to execute an accept necessary conveyance documents and contracts to acquire a 0.019 acre warranty deed and a 0.074 acre easement from the property located at 7065 Shire rings road identified as Franklin County
passed number 272 00233 from Jason R. Huffman for the public purpose of constructing a shared use path which shall be opened to the public without charge ordinance 0 8-26 is
regarding acquiring a 0.021 acre warranty deed and a 0.086 acre easement from the property located at 7055 Shire rings road from Jason Huffman ordinance 0 9-26 acquiring a 0.12 acre easement and
a 0.024 acre warranty deed from the property located at 7025 Shire rings road from Darryl K Schwerk and Stephanie A Schwerk ordinance 10-26 is acquiring a 0.082 acre easement from the property located at 6111 holiday lane from Michael E Ramsey and Sharon D Ramsey ordinance 11-26 acquiring a 0.068 acre easement from the property
located at 6110 holiday lane from Allen Abou Hassan and Rachel Abou Hassan ordinance 12-26 acquiring a 0.071 acre easement from the property located at 6957 Shire rings road from Ronnie C. Green
and ordinance 13-26 acquiring a 0.091 acre easement from the property located at 6113 Shire Lane from Barry Mesa Jr. and Angela Michelle Mesa.
Very good thank you our staff report will be brought forward this evening by Brian gave a welcome.
Good evening members of council. I have no new or updated information to present regarding these ordinances since the first reading staff recommends adoption of ordinances 07-26 through 13-26 and I would be glad to address any questions council may have regarding these ordinances.
Very good thank you is there anyone present this evening from the general public that would like to speak relative to this legislation.
Hearing none council questions discussion Jenny which please call the roll.
Vice Mayor DeRosa. Yes mayor and roast rooms. Yes. Miss Johnson. Yes. Dr. Lam. Yes. Miss Soludo. Yes. Mr. Keeler. Yes. Miss Cram. Yes. Very good ordinance 14-26.
Yes. Appropriate a 0.090 acre easement from the property located at 6114 Shire Lane identified as Franklin County person number 272-00357 from James A. Rave for the public purpose of constructing a shared use path which shall be open to the public without charge.
And our staff report will again be brought forward by Brian gave cable.
Good evening thank you members of council. Once again I have no new or updated information regarding this ordinance staff continues to recommend adoption of ordinance 14-26
and I would be glad to address any questions council may have. Very good thank you is there anyone present this evening from the general public that would like to speak relative to this legislation.
Hearing none council questions discussion. Jenny which please call the roll. Dr. Lam. Yes. Miss Soludo. Yes. Miss Cram. Yes. Miss Johnson. Yes. Vice Mayor DeRosa. Yes. Mayor and roast rooms. Yes. Mr. Keeler. Yes.
Ordinance 15-26. Amending chapter 72 and 75 of Dublin's codified ordinances to enhance safety regulations from micromobility devices and other similar devices.
Very good our staff report will be brought forward this evening by Jenny Willis welcome. Thank you. Good evening members of council council. Staff is pleased to be back before you this evening for the second reading of ordinance 15-26.
The draft code provided with materials for this meeting are largely unchanged from the introduction at the February 23rd meeting. There are two changes to the proposed code however based on council feedback and public inquiry.
The updated code sections are as shown on the screen including clarifying writing on the right side of the roadway and reinstating the helmet requirement for micromobility device riders aged under 16 years old.
The proposed code now deletes section 75.06 B. This revision ensures that the code is consistent in aligns with aligns with current state law.
Exceptions to writing on the right side of the roadway have been moved to section 75.06 A. This change improves clarity by placing the general requirement in this same section as the exceptions so all the regulations are in one place.
The draft code clarifies section 75.04 writing bicycles micromobility devices motorized bicycles and motorcycles abreast by removing the code language that is more rationally included in 75.06 A.
And with these changes staff recommends adoption of ordinance 15-26 tonight. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Very good. Thank you. Is there anyone present this evening from the general public that would like to speak relative to this legislation and I understand we have one comment that was submitted online.
Patricia Covex has signed into speak. Oh, very good. Welcome. Please come forward and state your name and address into the record and we welcome your thoughts.
If you could please press the little button there there. We'll turn your microphone on. You're there. You go. Good evening, Mayor groups and members of council.
My name is Patricia Covex. I live in Gahan, Ohio. 527 hammer ship drive. But I ride my bike in Dublin and I lead bike tours from Dublin and through Dublin with the Columbus outdoor pursuits bicycle tours.
And I'm here to support the changes to the Dublin ordinances. I want to thank you for removing the requirements ride within three foot of the edge of the roadway and also for the move of the exceptions to the proper place in the ordinances.
So I want to specifically thank Jenny Dogado and Kendall Blake and Genie Wells for falling up with me and supporting my suggestions and let me know when the hearings would be.
I did read the legislation and with a fine Tuesday's come last night. I found a few very minor changes that I will rather than reading them here. I'll just forward the month to the folks that are.
That I've corresponded with little stuff like I think motorized bicycles should be put here and can we park in a parking garage can we ride a parking garage to park our bicycles just little stuff.
But I just want to say I really love the legislation that meets the state law. My goal is to keep all the cities in the central Ohio consistent so we don't have to figure out like when I go to Dublin, I do this, I go back to do that.
But when I really love, I just want to say is that you prohibit blocking a bench when parking and that really bugs me when people block benches because I'm an old person and I like to rest sometimes.
So thank you for all these changes and I think you did a good job.
Very good. Well, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Anyone else care to speak with regard to this legislation hearing none council questions discussion.
First, thank you to city staff for your work on this on this ordinance and responsiveness to the comments that we've made and I also appreciate the discussion among my fellow council members.
We obviously share a concern for the safety of our residents, especially our young riders. While I generally support this ordinance, I will continue to have reservations for the rest of my term on provisions that might be difficult to realistically enforce.
But that being being said, I respect the intent of the helmet law and I have no intention on voting against the ordinance this evening.
It is my further hope that we carry the same seriousness about resident safety into decisions that are ahead of us as council and city staff, particularly as we consider zoning changes that could place industrial and advanced manufacturing development next to established residences and neighborhoods.
So if safety is our guiding principle tonight, as we consider voting on this ordinance, it should remain our guiding principle as we move forward. So thank you.
Thank you. Others?
So I'd like to thank staff as well. Unfortunately, city of Delaware, I think was a little late and they lost one of their teens in an accident.
So I mourn his loss. Question about lights. I had a resident text me. I think it was a week ago. It was a very hazy evening. It's kind of misty and there were some young folks on scooters traveling pretty fast down a sidewalk and they more or less pulled right in front of him when he had pulled to a stop.
He almost hit them. So he asked me. Our lights required. I know most of the scooters that are purchased have lights. I think the ones that are rented have lights. But is that a requirement? Thanks.
Yes. Yes. So in 75.05 a one. That's going to cover lamp mounting on the devices. It's certain times, but yes, it is in the code.
Yes, they are required to be on the devices per their code. So to answer your question after after dusk or dark or at all, they come on like when you're writing it or they're reflective. So yes.
So thank you staff for your work on this.
I'm excited to see these changes implemented. So what is the thinking about communication rollout? Could you give us a little bit of an update on that? Thank you.
So that was highlighted in our presentation on whatever day that was February 23rd. Thank you. And so there is a broad we have many communication channels that are available to us.
The educational materials that were presented in terms of the micrability matrix that shows the yes, the no where things are applicable where they're not applicable.
We have a micrability one pager. Our police staff have been working on a tool to roll out on our website that says, OK, this is the type of device I have.
Do I have to wear a helmet? This is my age. This is where I can ride it legally. This is where I can't ride it. We have videos. We have.
Thank you. I didn't mean I just sort of meant timing. Oh, we'll start working on that right away. Like we already have the micrability one pager ready to go.
As soon as this becomes once a 30 day period is over, we will start rolling out all of these materials. OK, so it'll be sooner. Yeah. And Greg and I had an opportunity at the council liaison meeting to speak a little bit about these upcoming.
And so there was the discussion about coordinating with the schools. Yes, that would be a good conversation. So yes, and on that timing with them. But if it's like 30 days, I'm just trying to get a sense of that as we head into the spring.
Yeah, we also are working on our bike friendly communication or application again. And so we are communicating with the schools both on that and with these micrability code changes so that all of that.
The coordination is happening in all the conversations are happening so that the schools can align with what we're doing and.
The work gets out through the emails that the school sends out to the parents and all of that. So yes, yes.
And our comment refers to more of the enforcement of these things because the question I get from most of my residents are, well, how are we going to enforce lately?
I see people writing by on their many motorcycles on or should pass all the time. So how are we going to educate the public on how we're enforcing it? I'm assuming it's going to kind of be like our speeding, right? So more people report in a certain area. We'll watch it.
But how do we let our residents know to report it? Or like how should they be re-reporting it?
So I just wanted to add to what Jeannie said about the educational component real quick as well. We're going to use our school resource officers to make sure that they're talking to the kiddos during school and then passing that message on to the parents.
So we're going to take an education first approach as opposed to a strong enforcement approach. But we also have to educate our officers because these are legal changes and our officers are often find themselves in the place of, is this legal? Is this not legal? And so we have to educate those officers and then move forward with that.
Does that help? It does. I guess just for the residents who encounter an incident, like someone speeding past a mountain motorcycle, like what would they do? Like and how are we letting them know what to do?
So we would encourage them to call us. It's called us on non-emergency line unless they're reporting it. Because obviously it's long gone. So you're just kind of kind of keep track of where these incidents are occurring.
We could also follow up with whatever information they provide. So that's why we would ask residents to call us regardless of what they see. They see something that they believe is illegal or unsafe. We would request that they call us our officers can follow up with whatever information there is to see what we can do.
And hopefully most of these cases are going to be education. You just let them know it's not legal. But ultimately, just hypothetically, who is the 15 year old that's writing the thing, the person who's actually responsible?
I mean, are that the person who get, if they repeatedly are writing their motorcycle and you catch them?
Yeah, so there's a good educational opportunity for the child and the parents, but we also have a piece that I'll have Joe cover that puts the responsibility on the parents.
Yeah, so that was that was kind of the point of also adding the parent responsibility piece so that it's too pronged one, the rider say it's a 17 year old, 18 year old, whoever.
But also if it's a kid out there writing it responsibly, the parent can also be on the hook.
I just think that's an important component of our education is how people actually enforce this.
Absolutely. And we have built in that parent responsibility portion of the code into our materials and that will certainly be shared with the community.
Okay, yep, great. Thank you.
