ATHENS, Ohio — Athens City Council at its meeting Tuesday night heard from three representatives of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center asking the city to fix serious flooding problems.
Mount Zion Director Susan Righi said “a river” of flood water forms on North Congress Street, and the center, located at 32 W. Carpenter St., is “at the bottom of three hills.”
Mount Zion Black Cultural Center, already under renovation to open its doors to the public, is undergoing even more work after prior serious flooding events. Righi said in June, four feet of water infiltrated a newly renovated basement; and in August, more than 18 inches of water infiltrated the building during heavy citywide flooding.
“Each time, we watched the river careening down the street toward us,” Righi said at the Sept. 8 meeting, reading from a prepared statement.
A 12-inch pipe located by the city, and another six-inch pipe found from Mount Zion’s own excavation were clogged with gravel, preventing water from reaching a storm tunnel, she said.
That has caused “subsidence” areas at different locations on the property, Righi said..
Water has also been directed to the building’s northwest corner due to “a broken pipe carrying rooftop water from houses on North Congress,” Righi said.
The location of that pipe was not on city maps shared with Mount Zion representatives, Regis Saxon, the center’s treasurer, said.
“So, we ask three things: Install catch basins uphill from Mount Zion. Raise the curb fronting us, which may not meet city standards. Repair the broken line at our northwest corner, which carries other properties’ water across ours,” he said.
Saxon added the center’s architect would like to be included in city plan discussions to fix the flooding issues to ensure that concerns are addressed.
Council President Micah McCarey said concerns raised by Mount Zion representatives will be immediately forwarded to city administration, which was not represented during Tuesday’s council meeting.
Ada-Woodson Adams, President of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center, said she does not believe the Westside, including the center, is receiving the same level of concern from the city for its flooding problems as has been given to businesses impacted by recent August flooding on Richland Avenue.
The center is being asked to pay for its own repair work that involves city infrastructure, she said.
Mayor Steve Patterson said during the Aug. 24 council committees meeting that midrange and long-range plans to lessen flooding impacts on Richland will involve trench drains and large detention tanks to be placed at the south end of Richland.
Taco John’s owner says Richland closure has caused huge loss
After a month-long closure at Richland Avenue and Dairy Lane to install a sewer line involving a “deep dig,” local business owner Adam Lewis addressed the council, stating his business and others close by have lost up to 50% of their business during the closure. The street reopened Thursday, Sept. 10.
Lewis, who owns Taco John’s at 392 Richland Ave., said since the road closure that started Aug. 11, he’s lost three employees due to not receiving enough hours , which coincided with the street’s businesses being drenched by up to five inches of heavy rain, with some buildings flooding.
Lewis excoriated the city’s decision to close Richland Avenue when it did, just as Ohio University students were moving in for fall semester, offering that failure occurred three ways.
One involved “zero advance notice,” according to Lewis.
“We received no warning until days before the blockade dropped. You cannot choke off a primary commercial corridor without warning and expect businesses to survive,” he said.
The road closure while OU students moved back to Athens was “disastrous timing” and the second major mistake the city made, Lewis said.
The third, Lewis said, was “harmful public messaging.” Lewis said road closure signs did not mention that Richland businesses were still open, instead having an “avoid the area” message.
Lewis recommended a three-prong approach for future situations involving road closures: early engagement to require business owner feedback before closures happen, that all businesses receive written notice well in advance of closures, and that “avoid the area” sign messaging be replaced with digital signs reading that businesses are still open in the affected area.
“I am speaking tonight for the more than 100 workers along Richland Avenue who have been left behind by these decisions,” Lewis said.
“We saw this exact pattern happen on Union Street, and Stimson, and we saw businesses close forever because of it. We expect city leadership to stop treating local businesses as acceptable collateral damage, take responsibility for this failure, and act immediately to fix it,” Lewis said.
Council member Jessica Thomas, At Large, said the city had sent out notices in early May on social media platforms, alerting businesses to construction projects that were scheduled for summer.
