Written by the reviewer from the ASR + docket; [verbatim-ASR] = quoted machine transcript; [paraphrase] = reviewer's wording, not a quote.
0:00 But I will call the February 23 meeting of the Rules
0:08 and Ordinance Committee to order.
0:12 All members are present as our Chief Assistant Law Director
0:16 Swallow, as well as Law Director Vargo,
0:24 and Finance Director Mahoney, as well.
0:27 I want to start by making a motion
0:32 to approve the minutes from the last meeting of the Rules
0:35 and Ordinance Committee held November 3, 2025.
0:41 Motions been made and seconded.
0:45 Hearing none, that motion passes.
0:52 Now that motion passes.
0:55 The following three agenda items are related to an initiative
0:58 in the Law Department to remove fees
1:00 from several areas of the code and to instead organize them
1:03 neatly into a new administrative document called
1:06 the Master Fee Schedule.
1:08 It's my understanding this effort will benefit both city
1:11 staff and residents by creating one go-to source
1:14 for information on fees, rather
1:16 than the current practice of conducting research
1:19 in the code to locate fees, essentially
1:21 streamlining everything to make
1:23 it more user-friendly for all.
1:25 Resolution 2025-71 creates the Master Fee Schedule,
1:29 and Ordinance 30-2025 amends the code
1:32 by removing those same fees from the code.
1:35 This time I will turn it over to the Law Department
1:37 to say more about the proposed legislation.
1:42 Some of you are aware, and others of you
1:44 will learn, that last year a resolution was adopted that
1:49 took all of the fees from housing and building
1:52 and created a Master Fee Schedule.
1:54 At that time, we modified those ordinances
1:57 to change those to be consistent with having
2:00 a Master Fee Schedule.
2:03 These two pieces of legislation are
2:05 what I anticipate to be the second set of a total
2:09 of three phases to this process.
2:14 And resolution 2025-71 takes all of the fees
2:20 from the administrative code and the business code
2:23 and move those into the Master Fee Schedule.
2:28 The accompanying Ordinance 30-2025
2:31 then amends the relevant sections
2:33 of the codified ordinances to modify those
2:35 to be consistent with moving those fees into the Fee
2:41 Thank you, Assistant Director Swallow.
2:45 Should I actually read the communication
2:47 from Law Director Vargo?
2:52 It's very well written.
2:53 Just wanted to make sure where we see it on that.
2:55 It's already read into the full council record.
2:58 Councilman, thank you, though.
3:00 All right, in that case, I'm going
3:01 to move to receive and file this communication
3:04 from Law Director Vargo regarding the Master Fee
3:07 Schedule that was referred to the Rules and Ordinances
3:11 Committee on November 17, 2025.
3:24 Hearing none, all those in favor?
3:27 All right, and that has been received and filed.
3:32 Move on to Resolution 2025-71,
3:36 a resolution to take effect immediately,
3:38 provided it receives the affirmative vote of at least
3:40 two-thirds of the members of council,
3:42 or otherwise take effect at the earliest period allowed
3:44 by law to establish the Master Fee Schedule by incorporating
3:48 fees from Part 1, Title 5 Administrative Code,
3:51 and Part 7, Business Regulation Code,
3:54 of the liquid codified ordinances
3:56 and superseding all prior fees established
3:58 that are included in this resolution that
4:00 was referred to the Rules and Ordinances Committee
4:02 on November 17 of last year.
4:05 Any discussion regarding this resolution?
4:11 Just one question for the law department.
4:13 So you said this is two of three.
4:14 So there'll be one more.
4:16 So what are the fees that aren't currently?
4:19 So you said building housing, and this is administrative
4:22 Public works, water, wastewater.
4:24 Those fees have not been.
4:25 And do you have an idea of when
4:27 that will be coming before us?
4:28 It should be pretty quickly.
4:29 I've already met with Public Works,
4:30 and we've gone through the code
4:31 and pulled out all of those fees.
4:33 So I have those organized.
4:35 I just haven't drafted the legislation yet.