I know we're going to lean heavily on the schools, on the educational piece, so I normally wouldn't request this because it's such a small number of students.
But it's close to 700 students that live within city limits that attend Hillard City School.
So I just want to make the comment, let's make sure that we include them in the educational portion because I do see this in my neighborhood too.
Very good point. Thank you.
Well, certainly it is a appropriate time of the year today is a healthy reminder that spring may come and that the cycling season may be upon us, so.
Appreciate all the work on that.
If there are no further questions, Jenny, which please call the roll?
Ms. Cram.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes. Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
Ms. Ludo.
Yes. Vice Mayor D'Rosa.
Yes.
Mr. Keeler.
Yes.
Mayor M. Rosegrooms.
Yes.
Okay, this brings us introduction first reading ordinance portion of our agenda.
I will make a motion away of the council rules of order and read ordinances 16-26 through 18-26 together.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you, Jenny, which please call the roll?
Ms. Ludo.
Yes. Mr. Keeler.
Yes.
Ms. Cram.
Yes. Mayor M. Rosegrooms.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes. Vice Mayor D'Rosa.
Yes.
Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
The point is being that the RIS commission is currently clarified on the assembly floor of the Council.
And since the remission was passed on, what measures are the choice of the entity to receive from the property located at 5689Avery road from Toyota properties sp1.7 LLC?
And ordinance 18-26 is acquiring a 0. 07.6 acre warranty deed from the property located at 5695Avery road from Ohio venture properties LLC.
I'll do so.
We will go back to Brian Gabel with this staff report. Welcome back.
Good evening again, members of council.
The shared use path project will construct a shared use path along the west side of
Avery Road, connecting two existing shared use paths and improving the overall shared use
path network connectivity, filling in one of the last shared use path gaps along Avery
Road.
Acquisition of property interest from three property owners in the project area is necessary
to construct the project.
The three ordinances before Council this evening provide for three acquisitions of property
as detailed in the staff memo.
The city has participated in good faith discussions with the property owners and have
arrived at mutually agreeable terms.
These three ordinances complete the acquisitions for this project.
The adoption of these ordinances authorize the city manager to execute all necessary conveyance
documents and contracts to formally acquire the necessary property interest.
Staff recommends adoption of ordinances 16-26 through 18-26 at the second reading public
hearing on March 23rd, 2026.
I do my best to address any questions Council may have regarding these ordinances.
Very good.
Thank you.
Is there anyone present this evening from the general public that would like to speak relative
to this legislation hearing none council questions discussion on the aerial is the parcel
to the north that's vacant is that an old aerial and there's something on there that has
a shared use path or we still have a gap in the path there.
The path will fit within the existing right away on that parcel.
So it is going to be constructed with the project but we don't need to acquire land
okay so we do have an approved development plan for that parcel there that has a path
on it.
No there's no path on the vacant land just north it's on the right side of the screen
here.
We will be building a shared use path across that vacant land to connect to the shared
use path that's just north and just off the screen but we just didn't need to get right
we got it.
Correct.
We didn't need to acquire the right away.
Yes.
We already had it.
Other questions?
Hearing none.
We will look forward to second reading public hearings scheduled for March 23rd, 2026.
Thank you Brian.
This brings us to the introduction public hearing vote resolution portion of our agenda
and we will begin with resolution 10-26 accepting the lowest and best bid for the shared
use path in parking lot maintenance 2026 project.
I'll introduce it.
In the hardest working guy in the room tonight Brian Gabel we'll be our staff report.
I get the gold star I suppose.
Good evening members of council.
Staff conducted a competitive bid for the shared use path parking lot maintenance project
20 for 2026 which provides annual maintenance in various locations on the shared use path
network and city parking lots.
This project is funded from the 2026 through 2030 capital improvements program in the
amount of $369,000 for the annual shared use path maintenance and $161,000 for the annual
parking lot maintenance for a combined total budget of $530,000.
The engineers estimate for this project is $670,000.
On February 11th, 2026 seven bids were received and publicly opened with one non-responsive bid
which was due to several missing bid components.
Brex Paving submitted the lowest and best bid of $530,634.37.
Everyone is expected to commence in May and be completed by October of this year.
Available work dates within the parking lots and pertinent paths were coordinated with
events and parks and rec to ensure impacts will be kept to a minimum wherever feasible.
These work restrictions were included as part of the project bid.
Staff recommends council approval of this resolution accepting as low as the best bid
of Brex Paving in the amount of $530,634.37 for this project.
I would be glad to address any questions council may have regarding this resolution.
Very good.
Thank you.
I want to take a moment for public comment.
Is there anyone present this evening from the general public that would like to speak
relative to this legislation?
Hearing none, council questions, discussion?
This is more general about our shared use path.
What's kind of the lifespan before we do this maintenance work?
How often are we doing on these various stretches?
It really depends on the path, location and the conditions, wetter areas we're usually
having to go back to a little more frequently.
But those that dry have good cover and either dry out and see the sun, we don't usually
have to go back to regularly with resurfacing.
We will go back to paths probably between every five and ten years to reseal them just
to try and kind of seal up the voids that have lost over the time.
But other than that, some root pruning repairs from damages like that or shrinks well
of dirt, but nothing too crazy.
So this maintenance work, it's all the second half of what you just said, it's not complete
redoing.
Or is this complete redoing?
It depends on the exact location.
Some of these paths are getting resurfaced, meaning we just take the top layer off.
There's still a base that's there that we leave in place most of the time.
We don't have any full depth that I don't believe in this year's program, so it's a lot
of just inch and a half resurfacing plus sealing plus some of them are just crack seal in
general.
Okay.
I was just curious because I was surprised to see the Riverside Crossing Park one on here
because it doesn't seem that old and I was like, where are we going back to there already?
I was just curious why.
Yeah, that one's resealing.
A lot of the paths have aged and worn down.
They just need a good seal code again to kind of continue to stay for the duration that
we're expecting out of it.
Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Other questions?
Very non-genie, which please call the roll.
Ms. Johnson?
Yes.
Dr. Lam?
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
Ms. Cram?
Yes.
Mayor Amro's grooms?
Yes.
Ms. Ludo?
Yes.
Resolution 11-26.
Accepting the lowest and best bid for the annual sidewalk maintenance program 2026.
I'll just sit.
And maybe for the last time tonight we'll stay with Brian Gable on staff report.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Again, members of council.
Let me start this.
Staff conducted a competitive bid pro, excuse me, process for the annual sidewalk maintenance
program for 2026, which consists of replacing concrete sidewalk in various locations within
the city.
The program is funded from the 2026 through 2030 capital improvements program in the amount
of $350,000 for the annual sidewalk maintenance.
Regarding trees, each site is unique and reviewed by engineering and forestry staff for tree
conflicts, which involves analyzing actual root impacts prior to any cutting.
Staff communicates impacts to the residents where the tree is located.
For trees that may require removal, staff is offering sidewalk meandering to the affected
owners.
Should the owner not desire meandering, some testing can be done by staff prior to removing
the trees and after the effect of roots have been trimmed, as always, our goal is to preserve
trees wherever possible.
In 2025 and 2024, 11 trees were required to be removed in each year's program.
And in 2023, only four street trees were required removal by the program.
In 21, three sidewalk meandering's occurred, since then, no meandering's have been able
to be performed due to site-specific constraints or the owner declining the proposal to meandering.
The city also utilizes a sidewalk shaving and now leveling as maintenance strategies prior
to recommending replacement within this program.
Sidewalk shaving is funded from the remainder of funds within the annual sidewalk maintenance
CIP account.
The engineer's estimate for the program is $365,000 and on February 18th, 2026, five bids
were received and publicly opened.
And Coburn's concrete LLC submitted the lowest and best bid of $317,443.96.
Staff recommends council approval of resolution 11-26, accepting as lowest and best the bid
of Coburn's concrete LLC, in the amount of $317,443, or excuse me, $317,443.96 for this
program.
I'd be glad to address any questions council may have regarding this resolution.
Very good.
Thank you.
Is there anyone present from the general public that would like to speak relative to this legislation?
Hearing none.
Council questions.
Discussion?
Thank you very much.
And thanks for your continued work on not removing the trees.
You know, that's always my favorite subject of the evening.
11 is, you know, still a good number, but more than we've done in the past.
So were they aged out trees, didn't want to be under, what would, why, why 11 versus
what we've been down to, two and three and four?
Yeah.
It depends on each year and each year.
It just depends on the tree, the tree species, how they grow, and how shallow those larger
roots are.
So some of the tree species will grow deeper roots, even though some of the smaller ones
will still deflect the sidewalks and others where we'll be more shallow and unfortunately
causes to have to shift those.
So in 24, we also had 11 removals as well as 25, so last two years, we've had 11.
You know, staff works very hard, the forestry staff and our staff goes out ahead of time
and identifies places where we have concerns.
We've already done that for this year's program and begun discussions with some of
the owners.
You know, one of them is on Golden Place and trying to do what we can to facilitate that
meandering as well to be shift wherever we can.
So unfortunately a lot of the times one owners, okay with it, the second owner is not and
we just aren't able to perform the meandering at that point.
So we go through, we'll cut the roots that we have to and then like I said, forestry
staff comes back, checks the tree to see if it's feasible to leave in place and if not,
then we have to remove them.
But they do plan another tree afterwards, so we always replace those, so sorry.
So I appreciate that I knew demandering was one option and I know there are options
to actually, if you will, elevate the sidewalk versus, so I don't know if we've done any
of that but would encourage experimenting with that if we haven't.
So continue to find ways to do this, appreciate it because many of those trees are 15,
20, 20 year old trees.
So thank you for your work on that and continue diligence and experimentation, appreciate
it.
Other questions, discussion?
You know, I noticed in Mirfield, I realized that we don't have any sidewalks in Mirfield,
they have their own trails but oftentimes there are storm utility basins that are located
in the middle of a Mirfield-owned walking path.
Have we taken an account into, some of those are in a compromised state?
So how do we check in on those and I know we track all of these things through the GIS
systems but where would those, where would addressing those bodies be found if not in
the sidewalk program?
So in a specific location, some of those may be private so we'd have to look at the specifics
but we do go through and inspect, you try to inspect the portion of the city's storm
and sanitary infrastructure each year and that work would be performed under our storm
structure maintenance program or our sanitary structure maintenance program and those annually
usually come out closer to the fall.
So last year, we had a storm structure maintenance that came out in late 25.
