Sign ordinance, grant applications discussed at October council meeting
Lead Summary
By
Caitlin Forsha-crforsha@gmail.com
Hillsboro city council continued to discuss what one member called the “ever-changing sign legislation,” after an ordinance to correct the legislation’s most recent update raised even more concerns.
The city’s most recent update to the sign ordinance was passed in April to eliminate fees on certain replacement signs, but property maintenance and restoration committee chair Ann Morris pointed out at the September council meeting that the new legislation “mistakenly left out a paragraph that referred to temporary signs.”
Morris presented an ordinance to amend the legislation at Tuesday night’s regular council meeting by restoring limits on temporary sign duration. However, Morris said that it was suggested by Heather Collins, an administrative assistant in the mayor’s office, that the new wording “still might be confusing.”
The section in question reads: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this code, any movable sign not permanently attached to the ground or a building and easily removable using ordinary hand tools, any sign intended to be displayed for a limited period of time and capable of being viewed from any public right of way, parking area or neighboring property.”
“That particular part, ‘and capable of’ all the way to ‘neighboring property,’ she was concerned about that being left in just because I guess that’s a question that comes to the city building quite often,” Morris said. “We can either put a little notation by that so that people understand it when they come into the city building and ask that question, leave it alone or we can take it out.”
Morris asked if Hillsboro mayor Drew Hastings or safety and service director Todd Wilkin had any suggestions.
“I believe definitions need to be clarified on what a temporary sign is,” Wilkin said. “The concern is if it’s got the language there 14 days in a calendar or in a quarter, how do you manage that? How do you physically manage a temporary sign 14 days out of a quarter?
“The only way you can do that is if you watch them put the sign out the day they put it out, take a picture of it and come back 14 days later and make sure they take it down. That’s not going to work.”
Wilkin said that temporary signs are “showing up a lot” in the city and suggested that council consider adding more specific definitions and timetables, as well as addressing signs in the rights of way.
“Signs being installed on the edge of the road, in the right of way, is a concern for safety,” Wilkin said.
Morris said that her committee could look into Wilkin’s ideas at their next meeting.
“Could we just have this be a first reading?” council member Bill Alexander asked.
“Well, Heather [Collins] was concerned because we have so many signs going up right now, whether to make this just a first reading,” Morris said.
Morris suggested passing the ordinance “or we’re just going to have more and more signs coming up.”
Council president Lee Koogler said that council could pass the ordinance as an emergency despite possible additional changes to the signage legislation, “to give it some teeth in the interim.”
Council member Justin Harsha asked Wilkin if the city receives “a lot of complaints about temporary signs.”
“What is a lot?” Wilkin asked.
“Do you get one a day?” Harsha asked.
“Not one a day,” Wilkin said.
“One a week?” Harsha asked.
“Quite frankly, a lot of the complaints come from me,” Wilkin said. “If I’m driving around town and there are issues with sight distance, I have very little control to go in and remove that sign.”
Wilkin said that the city does receive complaints from citizens, but “the majority of the issues are my own visual inspections.”
“We don’t have any enforcement – it’s out of the ordinance now – but our city does look a lot cleaner, in my opinion, when we don’t have all these temporary signs showing up that are makeshift or handmade,” Wilkin said.
Morris said she thought council should pass the ordinance to correct the error from the last update to the legislation.
“This is just a paragraph that was omitted,” Morris said. “It was already passed and just got omitted from the last time we did it, so it was already passed once and was rewritten, because of the organic version we seem to have of this ever-changing sign legislation.”
Harsha said that he asked Wilkin about the complaints to gauge the necessity of passing the ordinance Tuesday night.
“Would you like to see this in place?” Harsha asked WIlkin.
“I would like to see it in place correctly,” Wilkin said.
Morris agreed, but said, “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it exactly correct.”
“We seem to address it every other month,” Morris said. “I think we’ll just keep changing it.”
Council voted 7-0 to suspend the three-reading rule and to pass the ordinance, “with no amendments.”
• • •
After a request was made by council member Tracy Aranyos at the September council meeting, Wilkin provided an update on recent applications for grants by the city’s grant writer, Kirby Ellison.
“Last Friday, we had two grants that were due in for OPWC [Ohio Public Works Commission] money,” Wilkin said. “One of the grants is for the second phase of North East Street, which would go from North Street to Collins. That would be curbs, gutters, sidewalks and new pavement. It would also be storm systems.
“The other grant is for the belt filter press out at the wastewater treatment plant.”
