Residents press council on school levy transparency, repeated power outages and water-main failures

Three residents addressed the council during audience participation on April 6 with concerns about school-levy outreach, utility reliability and local school planning.

Bonnie Tennis, who identified herself as a resident, described attending meetings to ask questions about a proposed school bond and said she was discouraged by prior interactions with board members. “I was told that I should go back where I came from,” she said, recounting an incident at a State of the Schools presentation. Tennis urged the mayor and council to hold public meetings before any school levy goes on the ballot so residents can ask multiple questions in public and receive direct answers rather than relying on emails.

Denise Fissel, a Meadowood resident, reported repeated, localized power outages to council members and that her house experienced outages longer and more frequently than neighboring properties. “I was out for more than 24 hours” after the March 13 storm, she said, and added she had documented higher-than-average outage rates with FirstEnergy but has not seen a clear fix or plan for moving her phase to a different grid configuration. Fissel also said her area experienced multiple water-main breaks and asked the city to review the frequency of breaks on Pebblebrook Lane.

Former councilman Mark Roth said he attended a neighborhood meeting at Sarajar Elementary where 60 neighbors expressed frustration with school-district planning, criticized recent school closures and questioned plans for a large proposed bond (which he characterized as a $170 million construction proposal). Roth raised safety concerns about a proposed campus footprint that he said lies over a high-pressure natural gas and petroleum line and urged the council to assist residents in future planning conversations.

Why it matters: Residents sought more direct, in-person dialogue about education spending before ballot decisions, raised infrastructure reliability concerns (power and water) that affect household safety and resilience, and highlighted neighborhood safety and drainage issues tied to school-campus planning. Some claims—such as pipeline routing relative to proposed school sites—were raised as citizen observations and will require administrative and technical follow-up.

What’s next: Council acknowledged the comments; the mayor and staff offered to help schedule informational meetings and to pass utility outage documentation to appropriate departments for follow-up. No formal council action was taken during the public-comment portion.