Well, I guess I would request then when we do those assessments this year that we include
those bodies in Mirfield because while they are not in the street, you know, they don't
get the attention when we do road resurfacing and things like that, you know, many of the
streets don't have curb and gutter in that area and they're usually located in other places
and some of those look to be, some are located within the sidewalk or the multi-use path
and as the case might be in Mirfield and some are not but it does appear that there are
a significant number of those that might be ripe for some attention.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll make a note to check into those that are the city's responsibility.
Very good.
Thank you.
Okay.
If there are no further questions or discussion points, Jenny would you please call the
roll?
Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
Mayor M.
Ms. Oluto.
Yes.
Ms. Cram.
Yes.
Mr. Keeler.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Resolution 12-26.
Accepting the lowest and best bid for the 2026 street tree pruning contract and authorizing
the city manager to enter into contract for the project.
I'll do so.
Very good.
And our staff report this evening will be brought forward by Jay Henderson.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Good evening, members of council.
Before you this evening is Resolution 12-26 to accept the bid for the 2026 street pruning
contract.
This contract is executed on one year term.
The program's goal is to ensure that every street tree is visually inspected for pruning
needs once every three years.
This contract includes street tree pruning of 2,747 trees on 83 residential streets.
Residents can find additional information about the program on the street tree pruning
landing page and access our interactive map of the trees identified in this program.
This contract requires that a certified arborist is onsite and actively guiding each pruning
grew during pruning operations.
Established timeframes to the completion of designated street tree groupings have been
incorporated to ensure that pruning progresses at a consistent and predictable place.
Our specifications continued to emphasize the importance of achieving high quality professional
aesthetic appearance following all pruning activities.
Our city forester and city forestry staff closely monitor their contractor's performance
throughout the contract period.
There were three bids received and submitted for this contract.
The Davy Tree Expert Company was the lowest bid at $192,195, but due to Davy failing
to submit their bid bond, the bid was deemed non-responsive.
Next lowest bid was Joseph Tree Service in the amount of $280,772, which was 6.4% below
the budgeted amount for this project in the current operating budget.
Since holding the street tree pruning contract in 2024, Joseph Tree Service has undergone
significant changes in its staffing structure.
They have doubled the number of certified arborists on their team from five now to ten and
have one master arborist on staff as of now.
Since 2025, the city has successfully utilized Joseph Tree Service on three different street
tree pruning projects, which included a total amount of trees of 745 that were per.
Staff has thoroughly reviewed the bid, submitted by Joseph Tree Service.
Joseph Tree Service has performed previous projects as discussed for the city and the city's
experience overall, which Joseph is satisfactory.
Staff is recommending approval of Resolution 12-26.
Myself and city forester Jeff Myers, who is with us this evening, are you happy to answer
any questions you may have?
Thank you.
Very good.
Thank you.
I want to take a moment for public comment.
Is there anyone present this evening from the general public that would like to speak
relative to this legislation?
Hearing none, council questions, discussion?
I have one request.
Being that the bids came in under budget and there might be some room in there.
At the intersection of Avery, Mirfield, and 33, I think those trees are now to the age
where some structural appropriate pruning might be appropriate.
If there is room in the budget and we could add anything, if someone could take a look at
the entirety of that intersection, including a long Avery, Mirfield near the bridge where
it crosses over 33 in the intersection as well.
If there is opportunity, that might be a good place to spend time.
Absolutely.
Okay.
I know that in the areas where there is a lot of mature trees, I'm looking at, again, the
map here, we're going to be covering those areas with a lot of the mature trees.
I know the residents, I want to say appreciate the information that goes out about pruning
about the oversight of those types of things.
I can't say strongly enough how important it is to have some of that out prior to the
staff showing up.
And I might also ask that we include in there a little bit about how your team supervises
and what they're looking for, et cetera, because I know everybody has an opinion on how
the trees should be pruned, yeah, including me, right?
So we all do as homeowners and we love those trees.
So if we could include in that information, what your team does to supervise, I think that
would go, that would be quite helpful.
Absolutely.
That's great.
I do.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Very good.
If there is nothing further, Jenny, would you please call the roll?
Mr. Keeler?
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
Miss Cram?
Yes.
Mayor Ambrose-Grums?
Yes.
Miss Johnson?
Yes.
Dr. Lamb?
Yes.
Miss Aluto?
Yes.
Okay.
This brings us to the other business portion of our agenda.
And we will begin that with the Columbus 4th Water Plant Transmission main update and our staff
report will be brought forward by Mike Barker, Steve Nocera and Tim Huffman from the
City of Columbus.
So the moment you all have been waiting for there in the second row.
Good evening, members of council.
Tonight we're joined by representatives of the City of Columbus and their consultant team.
They're going to be providing a city council with an update on the city's water plant transmission
mains project, which supports a new home road water plant in the infrastructure needed
to deliver water throughout the region.
And certainly that includes Dublin.
Since the last briefing to council, Dublin staff have been actively coordinating with the
City of Columbus and its consultants as the design has advanced to ensure that Dublin's
interests are represented, particularly regarding alignment refinements, traffic management,
construction impacts, and outreach to residents and businesses along the corridor.
This evening the team will provide an update on the alignment refinement efforts in Dublin
and current project status, the schedule, ongoing public outreach efforts.
So with that, I will turn it over to Tim Huffman and Steve Nocera.
Good evening.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, City Council for having us.
I'd like to thank Megan, Mike, Brian, and his staff.
We've met with them several times and you will see.
It's been a very good process so far and look forward to answering any questions tonight.
Our team will be introducing them.
We're going to go over, as Mike said, the refinements from the last time we were here a couple
of years ago.
I can't believe it's been two years already.
We've done a lot in two years.
We're going to discuss Mirfield Drive, Irlington Parkway.
We're going to go over the current project where it stands, update you on the schedule for
bidding and phasing and our plan for public outreach and just go over a few benefits for
the city of Dublin outside of a large transmission main being constructed in the city and then
go on over next steps.
I'm Tim Huffman.
I'm the manager of the distribution engineering section for the Division of Water.
Steve Nocera is our project manager.
We have Matt Casey with MS Consultants, he's the project manager with Katie Nolan with
Christian Smith.
She's our co deputy project manager with Marie Keester with Murphy Epson and Nick Huffman
with Murphy Epson.
They're all here tonight to cheer us on.
With that, I will let Steve take it over.
Thank you, Tim.
We'll thank you for having us tonight to give you an update on this.
I also want to thank Dublin staff, like Tim said, it's been about two years of hard work
that we've been working with staff on this project.
I hope that the good work continues till the project completion.
Do want to go over a little bit of a recap since it's been so long and I see some new faces
on council.
What the design team presented last time.
Why Central Ohio needs a new water plant and transmission means so the plant was first
conceived in the water beyond 2000 master plan of 1998 if you believe it or not.
I don't think it's news to anybody here that Central Ohio is growing.
We're going from about 2.5 million people to over three by 2050.
We've already seen that growth in our system demand.
In 2023, our average day demand was 145 million gallons a day and 2025 last year is 156
million gallons a day.
The need to provide safe, clean drinking water for Ohio Central Ohio's future is the need
for this plant and transmission mean.
Goals of the transmission mean.
The goal is to select the most technically feasible, reliable, resilient and constructable
route.
It's to collaborate with stakeholders and to be open with the public and communicate
what we are doing.
It's also to minimize disruptions to the extent possible.
The evaluation process and corridor recommendation.
This is kind of what you saw if you were here two years ago.
These are all the corridors.
We evaluated.
It's over 100 miles of corridors.
We studied it.
We performed aerial mapping, identified existing utilities, did an environmental assessment,
identified conflicts and compared the corridors to each other in something called a pairwise
comparison.
Not going to get too deep in that, don't worry.
A pairwise comparison basically gives you a rubric in which you can compare two choices
to make a scientifically better choice or not.
Some of the rubrics we used were easements, traffic, impacts, environmental impacts, business
impacts, accessibility to the pipe, along with risk and cost.
If you really want to get into it, you can review our meeting slides from 2024.
They are posted on our website, cbuswater.com and the resources tab.
It goes through each one of those alignments and pretty depth, but we are not going to
do that here today.
From that, we got a recommended corridor.
From up north, the home road water plant, up at Dublin Road and home road all the way down
to connect to Columbus water and power distribution system on the south side there.
From that, we broke it into two different phases.
On the left, we have phase one and on the right phase two.
I will say that all those lines on there represent two 48 inch diameter water pipes.
In each section, so a total of four between them.
Right there.
That is two.
The red is one and the green, black and pink is one, if that makes sense.
We broke those apart into two different phases.
Now I want to talk a little bit about some key focus items.
Communication, that was one of our project goals is to be able to communicate with the
public that people know what we are doing.
Today, we have had two very large public meetings and we are planning a third one.
We have had over 20 meetings with staff, Dublin staff, and those are all topics of design,
construction, traffic, impact, traffic management, and those meetings will continue as we continue
through the project.
As I said, these are really large pipes, so if you can imagine 48 inch, that is the internal
diameter.
That does not include the walls of the pipe and then you have to build a trench to get
them.
There are going to be some large impacts on these mains.
There is no avoiding impacts.
I would not say sorry.
I have kind of misspoke there.
The impacts are not large.
The pipes are large, so there is going to have some impacts.
But we have been meeting with Dublin staff and seeing how we can minimize, avoid, or decrease
the duration of those impacts wherever we can.
So the good news is we are able to maintain two-way traffic during the most of the construction
zones.
That is an excellent thing we have been able to do and work out.
Some immediate areas are focused that we are working on right now is continued outreach
and meetings.
So, moral golf tournament, the Mirfield Ochoa, the Asherton apartments area.
So we have been working with those groups.
The Memorial Golf tournament, Mirfield Ochoa, have been excellent partners.
We have conveyed the needs of the project with them and they have understood the importance
of the project and have been wonderful to work with.
We are continuing outreach to the Asherton apartments on Erlington Parkway.
So alignment refinements.
So when you take those first couple of slides, the large corridor is going to get down to
a smaller alignment kind of within the roadway where we are putting it, then you can start
to refine the process a little bit.
So it is pretty natural that we are going to have a little bit of changes from what we presented
last time to now and we will go through a couple of the big ones and you can understand
why we made these choices.
So originally here, this is Park Center Avenue and Blazer Parkway.
So originally planning on connecting using the red line there, that is at Park Center
and Franz Road.
Instead, we are going to gum down Blazer Parkway and connect right by the water tower at that
location.
So what that will do is greatly minimize the impacts on rings and Franz Road and also
decrease the construction duration of the project.
Moving west across 270.
So originally and red there, we are supposed to come across 270, go down Warner Temple
Road and up Emerald Parkway.