Wilkin explained that the belt filter press “is a system that actually squeezes all of the water out of the waste.”
The city is also looking into an Ohio Department of Natural Resources Grant that would be used for the city’s parks. The grant is a “50/50” grant up to $600,000, although Wilkin said he did not anticipate pursuing that amount.
“We will be sending out letters to the citizens of Hillsboro to participate in a survey for our parks system in Hillsboro,” Wilkin said. “This survey will help address the wants and the needs of the community with our parks throughout town and help the city of Hillsboro in preparing a strategic plan for outdoor recreational activities.”
Wilkin said that surveys will be sent out to a randomly selected sample of city water customers, but anyone interested in filling out the survey can visit the water office. All citizens who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing for a prepaid $50 Visa card donated by David A. Collins CPA, Inc., Wilkin said.
“I believe this survey would really help us glean a lot of good information and help us go after this large grant with ODNR,” Wilkin said. “Our hopes are that we get a good percentage of participants and get good information back.”
Wilkin also reviewed the city’s plan for widening Harry Sauner Road in his report.
“It’s going to come from the intersection of Harry Sauner and [US] 62 all the way up to the back side of Kibler [Lumber],” Wilkin said.
WIlkin said that he has met with business owners in the area and that the city will be sending letters to residents in the apartment complexes on Harry Sauner Road as well.
“Tomorrow, [Highland County engineer] Dean Otworth is going to be receiving bids for a sidewalk that he is going to be doing on Hobart-Carl Smith,” Wilkin said. “It’ll go all the way up Hobart-Carl Smith, and it’ll go to Careytown Road, the roundabout, and it’ll come all the way down Careytown Road to Harry Sauner. It’ll actually come up Harry Sauner to the first entrance and intersection of Walmart.
“So, as planning goes, and as the strategy goes, we will need to look to fill in next year that gap between Walmart and Kibler with storm retention systems and also sidewalks.”
• • •
Hillsboro mayor Drew Hastings suggested increasing the city’s funding of the Highland County Visitors Bureau for a third time, saying that he met recently with newly hired CVB director Destiny Bryson.
“We had a really good meeting,” Hastings said. “I wanted to learn more about where the direction of the Visitors Bureau was going and her ideas and just kind of verify for all of you if additional funding from the city was warranted. I think it is. I think she and the board and everybody with the Visitors Bureau wants to step it up some and really kind of make some things happen.”
As previously reported in The Highland County Press, Hastings asked council to consider increasing the city’s contribution to the organization from “about $4,000 a year to about $15,000 to $16,000 a year.” Hastings had proposed giving the Visitors Bureau 50 percent of the city’s lodging tax, instead of the 12.5 percent it currently contributes.
Last year, council put a one-month moratorium on the lodging tax, saying they would seek an opinion from the Ohio attorney general.
However, according to a statement from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office on July 21, 2015, the city did not request an opinion on the lodgings tax. A 2015 audit of the Highland County Convention and Visitors Bureau stated the city’s tax “should not have been levied.”
Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins also told the city of Hillsboro in August 2013 that the city tax was inappropriate since the county lodging tax pre-dated the city tax by several years, referencing a March 29, 2013 opinion by Ohio Attorney General DeWine.
Last month, Hastings asked the finance committee to look into the matter “because I’m confident that the Visitors Bureau is now in capable hands.”
In his report, finance committee chair Dick Donley said that the committee would “be deciding something on that probably next month.”
Hastings also said that he and Wilkin have been working on economic development for the city.
“There have been several economic development inquiries that Todd and I have been fielding in the last month,” Hastings said. “We’ve been providing information, researching stuff the developers and interested companies need, and we’re hoping it will pay off and we’ll see some new business in town as a result.”
Hastings reported that Sen. Bob Peterson responded to the mayor’s request to “discuss the possibility of amending the Ohio Revised Code to allow qualified individuals from around Highland County – and not just city residents, which is how it’s currently structured – to be considered for commissions and boards.”
“He’s pursuing that, and hopefully some inroads can be made on that,” Hastings said.
Hastings also told council members that he would be attending the Ohio Municipal League conference later this month.
• • •
Klein reported that the community enhancement committee met, along with the property maintenance and restoration committee, to discuss the Design Review Board.
After council was asked to approve the mayor’s appointment of Design Review Board members at last month’s meeting, Aranyos said that she did not “feel the need for a design review board.” Koogler placed the matter in two committees for further consideration.
