Okay, we will call to order the regular Dublin City Council meeting of Monday, February 9th,
2026 to order.
Jenny, would you please call the roll.
Ms. Ludo?
Here.
Mayor M. Rosgren?
Here.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Here.
Ms. Johnson?
Here.
Ms. Cram?
Here.
And Dr. Lam?
Here.
Okay, I'll make a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of personnel matters
considering the appointment of a public official and to consider confidential information related
to a request for economic development assistance that involves public infrastructure improvements
that are directly related to an economic development project in which executive session is
necessary to protect the possible investment or expenditure of public funds to be made
in connection with the economic development project and considering the purchase of property
for public purposes.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you, Jenny.
Would you please call the roll.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
Ms. Johnson?
Yes.
Dr. Lam?
Yes.
Ms. Soluto?
Yes.
I will remind the listening public that we will reconvene this meeting in this location
at 7 p.m.
Okay.
We will reconvene the Monday, February 9th, 2026 regular Dublin City Council meeting.
Amy, would you please lead us in the pledge?
One nation.
Okay.
We will begin this evening.
Special presentations and the first we will hear is a legislative update from state representative
Brian Lorenz.
Please come forward.
State your name and address into the record and look forward to your thoughts.
Thank you, Mayor Grumes.
My name is Brian Lorenz.
Address is 4-1-1-1 Village Club Drive and Powell.
Mayor Grumes, members of Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this
evening.
For those I have not had the opportunity to work with directly, I currently serve as
a state representative for Ohio's 60th District and there's only four precincts in the city
of Dublin that are all in Delaware County but we're still in Dublin in the Ohio House.
I serve on key committees that address local government, land use and fiscal policy where
I focus on issues directly affecting cities like Dublin, responsible growth, infrastructure,
public safety and tax policy.
In my role, I work closely with house leadership and local officials to ensure state law supports
rather than hinders effective local governance.
It's my honor to represent the people of our district and I sincerely value the partnership
we share with the city of Dublin.
Your commitment to thoughtful planning, responsible growth and strong leadership reflects the
same principles I work to advance in the state house.
My legislative priorities are grounded in fiscal responsibility, local control and ensuring
government works as a partner not as an obstacle to the communities we serve.
For the past term, I've worked diligently to bring meaningful state resources back to
our district, supporting infrastructure improvements, public safety and economic development initiatives.
That strengthened our communities without increasing the tax burden or families on families
and businesses.
The property tax relief remains one of the most urgent issues facing our residents.
Our increases in property valuations have driven tax bills higher, even when tax rates
have not changed.
I've supported reforms that build on protections, advance transparency and accountability measures,
such as House Bill 187 and work through the state operating budget to limit the impact
of valuation spikes on homeowners.
These efforts are focused on restoring predictability, enforcing restraint and ensuring
our taxpayers are not penalized simply for remaining in their homes.
No Ohioan should be taxed out of their property due to unchecked valuation growth and I will
continue to advocate for durable long term property tax reform.
Public safety is another area where I have focused my legislative work.
I was proud to advance Keith's law, which strengthens accountability and reinforces protections
for Ohio families.
This legislation reflects a common sense approach, standing it with victims, upholding the rule
of law, and assuring our communities have the tools they need to remain safe.
And I'd also like to spend a moment on House Bill 361, which I personally authored and
which represents a significant portion of my work in the General Assembly.
As the only zoning professional and registered planner currently serving in the entire Ohio
legislature, I bring first-hand experience with the challenges local government faces when
navigating outdated or inconsistent land use laws, recognizing this, the speaker of
the House has charged me with delivering meaningful reform in this area.
Bill 361 is designed to modernize zoning and land use processes, reduce unnecessary
red tape, and reinforce local decision-making authority.
It reflects practical, conservative governance, respecting the expertise of local officials,
improving clarity in state law, and ensuring that development standards are predictable, fair
and workable for both communities and property owners.
This legislation is about empowering cities like Dublin to continue planning for growth
on your own terms.
Without unnecessary state-level interference, I firmly believe the best outcomes occur when
state and local leaders work together in good faith.
Dublin is a model of responsible development in community investment, and I remain committed
to being a reliable partner and advocate for your priorities in the state house.
I want to thank you for your time, I want to thank you for your service to this community,
and I continue to look forward to the opportunity to represent the people we all serve, and
I look forward to continuing our collaboration.
Appreciate your time, and if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer those.
Well, thank you, Representative, we're glad to have you.
Thank you for having me, and I would note your honor, if I might, we are in the process
now, and Megan probably received an email from our office of the capital budget, and that
is the one-time annual, biannual pot of money geared towards civic projects.
Not as much in this biannium, by all means, as the last one, but still an opportunity
for us to partner on projects that will benefit the citizens.
So, we've talked the last time, and I'm sure we'll get on each other's calendars as
well, but just wanted to note that, one of the things that I'm trying to promote to
all the communities that I represent in the 60th district, so thank you so much for having
me.
Thank you so much, and I'm sure we will have a project to submit for your consideration.
Thank you.
Okay, up next, we have our hospitality and restaurant industry update.
It's going to be brought forward by our very own Scott Dring, and he's accompanied by
my money.
Welcome.
He and Montgomery.
Good evening.
Good to see all of you.
Thank you for your opportunity.
And before I give you a quick update, I'm visit Dublin.
I'm going to invite Ian Montgomery to come on up and give you a little restaurant update
of Dublin's restaurants.
You know, from Fidel, but I think more importantly than what have passed honorary chair of the
Dublin Irish Festival.
So he's going to give you a quick update on what's happened with our restaurants here in
Dublin.
Okay.
Thank you, Scott.
And thank you for allowing me a couple of moments to speak on behalf of the restaurants
here in Dublin.
And as you know, coming out through COVID, the restaurants we felt a squeeze, and most
of us, thank goodness, survived, and here we are today.
Our cost of operations have gone up.
Our margins squeezed.
We always felt that they would go back to where they were, and they definitely went back
but not to where we would have projected or definitely hoped.
And so here we are in this kind of crazy world we're in today.
And looking at reports, projections of the next 12, 24 months for our industry.
There looks like there will be some modest growth in certain sections, but it's not across
the board.
And I will say for especially smaller entities like the one I run or whatever that don't
have huge budgets and being stable for the next year, two years would be a win.
I don't think we've ever said that in our industry before, but it's kind of survival.
And then I talk about Scott and Visit Dublin and what they do for us, even if we look just
locally, how they inform Dubliners of what's on their doorstep and what they can
avail of.
I think sometimes it's missed out on.
We need all the Dubliners, but for our industry, it's a numbers game, it's just not enough
Dubliners.
You know, we need to have more Dubliners.
So we need that constant influx of people from outside the city to fill up our hotels,
shop in our shops, obviously to eat in our restaurants.
This city has always been very proactive of making this city for what we are now.
With everything in place, I'd say if you looked at any list in whatever region you want to
pick that we're in, Dublin's up here in places to work, places to visit, places to live,
we're up there.
What Visit Dublin does for us for the restaurant industry is a huge part of that equation.
We need them.
We need to stay top of that list.
So thank you Scott and your team for everything you've done for us, but more importantly, thanks
to the city of Dublin for years who have worked and had a great working relationship with
Visit Dublin and continue to do so.
Again, it is a game changer.
Visit Dublin is that little ace of the sleeve that we have compared to people who want to
take that business away from us.
So again, thank you for your time tonight.
Thank you, honey.
Thanks, Monty.
I'm going to kind of do some different, kind of give you a very high-level look at what
Visit Dublin does, the return on investment we give you, how all the pieces kind of fit
together, connecting the dots.
We have a staff of four here in Dublin.
There is something called a hotel bed tax.
You may have heard of it.
So every visitor in the city, Dublin, one of our 18 hotels, pays a 6% tax.
The city of Dublin collects that tax and it's distributed to three primary entities.
The city of Dublin, the Dublin Arts Council, and then Visit Dublin.
We are the ones that kind of drive the engine that kind of drives that bed tax growth.
I think the bed tax is very important because one, it's a non-resident tax, so our residents
are not paying this tax, our visitors are.
It's generating all kinds of events for the city, arts and culture, it's creating economic
impact through tourism, et cetera, so it's an important part of what we do as well.
Every day we're working to drive that bed tax.
We work to bring in events, conferences, trade shows, bus tours, sporting events, leisure
travelers, whatever it might be to stay in our hotels and generate that impact.
One thing that we do, we have a couple of measurements that we use, here's the one
measurement is the amount of bed tax that we generate.
This is the bed tax as a whole, and you can see the last five years.
Year over year, it's been about an average, about 8% to 10% increase year over year, so we
continue to see good growth with that bed tax revenue as a whole.
Another metric we use is hotel occupancy.
This is the number of rooms percentage wise that are occupied as part of our 18 hotels.
We could see 68% is where we ended last year, and to give you some relative terms that
might not seem great, but that industry average across the country is 62%, so we're well
above the industry average, even though we have 30% or so to become totally full, so we're
trending very well, and those are the role two metrics that we use, so that's a lot
of the ROI that we have in terms of the bed tax.
Another thing that we do, if we really raise work across the country and the world in that
matter, to raise the profile of the city, to really be a global city of choice, and
we do this by a lot of different ways.
One is we try to work and place articles and features on the city of Dublin on these
national, international publications across the world.
We host media to come into town, and then they go back to their publications and write
about beach on the city of Dublin.
We do broadcast, TV, radio interviews.
We have a very indent influencer or blogger network where we bring in bloggers and influencers
that come in to our city, again, write about the city, and send it out to their hundreds
of thousands of followers as well, all of which to raise the profile and awareness of the
city of Dublin across the globe.
A metric we use is impressions, and last year we had 2.1 billion, that's what the B impression,
so that meant 2.1 billion eyeballs had some kind of visibility for the city of Dublin across
the world.
One area that we do that kind of touches both of those is our regional campaign.
This campaign works to attract people to our hotels and our city and also raise awareness.
We're very much a regional destination within 3 hours, if you draw a circle around Dublin,
you can see that the markets we go after, so we're raising awareness through a campaign
that runs through April through the beginning of July, marketing and selling the city of
Dublin through that as well.
One thing we do is we work to really boost the economy through supporting local businesses
and really be a resource to our residents.
I've been a resident now for what 25 years, and I can tell you this, these trails are
really an opportunity for us as residents to go around and explore our city and show all
the things, great things we have to do in the community.
The Fairy Door Trail is a great example.
We have 13 businesses in downtown Dublin have little small Fairy Door trails in their
offices or in their stores.
We have people go, they have little passport, they go around, get all the names of the
fairies, come to the office and they get free t-shirts.
This is the 10th year we've done this.
We've had nearly 20,000 people do the trail, which is a lot of t-shirts, but it's huge
economic impact, because if you talk to, like, Linda, our cupcake career, or Ania set,
the toy and ployum, they rely on these trails because any time they come in, there are people
are spending money in those stores, if they're not spending, they're coming back and spending
money, so it's a huge economic boost to those stores as well.
We also the Celtic cocktail trail, the Dublin Park Pass, which celebrate Dublin 64 parks,
and they get a gift from Ohio Health.
We work with the DAC, the Arts Council, they do an art public places as well, and the one
thing I really love about these trails is so trackable, so we have an app that tracks
all these people so we know exactly what they're doing.
One great example of that is the Express and Martini Trail that we launched this November
that will end at this month.
Again, we can track every time someone purchase a martini trail of martini or the Express
and Martini, this morning, as of this morning, we had $135,000 of martini, so apparently
our visitors and residents like Express and Martini's, and that is just one martini, so
that is just one day pay one martini, and that's how it's tracked.