Instead, we are going to go down Parkwood Place and what that allows us to do is avoid
Warner Temple Road and decrease the impacts of traffic on Emerald.
We are also able to keep those businesses complete access to their businesses.
Moving north to the brand road area.
So we are shifting from brand road and moving to Eurlington Parkway.
Some key reasons why, decrease traffic impacts, decrease construction duration, as well as
reducing the cost and construction difficulty.
We are also able to maintain the street scape within Eurlington.
I know this is a big one.
I'm sure everybody in this room is eager to know about Mirfield Drive.
So we've been working heavily with Memorial Tournament, Mirfield HOA and Dublin staff
on this and the plan is to do one main on each side of Mirfield.
So you might ask yourself why, one main and each side of Mirfield, many reasons.
So this will be a phase construction.
So we'll do one main on one side, allow us to shift traffic to the other side.
So that gives the contractor that work zone that is separate from traffic, so that's a key
safety issue, but it also allows the contractor to really work fast and decrease that duration
of construction.
So preserves landscape of the median, also has the shortest construction duration and least
impact to existing utilities.
It also accommodates the Mirfield Tournament schedule the best.
A really big point for us.
We're trying to really work hard and be a good partner there.
All right.
Current product status.
All right, easement negotiation acquisition is to begin soon.
We are seeking four easements from the city of Dublin.
So first is that park would place by 270 there on the south side.
Next one is within Coffman Park.
And then we go to the Wyandotte school area, which is in Erlington Park, and then a little
bit north of that across Grand Road, the property with a barn on Ashbaw Road there.
Some next steps that we're working on, upcoming meetings with effective property owners
and the public, coordinating with private utilities.
Again, these are large pipes and we always try to avoid conflicts.
It's better for everybody if there's no conflicts, right.
But there may be some.
And then incorporating all those meetings we've had recently with Dublin staff into maintenance
of traffic and to that 90% plan set that we're working towards.
All right.
This is what I showed you before.
So I just wanted to recap.
So this is originally phase one and phase two, I'm going to split it up for you a little
bit more.
And now phase two is just going to be what we call the Meerfield post connection.
So we're going to pick up where we left off on phase one and head south down Meerfield,
cross over on post and connect to part of phase one in Coffman Park there.
So the base mapping, the aerial survey is complete on that.
We're about to kick off design, so you'll be seeing some additional field work out there,
including more topographic survey, geotechnical, well monitoring, as for groundwater, cathodic
protection survey, that just protect our pipe from rust, archeological and ecological
survey also.
All right.
So set of two phases, now we're going to have three phases.
So phase three, what we call the river crossing and this is still a conceptual phase.
So expect some refinements on this as we get into design.
So here you can see Coffman Park area and we're going down Emerald Parkway, crossing south
on 270 and then hugging 270, crossing the side of the river and up Tuller Road all the
way to Snuffer and Somal Road for a connection point, all right.
This is a current schedule, subject to change, always, public outreach.
We're going to continue to notify jurisdictions when we're going out in the field.
We give 48 hour notice to all jurisdictions, even if we're just walking the site, we'll
continue the direct outreach to property owners along the route, scheduling that next
public meeting, providing information at the Dublin Market, Dublin Library Rec Center,
and other locations along the corridor, we're going to update it to the red type with
the latest route maps and schedule, benefits of dub, I didn't want to touch on some direct
benefits of dub.
So the new cutting edge home road power plant will serve Dublin, so you'll be getting
the best technology that we can put into a brand new water plant and that water will
be coming straight to Dublin.
That will also reinforce the city of Dublin's water system and overall resiliency and it
saved Dublin about $8 to $13 million needed the top size, that post road booster station,
it's actually going to be our first connection to the main, right in Coffman Park, right
to that suction pipe that's restricted and flow right now.
And then Columbus Water Empower will repay of affected streets and walking paths.
So just continuing our next steps, we're going to continue the phase one design to 90% we're
going to meet with Dublin City Schools, Mirfield HOA, the Memorial Golf Tournament, officials
and other property owners, we're going to meet and continue coordination with emergency
services and begin design on phase two, which is that Mirfield Brand Road down to post
over to Coffman.
All right.
Thank you very much and we'll happy to answer any questions we can.
Very good, thank you, I want to take a moment for a public comment, is there anyone present
this evening that would like to speak relative to this topic?
Hearing none, council questions, discussion?
Mr. Norsair, thank you so much for that wonderful presentation, there's someone who wasn't
here two years ago, this was very, very helpful.
I did have a quick question about the statistical analysis that you guys did to figure out what's
the best corridor for the plethora of choices that you had.
And you had mentioned, and this is just something I'm just kind of interested in, so this
is just for my own education.
But you had mentioned the pairwise analysis, so does that compare one choice to the other
and then how do you choose amongst the other ones to compare from those?
That's a great question and I understand the rationale behind that, so we compared them
all, we rank them in a score is how we did it, so it was really comparing itself to a
level and that.
I think I can, Matt, you want to come up here, do you want to say anything about this?
But yeah.
And then based on the score, it'll push out which one is the recommended one, so it
takes all the bias out of picking and alignment.
But you just compare two by two, right?
So then you can compare all of them against each other, so if you have six of them, you
compare all six against each other.
I see.
And then do you have a hierarchical rank as far as the different criteria that you guys
were using?
Yeah.
It's fascinating.
That's actually something reminiscent to what we use in medicine called the win ratio.
We're the same kind of thing.
We're instead of just comparing just a binary thing, you actually have a hierarchical designation
for the different criteria, you can compare one to the other, and then depending on how
it wins for each of that, then you can actually develop our criteria, a ranking criteria for
all of the different ones.
And so it sounds like a very similar method.
And I think that's actually a very robust method.
We looked at easements, we looked at business impacts, we looked at maintenance of traffic,
we had the cost, obviously the cost is either compared against all of the different alternatives.
So I think we had about six or seven different criteria that we scored on each alignment.
And based on this, the quarters that you guys have determined there were the clear winners?
Yeah, there's the clear winner.
Yeah.
And that first presentation does go in a lot more detail on that, including the rankings
and how we kind of pulled that together.
And the recommended quarters didn't necessarily win in every category, I will say.
So it was a choice.
Is that available on your website so you can see it?
Because I remember the first time you presented it, you went through all six alignments,
I think it was, and you had, maybe one has a lot of stone that you have to get through.
Another one has more traffic disruption or whatever, so I think it would be helpful
for him to see it.
Yeah, it's cbuswater.com and the Resources tab, and it's Dublin meeting as the date
on there.
I'm also happy to follow up and share a link to that presentation that was delivered
because I think there's nothing like how I walk through.
They did a great job walking through that whole analysis, so I think that would be helpful
for you to have.
I can do that after this meeting.
Thanks.
So first of all, I want to say thanks to both you and to staff for ensuring that we
maintained the median on Mirfield Drive.
These trees are not replaceable, right?
They've been there for a long time, and while I know that you will work to replace any
landscaping or anything that you just, there just is no replacing that.
In looking at your schedule, that construction will be occurring during the months where school
is in session.
That's a heavily used corridor, particularly for students who live up in that area who are
going to Rome now.
That's as I'm pending, I don't know what will happen with redistricting, but.
So I would just ask that you work with the schools to make sure that, because they each
have their newsletters, that information goes out so that kids can hopefully give themselves
an extra few minutes because it gets pretty congested there now.
And this is really going to impact that heavily, or even have the schools provide an alternative
route.
Just because I have a teenager who's just about to drive and all of his friends are driving
and they get a little bit wild out there, so be great to be ahead of that with families.
But I really, truly appreciate the preservation of that meeting, because it is not replaceable.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
We'll be meeting with the schools as Steve presented, and quite frankly, the engineering
staff has been helping us through all that, and I can guarantee there'll be much, many
more meetings and discussions about pedestrian paths during construction, because there is
going to be some disruption, specifically through the Mirfield corridor there.
Yeah, because with the bike path there and everything, so yeah, absolutely.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
We have a meeting with the schools scheduled for the 27th of the day.
Okay.
Thank you.
Amy.
Thank you.
I appreciate you being here tonight and giving us an update, and I appreciate the maps.
A little bit about the change from Brand Road to go down Irlington.
I know you've been working with staff, and I'm going to echo my colleague's concern about
trees, and there is a heritage ash lining up and down that is not replaceable as well.
It is my understanding, and I'm just looking for a nod, that it will not be in the roadway,
and it will not be on the tree line, but it will be in the Irlington apartment.
Right now, we are working with the apartment complex to negotiate an easement to be able
to go on the open space along kind of between the apartment buildings and the ride away
there.
That was really our first alignment along Irlington, and with Mike's help, we've been
able to have some really good talks with the apartment complex, and we've made some
real headway with them, so I believe that is our plan.
I appreciate that, and I think the mounting and the amount of land that's there would
likely facilitate that.
I sincerely appreciate this.
My comment, I guess, is to the Murphy Epson group as you're doing impacts.
You had mentioned the apartments in Irlington, I would say all the houses on the other side
as well, and that would be the Irlington Vigil HOA, it is not a terribly active HOA,
but staff can hook you up with that, because there will be lots and lots of questions, as
with the park and the lands that are going to get easements from the city, so I would increase
the amount of HOA involvement and up and down that path, so I appreciate that, and very
much.
The second on post road, the connection of poster, has there been engagement with staff,
excuse me, with residents on post road, or am I a little too early in that cycle?
There will be engagement on there, we're just kicking off design now, so right now we
just kind of have a line on a map, so as we figure out what the impacts are, then we'll
be able to reach out to the public and start talking about that.
Because they have already reached out to me, and so they're very well, they've seen these
and are aware of that, and as you know, if you go down post road, there is almost zero
soldiers shoulder on the road, so where that alignment would be, and so I would advocate
again for communication as soon as it makes sense, because without information you know
where, yeah, and so I've already received that, so if you could do that, that would be great.
We'll have the same strategy for that phase, phase two, as we have with people on enjoying
public meetings and engagement as well, Murphy Epson, we'll be part of that game.
And I only have one other final request slash ask, and that is, as it gets closer to
really help the residents understand sort of the, I want to say the scope and scale, just
there's some visual so that they understand, we're not shocked when we see, I mean, these
are, these are big pipes, they're going to take big holes, so.
Yeah, my hope.
Yeah, through our outreach team, they have a good plan to communicate with the residents,
making sure, you know, we're going to have public meetings, we're going to, you all
the pop up engagements, I'm learning things every day.