Klein said that Design Review Board members Mary Todd Hardeman and Avery Applegate addressed the council committees to explain the board’s purpose, with Hardeman explaining the manual the board follows “in keeping the historical district as historically correct as possible.”
“Several committee members questioned why the manual could not be put online for everyone to see,” Klein said. “We felt it would be more citizen-friendly. Ann [Morris] said she would like to see a list put on a city website that would list what a potential business owner uptown would need to do in order to start their own business in the historic district uptown, along with agencies that would help them get started. That way, they would know exactly what was expected of them from the very beginning and where to look for help.”
Klein said that other council members stated that “there are several boards and committees that council does not even know about or what they do.” At the committee meeting, Hastings offered to present a list of these boards to council, Klein said.
Earlier in the meeting, Koogler read a letter to council written by Highland County Historical Society board member Tim Koehl on behalf of the society’s board of trustees. Koehl wrote that the society’s trustees recently voted to continue their support of the city’s Design Review Board.
• • •
Utilities committee chair Rebecca Wilkin said that her committee met to discuss storm sewer funding.
Todd Wilkin had proposed “an enterprise fund for storm water infrastructure improvements” at council’s September meeting.
“The storm sewer funds come from the General Fund, and I’m told that it’s kind of one of the first to go if funds are needed in other areas, so it would help to have its own funds so nobody can touch that,” Rebecca Wilkin said. “I’m also told it will help in securing grants.”
The committee also recommended to continue the moratorium on water and sewer rates approved at the September council meeting “so that we can get some legislation in place.”
“We did talk about just foregoing those rates and kind of checking it out on a yearly basis to see where we’re at, to see if we need to raise rates instead of continuing to do moratoriums,” Rebecca Wilkin said.
The committee is working with city law director Fred Beery to compose new legislation on the moratoriums, according to Rebecca Wilkin.
Council voted 7-0 to extend the moratorium until the November council meeting.
• • •
Morris said that the property maintenance and restoration committee “voted to move forward with the Colony [Theatre] project” at a recent meeting.
“This includes having preliminary drawings completed so the renovation of the front part of the Colony can be bid out,” Morris said. “The drawings should include refurbishing the front exterior, the exterior lobby area, two bathrooms, a possible meeting room, a pocket park area and a parking lot behind that. After we receive the drawings and bids, council can decide how to proceed with the project depending on how the bids add up.”
The committee is also continuing to research possible junk car and blighted property ordinances, Morris said.
• • •
Council members voted 7-0 to pass the following ordinances and resolutions:
• A resolution to increase appropriations in the General Fund by $20,000 to cover increased expenses resulting from the higher than anticipated number of building inspections.
• An ordinance to amend the Hillsboro Tax Code to conform to modifications to Chapter 718 of the Ohio Revised Code effective Sept. 18, 2016, which was passed following suspension of the three-reading rule.
Donley had reported that the finance committee met to discuss the ordinance, with some minor corrections made.
“The committee recommends that we accept the ordinance as it’s being presented tonight,” Donley said.
• An ordinance to accept the annexation of the Hillsboro Christian Academy property on South High Street, following suspension of the three-reading rule.
• Council also voted to approve a variance for an additional sign at the new Cricket store on Harry Sauner Road at the property maintenance and restoration committee’s recommendation.
• • •
Council voted unanimously to suspend the three-reading rule and to approve an ordinance vacating an alley in Hillsboro and an ordinance to assent to detachment of land from the city.
The ordinances were passed after no objections were raised at two separate public hearings held prior to the meeting.
Koogler said that both requests were made “to resolve real estate marketability issues” and suggested that council address them “as an emergency measure at this time.”
• • •
Klein addressed fellow council members during the citizens’ comments portion of the meeting regarding her desire to help collect donations for hurricane relief efforts.
Klein said that several years ago, the city had assisted with hurricane relief for a city in Louisiana.
“We adopted that as a sister city because a lady that lived in Hillsboro was from there, so we had communications to be able to get it through,” Klein said.
While that was an independent effort by local citizens, Klein proposed working with Matthew 25: Ministries, a disaster relief organization based in Cincinnati.
“I was thinking we could help them get some of their supplies by getting a truck, setting it in Hillsboro and taking donations for a period of maybe seven to 10 days and then taking that down to Matthew 25: Ministries,” Klein said.
Klein is currently working to borrow a semi truck for the initiative and said that she hoped to have an answer tomorrow. She asked for permission from the city administration to park the truck somewhere in the city.
“It sounds very doable, if you would like to put it together, Claudia,” Hastings said.
Klein said that she has a list of items “that are very helpful” that citizens can donate.