Our restaurants tell us that obviously they're probably spending, having maybe a couple more
drinks, they're having lunch, breakfast appetizers, they estimate the whole impact is close
to $400,000 to $500,000 in that impact.
All we've spent is about a little under $10,000 with the prize, the hat, that they get some
marketing, so I'll let you do the math, $400,000 divided by $10,000, that's a pretty good return
on investment and what we're doing, getting people to run around town and do that stuff
as well.
Again, I think the big picture is that we're the engine that helps bid tax revenue, generate,
or help be a huge resource for our job and residents, we're generating an economic impact
as well, we're helping push the name of the city of Dublin across the globe as well,
and all of which benefits are most important stakeholder, and that's Dublin residents, so
and again, every dollar you spend, you get 16 in return, and it's against all the last
example with Express, which has a very conservative number as well.
I'm just going to go quickly through a couple quick things of what we have going on this
year, as you might know that I showed you the occupancy, and we can track the occupancy
or hotel occupancy times and eat throughout the entire year, and I might be shocking to
hear about January and February are a hard time to sell Dublin as a tourism destination,
so we have to do a lot of different things to generate business, one thing we're doing
is something called Love and Dublin, which we have a mock kind of dating app on our
website that encourages people to do various things around town, restaurants, shops, etc.
Our salesperson Josh will travel over 8,000 miles this year, going to trade shows across
the country, trying to get business, business travel, sports travel, bus tours, leisure,
whatever it might be as well.
Thank you for Sports Ohio, your investment, Megan's leadership, Kendall's leadership in
making that happen, I know SFC was here, I believe last mean to give you guys an update
on that, and they've done a great job being on the job for three or four months.
We sold Dublin as a sports destination for 25 years, so our relationship is not going
to be duplicating what SFC is going to be absolutely working with them, collaborating
with them.
A good example was one of the first events that we sent to them was the driving, long drive
contest that came from Relief Must, that we've been trying years to get to Sports Ohio
for the previous administration when work with us, so that's an example of how we bring
new leads to them as well, and keep mine to them, we're promoting all Dublin as a sports
destination, not just Sports Ohio, we've got Matt with the Emerald Fields, Avery Park,
the Rec Center, we work at the Dublin City Schools to bring events to the facilities
there as well, so it's not just Sports Ohio that we're bringing, it's an entire city.
Speaking of sports, we're dipping our toes in the NIL world of college athletics, and
the reason we're doing it is that we spoke with Ohio State, and the Dublin School District
has more student athletes at Ohio State than any other school district in the entire
country, so we think there's an opportunity there's some place to work some kind of
marketing magic, yet to be determined, but we're going to play on that as well and see
what we can do there.
Thank you for all of the Chris Kindle Mart that is happening this year, thanks Vice Mayor
DeRosa for your vision on that, it's something we've been working on, we're excited about
for two, it's going to be a great amenity for our residents when they see it, I was surprised
when I went to Carmel, I had no idea what we were getting into, but it's going to be
an amazing amenity event for our residents, and two, December is the worst month for
us in terms of our activity for our hotel, so it's going to really be a boost for our
local economy during that time as well.
We're working with Marie and the team on bus tours, we work a couple years ahead, so we're
working on getting bus tours there, marketing, helping her for some sponsorship and other stuff
as well, so we'll continue to do that.
Again, the 50th anniversary of the Memorial Terminant, we will work with HNS and Memorial
Terminant and Megan and her team and a lot of cool stuff down the road that we'll be doing
that as well and we'll introducing that here in the next few months.
Finally just, I think world class, we expect things in Dublin to be top of world class and
best of class and everything we do, there are 4,500 convention visitors, bureaus in the
country or in the world, I'm sorry, only 6% have been accredited and we're one of the
6% have been accredited since 2008, so from our industry standard, we're doing it the
right way as we would expect everyone here in Dublin to be doing it and with that, we
also mentioned that our lease, we've renewed our lease in historic Dublin until 2031, we
were the first tenant in that building in Bridge and High 26 years ago, so we're excited
to continue that tradition from the next several years, I'm happy to answer any questions
you might have.
Thank you.
Thank you Scott, it's a fun little beanie for the espresso trail and to keep our heads
warm, so we really appreciate all that you do for the city and we do know that expectations
here are really high, but you meet them, so we appreciate you doing that, that's not
an easy task and I think there are great things ahead I think for hopefully our restaurant
tours in the city and hotels and shops at everybody else, so questions first got.
Thank you.
I would just say thank you for the metrics and the numbers, I think it's very helpful
and very useful, so thank you for that.
Okay, thanks so much.
Okay, it brings us to the citizen comments, portion of our agenda, this is an opportunity
to citizens for citizens to comment on any topic that is not on this evening's agenda, hopefully
you had an opportunity to sign in at the kiosk on your way in, if not, we will recognize
you once those that have signed in are recognized, so we will start with Lindsay, do we have any?
Yes, we had one citizen sign in for comments and also once admitted online, so I will start
with that.
It was from Sandy McIntosh, 5792, Drifalger Lane, Dublin, Ohio 43016 and her subject
is Widd, comments as follows.
Good evening, councilmembers, in advance of your January 5th, 2026 meeting, I wrote to
express my concern with approval of council's 2026 goal number four, which is to catalyze
economic development in the West Innovation District.
During the discussion of the goals at that meeting, several councilmembers noted goal
four is a broad goal and it is about the entirety of the Widd, not one particular portion.
I am here tonight to ask you to focus on one particular portion, that is the portion
adjacent to Boundtree, primarily on the west side of Cause Grey Road south of Shire
Rings Road.
Councilmember Johnson noted at the January 5th meeting that there are opportunities within
the established process to continue to work together and realize outcomes that work for
residents and also for the city.
I believe that comment is in reference to the ongoing work on the code language.
The road map for some of that code language was presented to the city's Planning and Zoning
Commission on January 22nd.
It was clear from the questions and comments made by the commission members at that meeting
that they feel beholden to the Envision Dublin Community Plan, which calls for industrial
development in the area I mentioned.
Because of that, I do not believe that going through the process of revising code language
is going to result in an outcome that is satisfactory to the residents of Boundtree.
You, a city council, must direct city staff to consider the basic notion that industrial
zoning is not appropriate adjacent to residential areas.
I won't belabor the point made in my January 4th, 2026 letter other than to note that expansion
of the wood south of Shire Rings was sudden and it was not appropriately and publicly vetted.
As I believe mayor grooms has stated, the Envision Dublin Plan is a living document.
The plan itself states it is not a static document in that if community attitudes change
then the plan should be revised and updated accordingly.
My request is that you acknowledge the community attitude is not in favor of expansion
of the wood south of Shire Rings Road and direct city staff to revise and update the Envision
plan accordingly.
Thank you.
And further, we have Scott Herring registered in to speak.
Very good.
Please come forward.
State your name and address in the record.
Good evening.
My name is Scott Herring.
I live in 3280, Lily Marr Court, off at a Martin Parkway.
One of the acknowledge the previous speakers Dublin does do a lot of things excellent and
that is marvelous.
It is part of the reason I stay here after 30 years.
But I am coming back to this planning and zoning process that I have mentioned before.
We do so many things great.
It is okay to say we missed the mark on this one.
First I want to say thank you Amy Cram as the liaison to the planning and zoning.
I appreciate that you got that letter to me after two weeks I was getting a little
concern so thank you for picking up and taking the initiative there.
And that that had followed up on my initial letter of November 10 and January 16.
So here is my request.
As a fractional shareholder in this entity known as the city of Dublin.
Can we go back and look at this?
Yes my specific case is the why block and the planning preliminary development plan.
But in a very broad way and for my neighbors who were in the water for district and going
through a project there and the balance trade folks I think there's a lot of things here.
In November 6 meeting of the planning and zoning that PDP was approved with eight waivers.
And some of them were whoppers just enormous.
It's just not good.
So thank you Amy for getting me the minutes of that P and Z meeting.
Page 10 in the minutes neatly listed the eight waivers and all the relevant code sections.
Now if someone only read the minutes they'd be very surprised to see the video of the meeting.
And that only a very abbreviated summary was put up on the screen.
My question is council members have an Amy thank you for saying that you did watch the meeting.
Have you watched that meeting just was terrible in November 6.
Why so many waivers and why so lenient?
So over and over I just keep going back.
The waiver remarks a section K section five section B that a waiver is to generally meet the spirit and intent.
And then there's a lot of words that essentially say the plans of the city.
So just here's a few examples real quick.
Number one lots and blocks 1750 feet maximum perimeter was allowed but 3260 granted by waiver.
So that's almost double.
Okay, that's one.
And number four hotel parking structure three exit lanes required waiver for two.
Okay, two thirds of the code.
But also number five condo frontline coverage 75% coverage expected waiver to do only 27%.
So that's one third of the requirements, not good.
Then there was one at seven X but then there was one at zero.
No frontline property coverage, it's just silly.
So it's that kind of gigantic giveaway.
I don't quite understand that that can't possibly meet the spirit of the code.
And I just asked can we go back and look at how we not have this happen again.
Thank you.
Thank you.
If you if you do have some additional questions, Amy had replied a wonderful reply about moving
forward what what the abilities are and what they aren't.
So by Kendall would be happy to take any additional communication that you would like and relay
that back to us.
So thank you.
Anyone else like to make public comment this evening before we begin into the balance
of our agenda?
Hearing none.
Is there a request to remove an item from the consent agenda consisting of the January
20 meeting minutes and a liquor transfer?
Hearing none, I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you, Jenny.
Would you please call the roll?
Ms. Cram?
Yes.
Mayor Amrose-Grums?
Yes.
Dr. Lamb?
Yes.
Ms. Saludo?
Yes.
Ms. Johnson?
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
This brings us to the second reading public hearing ordinances, ordinances 0, 1-26 amendments
to section 72.021132.03153.076, and adding section 72.022 to chapter 72 of the Dublin
codified ordinances to address vehicular and environmental noise.
Very good.
Thank you.
Our staff report will be from Genie Williams.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Good evening, members of council.
Tonight, we are pleased to be back for the second reading to amend the various noise sections
of the noise ordinances as initially discussed at the January 20th, 2026 city council meeting.
As presented during that meeting, updates are proposed to three existing code sections,
72.021 loud noise from a motor vehicle, no engine brake permitted in section 72.022, which
is a new section, disorderly conduct, which is section 132.0303, and then finally in
section 153.076, public nuisance.
These changes, aimed to establish clear measurable standards, enhance the city's ability to respond
to community concerns and objectively evaluate disturbances.
Based on the direction received at the January 20th meeting, some minor changes have been
made and some clarifications to the draft have been included.
The highlights of these updates are in section 72.021 loud noise from motor vehicles.
There are two areas with changes.
One, following council's direction, the definitions for motorcycle and motor vehicle
in sections, 72.021 have been amended.
Specifically, the motorcycle term has been deleted, and the definition of motor vehicle
has been amended to explicitly include motorcycles.
These changes were made to resolve any ambiguities and remove unnecessary definitions from the existing
code.
In section 132.0303 disorderly conduct, staff also revised language relative to disorderly
conduct to clarify the use of the 50-foot distance in both qualitative and quantitative evaluation
of noise.
The updated code was included with the packet materials.
And finally, there have been no changes made to section 72.022 regarding no engine brakes
permitted or section 153.076 regarding public nuisance noise.
In addition, as requested by council, staff has included the benchmarking that had been
completed for this policy revision.