Yeah, but visuals are quite helpful, and I would appreciate that, so thank you, and thank
you for your attention to the, as you mentioned, that list of aesthetics and things that,
as you, as you know, we care a lot about that, I've heard you do as well, and so we sincerely
appreciate your continued work to help make that happen, so thank you.
Could you go back to slide number seven?
Yep, that's it, great, thank you.
So it looks like the path diverges from the first main and the second main in two locations,
so one looks at just south of Cook Road over, and then the second is where it diverges
along Post Road and comes across the river.
Yeah, yeah, we can speak real quick to Cook Road there, so that was another refinement
that we've done up there, it's outside of Dublin, so we didn't want to bring it to your
attention, but both mains will be going down, which is reproduced as the AEP easement,
AEP has very all transmission mains there, so we're going to work within that easement
come down there, so that's another refinement.
What was the second place?
It looks like it picks up north of Brand, and it continues down Mirfield, and then it
comes Post Road, where it crosses to the river, and I'm assuming you're getting to the two
towers over off a Billingsley, ultimately, is that correct, so you show it on the map
all the way to Somal Road.
Are you talking about phase two, oh, are you talking about it?
And the top, you have the first main and the second main is how they're labeled, so the
first main is the one there on the left, and the second main is the one on the right.
So our original goal, just to back up a little bit further, was to keep two mains as far
apart as possible, and so in some areas, it just isn't possible to keep them far apart
and they got to share, like, near-fuel corridor, and then there's other areas like the green
that is on the picture to the right, the exhibit to the right, it goes down Mirfield and Post,
we're trying to keep that main as far away as possible, then going down brand and
Kaufman.
So that's the reason why we're trying to keep these, and they're showing up as a part.
So if they can coexist mostly down Memorial Drive and things, what is the gain by then separating
them and having two big digs, if you will, versus one really big dig?
So the plant is represented by that square on the exhibit to the right, all the way up
towards the top of the screen, and then where we connect in, down towards the bottom,
there's only two lines coming down.
So if something should happen, it's a catastrophic event, and it blows out one of those lines,
an event like that, if there's another line close by, it's going to take out that one
as well.
And so there are areas that we have no choice than to put it in the same corridor.
So it's about redundancy.
That's about redundancy, but resiliency and reliability, so that that plant, and make sure
that they're putting water into the system, the plants ultimately rated for EDMGD, and
part of that is so the city can take off line some of their other plants and do regular
maintenance.
If one of those other plants is down, and then something happens here, somebody might
move that without water, and that's what we're trying to avoid.
Okay, and it looks like you're planning on passing just south, you're going to cross the
river just south of Emerald Parkway?
Yes, I mean, that's, we have yet to evaluate that, similar to the piece that goes to
the west.
This is basically a best guest line on a paper.
This is a corridor that the MS team has evaluated.
But when we get into the finer details, it could be refined, and it may not look exactly
like this.
And it looks like you're not crossing the river at the Emerald Parkway Bridge, so will you
go under the river?
Yes.
Okay.
So there will be nothing that would be above gray there, so because it didn't have a lift
station star right there, and I thought if you went down that grade, you might need
something to help assist get back up the other side.
Most likely we'll be tunneling, when micro tunnel will have to, a shaft on either side of
the river will have to determine where the location of those, but they'll just tunnel between
those two shafts.
So the pumps that are at the plant, the home road water plant, there's enough and they're
big enough, the pump water underneath the river at this location, 12, 13 miles.
That's a lot of force.
Yeah.
Forty-eight inches of water over eight miles.
Yeah.
That's, well, then my last question is, where are you trying to get to on Somal?
I assume that you would be going to the two water towers over off of Billingsley, but
it doesn't appear like you're headed that direction, so just because our residents frequent
beyond our borders, where are you headed?
There's a 24 inch there on Somal and Snuffer, and that Snuffer 24 inch will go up to Smokey
Road Tanks.
The tanks that you see right by a 270 loop.
Okay.
Those will help fill those tanks.
It's going to connect into existing water mains in our system already.
So that's the terminal Vista, if you will, of this project, for that, for this arm, the
blazer tank or the other name, you got it.
Okay.
Well, thanks.
We're going to have to rely heavily on one another because this is something like we thought
we saw a lot of disruption when we put an inch and a half pipe into the ground to service
everyone with fiber in the city, and this is going to be significantly more disruptive.
All I can say is communicate, communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more, and
that we would be very appreciative of.
And we plan on, once we have a contract on board to continue that communication, maybe
you can ramp it up even more because the contractors want to spend the day and it's not a line
on a piece of paper anymore.
It's okay.
When are you going to be here?
How long are you going to continue to work with Mike and Brian?
And you may want to have lunch with our friends from multifiber, and they can probably
give you some feedback on their experience.
Maybe learn some lessons.
We also have a construction management team that we've already contracted with that
will be on the project throughout the construction.
They're working with Matt's team on constructability reviews.
Folks on that team are familiar with the City of Dublin, and I feel a very strong team
that's going to be able to do exactly what you're talking about.
Great.
Our goal is, you're right, it is disruptive, but our goal is to, when we're all done, everybody
says, boy, I'm glad that's done, but you can't tell it's there.
Great.
Well, thank you for your time this evening and spending it with us and certainly the
history background in education is much appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay.
This brings us to our CSAC report on deer management and our staff report will be brought
forward by Emily Gulliver, and Vicki Githur will be representing from CSAC as the chair.
So welcome to the both of you.
Good evening members of council.
The Community Services Advisory Committee has been discussing deer management since February
2022, and we have the chair of CSAC here this evening to provide a report.
Good evening members of council.
On behalf of CSAC, thank you for the opportunity to present this report on deer management.
Tonight's presentation will provide council with background on the committee's ongoing
work, summarize regional benchmarking, and Dublin survey findings, outline management options
and provide potential next steps for council's consideration.
As Emily mentioned, this conversation has been ongoing with CSAC since February 2022.
In November 2023, council adopted an outdoor feeding ordinance via ordinance 4723.
Since then, CSAC has continued discussions, including a presentation from ODNR in November
2024 and additional committee deliberations in early 2025.
CSAC recommended that staff continue monitoring regional deer management efforts and provide
updates as new information became available.
Council supported that recommendation in May 2025.
In further answer that commitment, CSAC received an update from staff this January.
CSAC provided us with an update on benchmarking data, aggressive deer, and outdoor feed ordinance
enforcement.
This was also an opportunity for us to provide feedback and ask additional questions.
At our February meeting, we were grateful to hear from local experts at Ohio State and
Metro Parks.
They were a great resource for all of the questions we had.
Based on the 2023 report by students at OSU, School of Environment and Natural Resources,
there are approximately 50 to 85 deer per square mile in Dublin.
Documented complaints have decreased slightly over the past three years, though reports
of aggressive deer increased significantly in 2025.
We also reviewed deered, vehicle collisions, and mortality data.
Enforcement of the outdoor feed ordinance has focused primarily on education.
Most cases were resolved through communication with no fines issued to date.
These data help provide context for resident perceptions and reported experiences.
Worthington conducted two surveys in 2024, receiving over 5,000 responses across the two.
Approximately 71% supported decreasing the deer population, and 73% supported a targeted
removal program using professional sharp shooters.
In January 2025, the Worthington City Council unanimously directed staff to implement
a deer management program that includes both targeted removal and archery.
Their program operates from January through March with a cap of 125 deer.
Processed finison is donated to local food pantries.
The USDA contract cost was approximately $56,800 with an additional processing cost of
about $130 per deer for the Pickaway Correctional Institution.
Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks have operated targeted removal programs since
the 1990s.
The City of Columbus conducted a 2025 survey with 3,151 valid responses.
Nearly 72% of respondents said deer numbers had increased in their neighborhoods over the
past three years, and 70% wanted the population reduced.
Support for the professional removal was 57%, and 61% supported archery.
Other communities such as New Albany and Mary'sville operate hunting programs, and Gahana
is considering relaunching its prior program.
Non-lethal options include feeding prohibitions which Dublin adopted in 2023.
The location is not permitted under Ohio law, and is generally considered ineffective and
can cause lethal levels of stress to the deer.
Pertility control methods are typically approved only for research purposes, have limited
effectiveness and open herds, and do not reduce the existing populations, and may extend
the lifespan of the dose.
Targeted removal involves contracting with trained professionals, typically USDA wildlife
surfaces, operating overnight in coordination with Dublin police.
This is the most effective way to quickly reduce the population.
Archery programs generally have lower contractor costs, but require more staff oversight and
are less effective at rapidly reducing herd size.
They are often used as a complementary long-term management tools.
The primary advantages of lethal management direct include direct and measurable population
reduction, proven effectiveness in peer communities, and the ability to focus on specific
high impact areas.
Processed medicine can also support local food pantries.
Challenges include potential public opposition and ethical concerns, financial costs, staffing
needs, and the reality that deer management is an ongoing commitment rather than a one-time
solution.
In partnership with OSU students, the City conducted a 2023 survey and received 297 responses.
Public sentiment was split on whether the white-tailed deer population in Dublin is increasing
and needs to be managed.
That survey provided initial insight into resident perceptions and informed continued discussion.
This January 2026 survey generated 3,656 responses with nearly 95% from Dublin residents.
CSAC was pleased to hear about the extensive public outreach to encourage residents to take
the survey.
This included social media, direct mail to nearly 19,000 households, newsletters, and
local media.
To allow as many people as possible to take the survey, it was kept open through February
26.
In total, it was available to residents for 50 days.
This effort helped to ensure that we had a substantial data set for analysis.
Emily is now going to walk council through the survey results.
So resident experiences with deer were mixed based on the survey results.
About 40% of respondents described their experience as positive, 38% as negative, and 22% as neutral.
However, 55% of respondents believe that there are too many deer in Dublin, while 41%
deal the current number is acceptable.
A small fraction of about 4% believe there are too few deer, and 60% believe the population
has increased in the past three years.
60% of respondents reported that the number of deer in their neighborhood has increased
over the past three years compared to 34% who believe the population has remained stable,
and fewer than 6% observed a decrease.
This indicates a perception of population growth, even in the absence of a clear biological
indicator of overpopulation.
The most common negative experience reported was plant and property damage cited by 49%
of survey takers.
Deer vehicle collisions or near misses were reported by 14% of respondents, and most
respondents at 93% indicated that no one in their household had experienced a deer-related
injury to people or pets.
The issue of public safety was cited as the most concerning to survey takers.
That would be at 38%, while 33% were slightly concerned, and 29% were not concerned.
The cost of administering a program was most concerning to 19% of respondents, while 81%
were slightly concerned, and I'm sorry, while 81% were slightly concerned or not concerned
were 37%.
