Kent awaiting “compassionate city” designation
David Romano, Taylor Kerns, Alex Taylor, Jack Kopanski
The Kent City Council’s annual joint meeting Wednesday between the city and Franklin Township focused on issues such as changes to Standing Rock Cemetery and zoning in Kent.
Kent City Council meeting starting now with roll call.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 3, 2017
The meeting opened with a unanimous appointment of Leo Lux and Keith Benjamin of Franklin Township to the cemetery’s board of trustees.
Tara Grimm, clerk of council, then asked the council to make a motion to extend the terms of any committee members to the end of the year for the purposes of having their terms run a full calendar year rather than staggering throughout the year.
Discussion on board vacancies between Clerk of Council, Tara Grimm, and Ward 4 Council member John M. Kuhar.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 3, 2017
This motion passed unanimously after a brief discussion.
Ruler: "If Kent state decides to keep the property in there name are they subject to our zoning laws? We're going to assume that they are."
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 3, 2017
H. Shaffer makes motion to revoke r4 r3a and 1171, discussion begins.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 3, 2017
H. Shaffer Thanks planning commission saying it's so important to make own decisions and thankful for their effort.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 3, 2017
Now discussion begins on Celebrate Kent Grant Awards.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 3, 2017
Talking about the success of Kent City Downtown events, asking for grants to be approved for continued success of the city events. pic.twitter.com/doBtuxircM
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 3, 2017
OPWC requests two projects for pavements and water distribution systems in Portage County.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 4, 2017
For project one: asking $175,000 in Grant $150,000 in no intrest loan.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 4, 2017
For second project asking $350,000 grant $150,000 in no intrest loan.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 4, 2017
Grants approved.
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 4, 2017
The remaining issues throughout the meeting included updating the council rules, zone usage modification, a motion to fund Kent grant awards, the instillation of a handicap ramp at the Standing Rock Gallery, city code updates for small cell wireless antennas, an Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) funding request and a 2017 budget appropriations amendment.
All of the issues were unanimously passed with the exception of two: the Standing Rock Gallery handicap ramp issue nearly passed unanimously save for one abstaining member, and the council didn’t vote on the small cell wireless antenna issue due to lack of information distributed to the council members.
Interesting conversation with Council member Sidoti after the meeting. Story to follow. pic.twitter.com/sov6hQiSlw
— Alex Taylor (@AlexWTOV9) May 4, 2017
After the meeting, council-at-large Roger Sidoti talked about what the future holds and what is coming up for the city of Kent, including the potential designation as a “compassionate city.”
“(It’s) something that is done all over the United States,” Sidoti said. “You have to apply for it, and you have to meet certain criteria to be designated a compassionate city. It took us awhile, but we got everyone on board to move ahead with the application, so we have an application in the pipeline for ‘compassionate city.’”
While similar to the title of “sanctuary city,” Sidoti emphasized the difference in distinctions between the two titles, and said the designation of “sanctuary city” is a political issue and “has nothing to do with caring about one another.”
Sidoti also emphasized “changing the conversation” when it comes to citizens of Kent interacting with each other. Rather than pointing out what is wrong with someone, he suggested focusing on what is right and finding the best way to bring that out of them.
Along with becoming a “compassionate city,” Sidoti hopes to work towards creating more care between the citizens of Kent in other ways as well.
“We’re getting pretty close to doing the whole public roll-out on something we’re going to call the ‘One Kent’ initiative,” Sidoti said. “It’s this simple: We all live in Kent, Ohio, we’re all connected, we have a responsibility to each other.” After living here he says Kent is one of the most “accessible and acceptable cities” and he wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