The table shown on the screen and that was included with the packet compares how Dublin
and neighboring communities regulate vehicle noise, engine braking, disorderly conduct,
and public nuisance noise.
As shown, Dublin's proposed code provides a comprehensive and balanced approach to noise
enforcement by establishing both, again, quantitative and qualitative enforcement avenues.
The proposed code provides measurable noise limits and allows flexibility to address pervasive
or disruptive noise that may fall below the specific decibel threshold.
Quantitative vehicle-specific noise standards are uncommon as shown in the table and engine
brake prohibitions are rare in our region.
For quantitative land use noise regulations, only a few cities have codified a quantitative
enforcement approach to complement the qualitative approach.
The proposed framework improves predictability, transparency, giving residents, drivers,
and enforcement staff a shared understanding of our expectations.
And with this, I do recommend adoption tonight at our second reading, public hearing,
and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Very good, thank you.
Is there anyone present from the general public that would like to speak relative to this
legislation?
Any none?
Council questions?
Discussion?
I just have a quick question and it's more on implementation now that we're getting to this
point.
So, now that we've added under 153, the public nuisance stuff, how would residents actually,
as I complain or submit the, do those go to like the police non-emergency line?
Is that what they would go to?
Yes, I believe that's my understanding because particularly, I think the newest thing is
that we've added animals, so like the barking dogs before.
I think our website tells people to go call Franklin County Animal Control or deal with Franklin
County.
I believe it's what's out there now because we weren't able to enforce like the dogs
that barked all day before, but now we can under this new.
Yeah, I would just encourage to call the non-emergency number at the police department
and even if it is routing that call to a more appropriate point of resolution, you can
always start with us and I would just encourage our residents to make us aware of the concerns
that they have.
Okay, great.
Thank you very much for doing that comparison.
I was a bit surprised at how unquantitative it was and maybe I shouldn't have been because
we were in the same boat for quite some time, but hopefully we'll be able to share some
of this and learn from each other on this because we know from where we are we're not alone,
but I found that very useful and I know that took some work so I thank staff for pulling
that together for us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I just had a quick question as I reread through this again after the small changes.
Just do we have benchmarking in our entertainment areas?
I'm just a little concerned that we're possibly painting ourselves into a corner when it comes
to the Bridge Street District and some of the newer developments that are happening maybe
in Y-block or even in the North Historic District as long as you tell me that we've benchmarked
that worth prepared, but I'd love to hear a little more about that if I can do that.
So in terms of benchmarking what other cities are doing, what we have in the documents
all we have, but it is enforceable in the District, other with the decibels or the quality.
I guess I didn't ask my question in the right way.
Do we feel confident that a sustained noise above 80 decibels for 15 minutes or longer
is something that's going to occur rarely in Bridge Street on a Friday night or a Saturday
night?
Do we have any type of understanding about current noise levels and where we might be?
Permitted events would be separate from this.
Yes.
So if it was a permitted event, then that would not be subject to these rules and regulations
that is correct.
Are you referring more so of amplified music on a patio?
Yes.
Thank you.
What she's talking about are patios that do music in the evening.
What is their typical sound volume?
So specific noise studies in Bridge Park to gather, we have the up-sitting noise meters
that are associated with the on-street cameras for parking that gives us that relative threshold.
And what that data shows us is that those volumes typically fall underneath that 80 decibel
level.
Thank you.
Okay.
That's exactly what I was looking for.
I appreciate that.
I'm hopeful that, you know, this has been such a driver of public comment for quite some
time, particularly relative to vehicular noise.
So I'm hopeful that we do some public address sort of messages out so that people will
understand that there has been legislation that's now in place that is different from
before and that, you know, we do have enforcement mechanisms available to us now and we'll be
doing that.
So I think because so many people have contacted us for so long, I think it would be appropriate
that we communicate this broadly to the community.
That is part of our plan.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
I appreciate that.
Anything else?
Jenny, would you please call the roll?
Mayor Amarose-Grums.
Yes.
Ms. Cram.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
Ms. Aluto.
Yes.
Okay.
We'll make a motion to waive the council rules of order and read ordinances 0, 2-26 and 0, 3-26 together
is there a second?
Jenny, would you please call the roll?
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes.
Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
Ms. Aluto.
Yes.
Ms. Cram.
Yes.
Coordinates 0, 2-26, authorizing the city manager to execute an accept necessary conveyance documents
and contracts to acquire a 0.006 acre temporary right of way, easement from Ralco properties
LLC and Ohio limited liability company from the property located at 36-38 North High Street
for the public purpose of constructing and improving roadway infrastructure which shall
be open to the public without charge ordinance 0, 3-26 is regarding a 0.005 acre fee simple
warranty deed for right of way with reservation of existing access rights and a 0.006 acre permanent
utility easement and a 0.024 acre temporary right of way easement from 72 Dublin LLC and
Ohio limited liability company from the property located at 20 North Street.
Very good and we will stick with Jenny for the staff presentation.
Thank you.
Once again.
There have been no changes to these ordinances since the first reading on January 20th.
Staff recommends adoption of ordinances 0, 2 and 0, 3-26 this evening as these ordinances
will allow the Northern historic district infrastructure improvements project to remain
on schedule and proceed to construction.
Thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Very good.
Is there anyone present from the general public this evening that would like to speak relative
to this legislation?
Having none.
Council questions.
Discussion?
Jenny, please call the roll.
Dr. Lamb?
Yes.
Ms. Ludo?
Yes.
Ms. Cram?
Yes.
Ms. Johnson?
Yes.
Vice Mayor Jorosa?
Yes.
Mayor M. Rosgrooms?
Yes.
Okay.
I will make a motion to wave the council rules of order and read an ordinance is 0, 4-26-06-26 together
is there a second second.
Thank you Jenny.
Please call the roll.
Ms. Johnson?
Yes.
Ms. Ludo?
Yes.
Vice Mayor Jorosa?
Yes.
Ms. Cram?
Yes.
Mayor M. Rosgrooms?
Yes.
Ordinance 4-26.
Appropriate a 0.008 acre fee simple warranty deed for right of way with reservation of existing
access rights and a 0.005 acre temporary right of way easement from happy Breonnais LLC and Ohio
limited liability company from the property located at 16 North High Street from the public
purpose or the public purpose of constructing and improving roadway infrastructure which shall
be open to the public without charge.
Ordinance 5-26 is regarding a 0.009 acre fee simple warranty deed for right of way with
reservation of existing access rights and a 0.007 acre temporary right of way easement
from Fadil Abousi and Nellie Abousi from the property located at 24, 26 and 28 North
High Street.
Ordinance 6-26 is regarding a 0.053 acre permanent utility easement and a 0.010 acre temporary
right of way easement from STJ 319 holdings LLC and Ohio limited liability company from
the property located at 40 North High Street.
Very good.
It isn't broken.
I'll fix it, right?
We will stick with Genie Willis.
So there's staff report.
Thank you.
Again, there have been no changes to these ordinances since the first reading again on January
20th.
Staff recommends adoption of ordinances 0.04 through 0.06-26 this evening as these ordinances
will allow the Northern historic district infrastructure improvements project to remain
on schedule and proceed to construction.
I'm 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?
Having none.
Council questions?
Discussion?
Jenny, would you please call the roll?
Miss Aluto?
Yes.
Miss Johnson?
Yes.
Mayor Amrostroms?
Yes.
Dr. Lam?
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
Miss Kram?
Yes.
Introduction Public Hearing Vote Resolutions Resolution 0.03-26, accepting the lowest and best bid
for the pavement marking services 2026 through 2028.
Project.
Thank you.
And our staff report will be brought forward tonight by Brian Gabel.
Welcome.
Good evening, members of Council.
Staff conducted a competitive bid process for the pavement marking services 2026 through
2028 project.
This project provides for the re-application of pavement markings in various locations
within the city and is funded from, excuse me, from the 2026 operating budget in the
amount of $175,000.
Since this contract lasts for up to three years, it is customary for staff to bid contingency
items into the contract so that staff has pricing for items that may not be utilized
in 2026.
After receiving bid, staff found an error in the engineer's estimate that resulted in
an adjusted engineer's estimate of $233,000.
On December 18, 2025, one bid was received and publicly opened.
Griffin pavement striping incorporated submitted the lowest and best bid of $235,429.35.
While this bid is over the amount budgeted, staff intends to non-perform some of the contingency
quantities to reduce the 2026 contract amount down to a amount within the budgeted funds.
As has been customary with this project, there are two separate one-year renewal periods
on each expiration date expiring at the end of the year in December 31st.
With the overall contract expiring on December 31st in 2028, staff recommends council approval
of resolution 0,3-26, accepting as lowest and best the bid of Griffin pavement striping
incorporated in the amount of $235,429.35.
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 this evening that would like
to speak relative to this legislation?
Hearing none, council questions, discussion?
Jenny, which call the roll?
Ms. Cram?
Yes.
Ms. Ludo?
Yes.
Dr. Lam?
Yes.
Mayor Amro's groom?
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
Ms. Johnson?
Yes.
Resolution 0,4-26, accepting the lowest and best bid for the pedestrian tunnel maintenance
2026 project.
Hello, Theresa.
Thank you.
And our staff report will stay with Ryan Gable.
Thank you.
Good evening again.
Staff conducted a competitive bid process for the pedestrian tunnel maintenance 2026 project.
This project performs maintenance at two pedestrian tunnels, excuse me.
These tunnels are under Emerald Parkway just west of Dublin Road and under Dublin Road
just south of River Forest Road.
Notice that these tunnels involves the replacement of deteriorating stone veneer and caps, repairs
to metal fencing, replacement of tunnel joints, and concrete repairs.
Funding for this project is from the 2026 through 2030 capital improvements program in
the amount of $603,000 from the pedestrian tunnel maintenance program.
The engineer's estimate for the project is $600,000.
On December 17th, 2025, two bids were received and publicly opened.
Local construction services submitted the lowest and best bid of $516,453.47.
Construction is expected to commence in March of 2026 and be completed by the end of July
2026.
Staff recommends council approval of resolution 0,4-26, accepting as lowest and best the
bid of public construction services in the amount of $516,453.47 for this project.
I will do my best to address any questions council may have regarding this resolution.
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?
I was just curious.
I know the tunnel near by Emerald has public art in it.
Does this project leave the public art in place because there are tiles and I don't
know if they go by the seams or not or where the concrete works being done?
Yeah, there's two types of art in there.
There's some that are on panels that are a little bit lower.
We're going to carefully remove some of the panels and those will be put right back up
after the project is done because we need access to the joints to repair the tunnel joints.
The tile, we have some staff that was here when it was installed.
We're hoping to try and keep it a little further from the joints but unfortunately some of
it's a little too tight to the joints, we're going to have to cut some of it off.
However, when we reviewed it, staff believes we won't have to negatively impact the
overall artwork that's there.
For example, I know like the end of Dublin in one spot is pretty close.
In those instances, I think we can just remove three to four inches and not actually get into
the overall artwork, kind of just the edge of it and still maintain the overall aesthetic.
In those locations, we don't plan to put back the tile or otherwise.
Okay, thank you.
I understand and respect the decision to want to complete this work prior to the start
of the memorial tournament.
Has the impact on students been assessed and determined to be minimal at this point?
Yeah, I don't think either tunnel is overly used in terms of students, but yes,
we've taken that into account.
So the Emerald Tunnel is more or less a bypass for crossing the intersection there.
So the intersection is still a valid crossing and is one that will still work effectively
and operate accordingly.
At River Forest is the only connection for the River Forest neighborhood across and
under Dublin Road.