Finally, the individual welfare of deer was selected as the most concerning of 34%
of survey takers, while 36% were not concerned, and 30% were slightly concerned.
When asked directly whether the deer population should be managed, 59% of respondents said
that the population is increasing and should be managed, while 41% said there is no need
for intervention.
Regarding public funds being used to address the deer presence in Dublin, 60% were supportive,
while 40% were not, and support for using lethal methods to regulate the local deer population
was 49% in favor, 33% opposed, and 18% neutral.
So notably, this is an analysis of the results from 2023 to 2026, and notably, the sentiment
regarding population management has increased from 50% in 2023 to 59% in 2026.
We also wanted to look at this at a Council Award map.
There was a question on the survey of what ward the residents lived in.
So this ward level mapping shows the geographic variation in whether or not residents feel the
population should be managed or not, and then here we see the ward level map of sentiment
towards lethal management.
So these two maps align with the areas in the city that we hear the most questions and concerns
about deer from residents, including the aggressive deer encounters.
So an analysis of the narrative, there was open-ended opportunity for residents to share their
feedback.
So the common themes that we heard here included public safety, aggressive deer behavior,
vehicle collisions, and landscape damage.
Approximately 139 references were made to aggressive deer and over 150 reference to the financial
impacts of landscape damage.
CSAC has been following along with Dublin's comprehensive public education efforts to encourage
human and wildlife coexistence.
This has been a heavy investment spanning decades.
Education has been central to helping residents understand the why behind the what.
This has included reaching residents in a number of ways, including recently at the state
of the city.
We were impressed with Worthington's approach to public education, particularly regarding
deer management options.
The Worthington deer task force hosted two public education sessions.
The spring 2024 survey identified some misconceptions prevalent throughout the community.
The education sessions were intended to correct this misinformation, and they were successful
as indicated by the second survey.
Some CSAC members were interested whether there is a specific percentage reduction that
Dublin should be targeting.
We learned from local experts that there is no exact science to determining how many deer
should be removed each year.
It depends on social tolerance and should be evaluated annually.
The decision should be based on what is feasible and realistic, no matter what residents will
see deer.
However, if a lethal program is implemented, it will change how residents experience
deer, adding a predator will change how deer behave.
With this information in mind, if Council chooses to pursue lethal management, potential
goals could include reducing aggressive encounters, lowering deer vehicle collisions, limiting
property damage, decreasing complaints and carcass pickups, and reducing the deer population
in specific zones based on an annual population index.
Much of these data could be a part of an annual community survey to track progress.
These potential goals were developed through our conversations at CSAC, where we identified
what was important for us to see in a management program and through benchmarking with the
Worthington Deer Management Plan to further regional collaboration.
Should Council want to advance a lethal management program, the next steps would include coordination
with wildlife services to identify sites, establish a target for year one, determine an
approach to field dressing and launching a comprehensive public information campaign.
The Ohio Community Wildlife Cooperative, which Dublin is a part of, is hosting a deer
101 workshop at the Rec Center in April, which could be promoted as an opportunity for
residents to learn more about this topic from third-party experts, similar to the approach
Worthington took.
I'd like to finish by thanking City Council for their trusting guidance over the past
years.
As CSAC has worked through this topic, it is clearly a very complex, and we are very grateful
to the Council's support.
Emily and I are happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Well, thank you.
That, please extend our thanks to your CSAC members.
That is a tremendous amount of work, and we are very appreciative that they took the
time to undertake that exercise.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
With that, I want to take a moment for public comment.
Is there anyone present this evening that would like to speak relative to this topic?
I do have one comments submitted online from Shannon Grimm, 6889 Fallen Timbers Drive.
Leave the deer alone.
If people don't like the deer, they can move.
We have already removed a lot of trees in our tree city, which means they are running out
of places to live.
I have them at my home in Dublin and my office in Dublin.
Do not kill the deer.
If you kill the deer, I will expect all skunks killed as well.
Thank you, Shannon.
Okay.
Any other public comment this evening?
Hearing none.
Council question, discussion.
Is 50 to 85 deer per square mile a lot?
I don't have a reference for, like, if that is a ton, not a ton.
The difference there is biological carrying capacity, and then there is social carrying
capacity.
So, 50 to 85 deer per square mile, we are not at biological carrying capacity, meaning
that the deer aren't just starving and dropping dead because they have no food at the moment.
But the perception of it could be that it is a lot, and that's where the social carrying
capacity comes into play, is that the deer are going into backyards, eating people's vegetable
gardens, different flowers, things like that.
So, the determination of a lot when you're not at biological carrying capacity is really
the community's tolerance for it.
I ask a follow-up question on that.
I understand the sociological carrying capacity, the diversity of the biological carrying capacity,
but just in reference, with Worthington and Columbus, what was a deer density when they embarked
on their target management program?
So, Worthington, they based much of their work on the fact that they were at sociological
carrying capacity.
They focused on some of the goals that we listed here, and rather than going back and doing
another, we want to reduce this down to 20 to 25 deer per square mile and doing the square
mile analysis of it, they looked particularly close at the resident complaints that they
had, and they was in the thousands of people over several years of complaints that they
had received.
So, they focused more on the sociological carrying capacity and attempting to reduce
the complaints and the questions that they received from residents.
They have a dedicated form for residents to fill out specific to deer complaints to
help them even track that better.
So, that's kind of where they've focused, rather than in on the density, if that makes
sense.
Yeah, actually, I think that makes a lot of sense.
And one of the things that I think we need to be really careful about is that how we
actually portray this to the residents, and I think that the highest value policy driver
is going to be the public perception of safety.
Not so much the aesthetics, even though aesthetics was actually one of the main drivers,
but one of the things that we've seen was the increased number of deer collisions attacks.
One of the things that I think is actually really interesting, and by the way, I live in
word three.
I represent word three where they had the highest number, and so most of our residents
were actually in favor of targeted removal of the lethal methods, because I think we
actually see a high number of them.
And one of the things that I think is really interesting is that a lot of the deer collisions
aren't reporting.
And so I think that number is going to be much higher than actually what we have.
So if we do decide to embark on a lethal removal, I really like the metrics that you have,
but I think that we actually probably need to somehow redo that so we get a better baseline
if we're then going to quantitate how successful we are about this.
So a few questions for you, if I may.
So if we decide not to act and to continue with monitoring, are there metrics that
CSAP would suggest that we monitor to see if we then cross a threshold that we then act,
is it going to be the deer density?
Is it going to be a worsening public sentiment?
How are we going to quantitate that?
I think it's more public opinion and then monitoring those deer per square yard foot, whatever
it was, yard, and seeing how that is increasing, along with the aggressive deer attacks, the
same metrics we have been monitoring over the past thing because it's how many deer are
being killed in collisions or near misses on collisions, how many deer are destroying
property and the complaints coming in, those with the metrics that we've come up with
and are about the only metrics that were feasible to collect realistically.
And then so would you be proposing another deer survey like in a year or so to see if that
increases or is it just what filters in through gold doublin or something like that?
Another deer survey, yes.
And how much of the deer survey costs the city to run?
It was done by a capstone group at Ohio State and so it cost us $0.
They came in and they ran that for us and so that was a great partnership and if I could
also add to that because the drone population index that we did was done post the CSAC
conversation.
So we did put the thermal imaging drones that the police have up and looked at specific
zones and the maps of those were included in Council's packet.
And so that is another thing that we can measure for success is if we didn't go back and do
a full general population estimate with Ohio State, which is always certainly an option,
we can also look at these and say in these specific areas how is the deer population
changed and do those as annual or however frequency makes the most sense.
But this is another opportunity for us to look at population in specific areas.
And I would just like to add to with this, this is a snapshot of time, right?
And so we would attempt to recreate kind of the environment that we have the wind conditions,
the weather conditions find a time that is the most appealing for that, the time to put
them up being similar, but deer do move around a little bit.
So we can do this and it's a great way of doing this.
This is something that Metro Parks does as well and Worthington has done this, but I just
do want to share that it is a snapshot of time of that specific place.
So it's just a great tool to add to our toolbox of what we're tracking.
Actually, I'm glad you brought up the drone survey because I actually had some questions
regarding that as well too.
So is part of the thought is if we do start a targeted deer removal, will we have geographic
priorities?
And if so, is it based on deer densities, is it based on the number of aggressive attacks
in a particular area, like how are we going to be utilizing that to prioritize how we remove
our deer?
So some of it's going to be looking at where we know that we hear complaints.
So these zones we're chosen based on, where we hear the most from people about.
And so some of it's going to be that, but then a lot of it is going to be done in partnership
with the police department and with wildlife services.
And they're going to come in.
And even if we suggest an area, if they notice a single safety issue with that specific area,
they won't do it.
So there needs to be a backdrop they need to be able to have an angle to shoot down from.
So there's a lot of considerations that would go into it.
We kind of start the conversation and get that going and share with them areas.
And that's very consistent with what Worthington did.
And then they can come in and say, yes, this is a good opportunity to do this.
No, this isn't.
We work on that in partnership with them.
Yeah, I think that's actually a really good point because safety, if we're going to be
using safety as one of our public policy drivers for this, then I think the counter side
of that is going to be the safety of the removal program itself to you.
So I think that's a great point.
And just the last point that I'll bring up just has to do with education.
There's been a lot of residents that contacted me with very strong opinions about this
on both sides.
I do know that people that, like we heard from the resident who submitted testimony,
they're going to be some very passionate people about not removing the deer.
And I think this presents a really good opportunity for us to explain to them some of the non-lethal
methods and why they might not be as successful.
So for instance, the sterilization methods, I was actually looking at the cost of the cost
is exorbitant because it has to be over numerous years to do that.
And so the total cost for the city would be much more and it's not as effective.
And we already know that restrictions doesn't really work and also relocation is illegal.
And so I think it's been shown time and time again that the most efficacious way is the
target of removal.
And so actually I would be in favor of target of removal at this point.
Thank you.
First of all, Vicki, thank you for your leadership at CSAC and thank you for all the work
of the group and MLA.
It sounds like you guys had a really good discussion section and you had some experts
come speak.
Is that correct?
Correct.
I think because there is so much of the yes and
no's, measurements, how it would be implemented, how you would measure it, that I think it
might make sense for us to take this to a work session and maybe have the opportunity
to hear from some of the same experts that you did because obviously this is a complex
issue that's been going on for some time, you guys have worked on this for quite some
time.
And I think that might be a useful thing because again, I have a fair number of questions
and it sounds like you guys really benefited from hearing from some experts.
So I would recommend that that might be a positive next step for this group.
