PERRYSBURG — Pickleball will be coming to Municipal Park and it will happen at $72,000 less than
budgeted.
City council passed a resolution 5-0 authorizing the resurfacing of tennis courts and the installation of
six pickleball courts from CourtSMITHs for $27,830. The recreation committee had recommended the
advancement of the legislation 2-0 at the April 9 meeting.
The expense will be drawn from a budgeted $100,000 fund. Quotes had not yet been received when discussed
at the March 12 final budget review.
In other business, in a break with previous methodology, council did the first of three readings of two
new resolutions prior to presentation in committee. Previously, the public’s first exposure to
legislation was at committee meetings and depending on the legislation, there could be only one public
reading before passage.
Laura Alkire, Perrysburg law director, had suggested the new process of reading legislation so council
and the public could become aware of council’s actions with more advance notice.
“I’m trying to get them to make more readings,” Alkire said of council. “It promotes transparency. Maybe
more people will be informed.”
The concept goes back to her job interview. She has previously worked with other communities that had
legislative calendars that have sometimes given months of advance notice of legislation.
She said it can’t always happen. It will be specific to the topic.
Councils can make special exemptions to suspend the rules and waive some of a piece of legislation’s
three public readings.
Talking about the exemption for three readings, Alkire said, “If we don’t have to do it that way, I say
let’s read it as many times as we can. I think it builds public trust when we talk about things at a
council meeting. It makes good legal sense not to waive the three reading rule on certain things.”
With the two resolutions under question, council got the information on Friday and will hear it again on
May 7.
“In this case, they will be asked to waive the third reading. In this case it’s the purchase of a truck.
It is available on a lot and could be sold to anybody, and they don’t want to lose out on it. It’s at a
really good price,” said Alkire. “With the engineering project, the designer is going to take quite a
few months to do the work and until the contract is awarded the designer can’t be authorized to begin
work. At some point we have to keep government flowing.”
First readings were made on:
An agreement with Proudfoot Associates, Inc. for the provision of engineering services for the Ohio 25
and U.S. 20 Urban Paving Project, ODOT PID No. 109516 in an amount not to exceed $49,380.
A purchase agreement with Brondes Ford Toledo not to exceed $33,743 for the purchase of a 2019 Ford F-150
for the Perrysburg Engineering Division.