So with that, we maneuvered our plan notes to only close the tunnel for a limited amount
of period when we're doing some work within the tunnel itself.
Outside of that, when we're working on the head walls and some of the other structure,
we require the contractor to maintain half of the tunnel open and protect any pedestrian
traffic.
Thank you so much, Brian, for the report.
I was actually quite shocked at the disparity between the two bids.
One was 15% over and the other one was 14% under a huge difference for that.
So my question is, do we have experience with Pummel construction services, the quality
of work, and what were your thoughts and the staff's thoughts at a 14% underage of our
own engineers estimates?
Yeah, we've seen varying bids overall.
Some of the companies that really want to get into the area will see some more aggressive
bids for certain.
Overall, we did, we've not worked previously with Pummel.
So our standard process there when we don't work with someone previously is to call any
and all references that are provided within the bid.
We made inquiries with numerous companies and other public agencies and all of those responses
came back favorable.
There was one that they just said they did a great job and then they tried a much larger
project with them and there was some handholding there, but they said when they talked to
them, they really worked very well with them and had overall positive experience even
though they thought they got a little outside their limits there.
That was from discussing that, that was a much larger project than what we're aiming for
here.
So staff is confident every time that we get a new contractor, we have to certainly help
them understand kind of the Dublin way and some of our methods and public communications,
but we're confident that we can provide that and help them through the project.
I just have one question.
If we consider the alternate materials, so the synthetic limestone that we tend to put on
those headwalls seems to be failing rather quickly, have we taken any steps of contemplating
other materials or perhaps real stone even that might have a longer lifespan?
Yeah, so, and I'd have to look to Paul when we changed, but the original installation
methods for that stone unfortunately didn't have a lot of facing behind it.
So nowadays we put in and install what's kind of more or less referred to as chicken wire,
and that's secured to the actual concrete itself, and then it gets mortared onto it.
So we do believe that what's being installed now and probably over the last ten years is
going to last a much longer period.
Some of these when you have one section that starts to fail, it just kind of cascades
down the rest of the wall face when there's nothing else kind of holding it to it.
So that changed about ten years ago.
We haven't had to go back to any of those and really touch them up at all, so.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Jenny, would you please go and roll?
Dr. Lamb?
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
Miss Cram?
Yes.
Miss Aluto?
Yes.
Mayer M. Rosegrooms?
Yes.
Resolution 05-26.
Intent to appropriate is 0.090 Acre Eastman from James A. Rave from the property located at
6114 Shire Lane for the public purpose of constructing a shared use path, which shall
be open to the public without charge.
I'll do it.
And another.
Thank you.
Good evening, members of Council.
The Shire Rings Road, Ironman Road, Cosgrae Road, shared use path project.
People construct a shared use path along the south side of Shire Rings Road connecting
two existing shared use paths and improving the overall shared use path network connectivity
in the area.
In 2024, the city entered an agreement for the construction and maintenance of this path,
path, with Washington Township.
The township submitted and received link us grant funding in 2024 funding in 2026.
That position of property interests from nine property owners in the project area is
necessary to construct the project.
The resolution for your consideration this evening is the first legislation necessary
to commence the appropriation of an easement on one property.
The next legislation following this resolution will be an ordinance authorizing the appropriation
which will be presented for first reading at the February 2023 Council meeting should
tonight's resolution be approved.
Attempts to contact the owner of this parcel or any authorized representative of record
have been unsuccessful.
Staff certainly hopes to negotiate this acquisition with the property owner, however the legislation,
this legislation allows the city to proceed with the appropriation process should contact
with the owner not be feasible.
Should the owner be found, the city will work to achieve a fair settlement on this acquisition.
Staff recommends approval of resolution 05-26 to commence this appropriation to allow
the project to remain on schedule and proceed to construction.
I'd be glad to address any questions council may have.
Very good thank you.
Is there anyone present this evening for the general public that would like to speak relative
to this legislation?
Hearing none.
Council questions.
Discussion.
Jenny would you please call the roll.
Mayor Ambrosegrooms.
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
Ms. Cram.
Yes.
Ms. Saluto.
Yes.
Resolution 06-26, accepting the lowest and best bid for the 2026 Murafield Landscape Maintenance
Contract.
Thank you.
Our staff report will be brought for this evening by Matt Earman.
Welcome.
Good evening members of council.
On Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, three bids were open for the Murafield Landscape Maintenance
Contract.
This contract provides mowing, planting, bed maintenance, weed, control, fertilization
and specific areas within the Murafield.
The map displays, displayed identifies the area in red, which is included in the contract.
Acceptance of this bid would establish a contract for up to three years with annual renewal options
subject to mutual agreement and performance.
Staff has reviewed the bids received and determined that the lowest and best bids submitted
was from R&R lawn care and landscaping LLC in the amount of $119,500, which is approximately
19% less than the budgeted amount of $149,000.
This contractor has completed prior projects to the city and staff have evaluated their work
as satisfactory.
The contractor demonstrates a strong understanding of the required service standards in the
scope of the contract.
That recommends approval of Resolution 0726, accepting the lowest and best bid for the
Murafield Landscape Maintenance Contract submitted by R&R lawn care and landscaping in the amount
of $119,500.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
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?
I have one, Matt, who was the previous contractor on this contract?
It was actually managed by the Murafield Association, through an reimbursement contract based
on the estimate for the work that needed to be done.
Very good, thank you.
Okay, Jenny, would you please call the roll.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes, Ms. Johnson.
Yes, Ms. Cram.
Yes, Mayor Ambrostrum.
Yes, Ms. Saluto.
Yes, and Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
Resolution 07-26, accepting the lowest and best bid for the 2026 Facilities Landscape Maintenance Contract.
On a descent.
Thank you, and we'll stick with Matt.
Thank you, members of council.
On Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, seven bids were open for the Facilities Landscape Maintenance
Contract.
This contract includes mowing planting bed maintenance, weed control and fertilization for designated
areas surrounding city of Dublin facilities.
The map displayed identifies the maintenance areas included in the contract.
Acceptance of this bid would establish a contract for an initial term of up to three years, with
an annual renewal option each year subject to mutual agreement and performance.
Staff reviewed all the bids received and determined that the lowest and best bid was submitted
by Environmental Management Incorporated in the amount of $138,875, which is approximately
6% below the budgeted amount of $149,000.
It's important to note that the lowest bid submitted by Rosie's home in lawn care LLC was
determined to be non-responsive and was therefore rejected.
The second lowest bid submitted by our lawn care and landscaping was also rejected.
That staff met with the representatives from R&R who was being recommended for another
city contract, which was just approved, of similar scope during the similar time frame.
Following this discussion, it was mutually determined that the R&R did not have the capacity
to perform both contracts without an increased risk or delay in performance issues.
R&R subsequently submitted a letter acknowledging and agreeing to this determination.
Therefore, the third lowest bid submitted by EMI was determined to be the lowest and best
bid.
This determination followed verification of the firm's proposal and confirmation of its
qualifications and capacity supported by EMI's successful performance on previous contracts.
Therefore, staff recommends adoption of Resolution 0726, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
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?
Matt, can you tell me who the previous contractor was on this?
CLMS.
Okay.
That's good.
That they were very competitive pricing in with a knowledge of the requirements of work.
This is more of an education question for a new council member, Wendy Johnson.
Why don't we do this within city staff?
Why are, you know, we do mowing, we do mulching, we do weeding, we do plant maintenance, why
don't we execute that as a function of the city?
Primarily, it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis of what the cost would be if the city were
to conduct these types of services, who would require additional full-time staff or part-time
staff, and then all of the other associated costs associated with the staffing of these
types of contracts.
Thank you.
I assume that that was probably the case, but thank you for confirming that.
Appreciate it.
Other questions?
Jenny, which police call the role?
Ms. Johnson.
Yes.
Dr. Lam.
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Mayor Amro's Grim.
Yes.
Ms. Saluto.
Yes.
Okay.
This brings us to the other business portion of our agenda, and we will begin with the
Spooktacular discussion.
That's a big title.
Okay.
Good evening, members of council.
I'm here tonight to talk about Spooktacular, and then after that Irish festival, so we've
got a couple things to discuss tonight.
First, just to give some background on the Spooktacular event, it was founded first as a
recreation program.
Dublin City School always has a Friday off in October, and the staff at the Rec Center
at that time started as a middle school dance, and it sort of just kept growing and growing,
and then at one point our community events department took over it and took it more
of an outside event.
And then after COVID, we had had a lot of crowds at this event on just the Thursday
night, so we made it so that it was also on Friday and 2021, so that was the first
year we did that.
So this year we had it in October, it was a gorgeous day, it was one of our best, I
think.
And again, Friday was the day off of schools, so we know that we had an estimated 9,200
people.
Thursday night, we had 5,400 guests, and then on Friday, we estimate 3,800, and we get
that information from the place or data that we get that has the cell phone information.
So in the community events roadmap, Spooktacular was reviewed, and the three bullet points
there are what came out of the roadmap, and the first was the investment should be adjusted
to reduce net costs.
We had quite a lot of people who wanted to sponsor the event, which you'll see in the
next bullet point, and so we're also able to look at our expenses and kind of adjust
a few things, get some discounts by being a two-day event.
So our cost recovery actually increased to 30% from 15% the year before, and then you
see a lot of that is because of that increased sponsorship from 22,000, where it was previously
12,000.
The roadmap also suggested to scale the event back to two days, which could cut costs,
but staff would like to request keeping it two days for a variety of reasons.
So a couple of the cost savings that you would see would be that on Friday, we would have
the event because it's cheaper for a variety of reasons, whether it's the overtime, less
on Friday, because we're not doing Thursday evening.
Also, and you can see even in the picture, lighting is a big thing on Thursday night, and
we would reduce our electrician costs and our lighting costs if we did it just during
the day.
What you do see though, the difference between a one day and a two-day, just because the
cost savings for a two-day, if we have a one-day, we estimate that it costs about $8.83
a person, where if we have the two-day event by spreading out those costs, it's a $5.30
per person cost.
We can see the breakdown here, so the biggest change, and we'll go over some of that, is we
expect the sponsorship revenue to go down.
Jim Locke on our staff already has, I think, five people who want to sponsor the sputacular,
and they're waiting just to see whether it's going to be a one or two-day because that
will impact their investment.
And then you will see that there's obviously a decline in salaries and wages and overall
expenditures.
But because of that change in sponsorship, you don't really see a huge difference in
the cost recovery between our two-day estimate and the one-day estimate.
The staffing costs, as you see here, a good percentage of them, the $19,226, that is the
cost to set up the event and tear down the event, so that would not change whether it was
a one or two-day event.
And then you see that difference, I mentioned before, about the cost on just Thursday versus
the cost on Friday.
So a two-day event, we estimate staffing costs just over $36,000, and the one-day just
over $26,000.
The direct expenses that you see here to the two-day cost are $36, and the one-day is $22.
We see the reduction, and this is specifically having it on Friday.
If it was Thursday night, that cost would be, I think if this is close to $14,000, $15,000,
it would be more like $8,000 if we had it on Thursday night instead of on Friday, because
of that extra cost for the electricians and lighting.
The trunk-a-treat event, for those of you who might not have been there before, trunk
-a-treat is one of the biggest parts of the event.
We have time tickets that residents can get online during the week of the event.
They are free tickets.
Residents get first shot at it, and then if we have any leftover, we open that up on Wednesday
before the event.
What actually happened this year, and it's happened the last two years, Thursday sells
out before it goes to the general public.
So we know that residents are preferring the Thursday night, and then Friday does
not sell out.
There are 30 spots per day for organizations.
