Marysville City Council approved on third reading, a raise for its own members and Marysville Law Director Tim Aslaner during Monday night’s meeting.
After discussing the raises at length in previous meetings, council voted 6-1 on each measure, with different council members casting the dissenting votes. Aaron Carpenter voted against the raise for city council members while Henk Berbee voted against raise for the law director.
The city law director’s salary has been on a schedule of a $2,000 annual increase for many years, except for a bump in 2018. In 2014 the salary was $98,000 increasing to $104,000 by 2017, when it was increased to $115,000 the following year.
From there it continued to increase $2,000 per year, leaving it at $121,000 in 2021. Monday night’s vote moved council away from the $2,000 annual increase, putting Aslaner’s salary on pace to rise with projected cost of living increases. It also pumped his 2022 salary to $127,274 for a 2.75% increase and a bump because the $2,000 increases had reportedly not been keeping up with the city’s annual cost of living.
In subsequent years the salary will be given a 2.5% cost of living increase to $130,456 in 2023, $133,717 in 2024, and $137,060 in 2025.
City Council’s salary will increase from $7,920 annually to $8,370 in 2022 and $8,520 in 2023. The increases bring council salaries in line with the meeting requirements for one year of credit for the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System.
Berbee also urged council to continue to consider the infrastructure impacts of an annexation request that will be coming back before council.
At issue is 103 acres at the southeast corner of Route 31 and Amrine Wood Road. Pulte Homes is seeking to create a 300-home development in the area.
An original presentation on the development divided council and city officials, with some members seeing it as positive growth while others believed it would strain city services.
Although nothing was on Monday’s agenda about the project, Berbee noted that it would be coming before planning commission in early August, before returning to council later that month.
Berbee said he recognizes the city’s need for housing but urged council to consider the impact of the 11 residential projects currently underway in the city. He said those projects will add more than 2,000 residential units to the city when completed and he urged council to wait to see the impact of those homes on the infrastructure before moving forward with more development.
“Just take a breather for a couple years,” Berbee said.
Berbee seemed especially concerned with traffic impacts on area roads. He noted that the city already has roads scheduled for needed improvements, including Elwood Avenue and a $5-million project on North Maple Street.
He urged council to wait three to five years to allow infrastructure improvements to be completed while analyzing any issues created by the current 11 housing projects.
Council also learned that the local Bob Evans restaurant at 1080 Lydia Drive is applying for a liquor permit. Council clerk Rebecca Dible said the permit would allow the business to sell beer, wine and mixed beverages until 1 a.m. She added that the police department has expressed no opposition to the permit.
Council member J.R. Rausch asked if the city is approaching its limit of allowed liquor permits based on the population of the city. Dible said she would check to see how many additional could be obtained.
Council member Deb Groat asked why a restaurant like Bob Evans is seeking a liquor permit in the first place.
“Is that because of a pending change in ownership or a flexibility issue?” she asked.
Economic Development Director Eric Phillips said the company announced recently that it would start selling alcohol in select locations and chose Marysville as one of those sites.
In other business, council:
•Heard the first reading on approving a planning commission recommendation to repeal the political sign section in city ordinances. The city will be working to reevaluate its sign codes and planning commission felt the political sign section should be eliminated.
•Learned that all city meetings will return to normal in-person gatherings in July.