Lewis, however, said he had no prior knowledge of the Richland closure until just days before, calling the city’s outreach “ineffective.”
Righi said she backed Lewis, offering she did not believe it was appropriate for the city to expect businesses to scan public media for word on “when the hammer is going to fall in their neighborhood.” Advance written notice is needed, she said.
First reading held for medical fund boost
The council amended its agenda to introduce Ordinance 86-26, which will take revenue from numerous funds appropriated as part of the last budget cycle, and transfer them into Medical Fund 866. These are considered excess fund amounts across each city department that were not likely going to be spent this year and were otherwise “just going to sit there,” City Auditor Josh Thomas said.
The funds to be transferred into the medical fund total $1 million — the largest of those funds being in the amount of $611,283 from the general fund.
Auditor Thomas said that last year, the city handled projected additional spending needs of the medical fund by appropriating a one-time expenditure of $750,000 from the general fund to cover increasing medical costs impacting the city.
This year, the city is transferring funds already appropriated, which will not cost the city any new expenditures toward the medical fund, Josh Thomas said.
“The medical fund, as you guys well know, is the one area that we just can’t predict 100%,” Josh Thomas said.
Jessica Thomas said nine separate funds totaling about $250,000, listed in section one of the ordinance, will be used to bolster employee wages.
Josh Thomas had requested the council suspend the rules and adopt Ordinance 86-26. However, that requires six of seven members to be present. With council members Alan Swank and Megan Almeida absent, a special council meeting will instead be scheduled with the next council committees meeting.
Dialogue resolution
A one-reading resolution intended to enhance community dialogue and civil discourse was introduced by all members of council and adopted at the meeting during public comments.
Before unanimous passage, Resolution R-06-26, “Promoting Respectful Interactions and Shared Responsibility,” received support from Athens County Municipal Court and Athens City School District representatives.
The resolution states that “dignity grows when people are heard, disagreement does not become dehumanization, and public life leaves room for honesty, accountability, learning and repair.”
The adopted resolution reads, in part, “The Mayor and Council of the City of Athens invite all who live, learn, work, gather, and serve in Athens to practice safety, kindness, responsibility, dignity, and respect in the spaces we share, and to engage one another in thoughtful conversation about what respect looks like in those spaces.”
Praise for the resolution came first from Athens County Municipal Court Judge Todd Grace, who said he appreciated the council being “deliberate about the nature of the resolution.”
“It is something we work a lot on in municipal court,” he said.
“We see people at low points in their lives, and trying to make sure that they feel respected is an important thing that my staff and I make a daily priority, and I appreciate that you are doing the same,” Grace said.
Athens City School District Superintendent Chad Springer said the resolution supports school district values that place an emphasis on kindness.
“You cannot genuinely respect someone without first choosing to treat them kindly,” he said.
Council member Thomas said a letter from the Community Relations Commission mentions that how successfully residents, institutions and community partners engage with one is reflected by their conversations about similarities — and differences.
Ordinances heard on third reading:
- Adopted Ordinance 76-26, which amends last year’s budget ordinance to make appropriations, including $5,594 from insurance proceeds to make police cruiser repairs; $50,000 for streetlight electricity; and $55,000 to cover technology costs through the end of the year.
- Adopted Ordinance 80-26, updating the city’s Cybersecurity Policy at the request of the state.
Ordinances heard on first reading:
- Heard Ordinance 84-26, which will appropriate $30,000 to the Sewer Plant Fund from last year’s unappropriated balance to purchase a digital oxygen sensor.
- Heard Ordinance 85-26, which will appropriate about $487,000 from nine different funds from last year’s unappropriated reserve, to be transferred to the Medical Fund to cover the costs of Employee Retirement Incentive Program buyouts of $30,000 each.
Athens City Council’s next meeting will be 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14 at Athens City Hall, Council Chambers, third floor, 8 E. Washington St. Meetings are also streamed online. Regular sessions are on the first and third Mondays of the month; committee meetings are on the second and fourth Mondays.