4:38 I'll have a question on one of those.
4:40 So thank you for that.
4:41 And I also want to point out the only
4:43 fees that are being added to the master fee schedule
4:48 begin on page seven of the resolution.
4:50 The ones prior to that were established last year.
4:53 But again, to keep it all in one place,
4:55 they were restated in this ordinance.
4:58 The resolution, rather.
5:01 Any further discussion?
5:04 Yes, Councilperson Baker.
5:06 Or, excuse me, Council Vice President Baker.
5:09 Here, I'm just a noncommittee member
5:14 I assume, but I wanted to get for the record.
5:16 I didn't go through and double check all these.
5:18 But the fees are staying the same from the code.
5:22 Or are we updating any of them?
5:26 Most of the fees are staying the same.
5:28 If you go to page eight, there
5:31 is a request to increase the H2O camp fee.
5:35 I believe the current fee is $75.
5:37 And Human Services has requested
5:40 to increase that to $75 just to help keep up
5:43 with the expenses of that program.
5:45 There is a credit card processing fee
5:48 that is proposed here that would give the administration
5:53 the ability to pass that on to a credit card user,
5:58 When we were going through our conversation
6:00 and reviewing these, we realized
6:02 that we had been charging a property assessment search
6:05 So when a title company calls the city
6:08 and double checking to make sure that everything has been
6:14 assessed to the tax duplicate, there's a time lapse there.
6:19 We've been charging $15 for that.
6:21 We could not find where that had been authorized
6:24 in the past, so we wanted to add that in here.
6:28 And sidewalk dining inspection is not currently being charged.
6:35 There will be additional legislation forthcoming
6:38 to set up a new process for approving a sidewalk dining.
6:43 We have had multiple complaints over time
6:46 where somebody goes through the process with Planning
6:48 Commission and gets their approvals,
6:51 and then they don't follow through on the design
6:53 and also making sure that it's ADA compliant and all
6:58 of the things that we need to do.
7:00 So that one would not be charged
7:02 unless that other legislation were adopted.
7:07 So those are the only changes here.
7:13 Do you have another question?
7:15 Is there any way to, like, do we
7:17 know generally what section of the code
7:19 that sidewalk dining inspection fee is going to come from?
7:22 Probably in the zoning code.
7:24 Because I just hate having a TBD in our code,
7:26 because technically this would go under the master fee
7:30 So if we could even just indicate the section
7:32 of the code that it would derive from,
7:37 I mean, we could amend that to just put 116103,
7:41 but with the zoning refresh forthcoming,
7:46 that may change as well.
7:47 That's could change everything, though, I think.
7:48 Correct, absolutely.
7:50 Yeah, I just, the weird law school journal note editor
7:53 in me thinks that we should have a code section.
7:55 But thank you, that's all.
8:00 Councilperson Steiner.
8:04 So this question is directed, is for Director Swallow.
8:09 Going back on the credit card processing fees,
8:11 can you just clarify, are those fees currently
8:15 being charged, or they're not?
8:17 They are not being charged.
8:18 This would create the option to pass that along
8:20 to the credit card user.
8:22 Because right now, the city is absorbing those fees,
8:25 and it is a substantial amount of money.
8:28 And is that something that could potentially
8:30 be waived based on income?
8:33 So it's not something that is.
8:36 I mean, it could be, but the easiest way
8:38 to do that would be to get a money order or write a check.
8:42 Yes, but I'm just thinking accessibility,
8:45 ease of paying for services, things that you need,
8:49 I know it's like, I just paid my electric bill line,
8:51 and it was an additional $275.
8:53 An additional $275 doesn't break my bank,
8:55 but for people paying that monthly, that adds up.
8:59 And so I would just like to know
9:02 if that's something that we are going to start doing,
9:05 which I understand that those fees,
9:09 it makes sense if we can recuperate some of that,
9:11 but if we've been covering those costs,
9:13 if we can continue to cover that for people of,
9:17 I don't know how we would do that again,
9:18 that would open a can of worms,
9:19 but would that option be available?