Council voted 7-0 to support Klein’s efforts.
“Thank you for your legwork on this thus far,” Koogler said.
The city’s most recent update to the sign ordinance was passed in April to eliminate fees on certain replacement signs, but property maintenance and restoration committee chair Ann Morris pointed out at the September council meeting that the new legislation “mistakenly left out a paragraph that referred to temporary signs.”
Morris presented an ordinance to amend the legislation at Tuesday night’s regular council meeting by restoring limits on temporary sign duration. However, Morris said that it was suggested by Heather Collins, an administrative assistant in the mayor’s office, that the new wording “still might be confusing.”
The section in question reads: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this code, any movable sign not permanently attached to the ground or a building and easily removable using ordinary hand tools, any sign intended to be displayed for a limited period of time and capable of being viewed from any public right of way, parking area or neighboring property.”
“That particular part, ‘and capable of’ all the way to ‘neighboring property,’ she was concerned about that being left in just because I guess that’s a question that comes to the city building quite often,” Morris said. “We can either put a little notation by that so that people understand it when they come into the city building and ask that question, leave it alone or we can take it out.”
Morris asked if Hillsboro mayor Drew Hastings or safety and service director Todd Wilkin had any suggestions.
“I believe definitions need to be clarified on what a temporary sign is,” Wilkin said. “The concern is if it’s got the language there 14 days in a calendar or in a quarter, how do you manage that? How do you physically manage a temporary sign 14 days out of a quarter?
“The only way you can do that is if you watch them put the sign out the day they put it out, take a picture of it and come back 14 days later and make sure they take it down. That’s not going to work.”
Wilkin said that temporary signs are “showing up a lot” in the city and suggested that council consider adding more specific definitions and timetables, as well as addressing signs in the rights of way.
“Signs being installed on the edge of the road, in the right of way, is a concern for safety,” Wilkin said.
Morris said that her committee could look into Wilkin’s ideas at their next meeting.
“Could we just have this be a first reading?” council member Bill Alexander asked.
“Well, Heather [Collins] was concerned because we have so many signs going up right now, whether to make this just a first reading,” Morris said.
Morris suggested passing the ordinance “or we’re just going to have more and more signs coming up.”
Council president Lee Koogler said that council could pass the ordinance as an emergency despite possible additional changes to the signage legislation, “to give it some teeth in the interim.”
Council member Justin Harsha asked Wilkin if the city receives “a lot of complaints about temporary signs.”
“What is a lot?” Wilkin asked.
“Do you get one a day?” Harsha asked.
“Not one a day,” Wilkin said.
“One a week?” Harsha asked.
“Quite frankly, a lot of the complaints come from me,” Wilkin said. “If I’m driving around town and there are issues with sight distance, I have very little control to go in and remove that sign.”
Wilkin said that the city does receive complaints from citizens, but “the majority of the issues are my own visual inspections.”
“We don’t have any enforcement – it’s out of the ordinance now – but our city does look a lot cleaner, in my opinion, when we don’t have all these temporary signs showing up that are makeshift or handmade,” Wilkin said.
Morris said she thought council should pass the ordinance to correct the error from the last update to the legislation.
“This is just a paragraph that was omitted,” Morris said. “It was already passed and just got omitted from the last time we did it, so it was already passed once and was rewritten, because of the organic version we seem to have of this ever-changing sign legislation.”
Harsha said that he asked Wilkin about the complaints to gauge the necessity of passing the ordinance Tuesday night.
“Would you like to see this in place?” Harsha asked WIlkin.
“I would like to see it in place correctly,” Wilkin said.
Morris agreed, but said, “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it exactly correct.”
“We seem to address it every other month,” Morris said. “I think we’ll just keep changing it.”
Council voted 7-0 to suspend the three-reading rule and to pass the ordinance, “with no amendments.”
• • •
After a request was made by council member Tracy Aranyos at the September council meeting, Wilkin provided an update on recent applications for grants by the city’s grant writer, Kirby Ellison.
“Last Friday, we had two grants that were due in for OPWC [Ohio Public Works Commission] money,” Wilkin said. “One of the grants is for the second phase of North East Street, which would go from North Street to Collins. That would be curbs, gutters, sidewalks and new pavement. It would also be storm systems.
“The other grant is for the belt filter press out at the wastewater treatment plant.”
Wilkin explained that the belt filter press “is a system that actually squeezes all of the water out of the waste.”
