* The council approved the mayor's recommendation to have Tim Ghorley fill Jim Looney's spot on the planning commission. Looney left the position when he was selected to serve on the city council. Ghorley, who previously served on the city's zoning board of appeals, will be replaced in that position by Michael Callahan.

*Council members took action on several zoning issues which recently came before the planning commission.
The council denied a request by Martin Rapp to rezone .7 acres on West Sellars Street from R1 to R3. The move would have allowed Rapp to build multi-family dwellings on the property. Rapp, who first proposed building two quadplexes on the property, revised his plan to include two duplexes which would be sold to individual residents instead of being used as rentals.
"With this plan I'm trying to do something a little better," Rapp said. "I'm trying
to bring the concerns of what I heard (from neighbors) at the planning commission meeting and trying to do something good for the community."
Council members Gise and Looney voted to uphold the planning commission's recommendation to deny the request while Council member Hazel Mosley abstained from the vote.
The council unanimously approved a request from Barry Nehli to rezone the property at the Jehovahs Witness facility from C1 to C2.
Similarly, the council approved the request from Joseph Warren to annex property north of the Kingdom Hall into the city as C2.

* The council approved an ordinance that will extend its swimming pool regulations to landscape ponds. For any ponds/pools with water over 24 inches deep the city now requires a minimum four foot fence to completely enclose the structure.
The ordinance is the result of a dispute among Arbor Hills residents where one homeowner claimed a neighbor's unenclosed pond was unsafe. Over a year ago the same issue came up with the two property owners and at that time the owner of the pond installed a shelf in the pond to decrease the depth of the water. According to discussion at the meeting, the pond owner, Mickey Starks, recently removed the shelf after some of his Koi died.
"I built the pond several years ago and I made amendments to that pond a year and a half ago due to concerns about children's safety," Starks told council members. "Those concerns were addressed with the homeowner's association and I had a letter that I was in compliance when I installed the shelf. Then there was no water deeper than 20 inches. I removed the shelf a week ago after my fish mysteriously died," Starks said.
Starks said his Koi were valued at over $6,000 and they meant a lot to him.
"I had been breeding those fish since high school," Starks said. "During this situation my integrity has been questioned. That's not the life I've lead. I put in the shelf and the shelf was out of commission for five or six days while I was trying to get my water situation where I can put fish back in my pond. My goal here is to have my fish, my pond and also with regard to safety and the life of children and animals alike."
Starks said the purpose of the water depth is to maintain proper water temperature for the fish and said the city's culvert openings have similar openings where children could fall in and drown. Opposing the ordinance, Starks said it would open the possibility of lawsuits for lots of people, including the city who maintains a pond at the park which is over eight feet deep in sections.
Speaking in support of the ordinance, neighbor Jackie Elwarner said she has opposed the pond because of the potential dangers to her young children.
"I have a five and a half-year-old and an 18 month old and live directly next door," Elwarner said. "I've had to suffer through day in and day out of concern for my children. A lot of people told me just to watch my kids. I do. I know that things happen to kids despite best intentions. We want to stay living where we are and we want our children to be safe. This is not personal. This is about our children in our neighborhood. I know Mr. Starks has made efforts to comply but when he loaded those grates on the back of a truck that left a large hole full of a lot of water and a lot of children around it."
The council unanimously approved the ordinance.