So it's a variety of, like you'll see here, Sunday 95s here, the schools have a booth,
Washington Township is here, there's a variety of different elementary or pre-schools,
just a lot of different things.
If we eliminated the Friday, it wouldn't eliminate the full 30 spots because our sponsors
and our partners like schools in Washington Township get them both days, but 17 spots would
be eliminated by eliminating a day.
And then this year, our big thing was our two top sponsors were $5,000 each, and then
we had a lot of sponsors that were in the $1,500 or $1,000 range.
That is similar to what we charge for a partnership in our parades.
So a lot of them were just there for one day, but that way we were able to sell more of
them because we could sell Thursday and Friday.
The $2,500 sponsors were there both days.
So staff recommends continuing to host this bouticular as a two-day event.
We do believe that the cost difference is enough that we did not budget for that in the
operating budget for this year, but we do know that with other cost savings we have
throughout the year in our events budget, we likely would not have to come back to council
for supplemental, but we do want to point out that there is a difference there.
What's great about it doubles our time, it more than doubles the attendance by having
the two days, and it really creates more of an opportunity to showcase our businesses.
And of course, it fosters community connections.
As you can see, it's one of those events that people really come with their families,
their neighbors.
It's just one of those traditions that people love, and I can answer any questions that
you may have.
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 topic?
Hearing none.
Council questions.
Discussion.
So from the numbers you provided, it seems like the majority of Friday most likely are
Dublin City School participants, because they're the ones that don't have school.
Right.
And so this year was the change we made used to be Dublin City School residents could
also get it the same day or could reserve the time slots.
But this was the first year that Dublin City School districts, not Dublin residents,
that were not Dublin residents, could reserve before it.
Right, but it didn't sell.
I guess what my question.
It didn't sell out Thursday sold out Dublin residents only.
Correct.
Friday did not sell out Dublin residents only, and then what percentage was Dublin City schools?
So we know that we know Friday, Friday Dublin residents was close to 70%.
So the rest, it could have been other people, because some other school districts I believe
even when Hillier might have had the day off.
So it could have been other people, but we do know because of the interest and the number
of people we heard from a lot of it was Dublin City School district residents.
But 70% on Friday was still Dublin residents?
Yes.
Okay.
And have we reached out to the school to see if they would support it more or be sponsors
of it more considering it's a large portion of the school kids that are coming to this event?
We haven't.
It's something we can certainly consider.
A lot of it though, we talk about it.
This is also a very popular event with preschool and younger age children as well.
Not that they wouldn't be interested, but we are finding that there are a lot of very small
children that come with their families.
So I've participated in Sputacto before and I have to say it is a wonderful, wonderful
event.
When I talk with community members unanimously, they love this event.
And so I would be in favor of keeping it as a two-day event, as well.
I understand that there is slightly extra cost, but I think the benefit we get from just
the joy it brings kids and also even the participants who do it, they really enjoy this.
And I think it really is a good community bonding event.
One question I had for you though, was there any thought as far as what we actually
charged the sponsors of increasing that to make up a little bit of the difference in the
cost?
Yeah, and this was the first year that we did the $5,000 sponsorships.
That was new and that really did help us increase.
And Jim on our staff, he has actually said he's already had people ask for at least 12,000
already and he hasn't even tried to sell it yet.
These are people coming to him.
So we will look at what that range is going to be and one of the things we do with all
our events, we look at, are we missing some sponsorship opportunities?
I think once Jim started to go out and sell this event, we realized how popular it was,
which it was just not something that we had really intended to do and now he sees that
market and he knows, so kind of like we do at Irish Festival, we look at every stage,
every element and we try to get a sponsor for it.
I think it's something that we're doing more and more with Sputacular so I already getting
half of the sponsors without even trying to sell it.
I think we can definitely increase that sponsorship value.
So Allison, what is the budget delta?
We only plan for one day.
So what would be the budget delta that would be missing?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's, oh, actually I think it's a 15, some, 15,
so 64.
I recall when we had this discussion as part of the big umbrella, I think it was the
folks that did the work for us, said, you know, we look at the impact and the number of
people and the amount of, it isn't just the dollar and cents, it becomes a two day event.
We don't have, other than the Irish Festival, we don't really have two day events.
This was an anomaly.
And because it really wasn't selling out the second day and because Thursday night is
highly preferable, I mean, there was just a lot of reasons that say, yes, people love
it, but they can love it on Thursday night and it is their room on Thursday night.
So if we were to do it back to I think what was the recommendation and what was the budget
in one day and we were to do it on Thursday night, what would be the estimate of the percentage
of folks we think we could not serve on a Thursday night?
So if I'm going to do backwards math because I think I have that number, but I don't think
it's necessarily spelled out.
So if we said we had 3,800 guests on Friday, if 70% of that was Dublin residents, and
that's just what we're guessing because we don't know after we open it up to the only
residents, a resident could still get a ticket, but we don't track it after that point.
So 70% of that, 3,800, so what is that off the top of my head is, I should know this,
like 3,000, is that right, somebody have a calculator?
But if they didn't know there was a Friday option, I'm just looking at the capacity, I
guess, I could say, and because Thursday is the night, people like the best, right?
That is, I mean, if you had to pick, you'd pick Thursday, right?
And Friday wasn't fully subscribed again, I think that was some of the feedback we got
from the consultants is, you know, you're doing it to an event, you can do it.
But is it worth, I mean, if you say, it was a one day event for quite some time, right?
And people were certain.
So is it worth the city time and effort and all of that to do it for two days?
It isn't so much about saving $10,000 or what have you.
I recall that as part of the discussion is, is it really a one day event we're making
into two days, or is it a two day event?
And that was the question at hand, and when I read this, I still think, it feels like
a one day event on the Thursday night when people love it and make it double in residence.
I mean, it still seems to fit what I thought was the recommendation from the folks that
looked at it.
But I do know that so we wouldn't be able to, we had looked at doing that before expanding
the hours to see if we couldn't get it in, you know, so if we right now we're, you
know, six to nine, I think, I don't know if that's exactly right now, I should know that.
On Thursday night, and we have played with those times.
When we've gone earlier, we find that people, you know, we really just don't bring in the
extra people.
It's us expanding the hours and paying more to, you know, our exhibitors and stuff and
people are just not showing up because they're trying to get home and they're trying to get
their kids fed and those kind of things.
And we've tried to go later as well.
Even this year when it was warmer, we thought maybe people would stick around after we ended
because, you know, we've had that at other events, but they pretty much, you know, was
late enough and they took off.
So what would happen on what we used to have happen is we couldn't take care of everybody
on Thursday night.
So we would have people who wanted to go Thursday night who were disappointed because they
couldn't get the trunk or treat tickets that were Dublin residents and it just just kind
of adds to the congestion of the event.
What are the Friday hours?
One to five.
And you say on Thursday it was like started it.
I think.
Fort and nine.
I think.
Wait, they were both four.
I should know this.
Four to eight because they were both four hours, four to eight.
I agree that many of the kids, you know, I hand out candy pretty much every year at this
event and it's a highlight.
I really enjoy it.
But most of the, not more, a significant amount of the kids are preschool aged kids.
So, but you don't feel like if Thursday, an earlier start on Thursday, we tried it for
years.
I think at one point we even started at 2.30 and 3 and it just we were not getting that.
They just weren't coming.
It just for whatever reason and maybe it's because the parents had to get home or what it
just, it kind of died and we were standing around, you know, waiting for people to show
up and it seemed like a waste of our efforts to be there.
The other thing we're able to do on Friday because we know that that first half hour
is a little slow too.
We are able to do the silent or not silent but we turn off all the music and all that
kind of stuff.
So we've had a lot of luck with that bringing in some kids who are able to experience that
first half hour on Friday where it's just a little different experience for them.
I wonder what would happen if we went on Friday from 2 to 8.
And we looked at that.
Our biggest problem is going to be if there's football games because they do still have
football games even if they don't have school on that Friday.
So it just, we would always be waiting to see if there was a football game.
Okay.
Any questions?
Well, we have a decision to make, folks.
So the request from staff is to maintain it as a two-day event.
Our budget has budgeted it for one day of it.
I know we suggested one day only.
I would say Thursday would be the day.
But then we're only saving probably what $8,000.
By doing away with Friday and for $8,000, another 30 and our guests can't go.
I guess what I'm saying is maybe we can make up the $8,000 in sponsorships and that's
what I was thinking.
Maybe the schools could ship in some more or something.
I would think we could find, I don't know, saving $8,000 doesn't seem like much of a savings.
Yeah.
I'm kind of thinking along some similar lines there, Amy.
I also think I'm really appreciative just because I've got some friends who have some kiddos
who need some of that adaptive time from a stimulation perspective.
I would really hate to see us have to do away with that extra time for those kiddos to be
able to experience something that they otherwise normally would be an overload for them.
I'm really supportive of that.
I'd even be supportive of expanding that time a little bit if we felt like we needed it.
In all honesty, like 3,800 guests, no, it's not a ton of people.
It's certainly a lot less than Thursday, but my feeling is if we have residents who simply
can't go, that hurts my heart a little bit.
Before this conversation, I was really kind of on the, let's just keep it at a day.
We were successful with it for a long time.
And again, we've also grown quite a bit as a city as well, so I realized that too, but
when I started thinking about that adaptive time slot, I was like, gosh, it would be a
real shame if we didn't have that ability for those kiddos who really need that quiet
or time frame to be able to experience something similar to kiddos with more normal profiles.
So I would be okay with keeping it at two days, but like Amy, I would appreciate that extra
effort on the sponsorship side.
Yeah, you had me at the adaptive hour.
I agree with that wholeheartedly, and I would actually also recommend explaining it to
an hour if possible.
Maybe give it another year is a two-day event and see if we can make up the difference
in the sponsorships and not retable the decision, wrong words, but consider putting the decision
off to we see how sponsorship goes in this new year.
And to me, it isn't about the $15,000 or the $8,000.
To me, it was just the amount of work and effort for two days for a program.
Are we serving our residents?
Are we serving a larger or are we serving non-residents?
And again, that was a lot of the discussion was, are we serving ourselves or are we serving
the community at large and are we using all of our staff time to do that?
So to me, if we could figure those numbers out, are you a Dublin resident or not when
we're getting the tickets?
I think that would help us answer that question, and that, to me, is the essence of it.
It isn't the $15,000.
We talked about are these regional events or are these for our communities?
So that would be my request, even more so than the sponsorship is let's see if that
in fact is the case.
Okay.
Thank you.
I think if we can track who bought those tickets on Friday, is that like after it gets
open to all, I think that would be good.
Yeah, we can do that.
Okay.
Well, it looks like then I will make them, I'm counting correctly, take off my shoes to count
more than ten, but I will make a motion to continue hosting Spooktacular as a two day
event.
Is there a second?
I'll second.
Thank you, Jenny, which please call the roll.
Miss Aludo?
Yes.
Dr. Lamb?
Yes.
Mayor Amrosgrooms?
Yes.
Ms. Johnson?
Yes.
Ms. Cram?
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa?
Yes.
Okay.
And now we will continue with the Dublin Irish Festival 2025 review in 2026 ticket pricing
conversation.
Again, thanks for having me.
In your last city manager update, we had a link to the Dublin Irish Festival Annual Report.
We had a fantastic year so I just kind of wanted to go over some of the highlights of that
happened last year.
So many of you who were there know it was, we were blessed with gorgeous weather last year
was good for us, but in our attendance increased by 10%, but our revenue increased actually
by 24%.
And so we were able to give back $108,000 to the sharing of the green program.