The city is also looking into an Ohio Department of Natural Resources Grant that would be used for the city’s parks. The grant is a “50/50” grant up to $600,000, although Wilkin said he did not anticipate pursuing that amount.
“We will be sending out letters to the citizens of Hillsboro to participate in a survey for our parks system in Hillsboro,” Wilkin said. “This survey will help address the wants and the needs of the community with our parks throughout town and help the city of Hillsboro in preparing a strategic plan for outdoor recreational activities.”
Wilkin said that surveys will be sent out to a randomly selected sample of city water customers, but anyone interested in filling out the survey can visit the water office. All citizens who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing for a prepaid $50 Visa card donated by David A. Collins CPA, Inc., Wilkin said.
“I believe this survey would really help us glean a lot of good information and help us go after this large grant with ODNR,” Wilkin said. “Our hopes are that we get a good percentage of participants and get good information back.”
Wilkin also reviewed the city’s plan for widening Harry Sauner Road in his report.
“It’s going to come from the intersection of Harry Sauner and [US] 62 all the way up to the back side of Kibler [Lumber],” Wilkin said.
WIlkin said that he has met with business owners in the area and that the city will be sending letters to residents in the apartment complexes on Harry Sauner Road as well.
“Tomorrow, [Highland County engineer] Dean Otworth is going to be receiving bids for a sidewalk that he is going to be doing on Hobart-Carl Smith,” Wilkin said. “It’ll go all the way up Hobart-Carl Smith, and it’ll go to Careytown Road, the roundabout, and it’ll come all the way down Careytown Road to Harry Sauner. It’ll actually come up Harry Sauner to the first entrance and intersection of Walmart.
“So, as planning goes, and as the strategy goes, we will need to look to fill in next year that gap between Walmart and Kibler with storm retention systems and also sidewalks.”
• • •
Hillsboro mayor Drew Hastings suggested increasing the city’s funding of the Highland County Visitors Bureau for a third time, saying that he met recently with newly hired CVB director Destiny Bryson.
“We had a really good meeting,” Hastings said. “I wanted to learn more about where the direction of the Visitors Bureau was going and her ideas and just kind of verify for all of you if additional funding from the city was warranted. I think it is. I think she and the board and everybody with the Visitors Bureau wants to step it up some and really kind of make some things happen.”
As previously reported in The Highland County Press, Hastings asked council to consider increasing the city’s contribution to the organization from “about $4,000 a year to about $15,000 to $16,000 a year.” Hastings had proposed giving the Visitors Bureau 50 percent of the city’s lodging tax, instead of the 12.5 percent it currently contributes.
Last year, council put a one-month moratorium on the lodging tax, saying they would seek an opinion from the Ohio attorney general.
However, according to a statement from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office on July 21, 2015, the city did not request an opinion on the lodgings tax. A 2015 audit of the Highland County Convention and Visitors Bureau stated the city’s tax “should not have been levied.”
Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins also told the city of Hillsboro in August 2013 that the city tax was inappropriate since the county lodging tax pre-dated the city tax by several years, referencing a March 29, 2013 opinion by Ohio Attorney General DeWine.
Last month, Hastings asked the finance committee to look into the matter “because I’m confident that the Visitors Bureau is now in capable hands.”
In his report, finance committee chair Dick Donley said that the committee would “be deciding something on that probably next month.”
Hastings also said that he and Wilkin have been working on economic development for the city.
“There have been several economic development inquiries that Todd and I have been fielding in the last month,” Hastings said. “We’ve been providing information, researching stuff the developers and interested companies need, and we’re hoping it will pay off and we’ll see some new business in town as a result.”
Hastings reported that Sen. Bob Peterson responded to the mayor’s request to “discuss the possibility of amending the Ohio Revised Code to allow qualified individuals from around Highland County – and not just city residents, which is how it’s currently structured – to be considered for commissions and boards.”
“He’s pursuing that, and hopefully some inroads can be made on that,” Hastings said.
Hastings also told council members that he would be attending the Ohio Municipal League conference later this month.
• • •
Klein reported that the community enhancement committee met, along with the property maintenance and restoration committee, to discuss the Design Review Board.
After council was asked to approve the mayor’s appointment of Design Review Board members at last month’s meeting, Aranyos said that she did not “feel the need for a design review board.” Koogler placed the matter in two committees for further consideration.
Klein said that Design Review Board members Mary Todd Hardeman and Avery Applegate addressed the council committees to explain the board’s purpose, with Hardeman explaining the manual the board follows “in keeping the historical district as historically correct as possible.”