So I'll put that out there.
Is that a motion?
That is a motion to move this to a work session in the near future because I know you've
been talking a while.
Yeah.
Second, your motion.
Thank you.
Ms. Crane.
Yes.
Ms. Aludo.
Yes.
Dr. Lam.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Mayor Ambrose Grims.
Mr. Keeler.
Yes.
Okay.
Well we will look forward to getting that on a work session agenda in the near term and staff
can line up the appropriate resources for us to ask questions and have them answered.
So this will bring us to the final item on our other business portion of our agenda is
innovation and technology quarterly briefing and our staff report will be brought to us this
evening by Brandon Brown.
Welcome.
Good evening, council, members of council, excuse me.
Tonight is a quarterly briefing and what we've been doing, the pattern we've been doing
is these during the years with a technology topic of your choice or just giving you
a broad overview based on our different focus areas that we focus on.
So we'll just go through those focus areas and some of the activities that are ongoing.
Within our customer focus focus area, within our help desk, we are looking at our support
or help desk ticketing system.
It has some baked in AI tools in there that will help with troubleshooting and searching
of knowledge base.
And that's to help our staff resolve problems quicker and to learn the system actually learns
of what's happening in our environment.
We would like to conduct some customer service and overall IT leadership training with
that team as well.
We actually have an offer out to a new support analyst.
We're happy to be able to promote from within for a couple of those and that left us with
one empty spot and I believe that offer is going out today.
So we're excited to move forward with that.
And then one thing I just wanted to share with you all is that as we do help desk tickets
and tickets come back, they all go out with a survey or 90% of them do.
And so of those, we do get some meaningful information back where we can go back and
follow up with the customer if something wasn't completed correctly or if they're still
lingering issues, but overall those come back at a very high rate of 90% or 100% satisfaction
with 90% of completely satisfied.
So one of the things we are working on is within this quarter, this upcoming quarter
we're going to conduct a more formalized IT survey within the organization just to find
out where people think we could help them more.
And we're also designing an education series based on Ohio Tech cred and some other resources
internal and external to kind of increase AI literacy and AI different areas of functionality
within the city.
Moving on to the focus area of security, we're continuing with the improvement and the implementation
of our zero trust network architecture.
I had warned you that's a buzzword that's out there and I'll discuss it a little more
in depth at some of our security briefings, but that's moving along nicely.
And then we're also, we've also implemented an advanced email filtering and some of
our other security practices.
You'll see this email filtering come up a couple of times in the presentation because
it's a security feature.
It's also a huge productivity feature and you all get it as well so you'll get some communication
I'll pass that through Jenny, but basically within your email you will have a promotions
box along with your inbox and that's where things that are not necessarily spam or junk,
but it's things that are kind of cluttering your view or it may be newsletters and various
things like that.
It's a very smart system so if you do find something within that folder that you do want
eyes on on your inbox, you just drag it back and it learns immediately and it starts delivering
it there.
So, if any of you have Gmail or Yahoo or some older emails, those all have those as well
and it's something we're just, we're working on deploying that and then if people really
can't come terms with it, don't like it, find that it's hiding too many things, we have some
great use cases like some of our folks that get invoices, they need to see everything
all the time, we'll take requests to turn that off so you'll be seeing some more information
about that coming soon.
Our 2026 compliance training has been completed throughout the city and something we implemented
toward the end of last year was within the Monday morning update just awareness and education
building a scam of the month and that's actually one of the highest click-throughs that they
have in the Monday morning update which really shows the success that we continue to rely
on our staff for being very astute and very a big part of our security program.
On the site of exercises and reviews, actually this Friday we're holding an incident-response
tabletop with our IT team and the VCSO and then we're also reviewing our business continuity
that will happen within the next quarter.
Excuse me, within foundational infrastructure we're continuing to reap benefits of the
Alta Fiber partnership where we have found a few different paths around the city where
we can connect to far-reaching traffic cabinets built in radio tower redundancy and that's
coming online and also we're reconfiguring how our network is routed between our three
data centers and moving some of the functionality amongst those for better resiliency.
We did do some analysis within our communications world and we found 42,000 dollars actual savings
and we're the next one that was more of the voiceover internet and some of their communication
and starting this year we're starting to look at our mobile usage for the same type of savings.
And then on kind of an experimental front for infrastructure, we are working with a startup
that provides short range, I think one to three miles, five miles of wireless broadband that's
done through a laser, it's really cool.
So Fiber comes to the laser, the laser shoots the distance that the Fiber would be hard
to reach whether it's boring under rock or other environmental conditions and connecting
to another receiving laser end that then transmits through the Fiber.
It's, we would be the first community doing this, they work with a lot of telcos, we have
a couple of really good use cases at some of our parks and some different areas so we
may do a proof of concept with that.
We drive a lot of value and impact, we've got a couple of phase two's coming up, I've
talked before about some Power BI usage and analytics within our finance area and there's
a secondary phase of that that's kicked off and almost done.
And then working with Genie's team and transportation and mobility, there's a second phase
of an analytics dashboard bringing together all the different traffic and mobility information
that's out there being collected by the various systems.
And then we're also working with our utility team on some AI assisted video analytics for
sewer pipe cleaning so as they go through and get that video, it's rated by AI, it's
QAQC by a team of people and then that goes into our asset management program.
You'll see a lot of AI here and importantly I'm going to start at the bottom there because
it is important we're always looking at security and governance so we did implement
an AI tool that is actually sits on our computers and sits on our network and just make sure
that data loss prevention is something we've talked about in security so we're not uploading
incorrect documents to some of these tools and also just understanding what people are
trying to do with AI.
It really helps us generate use cases and find that.
We have a couple of instances where we've been building Microsoft co-pilot agents that
are used by our front desk and some administrative staff and we're continuing to find areas where
we combine automation and those agents together to make staff more efficient.
Within the business solution side of things for driving value and impact, we're always
evaluating systems that we do have, we're removing old systems, we're implementing new,
so a couple of new things coming up this year are court management solution and an HR
and payroll solution.
We're also implementing an advanced AI document, search and assistant based tool that's
directly focused on two areas of the city.
One is city governance meaning this body, city manager's office, this is an internal
staff based tool that you all have access to as well as our staff but think about being
able to do deep, easy natural language searching on ordinances, minutes, resolutions, anything
of that type of nature policy, various policies, and the tool isn't just a search tool, it also
assists staff in drafting, draft memos, pulling together different topics for presentations.
In our analyzion area, we're analyzing our fleet and fuel, and I'd like to just use
this as an example to show you each year for budgeting, we tell you what we're going
to analyze, this one came back that the system that we have is still top notch system, they're
constantly improving it, it's still an industry leader, so now we're not going to utilize the
money that we had budgeted in case we needed to replace that, and so we'll reallocate that
to a different project or back to the general fund.
On the staff and aid movement side, again, I mentioned some of the education that we're
doing and then the advanced email filtering, because again, that's a huge productivity
boost.
And finally, on the innovation front, we have an internal working group that's coined
double innovation, and this is people from all over the city that come together to look
at emerging technologies, to look at all kinds of neat ways the city can do things,
so think autonomous moors, think of drones, think of augmented reality, virtual reality,
not just AI, but that's another one.
So we've held a couple of different events where we pull people together and explore certain
of these technologies and try to generate ideas where they can be applied within the city.
The most recent one that we looked at was a series of wearable devices and meeting note
takers.
For when we're not in a virtual meeting, how can we take some notes and get ourselves
notes, and some of you may have experienced a senior day jobs.
And then we do have a couple of staff members actually this week attending smart cities
connect conference and Raleigh Durham to bring back even more ideas and to share our ideas
with others.
With that update, my complete my update, so thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Very good.
Thank you.
Council questions.
Discussion?
Brandon, thank you so much.
This is always fun to hear about all the great things Dublin is doing, and I know that
you guys are leaders in this area, and really set the example for a lot of other cities.
One question that I had had to do with AI, and AI was sprinkled all throughout your presentation,
and that's the way everyone is going.
The bigger question that I have has to do with governance, like a governance framework,
and I know you alluded to it, and I know this is something that's wrestled upon by the
federal government, which they chose not to do, the state government, which they really
chose not to do, and so it comes down to a lot of local municipalities to do it.
You've talked about some specific things about policy compliance and data loss prevention,
but is there any thought to you the greater AI governance framework, because some of
the things that you mentioned, that can lead into some legal ramifications, not only
data security, but legal stuff, for instance, with wearable devices.
The rise of agent AI, how do we put controls on that?
Is that something that your department is thinking about as we make all these forays into
AI?
Yes, absolutely.
So that's something that we've taken our approach to AI in general has been an understanding
approach and a not over legislating approach from internal safety top of mind.
So we do have one of our administrative orders is focused around AI usage, so an AI use policy
that combines with all the other security and technical use policies, but we are working
on building an overall framework, which includes kind of a plan of where we're looking at.
We work constantly with our legal team to understand I just had a call today about the wearable
devices and some of the meeting recording devices.
And so that is something that we hope to have more bones round over within the next couple
within the next quarter, I think, is our target for that.
So we're thinking of it more in terms of as solutions come to us because we do utilize
a lot of software solutions, and so everyone in the world is baking AI into their product,
so that gets pulled in as part of our security review and we're reviewing a new solution
and other considerations along that line.
So yes, we are working on that.
Thanks, Brandon.
I think this is really great information.
I would love to see some additional AI, particularly agentic AI regarding Texas.
You know, I can go to other sites and upload my W2 and bam, it fills it out for me.
It's not a pressing issue, however, I think it would be really cool to be able to do for
someone to say, log in to a chatbot and say, hey, I need to do my taxes.
I can help you with that, sure.
You know, drop your W2 right here, and it sucks it and helps you upload it.
The other place that I'd like to see it would be relative to our rec track system, right?
And like, had really like to take a class on hot yoga, I don't know, right?
And then it can help you not only find the class, but then register for the class.
Those are just some of the things that I think of just from a day-to-day perspective as just
a resident that I know I would find very, very useful.
And then, you know, ultimately with Goldubble, and I think that's the way that that eventually
will need to go as well as from an agentic AI perspective, like, I need to order the
Chipper Shredder.
Sure, let me help you do that, right?
So that's just my two cents as far as some of the things that I would be looking for on
the resident side of things.
But this is really good information.
Thanks for pulling it all together.
It's really nice to see it in one place.
Great.
Yeah, thanks for that feedback, and I can update you on a couple of those things.
One aspect is that we do push on our vendor community quite a bit, and when we do do those
life cycle reviews, that will be part of our considerations and part of our rubric is
that functionality offered, and then is it offered in a secure and stable and resilient
way.