There were 9.9 tons of food and a record breaking $16,000 given to the Dublin food pantry.
And we had more than 1,000 volunteers that donated close to 10,000 hours, I like to say.
So in our surveys, just over 95% rate the festival is terrific or good and 96.1% are planning
to return in 2026.
We are very proud that we won the USA Today Top Cultural Festival.
We'll mention you can vote now for us for this year.
And we also received, for the first time, the American bus association best of the best
festivals and events, Scott during and his staff helped us get that recognition.
Some of the other things are composting increased by 42% are recycling rose by 8%.
And we had a 32 increase in bike parking.
I don't know if it was the weather or what, but that just kind of went off the rails there.
So you can find more information in our annual report.
And we will be getting that out to the media this week.
So again, going back to the events roadmap, they had suggested that we have a positive net goal
of $300,000 in the net Irish festival.
And that was supposed to be for 2026.
They gave us a two year ramp for that.
And this year, we actually greatly exceeded that.
We were at 484,520,000 dollars, and we did that this year, so a year early.
Our cost recovery was 101%.
That is the first time that our cost recovery has been over 100% since 2017.
And so we were very proud of those numbers.
You can see the charts here.
So you can see the years and how our expenses, we've talked about this many times,
how our expenses grew after COVID and some of the increases and the things that we've seen.
But how our cost recovery has kind of changed over those years.
We are always at the, as we know, 24 was a bad weather year.
So weather impacts us, but one of the things that we know that even though inflation has gone up
by 25% since 2019, if you look at costs, but that if we would use that, our expenses
should be over $3 million if we just went with regular inflation numbers.
So we have been keeping that number down even though we have grown.
We haven't grown as much as inflation would indicate that we should have.
So this year, our expenses were up 2%.
A lot of that was because we have a lot of expenses that are related to when we make more money,
the expenses go up.
For example, our credit card fees, the cost of the beverages and the merchandise that we sell.
All that goes up and those were up 15% this year.
So that did kind of increase us a little bit.
Our staffing costs were up just 1.5%, which is below what the staff salary
increased.
So we did have a slight decline in actual number of hours.
And we implemented cashless operations at all of our locations.
In the past, we went with the beverages, but this year you couldn't use cash anywhere at
our operations site except inside the rec center.
So that helped us cut staffing dramatically, both in the finance department as well as
the police and just the amount of cash handling went down a just ridiculous amount.
I mean, instead of having millions of dollars on site, you know, it was just much safer
not to have those dollars here.
Our revenue was up 24% as I mentioned.
This is the highest revenue we ever had, even though we just had the 10% increase in attendance.
We did have a 7% increase in non-weather dependent revenue.
This is something we track every year because we know that we can't control the weather.
So a lot of things that are in there are our vendor fees, our sponsorship, and those things
really made a difference this year.
Vendor fees were up quite a bit because we increased the price of those and the sponsorship
has just continued to grow.
So our customer recovery for this year, some of the things we are planning, one of the
big things is that we are, for the first time, well, in my history, reducing the number
of hours of the Irish festival, our plan is to close on Saturday night at 11 pm and set
a midnight.
We notice we've been tracking it for years, even though Friday through midnight stays
fairly strong because we have that shorter number of hours, but we're finding on Saturday
night is people are just not staying past, even though we had great attendance last year
after 11 o'clock, you still saw that drop off.
Something we're seeing at festivals, I started doing some benchmarking and we couldn't find
a festival that goes to midnight.
We were pretty much the only ones that were still going to midnight.
It's a national trend that people are doing things earlier and I think we just kind of have
to make that choice and change that a bit.
So we've already seen some, we have our entertainers mostly booked and we're expecting
to see about a $10,000 reduction between the staffing and just the entertainers that
we don't have to book in that last hour.
Excuse me, you'll also see we've talked to like our shuttle companies, our sound company,
any of those costs that are based on their staffing costs, they should all have a slight
decrease.
We did say it's only 5% of our total hours, that one hour is 5% of our total hours.
So even if we see that 5% decrease, that should hopefully offset any increase that we might
have seen through inflation.
And also we've looked at our beverage sales and our ticket sales during that time and
we don't expect to see a lot of decrease in the revenue from that time.
So I mentioned sponsors briefly but we did have all-time records in our sponsors and
the cash increased by 10%.
So we were at $365,000 in cash, 227,000 in kind donations so that could be anything from
the dinners at the Emerald Club or, for example, the tent company gives us a percentage
off at certain locations.
We also had 12 new sponsors and the five you see here are top sponsors with Wendy's
being our longest sponsor they've been with us for over 30 years.
So the revenue from beverages was also record breaking this year.
After last year we went back and looked, we were really seeing some increases in the price
of the product.
For example, a lot of that had to do with the price of plastic last year.
So water went up and we started doing some benchmarking.
So a lot of our products went up by about a dollar last year.
So we did have a 30% increase in our total beverage revenue if you remember that's still
just with a 10% increase in attendance.
And we really, you know, we sold a little bit more but I think a lot of it was getting
ahead of it and knowing that we needed to increase those prices on those so that we weren't
losing there.
We had some discussion last year about the cup size instead of raising the price.
At the time we had so many cups left over from the year before that it was kind of going
to be cost prohibitive.
But what we realized, we thought that raising the price would have an impact on sales which
we realized it really didn't.
One of the other things that is kind of a great thing that we like to talk about at the
Irish festivals, we have those reusable mugs and people can bring them back every year.
And they save so many extra pounds in that landfill recycling.
And we just can't find a mug that would be in the smaller size that would make sense.
And we're afraid too if we had smaller pores, people would be coming back into the line
more often.
So because of that and because we raised the price last year, we think it makes sense
to keep the cup size as it is.
And just kind of keep looking at that.
We're going to keep reviewing that because we also have a lot more information now.
The last two years we have been on the square products actually last three years.
So we have so much more inventory and data than we've had in the past.
So we're able to kind of track those trends and see what people are buying and what they're
interested in.
What we haven't tracked which we're going to do is how many pores go into those recycled
or the reusable mugs.
We happen to know how many reusable mugs we've sold.
But this will be the first year that we're actually tracking how many times those come
back.
So we've already worked out how we're going to do that on our square systems.
So we have that information to see what an impact that does have on the festival.
So going into tickets, you can see last year where our ticket buyer distribution was.
I want to personally call that person in Wyoming and see what they're doing out there.
But you can see, you know, it's kind of an interesting spread.
Obviously, we still have most of our people from Ohio, but we are pulling especially
from our surrounding states.
And this data, both the surrounding state data and the Ohio data is helping us focus our
marketing for this year.
So we're working with our marketing company to kind of go out in specific markets and
using this data to target what those markets might be.
So we've looked at like Dayton, which would be, you know, still in Ohio, but then we're
also looking at Indianapolis and some of those Detroit, some of those other surrounding
communities with the help of Scott during and his team, too, is trying to see where
do they know that people are coming from.
So we can focus our marketing on those markets.
So for this year, we don't recommend any changes in the tickets, the general tickets.
We did look at the comparable tickets.
Obviously, some of these people maybe haven't put up their ticket price for this year.
But we're hearing as that people aren't really making a huge change this year.
And I think a lot of that, so we have been consistent since 2024.
So this would be the third year at this ticket range.
Because of the price of inflation, we will probably come back to you next year and ask for
a slight increase.
We've never done like a 50 cents, but it could be something that we look at or we may look
at tearing them a little differently.
But we know that we need to make sure we don't fall behind like we had in previous years
on inflation and the ticket prices.
So we'll continue to monitor it, but we don't recommend any changes in the ticket pricing
this year for the general tickets.
Allison?
Yeah.
How successful was the Flash Sale?
It is very successful.
I don't have the exact numbers.
I can get that.
But it's one of those things.
And I actually was saying this year, I would love to be able to now that we've used the
same ticketing company a couple of years, see how many of them are repeat.
Because I think those Flash Sale people, and we are moving it up.
That is one thing we're changing.
We have the last couple of years started on St. Patrick's Day and followed through the
rest of March.
We are going to jump out ahead of that and do March 2nd.
One of the things, again, when we were talking to people and we were talking to our marketing
company, the news media is interested in talking to us before St. Patrick's Day.
Because it's just timely, I actually was on Fox 28 this weekend because we were talking
about the USA today, but this is the time they're looking for the Irish stories.
So we think we're going to really capitalize on it.
I can get you the exact number, but it's been very successful.
But I always want to know how many of them are repeat.
Because those are the people who know they're going to be there from the minute they get
there to Friday afternoon through the end of the day on Sunday.
So next we want to talk about the VIP clubs, because we did do some extensive looking at
how we want to move those going forward.
We had some major discussions about, as you can see, year over year, the Deb Club has
become less popular and we did some surveying to try to figure out what that might be.
We did surveying of all the clubs, and there are some small changes that we're making.
For example, a lot of the comments we had, especially at the Celtic Rock Club, was that
they didn't like that people were saving seats.
We actually had somebody this year print up their own chair backers and put them on the
back of a seat to save their seat.
That was audacious, because I walked over and said, hmm, I don't think we did that.
So we are, one of the things we're doing is internally we're going to enforce the policy
of you can't save seats.
We're changing actually the layout of how the tables are going to be in there, so it's
less, like it's not as big a deal to get in that front row and get the table.
So we're working on those internal things.
The other thing we learned is, as they've gotten more popular, we need to increase the
bathroom capabilities, especially at Celtic Rock Club, but also at Deb Club.
So those are the things we're looking at.
The other thing that we're finding that we used to have at Celtic Rock Club was a reserved
table.
We used to have, before we opened it up to the public, companies could reserve a section
of the Celtic Rock Club.
If you remember the city of Dublin, even had a section where we could host people.
And it's something we haven't had as an offering.
So instead of completely, we were going to, we had discussed possibly getting rid of
the Deb Club, but we thought this year what we might try to do is go back to allowing
that to have some reserve tables.
So if you want to reserve a table for your company, your friend group, you know that table
is for you, and so it'll be difference where you won't be allowed to reserve seats if
you don't have these reserve tables.
But we are offering you the opportunity to get a whole table that is yours for the weekend.
They'll be behind the other tables.
But that's kind of how we're looking at that.
We're going to try that to see if that moves the needle at all on that Deb Club, because
that's where we're finding has just not performed like the others.
I mean, when you look at this chart here, you'll see how the Deb Club has fared.
It is our newest club.
But the Emerald Club, for example, if you look at that chart, that 2019 number is kind
of off because that's before, that's when, if you remember, alcohol was unlimited for
your ticket price, and we weren't, we didn't track the alcohol that was given away in there.
So when we changed that policy, and while we did it, you know, in COVID, but that obviously
dropped the return on that once we kind of were tracking what those beverage sales were.
One of the things we say about Emerald Club, I'm trying to remember the exact number.
I think it's 40% of the members of Emerald Club receive that ticket through their sponsorship.
So in other words, the people who are buying the Emerald Club members are almost paying
for our VIP hospitality for our sponsors and other people.
So in a sense, any dollar we make on the Emerald Club is gravy, because it's, you know,
it's really paying for a hospitality area that we would have to pay for sponsors anyway.
So instead of us paying for it, the members are paying for that.
So anything we make on Emerald Club, we're very happy with Celtic Rot Club again.
And I think we're kind of finding our footing there and trying to figure out how that works.
And I think really our adjustment is on the Dub Club.
The other thing we started looking across, and you'll see on this next slide, what people
are charging for one day versus a weekend pass.
So we made adjustments, and you can see the yellow column are all the things that changed.