“Several committee members questioned why the manual could not be put online for everyone to see,” Klein said. “We felt it would be more citizen-friendly. Ann [Morris] said she would like to see a list put on a city website that would list what a potential business owner uptown would need to do in order to start their own business in the historic district uptown, along with agencies that would help them get started. That way, they would know exactly what was expected of them from the very beginning and where to look for help.”
Klein said that other council members stated that “there are several boards and committees that council does not even know about or what they do.” At the committee meeting, Hastings offered to present a list of these boards to council, Klein said.
Earlier in the meeting, Koogler read a letter to council written by Highland County Historical Society board member Tim Koehl on behalf of the society’s board of trustees. Koehl wrote that the society’s trustees recently voted to continue their support of the city’s Design Review Board.
• • •
Utilities committee chair Rebecca Wilkin said that her committee met to discuss storm sewer funding.
Todd Wilkin had proposed “an enterprise fund for storm water infrastructure improvements” at council’s September meeting.
“The storm sewer funds come from the General Fund, and I’m told that it’s kind of one of the first to go if funds are needed in other areas, so it would help to have its own funds so nobody can touch that,” Rebecca Wilkin said. “I’m also told it will help in securing grants.”
The committee also recommended to continue the moratorium on water and sewer rates approved at the September council meeting “so that we can get some legislation in place.”
“We did talk about just foregoing those rates and kind of checking it out on a yearly basis to see where we’re at, to see if we need to raise rates instead of continuing to do moratoriums,” Rebecca Wilkin said.
The committee is working with city law director Fred Beery to compose new legislation on the moratoriums, according to Rebecca Wilkin.
Council voted 7-0 to extend the moratorium until the November council meeting.
• • •
Morris said that the property maintenance and restoration committee “voted to move forward with the Colony [Theatre] project” at a recent meeting.
“This includes having preliminary drawings completed so the renovation of the front part of the Colony can be bid out,” Morris said. “The drawings should include refurbishing the front exterior, the exterior lobby area, two bathrooms, a possible meeting room, a pocket park area and a parking lot behind that. After we receive the drawings and bids, council can decide how to proceed with the project depending on how the bids add up.”
The committee is also continuing to research possible junk car and blighted property ordinances, Morris said.
• • •
Council members voted 7-0 to pass the following ordinances and resolutions:
• A resolution to increase appropriations in the General Fund by $20,000 to cover increased expenses resulting from the higher than anticipated number of building inspections.
• An ordinance to amend the Hillsboro Tax Code to conform to modifications to Chapter 718 of the Ohio Revised Code effective Sept. 18, 2016, which was passed following suspension of the three-reading rule.
Donley had reported that the finance committee met to discuss the ordinance, with some minor corrections made.
“The committee recommends that we accept the ordinance as it’s being presented tonight,” Donley said.
• An ordinance to accept the annexation of the Hillsboro Christian Academy property on South High Street, following suspension of the three-reading rule.
• Council also voted to approve a variance for an additional sign at the new Cricket store on Harry Sauner Road at the property maintenance and restoration committee’s recommendation.
• • •
Council voted unanimously to suspend the three-reading rule and to approve an ordinance vacating an alley in Hillsboro and an ordinance to assent to detachment of land from the city.
The ordinances were passed after no objections were raised at two separate public hearings held prior to the meeting.
Koogler said that both requests were made “to resolve real estate marketability issues” and suggested that council address them “as an emergency measure at this time.”
• • •
Klein addressed fellow council members during the citizens’ comments portion of the meeting regarding her desire to help collect donations for hurricane relief efforts.
Klein said that several years ago, the city had assisted with hurricane relief for a city in Louisiana.
“We adopted that as a sister city because a lady that lived in Hillsboro was from there, so we had communications to be able to get it through,” Klein said.
While that was an independent effort by local citizens, Klein proposed working with Matthew 25: Ministries, a disaster relief organization based in Cincinnati.
“I was thinking we could help them get some of their supplies by getting a truck, setting it in Hillsboro and taking donations for a period of maybe seven to 10 days and then taking that down to Matthew 25: Ministries,” Klein said.
Klein is currently working to borrow a semi truck for the initiative and said that she hoped to have an answer tomorrow. She asked for permission from the city administration to park the truck somewhere in the city.
“It sounds very doable, if you would like to put it together, Claudia,” Hastings said.
Klein said that she has a list of items “that are very helpful” that citizens can donate.
Council voted 7-0 to support Klein’s efforts.
“Thank you for your legwork on this thus far,” Koogler said.