Chickens, Piada, and Budgets

City council has been very busy over the past weeks and months dealing with a whole slew of interesting issues before us. Here's the highlight reel...

Chickens

After receiving a resident complaint regarding a neighbor who was keeping chickens at their residence, council's zoning committee has met to discuss the legality of keeping chickens. Bexley's code is silent on the issue, and to be fair the concept of the urban chicken is an emerging trend - one that wasn't necessarily anticipated in city code. The chicken debate has generated passionate interest, primarily from residents who keep chickens. We have been to "open coops", visiting residents' back yards and meeting their chickens, and we have found ourselves discussing erstwhile absurd topics, such as the % of excrement a chicken typically produces compared to a medium sized dog (much less, apparently). Bexley has a chicken ordinance on the table that would allow a resident to keep chickens, provided they keep a clean coop, keep the chickens in the rear yard, and provided that the chickens count towards a maximum of 5 total cats, dogs, and chickens.

Piada

Piada, a new concept from Columbus restaurateur Chris Doody (of Bravo, Brio, and Lindey's restaurants), is currently working on bringing a restaurant to Bexley at the southeast corner of

Main and Remington, in the former Huntington Bank building right across from Montrose Elementary.

The proposed redevelopment has been fraught with controversy. Contentious issues have included the developer applying for a liquor license across from the school (the restaurant sells bottled beer and 2/3 size bottles of wine), safety concerns regarding pedestrian/child safety with a restaurant use next to the school, and questions as to whether or not Piada's "pick up window" concept qualifies as a "drive-thru", as drive-thru food service is prohibited by Bexley code (to a point - Section 80 of the city charter prohibits drive-thru food service in which "the major portion" of business is conducted without exiting the vehicle - the city attorney believes - and I'm paraphrasing - that, since ordering is performed off premises, and only pickup is performed at the window, "the major portion" is not being conducted, since it is a pickup window only and doesn't involve ordering at the window).

My take on it? Safety of children walking to and from school is a concern, and it should be carefully considered. However, there is little reason to believe that this use will be any more intense during school pedestrian hours (early morning and 3:00 to 4:00 pm) than the bank use was - in fact, the traffic flow is improved with no egress from the site directly onto Remington, and the restaurant will be closed in the morning, and the 3:00 to 4:00pm time slot is reportedly their slowest hour during the day. Nonetheless, I think the city needs to put more thought into ways that we can configure traffic flow to the adjacent alley to minimize any impact from this site. I believe that the city has little to no control over the liquor licensing issue - this is a state issue (Ohio Liquor Control Commission) and we stand little chance to successfully protest the issuance of the license even if we wanted to. And lastly, I do think there is a definite difference between this proposed pickup window and a traditional drive-thru food service setup, with ordering and take-away at one or two windows, and with the higher volume of vehicular traffic that would inevitably result. This is analogous to a Donato's pickup window, or Applebee's. Within the city itself, it's not dissimilar to a bank drive-thru (like the one that previously was in operation at the site in question), or the CVS drive-thru, although arguably less service is being provided at the window at this proposed use than is being provided at the banks and at CVS (only a portion of the transaction here - not all of it as at the banks and in some instances at CVS). But regardless of what I think, our city attorney has opined that this use as proposed by Piada is not a violation of the charter, and I believe that his reading of the charter is appropriate. All of this to say that we need to study the traffic flow issue further and make any necessary changes, but assuming that the traffic flow issues (if any) are addressed, I am excited about this use coming to Main Street.

Budget - 2011

As finance committee chair, I've been having all sorts of fun (tongue firmly planted in cheek) as council works through the 2011 city budget. Bexley is in the unusual position, as a municipality, of having an inordinate portion of our city income generated by Ohio estate tax revenues. These revenues, however, are variable, and budgeting for them is tricky. For many years, Bexley has operated with projected operating deficits that have, at times, been bailed out (and more) by surplus estate tax funds. However, we are at the point now as a city that we have become better at budgeting for estate tax receipts, and our projected operating deficits have become more sinister. While the city's 2011 budget leaves us with a respectable fund balance at the end of 2011, its projected operating deficit of about $1.8m places us firmly in a trajectory that puts our fund balance at the end of 2012 and beyond in potential peril. The city administration deserves a lot of credit for trimming spending for the past several years now, but the unfortunate reality is that there are no easy or obvious cuts to make in the city budget to help balance it for 2011. So the 2011 budget process is not an easy one, and the verdict is still out as to how we will best work towards a balanced budget. At this point, council is still in an information-gathering stage as we hear presentations from department heads and review the implications that cuts would have in each departmental budget. Over the next several weeks we will start to hone in on options we have for balancing the budget in 2011. It's a tough conversation, but the process has been productive, and I have high hopes that we will find a good solution that will help keep the city in a strong financial position and maintain the high quality of services that our residents expect.

There's a lot more going on at council, but those are the highlights for now. More to come as we continue to work through the budget process...