We wanted some of them changed $25, some of them changed $50, but we did some real research
into what other festivals are doing on the one day versus the multi day, which helped kind
of inform what we wanted to do there.
And then also you'll see the reserve table that we added at the Dub Club.
The other thing we're doing previously only Emerald Club members could do the add-on beverage
package, so we're going to open that up so that all the clubs can do that.
That doesn't get you, it says here, it's not an unlimited package.
We won't off there, unlimited again, but it does give you three alcoholic beverages per day.
So a lot of people just, especially if they're using it for a hospitality to give to clients
or friends, they want to pay for that upfront.
But we haven't offered it in anything but Emerald Club, so we have added that.
And again, our now and alcoholic beverages will remain to be free, so those will always
be available in those clubs.
So I think what the biggest thing here is we're going to see how this works with the Change
and Dub Club to see if it makes a difference in our revenue at that club.
And then if not, we will look at it again next year based on our surveys.
So at this point, staff is recommending the approval of our festival pricing structure,
and I can answer any questions that you might have.
Questions?
Wait, take a moment for public comment.
Is there anyone present this evening that would like to speak relative to this topic?
Hearing none?
Council questions, discussion?
So all the way back to the beginning, I'm not sure I understand that the number calculation
of the net is recovery if on the next slide, cost and expenses are the same.
Is that all sponsorships?
Is this on this slide here?
Yeah.
So some of it, it's both.
So originally in the roadmap, they had said increase revenue by $150,000 and decrease expenses
by $150,000.
And at the time when we were looking at that, we just kind of made it as a group for $100,000.
So some of it is the, obviously our expenses did go up 1%, but so most of that is the
beverage sale increases, it's the sponsorship increases, it's the revenue and ticket sales
as well.
So if you go to the next slide, this is what I'm confused about.
The next slide says revenue and expenses are just almost hugging each other, right?
Right.
So the only thing that wouldn't be in here would be sponsorships?
No, sponsorships is in there.
So the difference, what we're saying is we're making up the gap.
So last year, the gap between these two was $500,000, around $500,000, and they wanted
us to reduce that gap by $3,000.
So that's what you're saying.
That's what you're reducing the gap.
We reduced the gap.
We got rid of the gap in this case.
So it's interesting, this is the first time in five years we were in the, and it was
a perfect weather day, which just reminds us the tenuous nature of this.
The other numbers that are not in here is the revenue from our vendors, and what did that
look like this year compared to past years?
Do you have that data?
We don't track the revenue of the vendors.
We went up 20% because of, we added some vendors and we increased their rental fee.
So we went up 20% this year.
We don't get a cut of their service.
Yeah, yeah.
Our net take went up 20%.
What would that number be?
This remind me what that revenue was.
I'd have to look it up and I don't have it in front of me.
I think that's a number, and I've said this for the last three years, I'll say it again,
that so many other organizations look at it, percent take, particularly of the food versus
a flat amount, and our amounts are pretty low.
I mean, it's pretty low.
I would like to see that included in here when we look at this, because that is one area
where we have some play that, again, I know others are doing that, and I know we said
last year, it wasn't enough time, apparently, we're not doing it this year.
I think it would be worth looking at again and having that discussion, so that's a piece
of this pie, I think.
I mean, they had to do incredibly well this year.
Yeah, and I can pull out, we had a pricing, it wasn't that we didn't have enough time
last year.
We did have a pricing breakdown of how much the staffing and the systems and stuff
with cost, but we could pull that back out and look at it again.
But now with Squarespace, what all of these are, I can't imagine that there aren't, what
I'm told is those are generated numbers now, right?
We don't have to do that work, that's the responsibility of that.
I'm told, again, I just think there's some opportunity there that we need to look
at, if we're looking at all the corners, because if we go back to that first chart, I mean,
we're losing money, we're flat out losing money, so is there not an opportunity to look
here?
And that's the only other area I think that the sponsorships are growing, that seems
to be the area to me that would be a useful discussion for this group next year.
Thank you and congratulations, it was a great year last year and it was, you know, that's
a great cost recovery, so well done.
So I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just saying, as we're looking at the road map here,
we're not going to have perfect weather every time we know that.
So what are those opportunities, and is there opportunity there as the question?
Thank you.
So congratulations, these numbers are simply incredible.
I mean, a 24% increase in revenue, 30% increase in beverage revenues, only a 2% increase in expenses.
What do you attribute this incredible growth this year?
And do you anticipate the same increases for this upcoming year?
Because I think this will actually kind of help us decide about keeping the ticket pricing
the same.
What are your thoughts on that?
So I do say a good percentage that was, so 2024 was a very bad weather year.
So even that, so we were up 30%.
If we look at the previous year, we were still up, I should probably remember what that
execs, but we went from, we got an extra 100 and something thousand dollars from the previous
year.
So we were up non-weather revenue dependent.
So a lot of it was our sponsorships and looking at the pricing of our products.
That was something we spent a lot of time last year.
So we wouldn't, guess that we would have a 30% increase, but we still are shooting to
have a 10% increase this year if everything works out in our favor.
So that's one of the things, and a lot of that comes from cutting some on the expense
side, but also trying to see where we can make that extra money on the revenue side.
And to that end, one question I have is, as far as we talked about sponsors, but what
are the thoughts about increased increase in number of participants that come to the
average festival?
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah.
So last year, we were at 85,000.
Before COVID, we had some years that we were actually around 100,000.
I think the highest might have been 104,000.
And so one of the things we're seeing is an nationwide trend that not as many people
are going out to some of these events.
And so we know maybe we'll never be at that 104,000 again, but some of the targeted
marketing that we're trying to do to bring in those outside groups.
One of the things too, and I didn't mention, it is in our annual report, we worked with
a new marketing company last year, approached marketing that did a really great job, and
our media impressions were up, I think they were up close to 30 to 40%.
So that's something that we're going to try to continue that success is to get that word
out there, but we want to extend it beyond just the central Ohio community.
We want to get out to the Cincinnati's and the Dayton's and the, you know, we're looking
at Akron, and then those that we really want to bring in that'll come in and spend the
day and hopefully spend the night in our hotels.
Because we do have, as we add more hotels on, especially in the next couple of years,
we are going to have room for them.
There were many years, especially when we were at that 104,000 and we had less hotels.
We just couldn't take any more people because there were no more hotels.
But now that our number of hotel rooms have increased, we are able to look back at that
and try to bring those out of town people back in.
And I think there's also a good opportunity just within our Dublin residents or local
residents in increasing the amount of people coming.
I wonder if our marketing does any analysis, asking people if they don't come to the festival
or why not?
Is it because there's not enough free shuttles going to the local communities, you know,
only the free shuttles for the Metro Center?
Is it because of the cost or, you know, what that is, because that might be an opportunity.
And this also leads me to another point, and this is more for chief prices, that I know
that amongst the festival organizers, all through a Columbus, there's been a growing concern
of crime, criminal activities, and also police incidences.
Do we track the number of police incidences at the Irish festival?
So for instance, like I've talked with organizers for the Taco Fest Asian Festival, some
of these other things.
And actually now there's organized people that will come to actually create disturbances.
And then time it.
So another group will come and create disturbances at another part of the festival itself.
And so we're seeing more organization to this.
And I know that that's actually dissuaded some people from attending some of these festivals.
And I wonder if the same is true for the Dublin Irish Festival.
Yeah, thank you for the question.
We do track the number of incidents we have at the Irish festival and then also keep a
close consideration of the things that are peripheral to the festival grounds itself
in the parking and things of that nature.
And we don't tend to have very many incidents fortunately at the Irish festival.
It's certainly prepared to prevent or respond and address those if necessary.
Great, thank you.
Other questions?
Well, it's certainly, arguably it was the three most beautiful days of the year, or the
Irish festival.
It had been, it had been, oh my goodness, hot beforehand and after not so desirable
either, but it was really, this should be a high water mark for certainly the efforts
that you're doing are appreciated and we might drive some more.
But the odds of having the backdrop, if you will, of that weather, if we, you know, we
can hope.
But it's certainly not likely so.
Thank you for your work on that.
I don't believe there's any more council questions.
I would only add, I was at the Celtic rock stage a couple of the evenings.
And I don't, I think maybe that experience is going past what it may be a volunteer management
might be appropriate for.
And I think maybe some outside security might be appropriate there.
I happened to be there when people had set their reserved, you know, the little towels
that they had printed up on those chairs and the volunteers had gone up and said something
to them and it wasn't terribly well received and, you know, you have a volunteer coming
up and you don't want to put them in a position where it gets to be confrontational.
So the only thing I might suggest is that we add perhaps some private security, maybe
even just in the later portions of the night, maybe from 9 to 11 or something when it gets,
gets a little contentious there because we don't want our volunteers to feel like they
had, like we're putting them in a difficult spot or maybe they would fear for, you know,
some level of confrontation that they weren't uncomfortable with on a volunteer basis.
So that would, that would be my only, yeah.
I appreciate that, something that we can definitely look at and the cost on the private
security for a couple of hours is not really that much.
And it would make definitely those volunteers feel safer.
Yeah.
Either that or make it more like a concert venue where you had an assigned seat.
And I'm not sure how you would do that.
I think it might take away from it more than it would add to it.
But something to diffuse that contentious nature there, usually around the last act of
the evening.
So that's my only two cents on that portion.
So with that, I will make a motion to approve the Irish festival pricing structure as presented
as their second.
Second.
Thank you, Jenny.
Please call the roll.
Ms. Cram.
Yes.
Ms. Johnson.
Yes.
Dr. Lamb.
Yes.
Vice Mayor DeRosa.
Yes.
Ms. Aluto.
Yes.
Mayor Amro Scrims.
Yes.
Okay.
This brings us to our staff comments portion of our agenda.
I will turn it over to City Manager O'Kallion.
Good evening, members of Council.
I have several staff comments this evening, the first being about the Irish festival.
The Irish festival has been nominated for the fourth time in the USA today, 10 Best
Readers poll last year, the festival won first place.
So we are certainly looking for a repeat showing.
Voting began February 2nd and will continue until March 2nd.
So you can vote every day on each of your devices.
Winners will be announced on March 11th.
So we are looking forward to hearing that to good news.
Next, I am pleased to share that Dublin is a recipient of the state and local cybersecurity
grant program issued by the Department of Homeland Security and administered by Cyber
Ohio.
The city applied for this grant and has been awarded the maximum of $20,000 with a $5,000
match and this will be used in execution of our cybersecurity policy in 2026 or cybersecurity
plan.
So I would like to thank the IT team for their work in pursuing that grant opportunity.
Staff is also advancing design plans for the new Highland Glen Park, which is a new neighborhood
and Gateway Park at the intersection of Highland Croy and Post Road, state route 161.
The park will feature a community lawn, a loop trail connecting to the broader path system
and other parts of Dublin.
There will be some seating, some landscaping and will also be restoring the historic barn
and greenery structures.
This was all discussed as part of that Highland Glen development process.
An initial neighborhood information letter was sent in November of last year and we are
preparing to send an update letter on this project to neighborhoods in the vicinity
of this park and that letter will go out later this week so I wanted to give council a heads
up.
Construction bittings anticipated in the third quarter, the budget is in the CIP at 955,000.
Project completion is targeted for the fourth quarter that is weather dependent and also
contingent upon getting good bids and we're also going to be initiating restoration work
on the barn and the greenery structures and that work is scheduled to begin this spring
that work will occur ahead of the park construction later in the year.
In furtherance of the events roadmap and since we've already talked about sponsorships
twice this evening, we have issued an RFP to develop a citywide sponsorship strategy.