9:25 Unfortunately, I don't see us going in that direction.
9:29 Like Jen said, they have options.
9:33 They could pay cash, they could pay with a check,
9:36 and they would not be charged for those.
9:39 In our new finance system
9:41 that we're just starting to implement,
9:44 we will be moving to that credit card processor,
9:47 and that will just be automatically paid
9:50 if someone uses their credit card.
9:52 It will be part of the process.
9:54 So there's no way for us to separate that out.
10:01 Thank you, Councilperson Steiner.
10:02 Thank you, Assistant Director,
10:04 or excuse me, Director of Finance Mahoney.
10:07 Any further discussion?
10:09 Councilperson Bullock.
10:10 Also drafting in the wake of you guys on the committee,
10:14 I just think it's a good line of questioning
10:16 that Councilwoman Steiner brought up.
10:18 The anticipated credit card processor,
10:20 is there options to make other arrangements electronically,
10:24 like you link up your bank account
10:25 to be able to pay without?
10:29 People can do that now.
10:31 You know, sign up for auto pay, that's free,
10:33 and things like that.
10:34 So there are going to be some options.
10:35 I think it's a valid point that wherever possible,
10:38 if we can be mindful of our residents' costs.
10:43 I also understand the other side of the coin,
10:46 which is, you know, diligent,
10:48 essentially making sure the city's not subsidizing
10:52 city banks credit card processing fees.
10:56 But I appreciate the progress and responsiveness
10:59 of the Finance Department on that point.
11:01 On help to others, is that something
11:04 that really should be in the law?
11:06 Maybe youth camp should be less formally set.
11:13 And I guess that gets to the point.
11:17 So the fee schedule is proposed to be in the law,
11:23 and therefore, it's not changeable
11:27 without further updates.
11:28 So periodically, the presumption would be
11:31 we might do periodic updates of the fee schedule.
11:38 So the proposal is to fix the rate of that.
11:45 Use that example, help to others,
11:47 registration permanently at $100.
11:49 There's no opportunity to vary that up or down
11:52 without going to the ordinances.
11:55 Well, this is a resolution,
11:57 so it's not going to be codified.
12:00 When I looked at that in the past,
12:02 it's been done by resolution of council.
12:06 Another option would be to, you know,
12:09 change that $100 to as determined
12:11 by the administration.
12:15 Okay, well, I'm threatening to take up
12:17 too much time in committee here,
12:18 but you kind of see where I'm driving at.
12:20 Like, you know, I could see circumstances for sure
12:22 with help to others where you might want to have
12:25 some ability to enroll some kids at a lesser expense.
12:30 There's a process for that.
12:32 There's camp scholarships that allow for that.
12:37 Thank you, Councilperson Bullock.
12:38 Thank you, Assistant Director Swallow,
12:40 and thank you, Finance Director Mahoney.
12:42 Any further discussion?
12:46 Hearing none, I move to recommend adoption
12:48 of resolution 2025-71 to council.
12:57 This motion passes.
13:01 Moving on to our final piece of legislation
13:04 this evening, ordinance 30-2025.
13:06 This is an ordinance to take effect immediately,
13:08 provided it receives the affirmative vote
13:10 of at least two-thirds of the members of council
13:13 or otherwise to take effect and be enforced
13:14 at the earliest period allowed by law,
13:17 amending various sections of Part 1, Administrative Code,
13:20 and Part 7, Business Regulation Code
13:22 of the codified ordinances of the City of Lakewood
13:25 to move all fees identified within those provisions
13:27 to the master fee schedule.
13:29 We had a first read and referred
13:31 to our Rules and Ordinance Committee
13:33 on November 11th and a second reading
13:35 on December 1st of last year.
13:38 So this has actually changed the codified ordinance.
13:48 Hearing none, I'll move to recommend adoption
13:50 of ordinance 30-2025 to council.
13:57 That motion passes.
13:58 And without any further business
14:00 before the committee, this meeting is adjourned.
14:05 Thank you, and please drive safely.