So that just is going to get into the pipeline a little bit more, just, unfortunately, the
way we do business sometimes we're at the behest of our vendors, but we can knock on
their doors quite a bit, and we're typically pretty pesky with them.
The tax is that something that's actively being worked on, and hopefully being rolled out
next year for tax season, where there will be some of those tools to improve efficiencies
on the taxpayer side of things, but also highly, create high efficiency with our tax team,
so they can do more analysis and great things.
Just to follow up, Matt and I just had a conversation today about the tax initiative, and we plan
to bring that forward as an other item.
Next meeting?
Couple meetings in the very new future.
That's great, but it's exciting.
I also want to stress very, very highly that while we know that agentic AI can do a lot
of things, we have to also be really careful about how we think of the moment when it's
time to hand off someone warm hand off from an agent to a human being, because I will
tell you that the tax staff that we have provides any enormous value.
They're wonderful.
They're not just good at taxes.
They're incredibly good with people, and I know that firsthand because I have a couple
of issues, but they were there.
They solved them.
They were pleasant to work with.
They're like, no problem.
I'm going to fix this for you, so I want to be really clear.
That is not my intention to say we need to replace people.
It is that we need to help people be more efficient, so that they can truly help the people
who really, really need that deep help, sometimes like me.
You know, I would just go back to, we've had a lot of conversation about our website generally
speaking as a city, and I think that one of the big tasks ahead will be, I don't think
it will be able to use these tools, and I think we're going to have to commit to developing
a website tool that will function in light of the tools that are available to the people
that use it.
So, I know that is a major undertaking, but I would be remiss if I didn't say I think
that's something that should be on our horizon.
But thank you.
This is all good news and certainly great information for us, so I appreciate you tonight, Brandon.
Thank you.
Okay, this brings us to the staff comments portion of our agenda, and on that is the Golf Club
of Dublin Annual Review of Operations.
Good evening, members of Council.
I have just a few items, and then I will wrap up with a highlight on that.
First bean, St. Patrick's Day is here, so this weekend we will kick off St. Patrick's
Day with our greenest grandest parade, starting at the Metro Center at 11 a.m., we hope
to see the community come out to this family-friendly event.
That is the kickoff of spring, the 2026 grand leprechaun Joe Fox nominated for his role
with the Miracle League, will lead the parade along with top sponsor Ohio Health.
After the parade, visit Dublin will be attempting to build the world's largest shamrock in Riverside
Crossing Park at 130, so they're hoping to get approximately 815 people to join in to
break the record, so please invite as many of your friends as you can to participate.
All participants in that event will receive a green poncho and a key chain.
And then later in the evening, the downtown strategic alliance has organized the St. Patrick's
Day pub crawl both in historic Dublin and in Bridge Park, so that's an eventful day
to celebrate.
This topic, after ordinance 1 of 26 takes effect for the new noise legislation, no engine
brake signs will be posted along hard road and Riverside Drive.
The signs will inform drivers of the new restriction, which will be enforceable upon installation
of the signs.
The locations that are shown on the screen were selected based on known traffic patterns
and also locations of concerns that had been reported.
Installations expected to be on March 12th, and that's weather permitting.
Communications and marketing will begin educating residents of the noise regulations updates
through our website, our D&N news letter to residents, go Dublin text notifications,
and our other various social media channels.
So I know we've been talking about that for a while, so happy to see that get implemented.
Next, the pedestrian and bicycle school safety action plan officially kicked off in December,
and it focuses on improving the safety of walking and biking to and from school for students
and families.
The plan will identify potential infrastructure improvements such as enhanced crossings,
sidewalks, bikeway connections, signs and markings.
And in the coming weeks, the project will move into the public engagement phase, and that's
going to include a tell Dublin page along with an online survey, interactive mapping tools,
and also a mix of community meetings and school based engagement opportunities to gather
feedback.
So this is a great engagement opportunity with our school partners.
Also wanted to provide an update on development activity adjacent to Dublin along Highland
Croy in Jerome Township.
Staff members have been in regular contact with Jerome Township, staff regarding the proposed
rezoning at Hall's Corner Plan Unit development or PUD, and that's located on the west side
of Highland Croy Road, just north of Post Road, as shown in the image on the screen.
The request involves the rezoning of approximately 30 acres to amend the plan development district
to allow construction of a nearly 160,000-square-foot-mire retail store with more than 500 parking
spaces.
On February 12th, the Logan Union and Champaign Regional Planning Commission considered
the Hall's Corner PUD rezoning request and recommended it for approval.
The request proceeded to the Jerome Township Zoning Commission on February 23rd, and that
was recommended for approval with modifications.
The rezoning application is now scheduled for review and determination by the Jerome Township
trustees on March 17th.
The city has formally submitted comments and opposition to the request to Jerome Township
at each step of the review, and staff is preparing additional correspondence ahead of next
week's Township trustee meeting.
City staff have also emailed Dublin HOA leadership along the Highland Croy corridor, and also
posted updates on next door to ensure that residents have the most up-to-date information
about the proposed development, and that they're aware of the review process and the timing
of the meeting's in Jerome Township, and so we'll be providing additional notification
to these groups this week ahead of the trustee meeting, and we will share that information
with Council as well.
And then lastly, as Council's aware, the city has a long-term ground lease in operating
agreement with Kemper through 2042, Kemper's responsible under the terms of that agreement
for all operating costs, maintenance, repairs, and staffing of the Gulf Club of Dublin.
The agreement requires Kemper to also participate in an annual operational review that covers
their financial performance, capital improvements, and usage metrics, and wanted to make a Council
aware that staff did meet with Kemper leadership a few weeks ago to review the 2025 operations
and Kemper leadership presented the 2025 Gulf Club of Dublin annual performance review,
and that document has been included in Council's packet for your reference, and operations
seem to be going rather well on the course, so thank you very much, and that's all I have.
Very good.
Thank you.
Next up will be Council report, so we have one Council report this evening from the administrative
committee, so Vice Mayor de Rosa will deliver that.
Thank you very much.
The administrative committee met on Wednesday, March 4th, and we had two topics on our agenda.
The first, the committee reviewed a draft Council recognition policy.
Currently there are no established parameters for Council recognition events establishing
these parameters, really promote greater consistency in how these are conducted and planned.
The committee provided feedback on the first draft and the revised draft will return to
the admin committee, and then will be brought forth for Council for consideration.
Secondly, the committee received an introduction to our 2026 Board and Commission recruitment
season, including a review of the timeline, recruitment plans, and anticipated vacancies,
so look for promotion going out to our community and for time on your calendar.
The committee then concluded a German to executive session to consider the appointment of a public
official.
Our next meeting is on April the 7th, that concludes my report.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
Well, this will bring us to our Council Roundtable, and I'll start here at my far right,
Ms. Cram.
Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Ludo?
I'm good.
I'll see everyone on Saturday at the parade.
Greg?
Indy?
So, on Friday, February the 27th, a lot of us attended the Dublin Education Foundation.
I saw Greg, Chris, Kathy.
You know, I was just thinking about what they do.
They're like an incubator or angel fund with a school district.
Basically, funding projects that these students come up with really innovative projects.
So more power to them for that, and hats off to staff for showcasing our history and highlighting
the work, the efforts of the folks that came before us here in planning this beautiful
city.
Thanks.
Great.
Thanks.
I'll begin by congratulating the finance team.
Matt, you're going to have to put in the budget and new case for all the trophies and
plaques because you guys are running out of room.
But year after year, you know, not only set the bar, you leap over it, not just crawl over.
And so we appreciate the transparency, the hard work, and the whole community.
So thank you to the team for that.
And yes, Andy, it was a great event.
And the highlight, of course, is to see all of the students present their own work and
their own innovations.
And that was really wonderful.
Thank you for the staff, for the state of the city.
Thank you, Mayor, for your work on the state of the city.
It was always a moment of pride, and we appreciate all the work.
We know there's tremendous amount of work.
Greg, Chris and I had the opportunity to attend the economic development breakfast that the
chamber put on.
That's one of my favorites every year.
The good news is the economy is doing better than I think any of the experts thought it
would be, actually led by health care spending.
We had the opportunity to attend the groundbreaking, and I'm sure the mayor will have a comment
about that as well.
So we represent that growth in high quality health care as well.
And then Friday, this Friday, the 13th is not only a lucky day, but it also happens to
be the mayor's birthday.
So Friday, the 13th, you heard her.
35 again, here you go, on behalf of the council.
I'm lucky for all of you.
Have a good one.
Thank you.
That's very kind.
I appreciate that.
I just want to run through a couple things on February the 25th, the Ohio Mayor's Alliance
had a luncheon with a group of Mayor's from the UK was a really great conversation.
I was joined by the Mayor of Finley of Columbus and of Mansfield, a handful of Mayor's great
conversation.
And it's really a reminder of what a global city that we are in the challenges that we face
here are the same ones that the UK is facing in many instances.
So that was a great triangulation of the things that we're experiencing.
Again, the chamber forecast, economic forecast breakfast was the 26 followed by the Dublin
Methodist Hospital groundbreaking.
And that was really a heartwarming time of talking about all of the things that happened
when you have the opportunity to have a hospital in your community and the celebrations
and the departures with dignity and all of those things.
And so it was, I'm really grateful to our hospital systems that call the city of Dublin home,
but most recently, Dublin Methodist for their commitment to growth and serving our community.
The Dublin Education Foundation evening was wonderful.
We have all been experiencing our code audit interviews, which nothing says fun, like I think
you do spell fun code, CODE, I think.
So that's great.
On the 5th, we had the Morpsey Officers Meeting and the Executive Committee Meeting.
I'll have more to announce about that after our commission meeting this week.
Certainly, I want to thank all the residents for coming out to this day of the city and
having such great attendance there and all of the hard work that went into that.
Megan and I had an opportunity to attend the comma meeting on Friday.
And our guest for that day was the Columbus Partnership to talk about some of the things
that they see on their horizon.
And since then, they have named the new one Columbus Director.
So we look forward to building relationships there and seeing how we cannot participate.
More in the growth of Central Ohio.
And then on Saturday night, they had the opportunity to attend the Dublin Women's
Philanthropic Club dinner.
Their annual fundraiser in this year's honoree was Sharon Zimmer's.
They raise a terrific amount of money that they spend on education.
Most notably, many for continuing education for women that would like to have an opportunity
to participate in the economy in a more broad fashion.
So thank you to them, congratulations to Sharon as well.
And if there is nothing further for the good of the order, we will stand adjourned.
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