The goal is to create a more coordinated approach to sponsorships that increases non-tax
revenues, strengthens community and corporate sponsorships and support city programs, facilities
and events.
The selected firm will evaluate our current assets and sponsorship efforts, identify new
revenue opportunities and deliver an actionable strategy aligned with the city's brand values
and community goals.
The timing of this issuance of the RFP is intentional.
We have the premier athletic and recreation campus conceptual framework nearing completion
and we also have a need to align our citywide or city sponsorship efforts with those of sports
facilities companies as they begin working on their sponsorship strategies for Sports
Ohio.
So, timing is perfect to coordinate those efforts and we certainly know that the sponsorship
efforts of Sports Ohio in the future recreation campus will impact sponsorships that we conduct
elsewhere in the city.
The RFP's advertised now and proposals are due March 4th.
There will be a cross departmental internal team that will oversee the proposal review,
selection, implementation of the strategy and we will, of course, engage with city council
at certain milestones through that process and then ultimately present a final strategy
to council for adoption.
So, we're looking forward to that process.
Staff's going to be conducting a public meeting with property owners in the vicinity of
the Riverside Drive water sanitary and shared use path area 3 project on March 18th at 630
in the city's development building.
The project's going to be performing water main extensions to areas 3A and 3B sanitary
sewer main extensions to areas 3A, 3C and portions of 3B shared use path connections
between taunty drive and yandout woods boulevard and street maintenance work within the
Drexel Hills and Woodland subdivision.
So, we're leveraging several opportunities to accomplish those infrastructure improvements.
Timing for construction of this project will be determined through the upcoming CIP process
and this public meeting, the purpose of it is intended to discuss the overall project
scope, the proposed alignments and address project related concerns, invitations are
going to be mailed to property owners within the bounds of the project on February 10th.
And then finally, I wanted to take a moment to recognize both the significance of the
recent winter storm fern event and the exceptional work of our entire team.
This was the most substantial winter storm we've experienced since 2008 and in advance
of the storm, we conducted emergency operations practices to ensure that we were fully prepared.
We confirmed communication protocols, clarifying roles, coordinated across public service,
police, Washington Township Fire, recreation services, communications.
This really was a true citywide effort in partnership with the township.
That preparation all positioned us to respond quickly and cohesively as the conditions
test intensified through that storm.
So the event began at 9 p.m. on January 24th, crews transitioned into 24-hour operations
through January 28th.
We adjusted our standard procedures due to the significant amount of snowfall and we initially
prioritized making our roadways passable for emergency services that needed access.
We had prolonged extreme cold that limited the effectiveness of our materials, which is
a little different than many of our events.
Then from there, once we had passable streets, our crews were able to continue their efforts
to work on systematically, working their way across the community to restore access,
to residents, businesses, and then focus on detailed cleanup and going back to our citywide
standard of curb-to-curb treatment where feasible.
They improved intersection visibility, cleared catch basins, hauled snow from constrained
areas in the bridge street district, and that's an entire operation in itself if you've
ever seen that.
That's pretty impressive and pretty rare that we need to do that.
So just wanted to highlight the efforts of the entire team.
It truly was a citywide effort.
Planning coordination execution, follow-up monitoring, we responded to a lot of city requests
and were able to follow up and accommodate many of those.
I'm extremely proud of all the professionalism, the resilience, long work hours in very
strenuous conditions.
Great collaboration was demonstrated by our entire team, all the different departments, worked
around the clock for many days, extreme conditions, and it's all in furtherance of keeping our
community safe and moving and allowing our residents to live their lives.
And then once we were done with that, more snow came.
So, and now we're going to be preparing this week for all that snow to melt, and so operations
and focus will start turning towards drainage issues, but we are prepared to manage that.
And that is all I have.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
Okay.
I just won this evening from the Administrative Committee.
Report will be delivered by Vice Mayor DeRose.
Thank you.
The Administrative Committee met on February 3rd, and we really had two topics.
And the first, this is Board and Commission Recruiting Season.
And the committee and staff have worked hard to continue to improve our operations in terms
of recruiting and getting information to residents, and we turned some attention to what
improvements could be potentially make to our website, which we've had up and around
for a while and have learned a lot of things.
So we engaged with staff and looked at how could we potentially improve navigation, look
at potentially possibly integrating the volunteer portion of the website and the boards and commissions
because it's all services, their opportunity there, looking at, you know, as devices have
improved compatibility, clarification, et cetera, all in an effort to make it easy for our
residents to engage and understand.
Staff has agreed to bring back a comprehensive approach and options to addressing some of
these, and we'll present that to the committee at a future meeting, and then we'll bring
that back to this group.
So we thank staff for the ongoing work.
It's not as hard as snow removal, but it is ongoing work.
So the second thing that committee did is it is a recruiting season, and as we know
we have had an opening on the architecture review board vacancy, so we did some recruiting
for that, and we expect to bring forth a resolution to Council for their approval at
the February 23rd meeting.
So unless my colleagues have anything to add, that is the report for this evening.
Great.
Thank you.
Very good.
Okay.
We will now move on to Council Roundtable, and I will start down my far right.
Actually, I don't have anything to share.
I will ask if we could get the staff comment slides in BoardPack, because tomorrow morning
when I forget what you said, then I can look it up.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Yes, thank you to all of our staff for the help with the snow storm.
It was amazing what you did.
Just one really quick note.
The Sports Ohio Steering Committee met with sports facilities to just talk about and work
through sort of a branding exercise, so I want to thank Megan for putting that together
because it happened to be on that Monday of the snow storm.
So we had to do it virtually, but it was great exercise, and I'm really looking forward
to seeing what they come up with as we move that project forward.
That's it.
So just two issues that I want to bring up, we're just two things.
That's number one.
I've reached out to all of our H.O.A.'s and community associations within Board 3, and I met
with one the Reserve Association on Tuesday, the third, and I want to thank Megan and
the staff for addressing a lot of the concerns that they brought up.
The staff was amazing.
They addressed it literally the next day.
So they were really, really attentive.
So thank you.
And also thank you to the staff, to you, and also all the city employees for the tremendous
job you did with the snow removal.
The only reason why I bring up the meeting, though, is because it was interesting, you
know, when we're having these conversations about big initiatives here in Dublin, surprisingly,
I guess, perhaps surprisingly, a good number of people were not aware of some of the big
initiatives, such as the WID, the premier athletic campus, and also the Metro Santerary Revitalization.
And I only bring this up because I think it illustrates a point that we've talked about
a lot, and it has to do with communication.
We think we do a great job, and indeed we do, in fact, we've won awards for a communication.
But it pointed out that there's still a disconnect, and perhaps there's more that we can do,
to help with communicating to our residents.
I don't know what they are, I don't know if it's just capitalizing on some of the things
that we already have, where maybe new innovative ways, I know Councilmember Johnson talked about
doing a newsletter with the residents.
But it just, again, just pointed out to me that although we do a fantastic job, there's
still a good amount of our residents that just aren't aware of what we're doing or just aren't
hearing it.
And I wonder if it's incumbent upon us to actually reach out or incumbent upon them, I don't
know.
But it just pointed out that maybe there's some work that we can do on that.
The second thing I want to just mention is that on Saturday, I had the good fortune of
attending the Lunar New Year celebration with Councilmember Johnson and Mayor Gurus.
They had amazing cultural performances, and it really impressed me the depth and breadth
of the deep cultural roots right here in Dublin.
Everything from the water lily dance to the Wushu Arts even had an authentic Chinese orchestra
with three of those plucked zithered string instruments.
I think it's called the Zhu Zheng, I looked it up afterwards, but absolutely amazing.
And I want to particularly thank Mayor Gurus for her words of welcome at the very beginning.
She talked about how Dublin has built on diversity, stands for diversity, it celebrates
diversity.
She mentioned that that's what makes our community strong, and I could not agree more.
So I want to thank you for those words.
Amy and I, Amy forgot to mention, we had the opportunity to participate in a chamber event
last week.
It was entitled Understanding the Scope of Government Tears, T-E-A-R-S-T-I-E-R-S, I don't
know.
I think T-I-E-R-S.
We were joined by Jerome Township Trustee, Washington Township Trustee, and Ohio Senator
Andrew Brenner was there.
And so we got to meet with the class for a couple hours.
And as you said, as far as education and information, there's just a lot to be shared about how
government works and how we work together.
So I think the chamber for that opportunity, it was really fun, I enjoyed that very much.
And I would like to also add my thanks to the snow warriors.
As I was out there for a mere two hours cursing at my shovel, removing snow, I thought I
can't imagine the 24 hours and another 24 and another 24.
And I thank everybody for their heroic and fabulous work.
So thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
I had a couple things.
As you know, I had the opportunity at the invitation and expense of the Midahaw regional
planning commission of travel to Washington, D.C. last week.
And it was a really informative trip.
We had the opportunity to meet with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Government
Affairs Lead.
We had an FSP grant for passenger rail that was due last Friday.
So she gave us some very timely advice and insights on how to be successful in that grant
process.
So that grant is in.
It says $6 million grant planning grant.
So hopefully we'll be hearing on that in the near term.
I did also have the opportunity to visit the FCC.
I serve on the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee for the FCC.
It happened to be the same day that Elon Musk filed 1 million satellite licenses.
Thank you.
It's late.
So he filed it for 1 million licenses for satellites on that day.
And I think that will help maybe inform some of the conversations we have about how data
is going to move around this country in the near term.
So I look forward to having that sort of conversation maybe at a work session or something in the
near future because it's surprised everybody there and it is going to probably change the
way development maybe happens largely here around the development pressure that we're seeing.
We also had the opportunity to meet with all eight congressional representatives in Congress
and in the Senate side.
We met with Senator Moreno and Senator Houston.
We also met with representatives Carrie Jordan, Betty Taylor, Alderson and Sykes, all of whom
represent a portion of the Morpsey region.
We presented to them the competitive advantage projects that Morpsey would be bringing forward
in this year.
There's a couple of interest for us in Dublin, one of them being link us and then the other
being the passenger rail for Midwest Connect and the 3C and D.
So also had the opportunity to do a DC metro tour where certainly learning some lessons about
transit oriented development and how transit can impact the way that people move in the
patterns at which they choose.
I too, we enjoyed the Lunar New Year.
I was given my zodiac for the year, it's my per the help me out with the zodiac symbols
are different from the more European zodiac symbols, but they don't line up.
I said, well, I'm a Pisces and they said we don't have a Pisces.
I apparently am a pig in the Lunar New Year.
It says that my social calendar will be packed, success this year will come directly through
connections and it's a great year for weddings or expanding your family.
So my sons will be really excited when I share this with them, no pressure, we'll see
what that brings.
I too want to express my appreciation for the herculean effort it really takes to do snow
removal.
Megan had 12 inches on her slide presentation.
I measured 15 inches at my house on the back patio so it was a snow like we haven't seen
here in quite some time.
Having been here for this snow event and going to DC who had a similar snow event, they certainly
could come and take a note or two because they called it snowcrete there because it fell
and it froze and nobody moved any of it so they're still locked in their snowcrete position.
So I do want to say council member Keeler wanted to pass along his thanks for those efforts
as well and he left a note to express such.
I want to congratulate our city manager on Friday we had our comma meeting and she was
voted the vice chair of the Central Ohio Maris and Managers Association so we look forward
to your leadership in that space and then finally Wednesday is a big day for our very
own Dr. Lam so this is on behalf of all of your city fellow city council members we wish
you a wonderful day and hope that it is just full of joy and good experiences.
35th I've had a lot of those at any rate I think if there's nothing further for the good
of the order we will stand adjourned.
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